I don’t have much to add to the current state of America. 2023 has ushered in — depending on where you stand, swing, or lie down in despair — the best of times and the worst of times to quote an author not of an American breed. And yet it seems to be the perpetual story of our nation: the best of times made of the worst of times; a prevailing notion that great divides are also the points where two sides meet. North and South, East and West, working and an elite class, urban and rural. It’s living in a country that has turned hostile to its identity while millions claim it as their own and a thousand notions of the idyllic life all contained but unrestrained under the umbrella of what we know as home. It is both a journey from it and a pilgrimage to find it.
Americana spans this journey. Its lore and ethos represent the home for the homeless and a foundational bedrock of cultural and generational continuity. It is where the Prodigal Son can return, even as the 20th century — now into the 21st — is marred by upheavals and tectonic shifts in attitudes and social mores. No matter how much we curse our traditions, condemn our parents, and renounce our history, somehow, we find our way back. Americana is the guardian at the gate of mystic idealism — that glinting reflection of fragments of deep spiritual revival, homespun authenticity, and earnest belief in prevailing Truth.
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