Post #189631 by tikibars on Thu, Sep 29, 2005 11:06 AM

In response to Dawn's musings - (and maybe we need a new thread for this, so as not to hijack Sabu's pix thread?) - for me, nostalgia has NOTHING to do with it.

The 1930s-1940-1950s-early 1960s were NOT times I would have liked to have lived through. Great Depression? World War II? Prohibition? Ray Conniff? No thanks! A lot of people idealize the 1950s, but that era was just as problematic and difficult - in it's own unique way - as any other.

I have no nostalgia, and no illusions that things were better then.
I don't miss it, because I wasn't alive then.

For me, the appeal is simply and purely aesthetic.

I think the fashions of that era were far more interesting than now... but on the other hand I'd have had my ass kicked in past decades for being a "vagrant"(I'm not) or a "queer" (I'm not) or a "Commie" (I'm not) or something like that for dressing how I did as a teenager. Now I have the freedom to dress how I want.

I think the cars of that era were far more interesting than now, but look where they got us: global oil shortages. I loved my very efficient Nissan, and I am thinking about ditching my new car and getting another smaller one. But damn, those old cars LOOK COOL!

I think the mainstream movies of that era were far more interesting than the mainstream movies we have now. But look at all the great indie movies we have now that couldn't have been made in the 1940s, for example. And all of the foreign films that we can enjoy in art houses and on DVD. And DVD players at all! Yeah, I love me some Marx Brothers, Thin Man, Bogart, Film Noir, Garbo, Hayworth, and Tierney... but I also dig that Hal Hartley, Jean Pierre Junet, and Darren Aranofsky are getting a chance to do what they do today, and that I can watch it all - new and old - at home, whenever I want to.

I think the architecture of that era was far more interesting than now. I love some googie, some Tiki, some Frank Lloyd Wright, and a lot more. And I hate all of the generic condos popping up all over the place. They're all flimsy looking travesties buit with no sense of aesthetics and no thought as to the impact of the building on the community. But face it: all of the old buildings will eventually crumble.

I think the Tiki Bars of that era were far more interesting than the new ones today, with a (very) few exceptions. But I love me a Tiki Oasis, Hukilau, and Hot Rod Hula Hop. I know of no festivals of Polyesian Pop fans that took place, ever, before less than ten years ago. Modern Tiki has a sense of community that I don't believe existed in the old days.

I could go on and on: furniture, graphic design, music... it all just seemed better in the middle century. But all of those things are really superficial stuff, the window dressing for life, and are all distractions from the things in life that are really important: health, peace, prosperity, family, education, etc.

As an archivist, an aesthete, and a preservasionist, I like to surround myself with old things from the 1930s to early 1960s. But this is form over function. Since I prefer the way the old clothes, old appliances etc., LOOK, I have them.

But a lot of that old stuff is also simply falling apart, and in many cases (household appliances, cars, etc.) the new stuff is, functionally, better.

So no, I don't have any nostalgia for 'the good old days' as a whole, except for where purely superficial things are concerned: the industrial designers, graphic designers, architects, musicians, film makers, and fashion designers back then were a whole lot more hep!

But those things are the little things in life, the frosting on the cake, or maybe I should say: the umbrella in the Tiki mug.

All of that said... I'd really like it if modern architects, designers, car makers, TIKI BAR OWNERS, major record labels and film studios etc., were all more interested in that 'umbrella'...!