On The Shelf

In the mid-nineties I sold my records and turntable at a garage sale for a pittance. I wanted them gone. The record collection was large and heavy and I had almost all of the albums on CDs. The turntable hadn't been hooked up for years. The records were in a closet. I sold them knowing we would be moving soon and not wanting to have to pack them in a truck. 

The CDs made it easy to let go of the records. The turntable had been a Christmas present from Mom and Dad and the records had come from Spectrum Records and Desert Shore as well as Record Theater and all the crappy mall shops, so I was a bit reluctant but not much. I missed the album art and lyric sheets but traded for ease of play, quality of signal, and reduction of noise. I was happy to never hear crackle and pop. 

I moved from analog to digital in a big way and kept going as Napster was born (a gift from the gods) and then died (at the damned hands of Metallica). I ripped my CDs and uploaded them to iTunes. Around then I gave CDs to the library's annual sale. They were taking up space and I hardly ever pulled them down. I hadn't ever loved CDs and so it was easy to let them go. 

This all seemed like an upgrade, but while music was available to me anywhere, my interest was diminished. I still loved music, played it all the time, but I enjoyed it less. There were problems, the was finding something to listen to. 

A record or CD collection is a delight to browse. I get a bang out of flipping through records or running my eyes across a shelf of CDs. At friends' houses, I look at their books, CDs, and records. It helps me feel close to the person. Hey, look, they listen to Steely Dan too. More and more I get to do this less and less because none of us have these things on shelves. 

On the computer and phone I have access to almost every song I could wish to hear, but it's tough to choose. Making a choice out of such a large pool is difficult, but there's just no good way to browse. I can display my music by artist, genre, album, song, or number of plays, but looking at a screen isn't natural or even pleasant. There's no there there. I usually give up and just play what I listened to yesterday.

This bothered me from Napster through iTunes and Google Play Music. No one is interested in making browsing work. It's not part of digital living. The music is arranged for the machine not the listener. I have to know what I want to hear or let the machine pick. It's a bad situation. Still, I've been willing to put up with it because I thought it was just me, that I was the problem. That and the music was so clear, plentiful, and inexpensive I figured there was no point in arguing. This had to be better than records, right?  

Damon Krukowski, in The New Analog, talks about signal and noise. Digital media is pure signal without noise. As a kid I wanted better and better equipment to reduce noise and boost signal. The greatest thing about CDs was the absolute lack of noise. It didn't matter if the sound was colder or whatever complaints audiophiles had. I was grateful not to hear a crackle or a pop. Noise was an enemy and if I had to sacrifice browsing to beat it, I was happy to give up records. 

It turns out that noise is more than crackle and pop. The digital stream the bad noise as well as the noise of album covers, personnel, liner notes, and so on. It takes away the noise of physical media on the shelf and the noise of shopping for music in a store. It strips away the noise of the friend who went with me to the record store and the person there who said, "you should hear this" before playing something cool. The digital stream is pure signal compressed for earbuds. I miss the noise. Even the crackle and pop.

David Sax, author of The Revenge Of Analog, put it this way:

“my roommate and I decided to upload our entire collection of 600 CDs to iTunes and get rid of the CDs. Our interest in music nearly disappeared overnight — because everything was out of sight, out of mind, on a hard drive. It just stopped being interesting. ”

— https://garage.ext.hp.com/us/en/modern-life/david-sax-interview-revenge-of-analog.html

They lost the noise and signal alone turns out to be less than enough. 

I didn't know how much I wanted back into music, signal and noise, until a friend invited me to a vinyl party. He said, "bring an album and play a song for us." Not having a record, I went shopping for one with the friend who had been with me for most of my music shopping over decades. Searching for an album was a revolutionary experience: I came home with a record and an understanding of all I was missing in my music life. It all became clear. 

This should have happened sooner. It took only six months to realize my Kindle was garbage. I couldn't use it on the plane until after take off. I had to buy books instead of using the library. No one knew what I was reading so they didn't talk with me about it. I didn't even know what I was reading because I never saw the cover. I couldn't tell how far into the book I was. It didn't fit in my hand how a book does. And I loved how books looked on our shelves. I gave the Kindle away and kept the books. 

Last year, after the party, I bought a turntable and began buying records. There are over a hundred on the shelf now. The last few days I've listened to over a dozen records, some with more crackle and pop than others, all picked from the shelf, set on the platter, and spun at 33-1/3 rpm. I have reunited the signal and noise. I have begun to amass the bulk that I shed. I have found, once again, the interest in music I had as a kid. And the happiness too. 

Where I'm At

School is closed. Most of the city, county, and state too. The snow is ridiculous. I've shoveled twice so far. Eight inches have fallen in about six hours. Syracuse, New York in February. 

My neighbor and I took a break from shoveling to talk across the street. "I had the choice to have lunch or shovel. Some choice," he said, leaning on his shovel. He's even more fastidious about hid driveway than I am but nowhere near happy about it. Snow is a bother. The cold too. The driving through all of it. Ugh. 

Our snowblower died and both to save money and be green I decided not to replace it. I've been shoveling and, aside from a bit of soreness, it has been fine. During these storms, I go out often. I'll be out there again within the hour. 

About now, someone says I'm crazy to live here. I understand, but it's not the snow that's toughest. It's the grey skies which I've seen drive people out of their happiness. Still, even under grey skies and feet of snow, I'm happy where I am. 

Really. 

I love snow days and generally like snow even though I don't ski and no longer snow blow (my favorite winter activity). I've begun to enjoy shoveling. The snow is beautiful and I like crazy weather that doesn't involve hurricane winds ripping off the roof or earth suddenly shifting beneath the foundation. Syracuse has tough snow but no disasters. I can deal with tough but try to avoid disaster. 

This is where I have lived. I went away for college and a job, but there was no question where we would raise our children. This is a place where strangers smile when I say hello. They respond, have a good one. And so I have.  

I've chosen where I live, who I am, where I'm going. I chose this city, this life, these friends, this family, this act of writing. I chose all of it and it I've chosen well. When I look closely, I see that it is good. It feels good too. I feel good. 

Friends can't wait until they move to Florida, Arizona, the Carolinas, out of Syracuse. Some sound happy about where they want to go. Others are just sound angry about where they are. I listen and nod. They ask, "where will you go?" I shrug, smile, and say that I'm good here. They ask, really? And I nod. There's not much to say and I've no reason to convince them to stay. It is enough that this is and has been the place for me. 

All of this has less to do with Syracuse, New York than it does with Brian G. Fay. The best thing about getting old is the settling down. As a kid I thought that would be depressing part, but being settled opens doors within me. Knowing where I am, I know better who I am and who I might become. 

It's about time I went out and scraped the driveway again. The snow is still coming hard, another two inches in the driveway. I'll do my neighbors' sidewalks to either side. We help each other out. If someone else is out there shoveling or just walking by, I'll say hello and listen to what they have to say about the storm. I'll smile because I'm standing in my driveway, outside my home, smack dab in the middle of where I want to be. I'll smile because I know where I am right now and it is good. Let it snow. I'll keep shoveling. 

Carry On

On the turntable CSN&Y's "Carry On" is spinning and it seems apropos to the day. 

“One morning I woke up and I knew
You were really gone
A new day, a new way, I knew
I should see it along
Go your way, I’ll go mine
And carry on”

Today is the third anniversary of my dad's death. At breakfast, Mom asked, "can you believe it has been three years?" I felt bad saying yeah, but that's exactly what it feels like. I have no problem placing that day in my history or remembering who I was and who I have become. I'm not clearheaded on all matters, but in this I know what's what. Like the song says, a morning came when I woke up and knew he was gone. He went his way and I go mine. We carry on. 

Shortly after he died, a friend invited me to drink bourbon and hang out. We drank two-thirds of a bottle of Basil Hayden. About an hour into the bottle, he said, "tell me about your dad." I paused a moment, then told stories. Good ones. The kind that made Dad almost present in the room with us. The whiskey helped, but mostly it was a friend indulging my grieving and healing. 

“The sky is clearing and the night
Has gone out
The sun, he come, the world
Is all full of love
Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice
But to carry on”

I still find myself conflicted some, but mostly over what others need. The cemetery is a good example. There's nothing there for me. It's a place of solace for others, but for me there's no one there. I worked there as a kid, cutting grass, trimming trees, watching the backhoe dig and fill graves. Dad was a funeral director. I was around the dead and the grieving often. Because of that, I don't find Dad at the cemetery nor do I need him to be there. I have no choice but to carry on and it becomes easier each day to rejoice, rejoice as I accept the sky, the night, the sun, and the love in my world. 

The record has moved onto Neil Young's "Helpless." I'm shaking my head. I like the song, but it's not how I feel. Dad rarely seemed helpless and that was the thing I most wanted to learn from him. The car breaks down miles from home? Fix it. There isn't enough money in the bank? Make more. Dad died suddenly? Carry on. 

“Where are you going now, my love?
Where will you be tomorrow?
Will you bring me happiness?
Will you bring me sorrow?”

Carrying on is asking and trying to answer such questions. I wonder where I'm going, where I'll be tomorrow. I'm curious but not worried because the answer to the questions about happiness and sorrow have obvious answers. I've already found a vein of happiness and am mining it for all its worth. 

I find myself often reminded of the man and smiling a little. Then I say, "hey, Dad," and I carry on. 

Extra Ordinary

Yesterday I had an idea for a short essay about school. I scratched a note on a post-it and went back to teaching. At lunch, I took fifteen minutes to knock out a rough 850-word draft, then began editing and revising down toward 600. Halfway through, I was called to a meeting which lasted an hour. Back from that, I picked up where I had left off and made it through to the end. I read it through again and posted 560 words to the world. 

No big deal. I write like this all the time. It's the most ordinary of things. 

Last night, I was at a party where one of the hosts played electric guitar in a four-piece band. They played a tight instrumental rendition of Steely Dan's "Peg" which I love. I watched him as the song wound toward the solo and wondered how he would handle something Becker and Fagen tried with dozens of guitar players. He hit the first note and moved into a solo that nodded at the recorded version but which he made his own. 

I love watching musicians perform and studied him. It seemed extraordinary to me, as musical performance often does, but when we talked about it, he shrugged like he had just written a short essay and posted it to his blog. No big deal. He does this all the time. 

Earlier that day I tweeted that "I can't be the only one who has this feeling that anything I'm able to do can't possibly be extraordinary." I was thinking then about my writing. I could have written it of my friend's work with the guitar. So many things are extraordinary until we do them. 

One thing that remains extraordinary for me is the prose poem. I wrote one this week, February Fifth, and it surprises me. It began with a line in my head and the approaching anniversary of my dad's unexpected death. "It always snows on the fifth of February even when it doesn't." That stuck with me for a day before I typed it and let the other words come through me. I revised the hell out of it and posted it, waiting for reactions. There weren't many.

My wife says that it's tough to know what to say about poetry. At first this wasn't enough for me. Then I thought of my friend Chris's photography. 

Chris began as a nature/landscape photographer. (Actually, he began as a fertilized egg, but I'll skip ahead.) He has moved on to fine art photography. He'll forgive me for saying that he produces fewer pretty pictures and iconic shots of obvious majesty. He's onto something far less ordinary, a world in which he largely has to decide what is good because fewer people can follow him there. A shot of pine needles on snow confuses many because it is extraordinary. 

I say that word in exploded fashion: extra ordinary. Out of and beyond the ordinary. 

There is something to be said for going beyond what we are used to, for reaching toward the extraordinary. There is a lot to be said too for the things that we have made ordinary: my friend on guitar, Chris creating photographs, me writing essays. Taking on the extraordinary and coming to feel them as natural doesn't diminish them, but it does leave me wanting to reach beyond. I love writing essays such as this and enjoy the comfort with which I can compose and polish them. I also love reaching for something more even when I don't yet know what it is.

I came into this not knowing what I wanted to say. I come to the end not knowing much more of what it's all about, but feeling sure that this is the way to go, the ideas to ponder. I'm creating something. What it is, I don't know. And that, in and of itself, feels extraordinary.