The guy at the late-lamented "Ethel the Blog" went on a downloading binge and at some point calculated that he had enough music saved, all stuff he really liked, for three lifetimes or so of 24-7 listening. A somewhat manic tech buff.
maybe in a few years I can branch out even more.
Like, say, people. "I know that Unfogged only gets a narrow range of commenters and that a lot of people that I could have been reading about at MySpace and IranianPersonalsOnline have forever been deprived to me."
been deprived to me
I don't think I've ever seen that word used in this manner (i.e., "been deprived to" instead of "been deprived of").
4: Are you admiring your own syntactic agility?
1 -- Holy shit, how'd he store it all? Just a quick calculation assuming an 80-year life and 128 kps sound files (pretty unlikely for a music geek) gives me 42 Terabytes per lifetime of music.
Still, music addiction can be a dangerous thing. I have no idea how the people in radio stations or with music reviewing jobs handle it (mmmm... all those free promos). I'm just saved by money restrictions and laziness; I barely have the patience to download the interesting songs from this top 200 singles of the 60s list.
He didn't specify whose lifetime. Arguably, it's an awkward measurement.
4: "4: Are you admiring your own syntactic agility?"
How meta can you get, Smasher? No, the construction is in the original post.
How meta can you get, Smasher?
I think that was a challenge.
2 bugs me. I think maybe I am like that about people. Also reading. Although I seem to have gotten to the point where my inability to ever get caught up on books has caused me to overload and almost stop reading entirely. Depressing.
It would be advisable (or at least, advised, by me) to split that fucking infinitive.
give each album a cursory, enjoyment-free listen just so I can check it off and be satisfied that I experienced, however superficially, its music.
For me, 'tis better to spend my time puzzling out the remaining lyrics, what they might refer to, and arguing over whether a particular bit is the sound of a mandolin or banjo. In other words, I usually prefer to listen to an album for the 40th time than experiment with a new one, which I know I'll need to listen to at least 3 times before I can really enjoy it, if I'll even enjoy it.
I feel this way about books, movies, magazines, TV shows, etc. from time to time. It really can feel overwhelming. I am both comforted and disturbed that others are the same way.
I can empathise with the music addiction.
If I read a review of anything new that sounds even remotely interesting then I usually try to get a chance to listen to it but even doing that, just trying to check out the tiny subset of new bands that have made it to the point where their music is being reviewed in a music magazine or newspaper supplement,* is hard work.
On the plus side, I regularly find great stuff out there. There's a lot of good music being made.
5: hyperbole may be involved, but the guy was a fanatic.
3: Even as I wrote it I felt uncertain as to its correctness, but I think it works.
Trying to do a guestimate while listening to the Simon & Garfunkel remastered box set from "You can tell the World" to "Song for the Asking" 320 cbr:
200 slimlines on shelves times x 9 shelves
~ 10 albums of HQ mp3 (192 or better;most 256) per slimline = 18k albums at 45 minutes per album = 562 24hr days not so bad if my math is right
Or 1 gb downloading per day, 7 days a week, for ten+ years;something like 1 1/2 terabytes; of which I currently have approx 450 gigabytes 45k songs in my active playlist;shuffled (with some ranking) so that it can be six months before I hear a song twice.
There is some, no, a lot, of selecting. I spend hours searching thru the newsgroups. The technical term among downloaders is "amassing". It is far from free, though the time and money may not go to the appropriate places. I can't stop;I really can't choose to say my time and money should go here and not there. I can't give my money to Paul Simon and say Townes Van Zandt and Judee Sill don't even get my ear, my attention, my appreciation. They all first want to be heard. I can't die having deliberately ignored an available beauty, but I will die in any case, having overlooked, ignored, underappreciated...so many things.
Kyrie Eleison.
I stopped reading literature around 1983, after devouring the genre of SF, small enough it was possible to get all the good stuff. Took a year.
Completely quit reading. Like plucking out the eye that offended me, it was. But the marginal gain from one more classic was not worth the suffering of discriminating and criticizing and comprehending. And choosing.
Intellectual gluttony, I guess, a vice and deadly sin.
And the universe is indeed contained in every grain of sand, if one takes the time to look.
All the perfessors here, surely y'all have asked yourselves:"Is knowledge good?" I remember the coed in the Mexican restaurant asking sincerely as she put on her jacket:"Is Finnegans Wake worth the time?" I sputtered about three years of my life and function of language and like a mandala and looked at her in love and terror and said no.
Oh, I didn't mention one of the biggest sources of music-lust, namely, the Aquarius Records twice monthly newly received list (and the similar Wayside Music list). But especially the AR one, they're very good at describing the most disparate stuff in terms that makes one think one just has to have it.
I've had to stop reading most book reviews - unless there's a particular book I'm looking for - because of this. Slightly related: I stopped reading the New York Times movie reviews years ago when it became clear that few of the movies that interested me ever played where I was living.
DE, I can't listen to that, but if it's Pachelbel's "Canon", my son did a funk version of that quite some time ago.
DE, were you raised by wolves? You don't just spring Pachelbel's Canon on people without warning them. Take that!
silvana noooooooooo!
What have I done?
That was a sickening display of sentimentality that hits one in the gut, much like a punch.
And furthermore, how the hell did "con te partiró" get translated to "time to say goodbye"? Lame.
Is this the thread where I reveal that I own no music?
Did anyone check teo for gills at the last meetup?
Is this the thread where I reveal that I own no music?
What does this even mean? Do you listen to any music? I need to meet Teofilo myself, to judge his freakishness, because I don't trust these internet people to dish truthfully.
I own lots of music, but I could happily own none. Honestly, the radio works fine. You can't always get what you want, but, if you try sometime you might find you get what you need. And actually, if you upgrade to HD or satellite radio, you pretty much can get what you want.
Plus, I really don't like the burden of choosing what I have to listen to. I'd rather let a professional do that for me. I hate not being surprised by what's coming next. It makes it boring. When I listen to my ipod, it's always on random.
23: , were you raised by wolves?
Yes.
28: My people! Oh, I own a couple of cds (Buck got me an Ipod last year, and I probably have ten or so albums on it by now) but on some very deep level, I just don't give a damn.
I listen to music if I'm around people who are listening to music. Otherwise no.
If you're doing a cross-country drive, do you listen to anything, or no?
I have neither the ability nor the desire to listen to music in my truck.
Yes.
Ok then. So do you have an anti-enjoyment thing?
The last time I took a long trip - just under a month - I brought no music with me.
No, I like listening to music, I'm just not into it enough to acquire any.
To each his own, of course, but that strikes me as strange as saying "I don't own soap. I use it if I'm staying with somebody who keeps it in the house, but otherwise no."
Then again, between Roberta and me, there are somewhere between 1200 and 1500 CDs or vinyl albums in the house, before I even get around to counting stuff that only exists on hard drives and CDs full of mp3s, which would certainly add several hundred more. So it isn't that I find it a character flaw or anything. It's just so completely foreign to my own experience that it's hard to fathom.
Huh. So just the sound of the road.
I ask because I'm not a huge music person myself; I like certain things very much indeed, but I am quite happy with quiet. But I'd have a hard time without music while driving.
I just have to be careful not to let the sound of my own wheels drive me crazy.
Man, I've been alone in the house all weekend (Buck and the kids went to his folks, I couldn't go because I suddenly had to work Friday) and silence is wonderful. Why would you turn on music when you could listen to nothing but the street noise eight floors down?
Then again, between Roberta and me, there are somewhere between 1200 and 1500 CDs or vinyl albums in the house
How do you even accumulate that many albums? I tend to pick up a fair amount of music, but it's still probably only about 100 CDs or around 50-60 albums per year. Have you just been collecting for a lot of years? Did you start out with a collection from your parents? Are you broke or just started out quite rich?
One of the things I like most is sitting in a quiet tidy house and listening to music. I think one reason I seldom listen to music (and even seldomer buy it--I don't think I've bought a cd in years) is because I so seldom get the opportunity to really *listen* to it. Mr. B's always got tv or his own music on, or else PK does. And when they're not around, I tend to do the quiet thing. But I'd love to have them not around enough so that I could notice that it's quiet and listen to something. (Boy am I looking forward to next week.)
When I was in grad school, I used to listen every week to the Saturday night old swing show, and dance to it. Yeah, by myself. I did it with PK when he was a baby, and we still dance when I have a rare chance to put on something I like--old blues and the like--but, yeah. I kinda miss alone time.
How do you even accumulate that many albums?
I'm 37, she's 34, and we've both been buying music since our early teens, so that's ~45 combined years. Certainly neither of us started out rich and god knows we don't have much money to spend on it now with a kid in daycare. Buying used CDs through Amazon cuts the cost of buying music significantly, though.
We also both dj'd at WXYC as undergrads (and her at KCXI during grad school), so you end up hearing lots more stuff you want to own than you would otherwise.
I kinda miss alone time.
That's why I'm so often awake at 2 and 3 am.
Yeah, me too. But Mr. B. misses time with me, so he's started staying up late too, and b/c I'm wanting alone time, we both end up on our parallel laptops, and he's usually got Star Trek or Bloggingheads TV or You Tube or something like that going. Sigh.
52- can't you make him put on some damn headphones?
We currently have 16.5 linear feet of LPs, 36 45s, 23 78s and about 8 linear feet of CDs, but they're decanted into albums for storage.
And the Kid has about 6,000 songs on his iPod.
So what am I playing right now? Nothing at all.
53: Sometimes, yeah. But really what I should do is spend more time with him.
This is what your future holds, Brock. Be very afraid.
Nah, Brock's got the Damien baby. His future is going to be much, much more eventful than yours.
re: 51
Yeah, I totally need the alone time. Which is why I never get enough sleep. And I don't have any kids.
I think there's never enough alone time, even for people who are lonely. I don't know how that's possible, but it's true.
Ironically, I had more alone time when I lived in a shared flat and had a much busier social life. Something about coming home and having a room that was largely a private space and being able to choose when to be with other people.
I just got one of these for my birthday. It is pretty sweet for listening to music in the front yard with my kids.
My whole philosophy is alone time. I'm haven't been whining all this time, it's what I've always wanted. There are tradeoffs, of course.