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While egosurfing for responses to my blogging via Technorati, I ran across Matt Corwine’s excellent response to my posting of a few days ago, in which I declared that “audiophiles are jackasses.” As Matt writes:
But here’s something different: I wonder whether he’s being fair to the extreme audiophiles by assuming that in addition to being really into speakers, they’re also into music. Perhaps audiophilia and musicophilia are two different things that are sometimes, but not always, present in the same brain.
So there’s music and then there’s sound. A lot of people like both, but maybe some who like sound don’t much care for music — they might be happy just listening to test tones or Boston records or whatever, as long as it sounds great on their system.
I’m probably 5dB short of being an audiophile. Before I bought my first record, I was really into listening to the vacuum cleaner. Today, I can sometimes get into hearing awesomely produced music on a high-end system that costs more than my house, but I think the part of my brain that gets off on such things is separate from the part that actually likes music. In the same way that I enjoy making sushi for entirely different reasons than I enjoy eating it.
It’s a great point. It reminded me of a similar phenomenon: Guitar-collecting freaks who do not actually record or perform with their gear, but who merely enjoy having 50 different guitars around so they can occasionally play a chord or two and re-experience the timbre that makes each unique.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
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» visit the Collision Detection archives
September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
September 25, 2008 » 11:21 AM
“Video from a camp north of Toronto in December 2005 shows a car spinning around in a nearby, snow-covered parking lot. Prosecutors characterized that as special driver training but the defense, and many outsiders, said it was nothing more than “cutting doughnuts,” a favorite winter pastime of young Canadian motorists.” - A key piece of evidence submitted in the trial of a gang of alleged young Canadian terrorists.
September 24, 2008 » 11:21 PM
“Life imitates art imitating life: just thought a gnat crawling across my monitor was part of a Flash-based ad. I clicked it.” - A Tweet from Bill Braine.
September 24, 2008 » 02:37 PM
“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
September 24, 2008 » 12:28 PM
Chinese powdered-milk crisis creates a new market: The return of the wet nurse
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