The Spirits of '79: The Last (New) Wave

 

It's been a while since I waded through the weird and witchy waters of 1979. With the 45th Anniversary of that very arcane and apocalyptic year coming into the homestretch, I thought it's high time to do so now. Especially since it's feeling very 1979 out there again...

79 Varieties of Apocalypse

 

We looked quite a bit at 1983 last year, and this year I want to return in force to 1979, which was a mind-numbing 45 years ago now. 

The Spirits of '79: Madness at the Movies

The ephemeral-yet-palpable strangeness of 1979 was well-documented in that year's cinematic offerings. Which is a bit curious, given that most of them would have been made in 1978. But 1978 was a pretty weird year too, just in a slightly different way. 

The Spirits of '79: Apocalypse Then and Now

I can't exactly say why, but the way 2022 is shaping up reminds me a lot of 1979. It's more a feeling than anything else, but it's almost like you can sense the gaskets on the ship of state starting to blow in the same way you got back then. 1979 was a much darker and more violent year than anything a lot of people born afterwards might remember, but there are a lot of themes that seem to be repeating.