It’s been approximately 90 days since I last made a post on this blog, an habit I used to enjoy. These last months, being concentrated on my PhD thesis, have turned me into an individual with a crippled personality and I’ve become quite deficient in my ability to bond, empathize or take some pleasure out of life. Hopefully, it will all be restored in a few months, or maybe not. These changes are not circumstantial, they were potentiated by the nature of the study at hands. Reading Rousseau, Kant, Marx, Benjamin, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, Freud, Jung and Lacan, in search of a thread about an aesthetic approach to the concept of “authenticity” is making me a bit mad and though I still feel like I know nothing, on a conceptual level, I also feel I learned a lot about the practical dimension of authenticity. Needless to say, given that the ideal of authenticity is incompatible with the style of life most of us chose to live (or ended up living), the constant paradoxes and impossibilities definitely increase the anguish of this daily routine.
But enough about my complains. The question now is: How did a tv series come into play? And what on earth am I talking about?
This is England ’90 is Shane Meadows‘ latest adventure with Lol, Woody, Combo and the rest of the gang, following This is England ’86 and This is England ’88. It’s a series about British subcultures, the ’90’s series particularly focused on the club culture. It’s hard to say anything about the series because it is only worth watching in the context of the previous two parts, with are complemented by the movie, set in 1983. Shane Meadows, writer and director, appears to be working on his own life story, while growing up in England and it resonates with most of us, for some more than others, because that lifestyle and idea of coolness traveled quite far in Europe.
Yesterday, while watching the first two episodes, I felt briefly brought to life, remembering how partying and hanging out with friends can be reinvigorating. Hopefully I’ll be doing a lot of that next year. For now, I’d recommend you take a look at This is England.
N I H I L S E N T I M E N T A L G I A, 