The hysteria of optimism pervaded.
I can remember it. I don’t want to
go back there, but don’t we all? It
seems so backwards-headed, this
retro I find myself looking forward
to. It is the direction I catch myself
looking. I think it was the afternoon
I spent in Tallinn, doing some sort of
run-of-the-mill tour of an old part of
the city. Big white wooden walls, a
bell tower, something like that. I’m
snapping away with my phone and I
see a rare line of graffiti scribbled
in waves, vertiginous swerves, at the
bottom of one of those walls, or near
where it met a leg-size height of con
crete. “Retro-futurism.” That’s all it
said. In Tallinn, Estonia. The guy
standing next to it like some old-timey
Vanna White, an arm half-outstretched
at it, as if for emphasis or something.
