(Half) Turn of the Screw

I think you've pegged Michael Hearst's next project: songs for ikea instructions...

My solution to listening to all those CDs would be to load them into an iTunes Playlist made for the occasion. Click on shuffle and see what comes out to tantalize your senses. Who cares if whole movements of a sonata are thrown to the wind? Listen to it while assembling Ikea furniture. A perfect way to while away a few hours.

If the CDs on my desk came with Ikea-like instructions, I'd insert each one into the player upside down, and jam it in repeatedly a few times with increasing frustration, since it looks *just* like the CD in the line drawing. Then I would squint a little harder, stare more diligently at the stoopid instruction leaflet, and finally notice the two oh-so subtle slashes that are supposed to be the universally recognized icon for "shiny surface" (in a universe for which I do not have a passport). I would then flip the CD and reinsert it, correct side up. By this time, however, I would have nicked the edge of the disc from my prior ill-fated attempts, and while most of the disc plays all right, for as long as I own the CD there would always be one little spot that skips that I hope no one else notices. This, a poignant reminder of the perils of my cheaper, do-it-yerse'f all-assembly-required lifestyle. Sigh.

In fact, defacing a cd and playing it can come out with some pretty cool skipping effects, which Eric Bünger replicated quite well in his "Variations on a Theme by Casey and Finch." Just one of the many technologically-driven ways to alter existing material.

I have to agree, though I hardly ever buy real CD's with leaflets any more, only because I have no money, when I check them out from the library I usually only consult the notes for biographical information on the composers, not for how to listen to the tunes. Somehow, "a measured epilogue with which the thematic arch fades away into nothingness" or "serene beauty" or "dramatic movements that rise to the surface like brief reminiscences of past battles" (all from some notes to a Brahms and Reger cd of clarinet quintets) just don't do it for me. Ugh. Notice how leaflets to rock or hip hop cd's or really most genres other than classical and jazz skip the fluff? Perhaps it's because they're not yet academicized, and we're not yet supposed to "take them seriously," and listen quietly? This will happen to rock and everything else some day, too, though, I think.

Liner notes (more akin to Ikea instructions than an album review) might frustrate me, but I always appreciate a thoughtful review, and Molly, I think your writing and thinking are much better than Ikea-like instructions through a track listing. Sounds like you're disenchanted by liner notes, too, so why not stick to articles and reviews?