Archive for June 2001

Does anyone know how to connect a record player to a regular stereo, through the AUX inputs? I think I need a “preamp.” Where can you get them?

My Dad has a pretty good record collection. When he was studying at MIT he bought about a record a week, and a lot of it is stuff I’d like to try–Beatles, Stones, Mothers of Invention, strange jazz and blues. (Just then I found a “Donovan’s Greatest Hits”–it includes “Season of the Witch”!)

A few days ago I hooked a record player up to my stereo, selected a Stones’s album as the test disc, and pressed play. Nothing much happened until I turned the volume up all the way, almost twice as loud as it’s ever been before, at which point the speakers emitted a sound that might best be described as “lukewarm.” I can tell you, there’s something deeply unsatisfying–nay, deeply unsatisfying and sonically immoral–about hearing “Honky Tonk Women” limp its way out of your speakers, when it’s the first damn record you’ve ever played for yourself. That shit needs to be LOUD.

I borrowed a preamp from a friend in an attempt to fix the problem (it’s a box that goes between the record player an the amp), but I think it was broken, or I didn’t wire it up right, because it didn’t help.

I have vague thoughts of throwing an all-analogue party–where there’s records and tapes, slide shows and film cameras (check your dinky mobile phones, electronic organisers, and digital watches in at the door!) but not enough of my friends are propeller-heads enough to appreciate the idea. And, er, I also need a place to actually hold the party.

Can anyone give me a good definition of “bogan”? (Like a red neck, but less inclined to random acts of violence, and not so bright–?)

The following quotations are from “Essays in Idleness” (Kenko, c. 1283-1352):

“If there is no advantage in changing a thing it is better not to change it.” (#127)

“It is a pleasant thing when a person comes without business and leaves after a quiet talk. Joyful, too, to get a letter just asking how you are, after a long silence.” (#170)

“It is always better to be simple and uninteresting than to be interesting but affected.” (#231)

But:

“Somehow there is always a charm about even the most impromptu and careless sayings of the men of bygone days.” (#14)

Kenko can generally be counted upon to say pretty things when provoked. (Essay #191 is “I think it a pity to hear a man say that things do not look their best at night. … Good-looking people look even better at night by lamplight; and it is pleasant to hear the voices of people talking guardedly in the dark. Perfumes and music, too, are most pleasing at night-time.”)

Another tremendous book is Abelard’s The Story of My Misfortunes. (This is the Abelard of Abelard and Heloise (Heloise link a better, shorter, summary)–basically, Abelard shagged Heloise, and then got castrated for it.) Abelard’s this 12th Century genius French philosopher who battles his way through life troubled by not a skerrick of self-doubt. From the Foreword, a note to the reader: “in comparing your sorrows with mine, you may discover that yours are in truth nought”–not only is he smarter everyone else, but his misfortunes are the greater too.

There is an on-line version, but a printed version is probably better. [Update! I love this book so much that I produced some nicely-formatted versions.)