I just watched my husband take a selfie and I’m going to die laughing at him.
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My youngest cat had to go to the vet yesterday for her shots and while she was there they trimmed her claws and the bits of fur that were getting matted. She was so terrified; bit and clawed at the carrier (broke a claw in the process) and yowled and shook. They gave us sedatives to give her next time we have to bring her in.
Since she’s been home, she’s mostly either been hiding or running around all spooked, acting as if she thinks the shaved bald patches on her butt are chasing her and she’s trying to get away from her own butt. Tonight though, she came out for pets and treats and food, and even played for a bit. So at least she doesn’t seem to feel unsafe or afraid of us. I think the hiding is just an “I’m injured, need a quiet place to recover” instinct and the freaking out about her butt is not a totally unreasonable reaction to her first non-consensual shaving.
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We had to have one of our cats dematted on Tuesday. We left her at the vet for several hours because they might have needed to sedate her, but she’s 16 and they wanted to avoid it if possible. Instead they did it a little at a time. I think she recovered pretty quickly, maybe because it wasn’t the first time.
We were offered the choice of giving her a lion cut, but we declined on that. Her fur is too pretty to be all gone.
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Nearby community center installed outdoor exercise machines. They installed them directly into orange clay instead of concrete or gravel, meaning eventually the machines will be adjacent to muddy orange bogs.
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That’s…not wise.
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So yesterday I went to a taping of Antiques Roadshow. My friend and I had an 8:30am show up time. The people who make the show have it down to a science. We were in, through security, and had our stuff appraised, and back in our car in about an hour. So, needless to say, none of our treasures were good enough to make it on the show. I brought an old hassleblad camera that I inherited from my granddad, and that was valued at half of what it was when it was given to me. The other thing that I brought was a collection of hundred year old Royal Doulton profession plates and the experts told me that they were able to sell these particular plates for $100 each 10 years ago, but they’re now selling for about $25 each, mostly because they are more plentiful because the people who were likely to have them have died, and younger people have little interest in them. And even worse, the one that I thought was extra rare and valuable was actually damaged by either being put in an oven, or being exposed to a fire. So I did get to see and speak with some of the experts on the show that I’ve watched for years, but I wish that the things I brought would have been more interesting and important.
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… aaaand, one of the plates fell off the wall in the middle of the night, after I put them back up upon coming home, smashing into a million pieces. 
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This is true of everything collectable, antique, large, or expensive, I think.
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A couple years ago, I had to stop wandering around antique malls and junk shops when I realized that I was rummaging through the remains of somebody’s dead grandma’s house. I think it struck me when I saw a macrame owl next to a set of McDonald’s glasses, and that sometime in the not too distant future, some kid will be making wise ass remarks about all of my stuff.
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Not quite everything, but yeah, most everything. I am reading a book called Revenge of the Analog, which is about how the digital pendulum is swinging backwards, and how people are reassessing the switch to digital everything. Vinyl records are making a comeback, as well as certain fetish totems, like the Curta mechanical calculator (revived single handedly by William Gibson). Mechanical clocks and wristwatches, but not pocket watches. Souped up hotrods using authentic parts from the 1920s through the 50s, and dune buggies. Hipsters aren’t buying Roseville, or dark brown furniture. But Chinese and Russian oligarchs are buying up all of the stuff that they exported over the last 300 years. People under 30 have no money to spend on collecting stuff because they have too much debt.
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When I last watched Antiques Roadshows, pocket watches were one of the few items that were going up in value because hipsters.
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This I don’t understand. I was so happy when CDs (then mp3s) came out that didn’t warp, pop, scratch, skip, or require dusting or special handling.
ETA: And digital music has such a bigger dynamic range! Digital is better for some things, not others. And in, e.g., electronic music, both have their strengths.
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I believe I had a plug-in to WinAmp that would add all the above to an MP3 if you really missed it
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I’ve heard of that! NO THANKS! But it’s OK if the artist puts it in as part of the composition – Caravan Palace has done that, but they do electro-swing, so harken back to the “good” old days of analog recordings.
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I’m not going to deny that digital music doesn’t have it’s benefits. Clearly, that’s the case.
But.
Vinyl has some too.
- Period music (say, from the 60’s) was mastered to sound best on vinyl and 60’s stereo systems, so there’s some benefit to listening to period music on period systems and period mediums.
- Vinyl is archival. I’ve got records from the 30’s that still play nicely- but I’ve got music formats that are basically unplayable, and plenty of dead hard drives and ruined burned cd’s from the 90’s.
- Vinyl has a limitation of tracking- that is to say, each side of the record is really just one big groove- and that means there’s a bit of an impetus to treat each side of the record as a single cohesive construct. Concept albums, as a result (and in particular- there are other genres that do this well, too) do best with a single uninterrupted 20 minute side.
- The pop/hiss/static/etc I think is pretty overstated- I’ve got a few records, and they have to be pretty beat to do much of those things. A modicum of care goes a long way.
- HUGE COVER ART IS RAD.
- The tactility of owning a thing can be a comfort for some.
- There’s an active component to listening to records- I can put on Spotify or Pandora or whatever and let it stream music all day without really thinking about it. But with a record I have to get up ever 18-22minutes and flip it over (or swap to the next album). That keeps me in the moment with the music in a way that digital doesn’t, really.
Please don’t read this as me knocking digital formats- I fully concede that they make much more sense for many people. Vinyl is a pain in the ass in a lot of ways that make it the wrong choice for a lot of people. But it still has it’s place.
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I enjoyed your comments. Many things I’ve not considered, or, as a non-audiophile (at least from the recording/mastering POV), haven’t interest in.
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60’s music is PERIOD MUSIC?
Actually I don’t like music from then; my listening really got started in the 70s (with a few electronic albums from the 60’s), as bands started using synths in their work. I’m not enough of an audiophile to listen to the originals from that period; I’ve grown used to how digital sounds, and for me, that’s the way it should sound. And how is electronic music supposed to sound, anyway? I’m so used to the variety of timbre from synths that I guess the recording and mastering effects really don’t factor into my thinking much. -
I’ve always bought CDs until the last five years so they are my archive. And I’ve rarely had to re-rip them. Vinyl as an archival medium hasn’t weathered well for me, especially having been played on lousy systems with rotten needles; I couldn’t afford a really nice player till later on. And listening to music in the car has always had an appeal to me, first with cassettes (bleagh), but now with CDs. There were early attempts to have a record player in a car, but they were doomed to failure.
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I’ve strung together some songs that seemed to need to be together, using an audio editor, but I’ve never really needed to hear the whole thing at once – unless it’s something like Jethro Tull’s “Thick As A Brick” (but that comes as one long piece). I much rather be surprised at the next thing to play (I do my own playlists and randomize them).
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I guess I just beat up my records too much!
I’ve tried to keep them in good shape but after 50 years of use . . . -
Totally agree about the cover art. The art on a CD just isn’t the same. I’ve toyed with the idea of framing some of my vinyl covers (I loved any cover by Hipgnosis), but sloth overcomes. And I’m not sure I’d want the first King Crimson album cover on my wall!
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I’ve always had the opinion (legal or not) that I own digital music – whether CDs or files on my computer. Even bits seem physical to me. A little ephemeral but I back things up in multiple places. I never used anything but multiple bit-rate mp3’s; I tried FLACs a while back but couldn’t tell the difference.
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I usually listen in tandem with doing something – switching my attention back and forth. I tend not to put something on, sit back, and listen.
I guess I’m just not an audiophile. Just having error-free music is such an improvement from what I grew up with. And not having to get up and turn the record over is an improvement for me!
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Wow, I always wondered who those ‘shuffle only’ mp3 players were aimed at (who would want that?!) For me, listening to a specific DJ set, mixtape/CD, playlist, or normal CD in order takes me back and really brings back the feelings from when I listened to it before. Plus my music tastes are varied, so switching randomly from electro-swing to metal to country to punk to 80’s pop or whatever would be a little jarring.
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Shuffle only? How peculiar. Sometimes I like to play an album, but usually I like to listen to music at random, so I’m always surprised at what comes up next. Perhaps it’s like listening to AM radio as a kid?
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Back when Apple made iPods, I used to have one of the older Nano models, and it came with an option called “album shuffle” in the Settings menu. Basically, it picks an album at random, plays out through from start to finish, then moves on to smooth random album, until it cycles through the whole playlist.
When I got my latest car back in '12, it came with hands-free Bluetooth, and my older iPod’s battery was giving it, so I decided to get the latest Nano, which also had Bluetooth.
I got really ticked off when I found out that the “album shuffle” feature was no longer there. However, I got lucky.
One of the buttons on my car’s stereo system is “RDM,” and it can transmit that choice to the iPod. One of the RDM modes is “Folder RDM,” which choice, when transmitted to my iPod, behaves exactly like “album shuffle.” And my iPod tenets that choice even when not hooked up to my car.
I’m so very happy with this. I get to listen to whole albums, without having to choose what I want to listen to after each one ends.
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These points are most of the appeal, for me. I’d never really broken it down like you did, though, so thanks for the post.
I kind of think of modern vinyl as way to experience music that’s about more than just the optimally efficient way to deliver sound to your ears. Playing a record is an inherently physical engagement with the medium, from the giant cover art, to the holding it only by the edges, to gently lowering the needle into the groove and watching it spin. It seems silly and almost sentimental, but I tend to genuinely listen to albums on vinyl in a way that I usually don’t in other formats.
It’s like the impracticality of vinyl is not so much a weakness as it is a constraint that drives creativity or, at the very least, selectivity. I don’t have a lot of vinyl1, but much of what I do is “special edition” or “limited release” type of stuff from bands I really like. So there tends to be more to it than just the new songs I want to hear (and for that, there’s almost always a download code, so I can still get the music to play in my car, or at work, etc. etc.). For example, the last album I bought was the so-called Hardcore edition of the Mountain Goats’ In League With Dragons. Not only can I feel the dragon’s scales ripple beneath my fingertips when I play this record, I also have my very own Collectible Dragon League membership card! 
1. I already have a shit ton of CDs and a metric shit ton of books, so the very last thing I need is a bunch of vinyl records. Those things are heavy!
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