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[womzilla]

She said: What is history?

And he said:
History is an angel being blown backwards into the future

He said:
History is a pile of debris
And the angel wants to go back and fix things
To repair the things that have been broken
But there is a storm blowing from Paradise
And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards
into the future
And this storm, this storm is called Progress

--From "The Dream Before (for Walter Benjamin)", Laurie Anderson, 1989

The past is where things which are now broken were then whole.

Addendum (lit: Thing which must be added): I was going to give my mood as "the pain of remembering", but found the etymology too estranging not to quote in full:

New Latin, from Greek nostos return home + New Latin -algia; akin to Greek neisthai to return, Old English genesan to survive, Sanskrit nasate he approaches

Comments

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Presumably related to the Greek name Nestor (http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=nestor):

Means "homecoming" in Greek. In Homer's 'Iliad' this was the name of the king of Pylos, famous for his great wisdom and longevity.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

There's also a LeGuin piece about a culture where people think of themselves as backing into the future, and I've read that Chinese implies that the future comes down from above instead of (as in English) being in front.

The Past Isn't Even Past, If I Remember Faulkner

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder whether Laurie Anderson read Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, as Larry McMurtry did.

There's something to be said for Stephen Dedalus's definition of history for Mr. Deasy as being "a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" in *Ulysses.*

Burrow on, said the Sparrow, who is not always an excellent bird.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's always been one of my very favorite Laurie Anderson pieces.