Ode to the Collector
"We have it in our power to overcome assholes, and I think we have them thrown into our path to see if we have the chops to handle them." - Ruth Gordon
Tonight is the 6th night of Chanukah….the night that our family sits around the menorah deciding on what non-profit organizations we want to give to. While there are the obvious ones (with Barb’s relationship to the creation of 826 Valencia and my running Reboot), we use the time to introduce the kids to a host of organizations and let them pick based on their interest (as well as what free gift the organizations are baiting). Asher has funded the SPCA since he was two…and they have even written him super-sweet letters inviting him to private tours of their facilities. Each child picks two organizations to fund, and then over the course of the year we attempt to read all the mailed correspondence and magazines from the organizations as a way to understand what they are doing with the money they raise. It is quite sweet, actually. And given the onslaught of gifts that are thrown the kids’ way over the holiday season, it is a nice non-consumption moment (we will be consuming my sweet potato/zucchini latkes that Kaya has been requesting).
May you all have a great weekend! And CH-appy Ch-anukah (and Happy Birthday to my big brother, Larry!).
Is Record Collecting Abnormal?
Josh Rosenthal sent me this article which maps out the collector genome pretty damn well…and links it very sweetly into the record collector aspect. A great read….yes, it does make one come face to face with ones demons….but that is a good thing….or….is it….. I actually wrote about my relationship to my records a while back, and while it has evolved a little (yes, I treat them with a little more reverence now) much still applies.
ABE BOOKS Most expensive (book-oriented) sales in 2021
I source all of my used books from bookfinder (a distant runner up to record collecting is yes, the book collecting bug…which even presents a bigger opportunity for an accumulation of dead weight). Bookfinder culls from all the book sellers out there on the internet, including Abe books. Like discogs does for records, Abe put together a list of most expensive sales…which is fascinating.
SNOWBIRDS: Technicolor scenes from a bygone Miami Beach
Naomi Harris did a great job photographing this senior community…the pictures are just classic.
Painting Box: In Appreciation Of Trees
Laura Baker does beautiful work with her paintbox series, exploring a chosen theme with visual pieces and contextualizations. This current volume is entitled “IN APPRECIATION OF TREES” and is a sweet meditation on our forrest creatures.
Interview with Mad Professor: The Sound of the Studio
“Neil Fraser, known as Mad Professor, is a cornerstone of dub’s second wave and the owner of Ariwa Sounds, a studio and record label in London. We caught up to chat about his early days, working with Lee Perry and Massive Attack, the economics of running a studio, and his favorite reverbs and echoes.”
WEEKEND LISTEN: COLTRANE LIVE AT BIRDLAND (John Coltrane)
I came in contact with a strange artifact a few years ago: a record that has the word ALABAMA across it featuring a 19 minute track that is the opening drone of Coltrane’s Alabama featured here looped over a dozen times. It took us many listens to figure out it was a loop…it was so seamless. After wearing out that record during numerous sunrise experiences, I pulled out the Live at Birdland record and reminded myself of how damn great it is. IMPULSE Records features some of the best Coltrane…and this edition exemplifies how tuned-in to the Universe he was during this period. Obviously Alabama is a great track…but the opening track Afro-Blue is nothing to sneeze at either. He’s playing with the classic line-up here: McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums and Jimmy Garrison on bass. They are a living, breathing organism of perfection. There are critics who think this is his greatest record.
MCMXIV
By: Phillip Larkin
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;
And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;
And the countryside not caring:
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat’s restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;
Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word – the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.
*thank you David Brendel for the Ruth Gordon quote
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At the end of the night, Asher continued giving to the SPCA as well as The Sierra Club and Kaya gave to The National Wildlife Federation and Habitat For Humanity.