Is the modern social demon known as The Internet capable of vindicating that overcriticized demon of our past..?
“You can’t go home again…” was the phrase credited to the late, great author Thomas Wolfe, citing an all-too admissible condition: No geographic pilgrimage, no imposed socialization, not even in many cases a reunion with a set of particular artifacts, nor a fondly enjoyed food or treat of our youth or a prior time, will conjure the instant immersion in that Walden Pond of the immensely craved nostalgic experience, that mad dash to our teen-hood, childhood, or pre-adolescence. Hearing an old record for the first time in decades might do it for a nanosecond, when that arrangement hits our ears. A stroll past a childhood corner still remaining amidst unidentifiably changed stores and homes might drudge up that Hal Holbrook Our Town moment for a second or two. But all too conscious of our current surroundings, the emotionally displaced grownups among us are, let’s face it, prisoners of the modern world.
We can’t start blaming the world for that. Would we have taken the atmosphere around us for granted as such when we were kids if we knew it would come to this..? I don’t see why not. Back then, it was the only world we knew, much like the one we take for granted today. Living in it means you may not be able to treasure it the way you will forty or more years later. That’s just plain science.
The fact is though, there is a very nostalgic component, ripe for the capture, that can in fact provide that missing puzzle piece that will for many of us fulfill the only organ within us that can generate an empowering, nourishing and comprehensively emotional journey home. That organ is the soul.
If you’re curious, look it up, but enough has been written about the nature of the soul as the human compass, short of reviewing it all here. From Thomas Moore to the late, great Father Paul Keenan, and many other prolific scribes in-between, the concurrent dictate is that the soul is the “G.P.S.” of the mind and body.
How do we reach the soul..? It’s a case-by-case thing. No two humans are quite alike. If none of those trappings listed above will do it for you, maybe it’s one of the key domestic ingredients you haven’t yet added. And only now is that key ingredient starting to become available.
What would it take to develop a “time machine” ? I was maybe about twenty-one when a same-aged close friend of mine and I waxed nostalgic for a good long time one late night in 1989, lamenting as we were on the horizon of the Generation X “Grunge Era”, about how we’ll never be able in this desolate world to return to those days and nights with the collective and profoundly memorable television backdrop that scored our earlier lives. An excavated stack of genuine period issues of TV Guide was admittedly as close as we knew we’d ever come to the surrounding cathode-ray sights and sounds of our harmless, innocent youth. We verbally, vividly and cathartically recalled in some unified thrill the phrases, jingles and announcer mantras of the local television continuity that were the defining décor of our most impressionable era. How many times did we used to hear that same announcer in 1979 say “Tomorrow on the 4:30 Movie..!!”, or that one nameless, distinct voice on Channel 11 say, “Available at Bradlee’s”, right at the end of that product jingle..? Those very ubiquitous knick-knacks were the most recognizable icons of our predominantly fond childhoods, and our night concluded with the gratitude of remembering it, for we’d never see or hear them again.
The evening’s talk raised the fantasy thought of how great it would be, in that pre-internet, VCR age, if some enterpriser would see fit to restore and combine some of the more obscure full-length TV shows of the 1970s with their original commercial breaks fully preserved as well. The going consensus was that almost nowhere would anyone with a high-priced VCR in the last ten years have recorded or preserved anything that included those dreaded commercials and station break scraps. If one made such an investment in a home unit and those pricey cartridges, they were cautious enough to tape only the viewable portions, and leave the crusts behind. Years later of course, here’s these two nostalgic boys realizing that the crusts are in fact the most defining portion of the sandwich.
The crusts, in all their refined splendor, are over thirty years later seeing restoration, and feeding a home-starved population.
The household staple of the last fifteen years, YouTube, has provided a precious and publicly accessible display case for the treasures being unearthed in recent years, by tape-rolling civilians of long ago, and industrial-tape archivists alike. Despite any lofty ideals held in the 1970s and 80s, plenty of VCR owners were just too overwhelmed with the potential task of trying to avoid the appearance of commercial breaks on that NBC Monday Night At The Movies they taped in 1976. So on the cassette they stayed eternally. Until the tapers or someone close to them saw fit to take that dusty relic off the shelf and carefully dub the full two-plus-hours of content onto a YouTube file for all to enjoy, the way the owner and many viewers did on their TV sets that very night in history, prime-time promos, Tomorrow show teases and all. Is there any allure in such pedestrian viewing..?
If you have the desire to literally return for a couple of uninterrupted hours to an evening in your younger or childhood past, it’s precisely that kind of restored matter that may take you there the way nothing else can, certainly if you’re of the “TV Generation”.
Being of the “TV Generation” is by no means a current-day classification. Anthropologically, the “TV Generation” cites a specific, twentieth century population of children who in many cases and in many homes maintained the presence of the TV signal as literally their interior décor, the sort that the late Professor Marshall McLuhan would certify as such. As significant as the avant-garde, tart-colored wallpaper and the shag carpet rendering the living room a veritable cornfield, that wood-grain foundation with it’s rainbow-hued glow defining the room was the main ingredient, completing the ensemble at usually any and every moment.
There’s no established corporate agenda or manufacturing dictate or missive behind the benevolent efforts of the folks excavating and uploading, and probably no forseeable profit motive. What there is however, is the labor of love in the restoration of these lengthy video treasures. Sadly, in what is yet an un-zoned online world, there are some watchdog figures who need to maintain the unfriendly task of obliterating those video scraps or portions thereof whose inclusion violates commercial rights of any sort. No doubt about it, the corporation will always padlock the playground. Often though, in an internet video-scape mostly ungoverned, the intent uploaders will find way before long to re-emerge their treasures. While probably no one’s interested in violating any rights in the process, the reason for the constant renegade efforts and the popularity of these fully restored broadcast files is clear. For an undeniable many of us, these uploads are at last our precious journey home.
A three-hour continuous broadcast file of CBS News coverage on Election Night 1976…..NBC World Series coverage, 1975, Game Three, commercials and all…..The ABC Friday Night Movie with Jaclyn Smith from November 1979, complete with Clairol ads, News-at-11 teases and the rest.....it’s that fourth wall that once defined our earthly existence……damn those sociologists of the 1970s and their crusade against television...!
The irony of course, about that era’s outspoken authors, Jerry Mander, Marie Winn, and Frank Mankiewicz among others, is that these renown television hate-baiters had yet to see or even conceive of this thing called The Internet, the advent of social media platforms, and the neurological decay and psychological harm their innocent technological capabilities would ultimately render. In contrast to a time when adults of mature age could be relied upon to always correct the young in matters of judgement and behavior, we are in an electronic-driven culture that has for many compromised proper mind. It has in many cases farmed into a brand new substance and addiction syndrome, mitigated by abstinence and twelve-step therapy for some who’ve never imbibed as much as an ounce of wine in their lives. For a good many, the internet is not a friendly appliance. When used incorrectly or irresponsibly, like any valuable household power tool, the results can in fact be life-damaging.
And it’s this noted deadly and inescapable force, the source of artificial intelligence, predatory activity, random thievery, deceit and disparagement, that from within also comes the precious connection that restores the souls of so many, providing no less than a healing solace in a cathartic and necessary visit to a place we can no longer go, but to one we can very gratefully for just a few quiet hours return, commercials, annoying little promos, announcements and all. Who cares what’s on..?
Noah F.
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