My Vinyl Gallery

There is a space between two windows in the Muley back room -- which serves as the office, library and playroom of the Muley house -- that, for the lack of anything more striking, I have made into a rotating exhibit space that might be called "Muley's LP Gallery." I still own hundreds of vinyl LPs from those ancient days before CDs, and so one day I bought a dozen LP frames from a crafts store, arranged them in three rows on the wall, and, "voila!," a gallery was born.

Instead of leaving the same record covers up forever, I decided to rotate them out every now and then for variety's sake. Sometimes they are chosen to match a theme ("Country music," "Standup comedy," "Female balladeers"), and sometimes they are totally random. Here is the gallery that appeared in December 2007 featuring Christmas albums.



Sometime in January, tiring of the cold and bleak winter weather, I took down the Christmas albums and replaced them with ones depicting the warm wahines of sunny Hawaii.



I suspect I am just about the only one who ever notices what records I put up on the wall. My kids think I'm a bit weird and ancient, to begin with, for even owning something as old-fashioned and outdated as LPs. I'm guessing that, to them, I could cut the fronts off of old boxes of cereal and slap them up on the wall and I wouldn't be doing anything any goofier or less visually arresting.

What about other oldtimers such as me? Well, we've had guests in the house for parties, and not once have I ever had anyone comment on the gallery, good or bad. Maybe they're too busy playing the vintage 1980s Nintendo games we have set up in the room (remember "Duck Hunt"?)

To be truthful, I don't really care all that much if no one else notices the LPs. It's sort of like my private Etch-A-Sketch on the wall. I have fun thinking about what theme I'll feature next. After Hawaii, I might do all Beatles albums, or maybe a set of great ol' cheesy 1950s lounge records I bought cheap at the library used book sale. Maybe I'll report back from time to time on what's featured in "the gallery."

Can They Do "The Scream" Next?

Muley has been walking softly and carrying a big bottle of Zicam, trying to bat away a nasty cold that has already toyed with most of the other members of the Muley family. I've got some decent post ideas backing up in my brain, but just haven't had the energy yet to sit down and do something thoughtful and cogent. So, here's something flippant and superfluous.

It's another story to bolster my belief that lots of computer geeks have way too much time on their hands. According to a story on the BBC website, the aforementioned geeks (from the University of Amsterdam, where they've most likely invented the world's first wooden basketball sneakers) have figured out a way to use a computer to answer the long-debated question, "Just what the heck is the Mona Lisa smiling about, anyway?" While we still don't know who or what caused her sly little crinkle of the lips, the experts have determined that, by analyzing her smile, Mona was "83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry." Personally, I think that the rationale behind that conclusion is 73% silly, 17% misdirected, 8% questionable and %2 somehow causing my big toe to itch.

Quote of the Day:

"My all time favorite similes … come from the hardboiled-detective fiction of the 40s and 50s, and the literary descendants of the dime-dreadful writers. These favorites include … 'I lit a cigarette [that] tasted like a plumber’s handkerchief' ( by Raymond Chandler)."

--Stephen King, in On Writing

Random Observations and Trivial Events

1. After browsing the spines in the bargain DVD bins at the video store, I have determined that one of the most popular movies on the planet is apparently titled “Security Device Enclosed.” I have never heard of this flick, however, and IMDB has no listing for it. Has anyone seen it who can provide a review? It sounds like something maybe starring Sylvester Stallone or Steven Seagal.

2. I have never read the book, but I found this funny "abridged version" of the Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged while trolling around blogs the other day.

3. I have occasional moments of olfactory epiphany. I’ll get hold of a certain scent –- usually riding on an outdoor breeze or slipping out of some busy kitchen –- and instantly I am transported back in time, to joyous days of childhood or times of adventure or courting. The feeling doesn’t last long, but it is powerful enough to stop me dead in my tracks sometimes.

4. I am somewhat frustrated that so many of the hot series now on TV are sequential instead of episodic. That's a fancy way of saying that each episode continues the story line into the next episode, like a soap opera. I am frustrated because, although I don't get to watch much TV at all, I hear about great shows I might enjoy checking out if only their story lines weren't so far advanced. For example, it seems everywhere I hear what a great, riveting show "24" is. If I just tuned in one night and watched a new episode, I'm sure I would be fatally lost and confused. "Who's that character? And who's that? And why is that guy plotting against that one? Wait a minute, why'd he shoot that guy and not the other one?" To truly get up to speed, I 'd no doubt need to go back and watch the previous four seasons worth of episodes, but who's got time for that?

5. I am so in awe of natural artists such as my daughter Rebecca and fellow blogger Jenn at "My Life is a Cartoon." They can draw just about anything, it seems, and are so creative with not only their pictures but their thoughts. I think I'd die happy if I just had half their talent to draw people and things.

6. I can't seem to find an answer to this burning question: there's "new," and then there's "brand-new." What does the extra word "brand" signify? Why is it there? Is there a real difference between the two words? Don't they mean the same thing?

7. I have finally decided to give up on Little Women halfway into it, and try it again when I'm more in the mood to read it straight through. I will leave you, though, with one excerpt I had marked. It's a very old-fashioned, non-PC bit of advice that Mrs. March gives to her daughters about what they should strive for in life. I think I'll share it with my own daughters when they're a bit older.

"I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good; to be admired, loved, and respected, to have a happy youth, to be well and wisely married, and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send. To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman; and I sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience. It is natural to think of it, Meg; right to hope and wait for it, and wise to prepare for it; so that, when the happy time comes, you may feel ready for the duties, and worthy of the joy. My dear girls, I am ambitious for you, but not to have you make a dash in the world -- marry rich men merely because they are rich, or have splendid houses, which are not homes, because love is wanting. Money is a needful and a precious thing -- and, when well used, a noble thing -- but I never want you to think it is the first or only prize to strive for. I'd rather see you poor men's wives, if you were happy, beloved, contented, than queens on thrones, without self-respect and peace."

When Can We Call Ourselves Artists?

My teenage daughter Rebecca, an aspiring artist, found a book in the shelves on a recent Barnes & Noble excursion called The Art Spirit by Robert Henri. Henri was apparently a famous painter and painting instructor, and the book is a collection of his comments collected from his lectures and letters, published back in 1923. I looked through the book and found a number of thought-provoking observations. Here's how the book opens up:

Art when really understood is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing.

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it, shows there are still more pages possible.

The world would stagnate without him, and the world would be beautiful with him; for he is interesting to himself and he is interesting to others. He does not have to be a painter or sculptor to be an artist. He can work in any medium. He simply has to find the gain in the work itself, not outside it.

Museums of art will not make a country an art country. But where there is the art spirit there will be precious works to fill museums. Better still, there will be the happiness that is in the making. Art tends towards balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living -- very good things for anyone to be interested in.

Here's another passage that leaped out at me:

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual -- become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.

It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences; but in our time and under the conditions of our lives, it is only a rare few who are able to continue in the experience and find expression for it.

At such times there is a song going on within us, a song to which we listen. It fills us with surprise. We marvel at it. We would continue to hear it. But few are capable of holding themselves in the state of listening to their own song. Intellectuality steps in and as the song within us is of the utmost sensitiveness, it retires in the presence of the cold, material intellect. It is aristocratic and will not associate itself with the commonplace -- and we fall back and become our ordinary selves. Yet we live in the memory of these songs which in moments of intellectual inadvertence have been possible to us. They are the pinnacles of our experience and it is the desire to express these intimate sensations, this song from within, which motivates the masters of all art.

I felt a pang of knowing guilt reading this one:

The habit of digression -- lack of continued interest -- want of fixed purpose, is an almost general failing. It is too easy to drift and the habit of letting oneself drift begets drifting. The power of concentration is rare and must be sought and cultivated, and prolonged work on one subject must not be mistaken for concentration. Prolonged work on one subject may be simply prolonged digression, which is a useless effort, as it is to no end.

And here's one final thought from Robert Henri:

The true artist regards his work as a means of talking with men, of saying his say to himself and to others. It is not a question of pay. It is not a question of willing acceptance on the part of the public. If he is welcomed and paid it is very good, but whether or no he must say his say.