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Thinking about Miyazaki and the way that his animation uses nostalgia. A good friend who grew up in South Korea surprised me when she said she couldn't stand "Ghibli Stuff" from her perspective it was laden with all of these very Japanese nostalgic touchstones, brands, technologies, tropes. She said it reminded her of "Leave it to Beaver" or "Art Deco Denis the Menace" --And right away I could see exactly what she meant. It's just for me the cues didn't land because I didn't have the proximity.
But, this also helped me to understand how some American media that is overburdened with nostalgic triggers to the point of being annoying to me, can seem wonderful to people who don't recognize all of those triggers. They just see the wider vision of "a simpler time" and "a time of innocence" and all of the the things like white picket fences and KitchenAid blenders in chrome that speak to me of both innocence and violence are just strange and beautiful when abstracted.
@futurebird I'm really glad I don't have any of those associations with my KitchenAid blender because I really like that thing and use it a lot.
They are wonderful machines. Basically just a big old motor with attachments, but you can't beat that?
However as an "aesthetic?" bad vibes. Well at least for me.
@futurebird I will say storing the damn thing is awkward and annoying. It's huge, heavy and oddly shaped, fitting nowhere easily, and basically it just assumes you're willing to devote a huge chunk of counter space to its existence. I think that's partly why it becomes it's own aesthetic.
The attachments are good, I have made pasta etc, but the thing I like it for best is just straight up dough mixing. It does a much better job than I do by hand.
@futurebird
Hah! I had never thought of it that way before. In a similar vein I was reading a translation of Bashō's haiku and the translator said that when we translate them directly, it gives haiku a very spare, modern sound but this is not how Japanese people read them and not how they were intended. It was pretty interesting. I can't remember the author's name 
but I'll see if I can't dig it up.
@futurebird
Dorothy Britton! A Haiku Journey.
@futurebird
yup, the continued thrall of Boomer consumers