Though there’s a big difference between memory and sentimentality, the two often end up blurred. While sentiment fixes itself on particulars—the place we’ll never see again, the song we could care less about today, the relationship gone by—memory is about echoes. These three pieces, all from the not-so-distant past, are a test.
Ralph Wiley’s Dune-inspired portrait of Tracy McGrady catches the doomed swingman at the height of his powers. It was April 2003, and Orlando was on the verge of knocking the Pistons out of the playoffs. They didn’t, despite T-Mac’s predictions, and the jokes began. In retrospect, Wiley’s piece seems borne out of a particular kind of Afro-futurist hysteria.
