Hello again ~
the Martins didn't go far enough in their mash-ups,
creating new music out of old, turning it into something mind-blowing."
... yet this is very thing that may be
keeping it
from alienating.
As with the other respondents to this thread, Beatles'
music is burnt in every synapse in my brain.
I agree. It will be elevator music ~ and played by symphonies ~ forever.
Not that I was a "fan" at the time. They were much too popular
for me to idolize.
I never idolized them, but I loved getting high to them. Songs such as "Here Comes the Sun" ~ hearing the first line sung, even mind, takes me back to some glorious, fresh air days when I was experiencing it literally, as well as singing it joy/fully throughout the day.
. . . brings back specific memories of time and place.
One: In the middle of summer, listening and looking out the kitchen window onto 40 acres, from the apartment over the garage, smoking with my paramour/husband-to-become and his brother, before we went riding all over the countryside in his black Eldorado, with him and his German Shepherd, Axle... windows wide open, laughing and singing to the tape, "Here comes the sun . . . "
Not that I like nostalgia. I more or less hate it.
Yep. Some do. Some don't.
But nostalgia can be useful, in small doses, to help kick-start
and motivate a fresh approach to living in the now.
Agree... as well as to trigger lovely memories that are as vivid as today.
What I fear is the image of the old man in the rocking chair,
reminiscing.
Why, Greg? For me, this image couldn't be lovelier. It's one of the things that can make old people so precious. I won't suggest this as being ageism, but won't rule it out, either. Perhaps, it's something else . . . ?
It may be cute when the child demands the same story be read,
every single night, for a year, in exactly the same way.
Or throws a tantrum.
For me, this would be the older person who plays the same song repeatedly and is simply 'stuck' in yesterday; yet, this would be the same for me as the 40- or 16-year-old who is stuck in last year. Mildly obsessive-compulsive to outright mentally ill, but no longer inside the realm of nostalgia.
"oldies", --meaning 1960s!, -- and the vast
majority of it STILL SUCKS, just as much as it did back then.)
For me, it's the 1950s ~ and the music is as wonderful now as it was then.
Resistance to the now may be touching, perhaps,
but not quite so cute in the old man.
Just as touching and just as "not quite so cute" in the young one. Poor old people are really taking a beating in your analogies here, Greg.
But it is the more and more frequent times that we don't
come around, that I am fearing...
(- for those who catch my drift
.. drift, ...... drifting ...awayeee ee... ...... )
Great description of drifting away into mental illness/senility/Alzheimers [scarey in all cases] rather than reverie [pleasant when I see or experience it].
( - for those who catch my drift . . .
Is there a code to be cracked
?
My take on this scene is quite different from yours, Greg. This is mine, stated in the 'absolute' for expediency's sake [you know how expediency is... she's
not nostalgic
]:
. . . The work he's doing is so important...
she'll be able to help him with it and share it all with him. The best break any wife can have. You know, for us,
it's all been great...but do you know what was the best time
of all? It was in the beginning when everything was a struggle...
and you were working too hard and sometimes frightened...
and there were times when I felt... that I really knew
that I was a help to you. That was the very best time of all for me.
Sharing and losing oneself are not the same. Not nostalgia, so much as a description, via remembrance of a time when she was still herself, and he was still himself, as two individual people struggling together, before she became eclipsed by his world and lost hers... a longing for individuation and sense of self, with the past just
happening to graphically represent a time when she had it. "The best break any wife can have" is the double-edged sword of this together. Her use of this line is to hold his attention for what follows, rather than losing it to the feeling of alienation that she is experiencing herself, due to his absorption of her into his world and loss of self in what ought to be her own. This isn't nostalgia, so much as a well- and poignantly-phrased deep level of complaint. Her black coffee symbolizes the sense of down-to-earth reality that she longs for, for herself.
Matt (after one taste, making angry faces) > This is not the stuff!!!
I never had this stuff before in my life!!!
Matt (after two tastes) > You know, it's not bad.
Not bad at all!
I kinda like it.
A childish, spoiled reaction in the beginning, reflective of his all-consuming attention to his own tastes and expectations of how the world should be. He adjusts and 'moves on'... a good thing; yet, he's 'moving on' in
his world, still consumed by it and this 'new addition' to it, another coat of sealant, with the focus on him in these lines being so intense and all-consuming as to be symbolic of his world, overall, now; since those early days, and with her still barely present in it.
For me, this is one of those scenes with more than one or two layers. It also reminds me of the Starbuck's phenomenon, with seemingly infinite insistence on individuality, to the extent where the good of 'variety' has become the ridiculous and altogether bypassed the sublime. [No offense to Starbucks drinkers and lovers
. I've had occasional cups
.] I suspect Leonard might have a regular cup of coffee... and, perhaps, just black.
Back to the Beatles and the LOVE album... wasn't the creation of it part-and-parcel of the Cirque du Soleil production based on it? I listened to a segment on NPR about it and loved what I heard. Fascinating.
Okay, time to get ready for work... gotta turn up the radio for that old song I'm hearing faintly . . . drifts off and awayeeeee
. NOt to disappoint you, but it's actually the news on NPR, telling how many died in a car bomb today.
~ Lizzy
. So happy they were part of my generation 
, so was hearing them continually, in all measure of circumstance 
.