Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire

A weird, quasi-philosophical thought occurred to me, recently. Don’t worry, this is the norm. Welcome to my brain.

This is a longer post, written over several sessions. Grab a coffee. 

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Preamble:

Recently, we had a 5-year reassessment of our insurance, here. Part of the conversation was about valuables in the home, protecting against theft, damage, loss. For me, the only thing of real replacement value I have here is my decent-sized music collection. Priorities.

So, the rep recommended I start a detailed list of what’s here, to be stored off-site (email) for use in the event of replacement. Now, I’ve kept a list of everything here, but it’s just a .txt file with Artist Name – Album Title. I did it that way for my phone: because I don’t have data on my cell phone, and I didn’t want to mess with a spreadsheet, a simple, alphabetical .txt file is easy to open and manipulate on my old iPhone 6s+. 

It was recommended to me, though, that the list be more detailed, so direct replacement can be possible.

Action:

Being a dilligent home owner, I’ve started a more detailed spreadsheet. It covers:

Artist, Title, Year, Label, Code, SKU, Format, and Notes (just brief things like ‘autographed,’ or ‘#123/500,’ etc). I did not include current prices, or links to Discogs, reasoning that it’ll be one at a time and the price will be what it is at the time if it comes to that anyway.

This way, if the house burns down or gets robbed, or we suffer a massive earthquake and the resulting tsunami off Georgian Bay washes out our house, or whatever the case, there’ll be a list offsite that will tell the insurance claims department what was lost. It’s a lot of work to put this all together, but I can sit here and listen to tunes as I work and, honestly, what else do I have to do with my time? Only a million things. Anyway, I have alphabetically progressed quite nicely through to ‘C,’ already, as of this writing.

The Thought Process:

As I’ve worked away on the list, I’ve begun to wonder about a disaster, such as fire, destroying the house (and we’re all safe, natch). Obviously, replacing the house and major family contents comes first. But the provision in the insurance for replacement of this collection, even if it does contain enough funds to replace a decent chunk of what’s here (I’d doubt it would cover all of it), would have to be monitored closely. I’d have to assume that the insurance would use that list and make sure I replaced exactly what was here, as close as possible, from a reputable source. 

So I wondered, would I even want to replace them all, exactly? How much of what I own has been picked up along the way, usually for cheap, and doesn’t truly need replacing? I mean, a CD like Sheryl Crow’s Tuesday Night Music Club. And all deference to Sheryl here, it’s just where I am in the list… Now, I like that album well enough for what it is, and the memories it has associated with it from my university days. But I bought it for $1. Would I replace it at full price, using up limited replacement funds? No. But that is what the insurance would expect, right? Go to Sunrise Records or Amazon and buy back what was lost, spend far more on a very common CD that I spent so little on, the likes of which would eat into whatever amount I’d started with frighteningly quickly.

Not only that, some of my old LPs would be so (comparitively) astronomically priced… old original jazz (Coltrane) and rock (Bowie) LPs… not to mention my very rare stuff, like GBV albums where they only ever printed 500 copies, so it’d be next-to impossible to cheaply replace even if you could find them at all… Or my complete collection of limited-run Sloan LP releases, costing way more now that they did at purchase… Or even personally-valuable stuff, like my autographed B.B. King boxed set from that gig in KW. Can’t replace that exactly, as B.B. passed away (may he RIP). 

Anyway, this naturally led to me thinking about how much stuff is here, in total. And not that I’m being lazy and trying to make working on the list go more quickly, but honestly. Because of where I work and how easy it is to get things cheaply, I own so much stuff I hardly ever play and, truth be told, if it was all lost to me tomorrow… well, beyond the obvious stuff that would definitely be replaced, I don’t know how much of it I could or even would replace. 

So, because my brain goes to absurd yet logical conclusions, that started me thinking about why I even have it here. To play, at some point, obviously, and why not. Life is for the living, enjoy what you have. I know this. I’ve spent years of my life researching, collecting, digging through bins and racks, always questing for the next whatever. I’ve spent years curating the collection, alphabetizing and shelving and organizing it all, not to mention moving it across three provinces, and from house to house as we’ve moved. It’s a lot of time and care for what amounts to a bunch of stuff.

But a large percentage of my collection so very rarely gets played. I’d say a lot of it has been years since its last spin, which is why my KMA series of going through everything here is good, at least they’ll get aired once again. But why am I warehousing a lot of this stuff? Whom am I impressing? Now, long-time KMA Readers may remember when I did a post a long while ago about two culls I’d done (Oct. 2017 and Oct. 2018). That got rid of a big pile of stuff, around 1700 items, and contrary to what I might have thought would happen, I actually felt better. Lighter. And I have a couple of boxes started here again, already, though because of covid I haven’t had a chance to get them anywhere I’d trust to be fair on return. And you’re thinking a cull is a bad idea, that I might want them back someday. Well, of the 1700+ items that went out in those two culls, since then I have regretted exactly one CD. And I replaced it, at minimal cost. That’s not much regret, there. 

Part of me thinks I brought all these things home (in volume) for a reason, whether it was on spec or to fill in a discography gap, or whatever the case. I like so many types of music that I can grab up a lot very quickly – Bocelli AND Black Sabbath, etc. Reading your enthusiasm for things on all your blogs makes me grab stuff to try it, too. I’m quite a magpie for bright and shiny music. 

But if it all went away tomorrow, what would I truly miss, out of everything here? Honestly, a small percentage. I like all of it, but I love far fewer than I was admitting. And this all ties into the thoughts I had when seeing my father-in-law in the nursing home before he passed away, about how little he had with him. Can’t take it with you, all that. It’s rough to think about, but true. I know, I should just enjoy it now and let my kids deal with it, but at a certain point the collection reaches an unmanageable size and I have so much I can’t possibly enjoy all of it to the point where I wonder if I’m enjoying any of it.

So I entertained the thought of using disaster as a cull mechanism, a thought experiement. What would I actually replace? It would take being honest and letting go of what isn’t essential, sure, but I could use that money toward something that wouldn’t just sit – like my 50th birthday guitar project. Now THAT would not sit and gather dust, I’d play it often, drawn to it like a moth to flame. Same can’t be said for Sheryl Crow. Sorry, Sheryl, but it’s true. And I’d have to be better, going forward, to only collect up what I know I truly want, not just everything that catches my eye or someone somewhere is a fan so I should try everything out.

In Sum (if there is an answer, here):

These are incomplete thoughts, half-formed and probably not very well-expressed. It’s all still a jumble in my head. I called it ‘weird’ because it seems to run contrary to my usual thinking, so it feels odd. Unfamiliar, anyway. Maybe being cooped up in the house for a year because of this pandemic, surrounded by all the stacks plays into this too, but it all started with the insurance review and naturally led my thoughts here. If I were truly honest with myself, how much of what’s here do I really honestly want/need? The answer is: surprisingly, relatively little of it. And when it all comes down to it (hopefully later rather than sooner): none of it. What matters instead? People, memories, experiences. 

If you got this far, thanks for Reading. Carry on, as you were.