If you are old enough, or inclined enough, to remember “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” you will find humor in the title. For those of you who were born too late (alas!) or with insufficient interest in somewhat ancient things (big alas, since we are talking about the movie era), I offer my regrets.
The various incarnations of the movie deal with extraterrestrial entities which, upon finding their alien home world uninhabitable, defy gravity and drift out into the universe seeking fertile and hospitable ground upon which to reinvent themselves. They do so by taking on the form of the dominant species of the planets they encounter, Earth being only one of many. Hence comes the phrase “pod people.”
Now I know that I am woman, born of woman, so I have no delusions about extra worldly travels. But during the past two weeks -- with the story's first flicker igniting earlier this summer – my life has been, once again, utterly transformed by technology. You see, I’ve decided to completely digitize my music library. Even though I am a Windows computer consumer (at least for the time being, primarily owing to cost differential), I have to stay that Windows Media Player absolutely sucks, especially when compared to the slick – if not entirely sexy and kinky – iTunes. And thanks to a neighbor who is selling items she acquired from a distressed store sale, I am now the happy owner of my first iPod Nano.
Holy guacamole, batman! I have died and gone to the big concert in the universe.
For quite some time now, I’ve wanted to scale down the size of my CD library, which is growing like topsy…or maybe like Beowulf’s Grendel. I still remember the first CD I ever acquired, Pat Metheny’s “Letter From Home.” It was absolutely astounding to listen to something that didn’t skip, hiss, and pop like the records of yore. I remember the solid force of gravity pulling me to the floor, weighting me down with the perfection of the sound oozing from my stereo speakers.
My predilection to collect music is nothing new. When I was old enough to start babysitting, I started acquiring albums fast and furiously. And let me tell you here and now: records were the one thing I didn’t share with anyone. I guarded my deliciously delicate LPs like the family jewels. I had a brother who whined regularly to my mom that I wouldn’t share my records with him. Boo-hoo. After all, I’d shell out my hard-earned dough to buy the LP. Years later, I'd play a newly purchased record once, copying it to cassette tape, and then put the record away forever, much as the British of old used to send their daughters to convents for safe keeping. One does not put such treasures in the hands of the uninitiated.
By the time the Age of Vinyl saw its demise, I had amassed quite a collection. In perhaps one of the most incredibly stupid moves of my life, I sold the entire contents to a friend in the 80s for a mere $60. Check out your local music store and you’ll find out why I say this was an incredibly short-sighted business transaction.
As for the CDs, one book-style shelf became two, then three, then four. And I am still counting. What I began to realize is that I would need to find an alternate reality if I intended to continue building that library and still have room for other things...say household furniture.
I’d been toying with the idea of getting an iPod, but had pooh-poohed the idea for quite a while. Since I live in the middle of nowhere, I am jacked up on things that keep the tunes rolling. I have a 100-disc changer in the house, and my truck is equipped with a 6-CD changer. When I’m driving, I go through 6 CDs like Gen Xers (or is it Y or Z now?) go through junk food.
I initially bought the iPod with the idea that soft, gentle music would help me fall sleep at night. When I was a kid, dad used to play a Spanish guitar record to lull us into submission. I have one of those songs on a CD by Dave Grusin, and even today hearing it makes me feel dozy. One of the nightmares of getting older is that the quality of sleep is affected. And having a hectic life, where stream of conscious doesn’t give a flying flip about where it flows – or when for that matter – I had been a textbook case of sleep deprivation.
Once I started to ramble around with iTunes, however, I realized that I had stumbled upon something as rich and mind-blowing as the discovery of the New World. I actually purchased a second computer solely for the purpose of making it my digital jukebox. Kinda funny, considering I will be able to back up that jukebox in its present incarnation onto something that’s the size of a note card.
And they say you can’t take it with you…
