Nostalgia / May 2013
“It is a nostalgic time right now, and photographs actively promote nostalgia.”
– Susan Sontag, 1977.
I’m a nostalgic kind of gal. I like old songs and old clothes. I live in record bins and second-hand clothes racks. It’s a throwback to my youth, where I couldn’t really afford anything else. It’s fashionable now of course. Vintage. But I don’t recall it being fashionable when I was growing up.
We lived in a three bedroom house in Wagga Wagga, a time and a place I am not in the least bit nostalgic for. But it comes to mind often enough. There’s something about the South that’s eerily familiar. At least, closer to my upbringing than the years I spent in Sydney. It’s the pace. The politeness. And the feeling of being landlocked. My kingdom for a quick dip in the ocean. Any ocean.
Last week I called a friend of mine in Sydney and I could hear waves in the background. Later, I was watching an interview with The Go-Between’s Robert Forster about the song ‘Dive For Your Memory’. He was very satisfied with the chord progression. Apparently, it came to him while he was staying in an apartment that had views of Bondi Beach.
If the cliffs were any closer
If the water wasn’t so bad
I’d dive for your memory
On the rocks and the sand
I found the Sontag book I’m pictured with – On Photography – in a giant Nashville book supermarket called McKay’s. It was $1.50. Normally, I’d write bookstore but McKay’s is all fluorescent lights and yellowing paperbacks and aisle after aisle of grey linoleum, so it doesn’t exactly evoke the romanticism that bookstore implies. Still, the inside sleeve of the book reads:
For Dan
From Claire –
– love –
Christmas ’78
The Go-Betweens – Dive For Your Memory
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