The first thing I did upon moving into my house was build The Media Closet. For whatever reason, the house came equipped with two coat closets – one in the foyer and the other in the den – and since Leah and I live in Charleston, South Carolina, where it’s usually 143 degrees, we don’t need a lot of storage space devoted to outerwear. So I did what any other normal person would do – I converted the second coat closet into a media storage system.
The process was simple. I first tore out the clothes rack, which mauled the walls. Then I patched and painted the mauled parts and installed eight-inch-deep shelves from floor to ceiling, leaving just enough room at the bottom for my collection of vinyl records. On the top shelf I placed all my video games, followed by two shelves of DVDs and eight shelves of CDs. I installed racks on the door for old VHS tapes and added florescent lighting, just for fun. That’s all there was to it.
When Leah and I give guests the grand tour of our house, my favorite part is showing off The Media Closet. Most people are slightly impressed, at which point they step inside to get a closer look. And then they say, with voices slightly trembling, “Um, is all of this stuff alphabetized?”
What a silly question. Of course it’s alphabetized. How couldn’t it be?
Which leads me to the first point of this post – I’m a collector with a touch of OCD.
I don’t collect much – in fact, to my wife’s dismay, I get rid of our things all the time – but what I do collect, I collect with fervor. My collections are limited to books, music and films. Oh, and every now and then I’ll buy a comic book (which is a subset of books) or an action figure (which is a subset of both comic books and films) or a magazine (which can be about any of the categories, category subsets or modern architecture). But that’s it. In all other regards I’m a minimalist - with a strange penchant for Post-It Notes.
My collecting began in the late 70’s and early 80’s when my friends and I started buying and trading baseball cards, comic books and Star Wars figures. I loved visiting flea markets where I’d buy packs of Donruss cards and copies of The Uncanny X-Men. I’d then go home and file everything away in binders and boxes. In time, my collecting graduated to books and CDs and eventually to signed first editions and vintage vinyl, which I now file away on bookshelves or in The Media Closet.
And I think that’s why I love collecting so much, because it affords organizational opportunities. The individual items are great, but my biggest kick comes from The Collection as a whole, where everything is organized, alphabetized, and oftentimes hermetically sealed in some sort of Mylar cocoon. The sight of a full comic book box or tightly packed bookcase is inordinately satisfying and scratches my OCD itch.
Which leads me to the second point of this post – digital media leaves the itch itchy.
Via iTunes, I recently bought Plans by Death Cab for Cutie. It’s something I’ve been wanting for a while, so I purchased it with a gift card my sister gave me. After a few listens, I was happy I’d finally broken down and bought it – it’s a great album.
But wait. It’s not an album – it’s only files on my iPod! It’s not in The Media Closet! It’s not part of The Collection! It’s not alphabetized or protected with Mylar! Ack!
These are the thoughts that raced (and still race) through my head. So I’ll probably buy the album a second time, on CD or perhaps vinyl, and place it The Media Closet alongside Danielson, Ani Difranco, The Dead Milkmen and Bob Dylan. I’ll then step back, see that my collection has ever-so-slightly expanded and all will be well.
For collecting to be gratifying, it needs the tangibility and organizational qualities that MP3s can’t provide. Sure, you can organize media files in folders and make sure all of the ID3 tags are perfect, but it’s just not the same as holding an album in your hands. I may use web sites like AbeBooks and eBay to buy my books and records, but the purchased goods are shipped to my house via UPS – not via DSL. The process of opening a CD case or gatefold album for the first time is much more rewarding than “downloading, please wait.” Perhaps this makes me a Luddite, but I don’t mind. Luddites are cool.
Okay, so I’m decidedly uncool, but at least I’ve learned not to shop at iTunes. And, I guess on a good note, Death Cab will earn royalties from me twice, making up for one of the who-knows-how-many bootlegs that are out there. But that’s an entirely different post, so I’ll go ahead and end this thing. I have some alphabetizing to do.
The process was simple. I first tore out the clothes rack, which mauled the walls. Then I patched and painted the mauled parts and installed eight-inch-deep shelves from floor to ceiling, leaving just enough room at the bottom for my collection of vinyl records. On the top shelf I placed all my video games, followed by two shelves of DVDs and eight shelves of CDs. I installed racks on the door for old VHS tapes and added florescent lighting, just for fun. That’s all there was to it.
When Leah and I give guests the grand tour of our house, my favorite part is showing off The Media Closet. Most people are slightly impressed, at which point they step inside to get a closer look. And then they say, with voices slightly trembling, “Um, is all of this stuff alphabetized?”
What a silly question. Of course it’s alphabetized. How couldn’t it be?
Which leads me to the first point of this post – I’m a collector with a touch of OCD.
I don’t collect much – in fact, to my wife’s dismay, I get rid of our things all the time – but what I do collect, I collect with fervor. My collections are limited to books, music and films. Oh, and every now and then I’ll buy a comic book (which is a subset of books) or an action figure (which is a subset of both comic books and films) or a magazine (which can be about any of the categories, category subsets or modern architecture). But that’s it. In all other regards I’m a minimalist - with a strange penchant for Post-It Notes.
My collecting began in the late 70’s and early 80’s when my friends and I started buying and trading baseball cards, comic books and Star Wars figures. I loved visiting flea markets where I’d buy packs of Donruss cards and copies of The Uncanny X-Men. I’d then go home and file everything away in binders and boxes. In time, my collecting graduated to books and CDs and eventually to signed first editions and vintage vinyl, which I now file away on bookshelves or in The Media Closet.
And I think that’s why I love collecting so much, because it affords organizational opportunities. The individual items are great, but my biggest kick comes from The Collection as a whole, where everything is organized, alphabetized, and oftentimes hermetically sealed in some sort of Mylar cocoon. The sight of a full comic book box or tightly packed bookcase is inordinately satisfying and scratches my OCD itch.
Which leads me to the second point of this post – digital media leaves the itch itchy.
Via iTunes, I recently bought Plans by Death Cab for Cutie. It’s something I’ve been wanting for a while, so I purchased it with a gift card my sister gave me. After a few listens, I was happy I’d finally broken down and bought it – it’s a great album.
But wait. It’s not an album – it’s only files on my iPod! It’s not in The Media Closet! It’s not part of The Collection! It’s not alphabetized or protected with Mylar! Ack!
These are the thoughts that raced (and still race) through my head. So I’ll probably buy the album a second time, on CD or perhaps vinyl, and place it The Media Closet alongside Danielson, Ani Difranco, The Dead Milkmen and Bob Dylan. I’ll then step back, see that my collection has ever-so-slightly expanded and all will be well.
For collecting to be gratifying, it needs the tangibility and organizational qualities that MP3s can’t provide. Sure, you can organize media files in folders and make sure all of the ID3 tags are perfect, but it’s just not the same as holding an album in your hands. I may use web sites like AbeBooks and eBay to buy my books and records, but the purchased goods are shipped to my house via UPS – not via DSL. The process of opening a CD case or gatefold album for the first time is much more rewarding than “downloading, please wait.” Perhaps this makes me a Luddite, but I don’t mind. Luddites are cool.
Okay, so I’m decidedly uncool, but at least I’ve learned not to shop at iTunes. And, I guess on a good note, Death Cab will earn royalties from me twice, making up for one of the who-knows-how-many bootlegs that are out there. But that’s an entirely different post, so I’ll go ahead and end this thing. I have some alphabetizing to do.
