This is the cabinet tucked in next to the fireplace in the library.
The old gentleman from whom we bought the Hall back in December 2015 had his stereo equipment there, wired to two speakers on opposite walls in the library, and two speakers in the area that became our home office. It was nice to have the set-up, so we put our stereo equipment there, too. Only one of the speakers in the library worked, so Tom removed the other one. If we use the fireplace, we have to keep the cabinet door open at least a few inches so it doesn’t get too warm inside.
Top shelf holds the turntable and six-disk CD player. If you notice CD jewel cases on the top shelf, when I buy CDs in plastic, I return the cases to one of our local shops that sells used CDs for them to reuse. (Less plastic in landfills.)
Second shelf is the receiver, and YEP, an actual cassette player. Maybe I should have held on to some of those cassettes because they matched a lot of the albums that drowned in the Harvey flood, and I still haven’t replaced them on either vinyl or CD. (How I mourn my Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp, and vast Beach Boys collections.)
Next shelf down contains the four CD binders with the disks and sleeves all saved: A to J, K to R, S to Z, and number four, unlabeled, is classical, Christmas, and I think soundtracks and scores. There are also CD collections on that shelf that came packaged in cardboard with booklets and other bonus materials. The BIG collections like that–almost all reissued compilations, in my case, from the Beach Boys and Beatles with lots of previously unreleased material–are large enough to be part of the albums that are UP HIGH on a metal, more flood-safe bookcase in the office (learned my lesson in 2017!).
The houndstooth box on the bottom shelf holds a lot of those CDs in cardboard sleeves as well, the normal CD length and width, just sometimes thicker for multi-disk collections. The space to the left of that box stays empty because that’s where we reach in to turn the knob that ignites the gas logs in the fireplace (it’s a two-person job: one person to turn on the gas while the other holds a flame to the logs–though I can sometimes place one of those long fireplace matches, lit, under the logs and do it solo).
I got an idea from John, our longtime friend who Tim first met when they worked together at Crossroads Bookstore, and who left there when it closed for Borders, and when Borders closed, he found the perfect home at Murder By The Book. He’s decided to choose an album a day to play from his vinyl collection so he can listen to music he might not have heard in a while.
Now that I’ve moved one of my old “jam boxes” to the writing sanctuary, I’ve decided to try this with our CDs. I’m sure there will be some I don’t listen to, like collections that were gifts and aren’t really to my taste, or some of Tom’s CDs, because we don’t always appreciate the same music. =) Sometimes I can’t have music playing when I write (if I do, it’s more often classical or New Age), because it becomes a distraction, but I’d like to attempt to listen to what we have and revisit old favorites. If I start this today, it appears I’ll be listening to Fiona Apple and a lot of Beach Boys and Beatles. I’m sure this surprises you.
Maybe I’ll add the daily playlist at the bottoms of posts after the fact. Eventually, you can marvel at all the things you think I don’t have and all the things I do have that you think are crap (to each her own, friends and strangers)… But keep in mind this doesn’t include all the music downloaded to my computer or my vinyl (including my fun 45s from my siblings’ and my adolescence!), so this isn’t the full library.
I genuinely don’t have any more 8-Tracks or cassettes, though, and I never had a reel-to-reel like so many musicians and music lovers I’ve known. C’est la vie.
ETA: I did get to listen to Fiona Apple and found some other “A” artists in the back of that binder. But this is the second CD player that’s had some issues once I started using it, and this one began making a noise that took away any listening pleasure when I put in Adele. I might be interested in buying something else, but Mercury’s in retrograde. I don’t feel like throwing money at yet another device that will crap out. I already deal with daily tech problems. Can’t use the big system because then Tom can’t watch/hear the TV. So I’m music-free again.
I think of the days of real headphones, not tiny things that stick in my ears and make them hurt, but those wonderful, soft, cushiony headphones that not only delivered gorgeous music, they blocked out all other sounds. I’m old and obsolete, like everything else.
