CDs, Girls, and Quality Control.

Monday, April 25, 2011

In Vanillaspeak, Kittycake’s my girlfriend. In Scenespeak, she’s my pet. In neither am I her lover, but the guy on the street in front of me is. They were both chasing each other, giggling, half-drunk with joy and alcohol. Mr. Universe was walking beside me, watching the scene as well. “Kids,” I said, shaking my head. He nodded.

I guess I can be this old.

A couple of hours earlier, Mr. Universe and I had been talking about music as we drove down the road to my new dwellings. Mr. Universe is one of these rare people who have a technology defect: even though completely capable and technology savvy, Mr. Universe does not have the urge to tweet; he rarely logs on Facebook, and if he does, it’s mostly for his girlfriend. His phone would probably have him kicked out of any hipster cafe in my neighborhood, and his somewhat old-fashioned ways (and attire) used to make me think he was a southern brute, as he grew up around the kind of guys who hunt and gut deer. Yet, Mr. Universe is intellectually amazing, witty, and on his way to a Ph.D. in mathematics — something I never imagined him doing when we met years ago.

Considering the above, there’s nothing odd about Mr. Universe’s strange collection of music, consisting of burned CDs shoved into a visor sleeve that had lost its proper place, and was now shoved into the door panel of his car. We discussed the collapsing quality of music, which we agreed was mostly the fault of the “random” function found on any mp3 player in the market today.

“When you go on a trip today,” I noted, “there’s no need to make choices anymore. Your music comes with you. At work, at play, when you drive, when you take a shit … ” Mr. Universe concurred: “There are no longer mixes, or need to choose. Music has become something in the background ... ”

“Something you don’t have to think about anymore,” I said, completing his thought.

Later that night, at the New Nostalgia bar, we had our beers and yelled at each other over the loud music and overly-excited patrons. I coined the term “the twitter effect”: when faced with a choice and limited options, we make better decisions. Twitter’s 140-character limit or a CD’s 12 or so track limit follow the same quality principle. You can’t fit three full Red Hot Chili Peppers albums into one CD, so you choose the one that works best for you. You can’t switch between “anger” and “energy” modes instantly, so you carefully pick up two different mixes.

As for Kittycake, she came to see me the next day again, excited to tell me about her feelings and experiences with her new lover. It was enough to just listen to her voice: I knew how happy she was — I could see it. My head rewound the conversation with Mr. Universe. I had been so limited with my options of my own “lovers” (for a lack of a better term) in the last year, ever since I started dating her. I was thankful for that. The “quality” of my carefully selected close few lovers is apparent.

Perhaps I should start collecting CDs again.