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I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. If memory serves me correct, as a kid, after morning cartoons in Philadelphia, I watched old movies that aired on VHF channels.

One of my favorites was the 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells, the Time Machine. From that moment on, I've held an interest in parallel

worlds and the space-time continuum.

Which has brought me to ponder the question, given the chance, what

period would I travel back to? My most consistent answer is New York City, late 70s, early 80s.

I picture myself a denizen of the East Village art scene or hanging out as CBGBS.

I am prone to romanticizing any number of time periods

that gathered poets and novelists together as a scene.

The Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, the North Beach San Francisco

beat scene of the 1950s, Umbra Poets in the 1960s.

Writing that last sentence, I realize I almost never say any time

before 1865. Although bearing witness to the Italian Renaissance would have been cool,

there are some eras I would visit as a participant and some as an observer.

In some instances,

artists use their art to not travel backward,

but to go forward in time.

You can put Prince's album 1999 in this category and others call out to the

future conscious of their place and what is at the time the present.

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