“Please place your right hand on the iPad and raise your left hand and repeat after me… I do solemnly swear…”[Stop.]
Okay. Hope that makes a point for what I thought I would ruminate on tonight.
Recently, after eating my donut and drinking a cup of orange juice moments before Sunday School began, I was sitting at the table getting ready for Bible study when an older gentleman walked up to me with an extra Bible in his hand. Our class with Pastor was about to start and I looked ill-prepared to this gentleman from our congregation.
“Need a Bible?” he asked. Holding it out for me to take.
Without thinking, I replied, “No. Here is my Bible.” I was pointing to the item that sat on the table right in front of me.
He gave me the weirdest look of bewilderment and walked away.
I pondered why he made that face at me and then I looked down on the table where my hand was tapping. I was pointing to my iPad where my finger touched this thin, black velvety cover that looked like it could only hold the pages of a thin comic book. I don’t think he knew what it was.
You see, I was no longer toting my 2372-page Lutheran Study Bible (English Standard Version) around with me to church. Instead, Concordia Publishing House released the study edition through Amazon Kindle as an e-book. I downloaded the Amazon App on my iPad and downloaded the Bible to my device – thus I had my Bible on my iPad. I can take it with me anywhere I go.
For the last six months or so, I’ve left my Bible (y’know, that big, heavy tome that would hurt if you dropped it on your big toe) at home when I go to church now. On top of that, I love having the 3GS Internet connection as we’re studying so that I can look things up on Wikipedia while we’re talking about certain subjects or if I needed to check my Concordia study notes. Everything is at my fingertips. I love streamlining my life.
This iPad is more than a Bible. It is my GPS. It checks the weather for me. I have about one-hundred Atari games on here. A few James Bond novels. Many new comic books. My daily USA Today newspaper. Notes from work. Art projects. Pictures. Videos. Some of my iTunes collection of songs. The movie O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? My email. An Internet connection. Facebook. And a gazillion other things.
[I love my iPad.]
Tool for work. Tool for play. Tool for life. It looks like it just beamed down into my hands from the television series
Star Trek: The Next Generation. I saw something like this device in the hands of Wesley Crusher while he stood in engineering on the U.S.S. Enterprise.
I may not have a jetpack or hover vehicle (yet), but I’ve got my iPad.
[So, here is where I take the left turn at Albuquerque on you.]
About a month ago, a conversation that I had with both Kat Gietl and Sarah Beach on a Facebook thread has really made me think lately. I forget how the term came up in describing a tangible object in our organically informal Facebook conversation, but the word, “artifact” came up in discussing actual objects that we can hold and appreciate. (Heck, even there, we’re having a “virtual” conversation that isn’t face-to-face.)
We were discussing Paul McCartney’s recently re-released deluxe edition remastered recordings. A few of his early albums were recently placed in generously packed books with extra CDs and DVDs. I confess there is a bit of a hefty price tag on some of these. Definitely for the diehard collectors.
I pondered whether I was going to take the plunge and buy them. At one time or another, I’ve owned some of these albums on vinyl record or compact disc. In some cases, I still have them. So why in the world would I rebuy them?
(I digress, but you don’t want to know how many times I’ve purchased the original Star Wars trilogy, and I’m about to do it again this fall on Blu-Ray Discs.)
For the last three years or so, my CD purchasing has been down considerably to only buying a disc here or there. Usually from independent non-label musicians who sell their CDs out of their car trunks at small shows where they perform. I’m now buying 95% of my music “virtually” through iTunes as downloads.
On top of that, I’ve “ripped” my CDs and I’ve even “ripped” many of my vinyl records (thanks to the Sony PS-LX300USB turntable) to MP3s for me to drop into iTunes. From there, I can listen to music on my home stereo system connected to my computer and/or move music over to my iPhone, iPod or iPad.
I’m so techno hip, now, you see.
So here is where I’m turning this conversation…
The tangible. The artifact. The Real McCoy. The antique. The
objets d’art. The obsolete?
Versus…
The intangible. The replica. The Virtual. The Conceptual. The Digital. The norm. The practical?
[I pause.]
Sometimes, looking in the mirror, I feel like a contradiction. I feel torn in two.
Aren’t I supposed to choose to one or the other?
Here is what I mean…
There are things that have surrounded me in my life. I adore them. I love them. They are a part of my life. Sometimes they are part of the past and I appreciate beautiful, old things. Or the way of doing things in a traditional way or certain process. It may in this day and age seem antiquated.
Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about.
I love firing up my turntable and dropping the needle on a vinyl record pressing of The Who’s QUADROPHENIA. It is a double record set. My copy was actually pressed in 1973 and I bought it at Recycle Records during my sophomore year of high school. I don’t mind getting up, turning it over to the second side when side one finishes. Then, getting up again and putting on the second album and then doing it all over.
I don’t mind.
I suffer for the love of my art and music sometimes. In that suffering comes joy. I love the warmth of the grooves. The pop. The hiss. The depth. I love how the music can come blaring out of my old Cerwin Vega speakers. The same ones that I got when I was 15 year’s old and still own. I love pouring over the liner notes and caressing the artwork of the cover and sleeves. I love the weight of the cardboard album cover and the feel of the texture. I love graininess of the photography in the book inside and it’s near sepia tone that hints at a brownish warmth.
But I also own QUADROPHENIA on CD. I’ve even “ripped” the “album” into iTunes and I now probably listen to it more on the go instead of sitting in front of my lava lamp with the turntable. As a matter of fact, my QUADROPHENIA CD is in storage somewhere in a box. It is irrelevant now to me. I love the crystal clearness of the digital “rip”. No accidental scratches. When the song “The Real Me” plays on my earphones, I’m transported as Roger’s voice comes in clear, horns blare, Pete’s electric guitar strums magically, Keith’s drums roll like crazy and Jon’s basslines pulses in a way only Entwistle can play which makes me close my eyes and my skull move back and forth as if I was Ray Charles in a moment of musical ecstasy gritting my teeth.
Who are you, Scott McCullar?
Digital or vinyl record lover, brother?
~ ~ ~
I love comic books. Past, present and future. In my armored bunker surrounded by barbed wire, machine guns and a guard dog, I’ve got an extensive comic book collection that would compete with the inventory of many small comic book shops. Boxes and boxes of bagged comics in rows and rows of white archive boxes. Some may think (and rightfully so) that I hold a collection that are full of collector’s items. It is true. I do have some Superman and Batman comic books from the 1940’s in my possession that would probably be better suited to be on display in a museum. They are treasures. Works of art. Works of wonderment. But I still read them (carefully) as the pages are about to fall apart. I probably should have them placed in plastic coffins (CGC Comic Book Graded by a professional) to be preserved for the ages, but by golly, I still want to read them. I don’t see a lot of MORE FUN COMICS reprints, if you know what I mean.
They were originally produced to be mass consumed by 8 year olds during the Second World War, but now are traded amongst adult collectors as
objets d’art. While the smell of old musty comic books makes my wife sick to her stomach and she had me remove them to the bunker away from her normal everyday line of sight, I still love the smell of comic books in the morning. It smells like… victory.
I still read comic books, but I’ve noticed over the past year, I’ve bought a heck of a lot of comic books through the Comixology App on my iPad. I don’t care about the “collectibleness” of the item. I just want to read the dang comic book story. I want the reading experience. If it is 2 a.m. and I want to read a GREEN HORNET story or try out one of Mike Allred’s books, all it takes is a push of a button and I’ve got the virtual comic to read. Not only that, it has cost me considerably less in some cases where I don’t mind spending 99 cents on a comic book that I probably wouldn’t have tried out with $3.99 price tag or whatever it is to buy it in print. Though I have some nice things, I’m not made of money.
I’m even working on comic book projects now with the mindset that it will be published both in print on paper and in digital formats.
~ ~ ~
Now don’t get me wrong, I still love going into REAL record stores with knowledgeable clerks or well-organized and stocked comic book shops to find the goods from those pushermen that feed my addictions, but the times they are a changin’ and I’m going with the flow a bit.
~ ~ ~
G.I. Joe action figures. For years, I collected reproduction G.I. Joe action figures because original vintage action figures that were originally made in the 1960’s and 1970’s were too expensive. Five years ago, I would never had thought that I would be able to own some of the original releases. But recently, with the economy tanking and many collectors of vintage G.I. Joe figures going into retirement or cashing out, well, the market has flooded these past few years with vintage Joes. Items that may have cost $250 five years ago can be found now for maybe $40.
Amazing. I’m scooping them up.
One of my many hobbies is collecting vintage Hasbro G.I. Joe. And with a careful and frugal eye, I’ve been able to aggressively pick up many vintage items that are trickling into the secondhand market.
Why, Scott, why? Why do you collect these old vintage action figures?
I collected G.I. Joe figures as a kid. At first, it seemed nostalgic. It was fun to do and I considered it 1/6th Scale modeling. A simple hobby. Now, holding an original 1964 G.I. Joe instead of a reproduction makes me appreciate the history and uniqueness of some of these figures as they are pieces of art. There is a feeling that comes over me that is indescribable. While massed produced originally, they’re rare. One of a kind in some instances with its own little scratches, nicks and imperfections where they saw some backyard battle decades ago with some kid. Go watch the TOY STORY movies and you’ll start to understand what I mean. The few G.I. Joes that I still own from my childhood are actually more precious to me now and I know that one day, I will have to give them up, too. Old buddies of mine. I’ve restored many of them. I don’t do it for the monetary value, nor prestige to show off. I do share in a sort of grown up version of 'show-n-tell". It really isn’t a case of who dies with the most toys wins.
As John Lennon said, you don’t take nothing with you but your soul.
I love collecting these vintage toys (and even the aforementioned golden age comic books) because I’m preserving this tangible aspect of history to look at and enjoy. I’m enjoying them at this moment. And others can enjoy the experience of holding and looking at some of these items that are disappearing. Will my son, Mitchell, appreciate these when he is older? I don’t know. I don’t know if that is anything I can pass down or teach him. Either he will or won’t, though I would be thrilled if he did.
~ ~ ~
So, I spoke of pop culture items. Records. Comic books. Action figures. I know that is what my world seems to swirl around for my hobbies, but there are other aspects of my life that this dichotomy touches.
I started this whole thing off by speaking about the Bible.
Philosophical question for you… is my iPad with my e-book version of my Bible make my iPad “my Bible” or not? Is it a Bible? Did Guttenberg get flack when they belayed those pesky monastic hand-written Bibles and instead mass printed more efficiently produced Bibles for the German populace to read?
~ ~ ~
So, changing subject, when I was in college, I concentrated my studies in printmaking. Specifically intaglio and lithography. Here it was, the end of the 20th Century and I was spending most of my time working on a method of making art that was mastered by Rembrandt in the 17th Century. After I graduated from college, what do I do? I get a job working at Kinko’s to make a living and I work in reprographics and learn desk top publishing. I learn the skills of graphic design and modern day printing.
Seems like the antithesis of what I went to school to learn.
I learned something front printmaking in college all those years ago. In traditional printmaking, for me, it wasn’t the end result with that print that you pulled off the plate, it was the journey of making the print that I loved. The blood, sweat and tears along with the time it took and the perseverance needed to make that beautiful print. Each one hand cranked. Each plate re-inked. And damn, printmaking can be literally toxic. It took effort and thought.
It wasn’t me going to the copier and clicking “100 copies” and hitting the green button once and walking out five minutes later. It was walking out five hours later. There was a method to it all that I appreciated. There is an ethic to making traditional prints in the same manners of those master artists all those centuries ago and yet putting a modern spin to it.
~ ~ ~
Which leads me to the Budo arts. I’ve often thought the sword and the brush are similar in more than one way. Visual Arts or Martial Arts. For me, there is a fuzzy line to delineate the differences. They’re almost the same in my approach.
Why would I want to study the art of drawing a Japanese Iaito or Katana (sword) and placing it carefully back into its saya (scabbard) over and over? What is the practicality of that?
Why study karate when a more practical solution is to just own a gun?
[Pause. I’ll let you think about some of this. I’ll think about some of this, too. At a later time, I promise that I’ll write more about karate and allow you to get inside my head to see a glimpse of why I do what I do. I know clearly why I study karate…]
~ ~ ~
Without getting too far off track in my ramblings, there are certain pleasures in life.
I love drinking a chilled Coca-Cola bottled in Mexico that is made with pure cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. I like drinking this real Coke in its Venus of Willendorf-shaped trademarked bottle.
I love playing my Hofner bass guitar with real round wound strings.
I prefer my Okinawan-styled tonfa when practicing kobudo.
I prefer Sean Connery as my James Bond.
~ ~ ~
All of this doesn’t mean that I won’t enjoy Daniel Craig as 007 or I won’t drink a Coke Zero out of a can. It doesn’t mean I won’t pick up my 2372-page Bible and read from it or pick up and fire a gun.
I embrace tradition and yet embrace innovation at the same time. It may seem schizophrenic to some but I choose as I need to for the situation. We each have our own idiosyncrasies.
What a moment to be alive to see so much transition and to have many choices as the times change?
New doesn’t always mean better, but sometimes, well sometimes… you got to give it a shot.
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