After a long period of endless album teasers and slow-burn promotional campaigns, the element of surprise has come back to big-tent music in 2013—David Bowie announced an album he’d been working on in secret for two years, My Bloody Valentine released the 21-years-in-the-making followup to Loveless, and Justin Timberlake returned to pop.
I’ve been going to the same Super Bowl party for over a decade now; one year my longtime friend who hosts it incorporated it into his wedding, resulting not only in a grand time but the addition of a (delightful) permanent co-host. This issue is a tribute of sorts to that tradition.
The pieces in this issue all have longing at their core, whether it’s the desire to figure out one’s place in the world or a deep-seated need to be closer to one’s idols through membership in a fan club.
This issue’s four pieces look at the processes that occur in conjunction with consumption, from education to intoxication, in an effort to make some sense of the seemingly endless array of things available to take in.
Why is looking back so popular in 2013, when we’re supposedly living in the future?
As a kid I was not the biggest fan of my name. When you’re 8 and prematurely in your awkward phase you want nothing more than to fit in, and one of the keys to “fitting in” back in 1980s Long Island was, perversely enough, items that came pre-personalized—stickers, T-shirts, magnets, key chains. I would scour every novelty shop I came across looking for something that had MAURA emblazoned on it, and every time I would come away empty-handed. It became a point of frustration and, eventually, embarrassment; my mom even tried to make me “designer jeans” by stitching my name on the rear end, but that didn’t help.