In Praise of the Material World

Had an experience last week that revealed some of the limits of online, digital life -- a life I also must admit is not without benefits since we are reading this online! My enlightening experience occurred when I decided to pull one of my old jazz reference books off the shelf. It was the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, sixth edition from 2002, which may have been one of the last paper copy versions they published. It's a massive book, some 1000 pages long with very small type. It's a record guide, with capsule reviews for as many recordings by as many artists as they could fit. The only criterion for inclusion, as the title indicates, was that the records had to be available in CD -- which was a small plastic and lacquer disc that you would insert into a device to play it, lol. Funny side note: I actually used to lug books like this on vacation to read on the plane or the beach or the deck. Sometimes on vacations I would have as many as three books. Insane. Now it's all on my phone. On our trip to Japan last fall my phone was my sole reading device. And I'm a big reader. Worked great.

So anyway, I found myself digging into the jazz book and soon came to the conclusion that reading reviews by flipping through the pages is a better experience than digital scrolling. It's the continuous nature of the information that is the key. It's the piece that can bring you more into contact with the "in between" and the unanticipated or unexpected. Scrolling and clicking on links is good but it's generally defined by two things: Either your own choices based on whatever comes to mind or what the algorithm "thinks" might appeal to you based on past choices or other data it gleans. And there's no in between. It's either this or that. Which is what was lost with the switch from analog to digital. Nevertheless, the online method can result in some interesting encounters and some fresh finds. But here's the thing. It's not fully random. And it is only in the random that true discovery takes place.

The organizing principle for the Penguin record guide was alphabetical. And what is more random than that? One of my favorite activities is opening my American Heritage Dictionary (another thing that is only online now) and looking for fun juxtapositions of images. What made that dictionary unique was that every page would feature an image or two illustrating various words. And it was absurdly random. I just opened my copy now, and there, one above the other were images of a gecko and a geisha. A coupling bizarre enough to warm John Cage's heart! And something no one would ever think of. Flipping through the pages of the Penguin Guide I would come across someone I hadn't thought of in years. Look, there's Marilyn Crispell. I've heard that name for decades but have no idea what her music sounds like. Let's see what they recommend. Look, there's Michel Legrand. I never even thought of him as a jazz artist. Could there be something there I might like to check out? Browsing in this manner was intellectually invigorating, really kindling my desire to hear some new sounds. Of course to access these new sounds I will use Apple Music. Call it the best of both worlds.

Browsing in the book was also calming. The visual environment of the book is quiet, blessedly absent of the visual noise that characterizes the online world and its endless, ruthless competition for eyeballs. The worst noise comes from pop up ads -- a truly offensive phenomenon! Were they in one of Dante's circles of hell? Even pages without ads might very well feature videos, which sometimes come on automatically. These are often designed to compete on Tic Toc or whatever the app of the moment is, and are attention getting, which isn't a quiet thing. Sometimes I feel like the last person alive who is primarily a reader, not a viewer or listener. The Penguin Guide to Jazz, a true door stopper if there ever was one, is one reminder why.