The Power of Nostalgia
The irony. Of writing a newsletter based around nostalgia and then writing about nostalgia. I should merch a t-shirt or something. Mr I suggested two nights ago that we watch Top Gun: Maverick, which he had watched without me. Imagine the betrayal. Imagine it again. ‘How many time have you watched this without me?’ I asked, as my fingernails began to itch. The pause. ‘I’d be lying if I said seven’.
Putting all of this potentially damaging evidence behind us, we embarked upon Top Gun: Maverick.
Come. On. I was already crying at the Goose Locker Shrine. When they zeroed in on Slider in the team photo, I said, ‘It’s volleyball now’. And so it was to be. Beach volleyball. I even cried over the effing Kawasaki, and as anyone in the bike world kno’, no one is seen dead on a Kawasaki.
It was glorious. Forget the obvious nod to Star Wars and the weird nonsensical ‘tech’ talk, it was balm for the soul. Forget that I was born in ‘77 and Top Gun was released in ‘86, it was THE film for this Lincolnshire teenager (always the decade behind). Dad was a pilot, with a freighter pilot’s Solo’esque scorn for military ‘flyboys’, all my friends (me included) were petrolheads, Top Gun was the pips. It was sexy yet sexless - the Kelly McGillis tongue thing still makes me feel awks - good vs bad in a way we can all believe in without questioning our cultural or political affiliations.
In a segue that means nothing yet everything, I was once in my first ‘arty’ job in London, carrying far too many cups of scalding tea, and almost bumped into Top Cat in a corridor as he was being shepherded from one place to another in the fancy digs and I apologised before saying, ‘How ARE YOU!’ as if I knew him so well. Mortifying, with all of the hot tea. Let’s face it, this must happen to him all the time, and he said, without a pause, ‘I’m GREAT. But How. Are. YOU.' And I can forgive him a lot for that. Even the Oprah whatsit.
I loved Maverick. It hit every note like the opening notes on the xylophone from Sesame Street (the music from Star Wars, various Hans Zimmers, Twin Peaks, and Sesame Street played on and off throughout Mr I & I’s wedding and people still ask us for the play list). Bang on, from the fly bys, to Ice (Ice, goddamit Val), to Rooster. Great Balls of Fire. Nostalgia is deeply powerful. Today, for some reason the meme ju jour is ‘photos of you’ at 18. This is me, Sal and Dad, on my 18th. He’d have loved all of this.
