Absolutely fantastic, strange piece. There is something perpetually weird about the passage of time, which everybody knows and yet it stays weird, and you handle it superbly. I'm old enough to remember that era, and those ads and celebrities, the banalities of the time . . . but so of the time! And I loved the ending. Kudos and thanks.
Thank you! I also have a stack of guides to what was on TV in Temple, Texas in 1973. Not quite as existential but also fascinating in their own way. Interesting to see how many of the shows still have some kind of cultural half-life.
A coauthor of mine is Irish. He often mentions Dallas, which he saw as a kid. Says I have no idea of the show's influence in Ireland. (We wrote a book on counterterrorism and modernity together.)
With regard to half-life, popular music has gotten bizarre. My kids are often listening to popular, not necessarily very good, songs that came out when I was younger than they now are. But I think that's different than what you did with the Enquirer. The songs appear digitally, sort of out of context if not exactly timeless (I've developed a strange fondness for the disco I loathed at the time).
I enjoyed this a lot. Perfect insomnia reading, somewhere on the edge of consciousness. A half dredged memory, half dream. I think Back to the Future came out that same year, 1984, but we’ve always been able to time travel. I spent a year in El Paso, Texas, as an exchange student in 1987 and there I am again, in that hot beige world. Thank you, Mr Kalder.
"We've always been able to time travel." A great thought. One of the benefits of getting a few decades under your belt is just that ability, to go back and forth and see how things have changed. Thank you!
From this I have learned the meaning of Haitian Divorce - one day, $350 by mail order - having listened to the Steely Dan song many times without ever feeling the need to make any effort to find out.
Absolutely fantastic, strange piece. There is something perpetually weird about the passage of time, which everybody knows and yet it stays weird, and you handle it superbly. I'm old enough to remember that era, and those ads and celebrities, the banalities of the time . . . but so of the time! And I loved the ending. Kudos and thanks.
Thank you! I also have a stack of guides to what was on TV in Temple, Texas in 1973. Not quite as existential but also fascinating in their own way. Interesting to see how many of the shows still have some kind of cultural half-life.
A coauthor of mine is Irish. He often mentions Dallas, which he saw as a kid. Says I have no idea of the show's influence in Ireland. (We wrote a book on counterterrorism and modernity together.)
With regard to half-life, popular music has gotten bizarre. My kids are often listening to popular, not necessarily very good, songs that came out when I was younger than they now are. But I think that's different than what you did with the Enquirer. The songs appear digitally, sort of out of context if not exactly timeless (I've developed a strange fondness for the disco I loathed at the time).
I enjoyed this a lot. Perfect insomnia reading, somewhere on the edge of consciousness. A half dredged memory, half dream. I think Back to the Future came out that same year, 1984, but we’ve always been able to time travel. I spent a year in El Paso, Texas, as an exchange student in 1987 and there I am again, in that hot beige world. Thank you, Mr Kalder.
"We've always been able to time travel." A great thought. One of the benefits of getting a few decades under your belt is just that ability, to go back and forth and see how things have changed. Thank you!
From this I have learned the meaning of Haitian Divorce - one day, $350 by mail order - having listened to the Steely Dan song many times without ever feeling the need to make any effort to find out.