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past not only accessible but immediate. The whole wave of nostalgia in the country now, that is being made such commercial capital of, is based not on any real evocation or longing for the past and all its complexity, but on a simplified never never land of supposed post style. The style of any past period is a generalization, a [illegible] of the manner in which people lived. And as any one knows who lived through the roaring twenties or the fabulous fifties, they bare only a faint resemblance to the life lived at that time. The very word style implies a superficiality, a rendering of surface, of wish fulfillment of facade.

We never like our past styles straight. As any historical movie proves. It may be laid in 1910 but the hairdos and makeup of the star are closer to 1973 than 1910 and the sound track is always a modern orchestration. (One of the big disappointments of "No No Nanette" was its common place 1973 Broadway orchestrations renderings of its twenties music.) For any true rendering of post style, the mass audience would not be able to identify with. We like our style diluted with contemporary comforts and current fashion.

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outline

Nostalgia as the security blanket of the present.

Artists using past simplified styles as an escape for dealing with the ever more extremely complicated present.

The ability of the media (television) to deal with content (though they rarely do) forcing the visual artist to deal with form and style.

the accessibility of all style, the multiple choice of all the past made present through media representation.

Photographers being unable to escape from the past.'

the publishing of numerous monographs of past photographers work -- accessible a history becomes a burden like always having your father looking over your shoulder.

Photographers making pictures based on other pictures, variations on style.

Increasing look of individuality, the conforming pressures of mass media more powerful than a torture chamber.

the difficulty of substained style growing out of an individual's life

Dec 27. 73

Like everything which is not the result of fleeting emotion but of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting and significant than any romance, however passionate.

W.H. Auden