I hope that solar shingles catch on. Sounds like a great idea, if the tech works.

I know I’m a bit behind here, but bear with me.
I’m playing with an undeveloped thought, so this may get a little esoteric…

I think that there’s an *actual* difference in listening to a record vs listening to a computer. Example: I only recently discovered that the third release in the Best Of David Bowie series had come out. I had the 1969-74 and the 1974-79, but it turns out the 1980-87 is available. I was very excited, and part of me felt like going online and downloading the digital album *right now*. But I didn’t want to — I wanted to go to the music store and get the real disc.
I think it’s because it’s actually a different action. OK, sure, I’m still listening to the music, but what I’m actively doing is making a disc spin around, shifting the laser as I try out the different tracks, thumbing through the lyric sheets in the jacket, etc. I felt that somehow downloading it and just adding the songs to my playlist was, I dunno, dull somehow. It wasn’t a real object that I was manipulating and interacting with, it was just another sequence of track titles that my computer would call up or move past at my command. If I got bored I could just change windows and do something else. Nothing was required.

I am also a hoarder: I’m glad my parents are converting all their vinyl records to digital, cause that means the music will continue to exist even if something happens to the records. But that doesn’t mean the two things are the *same*.

It’s kind of maybe like books. I have zero interest in the Kindle. I can’t touch the pages, can’t lend it out, can’t smell it if it’s old (mmm, old book smell, who doesn’t like that?). There’s nothing particularly sacred about the Kindle. Does that make sense at all? A Kindle book is never well-read.
Oh, maybe that’s it. A book is more than the words and ideas in it. A CD is more than the music. Each of these *real* things also implies an action, an interaction, with it. And I don’t necessarily mean the action of turning the pages.

OK, enough of this rambling.

- Eric

Aj

Apologies, your comment got caught in the spam filter. I’ve never heard a bad word about the Eee from anyone who has used them.

http://www.leevalleytools.com

Sniff on!

Alvaro

In that spirit, I sent off a check for the 99 dollar netbook, the Cherrypal Africa.

http://www.cherrypal.com/products.php

Let’s see what a slow, adequate [but admirably green and Linux] netbook can do.

I wish that all of rural China and all of rural India and all of rural Indonesia could evolve much more consumer economy, but using sustainable fuels and less irresponsible credit. I hope that wish is not a pipe dream.

I think that bookstores and record stores require a community. For example, Pittsburg over in Pennsylvania evolved from a steel town to a kind of university town of neighborhoods, with a really lively poetry and local music scene. It’s not surprising, somehow, that when everyone else was losing all their bookstores, it was gaining an entire bookstore scene.
http://www.pittsburghquarterly.com/pages/fall2007/fall2007_88.htm
Here north of Dallas, entrepreneurs recently opened Legacy Books, a sleek store with a physical space which is very impressive and a devotion to being a solid niche bookstore. Time will tell its success, but it’s amusing that in a very conservative, non-bohemian, chain-oriented shopping population it figured out how to draw out 1,500 to a book signing–for Sarah Palin :)!

I agree with your point about store closings–and I wonder, a bit, what it says about us when we will not visit a bookstore, a record store, or even a bakery when it’s just more convenient to go on-line and have a lesser experience but greater convenience.

I agree with everything you’re saying, but I worry that if we don’t support stores that we’ll lose them and there’s nothing as fulfilling to me (well few things) as going into a record store and checking out the new releases. I realize that I can do that at the used stores as well, but there is still a thrill for me in going to HMV, like I did last week, and buying three new CDs. It was the joy of my youth and remains the joy of my middle age.

BTW You’re lucky that your book store has everything your little heart desires. I no longer feel so blessed when I visit Toronto of Cambridge bookstores, since they never have anything I want other than the latest releases, mags, coffee and selfhelp books. Instead I shop at Betterworldbooks.com and help contribute to global literacy! Have you ever tried it?

I remain skeptical that a digital library will last as long as a hard copy record library. I think that people will simply abandon their collections because it’s not part of collector culture. You need to be able to handle something. At least in my experience.

Take care

Cath

PS Italy still has great bookstores with literature and philosophy sections.