Earlier this spring I loaned one of my favorite books to a teacher I work with, Reed, because I knew how much he’d appreciate it. The book is Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman, a book I believe should be required reading for anyone fluent in pop culture who also listened to hard rock and/or heavy metal (and knows the difference) while coming of age in the mid-to-late 1980s. This describes both of us pretty well, but Reed has the advantage of having grown up in a tiny North Dakota town not unlike the one Chuck K. describes throughout his book, which also happens to be surprisingly close to where Reed grew up, and probably very close to the time when Chuck K. was growing up nearby. The parallels stagger the mind.
Whenever Reed finishes a memorable chapter, he updates me on his progress the following day. The first thing I’ll do is ask if he’s gotten to the chapter with the ATM story yet (I’m sure he’s plenty tired of that question), but after that we’ll talk over whatever musical points were made in the chapter and our opinions about them.
One of what I consider to be one of the cornerstone chapters of the book is when Chuck goes through a list of some of his favorite albums from the era and assigns each of them a “jack factor,” or the amount of money he would have to be paid to take that album out of his collection and never intentionally listen to it again. As he works through the list, he reflects on why the album was important for the time he knew it, what the dollar amount would be to get him to abandon it, and his justification for said dollar amount. Reed and I talked about what some of the albums on our lists would be, along with which ones wouldn’t make the cut for that level of importance, and how much we did or didn’t agree with some of Chuck’s picks.
The discussion got me thinking: How far could this exercise be extended beyond just the music people listen to?
I was talking with another teacher this week, Anna, who was telling me about her latest Barnes and Noble run. We’re both pretty big readers, and both prefer the tactile experience of reading an actual book, not to mention owning them and hanging onto them as parts of our collections afterward. I own hundreds of books, so much of my home is decorated with stacks and filled bookshelves in almost every room. Most of my books I’ll never read again, but I like hanging onto them as a sort of historical record of my past. However, there are a tattered few that would make the short list of books I've reread several times over, and probably will several more. I know it would take some serious financial motivation for me to give up the opportunity to ever read them again. No more Watership Down? No more The Stand? Avoid the literary comfort food of Harry Potter for as long as I live? No way. In fact, I’m in the middle of a reread project right now as I’m finishing up Justin Cronin’s The Passage and getting ready to move on to its follow up The Twelve, all in the anticipation of the final book in his trilogy, City of Mirrors coming out in couple of weeks.
I know many people who will watch through movie marathons many times over. I know someone who does an annual re-watch of the entire run of “Gilmore Girls.” I know people who have played their way through massively complex video games with unbelievably expansive worlds time and time again, as I’ve done a few times myself. So I figure it can’t just be about music. It seems pretty easy for us to form emotional attachments to some of our favorite chunks of media, to a degree that the idea of giving them up forever seems impossible to consider. I don’t watch "The West Wing" every day because it isn’t on any channels I know of now, but I used to, and there’s no way I would ever give up the chance to watch it again. (Maybe that project will make it onto my fridge for this summer -- and see yesterday's post if that comment just made you feel compelled to scratch your head in confusion).
It almost seems counterintuitive to keep going to back to the same familiar songs and stories when there are so many out there waiting to be discovered, but I’m pretty sure that in one form or another, we probably all do it. Which begs the question: What would be your album/book/show/movie/play/whatever chunk of media you choose that you love too much to ever give up? And what imaginary dollar amount — based in reality of course, let’s leave the skillions and bajillions out of this — would it take to get you to even consider putting it aside forever?
Discuss.
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