The i word for 1000 words on a seven-string guitar

Structural elements of Epic Poetry #3 – Jonathan Zwartz

“This is sublime” (Les Patterson: 2 weeks ago).

My 3000 Vinyl LPs, metho, and Grandma’s ironing board: A Cultural Displacement

I estimate that I have something in the vicinity
of 3000 vinyl LPs in storage; fond memories
of folding as many tissues into little squares,
dabbing them with metho, and cleaning out the grooves.

I’d stack the albums in piles of 10 or so at a time
at one end of my ironing board. My Grandma gave me that
ironing board when I was 22 and moving out of home.
I wouldn’t have had more than 1 or 2 hundred LP’s back then,
and most of them wouldn’t have needed much cleaning,
but mostly that’s what I was using it for.

I threw that board out just before all my records
were put into storage; the cover was falling apart,
no-one sold covers for ironing boards that big and solid
anymore. Grandma could have fixed it to fit like a sock.

There are some records you fold, refold, turn inside-out and dab
all the squares in a tissue with metho trying to get all the dirt
from the grooves of them and then have to start a new tissue on
before you can slip a new inner sleeve on.

Then there are some with covers coming apart that you sticky
tape the edges up from the inside on so you don’t mess up
the cover art before you can slip on the outer sleeve,
admire it, put it aside, and move on to the next one.

I have a strong feeling that some of the 3000 LPs or so
that I have in storage are needing attention, and I need to find me
a place big enough to bring them all in and go through them
one at a time – but this time I want to look over and listen to them
before I decide they need cleaning.

Or maybe just make a list of what I have
that YouTube doesn’t
and embrace the potential of that.