the rix mix

anymore, as a compulsion or to feed a weekly radio show. Now I lean toward durable music that repays repeated 2008 was great year for reading. Too little music. I'm not a good passive listener, letting a radio DJ program my music. Music is effort, not work. Finding music means browsing, fishing for it. Browse first, then research what the browsing discovers. A browse for me might involve searching the entire catalogue of a bargain classical label at Amazon, hundreds of CDs, looking for possibilities that are also available even more inexpensively as used or cutout albums. I'll do this while I'm watching TV or listening to music. I lose interest in music when I'm depressed, & that feeds the depression. It's an inexpensive ""hobby" because the "bargain" has always been a part of collecting music going back to when I was in charge of the budget classical racks at Harmony House as a teenager, where I learned classical music, reading liner notes, buying good new records for two or three bucks. I even had a thick book, "Guide to Budget Priced Records," which I wish I still had. Now I spend $3 on a good CD & pay that much in shipping. It isn't as much fun as a couple of hours at a used record store or flea market were, but I try to trick myself into a similar kind of experience online. I don't require an enormous amount of fresh music. I got a CD this week, popped it in the player last night & listened to one long composition on it twice, as background while I wrote, letting it seep in, no hurry. Then I jotted down a few first impressions that may grow into a review. That's how I like to do music now, savoring it. Just a steady supply.

Reference book I'm adding this year to my small shelf of reference books: Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage.
A book of examples. Not that usage is a major matter with me, with my ampersands, adverbs, incomplete sentences, & long, elliptical compound sentences that would make Mark Twain gag. I rarely honor my prose hero, Ulysses S. Grant. Occasionally I do try to write well, & wonder what to do with the semi-colons, plural pronouns, that & & which, & when it's alright or all right to italicize.