Nostalgia

I've been writing about nostalgia. Nostalgia is very easy to feel and very hard to define, since it is essentially a nuance; a deja or presque vu; a melange of stuff you can't quite put your finger on but know when it's there. My anchor for talking about it will be the music of Joni Mitchell, who with tracks such as Refuge of the Roads, or earlier Circle Game, or even better Last Time I Saw Richard almost exemplifies the nostalgic temperament. However, my sense of nostalgia might be a bit different in content.
When I get nostalgic these days I go to the White Horse. I go there especially and especially today with it being so bright and sunny out. It's a dark cavern, with a couple of blokes and the dancers reconciled to a slow afternoon, meaning you can get lost somehow. I thought of Las Vegas, and all those fabulous afternoons I've spent in, of all the world's peculiar places, The Girls of Glitter Gulch, a venue, nomatter how tawdry, that is one of the best rooms I know.
Lacey, one of the more fabulous dancers in the White Horse, eventually tottered up to me and asked me for a dance. That is what she does, most of them don't bother with me, I'm not fresh enough meat, but she's professional about it, she's delightfully both hard nosed and soft natured. That's a real skill. It's amazing how few people might realise that dancing for a living involves more chat about your interest in interior design than it does taking your clothes off. Anyway, it was a slow afternoon, and a girls gotta live.
Anyway, our discourse, such as it was, which would end either in 'OK' or a 'maybe later', reminded me exactly of so many of the same conversations I'd enjoyed in Las Vegas over the years, in the same dark caverns out of the blazing sun, the same black holes where you you can't see anything when you first walk in, and later, once acclimatised, your beer looks green, and you begin to feel just a little like Jim Rockford. Best of all, once I'd said, 'maybe later', Lacey detached herself smartly to try the rabbi sitting over in the corner, and he said 'OK' almost straight away. It's lovely isn't it, knowing the rules, breaking them occasionally, staying calm.
Above 'Anna', one of the series 'When Sizzlin' Stacey met Dazzlin' Darlene' which I will be exhibiting and discussing, if I get it together and they like the idea, at a conference titled 'Nostalgias' later this year.