etherbrian

stacks of wax

Let's imagine that my collection of audio CDs is a small kingdom. That would make me the king. And today the crown wears heavy. At one time I could not imagine that I'd ever consider purchasing digital song files in lieu of buying the physical album on which they appear. But time has passed and feelings have changed (once long ago I couldn't imagine laying aside my vinyl and cassettes and replacing them with compact disc) and now I've begun considering new possibilities that once I'd have classified as being nothing sort of shocking.

It's become very difficult to justify parting with the cash required to bring home a CD, especially when two-thirds of its content is likely to be material I'd not listen to twice. Though it can tricky to digitally snag the sorts of sounds that please me most, it's not completely impossible and is growing much more possible every day. If iTunes were the only game in town I'd probably not be engaging in this rumination - what with it's less-than-ubiquitios codec and rather unfriendly DRM - but, hello there, Amazon MP3.

Meanwhile, it doesn't take very many jewel cases to create a mass of plastic that's difficult to stow away. Because of that I'm seriously considering disinvesting myself of a majority of the shiny platters in my CD cache. I would, of course, create digital files of everything first (and that action, of course, would probably stick in the craw of the RIAA - but that's another story for another day).

Yet in spite of these bold new audio notions, I remain torn. Holding a newly purchsed CD in my hands feels nice. Holding its liner notes in my hands feels even nicer. Losing music because I failed to enage in a timely data backup doesn't feel nice at all. Sigh.

(Yes, I realize that there are no CDs in the image above, only LPs. That art serves as a symbol of the commercially available musical journey of my life, from its earliest vinyl beginnings to a 21st century audiowisely overloaded hard drive. It's kinda like that scene in the Kubrick flick where the scene shifts (to the tune of Thus Spake Zarathustra) from the flying bone to a space station. And, no, that's not Cher on the album on the right.)

mixtape

This has been a Saturday both lazy and hazy and one during which I elected to waste an hour or so creating an audio comp. I hunted down the tunes, but it was Mixwit who kindly spooled them onto a cassette. I was given the option to add my own art to the tape, but the old AGFA label seemed to me just too beautiful to tamper with. I just love all the interwebular toys the wizkids are building these days! As if the spinning spools weren't nifty enough, keep your eye on the magnetic tape as the music progresses. Rock on!

patent pending pop culture machine

neverneverdunny #3

papa needs a new pair of shoes

UV

Yes, it's pointless and only marginally entertaining, but I too have taken sides in the Twitter Colorwar. Actually, I created my very own side. You, gentle blog visitor, are probably wondering whether there are more important projects with which I should be engaged. There are! But even I - your calm, cool, collected blog host - am not immune to the interweb's occasional meme.

(For inquiring minds that want to know: The lovely Twitter application you see above is Twitterific. The desktop background over which the lovely Twitter application hovers is the lovely Barbara Stanwyck.)

the miracle of modern optics

Pretty Polly et al

Quite by accident I've stumbled upon yet another hey-there-wontcha-vote-for-my-shirt-please shop. And I like it! And I'm hoping to breath new life into a few helmeted outer space denizens, some old school raster girly garage-adelica, and a she-gundam who's hot spring bathing during cherry blossom time.

I'll think about it.

take nothing but notes, leave nothing but footprints

Anyone who's dropped by this little locale of mine over the past few days knows that I attended SXSW (and is probably sick and tired of hearing about it). Yesterday when someone pointed out Mike Rohde's "sketchnotes" from the various sessions he attended, I remembered that I'd made a few of my own. Then I remembered that I'd placed them all in a small cylindrical container. It was a container from which they would eventually be retrieved by a lovely, motherly Latino lady and later make their way to a larger retangular container. That larger container is known by most poeple by its common name, "the dumpster". However, hidden between a Creative Commons information flyer and a postcard from the Museum of the Weird I found one sketchnote that had escaped the fate of the others (one written on the back of one of the event's ubiquitous panel evaluation forms). You may be asking, "What good are sketchnotes if they are all sketch and no note?". A good question, that one.