* I still think that empty wine bottles make the best candle holders.
* Milk tasted better when it was delivered to your doorstep, and you reused the bottles. You also used to be able to visit the farm where it came from. I know it is more expensive, but I think I'm going to find a dairy that still delivers.
* TV shows were better when they had theme songs and closing songs and credits. Not the little side panel thing where the words zip by faster than anyone can possibly read, but real full screen closings that wrapped up that week's show with an image that stuck in your mind. And they began with a song that set the tone and that helped one transition from your real life to the magical one you were about to enter. Songs that you could hum or sing and they would conjure up the characters and places and fun and drama of the shows.
* There just will never be another voice like Aretha's. There will never be another voice with such power, grace, grit, pain, hope, desire, strength, depth, range, color, comfort, and soul. There are many singers with beautiful, powerful and amazing voices that can still stun, but then you back to Aretha and it is just over. It is done.
* It is good to know the names of your neighbors. It is even better to know a bit about them. And it is a better world when you can greet them, and help them, and check up on them, and borrow from them, and get their mail for them when they are on vacation.
* Joy is a Great Big Musical on a Great Big Screen. Musicals were better when they didn't try to put the songs in a real life context - High Schoolers and nightclub singers. Musicals were able to put difficult subjects such as racism, bad work conditions, poverty, and the pain and struggle of life into a tonic that could heal. Nothing is better than a Sunday spent watching a wonderful musical.
* Racism should always be tinged with horror.
* I liked it better when it was harder to get certain foods, when you had to travel to a certain place, or maybe store, or wait for a specific time of the year. Having access to everything at all times in all places is not a plus, it is a minus. It adds to the shallowness of life, allows us to skim over life, takes away the reflection on the specialness of things that gives life depth.
* Cars looked so much better in the 50's.
* I often wonder if it was better when people were quirky, eccentric, difficult, stubborn, odd and weird instead of labeled with a diagnosis. I know this can lead to what may be dangerous territory, and I'm not in a position to reverse this trend which is probably a very good thing, but I ponder this quite often.
* Brando is the greatest actor of my time. He had an essence that burned on the screen that hasn't been seen again.
I appreciate email and having a computer to research anything at my finger tips and within a moment. I appreciate so much in these times, but I'm constantly longing for what we've lost.
1 comment:
All very good thoughts, my friend! I've been rediscovering Aretha in a big way lately myself. You're right, and the incredibly meticulous and cathartic use of dynamics in nearly every song makes listening to her almost always a spiritual experience of the best sort.
We have lost a lot since the 1970s, but also gained. Don't forget back then children could buy cigarettes for $2 a pack and people smoked in Woolworths, restaurants, doctor's offices and best of all, bars. It's telling that we've demonized that but championed prescribed mood altering substances like prozac and effexor... good and bad all mixed up together... we've lost a lot, and gained some weird shit, but twas ever thus.
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