i'm ultimately pretty disappointed in the Vinyl industry. it doesn't feel like it's making a comeback for good, and I really don't know how to articulate why I feel this way. Like, it shouldn't be so expensive to own a record player, or to fix that record player if it breaks a piece.

Hi. I want you to know that this response/s made my day. I genuinely did not know about this affordability, but then, the community I live in is pretty...blegh...so that could probably explain my lack of knowledge. But whatever the case -- I am so thrilled to get this information. I wish this was more wide-spread that you can joy these things affordably, but the more expensive products tend to get the most advertisement.

I did not know that it's expensive to manufacture the vinyls. I had a feeling that it was an extra cost (especially, like you mentioned, in small runs), but I wasn't aware that it's practically a money-sink for the less known bands. That disappoints me, because I feel like the vinyls are pushed as something Vintage to fit whatever that vibe is that gets advertised so much with yoga pants and Stanley water jugs.

And the right-to-repair...yeah, that bugs me. Like I don't want to be overtly pessimistic, but it feels like companies are going outright to make things harder to repair now. So that you have to buy new things more often.

Glad to know it brightened things up!

Re vinyl being pushed as a retro trend: i’m sure that’s to some degree true, but there are other reasons why artists might want to press vinyl. I would guess that the little vinyl resurgence that occurred in the 2010s was in some ways a response to the growth of indie labels/self release coinciding with millennials (who may have had access to their parents’ record collections growing up) gaining more purchasing power. A kind of double nostalgia. But also: many artists got really fed up with printing little papers with links to their souncloud or bandcamp or spotify and not having much to show for it. A record is material, tangible proof you’ve done something, and an LP has the added wallop of taking up more physical (and thus affording more design) space. I know part of why I wanted to release on vinyl was because there was a clear link between my visual and musical work and I wanted to draw that connection. It also gives you more space for lyric inserts, band photos, whatever. Some artists also just really like the sound of vinyl and the fact that it requires more active listening (you’ve got to turn that thing over) than an algorithm-based online product does. Really I think a lot of this was a response to artists being materially and financially set adrift by streaming products (pandora, then spotify, tidal, etc). Even if you’re signed, your deal probably sucks and you may be on the hook for a lot of the replication costs. The financial landscape for musicians who weren’t well connected to the industry before they started out (or weren’t rich enough for daddy to buy them a big record label) is extremely, extremely bleak. It seems weird, since vinyl is so expensive, that artists would opt to put money into pressing it, but if you can’t pay rent with your music you might be even more likely to want real physical proof you’ve accomplished something.

And the award for the biggest frauds who used civilians as pawns while enabling a monster who’d make their lives worse goes to: the Uncommitted movement! Congratulations, you did it! You made the situation even worse, exactly like those libs who you accused of loving genocide said you would!

Or have you already stopped paying attention because your boy won and your ratfucking campaign is over?

help spread this information! make people aware! let this not get swept under the rug as that bloated dorito tries to take a victory laps.

Also: Tump lifted the pause on supplying 2000 lb bombs to Israel.

We TOLD YOU a Trump administration would be even worse for Palestinians than Biden was. Y'all were too busy virtue signaling to get up and vote in a way that reflected material reality and people's material needs. In the process you also damned immigrants, LGBTQ people, disabled and immune-compromised people, women, workers, the environment, etc etc. Great job.

Also I haven't forgotten everyone on my uni campus who started wearing masks during the protests to avoid being identified but couldn't be fucking bothered when disabled and chronically ill people begged you to mask in class for years. Solidarity my ass. I hope the next 4 years grow you the fuck up; I'm just heartbroken how many people are going to suffer for you to learn that lesson.

First I saw otter paw prints and then I saw not one but TWO river otters cavorting along the shore. The great blue heron standing on the old piling we passed on the walk north was still there when we headed back much later in the dark.

more american river otter sightings today, one of which was not even in the same area, so definitely from a different family group. We glimpsed the first crotchety little snake weasel swimming inland, passing a wildly perturbed heron (who quickly gulped a newly-caught fish, squawked in alarm, and jumped onto a sandbank to avoid any close calls with such a vicious beast*). We did return to yesterday’s spot in the evening, and saw what was possibly last night’s heron just a little north of yesterday’s perch (this high enough that a passing otter would pose no threat, so maybe a wiser or less daring bird), as well as a single otter headed in direction sunset.

*not sarcasm, they are known to hunt waterfowl from below. Next time you think of an otter, imagine the jaws theme playing in the background.