The diminishing returns of nostalgia are nothing new, but their false glitter is one of the central lodestones guiding the artistic compass of my generation. Millennials didn’t invent sentimental cultural artifacts — they were first minted years ago — but we did kind of define the demand built around recycling their continued relevance. It’s one of the only markets we were allowed to dominate, as the financial sector and the world of real estate have merged into pleasure barges and escape ships for previous generations. I was a child when credit scores were invented, and they rule over this current dystopia alongside a lot of the intellectual property from that era’s culture.
The sense of everything staying the same while getting worse is a disorienting one, and linear time is in a tailspin in the age of COVID and two back-to-back presidents who are both older than Bill Clinton (!). The austerity and mortgaging of the future that helped the boomers enjoy the last gasp of now-forbidden American treasures like upward mobility, retirement and passive income is a debt that will be paid down by people younger than me for lifetimes, unless some senile madman pushes the wrong button and everything goes boom. For my older readers, please don’t mistake this as an attack against you; this is directed at our leaders. I know you can be sensitive about this stuff, and I don’t believe in generational essentialism and blanket culpability. Don’t get me wrong.
The ghost of the past haunts the miserly, cold world of this present age of Scrooge. The unregulated market allows the mega-wealthy to consolidate everything into a handful of corporate goliaths ruled by these techno-feudalists with — I really can’t emphasize this enough — the absolute shittiest dunce-brains incapable of appreciating anything beautiful or true. So of course they are strip-mining the past for any nuggets left out there, turning everything from Star Wars to Frankenstein into dull gray worlds full of soulless digital imagery that spray poison onto the audience like the deadly slurry downriver from a cratered superfund site. Everything is a remake; few things feel new or relevant. I was thinking about this when I rewatched Ghost this weekend, an unremarkable movie from 1990 that sparkles like true cinema compared to most current green-screened streaming fare. It won two Oscars in a year of riches that gave us Goodfellas, Total Recall, Miller’s Crossing, Jacob’s Ladder, The Witches, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Of course there is a development deal to remake it. Whether that happens or not, the core concept should be rejected. Selling a meal that’s already been digested with the promise that you will recognize some of the original flavors is disgusting and central to my revulsion with commodified nostalgia.
Still, there’s a way to escape the chthonic sewers of corporate media and run out into the pastoral wilds of organic culture and that is — you guessed it — live music and such from our lovely local market. One frontier the bastards haven’t managed to control or destroy yet. There’s a handy guide below.
Thursday
The Claire Bent Jazz Quintet is putting on a holiday show at the Basement this evening, consider sleighing through to hear the talented eponymous vocalist slaying on the mic in front of her crack-sharp band of merry revelers. Tis the season for this kind of cheer, after all.
The doors are at 7:30 p.m. and it’s only $5 to get inside.
Saturday
The venerable Frogbite will be doing its thing behind frontlady Lisa Sharry tonight at the Logger Bar starting at 9 p.m. And what a thing it is, providing a proper sonic backbone for one of our county’s longtime eccentric stars. It’s probably free at the door, so nothing’s at stake here but a good time, which is a fine deal on any night, especially one of the last Fridays of 2025.
It’s the second night of the Huckleberry Flint winter show over at the Old Steeple, and the last opportunity to get with the program if you missed out on last night’s gig at the same joint. The tickets are going for $35 online, and the music starts promptly at 7:30 p.m., so don’t dawdle in the ’dale.
If you want a proper bar show with a more southern rock and psychedelic style, head over to Central Station at 9 p.m. to check out Matthew Wallace and the Flying Saucers. This gig is free to enter, if that sweetens the pot at all for you.
Sunday
Mariachi de Humboldt is filling up Fulkerson Hall at 7:30 p.m. Tonight’s program is directed by Professor Jennifer Trowbridge and is priced as follows: $15 for general audience members, $5 for kiddies and free for CPH students with an I.D. This is surely some good fun for the last Sunday in autumn, the first night of Hanukkah and Gaudete Sunday.
Monday
If you missed Creative Sanctuary’s Yes Jesters! cabaret and supper show at Synapsis a couple of weeks ago, fear not, you can catch it again at the Arcata Playhouse tonight at 6:30 p.m. Hosted by James Zeller and Katie Belknap, this mildly ribald program of foolin’ shenanigans is a bright light for the beginning of a darkening week. Tickets are a sliding scale and start at $5, and everything seems negotiable there, so do not fret if the purse is light, the entertainment need not lack as well.
Tuesday
“Shhh/Peaceful” from Miles Davis’ landmark record In a Silent Way is a good track for tonight.
Wednesday
I said what I did about nostalgia above, but that’s got nothing to do with repurposing goofy gems from the beforetimes for some campy fun. Retro kitsch is the stylish art of thrifting in defiance of the ready-to-wear bullshit of our present age of forgettable slop. If you make something bad enough, it will belong forever to the future. Just ask Ed Wood, if you ever make it to the chintzy afterlife of the tragically bad. Or Al Hirt, for that matter, the mid-century pop trumpeter from New Orleans who scored a blaring, treble-driven hit with “Hooray for Santa Claus,” the credits song for the atrociously watchable 1964 film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. You can catch a big screen showing of this stinker at the Arcata Theatre Lounge tonight. Same drill as ever: Roll in between 6 and 7 p.m. with $6 in hand or $10 if you want to leave with a poster.
Collin Yeo (he/him) “beat(s) on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past,” but he doesn’t have to like it.
This article appears in Sacred Groves.