The Core Memories Five
Week Seven • Spring/Summer • Year One
Each Friday, I publish The Friday Five, a weekly ledger drawn from the shop floor, the windshield, and the workbench.
Notes on nostalgia, fandom, endings, and the strange ways we become ourselves through culture.
Proverb
“Some people judge and they just guess the rest. / They can’t understand: that don’t mean that you’re blessed. / They ought to catch the express, next stop nowhere / That way you can forget.”
— From “Jump Up” (Honky Tonk Demo) by Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello closed out Stephen Colbert’s final episode of The Late Show performing “Jump Up,” a song that had previously existed mostly as demo lore and physical-media treasure hunting. Colbert had also referenced the song earlier this week in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, making its appearance during the finale feel all the more intentional and poignant. Watching Costello, Jean Batiste, Louis Cato and Colbert together felt oddly moving. It is a worthwhile reminder that artists rarely disappear. They simply evolve into the next room.
Tool
A rope hammock.
Preferably one stretched between two trees with enough give to remind you you’re not entirely in control of anything. I’ve been researching Pawleys Island hammocks this week and thinking about how certain objects become delivery systems for memory. Summer books. Bare feet. Sprinklers clicking in the distance. Someone grilling nearby. Half a nap. Half an existential crisis.
The best tools are sometimes simply places to stop moving.
Text
Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch remains one of the great books about fandom because it understands that sports allegiance rarely begins rationally. It begins emotionally. A voice. A stadium. A color. A moment. A book like Fever Pitch doesn’t convince you to support Arsenal. It helps you understand why you already needed something to belong to.
Bonus: it’s a great beach read to prime for our continental hosting of this summer’s World Cup.
Signal
The Kylie Minogue docuseries on Netflix stirred up in me a little pang of a nostalgia I hadn’t felt in some time.
I saw Kylie lip syncing “The Locomotion” from a parade float rolling down Main Street USA at Disneyland in the summer of 1989 and have been a fan ever since. I distinctly remember Casey Kasem explaining to my 7-year-old brain that Kylie’s version of “The Locomotion” was the third recording of the song to crack the Billboard Top Five across three separate decades, which somehow turned me into a lifelong follower of music charts, pop history and the strange mathematics of cultural longevity.
Through Kylie, I discovered INXS, Nick Cave, camp, reinvention and the idea that pop music could simultaneously be joyful, intelligent and emotionally resilient.
What struck me most watching the series was how she has spent her career seeking and finding more and deeper versions of herself.
Also this week: Stephen Colbert’s run on The Late Show. I’ve followed Colbert since The Dana Carvey Show, VHS taping episodes alongside my brother as though they were sacred texts to be passed down from comedy nerd to comedy nerd. He has accomplished so much over the years: legitimizing intelligence, absurdity, sincerity and satire simultaneously, not an easy balancing act. I’m genuinely excited to see what he does next.
On the Workbench
T-shirts: how I buy them, where I find them, why it’s both easier than ever to buy a T-shirt and somehow harder than ever to buy one that fits the way I want it to.
Weather Advisory
Memorial Day weekend in the Midwest looks appropriately conflicted: scattered storms, moments of sun, temperatures hovering in the low 70s before climbing warmer next week.
Honestly feels fitting.
As temperatures rise, so too do gas prices, now north of $5.15 at my local filling station. The unofficial beginning of summer increasingly feels like an annual exercise in wondering what exactly we’re all willing to pay to keep moving.
Makes me wonder what this summer will ultimately be remembered for.
This week has largely been about revisiting the strange emotional weather systems created by music, books, television and the people who unknowingly shape our inner lives from afar. Nostalgia isn’t merely remembering the past. It’s recognizing which parts of the past are still actively building you.
Originally published in The All Plaidout Almanac on Substack, May 22, 2026.