This is mostly where I launch into listening to my music. I know - this post is going to make me sound like a dinosaur.

(Sunday Paper, Year VI, Issue 32)

Kathy was talking to the girls about Spotify this week.

Sounds like a pretty cool app.

I wouldn’t know…I’ve never used it.

It’s not that I don’t want to - in fact it’s likely I will soon - it’s just that….

The way everyone listens to music these days sure is different.

And I’m a slow adapter.

There are certain things I’ll adjust to quickly - I’m not afraid to push some buttons and figure out a new technology once in a while.

But the changes in music listening over the years have been a hard adjustment for me.

CDs are still the medium I’m most comfortable with…but I know that’s not how you do it anymore.

(Oh man. I’m just remembering that my biggest music collecting days started out with that penny a month deal - was that Columbia House? I’d get a sheet of paper, check off a few CDs, and they’d come in the mail.

And then you had to mail some kind of complicated letter to make it stop.)

One of the most common things we did during college was walking to Tower Records on Newbury Street to pad our CD collections.

(While my friends were most likely interested in whatever had just come out, I was still catching up on some of the music I missed out on back when I was exclusively listening to sports radio.)

But then came iTunes and the complete digitization of everything and I haven’t really caught up.

(Actually I successfully transferred most of the CDs I cared to listen to onto my first phone…which had a tragic accident resulting in me losing everything that was on it. I still have the CDs, but no longer the capability to put that music back on my phone.)

So, what? Now I’m not really supposed to buy the albums on Apple like I’ve been doing for the past decade-plus? Just pull up the artist on Spotify and listen that way? (I recently tried to buy a new album on Apple and - without doing Apple Music [which I guess is Apple’s version of Spotify?] - it is not easy.)

I’m still not sure how to do this.

But I know this - for the past five years we’ve had a lot of Kathy’s student discounts for everything. She had some version of Spotify that I never used. But now that we’re going to be paying regular person money (she has graduated), I guess we’re doing Spotify Premium. (Is that a thing?)

The girls are excited about it. I am excited to learn, I guess.

There’s some new Killers to listen to. (It comes out Friday, I think.)

Keane released a few new songs recently.

And I hear this Matt Sucich is really something.

I guess I’ll find their music on Spotify.

And maybe you can find me there too…I hear that’s part of the deal.

So let’s make Spotify friends?

And if there’s a better way to make sure I’m supporting musicians and their music the right way, please let me know.

Notes

*A few thoughts occurred to me as I was writing this one:

I haven’t been buying much music recently, which is why I mentioned supporting musicians. I feel like if I’m listening or viewing or following on social media or trying to promote their work that’s something I can do these days. But, like I said, I don’t know the right way to actually buy the music, so in lieu of that I’ve been trying to find other ways to be supportive.
Just before the pandemic I bought the actual physical CD of the Hamilton soundtrack and we were listening to that here in January and February of 2020. And every so often I’d pull a CD from my collection and we’d have Saturday morning music. I think maybe we should get back to doing that.
I guess it’s worth mentioning tonight is the big Counting Crows show in Boston with Matt Sucich opening. Anyone else going? I hear he’s the second performer tonight.

*Running Update: Well, last week when I wrote I told you that this week’s run was going to be 15 miles. It was actually 16. (8 out and 8 back.) And at first when I found out it was longer I was thinking I’ll just do 15 like I was planning…and then I thought, well eventually I’m going to have to push myself to 26.2 so why not push myself for 16 this week? And I did.

It went pretty well. I kept a good, slower pace that worked for the longer distance - I was much less sore during the run, which is certainly a step in the right direction. I also used the GU gel every hour which helped my energy…so it was as good a simulation of what I’ll be doing on race day as I’ve done yet. I also wasn’t wrecked when it was over, so that’s the biggest takeaway. (It was the hottest run so far - that wasn’t all that pleasant.)

*And for what it’s worth - my biggest worry has shifted from “Will I be able to finish the Boston Marathon?” to “Will the Boston Marathon take place?” I feel like the fall is going to be a real step backwards and I worry, even though it’s an outdoors event, that the race may be in jeopardy.

*OK. For anyone that’s new here: For Wednesday posts and direct links to these here Sunday Papers, Like the Facebook page. You can follow me on Twitter here. I guess eventually I’ll have Spotify and you can follow my music (?) there. And Strava is fun if you want to track my runs and let me track yours. Just search my name on those things I guess.

*Whoops. Almost forgot - if you haven’t donated, and still care to, you can help me with my fundraising goal at this link. Thank you!

*I’ll tell you this: after these long runs early on Saturday I’m kind of useless for the rest of the day…but we sure have had some relaxing Saturdays sitting out on the back deck these past few weeks. It’s been nice.