Μετά από μια βραδιά στο Ζουμπούλι με πολύ κρασί, ναργιλέ και τραγούδι (στο οποίο, κλασικά, δεν μπορούσα να συμμετάσχω! {:ε), ο Mario αποτύπωσε τον δρόμο του γυρισμού σε αυτό το ωραίο timelapse που το iPod του έφτιαξε με τόσο ευγένεια και μεγαλοψυχία. :]
Tag: ipod
One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Sega
Two weeks or so ago, I was just out for a walk with a friend of mine, Ioanna. This apparently simple event unlocked a chain of possibilities which would have probably not been open for me if I had decided to just chill at home that day and go on playing my Lost Odyssey.
As we were casually walking by a group of 3-4 rubbish bins and I was just looking around, my eye caught this unlikely sight:
And then I looked more closely. And I saw more.
Hmmm… “Molyviatis (Μολυβιάτης), the local toy store, must have cleared their warehouse”, I thought. “These must be just empty boxes”, I continued. See, I was trying to not be carried away by my typical wishful thinking. I didn’t want to believe what kind of treasure Lady Luck might have thrown at me. Despite all my momentary inner conflict of little faith, I picked up one of the Game Gear boxes.
It didn’t seem empty at all.
I was starting to get all giddy. “Wow! Woah! OMG! HAHA! Yes! Look at that! I can’t believe it!! Amazing! Wait till my friends set their eyes on this! Where’s Mario when you need ‘im??” etc, as I was checking one box after the other, opening them, discovering, one by one, that they were in fact all weighty, hefty, full of untouched, pure gaming goodness. Their bulk was sweet, delicious. I imagined I could feel what a thirsty man in the Sahara would find rising from his inner being once he had discovered a box-full of large water bottles (never mind the water would be like piss under the blistering sun).
In all, there was 5 boxes of Sega Mega Drives, and 6 boxes of Game Gears, all very dusty, their boxes in slightly varying degrees of light tear, but otherwise intact. I couldn’t believe a store would just throw their old consoles away like that! I guess they suddenly realised: “Oh, we have had these old consoles no-one’s interested in almost 15 years lying around. Time for some spring cleaning. “They’re probably worthless anyway”, the shop-keeper would add, waving his old goods away, probably disappointed with “how quickly these electronics become worthless these days… They don’t last like they used to, toys… ‘Tis like trying to sell fridges to Eskimos. Or air dryers to the Berbers.”
Imagine. If no-one had spotted them, or if someone had but just took for granted that the boxes would be empty, 11 retro gaming consoles would have found their way to some landfill. I don’t know if they would end up as burnt plastic, silicon, paper ashes and whatever would remain from the copper connectors, but the chances of their salvaging would indeed be slim. Makes a grown man shiver like a leaf. Most people don’t want much to have with rubbish, either, so they don’t usually examine it. I mean, if you looked at this, it wouldn’t cross your mind, would it?
After my astonishment had subsided enough so I could actually think a bit practically, I gathered the consoles up, and took them home. It was exhausting alright. A few days later, I cleaned them from all the dust. It was time for a proper photograph.
Mario, Mordread and HM came over a few days ago and we made some videos opening each box, checking out if everything’s in place. I’m in no way a Sega fan, or even a Sega player at all; Nintendo it’s been for me for most of my life, but Mario knows his Service Games, so he was instrumental in evaluating these neat little packages and their integrity. Indeed, the important stuff is all in mint condition, apart from the exterior cosmetic damage. We even took a video of the unboxing using Mario’s iPod (or is it an iPhone?), and another with testing the Mega Drive and Game Gear I gave to the greatest Sega fan among us, by means of the measly Sonic 3D. Mario’s staying at my place for the next few days starting today so I’ll have the videos up soon.
Today I took one box of each console to a grocery store (I’m impulsive like that) to have them weighted and prepared for their travels, far and wide, narrow and near. What might their fate be…? We shall find out soon!
Update: Yep, they’re up! b^^,
Insurgentes And Our Relationship With Music
I just watched Insurgentes, a film directed by none other than Lasse Hoile on the making of Steven Wilson’s 2009 debut solo album of the same name and the state of the music industry today, or as Steven puts its, what it’s like to be a musician in the 21st century.
Lasse Hoile is known for directing the videos for Porcupine Tree (including others groups), as well as being behind the band’s artwork, photographs etc, at least since In Absentia I believe. Check out his site, good stuff. He — as well as Steven, for that matter — likes David Lynch, this much is evident I suppose and might even be a bit of an understatement.
I haven’t watched any Lynch films yet…
The film’s website: http://www.insurgentesfilm.com
Apart from the typical Lasse experimentation and playing with some of the album’s artwork material, only this time with video, what interested me more in Insurgentes was Steven’s narration of his past. He visited his old school almost 30 years later, let us in on his musical beginnings and foundations, re-visited some of his very first equipment his father had made for him.
What I found more striking was how Steven began listening to music. In the movie he shares with us that he used to be able to only buy one record every month and that only with his pocket money. Consequently, the decision which album to buy next was a very important one. Back then, Steven says, music was the number one way the younger generation could differentiate itself from the parents. So it was pretty important business indeed.
It all boils down to the comparison between contemporary download culture and what things were like 30 years ago. Back then, a new album was an event. Listeners of the album had all the time to study the cover and the artwork, feel the music and be influenced by it. They would take their time to examine the music and see through all its different levels. Listening to an album properly was a ritual all by itself. Surprisingly, although I don’t have any aural experience of my own to be able to confirm this, it is said that a well mixed vinyl recording playing on serious equipment blows away standard MP3 quality sound any day. Like Steven and another guy in the film put it, kids of today (including my generation and me, obviously) grew up and are growing up with music of shit sound quality which is considered by almost everyone as acceptable at the very least.
Steven Wilson on music today, taken from the Insurgentes film from Kscope on Vimeo.
It is mentioned in the movie that the internet has helped musicians by making it easier for them to come into direct contact with their fans, thus doing away with the industry as a medium. In return, music has lost its value: we all download complete discographies of bands, only to decide if we like them and if they’re worth keeping after listening to a few of their tracks once or twice at best. This has got to the point that people don’t think music is worth spending money for or paying any kind of deeper and more focused attention to. Today, the music itself seems to be of little importance: it’s down to who knows of the most bands –bonus points if they’re indie–, who has the broadest possible musical taste, who owns the most records or has been to the most concerts. Maximalistic: just like any other cultural aspect of today, including, if not especially, the entire spectrum of popular media.
Mr. Wilson forced me to think, just like he’s done before... How many times have I really sat down to enjoy some music, put some thought into it, focused on it, closed my eyes, opened my ears and put my mind on overdrive? I do have a problem with intense focusing and am easily distractable so that might be a problem there. In any case, I realised that I haven’t done so in a long, long time, if I have ever properly done it at all. There is a general habit of just using music as an ambient sound carpet, having it play in the background while people are doing whatever: washing the dishes, cooking, having sex, idling, studying, walking or travelling (in the film Wilson destroys iPods in a number of fun ways, showing his real feelings for them!)… Some people never turn off their music at all! I tried doing it too: I found myself gradually hearing less and less of the music, a far cry from actually listening to it. At some point, I stopped paying any attention to it all; it was just melodic noise. I experienced a kind of desensitization, not unlike one that follows a long relationship.
Using music as ambience is, of course, perfectly OK. Nothing wrong with it. It’s not like they didn’t do it back in the ’70s. But that is as much listening to as glancing at a movie with the company of especially talkative friends is watching it, or as skimming a book as quickly as you can, skipping sentences, is reading it. We usually just put on the music, later remember nothing of what we heard, whether we liked it or not. We may have a vague idea, alright. But it doesn’t matter, it’s not like we’re going to listen to it again, is it? It sure isn’t! Because we have another 124254560 bands people, friends, acquaintances have suggested we give a “spin”, double that for bands we’ve randomly stumbled upon, bands we’ve (I’ve ^^,) seen on progarchives.com, suggested bands or neighbours’ favourites on last.fm… We’re bound to find something in this sea of art, this ocean of melody. Of course it never ends. What ever does? So we download discographies and try bands out and hop from one group to the next… But never staying with any which one for too long, no, that would be wasting time, wouldn’t it, we just keep on swinging, just like the insatiable little music nymphomaniacs that we proudly think we are. And in the end, all we’re left with is a sterile knowledge of band names and logos, song names, albums, stats, dates, genres…
If you think about it, it’s that way with everything. Travel, games, books, food, experiences, knowledge, people… The maximalist approach: less is less, the more the better. We can’t escape it. It is our culture’s paradigm. It’s what we do now, how we look at things.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t look at things differently.
At least for a change.
EDIT 28/4/2016: New link for the above video: