For the [URL=
http://hodgepodgeart.typepad.com/]Hodge Podge challenge.[/URL] This week's prompt is to do a page about something we are superstitious or neurotic about.
Since I'm using this year's Hodge Podge prompts to create an album about the music that influenced me through the years, my page is about some of the quirks and rules we had about listening to records, back when that's what we all listened to!
[B]Credits:[/B]
[URL=
http://www.oscraps.com/shop/product.php?productid=22419&cat=314&page=2]Old School[/URL] & [URL=
http://www.oscraps.com/shop/product.php?productid=24079&cat=314&page=1]The Thing Finder[/URL] by Holliewood Studios @ Oscraps
[B]Fonts:[/B]
LDJ Mother's Typewriter
1942 Report
[B]Journaling:[/B]
The Rules
of our music geekdom
1. Remove the album from its dust jacket and place it on the turntable without a finger ever touching its grooved surface
2. Dust carefully before each play
3. One album, one side per artist per day, except on concert days,
4. Albums re-filed according to the Dewey Decimal System immediately after play, dust jacket opening always facing up in the album cover, NEVER in line with the opening of the album cover.
There was both a seriousness and a silliness to these rules all at the same time. Some were born out of the understandable desire to take good care of my brothers' music collection and sound system, and some were born out of our quirky penchants for little rituals we would become almost superstitious about. Typing them out now, I realize it must sound like they made listening to music no fun at all, but it was quite the opposite. Attaching rules and ritual to the experience was part of it all. The basement of our family home was, quite literally, like a daily episode of That 70s Show, except with a seriously kickass stereo system. There was never a dull moment and always the best music. Now I open up iTunes when I listen to music, I rarely even dip in to my CD collection. Convenient, yes, but not the same experience at all. I miss that feeling of thumbing through the records, of carefully placing my selection on the turntable. The days when an album was a really big deal. I miss those carefree days in the basement of our family home and I wish I'd known then just how lucky we were. But that is the nature of life, isn't it? And that is the stuff they write songs about...
