It's Nice to Be Back

I have been retired from my position at Hiram College for six months. Turning 65, doing my regular job plus substituting as the cataloger, and the decreasing presence of the library as I know it in the life of the college convinced me that it was time to say my goodbyes. I left, but didn’t quite, as I still had one leftover advisee, who finished up in May, and now I have volunteered to be on the Board of the Friends of the Library. Perhaps I’m a damned fool for agreeing to it. However, as a non-employee of the institution I may be able to allow my inner rebel to flourish. 

Retirement is an odd thing, especially if you don’t quite give up the lifestyle. I’m still, for want of a better word, an academic. I think about colleges and their future a lot, wonder if I would survive in one as a student (things have changed radically since the early 1970s), and consider the impact the library had on my early life as opposed to that of a contemporary student. I still think about doing research. I still write book reviews. I ain’t done yet, although the paperwork says something quite different. So far, I have read more than 50 books since the beginning of the year, a pace that I haven’t maintained since the summer before I started working as a high school student. But reading 50 books means sitting for 50 books, and I need to strike a better balance in my newly available free time, between reading getting some exercise. 

And writing. I’ve been doing some “creative” writing of the memoir variety. I’m not sure where it’s going yet, but I plan to do a public reading of a couple of essays in the fall. They’re based on some old photos I have of me as a kid, using the images as jumping off points for segments of my life as I reconstruct them in memory and spill them on the page. This is very different writing from anything I’ve ever done before, and it might just end in dismal failure. For my entire career I have written technical reports, academic papers, policies and procedures, reviews, and other materials that require stilted and formal prose. Now, I can do anything, but what does that mean? Will I write essays about my life that sound like technical reports? Results have yet to come in.

Aside from the lack of going to work in the morning and sitting in front of a computer for seven hours each day, I noticed a few immediate changes in my world. More dishes, less laundry, for example. Since I’m eating lunch at home more of the time, there’s more to clean up. But I don’t have to use quite as much clothing if I’m just kicking around the house. Normally, I changed clothes after work, slipping into something more comfortable for the evening. Now I start with the more comfortable clothes and stay there, changing to something presentable if we go out. My sleep schedule hasn’t quite changed to match my wife’s, but I’m getting up an hour later in the morning. I sometimes take an afternoon nap. My goodness, what decadence.

Now, all my mail comes to the house. I used to have packages come to the library, so that I could recycle the cardboard without adding to the pile at home to take to the recycle bins in town, or reuse the boxes if they were big, for book sale storage. I have also cut down on the number of packages, which is to say the number of CDs and books I buy. Not completely, but significantly. Our town doesn’t have drone delivery yet, but UPS delivers on Sundays, and that’s quite sufficient.

I continue to resist some technologies. We remodeled our kitchen and it has neither microwave nor dishwasher. We don’t like them. I do not have a smartphone, but I suppose that will change eventually, as vital functions will not happen without them. Hell, I don’t even answer the phone at home if I can avoid it. It’s never for me anyway, except the robocalls from our friendly politicians. Screw them all, the rat bastards. Do I sound retired yet?

Opera, Anyone?

My wife and I frequent a small town in Michigan where there is a fine theater and good restaurants; a relaxing weekend away from everything. I won't mention the name of the place, not because they shouldn't get the publicity, but because we don't want any more competition than we already have. As it turns out, the local public library has a wonderful book sale every month during the theater season, and we time our trips to the theater to coincide with this additional event. Clever, we are.

This last trip turned out to be beyond expectations. While the play was excellent, and the food at one restaurant was accompanied by a performance by a delightful local folksinger, the highlight was the book sale. Normally, at $5 per bag, it's hard to beat. However, we encountered an unusual happenstance (can you tell I've been reading British mysteries lately?). The library had obtained the sound recordings from an estate. Sadly, and elderly someone had passed in the community, and the library was on the receiving end of the castoffs, including hundreds of CDs, mostly opera, but some old-fashioned jazz and other music as well. After culling what they wanted for the collection, the rest ended up in the book sale. Hundreds. They didn't think the stuff would move very fast, and so they priced the discs at 25 cents each.

Now I'm not greedy (hah!), but I proceeded to fill two paper shopping bags with CDs. Most of the material was older, historic operas reissued on CD and sets of arias by older artists--Renata Tebaldi, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Maria Callas. I know my library had virtually none of these, and so the stuffing of bags began. After I got home, I estimated that the cost of the booty at their prices was in the ballpark of $50, and at any reasonable sale, the 180 or so recordings would have cost around that figure in dollars.

But wait, there's more! The elderly gentleman (I use the terms to indicate that he was older than me, and also very nice) at the checkout counter did not care to be bothered to count up the CDs. Just too much work. So he simply said, "Two bags of CDs and a bag of books? How about $10?" My wife and I were aghast. We told him that that figure was unacceptable, and handed him a $20 bill, saying that "Here. It's for the Friends of the Library." Then we got the hell out of there as fast as we could, like thieves in the night, even though it was 11 AM. I didn't have space to count up all the CDs until I got home late the next day, when I discovered what a bargain I had.

Now I am listening to opera singers at home, comparing their voices, and discovering that I prefer Schwarzkopf to Tebaldi, but Kirsten Flagstad is also very fine. After a listen or two, they go off to the library for cataloging, as we continue to build a monstrously large CD collection for a small college library. Oh, there was some old jazz too.

Tough business.

On to Buzzard Tracks

This page, while not exactly dead, is sort of in limbo right now, as I try to figure out what to do with it.  I've been putting most of my blog time into another page, Buzzard Tracks (http://buzzardtracks.blogspot.com/), which is now listing monthly additions to the Hiram College Library's Northeast Ohio Music Collection, along with reviews of new CDs by Northeast Ohio musicians.

Sooner or later, I'll get back here.

Jeff

Tomorrow is a brighter day

After my recent foiled efforts at good scrounging, I am somewhat more hopeful about tomorrow. I'll be heading to Half-Price Books to see what treasures await my wary eye. It's been a few months since I've been to this particular store, and the stock changes fairly quickly there. Will if find dozens of delightful items, or only a sad bare handful of mediocrity? I'll keep the universe posted.

Downhill for Goodwill
   Having gone to several Goodwill stores over the last few weeks in search of interesting CDs, I noticed a remarkable drop in the stock available.  Very few of the stores have much to look through, and at this point the number of CD-ROMs for gaming outnumber the music CDs.

   I asked the security guard about this at one of the stores (he was just standing around, and the clerks were busy at the checkout).  He said that Goodwill just hasn't been getting the CD donations lately that they used to get.  He attributes it partly to the growing number of consignment shops and the ability to sell online rather than donate.  On the other hand, he also pointed out that they were doing well with furniture and housewares.  CDs, when they got them, were being evenly distributed across several stores, so they all had something.

   He also pointed to the overflowing shelves of cassette tapes and 8-tracks.  Apparently the folks who are dying off these days (from where Goodwill gets a lot of their donations) are of the generation that bought their music technology from that 1970s window in time that I remember far better than I wish I did.

   It's odd that the last two flea markets that I went to also had relatively slim pickings.  What's going on?

New Northeast Ohio Music in the Hiram College Library

It's about time that I updated my postings.  Here are some of the wide-ranging CDs we have added to the library's collection from Northeast Ohio musicians.  Some folk, a little rock, some jazz, a bit of classical, we're working on just about everything.  No, it's not all new music, but our budget is limited and we get what we can.  We'll get more.

The Volta Sound: This is the Yin and the Yang, 2003.

Noah Budin: Songs of Faith & Freedom, 1997.

Kerry Kean:  Guitarism, 2005

PSI: Paul Stranahan's Insomnia, 2008

CityMusic Cleveland: Live, 2007

Paradise Can Be Painful

  Some scrounging opportunities are so overwhelming that it’s difficult to take full advantage of them.  This morning I went to the WCLV Garage Sale, where they were selling more than 6,000 CDs to clean house before moving their offices downtown.  $2.00 each, all you want.  Truly, this is hard to beat, for the classical music fan.  

   So off I went, getting there an hour early, because I suspected that there would be a giant crowd.  It turns out that I was plenty early, as they hadn’t set things up yet, and we didn’t even know where to line up.  I spent an enjoyable 20 minutes in the parking lot with a friendly gentleman who works at Case Western Reserve University.  More folks began showing up, and an announcer came out to chat with us.  She told us that the entrance would be around the side, where the CDs were, in the two-bay garage.  Two policemen showed up to make sure that the rowdy classical crowd wouldn’t riot, but we behaved ourselves.  I wandered over to the place where the line would form, and ended up being the second person there.  Robert Conrad, the chief honcho, also came out to say hello, and explained that the CDs were not in any particular order, except that the jazz was in the back.  Jazz?  Now torn, I would have to hit that section first.

   When they opened we filed forward, discovering that we couldn’t use the bags that some of us had brought, but instead were handed WCLV plastic bags.  They are considerably smaller, but I discovered that they hold about 35-40 CDs if one is careful.  The jazz section was magnificent, but filled with artists I’d never heard of.  I moved to my plan B, which is to look for familiar labels, and found several from Zoho, Azica, and other companies.  When I got slightly satiated, I turned around to check the back end of the classical section, which was much, much larger.  I started finding things of interest immediately-- early music, choral works, modern chamber music -- and filled up my bag almost immediately.  I went to ask about getting another bag, and one of the nice ladies got me one.  As I was waiting, I noticed that a huge line had developed.  They were only letting in so many people at a time.  I realized at that point that whatever I got this first go-round would be it.  I wasn’t going to wait for an hour to get back in.  

  My second bag filled quickly.  I began in the front this time, and found dozens of CDs that had never been opened, from Albany, MSR, and other labels.  Most of them don’t fit the programming policy of the station, so they got put aside.  In all, I came out with 75 CDs, a drop in the bucket compared to what I could have gotten, but with $150 on the line already, I wasn’t going to go for bag number three.  But how could I leave all that music still sitting there?  ARRRGG!  One definition of hell is being given everything you want. There’s no way to take advantage of it all.  Ah, well.  I paid for my booty, and headed down the driveway, being eyed enviously by the now even longer line of hopefuls.  A couple of folks asked what it was like.  I could only say that they wouldn’t be disappointed.

Check them out and listen online at http://www.wclv.com/