Tag: Nostalgia

Snark 1998 – Television Without Pity Archives

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televisionwithoutpity

From Wikipedia :

Television Without Pity (often abbreviated TWoP) was a website that provided detailed recaps of select television dramas, situation comedies and reality TV shows along with discussion forums. These recaps were written with sarcastic criticism and opinion alongside a retelling of an episode’s events, which the site referred to as “snark“. Their official motto is “Spare the snark, spoil the networks”, a takeoff on “spare the rod, spoil the child”, and its mascot is Tubeelzebub (a portmanteau of tube and Beelzebub, “Tubey” for short), a devilish television set with horns and a pointed tail.

From Dawson’s Creek Season 1 ep 2 recap:

Cut to the Sanctum Dawsonorum; Joey clicks off the TV in the middle of the scene we’ve just watched, and Dawson works on a fake head with makeup and tells Joey she’s “going to have to” kiss Pacey, because the movie “doesn’t work without the kiss — it’s a love story.” Joey corrects him, “It’s a horror movie, Dawson.” Dawson in turn corrects Joey, “It’s an homage with a heavy allegorical slant.” “Homage”? “Allegorical”? Mark those Sars Maalox Scorecards at “1 minute 10 seconds,” folks. Joey, to her credit, rolls her eyes and flops back on Dawson’s bed and calls Pacey “un-kiss-worthy,” and Dawson says manipulatively, “Do it for me?” and Joey says she doesn’t “want to regurgitate on-camera — why don’t you kiss him?” Dawson, coyly: “‘Cause my lips are reserved for someone else.” Joey asks if he and Jen have kissed yet, to which Dawson smugly responds, “There’s no need to rush fate.” Joey advises Dawson not to “wait an eternity” because Jen comes from New York “where things tend to move faster.” Dawson theorizes that Jen will therefore find it “enchanting to meet a strapping young man who doesn’t have sex on the brain.” Another eye-roll from Joey, along with the skeptical comment “if it helps you sleep at night.” Dawson reminds Joey that Jen “is a self-proclaimed virgin.” “For another second,” Joey snipes. Dawson defends Jen as “a bright, intelligent young woman who is clearly in charge of her own body.” Joey shoots back, “I’m not suggesting leather straps and Crisco, just a kiss.” Dawson, who hasn’t looked up from the fake head once during this convo, announces, “Jen and I will kiss, don’t you worry. Question is, will your lips ever find Pacey’s?” Joey votes for “an extensive rewrite.” Dawson: “Well, that’s too bad, ’cause you definitely have kissing lips.” Joey (and Sars): “What?” Dawson turns the head around to reveal a replica of Joey, then suggests that Joey get through the kiss with Pacey by closing her eyes and thinking about someone else. Joey slumps down on a pillow and looks sidelong at Dawson. Dawson arches a brow and says, “Explain to me the Crisco.” Well, Dawson, it might help ease the passage of your giant head out of your ass. Just a thought.

Credits. Paula Cole ululating.

In My Day People Weren’t So Nostalgic All the Time – The Paradox of Nostalgia

In fact, I think that the alt-country and Americana scenes can be too precious in their efforts to resist the polluting influence of the country industry, and in their attempts to evoke a simpler world through archaic slang and ostentatious hats. Maybe this judgment is simply a kind of reverse snobbery, a way for me to feel superior to the kind of people who feel superior to the kind of people who love “commercial” country music. (Snobbery, I’ve learned, is hard to define, and even harder to avoid; there is virtually no way to judge popular music without making some judgment about the people who listen to it.) This judgment surely reflects, too, my general allergy to any music that strains to be “retro,” even though I realize that a current of nostalgia runs through all popular culture. (It sometimes seems that popular music is more nostalgic than it used to be, which could mean that my distaste for nostalgia is itself a form of nostalgia for a pre-nostalgic past.)

Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres
Kelefa Sanneh

AOL Playing Catch-up with Y2K – Wired 1999

The year 2000 problem might cause more worries for America Online than the company had expected.

AOL’s engineers have not yet determined how many systems are infected with the Y2K bug and only a handful of AOL’s suppliers and partners have responded to requests for information, according to new financial disclosure documents filed this week.

wired, February 1999

TIME – 81-83 / PLACE – New York City.

NY Times Style Magazine has a pretty groovy thing on this thirty six month period in the Big Apple.Were those three years an inflexion point?

A polarizing Republican in the White House. Protests for equality in the streets. A new wave of sexual self-identification. This was N.Y.C. in the early ’80s, during the 36 months in which it changed art, design, activism, food, literature and love — forever.

Frank Bruni makes the case.

Actors reminisce.

24 hours/Oral History.