let's hear music!: the meme
Unlike Selva, I actually sometimes dig a good meme. So when she passed this on to me, I realized it was the perfect activation energy necessary to start blogging again.
Total Volume Of Music On My Computer
I have two "computers" of music: my local laptop, and the server in Arizona that I can infrequently pull from but is still used by the residents of the house there. iTunes on the laptop reports 1979 songs, 5.5 days worth, totaling a mere 10.83 GB of music, all of which is replicated on my darling iPod Photo. On the server, find /export/media/music -iname "*.mp3" -not -path '*.AppleDouble*' -printf "%k\n" | perl -nle '++$c;$i += $_; END{$i /= (1024*1024);print "$c: ${i}GB\n"}' shows me that there are 4578 songs using 26.3 GB on disk. There's a fair bit of cross-pollination between the two, but there are some things on the laptop that simply aren't found on the server (specifically, anything I acquired after June of 2004).
I have over 700 CDs in Arizona, many of which I hope to recover some day and rip to digital audio. I haven't purchased many in the last five years; fiscal reality has pressed upon me like a leaden weight. Most of that is all from my miscreant days in the 90s.
The Last CD I Bought
I bought several CDs from Mark Stanton Welch back in March after attending a seminar where he taught several evening sessions. He is an amazing musical teacher and tonal/music therapist (and, I maintain, healer), and his sessions are always universally loved by everyone who attends. Actually, I can't say enough good things about this guy; he's one of those priceless treasures of humanity, truly someone here in service for the good of all.
Most recently before that, I purchased a reissue of something I had been hunting for almost twenty years, something that cut my breath away and brought me to tears the second I finally saw it on the shelf at Borders on Michigan Avenue one blustery day this winter: Carlo Maria Giulini's seminal recording of Brahms' Fourth Symphony with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This work was a defining musical theme of my childhood — arguably my favorite classical work on the planet (though Brahms' most excellent Double Concerto has been contending nicely of late), and of the six or seven recordings of this I own (and more that I have been exposed to), this is still my absolute favorite, bar none.
Song Playing Right Now
"Love Beat", by the Art of Noise, originally from the "Moments In Love" single. Randomly presented from my "Prime Steak" iTunes smart playlist.
5 songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me
Very difficult to isolate; how often do tastes, moods, moments change? And how do you isolate a mere five from that? I'll try to compose a "moving average" of recent times:
- "No One Knows My Plan," by They Might Be Giants. The grinning of a man who might be mad, but who definitely has a plan about life, and with a latin beat that is infectious beyond belief. Plus, any song referencing Plato's Parable of the Cave scores huge points in my book. And, hey: it's TMBG.
- "Halcyon and On and On," by Orbital. Perhaps cliché, but it's truly a classic grooving track that helps me find the center of my power when I need to actually focus in on something.
- "Koladi-Ola," by Yello. A brash, energized, track that makes you want to just start moving.
- "Fatherland," by Die Krupps. I first found this track through one of Joe's industrial mixes, and it's a song of loss, betrayal, and being unable to come home — and the anger that surrounds it.
- "Addicted to Bass," by Puretone. I hear this, I think of my daughter, and I smile. A slightly sad smile, perhaps, as she's that which I miss most of Arizona— but definitely a smile.
Five already?! Darn, and I was going to put Frank Sinatra/Jimmy Buffett "Mack the Knife" in there, too….
3 people to whom I'm passing the baton
Difficult; all my friends seem to dislike memes such as this (at least, as far as I am aware; perhaps this will be a revealing exercise). So, whether or not they take up the charge: Aster, Zanon, and Sorcha.
