Tag: collecting
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Keep streaming in its place
CJ Chilvers on why he’s back to using CDs: I brought physical media back into my life not to replace streaming, but to keep streaming in its place. I heard an audiophile once say that he treated streaming music services (even lossless streaming) like radio. It’s great for discovering new music and artists, and to…
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Word compendiums for the win
It’s hard to even imagine now, but aimlessly browsing bookstores was something I did semi-regularly back in my single and then pre-kid days. One kind of book I’d always keep an eye out for was (for lack of a better name) word compendiums, an author’s curated collection of rare, idiosyncratic, or just plain cool words.…
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A yellow typewriter off to greener pastures
I’m winnowing down my typewriter collection a bit in a bid to maximize our minimal storage space and send my lesser used models off to greener typing pastures. One of those deaccessioned machines is this 1962 Kmart Brother 100, whom my wife affectionately nicknamed Leonard: This was one of the early acquisitions in my initial…
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Durham Days
We just got back from a long weekend in Durham, North Carolina, for a friend’s wedding. I had a great time bummin’ around the area while my wife was busy on bridesmaid duty. Had some barbecue, heard some blues, and took a few pictures… at Ponysaurus Brewing: at Carolina Soul Records, where I found some…
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The Book Thieves
As I read Anders Rydell’s The Book Thieves: The Nazi Looting of Europe’s Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance, I kept thinking of Sean Connery’s line from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: All this book burning by the Nazis entailed looting a continent’s worth of libraries and archives, specifically to root out so-called…
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Each’s Owned
Pictured is the haul ($8 total) from a recent afternoon browsing used bookstores, which I do once in a while, when my time is open and therefore my self-discipline is weak. But I didn’t feel bad about getting more Stuff this time, because I’m coming to something approaching terms with it. I love books, movies,…
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All You Can Do Is Type
I’ve gone a little typewriter mad lately. In addition to my grandma’s IBM Selectric I, I’ve recently acquired a Smith-Corona Classic 12, Royal Futura 800, Rover 5000 Super deLuxe, Smith-Corona Skyriter, and a Smith-Corona Electra 12. All at thrift stores or antique shops and all for $30 or less. They are all fixer-uppers in one way or…