Nostalgia Trap

On this week's livestream, Justin Rogers-Cooper drops by to offer thoughts on some weird moves from U.S. Congress on China this week, which for some reason no one is talking about. Plus, David continues his journey through 90s pop culture and considers the confluence of South Park, first person shooters like Quake and Duke Nukem, and the development of an "extremely online" cultural and political sensibility. Go to patreon.com/nostalgiatrap for full episode.

The 1990 Martin Scorsese-directed gangster saga Goodfellas remains one of the most rewatchable films of the 20th century, a kaleidoscopic ride through the ups and downs of mafia life that’s as exhausting as it is entertaining. For David and Danny, Goodfellas occupies a space of both personal and cultural connection–a nostalgia trap that functions on multiple levels. In this conversation, we explore the film’s unique power in the context of 20th century history, from the development of working class white ethnic gang culture to its long decline in the shadow of suburbanization and gentrification, from spaghetti and marinara to egg noodles and ketchup. What story is Goodfellas really telling us? Go to patreon.com/nostalgiatrap to hear the full episode.

Jon Wiener is an American historian and the author of a number of books on the 1960s and 1970s, including Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Seven. Jon returns to the Trap to talk with David and Danny about the Netflix film Trial of the Chicago 7, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. From questionable casting choices to an outrageously ahistorical happy ending, how does Sorkin’s notoriously rosy, liberal take on American history color his depiction of 1960s radicalism?

I wanted to take the Thanksgiving holiday, when very few were likely to be watching, to try something new on the livestream...I hope you enjoy it. Since we've begun talking so much about movies on the podcast lately, I thought I would start reflecting on my own connection to cinema and pop culture more widely, as a way of exploring larger questions of politics, art, spirituality, drugs, and so many other Nostalgia Trap obsessions. In this first installment I describe my attachment to an HBO "Guide to Movies" book in 1990, and how it acted as a kind of Biblical text, and an entryway to a world of movies about which I knew very little. To listen, subscribe at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Justin Rogers-Cooper and Bill Black join us for our very first episode specifically dedicated to the JFK assassination, an event that connects a number of Nostalgia Trap obsessions, from deep state conspiracies and political violence to pop culture and generational division. To hear the full episode subscribe at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.

Kiara Barrow and Rebecca Panovka are the creators and editors of The Drift, a new magazine on culture and politics that promises to “introduce new work and new ideas by young writers who haven’t yet been absorbed into the media hivemind and don’t feel hemmed in by the boundaries of the existing discourse.” Barrow and Panovka join David and Danny for a wide-ranging conversation on the state of young left media in the post-Bernie era.

Daniel Traber is a professor of English at Texas A & M University at Galveston, a punk at heart, and an active member of the cult of Repo Man (dir. Alex Cox, 1984).  In this conversation, we get into why Repo Man, a movie literally about Repo Men in 1980s Los Angeles (oh, and aliens) is such an important lens on punk, postmodernism, and the twisted knot of counterculture, capitalism, and reaction that defined the Reagan era. Along the way we trade key scenes, lines, and characters, as we take apart a film that still seems, more than three decades later, far ahead of its time.   

Derf Backderf is a writer and artist whose graphic novels explore everything from the lives of sanitation workers (Trashed) to Derf’s actual high school relationship with future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (My Friend Dahmer). His latest book, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio, tells the story of the Kent State shooting in personal, often wrenching detail. In this conversation, Derf explains the challenges of rendering the event visually, the research behind some of the book’s incredible revelations, the psychological and ethical struggle of writing about Jeffrey Dahmer, and the wider project of “history as graphic novel.” 

What happens when organized groups of working class Jewish communists pool their resources to create cooperative housing in New York City? Avi Garelick and Andrew Schustek have some ideas for us. Their detailed history, “The Rise and Fall of the Coops,” in the latest issue of Jewish Currents, examines the incredible story of the United Workers Cooperatives (or “Coops”), which were part of a wave of radical housing experiments built in the Bronx in the 1920s and 1930s. As Garelick and Schustek share in this conversation, the history of the Coops has vital lessons about the possibilities and limits of mutual aid when capital still controls the flow of power and resources. 

Well, there was an election. And there was a result of that election. But what does it MEAN? Trap oracle Justin Rogers-Cooper joins us this week for a conversation about the multiple stories being born before our eyes, as neoliberalism’s representative politics come roaring back to life with Biden’s electoral victory, the left wing of the Democratic Party plays defense against its centrist attackers and, all the while, Trump sits in the White House denying that he lost and promising to fight the alleged conspiracy against him. What are the possibilities currently on the table? How wild are the next ten weeks going to get? It’s time for some game theory. For full episode, go to patreon.com/nostalgiatrap.