What Adrienne Thinks About That

Perhaps you ought to retitle your entry as "Me and My Feet of Clay."

iPod indeed!

There goes my last adult role model.

Oh, my. I was a bad choice to begin with. I've never been proud of my adult status. I'll never forget our horror the first time Lucas called Tammy and I "The Grown-Ups."

Plus I just told a couple hundred people that I like Justin Timberlake's new CD. I don't know what possesses me to do these things.

Even though I work with very high end audio equipment every day, I have yet to buy an ipod. I have to admit, the Nano is awfully tempting, but the sound quality of MP3's is just so horrible and I'm still upset about the closing of Tower Records (things like the ipod helped put a few nails in the coffin) that I just can't bring myself to support apple in that way. I was actually going to wait until apple came out with an ipod cell phone. That would probably have driven me over the edge, but since I just had to buy a new cell phone (and one with a camera phone no less -- a feature I'd gladly forgo) I don't think I'll be buying one if they do indeed introduce it. It will probably be overpriced to start off with anyway. Although my hope it that would integrate seamlessly with my new Mac Book Pro.

This is the long way of saying that I am gladly no longer a child of the zeitgeist. I see all these wonderful, cheap technological things distancing us from real things of genuine quality. The closing of Tower Records to me is a perfect example. There are fewer and fewer places that one can go to browse a large selection of lots of different styles of music. Sure you can get some these things on itunes, but browsing on the internet and browsing shelves are not the same thing. And don't even get me started on the music selection at The Pit of Despair. I went there out of desperation on the weekend of Chuck's wedding to get some selections to play. Two aisles of rock/rap/r&b, two aisles of country, one aisle of Christian and that was about it. God help any poor child in Brockport who wants to discover jazz or classical. Yet this is what our world is coming to.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make you not enjoy your new ipod. Dancing to silly music is definitely encouraged no matter what the medium. Although when I get the turntable I'm burning to get, I probably won't dance around it too much because I don't want to scratch the record.

And you know I agree with you in many of these principles. I can understand downloading a song like these silly ones I've downloaded because, well, they aren't exactly what one would call quality in the first place -- but I don't see myself downloading music I really care about. I'll buy the CD and put it on my iPod, though, so I can have my music with me in a convenient format when I'm out-and-about (esp. traveling, which I do a fair amount of -- nothing like you, though, Jeffrey) and dealing with my car stereo, where I'm not going to get any kind of real sound quality anyway. And I like being able to shuffle and have playlists that access a lot of my collection even when I'm home. But I'll still have those CDs around to listen to when I want to have a stereo experience, plus I'll have the liner notes, which, being a librarian, I can't seem to do without. I still like holding something in my hand. I think a lot of people our age have a sort of love/hate relationship with this technological stuff: we're young enough to feel comfortable with it but old enough that we didn't always have it and question its quality and what it's doing to our environment. I find these questions really interesting, and I think about them a lot -- but I also think this is a bit of the Mary Higgins Clark vs. Salman Rushdie argument we have in libraries. In the end, some people care about quality more than others and quality matters more in certain areas than others to certain people. We're all on a journey and all that.

What's the Mary Higgins Clark vs Salman Rushdie arguement?

Also, it's interesting to note since you mention your car stereo, one of the dirty little secrets of the recording industry is that pop music producers will often take rough mixes of CD's and go out to the parking lot and put it in their car stereo. It's often one of the final "tests" that many albums go through these days in the mixing process. This is of course aside from all the vocal correction to "singers" who can't hit their pitches.

What not many people reailze is the tremendous disservice they are doing to themselves by choosing low quality convenience. I mean, in a nation that subsists by and large on prepackaged food, it shouldn't really surprise me. I once downloaded a few songs by Damien Rice and then bought the CD. I was surprised to learn that there were entire pieces of orchestration missing in the downloaded MP3 (string sections in particular). The point is that in the process of converting an original thing into something else (whether it be analogue sound waves into digital bits or soy beans into cheese) things are lost in the alteration. It's becoming more and more acceptable in our culture to choose things that are altered well beyond the original and despite severe loss in quality. Anyone here want beef from cloned cattle? Well, it's on the way and FDA says it's perfectly okay. There is just no way that can be true. There is no conversion process of any kind that is an exact replica.

Well, Mary Higgins Clark vs. Salman Rushdie is the way I like to put names to the pop culture vs. literature debate in libraries (i.e. should we really be buying those multiple copies of Mary Higgins Clark or should we be using that money to collect more esoteric materials that won't circulate as well?). Truth be told, I've read several books by both authors and find them equally boring and forgettable. I do, however, like the mental picture of Ms. Clark and Mr. Rushdie duking it out in a dark alley somewhere. (I’d put my money on Mary.)

To take two authors I actually like, we could go with Meg Cabot (popular, fluffy, but oh-so-fun) and Connie Willis (literary, tight writer, completely in control of her narrative), but I don’t like the thought of them coming to blows. I see them more as the sort who would skip the whole argument and go out for coffee or a nice glass of wine instead.

“Dragostea Din Tei” was wildly popular when I was in Italy two and a half years ago and there was NO ESCAPING that insipid song. The guy singing in the video was a slightly thiner version of Michael Moore in fatigues and a dirty looking camo hat, so the guy on YouTube isn't that much more ridiculous.

I love King Missile. Take Stuff from Work and Cheesecake Truck are some of my favorites. I remember when I first heard of them. I was in elementary school... I'm pretty sure it was sixth grade. I spent the night at a friend's house and she handed me a tape that changed my life. Well, it didn't really but I loved the quirky songs.
Wesley Willis is so weird... yet someone I could really obsess over. I first heard Alanis Morssette (the song) and I was hooked.
I got a PSP for my music and picture viewing pleasure. Plus it means I can play Star Wars Legos, Me and my Katamari and Loco Roco until my eyes pop out.

Disney World!?!?!

I wish I was too cool for Disney, but that place is really fun. Hope you guys are having a great time! :)

I'm glad that I am not too cool for Disney World. I am, however, too broke for it this year.