Word: nostalgia
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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While most of these notes get thrown out, I've been hanging on to one particular scrap that grabbed my attention. It bears only the Jeopardy-esque remark, "A Portuguese word that means 'nostalgia for a thing that never existed.'" I don't know where this note came from or what in fact the word is. A cursory search of Portuguese speakers and dictionaries has failed to find it, and I'm beginning to suspect that it, too, is a thing that never existed...
...prevalent feeling that things used to be better in the past, even though that past is one that is more imagined that real. As one of the most richly mythologized institutions in the country, Harvard often falls prey to this same attitude. Consider a few cases of nostalgia for Harvard experiences that never happened or at least never happened in the way we would like to think they...
...their youth. Who was an ABBA fan before the great ABBA revival of the early '90s? Does anyone remember hearing the Violent Femmes "Blister in the Sun," that great staple of '80s dances, when it was first released? As a cultural institution, the '80s dance plays off of a nostalgia for a past that most of us never experienced...
...right, any auteur can replay his greatest hits, exploiting even the youngest viewer's need for nostalgia. And, indeed, Episode 1 will display the old Lucas touches, many of them dating back not just to the trilogy of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but also to his first features, THX 1138 and American Graffiti. It has the gifted, driven misfit; the young woman above his station but not beyond his dreams; the mystic guide, the imposing villain, the comic sidekick. Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, the evil Emperor and Darth Vader are here...
...realize that much of this disquisition must sound like hollow nostalgia. And I'm sure that many of you are chomping at the bit, anxious to experience college living. You'll get that chance soon enough. But, in the meantime, if you find yourself feeling restless, remember: The grass isn't always greener. For instance, here at Harvard, it's teal. Noah D. Oppenheim '00 is a social studies concentrator in Adams House. His column appears on alternate Fridays...