Unread books on dusty shelves tell a story of their own

[sovay]

Because I am more familiar with the operas than the film scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and tend to avoid even famous movies with Ronald Reagan in them, it took until tonight for me to hear the main theme for Kings Row (1942), at which point the entire career of John Williams flashed before my eyes. Other parts of the score sound more recognizably, symphonically of their era, but that fanfare is a blast from the future it directly shaped: the standard set by Korngold's tone-poem, leitmotiv-driven approach to film composing, principal photography as the libretto to an opera. I love finding these taproots, even when they were lying around in plain sight.

I don't think that what I feel for the sea is nostalgia, but I am intrigued by this study indicating that generally people do: "Searching for Ithaca: The geography and psychological benefits of nostalgic places" (2025). I am surprised that more people are not apparently bonded to deserts or mountains or woodlands. Holidays by the sea can't explain all of it. I used to spend a lot of my life in trees.

I napped for a couple of hours this afternoon, but my brain could return any time now. The rest of my week is not conducive to doing nothing. The rest of the world is not conducive to losing time.

Comments

[asakiyume]

There's an infinite unknowability about the sea, maybe. The mountains and deserts and woodlands are places we can live. The sea--we can live on it, and we can be in it. We can be very intimate with it. But only with the barest sliver of it, just the topmost skin of it, and we know it. I think that has something to do with it. The sea is a physical presence that makes us think of unknowable, beautiful, scary, infinite things.

[sovay]

The sea is a physical presence that makes us think of unknowable, beautiful, scary, infinite things.

I don't disagree with any of that, but it doesn't make me feel nostalgia, except perhaps in the geologically ancient sort of way!

[asakiyume]

No, I don't feel nostalgia either, but maybe these qualities of the sea are what make some people feel it for the sea?

Though now that you mention it, there's nothing particular in the qualities I describe that really says nostalgia. ... I think I got distracted thinking about what's special about the sea, to the point that I lost the thread re: nostalgia!

[sovay]

I think I got distracted thinking about what's special about the sea, to the point that I lost the thread re: nostalgia!

Look, far be it from me to complain about someone's hymn to sea-awe!

[asakiyume]

I'm laughing. This is like when the essay topic is "talk about the interaction between Arachne and Athena," and the student submits an ode to one or the other of them.

(Except for the part where you aren't actually setting an essay topic, I know! And your own odes run so, so deep.)