Old Things & The Antiquarian's Imaginary.

[luka]

Are you into old things?

 

[luka]

DLaurent said:
I get this trying to watch film noir with my sister, all she notices is the wooden acting and slick back hair. Whereas, for me that's part of the appeal

 

[luka]

I don't like old things. I don't like them at all. They cost me a great deal of effort. I have to work very hard at them.

 

[luka]

I once read about three pages of Piers the Plowman and although it made me feel very clever and self satisfied whenever I was able to work out the meaning of some strange and antiquated word, it also made me very tired trying to work out the meaning of all those strange and antiquated words.

 

[woops]

i enjoy reading the seventeenth century english of john aubrey who was a proper antiquarian writing about stonehenge and avebury

 

[luka]

I don't want to go to a rockabilly night. I don't want to listen to scratchy old records. I do find the wooden acting and pomaded hair distracting.

 

[luka]

But I like that D Laurent line a lot. I think it's very useful and illuminating.

 

[luka]

I would like to learn how to do it, to go back into the past like visiting a theme park

 

[luka]

But do I really want to spend all my time reconstructing the necessary context to appreciate some scratchy record or yellowed paperback or sepia photograph? Probably not. I want something that speaks to me directly, person to person, as urgent as a phone call or a siren.

 

[luka]

History is probably fake anyway and dreamt up and staged on a Hollywood studio lot.

 

[luka]

In my opinion.

 

[WashYourHands]

Peter Lorre films, he’s the o.g creepy cunt. Wages of Fear came on recently brilliant for late night shift

Scratchy records = only my Dad’s. My grandfather’s old farm rain mac. Certain photos of clan meets, family documents for about 8 generations. A dresser and table from Anglesey material inheritance the most because of the sessions hosted

Biographies of places = yes. Fun bridges into myths. The heritage sector is distilled comedy of semi-fascism

 

[luka]

When I say things like this I'm always actually jut hoping someone will give me the secrets to time travel and I will gain access to a whole new dimension of sophisticated enjoyment and edification.

 

[WashYourHands]

Cognac

There are old, patina-weathered bottles of classics that I see buying ethanol that still wet a whistle. The deeper you go into time samples, chronological vintages, you can get lost fast

Bordeaux vineyard tours and chilling around the Gironde. Single best drinking period of my life, highly recommended

 

[IdleRich]

There is a story - probably not true but that's not important - about a mod guy who was killed trying to fix his vintage car cos when he lifted it up to look underneath it, the vintage jack gave up the ghost and dropped it on his vintage hairstyle.

I guess that part of the issue is form and function and how they fit together (or don't). A car jack you want the new one cos it fulfils its function better. A haircut you might like modern ones better but it's totally plausible that you might like old ones too and i have no problem with that. I do think it's weird when people make the jump from liking sixties music and then sixties styles to trying to live in another era and, yeah, potentially using "vintage" equipment that simply doesn't do the job as well as the new version.

Personally I don't have any resistance to old stuff. I like rockabilly and garage and whatever. I don't dress sixties or fifties or anything, I don't want to live my life in period costume but if I see a film set in the 20s or 50s or whatever and there are stylish people in it then I can enjoy what they wear - in fact I've been watching loads of Poirot repeats on Fox Crime which is broadcast here and I reckon that the reason I watch it is about 40% for the amazing buildings, maybe 35% the interiors, and 25% for the plot. And suppose there was something that I liked that I saw in a 50s film and I could fit it in with what I wear - so I suppose I'm not talking about a beehive hairdo or massive bell-bottoms - then why not? We are repeatedly told that we are in a post-modern era whether we like it or not - so I might as well take advantage of that sort of thing right?

 

[IdleRich]

And I just saw Catalog I think it was talking about a 17th century pub. There are loads of great old buildings, and there are loads of good modern ones too, I don't think I have a particular preference or certainly not a strong one at least, I like the good ones and dislike the bad of any era.

 

[Leo]

I'm old, and can take a hint.

 

[IdleRich]

I don't think of you as old Leo, in my book you're vintage.

 

[william_kent]

I like Far Eastern "flying people" films. They sometimes get called "historical drama" - I have a DVD of "The Swordsman" ( 笑傲江湖 ) ( I think - it might be an entirely different Wu XIa film, but the principle is the same ), based on a novel by Jin Yong ( or the anglicised "Louis Cha" ), the most important author of the 20th Century, where amongst the extras there is an interview with one of the actresses ( who all the characters mistake for a "boy", gender confusion is an integral element of these films, even though it is entirely obvious that it is a female trying to pass as male ) and she boldly claims "Who is to say that people didn't fly back then? We weren't there, we can't prove that people didn't fly back then".

Exactly.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I love old things. This reminds me I've got to update me gramophone thread