Please allow me to quote heavily from The Bard Terence McKenna—this selection comes from a discussion about language: We use rapidly modulated small mouth noises. As primates we have incredible ability to make small mouth noises. We can do this for up to six hours at a stretch without tiring. No other thing we can do approaches the level of variation with low energy investment that the small mouth noises do.

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Thinking about old forms of media, I am torn about attempting to digitize old formats versus (re)buying. Something like an old movie on a DVD is low hanging fruit, as is music on CDs. I’ve long had CDs ripped and am working on movies. But cassettes and vinyl—there is a labor of love. Transcribing happens in real time, then editing is necessary to separate tracks dubbed during the session… There is great equipment available to do a good job of this, even for a home hobbyist.

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Aiwa AD-F350U Used a tape deck very much like the one pictured here. It was the first audio equipment I purchased. It played through a little amplifier I purchased in kit form and assembled in a high-school electronics class. I dubbed many, many records from friends. Listened to hundreds of albums purchased new on cassette. Thousands of hours of my life are connected to this. Such an 80s artifact. It survived into the early 2000s but one too many lightning strikes to the power grid took it out.

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