If nostalgia has a flavor

I was listening to my mix of sad music (appropriately titled Sad Town) and was thinking about the songs, and about mix tapes and about nostalgia and about how things look through the romantically-fuzzy filter of memory. And how everybody's collection of sad songs is different and how while some songs are obviously sad (He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones) some are only sad because at one time you associated them with some event or some person (Halleluhwah by CAN) and that that event or person probably made you pretty happy but now when you hear it; the nostalgia kicks in and you start weeping uncontrollably.

When I moved from New York to Oregon; I bought a car (said car is not the subject here, so you can learn about that car later). Said car had a tape player so, I decided that I needed to start a tape collection. More accurately, I needed to start a mix tape collection. I wanted to collect mix tapes that people had received over the years, I wanted to listen to the songs that had been chosen, I wanted to hear the order of songs, I wanted to listen to the interludes and the non-musical elements people had added to personalize their mix tapes. I wanted to see how the tapes had been decorated, if there were personalized liner notes, if there were drawings or pictures. I wanted to know the titles people had given these tapes, if the person had put notes next to the songs. I wanted to take these tapes and find the overarching themes, I wanted to find out what united these tapes, if certain songs came up more often, if certain songs always came in a certain order. I wanted to but each tape into a hermetically sealed container, I wanted to preserve them and the memories they stored. I wanted to put on a show where I could display all the tapes on the walls. At the opening we could play a mix of all of the mixes

As it turns out thrift stores don't generally hold onto mix tapes. Occasionally you'll find one, if it happens to look like a non-personalized tape. I asked people I knew if they had any old mix tapes around (possibly in their parents basements) that they would be willing to give me, most people said sure. However, when I would see them again they would invariably say that while they knew that there was little to no chance that they would ever listen to the tapes again; they just couldn't part with these documents of their pasts.

I would say that there was a point to me telling you all this...and maybe there is...In Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Jacques Attali talks about how the collecting of records is the collecting and archiveing of dead unusable time. While I have no desire (at present) to go into a discussion of Marxism, representation, truth (with both a capitol T and a lowercase one) authenticity and aura, I do like the idea of collecting and archiving other peoples dead unusable time.

A few people have said "what if you had people make you copies of their mix tapes?" I think the problem goes back to aura and authenticity (ok, maybe I did want to talk about it) in that a copy; while it has the songs, it doesn't have the the container and thus is a document of the order of the songs. The copy does not have the wear of a tape that has been played and rewound a thousand times over. In other words it does not have the aura of the original.

When I made it to my parents house, after driving across this fare country, only a handful of my cassette tapes remained. Anyway, maybe I'm just a little nostalgic or melancholic or something else entirely. I do miss my mix tapes. The thing is, though, I'm probably better off with the memories of the tapes...

Also taken out-of-context:

...in the daydream itself, the recollection of moments of confined, simple, shut-in space are experiences of heartwarming space of a space that does not seek to be extended, but would like above all still to be possessed. In the past, the attic may have seemed too small, it may have seemed cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Now, however, in memory recaptured through daydreams, it’s hard to say through what syncretism the attic is at once small and large, warm and cool, always comforting. (Gaston Bachelard; The Poetics of Space)

Anyway, whatever, I'm a nostalgic, hopeless romantic...there are worse crimes...