My Huckleberry Friend

It's safe to say that in the twenty first century, and in a decade completely co-dependent on the puerile tendencies of pop culture, and that while we often see fireworks and spectacle, it's few and far between that we witness magic.

For me, magic in pop culture has always translated into some enigmatic moment in a motion picture or a lyric in a song that resonated with the pain and enchantment of my own life. And like all who become predecessors, I find a lot more of this magic in the pop culture product of the past. Why is that, I wonder?

It may be impossible to ever pin point the focal point of such a sentiment, to really nail down what such emotion is derivative of, but I do think there's merit in saying that we find ourselves captivated by things from our youth. And furthermore, I would go so far as to say we find ourselves yearning for the representation of pop culture when we were in fact a part of the age range that was igniting it as well.

We were dreamers. And there's a post partum depression going on in this country--and it's not from your child, it's from your childhood. When you hear someone today listening to that song from when they were nine years old, more often than not, I'll bet it's because they know something now that they didn't know then and not only get nostalgic, but they start trying to remember how they felt about it then versus how they're thinking about that feeling now. Eventually, that always leads to thinking about how happy and carefree they were when they experienced it for the first time. These are obvious and ubiquitous signs of this growing trend.

But the real reason that we, as adults, find magic in these memories, is because we are experiencing them again but with the knowledge of mortality. Because of that honest and morbid fact, we will innately love these trinkets of our childhood all the more because they function as our carbon dating, as what we contributed in our lifespan, and as what we will be remembered for. Even if we are looking at them through rose-colored glasses, on some level, we are proud of the contribution, knowing that it was only our era that produced that particular piece of pop culture.

What got me thinking about this was Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, two artists not representative of my generation but perhaps are transcendent and cross generational in their impact on all of us. My only personal proof of that is of course the fact that a piece of their work strikes a chord about my childhood and moments of pop culture in my childhood and I didn't hear this song until much later in my life.

Mancini and Mercer were 37 and 51 respectively when Breakfast at Tiffany's came out, and Moon River is arguably their masterpiece. It's the one song that encompasses quite literally the full spectrum of human emotion. It talks to you like a child. It also talks to you as if from a child's perspective--and at the same time, it speaks to you about pain and happiness in a way that you could only know as an adult, and more importantly, an adult looking back on a childhood and wanting to lasso it once more.

It's very rare that a piece of art walks the line between both parts of a life successfully--and can speak to both of you simultaneously. Moon River hearkens back without regret and in its haunting arrangement, somehow also seems as if it's being played out the window of an apartment building, echoing down a New York City corridor. But more importantly, while breathing that childhood and dreamlike essence we all had at one point back into our minds--it also reminds us of the beauty of aging instead of making us sick over it. Oh dream makers, you heart breakers, that's what I like to call magic.

Listen for yourself. You won't be sorry...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCIQWV5B7Cs&feature=related