Striving to remain relevant is the aim of many artists, but
it isn’t a burden only to them. Beyond the difficulties faced by writers,
musicians, filmmakers and their ilk, missteps along the Pathway to Cool harm
friends, family and most of all, fans like you and me.
How many times have you read a book or listened to a new
release from an artist you’d grown to trust only to shake your head in
disappointment? “It just didn’t ring true.” “I knew where it was going from the
first page.” “I just don’t feel like I needed
to read/hear/see that like I used to.” We’ve all had such reactions, such
disappointments.
Now, listen, I accept that a lot of this is down to my
expectations, but I’ll leave that another blog(ger). What I’m mostly interested
in when I give my time or money to something is what I get out of it.
Furthermore, I’m interested in how I can use this experience to bolster myself
in the future.
This is kinda the secret about consumption. We consume so we
can make someone else feel inferior at a later date for our having gotten there
first. Hours spent watching a movie or days spent reading a book that no one
else wants to hear about are essentially wasted hours – if one adheres to the
aforementioned philosophy.
To all of this, I’ve found a solution. Being at one with who
I am? No. Enjoying things for what they are in that moment? Better. The way not to get disappointed by all which was meant to be fresh is to
intentionally shop in a more, well, aged aisle.*
In the past week, I’ve started to read a 30 year old novel,
listen to a 65+ year old jazz record and re-watch a 25 year old TV sitcom. The
results have been marvelous.
The Novel: I’ll admit I was fortunate to have a favorite
novelist’s early work only become available very recently. I’ve read, and
become disillusioned with, many of this author’s recent works. However, the
innocence in his early work is intoxicating. Areas of inspiration seem richer
for his having been so young, and his missteps seem to imply a path with which
he would become more confident as his career developed. The best thing about
this book is that I opened it with no expectation of being able to share it
with others. It has little to do with the today's headlines, but then at
the same time it did. What this book has offered me is a release from the NEED
for it to be relevant, but what has actually happened is something quite the
opposite. On each page, I find something which I can apply to my
current life. Far more significant, I find something which seems little like
everything else I’m seeing on Facebook, etc. at that moment.
The Jazz Record: In many ways, this blog applies the most to
musical consumption. For me, listening to new music is often an exercise in cynicism.
It’s all well and good until I get even a sniff of where that artist gained
their influence. From that moment forth, I’m far more an investigator taking notes
on plagiarism than I am a casual fan. It becomes tedious. Working the process
backwards is awesome. First off, old music - that made without a music video,
ad campaign, myspace/YouTube launch, etc - tends to be fairly reliable as to
its production quality. This is not to say you will like every record you buy, but there is, within a world that knew
little of the dreaded Single, a complete story that will make you long for the
days before the Random button. Additionally, when listening to old music, one
will encounter the sounds that would eventually lead to many of today’s
standards. For some reason, discovering the inspiration can be done in a far
more curious way than the example described earlier, which often feels more
like catching a thief. It’s hard to explain, but while hearing Oasis take from the
Beatles is painful, hearing that one line in Springsteen’s The River that
would lead to two Bon Jovi albums (or the awesome influence that the E-Street
Band had on Snow Patrol) makes one smile.
The TV Sitcom: Last, and perhaps least, is the TV Sitcom. The
charm of TV is that it really rarely ages well. The jokes are funny, but they
are often dated. In some cases, the fashion is almost funnier than the punch lines,
and often, perhaps more so than in other mediums, there is the sadness of a
young upstart that never quite made it. Still – Zen moment approaching – if something
(a topic, a characterization, a stereotype) that an entire country took so
seriously can become so dated in only 25 years, doesn’t that give us hope that
the crap we’re suffering through on Facebook today will, someday, I promise,
disappear as well?
So, if you’re feeling lost among the stunning aisles of New,
join me in the nostalgia of Old, won’t you? I swear you’ll be happy you did.
*Note: The strategy described in this blog has NOT proven as
effective in the discipline of cooking. Sadly, I would not recommend looking
for expired ingredients in search of nostalgia – unless those ingredients were
grapes, I hear that can work sometimes.
