Welcome to the Sunday Pop-Up where I write about whatever pops into my head. It’s a good way to avoid getting stuck on one topic, as I am prone to do.

Nostalgia

I’ve been nostalgic for the last little while here, which is weird for me. I spent a lot of years entirely exiled from anything related to my past. I remember reading a biography of Mao and had a sort of resonance with how they went through and just clear-cut everything that came before. I am glad my date with communism didn’t last long. It was only three biographies long – Mao, Che and Stalin. I am not sure how infatuation survived Mao, but Stalin will kill your Utopian dreams very quickly.

Along with this nostalgia has come watching a lot of older movies and cartoons. He-Man, Ghostbusters, the Smurfs, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I am struck by how much more mature these shows are, especially the cartoons. There are heavy shades of gray in almost every villain, and much of it is dark. I don’t think this hurt the people I grew up with or me. It seems like it’s a more accurate representation of how reality works.

I also feel like these old movies and cartoons have a depth that is lacking in a lot of what I see now. I get it there was a lot of shallow stuff during the 80’s and early 90’s, but the kids’ stuff seems to have escaped this in many ways. It feels a lot less disposable at least, but this was also a time when you couldn’t find the next great thing online in 5 minutes, so maybe it had to be built to last. Or, it may just be clouded by it being from my childhood.

That’s it.

Nostalgia and nonsense. Old man yells at cloud.

Enjoy the week.