It is lately the generally accepted wisdom of the masses that one should not covet material items too much and you should spend your excess money on having experiences. At least, this seems to be the generally accepted wisdom of my Facebook feed. And I think I do fairly well with that; while there are certainly items I not only want but crave, I also spend a lot of my life having pretty great experiences.
All that being said, there remain some persistent bigger-ticket items that just call my name like a siren at sea, and I won’t deny it! Perhaps it is an illness of our consumerist society, but dammit, there’s some stuff I want! I thought it might be fun to put them here in a blog. Please note this is just a fun exercise for me and not a veiled Christmas list. As an adult I have never taken any joy in making out a list of things for people to buy me. Some of these things have been bouncing around in my head as items I want for YEARS; I thought it might be therapeutic to get them out in the open.
In no particular order:
–OK, maybe in a SLIGHT order, just because this is definitely number one: Neil Young’s Mirrorball on vinyl. It’s not my favorite album but it contains my favorite song. Used would be fine but what I salivate over is the idea of a new, factory-sealed copy. New copies on eBay generally go for about $100.
–I’m dying for a high-quality Philadelphia Flyers zip hoodie that goes light on the orange (but still has orange) and is heavy enough to wear for all but the coldest winter months. Turns out all those criterion result in an expensive item. Basically, I’m talking about this. This would give me hoodies for all four Philly sports teams, but I don’t want to rush it and get a cheap version. Hence, I’ve been sitting on this desire for almost two years. I mean, who has $70 bucks for a hoodie?
–OK, I admit I have some fairly expensive interests. I’ve been dying to get my hands on some first printings of collections of Philip Larkin poetry. Now, this is a pretty specific area to deal in. I am in no way talking about books actually called Collected Poems. I am talking about the individual collections of poems AS THEY WERE PUBLISHED. I would only be interested in them if they were FIRST PRINTINGS, which would mean they are hardcovers, usually being shipped from the UK somewhere, published in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. These titles would be: The Less Deceived (1955, generally sell on eBay for $60-$150), The Whitsun Weddings (1964, goes for about $150), High Windows (1974, $90-$180. This is the most desirable one). There are some lesser collections: The North Ship being the most notable. I do have a second printing copy of The North Ship, for which I paid $55 in a moment of weakness some years ago.
–I really want a pair of high quality Bose earbuds. Please note earbuds, not headphones. I like the crazy colors, too. Specifically these. I will never have the cojones to shell out the money for these.
–You might not guess it to look at me, but I love shoes. It’s just that the shoes I love, which are very specific stylistically, can usually be bought very cheaply at many local retailers. But it turns out, there are expensive versions of the shoes I like (apparently they are Chukkas), and I will never, ever be paying for them. But look at them. Look how pretty they are.
–I don’t often feel a need to add many DVDs to my collection nowadays, although I will still add one here and there as I see more movies I fall in love with or as classics become available. However, there is only one movie that I feel is causing a gap in my collection by its absence. That movie is They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and it has been out of print on DVD for so long that new copies are very scarce. Here look at this: a new copy of the DVD (not Blu Ray) on Amazon costs $100. You can see at that same Amazon page that used copies start at $20, but those are listed in acceptable condition. I certainly do not mind used copies of DVDs but I balk at acceptable. Some second-party sellers are offering New copies for $50. Worth it but of course I can’t spend that on a single-disc, non-special edition DVD, no matter how badly I might want it.
–I love using the Roku to stream entertainment to my television. In fact, we already own two of them. However, in our new home, our wifi is terrible and it is a problem we don’t seem able to solve (we have been relegated to streaming Netflix via our Blu-Ray player, which is Ethernet cabled). The thing is, I love Rokus, and the ROKU 3 has an Ethernet port. Would this be an item of great excess? Yes. But I neeeeeeeeed it.
–My art book collection would basically be complete (for now) with the addition of a HIGH QUALITY, comprehensive, hardback book on Henri Rousseau. I’m having trouble finding one to link to online, but the kind I’m thinking of is generally not cheaper than $60. Failing that, I would settle for a framed print of The Dream (no smaller than 32×24) or The Snake Charmer(preferably 40×30).
See, I don’t ask for much! I also like experiences!
My love and I just took quick day trip to Washington, D.C. to visit the National Museum of American history. She, like me, is interested in most anything, although I must admit I funneled our decision toward that particular museum because I find our nation’s history particularly interesting.
There were people everywhere. In this day and age of technology and immediacy, I must say I was surprised by the size of the crowd; and they were people who did seem to genuinely want to be there and were quite interested in the whole affair.
We started out on the third floor in the exhibit highlighting our nation’s many and varied armed conflicts. We were tickled by some of the astonishing items on display from the Revolution and Civil Wars (Washington’s uniform! The furniture from the surrender at Appomatox! Lots and lots of rifles!). We took our time perusing the extensive collection. There were even plenty of items from such footnotes as the War of 1812, the French and Indian War, and our conflict with Mexico (including Teddy Roosevelt’s San Juan Hill uniform). Then a World War I display–tanks, bombs, more guns, and more of the same in World War II, including some amazing photographs of “nukes”. By the time we got to the Chinook helicopter that flew missions in Vietnam, we looked at each other, seemingly reading the other’s thoughts. “Do you want to move on?” I asked. She replied, “I’m just tired of war.”
It’s an interesting time in our country, for sure. Things seem to be getting a lot more “liberal”, which is good. I recently told a friend I could sum up my political and social philosophy just by saying “I want to make sure everyone is alright”; apparently, this is a liberal ideology, and so be it. I’m not afraid to put a label on it. It is what it is. Whatever that is.
At times when our nation goes through divisive growing pains like this, there is always a very vocal group that just wants everyone to get along. “Why can’t we all just believe what we want and leave each other be???” they bemoan. And it’s a lovely notion, even though it’s complete horseshit. I don’t want anyone thrown in jail for thinking gays can’t get married or for pushing for the continuance of institutional racism, but I don’t want to just let them be. What kind of complacent, docile, horrific world do these people want? They’d rather the boat didn’t rock than actually stand for something. Rock the fucking boat, you motherfuckers, rock the fucking boat. I’d rather live in filth than in a land of complacent hatred.
And why is it that the people who most frequently tell you to read your history books are the ones who clearly have never read anything at all? Doo-Doo, Dee-Dee.
We live next door to an artist. She doesn’t know we know she’s an artist, but we know. A little sleuthing and a little circumstance led us to the knowledge. She has a garage full of huge canvasses that look surprisingly like Mark Rothkos (I thought they were Rothko paintings at first). Immense color fields, oranges, deep blues, with smaller squares of blacks and browns in the middles. And a large, unfinished sculpture in wrought iron of what looks like a male ballerina, mid-adage. I want to talk to her about it. I want to name-drop Mark Rothko. I want to tell her I love John Sloan and Auguste Rodin. But I’m not going to. But maybe she’ll catch me wearing my Rousseau hat.
You try so hard at things in life that mostly will never matter. Will anyone care, after I am gone, how close I got to my ideal weight? How close of a shave I managed to get, how many points I racked up on my grocery store loyalty card, whether I had all the Arcade Fire albums on vinyl? (I do). Holy moly. It seems so cliché and trite but I just try to be better everyday than I was the previous day. Nicer and more caring and less selfish. And it is so hard and it never gets easier.
But still. I don’t want to gain my weight back, and I do LOVE my Arcade Fire vinyls. Life, it sure is complicated.
Have you ever filled a big cup up about halfway with a carbonated beverage, and when you go to take a drink of it, you can’t really breathe? What’s the scientific process going on here? Is the inside of the cup all filled with carbon dioxide?
Since I buy a lot of music on vinyl that I already own in another format, I keep ending up with a lot of “download cards”–these little guys that come in the vinyl records that also let you download a free version of the album–basically a way to try to convince you to spend money on music in any form at all. Anyway, for awhile I tried to match up these cards with friends I thought might enjoy the specific music the most, but it’s gotten difficult. If you legitimately think you might enjoy discovering new music that is the kind of music I like, let me know, the first person to say so just automatically gets all my download cards from here on out.
It seems about every six months, some bigot from the middle of nowhere says something atrocious, gets fired from his high profile job, and all the other bigots start freaking out about the First Amendment. Now, I know I’m not the first to point this out, so I’ll be brief: the First Amendment protects your speech (and not even all of it!) from the government. Not from companies. And the thing is, the people who want the jobs of these rich hate-mongers saved are the same exact people who are always the first to try to get a waitress fired for next to no reason. Yeah, let’s keep the job of the rich bigot who definitely doesn’t care about you—because the Constitution!—but let’s fire our actual brethren who are down in the trenches with us because your steak was burnt. I can only imagine what you’d want if that waitress said something you didn’t like!
I’m currently obsessed with the Kay Ryan poem, “The Niagara River”. Watch the video below to see me tell you why:
The Niagara River
As though
the river were
a floor, we position
our table and chairs
upon it, eat, and
have conversation.
As it moves along,
we notice–as
calmly as though
dining room paintings
were being replaced–
the changing scenes
along the shore. We
do know, we do
know this is the
Niagara River, but
it is hard to remember
what that means.
It’s kind of difficult to rate your senses, isn’t it? I was just sitting here thinking, gee, smell has to be the best sense! But then I thought, oh there is no way smell can compete with touch! But then I remembered sight. And on and on. Senses rule!
I’m getting tired of cutting my hair. Does this really just have to keep happening? I mean it’s every couple weeks, for, like, life. I mean, I get it, body. You’re good at growing hair on my head and, increasingly, everywhere else. We’re all very impressed. But consider your point proven.
There is, of course, no stronger force in the universe than the passage of time, regardless of what the scientists say. Enough time, stacked up, has more power than the gravity of any star, more gusto than the hugest electromagnet.
I can’t stop buying old postcards at antique shops. That may sound made up, but I’m serious (I’ve blogged about it before here.) The more and more I look for them, the older ones I am capable of finding. I’ve found a few from as far back as 1904, with messages written on them that sound like they could be from yesterday, but they’re from over a hundred years ago. The person who wrote it is dead. Their vacation, however marvelous, has been vacated from the scorecard of life. Their fun in the sun is now just a scribble. The postmarks have remained almost the same all this time, though. That’s kind of amazing when you think about it. One hundred years. That’s a long time for anything to remain unchanged.
I write postcards to people, too. Someday my vacations will be vacated by the steady march of inevitability, as well. So it goes.
I like to buy vinyl records. This is no secret. For most of my time as a vinyl hobbyist, I’ve actually bought new music that is released on vinyl. But recently, I’ve taken a shine to the older stuff. When I pull that big black circle out of a deteriorating cardboard sleeve that smells of must, I imagine what it may have been through: maybe owned by ten different people, maybe just one who treasured it their whole life, maybe sold to three different used record stores, maybe a yard sale or two. But what strikes me the most about these old records (I recently bought a record of Russian composer Dmitri Khachaturian’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra from 1942 for a buck from a Goodwill store) is how they seem to be stranded in time, holding their precious music in their grooves, waiting inert over the years for someone to pick them up, pull them out, and take the important final step of actually setting a needle down on them to unleash their precious cargo. The music is always on there, but it can wait fifty years to be released. It could wait longer if it had to. I don’t understand where the music is when the needle isn’t down, but it’s there somewhere. The record owns it, holds it tight to its chest.
If a historian or biographer were so inclined to write a book on my life and they chose to write about the period when I actually had love interests or “girlfriends”, one would find, I suspect, despite having had many trysts, you could narrow down my “major” love interests throughout my life to just three. An argument could be made for a fourth, but you really don’t care about that. I am now 35 years old, and all three of those major love interests have been over for a long time, and all-but forgotten, by myself and them too, I’m sure. But somehow, the world conspired for two of them to get married last week. The chances of it happening seem astronomical, and I’m sure they are. I didn’t attend either wedding, though I was invited to both, but only because work and distance kept me away. Too much time has passed for there to be any heartbreak involved for me in such ceremony. But the way that such an event made me feel time was the real cruelty. To make me go simultaneously back to both those relationships, and force my mind into tracing the arc of time from then to now…I have a great life, don’t get me wrong, but time is so long, it frightens me. Like looking at the ocean from inside the basket of a very high hot air balloon.
I’m in my cardboard sleeve, holding my music close to my chest.
1. I just don’t understand baths. I mean, you can scrub-a-dub yourself until you’re red all over, but at the end of the day, you’re still sitting in the dirty water. You may smell and look clean afterward, but I suspect that’s an illusion. Now, I sometimes take a bath for relaxation purposes (I have a TV and DVD player in my bathroom, too), but before I get out, I turn on the shower and actually clean myself. Thoughts?
2. It’s been a somewhat annoying year to start paying attention to sports again. Pennsylvania teams made it to the World Series, the Stanley Cup Championship, and the Super Bowl—and lost all three. Granted, I’m sure just about any area of the country would like to have those problems, but it has also been rather annoying.
3. I’m addicted to this. You should be too. HILARIOUS:
4. I was strolling the local Wegmans late at night a few nights ago (Wegmans is an upscale supermarket) when I came across gummy army guys. Maybe I’m late to the party on this, but this is the best form of TOYS that BECOME candy ever!!! I must admit, I ate a pound in 24 hours. (that’s really not as disgusting as it sounds) I can’t quite place the flavor, but I suspect it is apple. Anyone else have experience with this?
5. I very recently came across my first exciting vinyl “find” in quite some time. Perusing the local independent record store, which usually does not have any “indie rock” among it’s paltry selection of new vinyls, I found The National’s new album, High Violet, which I love LOVE LOVE, and I picked it up for less than the used copies are selling for on eBay. And it is a very handsome product. Check it:
Front cover...a work of art unto itself.
Folded open: a picture of two of the band members, NEITHER of whom is the lead singer. I count that as badass.
Open with both sleeves pulled out...even more badass.
Today marks one month exactly since the first night I spent in Erie. It’s been an AWESOME month!!! I thought I’d do a bit of recapping. Here is a sampling of the totally rad things I’ve done in that month:
1. Made three trips out onto Presque Isle, a peninsula that juts into Lake Erie.
2. Went to a zoo.
3. Went to an art museum.
4. Developed a newfound love for Tracy Chapman
5. Watched three “tribute bands”, each playing pretty awesome sets of “grunge band” music
6. Toured the historic brig Niagara, an actual wooden warship from the War of 1812
7. Went to Niagara Falls
8. Hung out at a free amusement park
9. Scaled the lookout tower at Dobbins Point
10. Pointlessly hung around a rib fest
11. Found a record store, a comic book store, and a Sheetz
12. Attended a minor league baseball game
13. Taught myself how to hang all different kinds of window coverings
14. Strung outdoor Christmas lights on my balcony
15. Frankly, I think I could list about 50 things here. I can’t believe it’s only been a month! I am having such an amazing time!!!!
From the end of the liner notes in the Hey Rosetta! album Plan Your Escape:
and thanks to michael pittman and his talent and diligence and even temper, and thanks to you! you and your fantastic decision to purchase this recording. you are obviously an excellent person. seriously, take a moment and rejoice! quietly, if you should feel embarrassed. surely you can allow yourself that. have a beer, have a cup of tea. the sincerest of people are thanking you from the dark, bloody bottom of their hearts.
Last night, my friend Kyle got drunk on rum, watched movies, and fucked around on the internet, blogging his thoughts on what he was seeing/doing. It looked like marvelous self-indulgent fun, so of course I’m doing it now! (except I’ll be drinking generic diet Dr. Pepper and various coffee products instead of rum!)
Tonight is a “Seth-time” night–I shut out the outside world and treat my apartment and everything in it like an amusement park. It’s not very often I get to fully enjoy all this crap I’ve got in here! Most of you will not be the least bit interested by this blog post, so I apologize in advance, but it’s gonna be fun for me, so take a flying leap! Also, I’ll be editing it throughout the night and adding to it, so check back!
7:30pm: I’m halfway through “Citizen Ruth”, the first movie by Alexander Payne (of “Election”, “About Schmidt” and “Sideways” fame). Kyle himself chose this movie for me by randomly picking a number (237) and then I counted to that number in my personal DVD collection. “Citizen Ruth” is a dark comedy about the hilarious issues of abortion, addiction, the religious right, and moral certitude. I know, hilarious, right?! But it IS, somehow, and also very, very issue oriented. I haven’t watched it for probably a year, and am now reminded of why I bought it. As a rule, I very much dislike Laura Dern (what with her association with David Lynch), but in “Citizen Ruth”, Dern does an AMAZING job portraying this very tortured woman (she’s addicted to huffing paint) who’s had 4 kids taken from her and is being pressured to abort her current fetus, when she becomes a national poster woman for anti-abortion…and then the poster woman for choice…and back and forth and back and forth, all the while Dern continues to skirt the line between intense emotion and light-heartedness…as much as I dislike her, she deserved an Oscar nom for this.
Here’s a scene from the movie that perfectly illustrates how it is played both tragic and comic simultaneously:
7:45pm: Cracking open the first Diet Dr. Thunder (wal-mart brand) of the night. I really do love this shit. I don’t buy it for economic reasons. I actually prefer it to the real deal now. I have cans tonight, but I usually have 2 liters. Wal-Mart was actually OUT of the 2 liters last night!
7:47pm: Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern) who is about to enter an abortion clinic but is waiting for some protesters to leave, just said “I wish I could take a dump.”
8:02pm: Just took the trash out. Why do I always insist in doing this in just my socks, when I know full well that the stone parking lot hurts my feet? I’ve always had very sensitive feet.
8:04pm: Just cracked open the newest Time magazine. What is this stuff about New Jersey residents protesting Gaddafi? This seems weird. I’m gonna get to the bottom of this.
8:07pm: The anti-abortion woman who is attempting to win Ruth to their position just accused Ruth of being addicted to “smelling drugs”.
8:12pm: Perusing the latest TV Guide (that’s right, I get TV Guide) to see if I want to put on the TV or another movie after “Citizen Ruth” is over. PBS’s History Detectives is looking pretty good. Anyone ever seen that show? It’s sooooooo intriguing! But that is really the only thing coming on a 9:00 that seems worth my time.
8:14pm: Oh man!!! Burt Reynolds makes his hilarious entry into “Citizen Ruth”! Gotta love this character!
8:35pm: Just read about this curious phenomenon in Time: Putpockets.
8:36pm: Flirting on Facebook.
8:54pm: Eating a can of Hormel chili. Interesting story about me and chili: about 2 years ago, my friend Mary and I were eating at the restaurant Chili’s. I was very, very hungry, and was talking about having an appetizer of some kind, at which point Mary says I might as well have some chili, since I always eat chili. I was astounded! Sure, I’ve eaten chili in my life, but I’ve never been a chili “fan”, or, as far as I can remember, ever eaten chili in front of Mary before that moment. I protested, but she insisted that I always ate chili. Well, wouldn’t you know it, almost immediately after that night, I DID become a big fan of chili, and now I usually have one or two cans in my apartment at all times. This, of course, always looks to Mary as though she were right all along! I can in no way convince her that I was not a chili fan before that night! Also: on my second can of Diet Dr. Thunder.
9:00pm: I’ve opted to watch History Detectives.
9:13pm: That chili was delish!! And this episode of History Detectives is boring! (enough WWII already, History Detectives!). I’m going to step out of the apartment briefly to take some pictures of Carlisle at night.
10:00pm: Back from taking pictures. Didn’t get a lot of good shots, but I should have: it’s “big trash day”, when people can put couches and refrigerators and all kinds of big stuff out on the sidewalk to be taken away. However, my limited-ability camera made capturing anything great very difficult. here are my favorites:
10:16pm: It is apparently impossible to not have these words snake around the pictures. No matter how hard I try, they won’t simply appear BELOW the pictures. Consider that my rant for the evening. Now: I’m well aware of how this sounds, but I’m now going to put on my vinyl copy of Godspeed You Black Emperor’s album Yanqui U.X.O., light some incense, and read some poetry. This is going to rule. Looks like the poet of the night is…Robert Creeley, who rules. Also, when the song “Motherfucker=Redeemer” plays, I am going to play air guitar on a golf club (which I guess is actually golf club guitar) during the 10-minute crescendo.
10:27pm: Texting Joni, who just sprained her wrist.
10:34pm: Internet and cable TV go down, not changing my plans at all, but preventing me from keeping you all updated for a second!
10:44pm: Play air guitar on a golf club, as promised, during the crescendo to “Motherfucker=Redeemer”. If you have a spare 20 minutes and some patience, you can listen to the song here. But that is only part one of the song.
11:25pm: Am astounded by one of these Creeley poems I must have always missed:
The Answer
by Robert Creeley
Will we speak to each other
making the grass bend as if
a wind were before us, will our
way be graceful, as
substantial as the movement
of something moving so gently.
We break things in pieces like
walls we break ourselves into
hearing them fall just to hear it.
11:33pm: Making a marshamallow latte. There’s no actual marshmallows involved; I have marshmallow Torani syrup. It’s just like a caramel latte except it tastes like marshmallow. It’s fantastic! And it sucks typing marshmallow that many times! Also, smoking another one of these cigars I bought for the birth of Paul’s daughter…uh-oh. Am I starting to like cigars?
11:48pm: Texting Sarah about music, and still texting Joni, but now about waffles. Putting Radiohead’s Kid A on the turntable. This is one of my only vinyls where I can notice the difference in sound quality on the vinyl.
Midnight: Holy shit, “National Anthem” on Kid A is making me move! Currently dancing around my living room, singing into a golf club…keep moving the needle back again and again…this song has got me stuck in it’s groove!
12:20am: I’ve made a commitment to essentially stage a fake concert here in my living room to the entire Kid A album. I’m getting sweaty and this latte isn’t helping! “Idioteque” is blowing my mind and it’s getting difficult to not make the record skip!
12:54: Marshmallow latte #2. I might not go to bed tonight. Been awhile since I saw a sunrise…hmmmm…??? I’m gonna let Pandora radio play my Post-Rock station and read some of the Stephen King book I started today, Lisey’s Story.
1:10am: I’ve tried starting this King book a few times now over the last six months, and I just cannot get into it. Is it, perhaps, that this is the one millionth book King has written about a writer? This is feeling a bit worn to me. Plus, the last King book I read before this one, Duma Key (which was about a PAINTER!) felt exactly like this book at the beginning; it seems I’m reading the same book twice–and Duma Key was barely scary at all! I’m afraid to let myself spend that long (these are loooooong books) on a non-scary, mediocre book again. But I shall try. Back to the book!
1:35am: Am totally ambushed by a MySpace Instant Message (that’s right, I was on MySpace!) by one of my friends who insists they have a hilarious YouTube video to show me. I relent, and they are right, it is hilarious! See for yourself:
1:38am: E-mailing back and forth with Joni trying to decide on what her new hairstyle will be…I vote for number 1 or number 4. I think number 1 will be especially amazing on her…it fits her face perfectly. Do you think I can utilize every single one of my existing blog tags in this single entry? Probably not, but the tags are getting ridiculous!
1:45am: I just gave Kyle and opportunity to select my next movie for me through the random number system again, but he dropped the ball and signed off Facebook, and Mary jumped at the chance. She chose number 267 (weird, since earlier Kyle chose 237), and that movie is “Dragonslayer”! Badass. This is an old-school movie about…well…killing dragons, back when special effects were still mainly stop-motion and models. But that doesn’t take away from this movie at all. It is still VERY creepy in places. This is another one I haven’t seen in a long time. Makes me remember my childhood. For some reason it seems I watched this alot when I was little. I remember it influencing my “play”…it really sparked my imagination!
1:54am: Bowl of Boo Berry cereal and a diet Dr. Thunder.
2:13am: Between Mary and Kyle, I am having my ass Facebooked off! Also wondering whatever happened to Peter MacNicol’s film career? He’s the bomb in “Dragonslayer”, and then he was in…”Sophie’s Choice”, I believe?…I suppose he’s had some success in TV though. Oh man, MacNicol is entering the dragon’s cave for the first time…this is so tense!
2:50am: Oh man I forgot about this little monster that jumps out of the hole in the cave! It scared the crap out of me! It’s a fierce baby dragon!
2:55am: All the lights out and some incense going for the big fight scene. I might pee my pants!
3:02am: OMG there’s that fucking dragon. That fucking dragon is popping up right behind Peter MacNicol…you can see it’s reflection in the pool of water. Now you can see the steam from it’s breath! This dragon ain’t nothing to fuck with!
3:23am: So ends “Dragonslayer”…so glad Mary picked that one! And it seems that now just about everyone is asleep…and yet I am wide awake, perhaps owing to my marshmallow lattes. I’m going to go cut my hair.
3:37am: Mid-cut:
3:45am: Haircut complete. That’s right, I can give myself a haircut in under ten minutes! Finished haircut:
Yes, it's true, I look like ass here. I blame it on my overhead flourescent light.
3:55am: Next up, I’m going to rock out a little bit more…I had so much fun earlier jumping around my living room! This time, it’s gonna be Modest Mouse’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. Then after that, it’s been decided (by Kyle again, by random number) that I’ll be watching the film “Matchstick Men.” OK…let the Modest Mouse begin!
4:32am: Nobody can sing like Isaac Brock, lead singer of Modest Mouse. Now, I’m not saying he’s a good singer–far from it. In fact, most of the time, he barely sings at all. It’s more a an in-key snarl. But nobody else does it. Alot of the time, he actually laughs the words. he laugh-sings words! WTF? It’s amazing and crazy. Totally sweaty from jumping around my living room pretending to be Isaac Brock.
4:44am: I have elected to skip “Matchstick Men”, as “Needful Things” is on Starz, and I’ve not seen it before. Also, I have elected to watch this movie while laying down in an attempt to sleep eventually, even though I am not tired yet, and I don’t have to be up for anything tomorrow, now seems as good a time as any to hit the reset button, although I’ll probably become engrossed in the movie and be up until 6 anyway. I hope somebody out there got some form of entertainment out of the endless blog. Good night.
See this needle? See my hand? Drop, drop, droppin’
it down, oh-so-gently!
–“Spin the Black Circle”, Pearl Jam
I don’t think I’ll ever buy an iPod (but don’t quote me on that). I have been a stickler for practical media (read: physical) ever since this fascination with ghost media (read: intangible) began over a decade ago. I have stood hard and fast by the Compact Disc, wagged judgemental fingers at illegal movie downloaders, and I even still have my VCR (albeit in my closet). There are enough people in the world on my side, vocally complaining about how important it is to have something after you buy something; how integral to the experience it is to own an actual physical product. And, for many years, I was echoing their sentiment, especially when it came to music: I like to read the liner notes, I like to look at the artwork, I like the heft of a full book of CDs, etc etc. But now I’m changing my tune…but just a little.
Over the years, whenever I would give this speil to an iPod-wearing, Zune-toting, MP3-adoring hipster, there was always a little thing in the back of my mind, a counter-argument I always hoped nobody would make (and nobody ever had) and that argument is this:
Well, I guess it’s not just about the music for you, is it then, if you want all these products?
If any of those ear-budded hipsters had had the presence of mind to say that to me, I’d have been dumbfounded as to how to respond, because of course it’s all about the music! Only…how could it be just about the music, if I needed non-music physical bodies to complete my enjoyment?
Then, about six months ago, I hopped onto this micro-trend of buying a record player. There’s a small but powerful contingent of anti-iPodists out there who are intentionally regressing in medium, and it’s a powerful enough movement that we’re now at a place where just about every new musical release of any importance is getting released in vinyl, though you’ve got to drive far (unless you’re in a city or really cool place) or order from Amazon if you want the vinyl. What I thought might be a lark has changed the way I’m thinking about not only music, but all art. And, folks, it’s quite a transcendental capitalism.
My truly beautiful, marble red, vinyl-only release of Modest Mouse's "History Sticks to Your Feet"
Pull it out, a paper sleeve…
Oh, my joy…only you deserve conceit!
—“Spin the Black Circle”, Pearl Jam
The first time I pulled the new Death Cab For Cutie album, Narrow Stairs, out of it’s paper sleeve, while looking at the sprawling, cubist, wordless bi-fold art in the center of the case, I knew right then and there that it wasn’t–and had never been–all about the music. Maybe it is just about the music for you, and for the millions of iPodists out there, but it isn’t for me. But it’s not as simple as needing a neat, pretty, and new product of some kind–that’s just a bi-product. No, it’s about needing an experience, a ritual, a visual, olfactory, and tactile representation of the music I’ve come to love–the music which has come to define me and say so much about the person I have quite carefully become. No ghost in the machine of an iPod can say more than the notes and words in the intangible wisp in the buds. No, I need artwork and smell and feel: proof that this music exists.
And now, six months into being a vinyl guy, I’m beginning to think that CDs aren’t good enough either (or that they’re too good.)
With vinyl, you rarely get liner notes, or much of any recognition from the artist at all. What you get, typically, are one or two big pictures of some kind, or a thematic artwork. The cerebral heavy-lifting that came with some CDs is erased, and replaced with an immediate, often striking, visual statement of the music you are about to hear. It’s much more guttural, and exactly what I needed in this content-saturated media blitz of a culture.
My vinyl copy of My Morning Jacket's album "Z" beside my CD copy of Deerhunter's "Microcastles" (because I couldn't find my CD copy of "Z")
The same vinyl and CD opened up. Which one would you rather own for the rest of your life?
Aside from the artwork, and plain cool size, of vinyl, there’s another element that really changes the way I listen to music, and that is the anti-portability of vinyl. With first cassette tapes (and the Walkman), then CDs and now digital music, listening to your favorite songs has become more and more portable, to the point that listening to music is now practically more convenient when you’re on the move. You do it while you’re doing other things. You do it when you’re distracted, when you’re going to or coming from work, when you’re exercising, when you run the vaccuum. The soul-searching, the connecting with the artist, the stationary, elemental, prosaic human face of music is disappearing; and I don’t say this because I’m old, or unhip, or resistant to change. This has got to be a true thing.
You’re so warm…oh, the ritual,
when I lay down your crooked arm!
–“Spin the Black Circle”, Pearl Jam
Vinyl practically forces you to be doing nothing but listening to music. Sure, you can clean your house, or read a book, but you’d better also pay some attention to the music, because you’ve got to get up and flip the record after a few songs. You sure as shit can’t do your workout when you’re listening to vinyl, because you’ll skip that record like crazy and scratch it. And, as I have found, if you get a nice rare vinyl, you can even turn it into a social event. Music lovers will actually come to your house to listen to it, and we can have a social event over a record. Think about that.
I don’t even give a shit about the supposedly amazing sound quality of vinyl. I’m no audiophile; I couldn’t pick out a FLAC file from an MP3 in a lineup; I just need to hear the chords and words. Besides, I still have crappy speakers.
Nobody understands the economic concept of “futures”.
Chinese food delivery men are the nicest delivery men.
Stephen King’s best days are behind him.
The best Stephen King film adaptation is “The Shawshank Redemption”. The best horror film adaption of King’s is “Misery”, unless you categorize that as Suspense, in which case the best horror adaptation is “It”.
The best color is green.
Foreign money always looks weird.
Vinyl is better than CDs.
Daylight Savings Time is stupid.
Ten things that are “masterpieces”:
1. Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Oddysey”.
2. Tupac’s “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.”
3. Dave Eggers’ “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”
4. Carnivale 5. Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs”
6. Roy Thomas’ 1992 run on Dr. Strange 7. Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself 8. Picasso’s “Guernica”
9. Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”
10. Any “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live featuring Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon
Ten things often mistaken for “masterpieces”.
1. Stanely Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove”
2. Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”
3. Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections”
4. Twin Peaks 5. Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction”
6. Chris Claremont’s Days of Future Past 7. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl 8. Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”
9. August Wilson’s “Fences”
10. Gilda Radner on “Weekend Update”
Cherry is by far the best wood for furniture.
Al Gore would have made a fine president.
Philip Larkin is the best British poet ever.
Pink Floyd does have a masterpiece, and it is of course “Echoes”.
Three languages that are attractive:
1. French
2. English
3. Russian
Amnesia would not be fun.
Pooping is fun.
The best ending of any book ever is the last page of The Grapes of Wrath.
Nobody really likes cigars.
Ticketmaster really is evil.
G is the most pleasing chord.
Anyone can golf.
Maya Angelou is a terrible poet.
One pair of new socks is better than three new shirts.
The best “indie rock” song ever written is Death Cab For Cutie’s “What Sarah Said”.
David Lynch movies don’t make sense, and it isn’t admirable, either. Even “Dune”.
Sleeping more than 9 hours is bad. So is less than 5.
Haircuts are a waste of money.
The five best Johnny Depp movies are, in order:
1. Dead Man
2. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
4. The Libertine
5. From Hell
and thanks to michael pittman and his talent and diligence and even temper, and thanks to you! you and your fantastic decision to purchase this recording. you are obviously an excellent person. seriously, take a moment and rejoice! quietly, if you should feel embarrassed. surely you can allow yourself that. have a beer, have a cup of tea. the sincerest of people are thanking you from the dark, bloody bottom of their hearts.
Notes From the Fire 
