you are an obsession, you're my obsession
The neurosis started in 1983 with my first digital: the Apple II+. Frustrating as a word processor (PFS-Write had no random access cursor, so, like a typewriter, you couldn't make mistakes), years behind contemporary video game hardware, and lacking a hard drive, only an OCD sufferer could embrace it. It was less than two years before I convinced my parents to get an IBM.
Twenty-two years later, my mother just threw away the old Kaypro (who could afford a real IBM?), along with the Mac Classics my sister and I got as freshmen. I got a Powerbook senior year ($3600 doorstop), went through a couple game consoles, two digital cameras, a projector, several CD and DVD players (all still working), as well as a Palm Pilot (kaput), and now I'm back to Apple with my new iPod.
Like the Apple II+, the software has some bugs (lost a day last week trying to recover from a corrupted Windows Registry), and the peripherals have certain shortcomings. But at least the iPod's got a hard drive.
And just as my addiction to my first computer taught me programming, the iPod/iTunes combo is so addictive, it's turning into a self-taught course in music appreciation. Collecting and organizing music to fill up its cavernous space has opened my ears to everything from Karen Carpenter and The Andrews Sisters to Outkast and Alicia Keys.
Which begins to explain the lack of posts lately, as well as the lack of new photos on Flickr. Rest assured, it's only temporary. My New Wave collection is almost complete.
posted by 1600 Squirrels at 1:37 AM
Got classical and jazz collection?
9:25 PM
Classical: I got the Meditation 10-CD box set from the 80's, about 100 tracks. That's already stretching my appreciation for the genre.
Jazz: Building up my appreciation. So far, I know I like swing. I have roughly 400 tracks, mostly Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday. That's compared to about 200 New Wave tracks and 100 Showtunes. Currently listening to "A Spoonful of Sugar".
1:28 AM
The problem with classical music is that it is complex, subtle, and too academic. That is, if you never had any formal training you wouldn't know how to begin appreciating it. Imagine watching Shakespeare without knowing any English vocab... quite a torture ain't it?
12:25 PM
I don't mind complex, but classical music tends to be too subtle and restrained for my tastes. My interest in music begins at the same point Ken Burns' does: with the integration of African-American music into popular music.
I'm finding contemporary jazz (I mean anything from Charlie Parker on) is just as complex, subtle and elitist as classical music. I'm as uninterested in a Charlie Parker solo as an Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix solo. To me, it's just showing off, not music.
BTW, despite taking a class in the History of the English Language once, I still find most Shakespeare to be torture.
12:58 PM
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