While I was in Florida this past Christmas, I decided to take up a pet project scanning old family photo albums, many of which had somehow made their way into my brother’s old bedroom. These are some of the photographs my mom took in the 1960s and 70s. The first time I flipped through the yellowed album pages, caressing the textured, fading, chemically-treated pieces of paper, I was overwhelmed by a strange feeling – a sort of furry, perhaps velutinous sensation that I couldn’t quite explain. I ran downstairs in a bit of a panic, trying distractedly to self-administer brain wave therapy, worried that I might be experiencing the sure symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer’s, sudden death syndrome, or maybe even indigestion. My mom quickly recognized the problem, sat me down, made me a warm mug of oatmeal with cinnamon and soymilk, and explained to me in simple terms that, back in her day, photographs contained these things called “memories”, which sort of disappeared after the advent of digital cameras and the annihilation of all squares. Apparently, it’s believed that film grain may be responsible for a type of delusion known as “reminiscence”. When viewed through the medium of a computer monitor, people often mistake these images for modern clothing advertisements, their subjects as supermodels or even “fashionable young people”. Essentially, this significantly decreases the harmful effects that photographs pose to one’s spiritual health. However, if you were born in the 1980s or beyond and happen upon your parents’ old photo albums, you may want to take caution, as it’s not unlikely that you will find a hole in your heart, a gaping wound in your soul, where these phantasmagorical, tangible objects of nostalgia, will never exist…
Enjoy!
