Forever in Debt to Your Priceless Advice

and a Headphone Addendum

(Hey… wait… I’ve got a new complaint)

Ears of a certain age heard the refrain in the above parentheses, when they read the subject of today’s newsletter. But I’m not hear to complain… and speaking of music:

Last time, I complained about people enjoying nature and sharing their phone’s music with everyone, whether we like it or not. After I thought for a bit on it, I realized that I was blaming the victim. Much like how plastic bag and bottle manufacturers want us to blame litter on consumers, instead of the businesses that create light containers that get blown out of trash cans, I am blaming the consumer of a smartphone that no longer comes with free headphones, for not using headphones. Before smartphones regularly cost over five hundred dollars, they came with a set of wired earbuds and a charger. Now some cost more than laptops, and don’t have a headphone jack, or even a charger. You get a charging cable.

Headphone jacks disappeared so Apple and Samsung can sell you expensive wireless earbuds. There are waterproof high-end smartphones with headphone jacks, but they are Androids made by lesser-known tech companies. The solution of expensive Bluetooth earbuds benefits the smartphone manufacturers and leaves us with noise pollution, much like cheap bottles that can’t be returned for a deposit benefit only the container manufacturer.

Back to unasked for advice. I took some of my own, and got outside. I visited the John Heinz Urban Wildlife Refuge, which is one of the birding hotspots of the area, according to eBird.org at Cornell University. I didn’t see anything uncommon, but I did get to see many Mute Swans, Ruddy Ducks, Northern Shovelers, and a lone American Coot, plus dozens of Tree Swallows in their iridescent spring plumage, which were a total delight. I’ll share my photos in this Sunday’s post.

I also took Arnold Schwarzenegger’s advice and slowed down a bit this week. I worked out hard for the last few weeks, without taking a week off. I completed the Arnold’s Pump Club¹ Advanced Foundation, and started the Next Level… which was too much for me. Four days a week of 90 minutes of solid lifting doesn’t leave me enough time to mountain bike, hike, and recover. Arnold’s newsletter this week said that too many of us have a binary mindset, where anything less than 10 is a zero, but small changes add up. I’ve been going at it full throttle for weeks, and it finally caught up to me.

So, I’m taking a rest week. I went for a light ride this morning, I did some stretching and light Pilates to ease the soreness from too much lifting last week, and I’ll go for an afternoon walk after work, since the sun is out, and it’ll be rainy tomorrow. And I scheduled a trip with Sarah, to enjoy the spring weather, and to have something nice to look forward to.

Back to music. We went to see the Stereophonics, a Welsh band that Sarah likes, and the Austin band Witches Exist opened for them. I liked them and bought a record of theirs etched on a square of Plexiglas, which looks really damn cool. You can find more of their music at the link on their name.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Kosmischer Läufer, music created for the wellbeing of the athletes of the East German Olympics team, by Martin Zeichnete. He was a fan of Kraftwerk and thought the music could improve the mental and physical health of people; the East German government agreed, and for eleven years he played electronica for the teams while they practiced and for the audiences who watched them perform. There’s more at the link, including the music itself, which sounds surprisingly modern. (So much that I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an elaborate hoax, or all the music was lost and re-recorded by Martin only recently.) Even if it’s a fantasy, I love the idea that East German authorities thought “cosmic rock” could give their athletes an edge, and that fans of space age lounge music would enjoy it decades later.

You can listen to all of Kosmischer Läufer on Bandcamp for free, but I ordered the orange sherbet vinyl album of the first volume of music. My favorite tune is probably Kapsel on Volume II, but I like the first volume a lot, as well. And I enjoy listening to vinyl records, not because they sound better, but because while I have to get up and flip the record, and I can hear the pops clicks of imperfection, and a corporation can’t take it away from me. Same with books. Amazon can erase lines from digital ones, but they can’t burn them all.

1. Just call me the Town Pump!