Nostalgia Trip

Ola señors and señoritas. Cha cha cha. Cha cha cha. Ay curamba. Muy Chihuahua. Andale andale ariba ariba.

This image was inspired by some youtube-curated mambo playlist i was listening to the other week.

I kept it threetone to keep the nostalgia feel, with the main guy in the foreground pulled off some album cover I now can’t find. I personally don’t think it matters match. The album cover itself was from the 1960s i think, would have to be free domain by this point, and would be a bargain-basement find. The rest of his surroundings is just imaginative cartoon background-filler to create atmosphere. I’m pretty chuffed with how I did the tobacco-smoke effect and the blinds.

The record companies themselves were industrial machines. And the imagery was secondary to the music which was secondary to the primary motive of making money for the business.

Maybe that’s a bit too cynical. Im sure all three were passionate about what they did but there was an end-purpose to each.

The musician wanted to entertain.

The photographer wanted to capture the essence of the musician

The Record Company wanted to put out mambo music and wanted a good image that would get people to buy the album.

Contracts would’ve been signed for potentially ongoing deals. The relationship between passion and legal obligations might’ve waxed and waned accordingly. You have to remember that lawyers will get passionate about law too, and some get into creators’ rights as their specialty.

The musician would’ve been photographed playing live at a venue, but might’ve recorded their music in a studio.

The collector collected, the dj broadcast and promoted. The live music attendant attended. The dispassionate tobacco smoker would’ve smoked dispassionately. He may be either a devoted fan or someone who just wanted to waste time smoking somewhere and wanted background noise he liked. It might’ve been a combination of the lot. He might’ve been primarily there to get the attention of señoritas. Most likely he was. Or possibly he’s just a venue proprietor or relation thereof on a break.

There’s ulterior motives and secondary agendas all round. But everyone, for whatever reason, gets packaged together in the one cultural end-product.

They were all, in the end, expressing who they were in a manner that they felt best suited them. And that came together as a group expression we call a culture, which is thus packaged for someone else to consume in a different time and/or place.

And that product, or moment if you prefer, is now background music to my idle workday to help alleviate boredom and make a more light and sophisticated ambience.

How we define culture is a weird thing. It’s many subtleties wound together.

The best way I ever heard it defined was “the way we do things around here.”, which was pulled from some training-and-assessment/esl coursebook from back when I was having a go of that profession. And it was apparently uttered by some kid in SE Asia in an English class. It actually works very well as a succinct definition. I like it’s street-savviness. The kid probably attended a few cockfights and stole a few wallets. Or maybe he merely knew the tricks of how to. I shouldn't insinuate so negatively.

A lot of cultural product is made to alleviate boredom, using whatever means one has. The musicians found that making noises work together was a good method for them. The nightclub proprietor found hosting shows, pouring drinks, making money and smoking cigarettes while wearing sharp clothing was his way. The señorita decided her way was dancing and looking pretty to work off some pent-up energy and also so she could make other people try and look at her. It can all be called a form of creative expression.

Here I am blogging, with visuals. So I called it visual blogging. And i consider it a kind of art form of its own.

There’s parameters. The text is fairly opinionated, and probably cycles back to consistent themes, which might attract a certain niche of reader. The images are stills only and based of physical drawings I do, with the occasional snapshot of a painting or supportive photos or screenshots from the web. It adopts the old printed-zine template. It’s cheaper and faster to make than a zine and has wider exposure to more eyeballs.

Another good piece of advice is to go where the eyeballs are.

There’s a schedule, so the output is reliable enough. I try to aim for once a week.

Other limitations include my inability to leave the desk i sit in during the week and do on-the-ground research. I have only my perceptions, memory, and whatever info I can pull from the net.

If people are like me they now have a saved list of about 40-50 links in a folder on their bookmarks tab. Some are daily visits, some weekly, and some are a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing. This, along with social media or “messenger carriers” (as defined by the aus gov) is how we curate our info feed now. The old forms might still exist, but they command a diminished share, and that’s the way it is. That’s how you keep up to speed with contemporary life.

That’ll be that for now. I hope this helps someone out there. There’s way too many anxious souls out there. I’m off to enjoy some of this blast of summer heat we’re finally receiving.

One last thing: A lot of people, including those in the image above and this blogger, made a lot of interesting stuff from not-much available. Limitations can be a strength. Adios for now.