I am nearly finished reading the book, How America Went Haywire by Kurt Anderson. It’s a place he refers to as Fantasyland, for America’s unique talent for distilling myths and magic into the essence of the American Dream. Essential reading if you’ve ever wondered, “how the hell did Donald J. Trump, Marjorie Greene and Matt Gaetz ever get elected?”.
That America is some sort of real life theme park resonates with me, and inspired today’s mixtape. My first conscious memory of America was the summer of 1968. I was 11. My family flew into LAX from Calcutta for our five-yearly ‘furlough’ in the home country. As my uncle drove us into the suburbs, in the back of his amazingly elongated station wagon, I gawked open-mouthed and uncomprehending at the wide clean streets, the sparkly buildings with the California sun reflecting off their many windows, the variety of automobiles (in India we had 1 car model) and the absolute newness. I was used to cities and towns with histories (and some buildings) dating back hundreds if not a thousand years. America the Beautiful! I was in love.
We stopped at some place called McDonalds. I was blown away by the plastic straw!
That summer we went to Disneyland and spent a lot of time in ‘malls’ where they seemed to play upbeat, brassy music non stop. Wo! What world had I landed in? Our cousins were plentiful and tan. They had names like Cal. And Bonnie. Melody. Harmony. Nothing at all like the Biblical names me and my siblings were stuck with. We were welcomed into their sprawling shag carpeted homes in places called Pasadena and Alhambra, which with their split levels, pools and humungous garages seemed like millionaire-stuff. They did a good job of hiding their discomfort with us poorly dressed missionary hicks from…India. Of all places!
It was an entirely 5 star experience for me. Those few weeks are forever emblazoned in my memory and represent my idea of the ‘good old America’. This mixtape is the sort of music I imagine my cousins and uncles and aunts would listen to if they held a cocktail party by their swimming pool. A slightly naff but pretty groovy soundtrack of exotica, jazz-lite, Euro-trash and soul. God bless Fantasyland!
C90 Lounge 
Thanks!
I will definitely read the Atlantic article and probably the book as well, since I am very much interested in (indeed, preoccupied with) the central question which Anderson is addressing.
The “fantasyland” concept reminds me of what the social theorist Jean Baudrillard wrote decades ago about simulation, simulacra, and hyperreality: “Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the ‘real’ country, all of ‘real’ America that is Disneyland.” I’m guessing, however, that Anderson would trace the whole problem to something old, i.e., something that’s intrinsic in, let’s say, the American national character, whereas Baudrillard attributes it to something new, i.e., something that’s emerged at the intersection of postmodernity, (digital) technology, and (ultra) capitalism.
The title for this mix (together with the topic of your write-up) struck me as quite entertaining. I mean, I don’t live in a split level, and I don’t have a pool or a humungous garage, but I’m still fair chuffed to see you writing about all that — to use an expression that I WOULD use all the more often if I still lived near London and not in . . . Pasadena!
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Anderson traces the fantasy of America back a fair way but he’s pretty close to the paper you reference. Though he’d probably give more emphasis to Americans being just dumb and somehow wired to seek out wackiness.
No doubt to many of your relatives, you have landed in paradise even if you don’t have those great American necessities. I noticed you didn’t mention shaggy carpet so may we assume you DO have that?
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Um, no shaggy carpet either — that’s for the elites!
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