music: The Curtis Twelve- 5/13/2006, Somerville, MA
(Long TIme No Blog. I think February of 2007 was the first month I missed since I started this thing in June of 2003. Things have been busy and I’ve been pushing myself away from this contraption as much as possible.)
Of all the material possessions that I still have, only a few have been with me since I lived in Milwaukee. I moved out to Providence in the fall of 1997, so most of my belongings are newer than that. Between 4 moves in Providence, 6 moves in Boston, and one big cross-country drive this summer there are only a few things that have survived the changes of the last 10 years. I take inventory as I look around my room: what has made cut after cut for the past 10 years? There is my acoustic guitar, a very important object. There are a few ratty t-shirts, each with sentimental value for one reason or another. There are certain CDs and books, for obvious reasons. There is my clock radio. There is my big green Osprey Silhouette, a very important item indeed. And there is my little stereo, which has been around longer than any of the above items.
I bought my little Panasonic shelf unit in December of 1991, when I was in seventh grade. It was a pretty expensive piece of equipment at the time, but put out a lot of good sound for the size and had some top-of-the-line features. That little stereo made its way to college, every apartment I’ve lived in, my cabin when I was a summer camp counselor (where I dubbed a good 100 tapes from AJM in the summer of 1997).. Every night I gazed at the flickering LCD EQ as I drifted off to bed, every morning I rubbed my eyes and squinted at the time on it. Today, though, that all came to a close as I picked up a used receiver off Craigslist for $35. It was time; I’m running three sets of speakers, multiple inputs (the least of which is this computer). Moreover, after 15 years the CD player on the shelf unit no longer works for most CDs and one of the tape players is broken. The new receiver puts out incredible power, is able to fill the entire upstairs of my house with sound, exhibits great stereo separation, can handle multiple inputs with ease, but something is still off. After living with something and interacting with it on a daily basis for 15 years I’d imagine this will take some getting used to.
It is said that every cell in your body regenerates after about seven years, meaning that you are made of completely different molecules every seven years or so. The little panasonic shelf unit, as an extension of my cellular makeup for the past 15 years, has survived two complete biological overhauls. Now it sits under my bed, unused, gathering dust. Its time has definitely come, but it’s still awkward to not have the thing around.
Posted by davidtaus at March 13, 2007 01:07 AM | TrackBack