Acquisitive

[talktooloose]

I don't know how to deal with my penchant for possessing things. I am still madly organizing the 12 gigabytes of mp3s that I collected in the last five years, trying to turn them from an unusable mass of forgotten data into a usable collection of CDs, correctly labelled, sorted and catalogued.

This huge effort is a perfect example of the dangers of acquisition. Of things. In the past 6 months, I have probably spent $400 on comic books and more than that on things to beautify our home. What are the limits of appetite? I have also watched 50 movies in that time and imbibed a dozen books not to mention thousands upon thousands of LJ entries.

I sometimes feel like the man who has collected so many bottle caps that he had to move. It's shelf-space, it's attention. What is it all for? Obviously I have enough music to last me several lifetimes. There are enough books on my shelf, read and unread, to satisfy for years. And what am I hoping to learn from collecting the tribulations of strangers' lives online?

Exercises! I collect stretches and strengthening exercises all the time and my routine grows longer and longer, morning and evening. Then I sort data and burn it onto CDs and fill up binders with it all day. Then I sleep and start again.

What would happen if I stopped? No new tunes, no new books, no new friends. Just look inward to that which has been amassed and then create from that storehouse. From that magma.

I somtimes imagine a post-apocolyptic campfire, a time after the last guitar-string has finally snapped. Just singing among the ruins while we snack on baked mice and roasted roach, growing sleepy until we lie down together, share our body heat and dream of lost shopping malls.

Comments

[balthcat.livejournal.com]

You could go through and buy the albums you really want, and then delete the ones you really can't justify buying.

Then start again from whims, downloading the single songs by artists who never did anything else good.

It's a way to keep the volume down, AND make sure you're supporting music! Weee!

(I've not yet done it en-masse... so I'm not wagging a finger)

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

But you are wagging your cat tail!

My post really had nothing to do with the ethical quandries around downloaded music but I hear you. I'm such an enemy of big record companies who have destroyed the finances and hopes of so many artists that I have trouble climbing on board their little bandwagon. And when they use defense of the artist as an putative rationale for their campaigns, it sort of reminds me of the police using defence of children and societal decency as justification for harrassing queer people.

[balthcat.livejournal.com]

Well it was more of a twitch, than a wag. :)

I'd have no grounds to wag a finger, I download lots of music... in fact during the heyday of Audiogalaxy, I downloaded more music than I had harddrive space, I think 10-12gb on an 8gb HD (God do I EVER miss Audiogalaxy) and uploaded about 6gb. This is all on a 56k mind you.

It was at most a genuine suggestion with an ulterior motive :) You did say they were unmanaaeable, right? :)

As for big labels, maybe it's easier for me because my tastes are off big labels at least half the time, if not more. (It doesn't hurt that I boycott even listening to albums that come out Copy Controlled here in Canada... which means that 90% of EMI/Virgin releases are not heard by me. Period)

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Curse crippled cds! It's difficult for me to exactly pinpoint my annoyance with them. I think it has to do with being treated like a criminal by profitable multi-nationals. And don't get me started on that annoying "thank you" note they include. Or on the fact that the player included on the CD is Microsoft garbage and doesn't work properly on a Mac.

Also, I am highly impressed with your use of the word, "unmanaaeable". I am particularly drawn to the gutaral cry "AAEA" in the centre. It reminds me of the A11111111111111111 towing company in Toronto whose logo looks like the sound you make while your card skids across three lanes of traffic:

AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!

[corduroyarmy.livejournal.com]

I collect dust.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

makes me laughing.

[painglass.livejournal.com]

Your last paragraph was beautiful. Thanks.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

You are always so kind when I wax poetic. Thank you.

[painglass.livejournal.com]

That's because I love to embrace beauty where I find it, and when you wax poetic, its almost always, without a doubt, beautiful. I'm always happy to read your journal.