Yesterday once more

The ‘50s revivalism in the 1970s felt insincere, almost a parody. Pompadours, poodle skirts, Thunderbird convertibles and carhops on roller skates. Grease. Sha Na Na. Happy Days. Lame pastiches like Loggins and Messina’s Your Mama Don’t Dance and Elton John’s Crocodile Rock. The Carpenters’ maudlin doo-wop tribute Yesterday Once More.

But trends come and go and as the sun began to rise over Reagan’s America came the inevitable ‘60s revival.

Tie-dye came back into fashion. The improbable return of Monkeemania. Soap operas about photogenic upwardly mobile ‘60s survivors like The Big Chill (and its subsequent two-volume soundtrack), Thirtysomething and Almost Grown (and the much more realistic Return of the Secaucus 7). Career encores for John Fogerty and Dennis Hopper.

One aspect of the revival that’s relevant this month was the introduction of Nick at Nite. Older TV shows could always be found on television, mostly on independent stations and scattered throughout the morning or afternoon – I always associated I Love Lucy with sick days from school since it aired weekdays at 9 a.m. In July 1984, Nickelodeon borrowed the oldies radio strategy and launched Nick at Nite: block programming of old television programs, focused mostly on sitcoms.

Watching Hazel or Mister Ed from an adult’s perspective didn’t improve them much and your attention was bound to wander during the hour-long Route 66 but having all these old shows bundled together without having to change the channel was a novel concept for its time. If My Three Sons wasn’t your thing, stick around for Car 54 Where Are You. Or the occasional obscurity like Camp Runamuck or Lancelot Link.

As cable TV gained footing, and in desperate need of 

content, WTBS and the USA Network went the same route and programmed Saturday afternoon marathons of ‘60s adventure programs, like The Wild, Wild West, I Spy, Outer Limits and The Man From U.N.C.L.E., often with commentary from the shows’ original casts.

You could fall asleep watching the marathons, dreams narrated by the jazzy banter of Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott, James West fighting off ants with human faces, Ilya Kuryakin morphing into the scientist with six fingers and the overgrown cranium.

Today, of course, all this stuff is readily available online. What’s missing is the kick of nostalgia and the thrill of rediscovery that was a big part of the ‘60s revival.

Ragtime

Fifty years this summer, E.L. Doctorow’s turn-of-the-century historical novel Ragtime was published.

An interwoven narrative revolving around a WASP family, a black pianist and an Eastern European immigrant, their lives, like organisms seen under a microscope, collide and intersect each other, along with those of some of the era’s most famous and notorious, including Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan, Sigmund Freud, Emma Goldman, Evelyn Nesbit and Booker T. Washington.

Ragtime occurs during America’s Gilded Age (aka The Progressive Era), years of economic growth, industrialization and technologic advances as the country transitioned from an agrarian society.

With its selective view of history and zero sense of irony, the current White House has expressed romantic admiration for the era because of its tariff acts, ignoring the tremendous influence the rich held over politicians who helped boost their financial empires, while the gap between the haves and have-nots grew wider and violent: armed militias were called in to bust heads when workers – mostly immigrants – held work stoppages or tried forming unions. Casual racism was universal.

Coming as it did in 1975, Ragtime was part of the run-up to the nation’s 1976 bicentennial celebration, an affirmation of two centuries of opportunities and anxieties. Burning through the book are lit fuses timed to explode over the coming years: feminism, celebrity culture, domestic terrorism, mental health issues, the rise of the munitions industry, mistrust of immigrants.

Ragtime also acknowledged that what lies at the heart of the American Dream is the spirit of DEI: acceptance and opportunity. An artistic immigrant lifts himself and his daughter from an airless ghetto hovel to a career making movies. Only a few decades after the end of slavery, the black musician makes a good enough living playing ragtime piano to afford a new automobile. A young man who today would be considered on the spectrum designs advanced war weaponry.

The family in Ragtime made its fortune in the fireworks business. As we near next year’s 250^th anniversary celebration, fireworks displays will likely burst over every corner of America’s skies. Expect them to illuminate only what we want to remember, while keeping what we’ve chosen to forget in the dark.