Perhaps a very materialistic thing to celebrate, but I feel as though I've been approaching a place where I'm quite satisfied with my record collection. There is certainly much more that I'd like to get (an embarrassing amount to admit), but at this point I have the majority of what I would consider my "essentials".
I fully recognize, like I said beforehand, that this is a very materialistic aspect of my life. But I don't think it's necessarily a bad form of materialism. I spend much of my free time in pursuit of records, books and DVDs that contain material that means something to me. I have no love in my heart for consumerism, but when you're trying to keep a collection of the art that has impacted you (especially a physical collection in this era where conglomerates like to limit the availability of certain things via the streaming platforms they push) I think that is ultimately an enriching experience. Especially as I would like to think that I have a rather varied collection of art and am always trying to broaden my horizons to at least some extent. Maybe I'm just making excuses, I don't know. Lately I've come more and more to the conclusion that enjoying art is one of the better things you can do for yourself while being alive. Who knows when you might be hearing your favorite song for the last time? This is probably silly, but I do hope whatever kind of afterlife we get comes with a personal library. Would it really be Heaven if I can never sit in a comfy bed with my cats and read my favorite books again?
For my birthday recently, my beautiful partner Zo got me a copy of Richard Hell and The Voidoids' "Blank Generation" on vinyl. It's the 40th anniversary "deluxe" edition, which comes with a bonus disc of alternate takes and a beautiful booklet where Hell himself walks us through all the songs and what they mean to him. This has been one of my favorite albums since I was a teenager. I was actually fortunate enough to briefly meet Hell a couple of months ago, as he did a talk and book signing at a library downtown. There's a lot of personal meaning and pleasure in this music for me by this point.
As I was sitting there today, flipping through said booklet and hearing "Betrayal Takes Two" blare though my speaker, sounding better than it ever had before (up until now, I had to hear the album through my teenage laptop, then iPod, then streaming), I thought, "Hey, this is pretty sweet".
No comments:
Post a Comment