Record Setting

Last Saturday was Record Store Day and I, having spent most of my life cultivating a vinyl jungle of  long players, singles and extended play pieces of plastic that now number into the many of thousands, needed little incentive to take a short car trip to a town at the mouth of the Thames River (we pronounce both the "t" and the "h" as in 'thame thit, different day'), New London (Connecticut), rather neatly bookending the one I live in at the river's headwaters, to shop at a local independent shop, The Telegraph.

Earlier in the week, based on pop-ups everywhere on line I had formed a vague plan to shop for a copy of Bruce Springsteen's American Beauty and my brother's notes gave me the rest, I suppose so shopping I went and returned home to wrestle with the turntable, the amplifier and the speakers.

The struggle was worth it. I had nearly forgotten what music sounded like in our living room, or any room for that matter. I tend to devour music through earbuds hooked into my phone while out walking or Planet Fitnessing* (*first use as a gerund in this hemisphere).

I'm not sure our neighbor upstairs was even home but had she been I'd have heard from her, I'm sure, as I had a reasonable amount of volume behind what is either truly a remarkable four song postcard of where Springsteen has been or a map of where he's heading.

Rock and roll does a body good-and when you play it loud enough your whole body can feel it, I suspect it's a work-out for your soul as well. I missed this at The Telegraph later in the day, but it makes me smile still and I admit I am ever so tempted to crank it up. But only to eleven, honest.
-bill kenny