"Gur you bes relax" -My Antique Phonograph

After much searching, I am now the proud owner of a Victrola Model X circa 1915. I love the Victrola because I have amazing sounding music that makes my heart sing with each crackle. It also kindly reminds me to have a trait our attention deficit disordered culture often lacks: PATIENCE. 


We live in a culture of NOW. If our Internet takes more then 5 seconds to load a page we can turn into Veruca darling at the chocolate factory screaming “BUT I WANT IT NOW, DADDY!” Buffering is a sign of end times. People have stopped supporting local record stores. We buy mp3’s from Itunes for its cheap "wam bam thank you ma’am" accessibility. Online behavior goes offline as we text, tweet and update our statuses during dinner conversations with friends or at a concert. The latter I’ve discussed in a previous post.


The Victrola doesn’t allow for me to behave like a now junkie. It has to be cranked to work and the needle must be replaced after every record or two played. I now take the time to shop at record stores again and have face-to-face discussions about music with the people who work there. It’s had a positive impact on the way I operate in general.


My point is not to go out and purchase an antique Victrola, or to never download an Mp3 from Itunes again. It’s just a metaphorical reminder that the beautiful, meaningful things in life don’t always come in a double clicked high-speed downloadable package, and neither do we, so let’s all relax and behave accordingly.