If I stop and think about it, I find myself drowning in a sweet-smelling sea of nostalgia for nostalgia. "Drowning" and "sweet" balance each other, however, and I am left bobbing at the surface, a damp and grinning fool. The current popularity for retro stylings is just a big ruse for people too young to remember Life Before-- television, velcro, Diet Coke. Life Before as a fuzzy time when toys didn't blink or beep or clack at you, demanding as toothy puppies. Life Before as this THING, big and uncomplicated, one suppose, and as comforting as a floury hug and kiss from mom, something that over the years became a very palpable lifeline as you froth cappucinos in your Converses, as you print pages of code in your Docs.

I think that this delight in the past-- of virtually any era that lives hazy in the mind-- is not a hypocritical reaction to the comforts of the present, a lofty scorn for the cyberfuture, or an attempt to be genteel or crass or hip, anything except modern and satisfied, God forbid. I think the need to embrace all things retro is not the need to be kitchy or fake, either; not to hide one's emotions at all. I think the need is to enable one to express, in general-- the awareness that one lives in an age where one is naturally privileged, undoubtedly, but happy? We are not promised happiness, and we are scared.

There goes the world's smallest violins, you say. You must think of it this way. We are told to be happy for what we have. We are told that we ARE happy, and don't realize it. We are scolded for not being happy, grateful, reverent, etc. That's where this odd yearning comes in.

When I go to buy shoes, the ones I want are not the lightweight, polymer-composite, indestructable strips lashed together and no doubt irradiated to glow when I walk or make noise when I tinkle, or whatever the damn things do these days. No, I buy chunky imitations of men's wingtips that smell like pipes and cigars, or saddle shoes ready for sockhops that no longer take place. And there is no moral dilemma about authenticity-- computer-designed, robot-sewn Mary Jane's don't faze me, but shoes that have been mathematically proven to make the wearer faster-safer-smarter do.

When I buy music, it is invariably the 90s version of something I ordinarily wouln't be caught dead listening to. It is similar, yet still original, and that's why I like it. Indie-lounge tunes, replete with Moog organs and French chanteuses. Neo-country-western, a little Carter family, a little Johnny Cash and lots of moonshine and inbreeding. Even four-track gospel, from gleaming Orange County, California. The pictures on the sleeves of my CDs or 7" records often borrow designs from 50s auto parts catalogs, advertisements for hair tonic or blaxploitation films or those newfangled washing machines. To this music I turn to for redemption, and healing, and reassurance-- all the things that I am told I shouldn't have need of in these exciting cybertimes. They thought they could replace comfort with excitement and overstimulation, and that we would be grateful for it. They offer ultrarealistic space battles against others around the globe; I just want my Legos, a grilled-cheese sandwich, and a warm glass of Lactose-reduced milk.

The most popular thing right now, besides seeing whose web browser is the fastest redraw in the West, is talking. Good old-fashioned conversation. Suddenly it is vogue to want to babble, coherently or not, with people you haven't met, and probably never will. Well, I admit that the connectivity that currently exists is a wonderful thing. However, at a certain point, I DO want to meet the :) on the other side. I actually did fly 3000 miles to do this once, before it was thought of as "unsafe". Whoops. Good thing neither of us knew this, back then.

I do plenty of remote chatting. But what about talking to people you do see? The everyday folk, who don't have email? Do you remember how to watch someone's body language, the facial expressions, evaluate the pitch of their voice? Are you prepared to deal with multiple and conflicting streams of data, all at once?

My non-modern life helps balance my modern one, and it is good. So maybe I can't run the halogen lamp, computer, turntable and my 1956 bulletproof toaster, that will not fit any slice greater than two thirds of an inch, at the same time without something flickering crazily. I still read comic books about devils and con men and Catholic guilt. My music tells me about stray dogs and riding horses and being queer and punk in the Midwest.

I love my job and am proud of the pretty pictures I can make on the screen, but they don't scare me, they can't give me chills like a Wyeth illustration, King Arthur and the Lady in the Lake and swans gliding by in the mist.

When they make a laptop with more personality than my Toastmaster, advertising and packaging that doesn't have to trumpet its new-and- improvedness, then we'll talk. And when everyone can deal with their naked selves, and want to show that to other people, maybe they'll resurrect those viewphones and I will call you up and smile at what I see. Until then, let me be Rip Van Winkle for a while longer. Let me sleep and dream.

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