2022-01-23 from the editor of ~insom
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This week I was thinking about how the tin-can (for food)
greatly predates the can-opener when I remembered that at
one point when I was a kid my Dad and I went to a record
store to buy a CD, despite not having a CD player.
He's not around any more, so I can't ask him about it, and
as a kid I just wasn't even aware that this was weird, I
just went along with it. It was the soundtrack for The
Secret of Nimh, which came out in 1995 so I must have been
12. Huh. I thought I was younger.
I've still never listened to this soundtrack because by the
time we got a CD player as a family I think the disc was
long gone.
I also watched an interview between Tom Sachs and Adam
Savage and they touch a little on the totemic power of some
consumer items. Later on I watched another Adam Savage
interview (I don't have a problem, I swear) and he talked
about finding a telegraph key as a kid, in an attic at his
mother's house. That this was something that he didn't
understand what it was for, but could see it was a well made
luxury item.
Understanding what goes into making a CD, I can imagine Dad
wanting to own it just to own something so incredibly
precisely made. Yes, they are as cheap as to be effectively
free now, but at the time I remember this costing about ~15
Irish Pounds (a currency that doesn't exist any more).
(Ironically, this particular CD is now worth about $60 CAD
-- I guess it's out of print and has gone up in value).
While I usually successfully fight the urge, I absolutely
find myself wanting to possess a thing -- not to use it, but
just to own it, like a piece of art. Maybe there is
something about an item which was (at one point) a rare
marvel but is now surpassed or common.
Maybe this is what makes me build tube amplifiers, or obsess
on old measurement tools or covet weird hi-fi equipment.
