Mixtape Review: Introduction/ Boring Personal History

When I was in middle school, all baggy pants and skate shoes and terrible, terrible haircuts, I treated mixtapes like rare and powerful magic. I invested absurd amounts of time into crafting them, spent hours sitting on the floor of my room beside the stereo and all my cd's, with notes and plans sketched into my school notebooks, songlist planned out during Mr. Novak's social studies class, with a handful of edits from study hall. I designed perfect little snapshots of my heart, and then left them in the lockers or bags of friends, or girls I liked, so that they could hear what I heard and feel what I felt. And when I got a mixtape, I analyzed every song for personal meaning, listening for some kind of message, some clue to the feelings this person had for me. And the songs, on tapes both incoming and outgoing, were often rubbish, because we were kids with terrible, terrible taste. Once, after a brief courtship in which the young lady in question moved away, I closed out a tape I mailed to her with this gem. Ouch. In my defense, I was 12, and she liked this song.

I carried on like this all through high school, taste inevitably improving (though some would argue that, I'm sure), still quietly and studiously working out song orders and adjusting levels to match the volumes of independent and/or local releases, loud, slick-mainstream production, and the muffled things recorded off the radio, increasingly from this show. I made mixes to introduce my friends to new bands, new types of music, to make a point about some band or other, and sometimes (still) to communicate feelings. I made friends who did the same, and I can honestly say that most of my musical loves of the time were introduced to me via the mixtape, and I loved the way it gave everything context. I still remember which friends gave me which tapes, and sometimes why, and in a few lucky cases, I still have those tapes, and these almost always have stories.

And then I entered college, and got a computer, and put a metric ton of music on it. Someone showed me how itunes worked, and that was it. I still made mixes for people all the time, and I still do now, occasionally, but the effort required is so reduced as to be nonexistent: the computer will match the levels for you, and you never need pen and paper to plan things out, and--and this may be the biggest problem--you don't even have to listen to the song while it burns. You don't have to sit on the floor, and agonize over every line, and wonder if the song you carefully picked out for this person says too much or too little, because it takes so little time. You just drag it onto the list, and it goes on the cd. You mess with the order for ten minutes or so, and then you hit burn, and the whole thing takes 30 minutes. For someone who used to stay in nights to make one tape for one friend instead of going out to do whatever it is teenagers do, this should be a liberating, freeing thing, but I can't really see that. I feel so much more disconnected from my music than I used to, so much less possessive or proud of my collection. No one needs their friends to recommend things, really, because itunes will do that for you, based on what you own already, and how you rate things, and that's a complex system worked out (presumably) by experts. Gone is that personal context, and the thrill of discovery, and the long nights with a stereo and a rug. Do I sound a little codgery? A little embittered by the march of technology? I suppose I do, probably, but this is a blog on the internet, so I'm a little with it still, right? Regardless, I'm sure you're wondering where this is all going. This week, Clinchpin is going to try something fun, hopefully. I've a stack of mixtapes, home-brewed by strangers, probably ten or more years old, all purchased from thrift stores in the area, and we're going to review the heck out of them. I doubt that this will take the serious, moody tone of this way-too-long, call-the-waaambulance, you-kids-get-off-my-lawn post that this one turned out to be, so maybe check these out. I'll list the songs, and hopefully find them online, and then we can talk about if these particular mixes are any good. I've a quick guess: no. I'm probably just trying not to get my hopes up, but we'll see. First on the docket: Nan's Eclectic Favorites. Stay tuned.


UPDATE: A little sniffing around on the internet turned up this article, which says many of the same things except with quality writing, and a quote, from Geoffrey O'Brien, in which the personal mixtape is declared "the most widely practiced American art form." I don't know anything about Geoffrey O'Brien, except that he apparently has written a book with Jeffrey Clark, who is a poet who wrote another book that I quite liked.

Culture Is Like A Tree, Probably, Somehow

If you have more than a passing interest in movies or pop culture, then maybe you'd enjoy wasting a few of your valuable minutes looking at this? I'm naturally a little compulsive, so these kinds of things drive me to distraction. This painting is by this person, who seems pretty alright. This all comes via Ryan North's dinosaur comics, which you should already be reading. Shame on you if you still aren't.

Oh, and don't look now, nerds, but it looks like Greedo is going to shoot first.

Clyde Drexler: Dwayne Hoover?

I'm watching the Celtics/ Rockets game from last night, and I've got the Portland broadcast, which is excellent, because I'm partial to the sometimes silly ramblings of announcing team Bill Worrell and former NBA great Clyde Drexler. Here's an exchange from this game that I couldn't stop thinking about:

BW: Aaron Brooks hits a three! There's where your offense is coming from now, he has five quick points.
CD: Well he can play the game, you've got to guard him...he's not a robot.

At this point, Luis Scola came up with a steal, and the conversation changed directions. I felt a little robbed by that, because I would love to know what Clyde was getting at. As near as I can tell, here are the possible implications of that statement:

• Aaron Brooks is not a robot, but some basketball players are
• Robots are unable to play the game well
  
• You don't have to guard robots
  

Sam Cooke Has Your Back Today

Election over, breathe a little easier. I'm no dem, as my politics sit further left, but I'm immensely relieved this early morning, and the hope and promise in the air is a little bit contagious here in the city of wind. Here's a classic that holds that feeling up to the light, where it can sparkle for a moment. Congratulations to everyone who feels like those are in order.

Cosmetic Changes

I got a few complaints about the color scheme I was using, so I dulled things down a little. I'm not at all sold on the new look, so feel free to chime in with your suggested color scheme. Emails or comments, it's all the same to me. Bear with us, please, while we fiddle with these silly cosmetic issues.

Election Day

Today is election day for the old US of A, and, as you've probably heard, there's a certain amount of historic precedent about to be set, regardless of the outcome. Symbolically, North America will take another (long overdue, still smallish) step towards righting a long and embarrassing history of gender and racial discrimination. But that's pretty abstract, right? Because that's a symbolic change, it will probably affect your life very little, if at all, other than in terms of your understanding of history. And you don't live your life with this sense of historic perspective anywhere near most of the time, because, on top of being a poor conversationalist, you would have a difficult time, say, doing your laundry. And then these big things come up, election day sized events with far-reaching cultural implications, and it can be a little jarring to try to comprehend the importance of the moment while also washing your socks; your world will not be profoundly different on wednesday, specifically, except that this moment in history will have come and gone, and you'll be feeling either miserable and cynical or optimistic and excited, or, I suppose, stoically resigned, if you happen to dislike the two-party system. The actual changes, well, those are slow, and they take a lot of time and happen incrementally, even in the best cases. The cogs are very large, and very difficult to move, and they will outlive all of us, and that's what history is.
This song is a particularly beautiful story about that kind of jarring and abstract historical moment that intrudes on the laundry parts of our lives, and I advise you to listen to it, because I think it hints at what I'm trying to say with a great deal more elegance and subtlety than my heavy-handed rhetoric, and because it's a pretty piece of songwriting. I've been humming it to myself for a week or so, and thinking about the upcoming election, and how (other than the obvious and besides-the-point fact that they both concern the job of president) they relate. It will also give your day a bit of the ol' art and culture when you might otherwise forget that this is what we protect with all these complicated politics. This song is a few years old, but it's from a remarkable album that I wholeheartedly recommend. I hope tomorrow brings you some peace of mind, everyone, and you all get everything you want.

UPDATE:
After rereading this post, and judging it harshly (shallow analysis, still miraculously overwrought) I have learned one thing: I am behind in my laundry, and it is apparently affecting the quality of my work. We can fix this; we can make it right. Tuesday: laundry day.

NBA Preview: Western Conference, Northwest Division

Denver Nuggets:
Because I took so long to finish these predictions, I have the benefit of knowing about the Allen Iverson trade before I start here, which was not the case last week when I wrote about the Pistons. As for the trade, my reaction was closer to this then this, which is to say that I don't get the Nuggets. Having Billups will free up an extra green light for JR Smith, though, and Anthony should continue to fill it up like a top five scorer, so this team won't be worse in the short term. The problem is the long term plan, which is, I fear, almost nonexistent. If I'm Melo, I'm not sure I stick around to watch this team rebuild around me again after my contract is up, and Billups is 33. The only real keeper on this team other than Melo is the aforementioned Smith, a gifted offensive player who hasn't shown much interest in the game's other aspects. The Nugs have big money committed to Nene (boy does he need to have a good year), and no promising young talent at all. All that future talk aside, I predicted this team would make the playoffs, and I still think that's true. Give Billups his due: he's a quality point guard, below all-star caliber but very good, and he's a much better defensive player than Iverson, and he'll probably come in with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. Kenyon Martin will be solid-ish, and Linas "my mind is like a" Kleiza is a decent tweener in the frontcourt. Plus, this guy, and who doesn't love that guy? Seriously. He needs his own shoe, and badly.

Minnesota Timberwolves:

Oklahoma City Highjackers:

Portland Trailblazers:

Utah Jazz: