Love shows in the dog ears and scratches.
Ten, fifteen years ago when I was going through an evangelical digitisation and minimalisation phase I would have disagreed strongly with this piece but in recent years I have found myself falling back in love with physical media all over again.
Like the author I discovered so many delights in my parents record and book collections and as an adult have learned to reapreciate the beauty of putting the needle down at the start of the record and listening until the end – metaphorically and literally.
Where once I had a collection of magazine clippings now I have a pinterest board and he is right, it’s not the same. It’s not the fact it’s printed that makes it special, it’s not even the keeping hold of it – it’s the wearing down of love. The blue tak marks, the creases, the finger prints, the glorious decline of an object that has been important to you.
In truth that period of material abstinence did me a lot of good because I was likely on my way to becoming if not clinically a hoarder then something just a bit too close for comfort. Now I find myself able to be more selective – I own the things I truly love, that mean something to me. The things that I would like someone else to discover by poking around in my collection one day.