Typeface catalogs
Of course it still works. It’s a Sony product.
Vintage audio technology still works. Found a stack of minidiscs from back in the day when I did radio.
Some minidiscs contain uncut, uncensored interviews with hard rock musicians from the late 1990s. Some minidiscs store alt rock music playlists. Some of the minidiscs hold dozens and dozens of radio stingers (five to ten second audio used to transition between songs or segments) and bumpers (ten to fifteen second audio featured station ID, show branding, music, or voiceover like “we’ll be right back” to avoid dead air or an abrupt cut or transition to top of the hour news). But the old tech still works!
For a few years in the late 1990s, the technology of recordable/playable minidiscs emerged with market growth opportunity that was quickly destroyed by the first generation Apple iPod. 60 to 80 minutes of audio on a minidisc versus 50 to 60 hours of audio on an iPod is not even a competition.
A first gen iPod holds a thousand songs. By comparison, back in the 1990s, a top 40 radio station had a catalog of 150 or more songs that they played 24 hours a day. An alternative rock radio station (like the one I was on) had a library of 300 to 500 songs. On one minidisc I curated a 12-song playlist that included three songs by Tsunami Bomb, three songs by Big In Japan, P.O.D., Temple of Rain, and Audio Karate. At the time, that musical selection meant enough for me to organize and store it on a minidisc. A thousand songs? That is too much to manage. Pick your 12 favorite songs and enjoy.
What am I going to do with these vintage audio and radio archives? The temptation is to place them online somewhere. But maybe it is better to leave what happened in the 1990s to stay in the 1990s.
Audiophile in retrograde
Audio recordable MiniDiscs
Milwaukee-based literary magazine, Burdock
Disk spanning
Buried treasure
To be useful and to be beautiful
“If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
— Beauty of Life, William Morris, 1880
The floppy disk
Storage capacity of a three and a half inch floppy disk (from the 30 years ago) is 1.4 megabytes. The digital image of these floppy disks requires two floppy disks to store the data.
Try explaining that to the kidlingers.
After the ice breaks
iPod + broadcast
Snowy evening by street lamp
The Repository of Neglected Things, volume 2
So, we did it again.
When music & poetry warmed the night with the Traveling Bonfires
Home is over the mountain and down in the holler
The darkest time of the year
Eat. Sleep. Read.
A cure for lean-back listeners
What is a “lean-back listener”? According to a leading music streaming service it is their target audience. A person who clicks on a list of songs, a playlist, for background music to help focus on work projects, or an exercise routine, or to relax after a long day on the job. One writer summarizes it: “Low-effort acquisition led to low-effort consumption”.
Remember what it was like to admire the artwork of a vinyl record or audio CD, to open a CD tray to read liner notes, to place a record on the platter or the compact disc in the tray?
Remember listening a whole album from start to finish? I mean, Really listening to the order of the songs and how each song relates to each other. Why does the album begin with an explosive tempo (presto) then moves to a walking pace (andante) before slowing to an adagio? And then listen to the album again. And again.
The art of listening to an album requires intent and practice. Plan a musical playlist. Where do you start? For me, the journey began with a cellist playing Adagio in G Minor in a novel set in Sarajevo. What does that music sound like and why is it important to the narrative?
I visited the public library. They no longer provide audio CDs to local patrons. So, I requested CDs using the online interlibrary loan service. This service allows access to libraries across the state. A music playlist developed from many interlibrary loans transactions.
A Brad Mehlda recording began the daily musical practice. But within a week the Mehlda CD switched positions to the last slot in the five-disc CD player changer.
During the summer a lot of music CD selections were returned to or retrieved from the library. Liner notes were read and album cover artwork admired. Effort made to learn about the music and the artists and the producers provided a journey. The order of the songs mattered. As Bailey and Micah, folk musicians of the band The Figs Present: The Figs, quip: “If you’re listening to this album on shuffle this won’t make any sense. Right? but also, if you’re listening to this album on shuffle, why?” Streaming music on shuffle is low-effort acquisition for low-effort consumption. By the end of summer the playlist that formed became a rich audio tapestry, an intimate soundtrack, and not unmemorable streaming background static.
All beauty exhausted, duck in winter
It is cold. Choose your own adventure.
Third Sunday of Advent 2025 – Joy
Here is a poem and reflection for the third Sunday of Advent.
The Repository of Neglected Things
A couple of the drawings and illustrations featured on this web site during the last month or two appear in The Repository of Neglected Things. This private project originally started as way to collect unpublished drawings, illustrations, and stories into a physical package for friends and family. An anthology, if you will. Or maybe a portfolio. Plans are in process for a third and fourth volume. It has a limited print run. And distributed privately by invitation only.
A galaxy of snowflakes descend
Clock tower on a snowy day
Coffeehouse Junkie 