So there I am minding my own business, watching music videos from 1982 on YouTube, singing along. The love of my life walks by and quips: "What are you getting nostalgic? Isn't this supposed to happen when you are 45, and aren't you supposed to be listening to the Eagles?" I stop humming. He is totally right. What the hell am I doing?
He knows better than anyone how much I hate nostalgia from a theoretical perspective. Nostalgia isn't a simply 36-year-old woman's sing-a-long to Afrika Bambaattaa. It's an oppressive, hegemonic force that reinforces the modernist idea of a mythic origin point when the world was pure and good. It collapses identity and complexity into a Hummel figurine or a Norman Rockwell print. It means that there are people who actually believe that in the 1950's everyone was happily married in a tract home and that women stayed home and raised kids. Or that everyone was at Woodstock. Or that World War II was a nice war.
So when I saw the word used in a review of Craftivity recently I was a bit taken aback. Is it actually a nostalgic book? I really had not thought about it that way at all. I thought of it as the progeny of those 70's craft books, not a look back but the next generation. The 1970's was the golden era of craft books. I have a shelf of beautiful samples from that gilded age.
As I did my research making Craftivity, acquiring and loving many of these tomes, I noticed that they were often written by very smart, engaging people who then generally abruptly stopped authoring books. I got this weird sense of foreboding. Would I end up just like these wonderful people, obscure, impossible to locate, without any googability? Am I going to Croatan? Sounds nice actually...
These books are also like a secret code between us makers. One of my favorite series, The Family Creative Workshop is featured prominently in Todd Oldham's book. If you ever see these around, pick them up ? they are an A-Z encyclopedia of DIY goodness. And if you made them, get in touch with me! I would love to interview you and know the backstory. I also have to recommend "Making Stuff" series by Ann Wiseman (get the originals, if you can) and the Woodstock Craftsmans Manual as "provoked" by Jean Young. I prefer volume one.
I also have a nasty little section of music from 1982ish that would be a lot more fun to share with you....
Afrika Bambaatta and Johnny Lydon, World Desturction
Your life ain't nothing. I could be wrong, I could be right.
Dominatrix, Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight
Terrible video but it was a great club song. I'll see you at the Pyramid. Produced by Stuart Argabrigh, who was big on the New York No Wave scene. You can download tracks form this great compilation.
Orange Juice, Rip It Up
Edwyn Collins's voice is so dreamy. OJ was initially on the legendary Postcards from Scotland label. This song is infalliable. If you note the guy clapping in the beginning that is Zeke Mandikya ? a Zimbawyean refugee and instrumental session player on a lot UK music from this period.
The The, This is the Day
This song used to be my little secret until it got covered by the Cranberries. I love the genius concept album and video series here. Note that Mandikya worked with Matt Johnson around this time period, too. I used love to listen to this song on my Walkman lying on a bench in Tompkins Square, along with Julina Cope's Sunspots. Guess I am just sucker for a baritone voice.
Haysi Fantayzee, Sister Friction
I wanted to dress just like Kate Garner when I was 12. This song still gets me right back to junior high school. I spent a lot of time in dork-out fantasy land watching "Night Flight" on USA, thinking about the end of the world; as if you couldn't figure it out.