molting
silentq and I signed a lease for an apartment tonight, which makes it official. We're moving.
When we originally contemplated this last month, I made a bold claim of saying that I was going to simplify my part of the move by discarding most of my possessions in the basement. Most of the stuff that's been sitting there has been the accumulated detritus of my life since university ... a haphazard collection of cardboard boxes with papers, mail and pictures that I've been trucking from apartment to apartment. With each move I've questioned why I continue to bring this stuff around, and with each move I postpone the decision to discard for a time that is less hectic and stressful.
Now, I realize that most of those boxes have lain unopened since I moved here three years ago. If they were really that important to me, if their cargo was still necessary to my happiness, you'd think I'd check in on them once in a while.
So tonight has been the start of the great purge. Notes from university classes on obsolete programming languages? Gone. Operating manuals for phones that have long since stopped working? Shitcanned. Ancient printouts of recipes downloaded from the internet? I can look for them through Google if I needed them again. Old mixtapes from my 20's? ... oh, wait.
In the past, there would have been no question about what I'd do. Keep the things and maybe rotate some of them to the car. Play one or two if the mood strikes on a nice open road. Except now, I had to be honest and remind myself that I haven't listened to these things in years. Most of them were dubs of CDs that I made back in the day before I had a car with a CD player. But, still, nothing evokes nostalgia more than looking at these tapes and remembering long drives across country, midnight runs to raves, and the sound of a cool bassline humming as the Manhattan skyline appeared before a saffron sky. Discarding them would feel like a betrayal.
So, I made a compromise for myself. All of the unlabelled tapes, the ones that were clearly mixes that I made for the car, were gone. All of the albums that I either own in CD or mp3 were also trashed. What I'd keep was the irreplaceable stuff, the few DJ mixes that I bought from Beat Non Stop back in the day, and the tapes that I've received from friends. Still, in the frenzy of trashing and tossing, I almost wound up discarding the most precious compilation that I had owned -- the mixtape that OlderSister made for me when I was 16.
You have to understand, of course, that before I got this tape, my taste in music was a blank slate. I didn't know what I liked. All I knew were what was playing on the Top 40 radio stations and what showed up on MuchMusic in the few moments when I'd catch it on TV. But then OlderSister made me this tape, just because it's what she does, and then everything changed, horizons expanded and the course of what I would collect in these boxes over the next couple of decades was determined. I can't say that everything on this mix had a profound impact on me, but you can trace almost every one of my of favorite (or used-to-be-favorite) genres to a track on this tape.
Side 1
Nick Cave - The Mercy Seat
Happy Mondays - Hallelujah (weatherall mix)
The Pixies - Monkey Gone to Heaven
Stone Roses - Fool's Gold
808 State - Pacific
Front 242 - Headhunter
Inspiral Carpets - Commercial Rain
Renegade Soundwave - Biting My Nails
Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead
Side 2
Soup Dragons - I'm Free (Terry Farley remix)
Primal Scream - Loaded (Weatherall mix)
The Shamen - Hyperreal (Orbited mix)
Fluke - Philly (Jamorphous mix)
My Bloody Valentine - Soon (Weatherall mix)
Stereo MCs - Elevate My Mind
The Beloved - Only Your Love Takes Me Higher
Pet Shop Boys - Where The Streets Have No Name
They Might Be Giants - Birds Fly
... yeah, I'm going to hold on to this for a little longer.
When we originally contemplated this last month, I made a bold claim of saying that I was going to simplify my part of the move by discarding most of my possessions in the basement. Most of the stuff that's been sitting there has been the accumulated detritus of my life since university ... a haphazard collection of cardboard boxes with papers, mail and pictures that I've been trucking from apartment to apartment. With each move I've questioned why I continue to bring this stuff around, and with each move I postpone the decision to discard for a time that is less hectic and stressful.
Now, I realize that most of those boxes have lain unopened since I moved here three years ago. If they were really that important to me, if their cargo was still necessary to my happiness, you'd think I'd check in on them once in a while.
So tonight has been the start of the great purge. Notes from university classes on obsolete programming languages? Gone. Operating manuals for phones that have long since stopped working? Shitcanned. Ancient printouts of recipes downloaded from the internet? I can look for them through Google if I needed them again. Old mixtapes from my 20's? ... oh, wait.
In the past, there would have been no question about what I'd do. Keep the things and maybe rotate some of them to the car. Play one or two if the mood strikes on a nice open road. Except now, I had to be honest and remind myself that I haven't listened to these things in years. Most of them were dubs of CDs that I made back in the day before I had a car with a CD player. But, still, nothing evokes nostalgia more than looking at these tapes and remembering long drives across country, midnight runs to raves, and the sound of a cool bassline humming as the Manhattan skyline appeared before a saffron sky. Discarding them would feel like a betrayal.
So, I made a compromise for myself. All of the unlabelled tapes, the ones that were clearly mixes that I made for the car, were gone. All of the albums that I either own in CD or mp3 were also trashed. What I'd keep was the irreplaceable stuff, the few DJ mixes that I bought from Beat Non Stop back in the day, and the tapes that I've received from friends. Still, in the frenzy of trashing and tossing, I almost wound up discarding the most precious compilation that I had owned -- the mixtape that OlderSister made for me when I was 16.
You have to understand, of course, that before I got this tape, my taste in music was a blank slate. I didn't know what I liked. All I knew were what was playing on the Top 40 radio stations and what showed up on MuchMusic in the few moments when I'd catch it on TV. But then OlderSister made me this tape, just because it's what she does, and then everything changed, horizons expanded and the course of what I would collect in these boxes over the next couple of decades was determined. I can't say that everything on this mix had a profound impact on me, but you can trace almost every one of my of favorite (or used-to-be-favorite) genres to a track on this tape.
Side 1
Nick Cave - The Mercy Seat
Happy Mondays - Hallelujah (weatherall mix)
The Pixies - Monkey Gone to Heaven
Stone Roses - Fool's Gold
808 State - Pacific
Front 242 - Headhunter
Inspiral Carpets - Commercial Rain
Renegade Soundwave - Biting My Nails
Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead
Side 2
Soup Dragons - I'm Free (Terry Farley remix)
Primal Scream - Loaded (Weatherall mix)
The Shamen - Hyperreal (Orbited mix)
Fluke - Philly (Jamorphous mix)
My Bloody Valentine - Soon (Weatherall mix)
Stereo MCs - Elevate My Mind
The Beloved - Only Your Love Takes Me Higher
Pet Shop Boys - Where The Streets Have No Name
They Might Be Giants - Birds Fly
... yeah, I'm going to hold on to this for a little longer.