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Saturday evening, possibly the night of the day you’re reading this, I’m attending a concert that should prove to be a nostalgia vortex for a teenager who grew up in the 1990s in a New England suburb, who spent many nights driving his mother’s station wagon around town, delivering pizza while listening to pop radio. The venue is the Hollywood Bowl. The lineup is Spin Doctors, Gin Blossoms, Blues Traveler. We’re going an hour early to tailgate, and I hope the unofficial merch is good, but that might be expecting too much. If you don’t expect too much from me What is nostalgia anyway? The sad pleasure. Sentimental time travel. Internal yearning to be healed, triggered by loneliness? I found out this week it was originally considered a disorder, possibly deadly. From this white paper on the history of nostalgia, regarding the 17th-century medical student who coined the term:
None of that really lands with me. I respect sentimentality, but I’m not inclined to it. For example, I don’t have photo albums. I keep a diary but don’t consult it; the idea of rereading one of my books causes a twitch—at the thought of how much I’d find that I would want to rewrite. But I do appreciate aching, and I think I experience nostalgia as a social emotion, a group reckoning, practically a patriotism; I saw everyone waiting for hours outside Yankee Stadium last Sunday to catch night three of Jay-Z and I easily pictured myself there. It’s also everywhere in culture. It’s The Great Gatsby. It’s the Bible’s primary story, post-Eden. It’s the historical nostalgia of Midnight in Paris, or Don Draper’s carousel pitch. 
Leading up to the concert, I’ve wondered if teenage me and today me will reunite at the Bowl and be friends. In high school, my skater buddies liked bands that never would have played the HORDE festival: Jane’s Addiction, The Smiths, Nine Inch Nails. And in my twenties, those neurotically self-conscious, yearning twenties, I learned to feel bad about that; I definitely looked back on my love for David Matthews and felt shame. A kind of reverse-nostalgia: loathing a past that actually was. Thankfully those days are gone, and tonight I’ll sing my head off. I’ll buy a T-shirt, maybe two. Tell me do you think it’d be all right Or as the Bible has it: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept.” 𓀠 Tomorrow’s 3+ things for members:
Join the community and enjoy great books, travel/fashion picks, new music and cool stuff generally. ❀ Hey, if you’re a writer looking for help—editing, coaching, brainstorm juju—I recommend collaborating with Rachel Knowles. Rachel has helped me significantly over the years, not to mention lots of other writers: novelists, screenwriters, Substack-ers, the gamut. Whether you’re aspiring or established, everyone needs an editor. More info at her website. What the what“Meditations in an Emergency” is a weekly essay from author Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with three-plus things to love, plus a monthly travel-lust ballyhoo. Rosecrans is a correspondent for GQ, a contributor at Travel + Leisure, and the bestselling author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. For magazine articles, bio, contact info: rosecransbaldwin.com. Disclaimer: if you buy something using a link from here, I may receive a commission.
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Keep a civil tongue.