So Out of Style It's in Again —
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Volume II, Issue I - April 2011

They don't make iceboxes like they used to, which at first glance doesn't seem that great a loss. But wouldn't life be much clearer if names of things were all as straightforward as "icebox"? I mean, you have ice and a box. Simple. Like the ice pick once used not to commit murder and mayhem, but to pick ice from a block into chips, chips for lemonade, which they don't make like they used to, either, for dog days in Jersey suburbs (long before TV cop shows featured bodies dumped in every other back yard), just kids on the corner selling 5¢ coned Dixie cups (not seen in years), paper puckering if you didn't drink quickly, just making it taste better anyway. They don't make tar like they used to, licorice gobs you pulled off pavement and chewed while sitting on the curb in front of your house reading an Archie comic book. Nor do they even make summer itself like they used to. It goes without saying they don't make cars like they used to—metallic fins swimming Route 66. Nor do they make movies like they used to in black-and-white edgy noir. They don't even make men like they used to, men who took it on the chin and called women "dames," "babes," or "broads." They don't make women like they used to, either, slinky in silvery, shivery gowns, back when curves curved, and they shot no-good guys with pearl-handled pistols, but still retained a whiff of innocence. Nor do they make words like they used to: femme fatale, temptress, hooligan, swell, caper, romp. They don't make skin like they used to, skin that knew how to sweat back when women wore crisp cotton starchy shirtwaists and men sleeveless undershirts, always tinged a realistic gray. They don't make window treatments like they used to, back when a finger bending a slat in a Venetian blind in some mean, midnight cityscape meant something. They don't make hair like they used to when you simply rolled it in pink plastic, sprayed a little Aqua Net, and called it done. They don’t make fast food like they used to when you inserted a dime in a slot beside a small rectangular glass window at Horn & Hardart and pulled out that perfect slice of apple pie. Nor do they make malt shoppes like they used to, where you drank cherry Cokes poured by a soda jerk, back when fat and cigarette smoke and alcohol were good for you…and drunk drivers were funny. They don't make grandmothers like they used to, matronly and plain, sitting in rocking chairs clutching sachets. Nor do they make sachets like they used to, scented all-American carnation and honeysuckle…or flowers like they used to, up-front daisies and marigolds before we went all exotic. Nor do they make colors like they used to—red, yellow, blue—before we had to deal with mauve, ivory, ecru, and taupe. They don't make department stores like they used to, with tea rooms that smelled like Shalimar, and where salesladies draped green tape measures around their necks. At Woolworth's Five and Dime you ate rotisseried hotdogs and malteds at the lunch counter and strolled down an aisle called "Notions." They don't make amusement parks like they used to, all cotton candied saltwater taffy and penny arcades…wooden roller coasters, loudspeakers playing real rock 'n' roll like the Beatles, John Lennon in blue granny glasses—which they don't make anymore. They don't even make war like they used to, back when a war was a war was a war, and sailors wore cute sailor suits and soldiers kept patriotism nice and simple and, decades later, still felt good about themselves...or enemies like they used to, back when bad guys wore black Stetsons or spike helmets and you knew whom to shoot and where to shoot it. They don't make Republican presidents like they used to, back when a crook was a crook…or at least could go on national TV and deny being a crook, with the unmitigated yet satisfying gall to talk about respectable Republican cloth coats and dogs named Checkers…and back when Democratic presidents had extra-marital affairs—or even polio—and you didn't have to know details, unseemly or otherwise. They don't make vice presidents like they used to, who could say things like "nattering nabobs of negativity," which just made you laugh. They don't make East German judges like they used to, reliably throwing the vote in favor of Soviet bloc figure skaters. And how you miss the predictability of the Cold War with sides clearly drawn.They don't make television like they used to, back when there were three channels with something un-missable on each, instead of over a hundred offering high-definition nothingness. They don't make the moon like they used to, either, before it had footprints and machines marring its surface…when Mars was Mars, when Martians lived there, to say nothing of back when Pluto was a planet. Nor do they make telegrams anymore, that cream-colored paper decorated with flowers with all those "stops," and you never even had a chance to find out why they didn't use periods stop They don't make teenagers like they used to comma back when adolescents were content with hula hoops comma pogo sticks comma bobby socks comma white bucks comma spin the bottle comma poodle skirts comma chiffon scarves comma and transistor radios stop Nor do they make DJs like they used to comma Cousin Brucie and Wolfman Jack comma or music like they used to comma back when rhythm and lyrics were important comma all break on through to the other side comma to the eve of destruction.

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