[Previous entry: "Music: Performance"] [Next entry: "Churchmouse"]

01/28/2004: "Black Plastic With A Hole In The Middle"

Most of my life I have been present to music through recordings; in particular I was a collector of LPs, in my teens and twenties. In my high school days I expressed my individuality by becoming a partisan of free jazz: it was so complex, harmonically, as to seem atonal to the casual listener, and maybe the casual listener was right. When i moved into the dormitory I already had several hundred records, and my exposure there to rock and country gave me several additional streams of music to buy from. After I graduated my collection grew more slowly, because I was broke; then the CD hit and records disappeared. I began rebuilding my collection, on cassette and on CD, but with less fervor. One day I gave most of my records away, and never missed them. The rest are in the closet, mostly, and I hardly ever think about them, except when they're in the way. Once I knew the difference between Booker Ervin and Booker Little, and cared, and had the evidence to prove that I knew and cared. I'd know better if I bothered to get out the records.