Me And My Stereo Down By The Schoolyard

Today, after more than 15 years with my stereo, pictured above, I recycled it. I believe my aunt and uncle gave it for me for Hannukah when I was in fifth grade and first started to buy music. It was a fixture in my bedroom, my dorm rooms and two apartment kitchens -- all with an impeccably chosen music collection, of course. One year in college, I put a sticker for a short-lived band called Headphones on one side, thinking that would be ironic.

But about two years ago, the stereo started eating tapes and a year after that, the CD player's cover popped up, never to go down again. Since then, it's only played the radio, which is more than serviceable. Nonetheless, in addition to it's deficiencies, I'm moving to a smaller apartment that calls for a smaller stereo and an electronics recycling event happened today, so I decided to buy a new one.

As long indicated on this blog, I'm quite ambivalent about the 21st century for many different reasons, and am still a true believer in the importance of a stereo. I don't own an iPod yet -- how one consumes music using it bothers me -- and believe there's something very liberating about the idea of blasting your music out to the rest of the world to hear. It might be obnoxious, appreciated or somewhere in between, but there's something profoundly communal about it. I miss my old stereo.

Thanks to Simon and Garfunkel and !!! for inspiring the post's title. In the spirit of blasting obnoxious music, I'll take the latter.

Update: For the photo shoot, I was compelled to don my Belle & Sebastian shirt. That their T-shirt to promote their band features a giant ampersand and their name in small font is probably the best possible visual explanation of their aesthetic.

Further Update: Perhaps the saying about how famous deaths come in threes also pertains to my dearly beloved household appliances. Yesterday, my alarm clock died. It's nearly as old as my stereo, and has gone with me to even more exotic locales, such as Patagonia. Hopefully, I avert a third death.