A Lesson in Accumulation

Remem­ber when you used to eval­u­ate prospec­tive friends by the books they read, the movies they watched and the music they lis­tened to? Feels like a long time ago, right?

Less than 10 years ago I would still scur­ry to book­stores and record shops, or spend beyond my means on DVD sales online. Then that sud­den­ly stopped.

Now, as I try to make sense of my home with­out being over­run by my tod­dler’s toys, I find myself wish­ing I’d made bet­ter use of the library. Where’d all this stuff come from? When did I ever think I’d read all the books I bought on whims, or watch all the DVDs I hoard­ed. Let’s not even talk about the music that accret­ed in my apart­ments over the years.

Since things start­ed going dig­i­tal in one form or oth­er I’ve been reluc­tant to go all in. For those of us who’ve had phys­i­cal media all our lives, a hard copy is a reas­sur­ing thing. Now I wish I’d tak­en the plunge sooner.

This is all to say I’m purg­ing vast swaths of my cul­tur­al col­lec­tions. If you’re some­one who still likes these things, be in touch. You get dibs.

Spring Cleaning in Full Bloom

Need to post pics, but, wow, did we ever over­haul our down­stairs this week­end. New kitchen you knew about, but new din­ing room table, new side table/shelf and new sofa cov­er makes the place feel like we just moved in. A few more projects in the off­ing will real­ly trans­form the way we live in our house. Can’t wait!

The Ongoing Saga of My Stereo

It was just over two years ago that I unearthed my turntable from stor­age and restored it to its right­ful place in the liv­ing room. That streak end­ed yes­ter­day as it went back into the base­ment after recon­sid­er­ing some fur­ni­ture. Fret not, it’ll be back, but in this incar­na­tion I’ll final­ly break down and incor­po­rate it into the home enter­tain­ment unit, tying in the TV, Xbox 360, turntable and Mac­book some­time next month.

Have to say that it was the right deci­sion. We moved our 8‑square Expe­d­it book­case into the base­ment (side­walk sale eli­gi­ble!) in the mean­time and I have to say that the space real­ly works with­out the room divider we felt we need­ed so des­per­ate­ly two years ago. I can only thank our new kitchen for inspir­ing us to real­ly rethink our down­stairs and our amaz­ing handy­man for mak­ing change pos­si­ble. I think our stur­dy, antique coat tree is des­tined to become a robe rack in the mas­ter bed­room. Change everything!

Now if I could just find the spare $600 to buy a 42″ HDTV and hang it on the wall I’d be all set! Of course, if you’re a total A/V nerd and feel inclined to offer sug­ges­tions on how to make this new set­up sound even half decent through a pair of Axiom Audio speak­ers, let me know in the comments!

The New Desert Island Disc Dilemma

I’ve been par­ing down my CD col­lec­tion in recent weeks and it’s giv­en me occa­sion to reflect on my behav­ior in rough­ly a decade or so of heavy music consumption.

What have I learned? Who was that guy? I remem­ber spend­ing many a night at Mon­do Kim’s or AKA or pret­ty much any record store, fiend­ing in the used bin for any­thing note­wor­thy. Now I’m reap­ing the whirlwind.

There are discs that I’ve owned for ages that remain unopened, yet they still have sen­ti­men­tal val­ue sim­ply because I can remem­ber buy­ing them and then car­ry­ing them from dorm to apart­ment to dorm to apart­ment to house. Yet I can’t part with them.

I’ve come to the decid­ed­ly rock­ist con­clu­sion that the endgame of this purge is to select those artists whose work has ongo­ing mean­ing in my life and hold them fast and shake the rest out. Anoth­er way of say­ing this is that I’m apply­ing the auteur the­o­ry in the most vul­gar man­ner pos­si­ble to reduce the num­ber of total CDs in my col­lec­tion, those that I won’t just rip and for­get for all eternity.

For those of us cling­ing to phys­i­cal media in a dig­i­tal media world, it’s a game of “desert island discs” renewed, with a twist. What CDs would you keep to avoid your favorite tunes van­ish­ing into the ether after your hard­drive crashed?