“Liner Notes from 1996” is a series of vignettes about teenagers Carrie, Lin, Alan and Lars at Cuyahoga Heights High in the Cleveland suburbs of the mid-1990s.
It is currently hosted on Substack but eventually the stories will be published here as well.
This was intended as a retro-nostalgic fiction project that relives the year 1996, day by day, as seen through the eyes of a bunch of disparate high schoolers. I’ve since boiled it down to clusters of days which will be published as “albums”, taking special weeks and months out of the calendar of that pivotal year.
I have long been wanting to take out a single year of that chronology and just dive in and have fun with small moody vignettes, music nostalgia and nerding around with the tech etc. from back in the day. And so, after a few stumbles, it is here … now.
The setting
The industrial suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio (Cuyahoga Heights and Valley View) during early January 1996. A blizzard is approaching. The world runs on dial-up modems, cassette tapes, and landlines—a time of analog friction. Secrets, intrigues and drama are timeless.
The Characters
Carrie Sawyer (née McDonnell)
An artistic Scottish transplant living in a cramped apartment, trying to stay invisible at school.
Lars Anestad
A brooding, working-class musician searching for a sound that matches his frustration.
Adeline “Lin” Alexandra Kouris
A wealthy, brilliant, traumatized goth girl dealing with the recent scandalous death of her father.
Alan Stockdale
A nerdy ambitious gamer who views life through systems and logic.
What went before …
In the fall of 1995 Carrie moves to the US from the UK with her American mother after divorce from her father. She soon finds herself at the bottom of the pecking order in junior high and has a serious clash with the bullies harassing her at Lin Kouri’s infamous “party from hell” in December. An unlikely alliance springs up between Carrie and Lin after Lin defends Carrie and reveals the tragic death of her father.
Meanwhile Alan Stockdale is struggling to build his “World” which, in his mind will rival anything put out in the (analog) gaming industry. His best friend, wannabe rock musician Lars Anestad, willingly joins Alan’s roleplaying campaigns but also enjoys access to the well-endowed home studio of Alan’s father who is in the recording industry.
And so, without further ado, this is what happened the first week – 30 years ago.
Just to wet your appetite …
Daily Log: January 1–6, 1996
Monday, January 1
POV: Alan Stockdale
Music: Chemical Brothers – “Leave Home”
Alan battles COM ports and his mother’s phone line to set up an independent internet connection. He steals a moment of autonomy—and his mother’s credit card number—to register the screen name ALS_Prime. The green “Connected” light proves he’s built a bridge out of his room, even if he hasn’t seen a website yet.
1996 Artifacts: Windows 95 boot screen, US Robotics modem, AOL floppy disk, graph paper passwords
Tuesday, January 2
POV: Carrie Sawyer McDonnell
Music: Cranberries – “Ode to My Family”
Carrie performs a grim ritual of packing her school bag after winter break expecting the worst from the school’s bullies that harassed her all through the fall. She tallies her limited resources—bad pens, a cheap calculator, freezer bread—viewing them as “sediment from earlier versions” of herself. It’s not just organization; it’s a survival assessment.
1996 Artifacts: Trapper Keeper, marbled composition notebook, The Weather Channel, BIC pens
Wednesday, January 3
POV: Lars Anestad
Music: The Smashing Pumpkins – “Thirty Three”
Lars sits in his freezing basement, frustrated by his inability to write honest lyrics about the disastrous party at Adeline “Lin” Kouris’ residence last month. He tries to channel the “static” of Carrie’s fear and Lin’s cold house into a guitar chord. His younger sister interrupts to borrow batteries, grounding him back in his role as a brother in a working-class home.
1996 Artifacts: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness double CD, yellow Sony Sports Walkman, boombox
Thursday, January 4
POV: Lin Kouris
Music: Happy Rhodes – “War Paint”
Lin reclaims her body from the “Greek tragedy” of her father’s funeral (and mourning tour in his home country) by dying her hair “Vampire Red.” It’s a calculated strike against pity. When she returns to school, she refuses to shrink from stares or dress-code judgment, using her appearance to force the world to look at her with concern rather than sympathy.
1996 Artifacts: Sassy Magazine (Jane Pratt era), Clinique ads, 8-hole Cherry Red Doc Martens ($90), Manic Panic hair dye
Friday, January 5
POV: Alan Stockdale
Music: Björk – “Army of Me”
Alan prints maps for a D&D session, treating the game as a testing ground for human behavior. He analyzes Lin and Carrie not as people but as potential “components”—processing power and an adapter cable—for his complex custom campaign, “The World.” He desires Lin’s intellect but struggles to interpret her emotional attachment to Carrie and is hesitant about how to deal with Lin after her father’s death.
1996 Artifacts: Panasonic dot-matrix printer (continuous-feed paper), Usenet boards (rec.games.frp.dnd), ASCII diagrams, Jeopardy! theme on TV
Saturday, January 6
POV: Carrie Sawyer McDonnell
Music: Garbage – “Milk”
In gray pre-blizzard slush, Carrie mails a letter to her Mormon grandmother in France—a tether to a warmer past (despite the friction between her Gran and her own mother due to religion). She bumps into Lars, who’s trekking five miles with his bike to Alan’s gaming session. The awkward encounter highlights Carrie’s envy: Lars has an “igloo” of friends to go to, while she feels trapped in the “blast radius” of Lin’s tragedy, which she is perhaps the only person in high school who knows the true extent of due to Lin’s confession on the night of the “party from hell”.
1996 Artifacts: Blue metal mailbox, physical airmail letters, Weather Channel “Storm of the Century” hype
Chris’ comments:
My favorite song from the period among the ones that inspired this week is probably the one from the Cranberries. I remember buying that CD back in the day and was blown away.
Sadly, their leadsinger died some years ago and to be honest I don’t know if they still go on or if that was that. But for now enjoy this magnificent song:
In the charts
Showing chart-toppers for January 7, 1996
- USAOne Sweet Day— Mariah Carey Billboard Hot 100 #1
- UKEarth Song— Michael Jackson Official Singles Chart (UK) #1
- ITGangsta’s paradise— Coolio feat. L.V. Hit Parade Italia #1
- R&BExhale (Shoop Shoop) (From “Waiting To Exhale”)— Whitney Houston Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop #1
- LatinMas Alla— Gloria Estefan Billboard Latin Songs #1
- ESJesus to a child— George Michael Los 40 Principales (Spain) #1
Verified data pulled directly from official historical charts by Takemeto.com.
Chris’ comments:
My favorite here would be Gangsta’s Paradise, which also features prominently in the pivotal story that introduces Carrie and Lin.
Do any of you remember the movie, Dangerous Minds, that this was from? I thought it was kinda cool back when I first watched it in cinemas, probably because of Michelle Pfeiffer, but I couldn’t get through it when I tried to rewatch it last fall.
Also this week …
US Peace keepers pour into Bosnia (BBC)
Chris’ comments:
I remember the Yugoslav Wars quite clearly as I was in my 20s back then ( a bit older than our intrepid cast). We also got a lot of Bosnian refugees in Denmark where I live and saw horrible pictures on TV. Incidentally, it was in Ohio (Dayton) that the peace plan was forged the month before (December 1995). I also had a fellow Serbian study mate in 1999 who was very worried about her family when NATO bombed Serbia. So it all got a bit close, one way or another.
I didn’t find any other news from this week in 1996 – with regard to the international situation, pop culture, people etc. etc. that I thought was worth highlighting today, but if you have suggestions, please let me know in the comments!
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