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2fs - 2007-12-03 18:20:36
I'm sorta surprised to hear that about your CD purchasing. For me, at least, a CD is the whole package: the artwork, the info, etc. Being able to see some of that online is usually a poor substitute (particularly re the artwork). I often feel as if I don't really own a CD unless I have the manufactured version (opposed to a download or home-burned CD, which I do often with, say, e-Music stuff because my car needs a disc to play music). I'll download stuff as a sort of audition: if I really like it, I'll buy a CD. However, the last time I went CD buying, I found myself several times thinking, do I really want to buy this CD...or should I just download it, checking the label and seeing if it's on e-Music, etc. I hate to be all nostalgic...but I do think it's sad in a way, that a song now is just a song, and it lacks the whole sensory apparatus that used to come with acquiring it: the look of the label, the packaging, the layout...even sometimes the smell (sometimes particular paper used in the packaging has particular odors...I still recall that a Procol Harum best-of I bought in the mid-seventies had the oddest smell...probably some glue or other). A lonely mp3 seems pretty thin gruel...there's nothing else to go with it but itself. In the case of a really, really good song, I guess that's all that matters...but I find myself thinking I wouldn't want my music collection to be limited only to really, really good songs. Just plain good, okay, mediocre, even partially awful songs have their place, to form some sort of context or maybe just do certain things that are impossible in the context of a really, really good song. (That's another argument for the "album" by which I mean a collection of songs, not an LP, which is a particular format: I'm not a vinyl fetishist.)
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grigorss - 2007-12-03 18:38:34
RE: 2fs -- I'm not a vinyl fetishist
Neither am I... -- leather or latex will do just fine, thank you very much.
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Paula - 2007-12-03 19:36:25
even sometimes the smell
Oh, brutha, you know it's all about the smell with me. It's why I still go to movies when I could easily wait 6 months for the DVD--the scent of golden buttery liquid and cleaning solution and "movie theater" smell.
Anyway, I totally understand what you're saying, but my nostalgia ended when cassettes replaced vinyl. I have no special feelings for CDs, CD booklets (often a waste of paper IMO), etc.
When I worked for a record label back in the mid-90s I swore off ever paying $17 for a CD again, knowing what throwaway products CDs really are, and that attitude has lingered. After that I bought the occasional full-price CD and mostly stuck with bargain bins.
But I was just waiting for the digital revolution to happen!
And for all my yammering about buying the new RH box set, when it comes right down to it, I'll probably balk.
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Sharon - 2007-12-03 22:11:54
Eagerly awaiting your Best Albums of 2007.
About Chavez, Man, he gives socialism a bad name. (I think of myself as a Democratic Socialist a la the Netherlands) "OOgo" is a complete clown out of "Bananas" central casting. He's just another crony capitalist, but one who uses the down-with-the-people-and-Karlo-Marx brand. One of my students from Venezuela told me he changed the flag. It now has 7 stars instead of six (6 states). My Italian student quipped, "ee musta be the extra star!" Chavez also changed the direction of the horse on the flag from going right to going left. subtle! It's nice that he is giving poor people in the US cheap heating oil -- but there are plenty of poor folks in Venezuela that need the basics of life.
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Sharon - 2007-12-03 22:11:54
Eagerly awaiting your Best Albums of 2007.
About Chavez, Man, he gives socialism a bad name. (I think of myself as a Democratic Socialist a la the Netherlands) "OOgo" is a complete clown out of "Bananas" central casting. He's just another crony capitalist, but one who uses the down-with-the-people-and-Karlo-Marx brand. One of my students from Venezuela told me he changed the flag. It now has 7 stars instead of six (6 states). My Italian student quipped, "ee musta be the extra star!" Chavez also changed the direction of the horse on the flag from going right to going left. subtle! It's nice that he is giving poor people in the US cheap heating oil -- but there are plenty of poor folks in Venezuela that need the basics of life.
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Sharon - 2007-12-03 22:21:17
Oops. I don't know why my comments always double!
Being a much more casual consumer and knower of music than anyone on this blog, what I miss is not so much the vinyl but the album covers. You could really get lost in some of them, like a trance-inducing cereal box.
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anne - 2007-12-03 22:39:57
my son, who is 4 and 1/2, is a pretty good reader now and the other day he spent about a half hour trying to read the liner notes/lyrics on the insert from one of his kids' CD's. It really drove home the genetics concept for me, as I don't think he's ever seen my husband or me doing that and yet it once was one of my favorite ways of passing time.
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Paula - 2007-12-03 22:40:44
What do you teach, Sharon?
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Paula - 2007-12-04 09:24:26
Anne: (Cute story, b.t.w.) That's one of the things that frustrates me about CDs--so often artists choose to include a fairly voluminous booklet, and it will contain artwork (yawn) and maybe some guru-thanking, but no lyrics or actual notes (unless it's a retrospective). Waste! Or the lyrics will be laid out in some impossible to read format (I'm lookin' at you Rufus W.)
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2fs - 2007-12-04 11:39:02
"cassettes replaced vinyl"? I think that's an age difference: I know what you're talking about (The Age of the Walkman), but for me, they never did. I always bought LPs until I bought a CD player (in late 1986) and pretty much stopped buying LPs thereafter. Prerecorded cassettes were the second-suckiest commercial medium ever (the only thing worse was 8-track tapes), and I don't believe I ever bought one for full price if I had a choice. (The only prerecorded tapes I've owned were either plucked from the 25-cent bin, freebies, or local acts who released their stuff on no other format.) When I had a walkman, I listened to tapes I'd made myself, from LPs. It's funny you'd say that a lot of stuff in CD booklets is a waste of paper...since LPs wasted a lot more! (Oh - and at least one or two of the commercial cassettes I owned had a booklet so thick you could barely shut the case. Was it worthwhile? Nope...)
The Walkmen, on the other hand, rock.
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Sharon - 2007-12-04 12:53:14
Paula, I teach English as a Second Language. I can't explain it, but it deeply nourishes my soul. That's why when I compliment your teaching, it is meant profoundly. I am very JUDGEMENTAL (not very Buddhist, I know!) about teachers. I heard your dad was quite a unique character as an English teacher. Both my parents were teachers, too. My mom taught history for 40 years and my dad got fired after one year for being a beatnik.
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Paula - 2007-12-04 14:15:47
Cassettes: crappy, absolutely, and I don't miss them a bit, but the Walkman was such a welcome miracle at the time.
As for album liner notes, I meant that CD booklets don't seem to take advantage of the alotted space to give you useful information. 12 panels of abstract art is annoying, not illuminating.
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Paula - 2007-12-04 14:22:58
Sharon: Wow, it is my fondest dream to be fired from a job for being a beatnik!!
Ah, ESL--my mom was (and one of my aunts still is) an ESL teacher.
And yeah, my dad was a great teacher and is still quite the character...
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Mr Lojban - 2007-12-04 16:04:54
Have fun with the NYPL! If it's of any use to you, I experienced a high level of customer satisfaction with the Brooklyn Public Library. One, maybe two books I couldn't find in their system (nor in the NYPL system). Pretty nice website. Once I pay them off, I'll be a regular there again.
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Paula - 2007-12-04 16:33:36
Oh, yeah, the BPL (or as I call it, "The Beep") and I are like THIS. But belonging again to the The Neep only increases the joyful possibilities.
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Paula - 2007-12-04 16:48:52
P.S., Mr L: what is your overdue fine for, if I may axe?
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Mr Lojban - 2007-12-05 14:40:59
Ah, ok.
My overdue fine is, absurdly, complicated. And I can't believe I just typed that.
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