Nostalgia

Maybe I'm in the mood for thinking of old times. I'm getting old enough to remember the past.

Once upon a time we had a nostalgia craze. We need a resurgence of nostalgia. Maybe we have it, we just don't call it that anymore. We have retro, throwback, and vintage.

Nostalgia fever hit the nation, I'm thinking around the year 1972. It was noted for Deco typefaces, something like the Broadway typeface that is on lots of computers. And a few others. It was a time -- maybe going along in some way with the "That's Entertainment" movies.

But I definitely remember seeing the word "nostalgia" back then all the time, a lot more than you see it now. Magazines covered it. Old movies were shown more often.

And, not coincidentally, that was when the whole "collectibles" and "collector's item" boom took off. Which led me to speak those immortal words, "If it's really a collector's item you don't need to put the phrase 'collector's item' on it. Collectors will know."

You may remember when Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key Of Life" album came out it had printed on the front "Collector's Album." I was at a flea market and this idiot dealer had records for sale. Let's say they were $1 each, just to make a point. This guy had the Stevie album like five or 10 times the price. I asked him why. He said because it was a "Collector's Album," since it said right on the front! I asked him why it was a collector's album and he said, "I don't know. Maybe he died or something."