My Electro-Voice Sh1810ses

a.k.a. “What I Didn’t Do Over My Summer Vacation”

With summer now sadly far behind me, I sit and ponder all the tasks I neglected to accomplish over that blessed three-month span of heat, laziness, and procrastination. This act of sad pessimism is something of an annual rite of mine.

The cycle all begins the moment I complete my final, final examination. I purge all forced learning from my mind, sleep every moment possible for at least a week, and then begin to plan away what little extra time I believe to surely be in my future.

Some of this past summer’s goals included:

1. Completing a respectable black-and-white photographic portfolio and then selling my neglected dark-room on ebay.

2. Digitizing nearly a dozen wire-reel recordings for my Grandmother (I plan a separate post on that ordeal in the near future).

3. Configuring my so-called “Studio” to run on Linux (Also a future post, perhaps a column).

4. Assembling a respectable collection of hand-tools solely from killer yard-sale finds.

That was, in the end, just what this summer past was really supposed to be all about: The Summer of the Garage Sale Hop.

I’m not sure just why I so enjoy the company of Elderly knick-knack barterers, wide-eyed book-hounds, and mommy-mommy-can-I-have-this children. I am, by no means, a collector of junk. In fact, I still claim to be working towards that lofty goal of some day living solely out of a back-pack. Perhaps my kinship with the yard-sale lot simply has something to do with the thrill of the chase.

There was an episode of Daria™ in which Jane (hottest cartoon girl ever) described the allure of shopping as something akin to the fulfillment of a subconscious drive for hunting and gathering. Yeah, garage sales are kind of like that. And also, I’m poor.

In the end: my dark room is still neglected, the wire reels are a work in progress, Linux rocks, and I only went yard-sale hopping once—never purchasing a single tool. But imagine my scotch rear’s delight when I stumbled upon the find of the year: a set of free Electro-Voice Sh1810s PA speakers.

More on them soon,

-mixtape

~ by mixtape on October 3, 2007.