Michael Musto argues that wearing rose-colored glasses always leads to an unfair distortion — looking back on the best of the past while comparing it to the worst of the present.
This could be my favourite Oldster article yet. I lived in Brooklyn from 1979 - 1994. I read your column in the Village Voice with curiosity about who appeard in bold print and annoyance that I cared. You describe the 80s so well - the drive to be SEEN. I used to have nostalgia for the early 80s vibrant music scene, wishing I could go back to that experience with the way I feel in my skin now. But the lure of nostalgia is cloying and sticky and I appreciate the present moment I'm in, in a way that frees me to sometimes wander in memories when they arise, without wishing for a different reality than my present. The longer I journey in this life, the more untethered my relationship to time becomes.
I love your last two lines, the wandering in memories as they arise and being increasingly untethered to time—a great pair of glasses to wear in the present.
I absolutely love this piece because I'm a nostalgia writer who disagrees with almost everything Michael says (while I admire his work.) I do miss my old typewriter, and actually have an Olympic manual in near mint condition. I started working in journalism in 1971 in high school in a paid position at age fourteen. However, and I wrote this yesterday, in looking at the past one will find the good, the bad, and the ugly. I recently interviewed a nostalgia expert for a magazine piece and she explains that the word nostalgia once meant a kind of mental illness. Who knew! I do think it is important to sweep the wheat from the chaff and every time period in history has both good and bad. Here's my piece FWiW https://amyabbott.substack.com/p/studying-the-past-is-fun
Wonderful piece! This sentence especially: "in my day, things were newer to me, and therefore more exciting." I was in my 20s in the '60s, and I've often wondered whether that period was wonderful because it was the '60s, or because I was in my 20s. And it always helps to keep a journal and reread what you were thinking and feeling in the yesteryear. I've been doing that rereading lately and it's useful to be reminded how insecure I was back then, and how much more self-assured I am in my old age.
I have always adored him and I love re-reading this essay. I somehow just caught the perfect Lawrence O’Donnell reference for the first time — so I guess for once in my life I have (somewhat) caught up to Michael Musto. I will take that as a win!
Thank you M Musto for a great essay. You’re absolutely right about the vast improvements in word processing. The ability to perfectly clean up one’s own mistakes is priceless. Empowering!
I believe it has facilitated a great explosion of writers who were previously hampered by typewriters. The opportunities for self publishing, skipping the traditional gatekeepers, have presented so many diverse voices too.
I spent several weeks in NYC in November ‘82. I was so psyched by rapturous media reports to go clubbing in the places MM mentions. And then I did.
What a total let down! Mostly they were unremarkable filthy dumps or just mediocre bars (S54) temporarily on the celeb herd list, populated by aggressive rude hustlers, and that’s just in the ladies rooms…
It was a great lesson about hype vs reality, and the art of myth building to fill deadlines. I came back with a new sharper perspective. The grass is not greener anywhere else; grass is just grass and bars are just bars.
Then Grunge hit Seattle and all that same breathless BS happened here, just with different wardrobes, different stars.
The experience cured me of any FOMO re ‘scenes’ in various places. It’s like leaf peeping tours: always “better two weeks ago”!
Travel writing often seems to fit in this category as well. Ephemeral reality at best.
Nostalgia as mental illness? It’s certainly not being in the present, so sure. It’s cute when children do it, we laugh because we think they have no idea of history, but we’re wrong there. It’s only more compact.
Yes to the thesis, but no to some of the particulars. These, for example — "[I]n certain crime-ridden neighborhoods — like Hell’s Kitchen, where the streets were desolate and scary— you sometimes had to run faster than an Olympic sprinter." Followed by "Today, there are virtually no 'bad neighborhoods' left in Manhattan." Please, Michael, come stroll in MY neighborhood, Hell's Kitchen (the west 40s). Yes, do stroll, if you'd like to be knocked down by a two- or three-wheeled vehicle, speeding — the wrong way — on the sidewalk. Stroll, so you can buy drugs on the corner of your choice and say Hiya to previous customers rolling your way with eyes like fried eggs or fluttering shut. Exchange pleasantries with the abandoned people who are floridly mentally ill. Examine your long-held politics about people who land in your once beloved area without a place to stay, money to tide them over, or someone to vouch for them. Or just sit on the curb with them, chatting and spitting. Then, with your shoulders up, eyes swiveling, stroll.
I love this article. Such a good topic. I too feel that things, in general, are better. But I also think that nostalgia can cast a positive glow on the present. It's not always the case that remembering how things used to be with fondness means the present gets your goat. I'm in Greece now because of my deep nostalgia for 70s family package holidays. They mean I love these islands more intensely than I probably would have if I just discovered them. Yes, there are more people. Yes, that is annoying. But the beds are less punitive now and the food is better. I can take the side of the present. You still have to put your toilet paper in a shitty basket though. That still looks brown, even through rose tinted spectacles.
Thanks for a great reality check. You are right, of course, in how we gloss the past. But just the same, as a nonagenarian well aged beyond extravagant material wants and experiences I no longer have the mobility to enjoy, my memories are essentially the only possessions left to me other than books. Which frees me to alter and enhance them as I choose.
A wonderful essay and romp basically through all the eras of my adult-ish life. I remain unsure about the present and unready to massage memories of the oughts, but just yesterday thrilled to one former rocker druggie American woman friend’s tales of living, loving and working illegally in London in the late ‘70s, a time period I spent freelance writing out of a Tribeca loft living The Slaves of New York life. As she told her tale I definitely would rather have been her! But here’s the deal—surviving any life period with a modicum of wisdom and a fond whiff of nostalgia might be one of the rougher patch’s few rewards. Thank you Michael Musto for having survived so many decades in New York and gifting us with both your wisdom and bracing dose of reality this early autumn day!
Dear Michael Musto > I taught a course at Cooper Union (in the late 90s) called, "Future Nostalgia:Documenting the Anticipated Past." Your essay would be a magnificent asset to the "larger project" that I am only "just now" investigating. I respect your work...and how busy you are. BUT > if you are curious, and might like to advantageously connect, here I am < flashberg@gmail.com > 917-596-8978
"We have AI (which can be fun; admit it)": um, no. Not even a little bit. But oh, yeah! to this:
"Michelle Obama likes “Dubya” and Trump doesn’t, but that shouldn’t translate into Dems rewriting history and making him a belated hero." It's awful how amnesic people have gotten about the horror that was W + Dick Cheney.
Also agree about smoking ... so glad it's no longer everywhere, though it refuses to disappear completely.
My recent Grandmother Substack said she "almost yields to nostalgia," but then remembers some of the downsides of the past, a point you're making here as well, about a different decade or two. Fine essay!
I really don’t look back with nostalgia at my college years. Far from it. For me, those years bring memories of being sexually assaulted by a boyfriend at 18, and the ensuing alcoholism and suicidal tendencies that resulted from it. My best years are now, at almost 72.
This could be my favourite Oldster article yet. I lived in Brooklyn from 1979 - 1994. I read your column in the Village Voice with curiosity about who appeard in bold print and annoyance that I cared. You describe the 80s so well - the drive to be SEEN. I used to have nostalgia for the early 80s vibrant music scene, wishing I could go back to that experience with the way I feel in my skin now. But the lure of nostalgia is cloying and sticky and I appreciate the present moment I'm in, in a way that frees me to sometimes wander in memories when they arise, without wishing for a different reality than my present. The longer I journey in this life, the more untethered my relationship to time becomes.
I love your last two lines, the wandering in memories as they arise and being increasingly untethered to time—a great pair of glasses to wear in the present.
I absolutely love this piece because I'm a nostalgia writer who disagrees with almost everything Michael says (while I admire his work.) I do miss my old typewriter, and actually have an Olympic manual in near mint condition. I started working in journalism in 1971 in high school in a paid position at age fourteen. However, and I wrote this yesterday, in looking at the past one will find the good, the bad, and the ugly. I recently interviewed a nostalgia expert for a magazine piece and she explains that the word nostalgia once meant a kind of mental illness. Who knew! I do think it is important to sweep the wheat from the chaff and every time period in history has both good and bad. Here's my piece FWiW https://amyabbott.substack.com/p/studying-the-past-is-fun
"the word nostalgia once meant a kind of mental illness" - wow! Thank you, will check out the link.
Wonderful piece! This sentence especially: "in my day, things were newer to me, and therefore more exciting." I was in my 20s in the '60s, and I've often wondered whether that period was wonderful because it was the '60s, or because I was in my 20s. And it always helps to keep a journal and reread what you were thinking and feeling in the yesteryear. I've been doing that rereading lately and it's useful to be reminded how insecure I was back then, and how much more self-assured I am in my old age.
I have always adored him and I love re-reading this essay. I somehow just caught the perfect Lawrence O’Donnell reference for the first time — so I guess for once in my life I have (somewhat) caught up to Michael Musto. I will take that as a win!
Love that.
Thank you M Musto for a great essay. You’re absolutely right about the vast improvements in word processing. The ability to perfectly clean up one’s own mistakes is priceless. Empowering!
I believe it has facilitated a great explosion of writers who were previously hampered by typewriters. The opportunities for self publishing, skipping the traditional gatekeepers, have presented so many diverse voices too.
I see it as a profound new renaissance.
I spent several weeks in NYC in November ‘82. I was so psyched by rapturous media reports to go clubbing in the places MM mentions. And then I did.
What a total let down! Mostly they were unremarkable filthy dumps or just mediocre bars (S54) temporarily on the celeb herd list, populated by aggressive rude hustlers, and that’s just in the ladies rooms…
It was a great lesson about hype vs reality, and the art of myth building to fill deadlines. I came back with a new sharper perspective. The grass is not greener anywhere else; grass is just grass and bars are just bars.
Then Grunge hit Seattle and all that same breathless BS happened here, just with different wardrobes, different stars.
The experience cured me of any FOMO re ‘scenes’ in various places. It’s like leaf peeping tours: always “better two weeks ago”!
Travel writing often seems to fit in this category as well. Ephemeral reality at best.
Nostalgia as mental illness? It’s certainly not being in the present, so sure. It’s cute when children do it, we laugh because we think they have no idea of history, but we’re wrong there. It’s only more compact.
Yes to the thesis, but no to some of the particulars. These, for example — "[I]n certain crime-ridden neighborhoods — like Hell’s Kitchen, where the streets were desolate and scary— you sometimes had to run faster than an Olympic sprinter." Followed by "Today, there are virtually no 'bad neighborhoods' left in Manhattan." Please, Michael, come stroll in MY neighborhood, Hell's Kitchen (the west 40s). Yes, do stroll, if you'd like to be knocked down by a two- or three-wheeled vehicle, speeding — the wrong way — on the sidewalk. Stroll, so you can buy drugs on the corner of your choice and say Hiya to previous customers rolling your way with eyes like fried eggs or fluttering shut. Exchange pleasantries with the abandoned people who are floridly mentally ill. Examine your long-held politics about people who land in your once beloved area without a place to stay, money to tide them over, or someone to vouch for them. Or just sit on the curb with them, chatting and spitting. Then, with your shoulders up, eyes swiveling, stroll.
I love this article. Such a good topic. I too feel that things, in general, are better. But I also think that nostalgia can cast a positive glow on the present. It's not always the case that remembering how things used to be with fondness means the present gets your goat. I'm in Greece now because of my deep nostalgia for 70s family package holidays. They mean I love these islands more intensely than I probably would have if I just discovered them. Yes, there are more people. Yes, that is annoying. But the beds are less punitive now and the food is better. I can take the side of the present. You still have to put your toilet paper in a shitty basket though. That still looks brown, even through rose tinted spectacles.
Thanks for a great reality check. You are right, of course, in how we gloss the past. But just the same, as a nonagenarian well aged beyond extravagant material wants and experiences I no longer have the mobility to enjoy, my memories are essentially the only possessions left to me other than books. Which frees me to alter and enhance them as I choose.
A wonderful essay and romp basically through all the eras of my adult-ish life. I remain unsure about the present and unready to massage memories of the oughts, but just yesterday thrilled to one former rocker druggie American woman friend’s tales of living, loving and working illegally in London in the late ‘70s, a time period I spent freelance writing out of a Tribeca loft living The Slaves of New York life. As she told her tale I definitely would rather have been her! But here’s the deal—surviving any life period with a modicum of wisdom and a fond whiff of nostalgia might be one of the rougher patch’s few rewards. Thank you Michael Musto for having survived so many decades in New York and gifting us with both your wisdom and bracing dose of reality this early autumn day!
Dear Michael Musto > I taught a course at Cooper Union (in the late 90s) called, "Future Nostalgia:Documenting the Anticipated Past." Your essay would be a magnificent asset to the "larger project" that I am only "just now" investigating. I respect your work...and how busy you are. BUT > if you are curious, and might like to advantageously connect, here I am < flashberg@gmail.com > 917-596-8978
Agree!
When this man is right, he’s right. One good thing about all these decades is being able to read Musto and try to figure out how he does it.
He’s a national treasure.
"We have AI (which can be fun; admit it)": um, no. Not even a little bit. But oh, yeah! to this:
"Michelle Obama likes “Dubya” and Trump doesn’t, but that shouldn’t translate into Dems rewriting history and making him a belated hero." It's awful how amnesic people have gotten about the horror that was W + Dick Cheney.
Also agree about smoking ... so glad it's no longer everywhere, though it refuses to disappear completely.
My recent Grandmother Substack said she "almost yields to nostalgia," but then remembers some of the downsides of the past, a point you're making here as well, about a different decade or two. Fine essay!
I really don’t look back with nostalgia at my college years. Far from it. For me, those years bring memories of being sexually assaulted by a boyfriend at 18, and the ensuing alcoholism and suicidal tendencies that resulted from it. My best years are now, at almost 72.
I hear you. Glad you are enjoying your 70s.