Nostalgia For The Present Time

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On the I Love the 90s threads we've been saying, oh ha ha they'll be doing nostalgia for last week next. But I've just been playing a bunch of songs I downloaded last November, i.e. 9 months ago, and feeling all the sad/happy memory stuff I feel when I get nostalgia. So when does nostalgia 'start', as it were? COULD you actually be nostalgic about last week??

― Tom, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Or to put it more broadly, how does nostalgia work?

― Tom, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i wrote about nostalgia for the present on 1471 a while back. specifically in regard to Drop Nineteens Kick The Tragedy. i know thats 1992, but i dont mean i'm nostalgic for it, but that it sounds ) and sounded at time) nostalgic for its own time.

nostalgia is linked to the passing of youth, and there can be a sense that time is passing and that *this is the time of our lives*, or *this is the last summer together*. see, for example, Dawsons Creek, a deeply nostaglic program, but set now. The realisation isn't htat things havbe changed and aren't the same now, but that things are going to change and they won;t be the same as they are NOW.

so its all about the passing of time, and the realisation of mortality

― gareth, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am fascinated by nostalgia. When I read Psychology at university and did a CD-ROM literature search, I was appalled to find that there was barely a mention of it, beyond a few weasly sounding French psychoanalytical papers. I like to differentiate between a general 'ah, things used to be better/cute' nostalgia and the heart-stoppingly acute feeling you get when a smell or song takes you straight back to a time in your past. The way it feels like one's whole mode of experience had a different flavour then, a flavour one can never taste again. Better than any drug I've ever had, those moments. Just some kind of synaptic hiccup, I know. As deceptive as deja vu. Fucking hard, life.

― Nick, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And yes, I have been known to have get nostalgic for the previous week.

― Nick, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't even remember what I did last week so there is nothing to get nostalgic for.

― Emma, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nostalgia for an age yet to come

― mark s, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"the rememberance of things past" by Proust is almost a how-to manual of nostalgia construction. The detail is manic, beyond any amount of memories you could ever classify from your own life.

I have no answer to Tom's question as to why nostalgia seems to catch up on you, but I do know exactly what he means.

― Alasdair, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

This is why I always mean to read Proust. The reason I don't is that everyone seems to give up halfway through the first book.

― Nick, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The optimistic spin I am putting on this incidentally is that my life has become more incident- and fun-packed since November and so it seems longer ago. An objective assessment of the facts might go against this though.

― Tom, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Isn't nostalgia just another word for yearning? People have nostalgia for a past they've never experienced except through movies. I think it's really wishing you could unlearn things and undo experiences. Be somewhere else in a different reality. Isn't it introspection? Whatever it is, I don't like it.

― Nude Spock, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I get nostalgia really fast, all my stories and events get gilded over and become the coolest things ever, and so much better than whatever it is I'm doing at the time...and then the next week whatever it was that I was doing that "sucked" becomes wicked cool and I wish I was doing it, blah blah blah. I can get nostalgia listening to current songs cos it reminds me of something that happened a week or a month or a day ago.

― Ally, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

SUrely Emma you remember what you did last week. There was that night in the pub, that other night in the pub and of course that night you punched Stevie T.

― Pete, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It is all a pub blur with the occasional gleaming pristine moment standing out like a jewel in the dirt.

― Emma, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That'll be when I was in the pub.

― Nick, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, that was the highlight of my year so far.

― Emma, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, I'm terribly nostalgic for moments last winter, so yes, I suppose.

― Robin Carmody, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

my life has become more incident- and fun-packed since November and so it seems longer ago

I think it has to do with change. I'm nostalgic about Columbus even though I didn't like it that much there. So whenever you're going through rapid changes or when there is an abrupt change... Silly urges to cry on planes.

― youn, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I keep getting nostalgic for times that were crappy...like remembering my job...going "ah, those were the days", I have to snap myself out of that line of thought...coz I was bored out of my mind back then.

Nostalgia when I get reminded of fun times or people I used to know and like is a classic. More of that kind of nostalgia please.

― jel, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I never get nostalgic over actual events, except parties and vacations. However, "If You're Feeling Sinister" made me feel nostalgic two months after I started listening to it, and I didn't even know why.

The entire glam rock concept makes me feel nostalgic. It would even if I had been alive when it started because it seems like such an obvious construct to add to the world, it must have been basic and early.

― Lyra, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Certain pieces of music have made me nostalgic for times long before I ever could have heard them. The State That I Am In sends me back to the summer after I took my GCSEs and Schizophrenia to when I was 12. I swear I didn't hear the latter until I was 14 or so and the former hadn't even been written in 1991.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can't honestly say that I get nostalgic for recent music. Not buying as many CDs as I used to - or, to be more honest, not as many current CDs as I used to - I still think five years ago is recent. Hence, I don't get that nostalgia emotion about music until it's at least early 90s vintage. Then it kicks in big time.

But nostalgia for the recent past - definitely. No question. In recent weeks, I have felt nostalgic for the beginning of this year and, in particular, summer last year. And, better (worse?) still, I can pinpoint why it's happening. It's because of changes - departures of people, mainly - who were an intrinsic part of those memorable periods. Unquestionably, you can be nostalgic about yesterday, last week, last month or last year.

― Vaughan, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I frequently catch myself feeling pre-emptively nostalgic, mainly because I am quite a sentimental person. And also nonsensically, because I endeavour to "live in the moment". It gives me a sort of delicious panic: this wonderful (or as the case may be, horrible) moment is going to end!

― rainy, Wednesday, 15 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm convinced a great deal of the nostalgia I experience/suffer is to do with my memory selectively repressing details e.g. the shit parts. I find myself being nostalgic for my second year at university, despite the fact I had some amazingly shite times that year.

I'm convinced that the two things which trigger nostalgia (etc.) the most are i) music; in particular how suddenly, hearing one song can take you back to whenever, in immense detail and in full glorious cinemascope and b) smell.

Anyhow, ideally to hammer the point home about nostaliga for the present, I should post a message in about 5 minutes saying 'remember that time I posted the message about nostalgia? wasn't that a *great* time?' and so on, but I won't.

― clive, Thursday, 16 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Who wrote, "When I was six, I was nostalgic for when I was four"?

It seems like nostalgia is pleasureable because you can freeze a moment in time & it never has to end or change. Whereas in life things just keep marching on toward death. It's not the event inside the memory that feels so good, it's that you've captured and freeze-dried it, so you can take it out and look at it whenever you want. You don't own events in the present, but you own your memories.

The Clientele is instant nostalgia, which is why that's such a weird (and great) album. I felt nostalgic for my own life and all the beautiful times I'd had with the music THE FIRST TIME I HEARD THE RECORD.

― Mark, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I feel nostalgic when listening to "Since I Left You" 'cos it reminds me of how Laura was before all this shit started. Speaking of which, see new update above.

― Marcello Carlin, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I didn't give up on Proust till I was halfway through the 2nd book.

Tom E, you have stolen my theme. This has always been my theme. I never talk about anything else.

― the pinefox, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"I'm nostalgic of events before they even occur." - paraphrasing Chris Eigeman in "Kicking and Screaming".

― Simon, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Getting a cine-camera and shootig some Super-8 of your friends and family larking about = good cheap instant nostalgia

― Nick, Sunday, 19 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two weeks pass...

i've got nostalgia for the present time right now. i'm moving out, and i don't know if i'm doing the right thing. all of a sudden, walking around the streets around my house, everywhere seems beautiful in a way it hadn't before (although i've always liked it here). mind plays tricks, its only because i'm leaving. but i miss home already, and i haven't even left yet.

― gareth, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I felt the same way in Swanscombe just before we left in 1994 ...

― Robin Carmody, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

I miss 2002 :(

― jel -- (jel), Sunday, 5 January 2003 17:51 (twenty-three years ago)

three months pass...

I was going to write, 'I can't believe I didn't contribute to this thread'. Then I found that I had.

Youn is right, change is a necessary ingredient.

Lots of other people are right too.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 24 April 2003 23:15 (twenty-three years ago)

nostalgia for the present is...what it's all about, really.

definitely people should proust it up...it's fantastically brilliant as well as laugh-out-loud funny in parts. although i confess i've yet to succeed in making it past the midway part of the third volume.

i hate, as mentioned above, when you suddenly get nostalgic for the place you're moving out of, even if you're moving out of a shithole. i have the same problem with haircuts. after weeks of being like 'god, my hair looks so crappy; i need a fucking haircut', on the day i have the chance to get one, i'll start looking in the mirror at the last minute thinking, 'wait! this looks really good! why mess with perfection' (but really i still look like crap...i think.)

― Dallas Yertle (Dallas Yertle), Thursday, 24 April 2003 23:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Hi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 25 April 2003 03:56 (twenty-three years ago)

summer is here. dont let it pass you by!

― gareth (gareth), Friday, 25 April 2003 04:12 (twenty-three years ago)

When I was getting my hair cut today, they played the theme song to Dawson's Creek. My life is now perfect.

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 25 April 2003 04:13 (twenty-three years ago)

I find that the current month or season often makes me nostalgic for that same month or season of years past. Like this February, I got very nostalgic for last February. Last autumn, I thought a lot about autumn of 1999.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 25 April 2003 05:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Speak, Memory!

― Tad (llamasfur), Friday, 25 April 2003 05:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Well for me Spring is really the killer in terms of nostalgia.. There's always been something depressing for me about it, this feeling that it's the time to hope for new things and make plans, while thinking back on all the previous springs and the aborted hopes, etc.
Then I realise that no matter what, this time will pass and that most likely I'll feel that I won't have made the most of it.. *self-pitying ramble*
So to get back on topic, another aspect of nostalgia, in particular nostalgia for the present, is the feeling that you're not making the most of the present time and worrying that eventually you'll look back and think that you blew it ('Easy Rider' disgression here...)
I'm about to move in a few weeks, and walking around the city right now has that sad vibe, with me thinking that there are so many things about this city that I never noticed were there until now..

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Friday, 25 April 2003 07:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Life moves pretty fast, if you dont stop and take a look round once in a while, you might miss it

― gareth (gareth), Friday, 25 April 2003 08:12 (twenty-three years ago)

My life's been absolutely brilliant for the past few months, but at the moment it really feels like I'm at the end of something and the beginning of something else... new place to live, new people in my life, new workmates coming in and a few people I'm close to moving away. It's definitely going to be an interesting summer, but I've got a feeling that in years to come I'll look back on this time as one of the best periods of my life, and I don't intend to waste it.

Fancy a pint in the sunshine, anyone?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 25 April 2003 08:20 (twenty-three years ago)

eleven months pass...

Them were good days, then, in August, 2003.

― the bellefox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 08:10 (twenty-two years ago)

O, and April, too.

― the bluefox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 08:11 (twenty-two years ago)

eight months pass...

was I drunk when I posted to thsi thread?

anyway, is Rosenbaum copying ILX or is this not that original a concept?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 27 December 2004 23:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Pessoa to thread.

― Michael White (Hereward), Monday, 27 December 2004 23:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Voznesensky, 1977, apparently

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 27 December 2004 23:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I heard "Two of Us" on my last flight from Columbus, before the plane took off. They also played "Wichita Lineman." I felt like I was in a movie, back to L.A., which is not all blonde bombshells, you know.

― youn, Monday, 27 December 2004 23:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmmm. Looks interesting.

― Michael White (Hereward), Monday, 27 December 2004 23:44 (twenty-one years ago)

There is a close family resemblance between nostalgia and neuralgia.

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 28 December 2004 18:15 (twenty-one years ago)

best week ever!

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 28 December 2004 18:46 (twenty-one years ago)

no, that's the feiler faster principle

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 28 December 2004 18:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Is that in response to Aimless?

There might be a family relationship between the feiler faster principle and nostalgia for the present time: the desire to cast the significance an event changes its "natural" course. The Pinefox has a song about this. It is called 'Do You Have To Stop Writing To Start Living?'.

Maybe we should distinguish between nostalgia for the recent past or nostalgia experienced at the end of a period in one's life from nostalgia experienced as an event unfolds.

― youn, Wednesday, 29 December 2004 02:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Not in response to anybody, but a random ejaculation to the board from the land of people-whose-allconsuming-parents-moved-in-with-them-for-two-weeks to say: I am sincerely nostalgic FOR music; my father's told me that whatever I listen to (yesterday it was Smokey Robinson) gave him headaches. He forbid me - 24 years old - from listening to 'that music' in my apartment.

― Remy Snush The Night Away (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 03:26 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

I am often nostalgic for this thread.

Perhaps it reminds me of some good things that haven't changed, as well as things that have.

― the bellefox, Monday, 20 February 2006 12:32 (twenty years ago)

things are different now. but also the same

― terry lennox. (gareth), Monday, 20 February 2006 12:50 (twenty years ago)

it was the best of threads, it was the worst of threads

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 20 February 2006 14:07 (twenty years ago)

One of my first threads on ILE back in crazy 2003 ("The Year That Pop Broke"!!)

― Le Baaderonixx de Clignancourt (baaderonixx), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:12 (twenty years ago)

i am nostalgic pretty much non-stop

― POOP BITCH (Mandee), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:38 (twenty years ago)

taking mdma can make you nostalgic for the night before i find.

― Vintage Latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:50 (twenty years ago)

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