When I was younger I had a great confusion when it came to vertigo and nostalgia. They always got mixed up in my head for no real reason (kind of like Mel Brooks, Mel Gibson, and… Gene Wilder).
I believe it was at a museum in Chicago (which one, I don’t know) where the separation of the two concepts finally became concrete. That was a great trip to Chicago- I remember lots of tulips, adorable kittens in a pet store, refried beans, and reading the Phantom Stallion series voraciously (I real Desert Dancer on the plane, I think.)
Discovering vertigo was an important step in my adolescent development, because now I can use words like vertiginous without sounding like an idiot and I can understand that Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak are dealing with heights and not memories of trips to their grandmas’ houses in Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
Continue reading “Le Vertige”