It’s here tomorrow people…what is sure to be one of the greatest football games played by humans. Both teams at 10 and 1, Favre vs Romo…I can’t wait…They look the same…they look so damn much like the same person…I ask them if they want ice cream cone…both of them say yes…this is going to be fun.

I am a person that enjoys music. For me no matter what is going on in my life, there’s always a song about it (I take comfort in that fact). And for some reason the sad songs always do it best. Music is a huge part of who we are personally and culturally (except for those who really don’t get in to music, and there’s just no hope for them). Music taste is a strange animal as well. Recently I’ve noticed that I can track my musical tastes back through not only my friends but my family as well. My mother always said “you always like the ones that sing your life,” I got The Beatles (pop tracks with something to say), James Taylor (really pretty songs about being normal), and Jimmy Buffett (all is not lost, we’re flawed but we’re happy stuff) from her and her twin sister. My folk influence came from my Mom and my aunt, the reason I like stuff like Iron and Wine, John Vanderslice, and Sun Kil Moon probably has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve heard “Tea for the Tillerman” from beginning to end over a hundred times. My Grandmother gave me country (not that new-fangled stuff they try to pass off as country these days, real songs, about hard living). Some of mine and her favorites were always; Patsy Cline (why do I love you again, love songs), Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash (epic songs about damaged people, not unlike themselves). The other thing I got from my grandmother was the Crooners (sure none of them wrote their own stuff but they’re renditions were always the best). Frank Sinatra (the chairman of the board, he made you love the girl he was singing about as much as he did), Nat King Cole (does it get any better that “unforgettable”?), and Ray Price (Another great voice from that period of our musical heritage). This love of old “true” country is what brought me into the arms of bands like Bright Eyes, Jenny Lewis, and Band of Horses, and my entire addiction to sad songs in general. My Uncle bestowed on me the rock. I’ve always been a rock and roll kid but I truly learned the way of rock from this guy. Metallica (think black album, and “master of puppets” those guys are totally guilty of laterday douchebagery, I know, but at one point they rocked your face off), The Rolling Stones (another band guilty of some douchebagery as of late but a great band in their day), and of course Jimmy Hendrix (the space rock and post rock bands I listen to today owe their careers of the voodoo Jimmy wielded). To this I owe my taste for things like Reggie and the Full Effect, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Modest Mouse (bands that just plain rock). My other aunt and uncle were always into new wave, having grown up in the 80’s. from them I aquired a taste for The Talking Heads, and Devo (silly sounding songs with strong social commentary layers), and They Might Be Giants (a band that may very well need to be credited with the indie music scene, and more silly songs that really have a deeper meaning) and the Clash (I still have my aunts copy of Combat Rock on vinyl and listen to it regularly). The influence of new wave and punk got me into bands like The Vandals, Vampire Weekend, and The Flaming Lips. From this foundation I have built, what I believe to be a very well-rounded taste for music. It’s funny how one can trace taste through not only themselves but through those around them. So now you know more about who I am. and here are my top 5 albums right now. comment with yours…or be destroyed…cake or death.

1. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary

2. The Arcade fire - Neon Bible

3. Cold War Kids - Robbers and Cowards

4. Two Gallants - Two Gallants

5. The National - Boxer

Wow. It’s been a while since I posted last. It’s been a busy couple of weeks. I feel I should preface this post by saying that I am an analog preservationist. I like the digital revolution, but think that some are way too gung-ho to replace everything with digital technology. I believe that would be detrimental to society. I was thinking this morning about how computer technology has affected the tangibility of the written word…and all that is analog for that matter. My hard drive handed in it’s resignation the other day. It was thankfully the one that holds my operating system and not the one housing my photos and music and such. But what if it had been? At my mom’s house we have all of these boxes just filled with old photos. I have a hard drive…and the hard drive is much less reliable than a box under the kitchen counter…or in a closet…or in a photo album…or where ever you keep your photos. The digital format has not only affected photography (a profession in which the new trend is digital photography over traditional) but the written word as well. As the printed word hurdles headlong toward extinction I wonder if a completely digital world is the best course of action. And what will it do for the concept of nostalgia? Is the nostalgia of photos, books, newspapers, etc in the information being delivered or is it tied more to the tangible object itself? Or is it a combination of the two? I do get those nostalgic feelings when I look back in my collection of digital pictures, but it is nowhere near as intense as the feeling you get when you find photographs in a drawer or a box that you forgot about. Is it the act of finding and rediscovering these things that creates the emotional attachment we have to these objects? There is something to be said for the aging of these tangible objects as well. When photos are old they should look old. When one looks at a picture from the 1970s it looks like something from the 1970s the color is off, it looks earthy, sepia toned almost, there is a haze in the picture that lets the viewer know “hey this is old, that means it’s important”. When I look back at the photos on my computer 10, 20, 30 years from now (provided of course my hard drive doesn’t stop working , and my back ups don’t become corrupted), they will look the same as the day I took them. Something about that doesn’t sit well with me. I want my kids and grandkids to be able to connect with the photos I take in the same way that I connect with those of my parents and grandparents. Those photos, especially the one’s from the 1920s and 30s seemed more like precious objects. I have a photo of my grandfather and his army buddies that is a small photo booth size picture encased in a flimsy metal frame. I hold it very dear to me. The subject matter is very important but what is more important is that I connect with my grandfather (who is no longer with us) every time that I touch this object because that is the common relationship he and I have with this object. The object serves as a link to the past. It is precious. Can digital information accomplish the same thing? Can Walgreens digital prints and photos that don’t age really conjure up the same emotions? Books are the same way. eBooks is a concept I just don’t buy. The importance in passing a book on is having the physical object. It’s about the yellow pages, the dog-eared corners, the creases in the spine, the underlined passages, the intimacy of graphite on paper. All of these things make a book what it is. Magazines are only good for one thing, being in a pile in a doctor’s office, or on the back of the toilet, or on a shelf on a bookcase. I love my collection of Artforums. The arrangement of them on my bookshelf acts as a time line through which I can track the last 4 years of my life. With all of this importance that resides firmly in the act of these “things” being tangible objects how can people go around making claims like “the printed word is dead” or “digital is the wave of the future”? These objects exist because we need them. If we give up these objects do we also forfeit our history? In a purely digital world all is without age, and when all is ageless even nostalgia is obsolete.