| Not Quite Summery, But Getting There |
[Apr. 25th, 2008|10:00 pm]
rejectomorph
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It's gotten warmer again, and the moon is about half past full and rises late, so it would have been a nice night to go out and watch the stars— if it weren't for the three neighbors who went away for the evening and left their porch lights on. It does me no good at all to glare back at the lights, either. They just go on shining, and trapping moths. They didn't trap me, though I did stay out for a while to listen to the burgeoning cricket population, now giving the frogs some rhythmic competition. As mild as the spring air is, I expect the music to last all night.
Speaking of music, while perusing the collection of digitized recordings from old 78RPM records at the Internet Archive, I came across this interesting small assortment of what were called Duriam recordings. They were produced in the late 1920s, and were cheap (fifteen cents— regular records were retailing for about seventy five cents at the time) cardboard records which came out once a week and featured a single hit recording. Sold at newsstands in New York City, about 350,000 were produced each week. The page doesn't say what the playing surface of the records was made of, but it must have been substantial enough, as at least these five Duriam recordings have survived to be digitized and made available as downloads. I especially recommend the Cuban piece, Angel de mi querer, but they're all entertaining relics of their era. |
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