I wrote yesterday that I felt I had turned a corner in this summer, but I didn't elaborate. What I meant was that I feel that now I'm ready to take on a couple of the projects I hadn't even touched yet. First thing I did was cross "Basement" off my list. I really don't care that much.
After having a wonderful facial this morning, I came home and had a bit of lunch and then decided to connect the USB turntable that the Hubs got me for Christmas. It was a very minor adventure, which first required cleaning off the stuff I had piled on top of the box, following the directions to put the hardware together, and finally, hoping that the USB cable would reach and I wouldn't have to run right out and get an extension. (It did.)
The documentation was poor -- no surprise there -- but I managed to assemble the tone arm and the counterweight because I know what tone arms and counterweights are. I think that anyone who didn't grow up with turntables would have found it more challenging.
I did, of course, grow up with turntables. My sister and I must have had some kiddie record player, because I remember that I had two or three records that I played endlessly. Or probably, that I played endlessly on rainy days when I was alone and not outside playing with other kids. One of my records, I recall, was bright red, sort of see-through, and played all the songs from Pinocchio. It may have been an official Disney recording, I don't know. When I listened to it, I acted out the whole story, every part. I was probably more exhausted afterwards than if I had played outside.
At some point, I think while we still lived in the apartment, we got a copy of the original Broadway cast recording of Peter Pan, with Mary Martin. I have probably written before about the essential part this show and music played in my young life. We adored it, the Sibs and I, and our family friends Philip and Patti. We had seen it on TV (I think it was aired twice) and it was our Bible, our guide to life. We played it out as a group, with Philip, the only boy, playing both Peter and Captain Hook. My sister was Wendy, because Philip loved her. His sister was Tinkerbell, because Tinkerbell dies. I was Michael, because I was the smallest, and generally also all the Lost Boys.
Shortly after we moved to B-Town, so I was 8, Jack went out and bought *gasp* a stereo. We had this knotty pine, very fifties den at the lowest level of the house -- a split level -- and it had closets and cabinets and built-ins sort of hidden all over it, camouflaged by the slats in the paneling and the knots in the pine. One of these was big enough for a TV or something, and had a slide-out shelf on the bottom; Jack came home one night with a so-called "portable" stereo and installed it in this cabinet. It was portable because you could attach the speakers back to the top of it and buckle them down and carry the whole thing by a handle on the side, like a heavy suitcase. I think he got this one because it fit in the cabinet. Our speakers came off permanently and were connected by ungodly long wires that ran around behind the paneling to the hidden cubby holes were the speakers were stashed. And Jack began to purchase his record collection.
He didn't go crazy with this as, say, I would have, but he ended up with maybe 30 records. (He and Shirl still had their stash of about a half dozen 78's, which they didn't play on the stereo because they were so heavy.) What Jack mostly liked was Mantovani. Anybody remember Mantovani? This was elevator music before it ever occurred to anyone to play music in an elevator. These were light listening, orchestral versions of just about any song you could imagine. Mantovani must have recorded thousands of albums. Putting on a Mantovani album was the sure way to get the Sibs and me out of the den.
They also bought several original cast recordings of Broadway shows. (But surprisingly, they bought no opera records, thank god, although both of them were opera fans.) When I was old enough to be trusted to use the stereo -- and I can guarantee you that I used it before I had permission to -- these Broadway show records were my meat. It was just like Pinocchio; I listened to these albums again and again and I played all the parts, kind of like karaoke. My favorite of all was The Sound of Music, which Jack took us to see on Broadway around that time. The original cast was long gone, but it was my first Broadway show; I got all dressed up and even wore my hated black patent leather Mary Janes.
I started listening to contemporary music before that, though, maybe in the late fifties, because I had a sister four and a half years older than I was who rushed home from school every day to watch American Bandstand. Around the same time, Grandma Sadie gave her a transistor radio for her birthday, and we would surreptitiously listen to the local top 40 stations (WMCA and then, WMGM) at night when we were in bed in our shared room. Radio fueled record purchases. I remember being in a store with my mother and sister -- J.J. Newberry's, kind of like Woolworth's -- and my sister begging my mother to buy her something and my mother finally giving in but saying then she had to buy me one, too. The Sibs got a 45 of "Theme From a Summer Place." I got a 45 of "Running Bear." (Somehow, I've ended up with all of my sister's 45's, as well as all of my own, some of which are here:
I remember Christmas, seventh or eight grade, and my friend Jessica getting Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme as a gift. We must have all been just starting to get into albums around that time, instead of singles. Although, to backtrack to another memorable moment, I remember coming home for lunch one day when I was in fifth grade, Jessica was with me that day for some reason, and my mother pulled out a surprise: she had been in Alexander's that morning, the local department store, and had stood on line to get me this:
which is now, of course, hanging on my wall. So I guess I had a few albums before eighth grade, most or all of them Beatles albums, I would think.
I saved and saved and saved and when I was about 15, I went to J.C. Penny and I bought myself a small portable stereo record player, which of course, I still have in the basement:
(The little blue thing on top.) I believe it cost about $22.00. It served me incredibly well up until my sophomore year of college, when I got a "real" stereo system for about $129.00, as I recall.
Anyway, by the time I went to college, my tastes had expanded somewhat, and I had a respectable collection of James Taylor, John Denver, and Carole King. I was also quite fond of Cat Stevens, Harry Chapin (may have been later) and all the configurations of Simon and Garfunkel. I think that by this time I had also somehow claimed all my parents' showtunes albums for my own, since they never listened anymore and the old stereo was gone anyway. I had also become a big fan of Bob Dylan, because when I was still in junior high, my sister had this incredibly obnoxious boyfriend who would bring over his Dylan albums and insist on playing them, for which they commandeered my little blue record player, so I got to stay in the room. Loved the music, hated the boyfriend, although I must say, I like him much more now that he and my sister have been married for coming on ten years.
Well, as you know, I never throw anything out, so all my records are -- of course -- in the basement, along with the Hubs'; there are more of his, actually, and his are more true rock than mine are. Anyway, it was tough finding an album to try on the new turntable because by now, I pretty much have all the music I ever wanted, either on CD or from iTunes. In fact, I could only find one album of mine that I didn't already have in iTunes:
It must be 50 years old. Well, the turntable works fine and all, and when it plays, I can hear every snap, crackle and pop that I remember from vinyl records that have been played again and again and again. It was a very comfortable and familiar experience, and really took me back, as you can see. Alas, Pinochhio is long gone, but Mary Martin lives forever.
WATCHING L/O :: ENTRY #1818
SUMMER BOOK #3: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
