Of Love, Devotion and Broken Records and HERE IS: TO LIFE!

drawing by marguerita

The vinyl format has always been popular between hi-fi enthusiasts and music passionates.

For these people the vinyl record was always considered to be the true release and the general opinion was that the format has a richer and more interesting sound.

Despite of this the vinyl was loved by the few.

However, over the last couple of years the vinyl record has increased its popularity enormously, which has manifested itself in a tremendous sales growth. This has partly given the struggling independent record stores a new chance and even huge retailers have started to sell vinyl records.

The question is how could a format that was virtually dead suddenly become so enormously popular again, especially with young crowd, who was not even born at the prime of the format. This article will take a brief look at the history of the vinyl record in order to understand what factors made this possible.

Vinyl was the first commercial physical music format and for a long time it therefore dominated the market for physical music. Several different types of vinyl records were developed, but in general, when people wanted to buy music to play at home there was no other choice than to buy it on vinyl. However, at some point the compact disc (CD) came around and that quickly put an end to the vinyl format for most people. The CD was smaller, cheaper to produce and some would argue that it had better sound quality. Also, people could easily bring the CD with them to play it in the car, while working out or on their Discman. At some point it also became possible to copy the content of a CD to another CD and a little bit later the content could also be copied to a computer and converted to mp3 files. The last part was the beginning of the end for the CD format.

As CDs could easily be ripped to mp3, people had better Internet connections and new file sharing services were developed buying music gradually became less of a necessity for the more technically savvy music lovers. It didn't take long before whatever music you would want could be downloaded for free. So when the content suddenly was available for free, why should people then buy CDs? Well, of course there's the moral question, but except from that the CD format did not provide any extra value that would convince a lot of people to pay for it. As digital music online has become even more convenient to consume and we're living in a world where streaming music is the most convenient option this has become even truer. So the case is that the CD format has become a format stuck in the middle. It lacks the flexibility of streaming and the great physical characteristics of the vinyl format. The vinyl format and streaming are perfectly negatively correlated, and as a consequence of that perfectly compatible. While streaming offers superior convenience on one hand, vinyl offers the ultimate physical experience on the other hand by being a piece of art in itself.

So what exactly are these neat characteristics of the vinyl format? Well, one thing to start with is the cover art. The vinyl has much more space for cover art than a CD and is different from what can be thought of as cover art online. This makes it easier to enjoy the work that is put into create something unique. Another characteristic related to this is that people by nature are collectors. Everyone likes to collect something. Since digital music has no scarcity it just doesn't make much sense to collect it. Vinyl on the other hand is perfect for collecting. Music lovers like to show their dedication and support to a band by buying the record and it fits nicely on the shelf just as books do.

Another, and often debated characteristic, is the sound quality. Many vinyl lovers claim that it is the cracks, pops and hisses that create the special vinyl sound and make vinyl unique. It is for sure true that this is an important part of the vinyl experience, however, whether or not this is important depends on two factors. First, a person naturally needs to have a preference for this type of sound and second; the record must be mastered specifically for vinyl, which means analog mastering.

A final factor which contributes to the attractiveness of the vinyl format is the listening experience. Listening to music on vinyl is a ritual in its own. Picking the right vinyl, putting the needle on the record, getting up to flip the record before picking up a new one. This physical listening experience stands in stark contrast to the digital one and too a higher extent require that people take time to actually listen to a record and listening to it in its entirety. In that regard listening to music on vinyl therefore often can be experienced as a break from the daily stress and routines.

The future indeed looks bright.http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-Has-Vinyl-Records-Become-So-Popular-Again?&id=1960898

Haiti and Me -II :Someone To Watch Over Me

drawing/collage by marguerita

Traveling through this life,embattled since a little girl,nearing my sixtieth year , I dare look back, as I am always doing. Facing obstacles beyond one's imagination,somehow scary and devastating. For the one who will lend his or her ear, or reading my words here ,seems to them and even to me fiction.

Watching Haiti's tragedy and the ones with their wonderful faith,I see them as looking in my mirror.

I can imagine that for many as, I myself,are in disbelief of one being so strong and looking at reality with no fear.I was maybe,fortunate to learn from my two parents,my mother out of Auschwitz and my father out from Siberia, both from cultured and prominent backgrounds,wealthy,to have lost all,but face the remains of their lives with an incredible joie de vivre,looking for Beauty and securing my mind to stand up for justice,never to harbor anger, see life through humor and colors,carpe diem,as I could hear my father's tick tack,writing on his typewriter,always in pursuit of his passion,Chemistry and Innovation in Textiles.

He was also an inventor.

My mother was an artist.

She loved to paint watercolors and always reading Chinese writers and philosophers.

Both,my parents ,intellectuals, believed to look at life with passion, having an interior monologue, to be au courant of what is happening around, reminding themselves, about what they were taught by their ancestors.

Life is not about material things. They had it all,and lost it all.

Not by their actions, but by human calamity.

By Hitler and Company.

My mother,on the other hand,despite our chaotic finances,we never felt or saw ourselves as poor. When I was ten years old, witnessing

my father collapse in the street,he contracted malaria,in the gulag

during the II WW, I realized at that moment that I had to jump into

adulthood.

My mother had dreams of me being a concert pianist.

She wanted me to be beautiful dressed,soigne.

Until her last moment,my mother herself

was always very elegant ,

exuberant,humorous and a good sport.

The number A-26.427 was

always there on her arm.

She had no wrinkles at seventy seven.

My drawing prevailed. I looked at my hands and thought to myself.

That is how I am going to earn my living and take care of myself and my parents.

Even now, facing to be once again, homeless and destitute,despite my past successes,I have faith that my

art,will be my passport and secure me to stand up on my feet.

Today is a good day to remember that in Haiti, nobody ever really dies. The many thousands who've had the breath crushed out of their bodies in the earthquake, and the thousands more who will not physically survive the aftermath, will undergo instead a translation of state, according to the precepts of Haitian Vodou, some form of which is practiced by much of the population. Spirits of the Haitian dead — sa nou pa we yo, those we don’t see — do not depart as in other religions but remain extremely close to the living, invisible but tangible, inhabiting a parallel universe on the other side of any mirror, beneath the surface of all water, just behind the veil that divides us from our dreams.

That extraordinary spiritual reservoir is the source of the Haitian religious view of the world — as powerful as any today. As often as it is misunderstood and misrepresented, Haitian Vodou, with all it carries out of the cradle of humankind’s birth in Africa and combines with Roman Catholicism, has enabled Haitians to laugh at death, as they have too often needed to do.

During the decade-long Haitian revolution that began in 1791 — the only event in human history where African slaves won freedom for themselves by force of arms — a prisoner of the French was awaiting execution by burning. Come, he is supposed to have said to his companions, let us show these people how to die. He climbed onto the pyre himself and stayed there, without uttering another sound, until the fire consumed him.

The energy of souls not lost springs back into the living world, not only through one of the few surviving religions that allow believers to converse face to face with the gods, but also in an extraordinarily rich, fertile and (in spite of everything) optimistic culture. Haiti offers, keeps on offering, a shimmering panorama of visual art and a wealth of seductive and hypnotic music, much of it rooted in the rhythms of ceremonial drumming. For the past 50 years a remarkably vivid and sophisticated Haitian literature has been flowing out of Creole, an ever-evolving language as fecund as the English of Shakespeare’s time. The Haitian world is not all suffering; it is full of treasure. Here are a few of the many voices, native and not, inspired by Haiti. —Madison Smartt Bell

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/weekinreview/17bell.html?ref=global-home

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/opinion/21kristof.html