Soundtracks

Due to limited space I try to keep my home library to its current size of about 2500 books. Since there are constantly new acquisitions (a box from Hamilton discount books arrived just yesterday), I have to remove books from the shelves at the same rate I add them. Shakespeare and Plutarch are safe. So are Heinlein and Herbert. But lesser known scifi or mystery authors are likely to get the boot if I deem some new purchases more shelfworthy. At a minimum, a book is shelfworthy if in principle I might read it again. (Since time also is limited, in practice I might not – in fact, probably will not – reread it, but the principle is that I wouldn’t mind doing so.) On a couple of occasions I’ve tested my choices by randomly picking one book from each of the 50 or so shelves for a reread. So far it has worked out.
 
Similar space constraints apply to the single set of shelves for my CDs and vinyl. Since the space is tighter so is the standard of shelfworthiness. It’s not enough that I might in principle listen to a CD again. To keep it, I have to be pretty darn certain I will listen to it again. Music is supposed to heard time and again. There are CDs on my shelves that I haven’t played in more than a year, but I’m suspicious of them. After two years without being replayed they should go, and most of them do.
 
And yes, most of my music is on CD or vinyl. I’m not a Millennial or Zoomer: my music library is not on my phone. There is not any tune on my phone. Since my most common location for listening to music is in my car, the fact that neither my car nor my truck (both 2021s) has a CD player (nor do most vehicles built in the past decade) is an annoyance. Fortunately, portable CD players that use an auxiliary port to access a car’s stereo are not expensive. Mine gets put to good use – or perhaps bad use from the perspective of a passenger with different tastes in music.
 

Anyway, it is hard not to notice a pattern in the winnowing of my CDs based on the replay standard mentioned above. Although sometimes I deliberately step outside the box with a music purchase (my box, that is: it might be squarely inside another listener’s box, such as recent pop music, most of which is painful to my ears), these outside-the-box CDs after the initial listen-through tend not to get replayed. So, they eventually get selected off the shelf. What remains on my shelves overwhelmingly is blues-based rock-and-roll of the type that dominated the charts in my teens and 20s (the usual suspects: Little Richard, Joplin, Hendrix, Clapton, et al.). Not entirely: there is a pretty good 1940s selection and a smattering of non-rock genres including (a little) classical, but mostly there is rock. The majority is vintage from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Again, not all: there are contemporary bands such as Rival Sons, Dorothy, and the Pretty Reckless that are secure in their places on the shelf, but most of them (including all three named) have vintage sounds. Dorothy even strays into psychedelia (as in Medicine Man or Woman) occasionally.
 
My pattern, for well or ill, is stereotypical. Most people’s musical tastes are set in their youth. We’ve all observed this, but data scientist and op-ed writer for The New York Times Seth Stephens-Davidowitz decided to quantify the effect. Spotify information on downloads and users’ ages proved to be a valuable source. Stephens-Davidowitz determined that women form basic lifelong musical tastes between ages 11 and 14. Men lag a couple years, forming their tastes between 13 and 16. Both tend to evolve a bit and to take new popular music seriously until around 24, after which they typically don’t change much. (There are always outliers, of course, who don’t fit the general stereotype.) These youthful ages are when we form out adult identities and experience key “firsts” in our lives. The music we hear is the soundtrack for that era, and is inevitably tangled with it in our memories. Perhaps the surprising thing is that our attachment to the music of our youth isn’t even stronger.
 
This doesn’t mean we’ll never like anything new and different. We probably will. But odds are it won’t dominate our shelves.
 
Friedrich Nietzsche: “Without music life would be a mistake.” Freddy had a point. So, whatever your preferred genre and whatever your life soundtrack might be, enjoy it. I’m happy with mine being mostly vintage rock. Some other generations (IMO) have done worse.
 

 

Canned Heat – Rock and Roll Music

All Wet

My house, like myself, is aging. Built in 1978, it is considerably younger than I am but is nonetheless solidly in middle age. It calls for significant repairs about as often as I do. You never know what will go next but something will. Sometimes I can handle the issues myself, which keeps the cost down to the materials (and some aches for me). I have rebuilt exterior wooden stairs, repaired retaining walls (both RR tie and masonry), reroofed the barn and shed, and so on. We all have our limitations however. I don’t do mechanicals: for plumbing, electrical, furnace repair, AC maintenance, and the like, I call professionals.
 
This week the problem is a shower leaking through the floor into the ceiling of the finished basement below. Word of advice to anyone who rates functionality over esthetics: don’t build a fancy expensive tile shower. Be cheap and install a fiberglass shower. It is seamless; it doesn’t leak; when it’s installed you’re done. Regrettably, my parents (whose house this was before it became mine) had different views. They chose tile laid over a lead pan. In fairness, this old-fashioned construction technique lasted their lifetimes, but it hasn’t lasted mine. No tile is actually 100% waterproof. Water will get through the grout. This is why there is a lead pan (or other water resistant materials) below the floor tile. But water eventually can defeat this too through corrosion or deformation. My shower has problems with the pipes, faucets, and the pan. A contractor has examined the shower and will get back to me with a cost estimate this coming week. His number, whatever it may be, definitely will be followed by three zeroes.
 
Despite my current trouble and upcoming expense, I like showers in principle. I rarely opt for a bath instead and on those rare occasions wonder why I did. Besides, I typically have to shower off the soap film afterward anyway.
 
Who invented the shower depends on your definition of a shower. If you count waterfalls it wasn’t invented at all, but I think most of us mean something artificial by the term. Some ancient Egyptian art shows wealthy folk having pitchers of water poured on them by their servants, but I don’t think this counts either. The first recorded legitimate showers – with running water piped to outlets overhead – were in ancient Greece as adjuncts to the public baths. The Romans picked up on the idea; many of their public baths had them. Showers disappeared in the Middle Ages, however, primarily because of the lack of running water; aqueducts and other Roman-era water works had fallen into disrepair and disuse by then.

Showers despicted on ancient Greek
pottery. I like the literal shower heads.

The modern shower – like so much of the modern world – was invented in the 18^th century. Englishman William Feetham designed and patented a mechanical shower in 1767 that was operated by means of a hand pump. The water source could be either a tank (as in the patent) or a well. It was clever, but the device didn’t really catch on. Most people don’t want to work that hard when washing off. Running water, whether public or private, was what was missing. This became more common over the next century, however. By the 1880s the day of the “rain shower” in upscale homes had arrived – no hand pump needed. It was usually combined with a tub though dedicated showers did exist. The final key ingredient was hot water. Heating a tank of water and tying it into home plumbing is an obvious idea, but early 19^th century designs (some of them coal or wood fired) were dangerous and messy. The first practical and (reasonably) safe home water heater was designed by Philadelphian (originally Norwegian) engineer Edwin Ruud in 1889. It was a gas-fired water heater not much different from many gas heaters in use today. Electric heaters came along in the 20^th century including tankless ones that don’t store water but heat it as needed.
 
Today, hot showers are a luxury we tend to take for granted – until we don’t have them. Due to current house guests and bathroom locations, the only shower available to me at the moment (other than the leaky one) is in the summer bathroom, which is primarily a changing room located off the porch; this bathroom doesn’t have hot water, which makes using its shower a perky experience. I’m not looking forward to writing the check for the shower repair, but I am looking forward to a less startling temperature when it is again ready for morning duty.
 
 

Chicago - An Hour in the Shower

Keeping Secrets

Several months ago I finally got around to getting my family/personal photo albums in reasonable order. Four ring binders comprise the physical version. There are four digital files, too, saved as Word documents since these are easy to edit by adding and deleting scanned photos, adding or amending commentary, and so forth. The four digital files parallel but don’t quite match the corresponding ring binders. A lot of repetitive photos are excluded from the Word albums while a lot of commentary, including anecdotes and family lore, is added to them. There is less commentary than I initially contemplated though. I seriously considered creating a set of photo-illustrated tell-all biographies that in spots would be unflattering. In the end I decided against it. That’s not really what albums are for. They serve more anodyne purposes: evoking nostalgia in family members who look at them and boredom in others. They are not for revealing dark secrets. Besides, as friends and family members pass (most of the folks in my photos are gone), we survivors tend to get protective of their secrets as well as of our own. In a strange way they become ours to keep.
 
Everyone has secrets. Most of them are selective, which is to say we hide them from some people but reveal them to others whom we trust. There are always limits to trust, however, so there are some secrets we take to the grave. According to David Ludden, Ph.D., writing in Psychology Today, studies show the typical person carries about a dozen of these latter type. Not all of them would seem important to an outsider, but it’s enough that they seem important to the secret-holder. There were obvious obstacles to conducting the studies (the subjects were no more likely to reveal deep secrets to researchers than to anyone else) so most researchers opted for asking the subjects what types of secrets had been revealed to them by confidantes. These likely are the same as (or at least akin to) the secrets folks never reveal. The most common:
 
Infidelity
Having been physically abused or assaulted
Having engaged in physical abuse or assault
Mental illness (anything from minor anxiety to psychosis)
Alcoholism (whether active or not)
Drug abuse
Unacknowledged offspring
Abortion
STDs
Kinky sexual proclivities
Severe financial distress
Orientation
Cheating at work or in academics
Criminal record
Having gotten away with a crime (anything from petty theft to murder)
and (somewhat oddly since I rarely meet people who are reticent about them) Religious beliefs
 
This is far from a comprehensive list. Some past thoughts or deeds that don’t fit those categories are regarded by the secret-holders as simply too embarrassing to share with others. Conversely they may take pride in some act (say, covert revenge) that would seem sociopathic to others. They may not wish to endanger a marriage by admitting an emotional attachment to someone else. The types of secrets are endless. The motive for keeping a secret might be practical (e.g. avoiding breakup or arrest), but most often it is a matter of either self-image or public image.
 
For this reason I always have taken autobiographies with a shaker of salt – especially ones by politicians but by all others as well. I still read them sometimes since they do offer useful stories and insights, but they also certainly leave key secrets out of the narratives. Even Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798), whose memoirs run to 12 volumes (!), and whose tales of deceit and seduction are often unflattering to himself, tells us with honesty rare in a memoirist that he left out some of his most depraved adventures due to conscience. (The memoirs are a fun read, by the way; they are available for free at gutenberg.org.)

Casanova 

I haven’t led as exciting a life as Casanova. I’d have trouble filling one volume. I might try it one day anyway. In it I might even reveal some of those secrets I left out of the albums – except for maybe a dozen.

 

Pink – Secrets

Virtual Erudition

The Millennials have aged to the level that Boomers (my group) reached in the 1980s. Perhaps it’s time to reboot the TV show Thirtysomething for them. They are by no means old but already are disconcerted by having been displaced as the representatives of youth culture by Zoomers and Alphas, generations to which they do not entirely relate.
 
[Definitions: Boomers were born between and including 1946 and 1964, GenX 1965-1980, Millennials 1981-1996, GenZ (aka Zoomers) 1997-2010, and Alphas 2011 -present.]
 
A Millennial friend of mine the other day, feeling the changing of the guard, commented to me about how advanced kids are compared to when she was the same age. “They grew up with all this information at their fingertips. There are articles and YouTube videos on everything, so they just know so much more and are so much more sophisticated.” I disagreed and remarked that my admittedly limited experience with them was nothing so encouraging. She again pointed out the vast knowledge available to them. I didn’t wish to argue the matter so I let it go. Besides, it is true that answers (more or less correct ones generally) to almost any question are a few taps on a phone away, but there is a difference between virtual knowledge and knowledge. Being able to google something is not the same as internalizing the information. As far as sophistication goes, it is also true that kids (Alphas as well as Zoomers) are likely to be aware of the edgier cultural issues of the moment. But these are so much in the air as to be essentially pop culture – like knowing the names of the members of a popular band. (I was aware of the cultural issues of the ‘60s, too.) It’s a stretch to call this sophistication.
 
Every generation tends to underestimate previous ones, which is another way of saying they overestimate themselves. My generation was as guilty as any of that arrogance. I recall watching Casablanca years ago with a younger Boomer (b. 1961) who had never seen it because it was an “old movie” and therefore by definition boring. He liked it but then asked in all seriousness if I thought audiences back then “got” all the allusions, double entendres, and irony in the script, as though they couldn’t possibly be as sophisticated as ourselves given the primitive era in which they lived. “They got it,” was all I could say. Zoomers have much the same sort of reservations about Boomers given that by comparison we often remain a bit clunky with electronic devices.
 
I like having answers so readily available thanks to modern technology. I’m no Luddite. Yet there are drawbacks to everything, and the drawbacks to tech affect Zoomers and Alphas the most given their immersion in it and reliance on it. Henry Kissinger in his latest book (my review is a couple of posts ago) worried about this: “While the internet and its attendant innovations are unquestionably technical marvels, close attention must be paid to the balance between the constructive and corrosive habits of mind encouraged by new technology.” He noted the decline of “deep literacy” amid visual culture and quick clicks from link to link: “reading a complex book carefully, and engaging with it critically, has become as counter-cultural an act as was memorizing an epic poem in the earlier print-based age.”
 
I do not know, since Henry doesn’t mention it, but because he uses some of the same terminology I suspect that he is familiar with a book from around a decade ago by Nicolas Carr called The Shallows. Carr examined the question of whether relying on virtual knowledge and virtual memory was making us weak-minded. The answer was a qualified “yes.” Referencing numerous psychological studies, he reported that the internet diminished the time spent “deep reading.” We skim. We follow links, flitting about and often losing track of our initial question. The more hyperlinks an online text contains, the lower is our comprehension of it when we are tested afterwards. Carr quotes T.S. Eliot about being “distracted from distraction by distraction,” which is precisely the kind of quote likely to be used by someone who has done deep reading. Creativity and insight largely involve connecting one piece of knowledge with another in a new way, something quite difficult when the pieces of knowledge aren’t in our own heads. Carr concludes, “What we seem to be sacrificing in our surfing and searching is our capacity to engage in the quieter, attentive modes of thought that underpin contemplation, reflection and introspection.” We become shallower.

 
None of this is inevitable. Nothing prevents a YouTube junkie from reading Nietzsche or Camus cover-to-cover on the side. But it’s not a habit I commonly see in Alphas and Zoomers, though it’s possible I simply meet the wrong ones. On the upside, I suppose virtual knowledge is better than none at all.
 

Questions to random young people