2022-01-23 from the editor of ~insom ------------------------------------------------------------ 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.