IdeaJones

Tag: Mark

Mark Jones is co-owner of IdeaJones

  • “The Last Waltz”

    “The Last Waltz” may not be the greatest name for a used record sale, but at least it feels musical. And who knows? You’ll probably find some Strauss waltzes in the classical section, if that’s what you’re after.

    Capital Public Radio has had a yearly used record sale fundraiser for the past umpteen years, but this one will be the last. The Record Sale Preview Party starts at 6:00 this evening. The sale continues through Sunday, and then everything must go.

    Why will this be the last sale? Declining returns. It takes a heck of a lot of work to stage a sale like this one, and so many people these days aren’t collecting music in physical form. This is the age of the download, and people who do buy music tend to buy it online.

    There’s been a massive shake-up in the record industry in the past decade, and record companies are struggling with relevancy in an age where almost anyone can produce a record at home with minimal equipment, and distribute directly to their listeners via downloads or small press-runs of CDs. There’s also a retro movement where some artists are distributing albums on vinyl. Where it will all end is uncertain, but we do know for certain that the Capital Public Radio Used Record & CD Sale will end Sunday.

  • The Value of a Smile

    Getting started in the arts is hard. There’s the work involved, which, if you really feel a passion for it, takes time, energy, research, planning and a certain amount of faith. Will anyone get what you do? Will anyone like it?

    You sit by yourself for hours at a time.  An artist works in solitary confinement in the hopes that he will, some day, communicate with someone else.  He may never even see that other person, or hear from him. He may never know that the communication happened.

    It makes you realize how undervalued simple human things can be. The person who takes an extra minute on the phone to not just “process your call,” but help you. The person who reaches out to tell you your work touched him, or her. Meant something.

    In the end, we are social animals, even introverted artists who work like hermits in their cells. We want to make contact, be seen, be valued, be heard. Or even just smiled at, over the phone. The little things count, and they always will. The world becomes more technical, but we are still human.

  • “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden”

    The challenge was for a new post each day in June. I expect at this point that the challenge will be met, even if all the posts (this one?) haven’t been stellar.

    I’ve been seeing a lot lately that could be considered stellar. Singers and top-notch dancers. Musicians who can jump into a tune with a great harmony, even when they don’t really know the song. Writers who can paint a word picture so evocative it brings you to tears.

    What all these creators, technicians and workers have in common is passion. A passion for doing the job they’re doing, or just a passionate need to be at the top of their field.

    It’s often not easy, but it’s a worthwhile exercise. Enjoy what you do. Do what you enjoy. And put your energies to the task at hand.

  • Perversity

    Perversely, our solar electric generation system quit on the longest, sunniest day of the year.

    Some rooms at our office are kept too cool – but only in the summer. (In the winter, those same rooms are too warm.)

    We have zones in the office. One HVAC unit controls each zone. Sometimes they fight over what the temperature should be, much to the delight of the power company.

    My little dog thinks he’s a big dog; my big guy walks small.

    Lots of wild and wacky stuff happening in the world. Some of it makes you say, “Hmmmm.” Some of it makes you want to cry out:
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  • Radiation

    Radiate simply means to spread out from. Spokes radiate out from the hub. Light radiates from the bulb. But “radiation,” that word comes with extra baggage these days. It got me thinking about health, and all our various artificial radiations.

    Take radio and TV transmissions. The signals from every radio and TV station in town are constantly bombarding us. If you have a device with the correct discriminator you can pick one out of the bunch and decode something to watch or listen to.

    But what about all those waves of radiation bombarding us? They’re essentially the same as all the natural waves – solar radiation, the natural radiation from various radioactive elements, and so forth. We’re just adding additional layers of radio waves to the mix. TV stations? Check. Wi-fi? Add that one, too. Wireless remote controls? One more wave dropped into the soup.

    When steeple jacks have to climb past an active transmission antenna, the engineers lower the power to a fraction of its normal output. If they don’t, the workers can get burned. Seriously. It can be just like climbing into a microwave oven.

    All the various waves that constantly bombard us are coming at us at very low (usually) energy levels. That’s why you don’t generally notice them. But what if all the artificial emanations combined with all the natural emanations are just too much for our cellular structures to handle? What if those extra energies being added into our bodies are causing changes? Could it be that the increasing number of instances of cancers and other disorders are somehow influenced by these extra, unnatural energy waves? Just putting that out there. I haven’t done any research that would prove or disprove my hypothesis, but it seems reasonable that adding energy would result in – something.

    Chalk it up to one more possibility for the law of unintended consequences.