What is it now that has you questioning the why and how?
We can, and we should, question our thoughts or plans, even our direction. It is only natural to wonder if our path is moving the right way, or if we should be choosing some other route.
There is a lot to absorb along the way, there always was. Do we pay enough attention now, or did we ever? What have we ignored or looked over?
What didn’t we see?
What needs to be revisited?
We can’t always take it in stride.
10/28/2024 j.g.l.
You catch yourself wanting to say,
to ask, to cry out for help, for attention
or for effect. Even if only to see
if anybody is listening. Yet you don’t.
Anger ignites, anxiety rages, and the
consequences of a handful of
wholly conscious decisions scorch
the fragility of the present. It matters
not what tinder was sacrificed
to the flame, for now it is ash. Now
useless. Consumed. There is nothing
else left. You know, deep down,
what matters is what you ask, or say,
to the one person who has always
been there. See yourself. Be yourself.
© 2016 j.g. lewis
I went out for a walk yesterday afternoon in only my shirtsleeves. The weather of late has been unseasonably mild with decent daily temperatures stretching out over the past week. Yesterday, apparently, was to be the last of it and I was not about to ignore the delightful weather.
It truly hasn’t felt like autumn yet.
Most of the trees in the parks remain a luscious green. There have been few chilly mornings. I keep waiting for the vibrant colours I enjoy each fall. I haven’t yet been inspired to take out my camera to capture the season before we see only the dismal greys of winter.
I eventually settled in at a favorite park, took out my sketchbook and pastels and enjoyed time to myself. St. James Park, over the years, has become a comforting place with the shock of tulips that bloom each spring, its well-maintained flower beds through the summer months, the fountain that doubles as a bird bath, and all the tall respectable trees. Often, I will visit the park and sit with a cup of coffee or become engaged with my camera or sketchbook. Yesterday, unplanned as it was, turned into one of those days.
I did a little thinking about where I am, at times reflecting on the summer that was (and wasn’t). I continue to acknowledge that the relocation I plan with has not yet taken place. My mind has been filled this year with expectations of a move back to a city that brings me familial and familiar comfort. The timeline, now, is not what it was at the beginning of the year, and it looks less and less likely that I will end the year in the place I want to be. There is so much uncertainty right now, but not my resolve to get out of the crowded city I have come to know for, essentially, a decade.
I have become content here, but it does not feel like home.
After a while, yesterday, with the sun occasionally shedding its light I realized I was no longer sketching. I was only sitting and thinking and slowly becoming aware of the sounds that surrounded me. For the longest time I had been oblivious to the continual din of downtown traffic.
It might have been the sound of leaves changing colour that alerted me, or the slight gusts of wind that disturbed the trees and sent the foliage falling to the sidewalk. It was the moment I realized that autumn had finally arrived.
I am still here.
10/24/2024 j.g.l.
I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
It’s all about the music.
No, it’s more than that; it’s all about the magic.
Delicately you pull the glistening black disc from the inner sleeve. You’re more careful at this moment than you will ever be, for this object has rarely touched human hands and you will only use your fingertips. This record, pure virgin vinyl, is about to feel the needle scraping the life from its grooves. It’s not painful, far from it.
Once placed on the turntable, you gently and precisely lift the tone arm where it belongs, press the button, and watch as the cartridge is slowly descends on its target. Your anticipation is heightened as you hear the initial rumble of the needle in the bare-naked groove, a prelude to what is about to happen next.
Then it does, and touch or sight doesn’t matter. It’s all about the ears as music, joyful music, wafts from the speakers.
Pure audio, aural, pleasure.
It’s what a turntable does — beyond it’s function of transporting recorded sound to reality — that makes the magic happen, and it was designed that way.
In the late 1800s, Thomas Edison developed the original concept of etching sound into a wax cylinder for playback. The original prototypes functioned without electricity and demanded listening exceptionally close to the cone, but over the decades the technology advanced. Size, style and weight of the format varied through the years, yet the premise and the process has changed little. The object, the goal, and the purpose of a turntable is to spin magic.
Just ask somebody how they felt when they first played a Beatles record, or placed Dark Side of the Moon on their family hi-fi for the first time.
Yeah, it’s magic.
I grew up in a home where music was encouraged, listened to, and enjoyed. My Mom was a fan of big band, the music of her youth, and of crooners and the popular stuff of the day. She bought me LPs as a youngster, and treated my siblings and I with albums by The Monkees, and Herman’s Hermits. It began a lifetime love of music.
As I grew up (and I still am) and started accumulating spending money, I begin to buy into real rock and roll; my taste, generally, shaped by the radio or recommendations of others.
Listening to music, making use of the turntable, was a part of homework, reading, or just hanging out with friends. Life revolved around the turntable. Certain songs are associated with definitive moments in my life; it is the nature of music, as we pick and chose our own soundtrack. I have albums that directly correlate to years, moments, and periods of my life. Nothing can bring back a memory like a certain song. Nothing. I own thousands of records, and more memories than that.
Indeed, magic.
I’m not going to write about the cause and effect of music on the mindset, a topic covered more eloquently by others (I will even suggest reading David Byrne’s How Music Works as the definitive book on music appreciation and absorption), but I will propose that the turntable provides the most concentrated method of fully consuming recorded music. Even in the digital age.
Like millions of music lovers, I was attracted to the introduction of the compact disc in the 80s. Like crows drawn to shiny objects, I gave in to the latest technology. There had been whispers about the format for years, and when it hit the marketplace we, after prices of the players dropped to affordable levels, bought into the promise of unparalleled sound quality.
Extended playtime was the biggest benefit of the CD, there was no need to get up and flip sides at the halfway point, and there was generally more music in the relatively small package.
The turntable fell out of favour, and we (as a society of consumers) stopped buying LP records and began replacing much-loved albums in the latest format, along with the new offerings by the latest artists. As we bought up the rather expensive discs, the audio equipment became more affordable, portable, and more and more people bought into the format. Year over year, sales of vinyl dropped, and quickly. Like the 8-traack tape, records were expected to fall off the map.
Even serious collectors of music (and yes, I am one) could not help but love the portability as the CD fit into blasters, compact personal players, and even the automobile. I never stopped listening to my old records, but more and more began to appreciate the ease of popping a CD into the player.
There were downfalls to the new format however, and it had more to do with packaging than product. The covers of the discs were no longer 12-inch square samples of some of the most advanced pop art and photography on the planet. Liner notes became things of the past. Yes, some discs included booklets with lyrics printed in a type size usually reserved for fine print on legal contracts or ingredient lists on processed food, and some discs even included stickers, but nothing like the posters and stickers provided in the aforementioned Dark Side of the Moon.
A large part of the value of a vinyl record was the sleeve. I could, and did, literally, sit for hours reading about who played what instrument, ponder the poetic lyrics, or just stared at glorious photographs while sitting and listening to the latest album by a favorite artist.
To listen, to truly experience music on a turntable, requires you be in one specific place. Enjoyment is found in being stationary. There is not, nor has there ever been, portability when it comes to a turntable; not like a cassette, or 8-track, CD, MP3, or any other type of digital download. Even the portable record players of the ‘60s and ‘70s — the carry-on sized units with Lucite handles and tweed speaker covers — were not really portable (in the sense we now know) and required a definite stillness.
When you sit, when you are still, there is a more focused attempt at listening. It was not passive listening, as we have come to do as we drive, as we multi-task, and make our way to work, or sunburn at the beach.
The stillness required of a turntable provided time to relax and just breathe in the music. It’s important to find the time to sit and relax, and ultimately, the turntable did that.
Now, I’m not dissing digital, not completely. My MacBook is stuffed with music that discs and downloads have allowed me to take anywhere.
And, as far as sound goes, I still prefer listening to classical, or jazz, on the CD format. I think, especially with the more gentle passages, you are given a superior listening experience. But when it comes to rock and roll, nothing (I repeat; nothing) sounds better than vinyl (except, maybe, live).
Rock and roll has always been a little bit dirty, a little scuffed up, maybe a little distorted, and a heck of a lot wilder. Somehow the scratches, the snap, crackle, and pop of a vinyl record (especially at higher volume) adds to the total experience.
It’s rough and real, and it rocks.
I write this as I listen to Patty Smith’s Easter, a previously-loved album I picked up a few weekends ago for $10 at one of this city’s great independent record stores. I paid a few dollars less for the record when it was new in 1978, but what’s a few bucks when magic is involved?
© 2015 j.g. lewis
“You can’t touch music — it exists only at the moment it is apprehended — and yet it can profoundly alter how we view the world and our place in it. Music can get us through difficult patches in our lives by changing not only how we feel about ourselves, but also how we feel about everything outside ourselves. It’s powerful stuff.”
– David Byrne
I’m like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.