The Art of Arranging Your Music Collection

We at long last bought new cd storage after two frustrating years of living out of crates, which brought up the age old music geek conundrum - how should I organise my music? In the end I simply transferred my cds as they were already organised, the Traditional Alphabetical by artist, then alphabetical by album title. Simple but effective. Below is a picture of our new shelves which we purchased from http://www.i-cubes.co.uk/ , they are rather gorgeous I think, and I would like a more elegant way of arranging my cds in them.

But what other ways are there?

One of the other most popular, that several people I know use, is by Genre. Punk, Hip Hop, Indie, Soul etc each of which can then be arranged alphabetically by artist and then album title or chronologically. A pretty good system, which makes it easy to find a type of music that fits your mood but which brings its own problems in my opinion. What about sub genres, artists that straddle two genres, or move from one genre to another? This flaw is what has always put me off despite the
appeal of being able to see all my electronica fix in one place.

Then there is Autobiographical or the 'High Fidelity Method', made famous by the book & film. Autobiographical entails arranging your music in the order you got it. I'll let that sink in. For example in High Fidelity, Rob says "If I want to find the song landslide by Fleetwood Mac, I have to remember that I bought it for someone in the fall of 1983 pile but didn't give to them for personal reasons". For most, myself included this would prove impossible, my memory simply isn't good enough for this - I could do it by year from a certain point - when i started keeping a spreadsheet of my albums (yes, I know), but doing this for 80% of my collection simply wouldn't be good enough. If I ever meet anyone who has done this they will be my hero forever.

Lastly there is the most out there system, it's been in my mind to do it at some point, it would look amazing but would be virtually impossible to find anything you wanted. Colour. Yes, by colour, being a graphic designer arranging by cds this way appeals greatly but would make finding what you wanted extremely frustrating. So for now feast your eyes on some who have done exactly this...

Both above pictures from apartmenttherapy.com

So for now it seems I'm stuck with my safe alphabetical system, if you know of, any other ways to arrange a music collection, please do tell me!

Watched #1

The Descendants was an interesting movie, the kind of bittersweet indie-style comedy that I like. Which shouldn't be suprising as it is directed by Alexander Payne, who made Election & Sideways. The story centres around two main threads, Matt King's wife is in a coma after a boating accident and he must prepare his family to say goodbye when he makes a shocking discovery, the second involves his family's ancestral land and the decision of who should buy it - which is timely as this week billionaire Larry Ellison bought 98% of the island of Lanai. George Clooney occupies the principal role which is ideally suited to his comic talent, Clooney has long been one of my favourite comic actors in movies like O Brother Where Art Thou, Burn After Reading, Up In The Air, but in this film there is more emotional depth.The theme of the development of Hawaii is one that reminded me of Hunter S. Thompson's Rum Diary where businessmen want to build hotels & developments in a beautiful setting, oblivious to the fact that they'll be destroying what they're trying to take advantage of.

We also watched The Artist, which obviously comes fairly well laden with expectations after it's haul of awards. I knew the basic plotline before I started watching, how a silent movie star career struggles as 'the talkies' take over, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting. All the hype did make it disappointing, films like this will always struggle to live up to their billing. I did also however enjoy it in ways I wasn't expecting, writing it down it seems obvious, but the use of sound, in a film about the transition from silent films to speech, is very clever, and there are a number of surreal moments too. Those two elements combine particulalry well in a dream sequence that illustrates his fear of being left behind in the new era of movies. It made me think about parallels with modern cinema and the coming of 3D, arguably the biggest revolution since talking, there seemed to me in the film to be suggestion that in using speech they were somehow dumbing down, or losing something which echoes how many feel about 3D.

Finally this week I watched my new copy of Seven Samurai, the 1954 film by japanese director Akira Kurosawa. I've seen it before several times but haven't owned a copy despite it being one of my favourite films. The plot is pretty simple, a poor village attacked by bandits hire seven samurai to protect them - if that sounds familiar it's because the western The Magnificent Seven is based on this film. To me it is the embodiment of what a good action film should be, it takes its time and doesn't force fast paced action on you, it builds to a climax and provides laughs and intrigue along the way. I had forgotten how funny it could be, with pretty much all the laughs provided by the character Kikuchiyo played by Toshiro Mifune one of the most famous japanese actors of his time, who provides very physical comedy as well as funny lines. This a pretty short & simple review of a much more complicated film that rewards repeated viewing.

Of Mice & Men

On Friday I had to go to the German Embassy to get my signature certified on a document, so to make the day more interesting I met my wife, Debra, at St. Pauls Cathedral.

Unbelievably I've never been there before, and had wanted to go for a while, despite being agnostic I like churches alot. They have a very peaceful atmosphere (even if they are full of tourists like St Pauls), I think it's specifically old stone built churches. Stone buildings are naturally cool anyway, old buildings always seem to absorb what happens in them not to mention the way they get worn away over time. St Pauls is a truly stunning example of architecture and leaves you in awe of Sir Christopher Wren and how man was able to build something like that in the 17th Century.

We of course went up to the Whispering Gallery, which is quite a surreal experience, the walls do seem to talk. It's too busy to hear anything specific, but you hear snatches of words as if someone is sitting next to you when nobody is there. It's like something out of a ghost or horror movie. Then we went up to the higher outside galleries which gave some stunning views of London, the last set of stairs are metal spiral staircases between the outer shell of the dome and the inner structural cone which is both dizzying and fascinating. Below are some pictures of London.

Now to the 'Mice' part of this post. Yesterday morning Debra saw a mouse on our sofa, he peered out from under a cushion right next to her but disappeared before she could catch him with a cup. He must have got in the night before whilst we were watching the England v Sweden match on tv, it had got rather hot in the flat so I'd opened the kitchen door for a while & forgot about it.

Despite several declarations of war on my part it was Debra that knew what to do and we quickly bought some humane mousetraps and set them around the living room. We may have wanted the little blighter out but we didn't want to become killers, we bought a couple of different types as we weren't sure which would work best. The rest of the day was spent gingerly walking around in case the mouse should jump out. Well I did, Debra was fine with it, I've never encountered a mouse indoors before, even in my university days living in a shared house with four other guys which frankly would get pretty dirty before we would clean it.

Anyway this morning we checked the traps and were pleasantly surprised to find one closed. After a stern talking too from Debra, we (Debra) let him out in the garden where he scampered off into the bushes - a moment we completely neglected to take a picture of. Below though is a picture of the trap that caught him, we hadn't even needed to add any bait. So if you ever need to catch a mouse we recommend this kind, which was only £3.25 from Factory Shop in Rayleigh.

Hello & Welcome!

Welcome to the first post in my first ever blog, please be gentle with me. I guess I should be begin by telling you what this blog will be about, my intentions. Well they're pretty broad, everything from reviews of films & music, to articles on my favourite authors, to my thoughts, beliefs & experiences as a carer. I'm not sure where exactly I'm heading with this so I guess we'll just have to find out together.

Which kind of explains the title of my blog, 'The Many Worlds Interpretation' was a theory put forward by Hugh Everett III, an American physicist (father of Mark Everett of the band Eels). The theory basically suggests the possibility of the existance of parallel universes where every possible outcome to every event is played out.

MWI seemed a good title for what to begin with will certainly be a blog covering alot of different things, plus I thought it sounded pretty damn cool.

Hugh Everett III