I would like to speak with you today about cargo pants.
Actually I would like to speak with you about the entertainment-industrial complex, and embroil you in a plan to defy, taunt, and thwart the RIAA as one of one billion steps toward saying no, stupid to everyone who structures laws and social control around money, but I've been around and I'm okay with starting slowly. So today, I would just like to speak with you about cargo pants.
As it happens, I cannot speak with you regarding cargo pants without speaking also of cassingles and my dislike for them. My dislike for them was premised on my great love of the vinyl 45 rpm, which was the first form in which I ever paid for music, at the Strawberries in Kenmore Square. Of course the cassingle seemed to me unnatural, though it was nothing of the sort, or at least, it was no less natural than a 7" platter with a hole punched in the center and grooves etched in the vinyl.
Still, the cassingle was stupid. It was stupid for a fairly basic reason: if one has even a dram of elan, one listens to singles over and over and over, especially "Boogie Fever" by the Sylvers. One does this without much pause, and waiting to rewind the cassingle every time is a drag.
Still, in the material world where we all live with Madonna, the cassingle has some rationales that called it into being. One is that it doesn't break or warp when you ship it. The other two are in fact the same: the car stereo, and the rise of the Walkman. The cassingle is highly portable, at least compared to the 45 (though among the few devices designed for playing 45s on the go are some of the loveliest chunks of Bakelite ever baked).
The durability issue was nothing new. Portability, though not a new issue, had been ascending in relevance since the Sixties: the cassette player started to replace the 8-track; home recording was decreasing in cost and increasing in quality. Cassingles were an inevitability. So was the Walkman.
The delay between the introduction of the Walkman and the first single released only on tape, and then the first single to go #1 on cassingle sales alone (my recollection is that this was Roxette's "Listen To Your Heart" but this is just a stray memory) was precipitously swift; the Walkman, in effect, delivered the cassingle from inevitability to actuality, and from actuality to dominance. Video may have killed the radio star; the Walkman killed the 45.
And yet, if one is going to go for a walk, man, one doesn't want to have a mandatory backpack stuffed with little plastic bricks; one little wants to reach for one's rewing button every few minutes; one ill desires to waste one's all-too-brief battery life on so much silent spindle spinning. The cassingle may have been portable in a way that the 45 was not, but it was not an actual solution to the portability issue. Making mix tapes remained a far more effective strategy; given that it was just around this time that CD players achieved ubiquity, the cassingle was bound to fail. It did its job of slaying the vinyl format, and departed history's stage; the era of the commercial single had all but ended.
This is by way of reminding everyone including Cary Sherman that Napster did not destroy the single. I tend to think that it saved the single as an aesthetic form, but that's another discussion. Before we get there, we must still discuss cargo pants, my avowed goal. That will have to wait for my next post, in which I will link to this introductory chapter and then perhaps attempt to correct the course of the larger essay, which as an aggregate, is known as the Slow Pirate Project.
Wouldn't you like to be a Slow Pirate too?
Posted by jane at September 5, 2004 11:34 AM | TrackBacki'd be fond of slow piracy, save the proud ankle
but
having my first phalanx of deep pockets, and wishing to stride to - ahem - the natural four, hoping that this time I would hear definite whether it is a caramel or a powerful or maybe even a virtual ocean, stuff was so bouncing about that shit skipped
music and cargo pant fettered my stride
love, g
Posted by: Geoffrey Gilbert at September 6, 2004 03:15 PMÖsterreichweit http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_299029/Buecher_Kategorien_Lernen_Nachschlagen_Atlanten_Landkarten_Nach_Laendern_Regionen_Europa_Oesterreich_Oesterreichweit.php
Osteuropa http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_299054/Buecher_Kategorien_Lernen_Nachschlagen_Atlanten_Landkarten_Nach_Laendern_Regionen_Europa_Osteuropa.php
Portugal mit Madeira http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_299033/Buecher_Kategorien_Lernen_Nachschlagen_Atlanten_Landkarten_Nach_Laendern_Regionen_Europa_Portugal_mit_Madeira.php
Schweiz http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_299038/Buecher_Kategorien_Lernen_Nachschlagen_Atlanten_Landkarten_Nach_Laendern_Regionen_Europa_Schweiz.php
Skandinavien http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_1024730/Buecher_Kategorien_Lernen_Nachschlagen_Atlanten_Landkarten_Nach_Laendern_Regionen_Europa_Skandinavien.php
Finnland http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_298988/Buecher_Kategorien_Lernen_Nachschlagen_Atlanten_Landkarten_Nach_Laendern_Regionen_Europa_Skandinavien_Finnland.php
Makrofotografie & Nahaufnahme http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_556118/Buecher_Kategorien_Film_Kultur_Comics_Fotografie_Fototechnik_Makrofotografie_Nahaufnahme.php
Schwarzweißfotografie http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_556128/Buecher_Kategorien_Film_Kultur_Comics_Fotografie_Fototechnik_Schwarzweissfotografie.php
Stereofotografie http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_556120/Buecher_Kategorien_Film_Kultur_Comics_Fotografie_Fototechnik_Stereofotografie.php
Unterwasserfotografie http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_556130/Buecher_Kategorien_Film_Kultur_Comics_Fotografie_Fototechnik_Unterwasserfotografie.php
Digitale Fotografie http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_556122/Buecher_Kategorien_Film_Kultur_Comics_Fotografie_Fototechnik_Digitale_Fotografie.php
Fototheorie & -geschichte http://buch.preiswert.eu.com/liste_556114/Buecher_Kategorien_Film_Kultur_Comics_Fotografie_Fototheorie_geschichte.php
There are more fools in the world than there are people. Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856)
Posted by: quicken loan at November 21, 2004 05:58 AMGreat people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine. Fran Lebowitz (1950 - )
Posted by: bad credit card offer at November 22, 2004 09:16 AMBayfield Colorado Real Estate Cherry Hills Village Colorado Home for Sale Grand Junction Colorado Properties Welby Colorado Properties Pueblo Colorado Real Estate Edwards Colorado Properties Craig Colorado Real Estate Delta Colorado Real Estate Gleneagle Colorado Home for Sale Todd Creek Colorado Properties Walsenburg Colorado Properties Englewood Colorado Real Estate Berthoud Colorado Home for Sale Julesburg Colorado Real Estate Minturn Colorado Home for Sale Montrose Colorado Properties Castle Rock Colorado Homes Burlington Colorado Real Estate Alamosa Colorado Home for Sale Campion Colorado Home for Sale Acres Green Colorado Homes Northglenn Colorado New Homes Byers Colorado Real Estate Hudson Colorado Real Estate Log Lane Village Colorado New Homes Parachute Colorado Homes Leadville Colorado New Homes Cedaredge Colorado Real Estate Ault Colorado Properties Perry Park Colorado New Homes Ault Colorado Home for Sale Las Animas Colorado Home for Sale Frederick Colorado Home for Sale Broomfield Colorado Home for Sale Gilcrest Colorado Home for Sale Fort Collins Colorado Home for Sale Fruita Colorado New Homes Center Colorado Real Estate Greenwood Village Colorado New Homes Castlewood Colorado Home for Sale Olathe Colorado Real Estate Platteville Colorado New Homes Cascade-Chipita Park Colorado Homes Basalt Colorado Home for Sale Genesee Colorado Real Estate Limon Colorado Home for Sale Edgewater Colorado Home for Sale Las Animas Colorado Properties Alamosa East Colorado Homes Rifle Colorado New Homes
Posted by: Klemola at March 28, 2005 06:19 PMA mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory. Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
Posted by: Snowmass Village Colorado Home for Sale at March 28, 2005 06:22 PM