willhines.net

The most difficult part, by far, of my purge of apartment clutter is done. I have thrown out my jewel cases and most liner notes.

“Good God!” I can hear my fellow music-lovers gasp. “The jewel cases, maybe — and that’s only MAYBE — but the LINER NOTES?”

You got it. I THREW THEM OUT. With rare exception (I kept the recent Elvis Costello releases with his cool behind-the-music ramblings, and the booklet to Smile) , I plucked out the cover art that has kept me company for sometimes 15 years (in the case of the photo of the “old” Beatles on the Blue Greatest Hits album) or maybe just a matter of months (the freaky picture of the waving radish-slice-head woman from Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea) — and dropped it into a black Hefty trash bag. And now my CDs are neatly packed into two encyclopedia volume-sized bookets. 1.5 big bookshelves now sit empty in my apartment and five big trash bags sit in my hallway.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t easy. When I got to They Might Be Giants, and had to throw away the CD packaging from their first album — which was the first CD I ever purchased, back in 1988 — I got misty. But you know what? The last time I opened up that CD and looked at the liner notes was probably 1996. And that’s a conservative estimate. It’s possible I haven’t looked at the liner notes to that CD since the day I bought it in Willimantic, CT back when there was still a Berlin Wall somewhere.

And two weeks ago I threw out a cardboard box of cassette tapes, which included some I had lugged around since I was 14 (Footloose, “Weird” Al Yankovic In 3-D). Do I have to wait another 15 years before I allow myself to let go of a 5 5/8″ by 4 9/16″ photo of the Beatles crossing a road in front of their studio?

Even with this logic — in which I firmly believe — I weakened at times, and frantically started to re-assemble my jewel cases. What brought me back to my senses was the memory that in 2000, exactly 1/2 of my CDs were stolen from my apartment. Jewel cases, liner notes, AND CDs — gone. I left the door ajar for a bit, and a thief (I assume someone insert menus in the doors?) got in and shoved A-J of my CD collection (along with my cable box and Mr. Met cup full of change) into my sidebag and hustled off. I survived that. And this should be easier, since I still have the actual CDs.

For some reason, I had two copies each of Synchronicity and Outlandos d’Amour by The Police and Some Girls by The Rollings Stones. I’ll keep them in my bag and hand them out at near-random times over the next few days.