Louis Armstrong

Monday, 26 November 2007

Terence McKenna once told a story in one of his recorded lectures that I like very much. It is the idea that humanity is created by an advanced alien civilisation long time ago with a very specific purpose. Somewhere in the future these aliens will visit our planet again, with big space ships, to harvest all the gold and other rare metals that humanity has been digging up and collected for centuries. The idea that humanity is some cosmic ant species always makes me smile when it pops up in my mind.
The whole idea of collecting is absurd anyway. In the light of the fact that you cannot take it with you when you die, it is difficult to understand why humans are so obsessed with collecting. I know several people who ruined their life and relations because of their collection. Collectors of records and books tend to see themselves a bit different from collectors of miniature elephants or Jesus statues, because they can say that books and records can be used. But I know too many people with tonloads of books and records that are never read or listened too. Collecting is a mental disease. And the idea that aliens built this behaviour in our genes is not as farfetched as it may seems, although it is complete nonsense of course.
Many of the records in my collection come from collections of other people, probably in most cases because they died. It is good to realise every now and then that I am collecting for other people too, who get my records when I die. If anybody would want my collection, of course, which is not very likely. And I have no plans to die in the near future, so don’t send me your want lists yet. (You can always try, of course!)
Somewhere on a shelf I keep about 30 LP’s of Louis Armstrong. They were given to me by the second wife of my father, just before she died. I am no big fan of Louis Armstrong, but I have not done these records away yet because it was a gift from a person who wanted her records taken care of after she died.
The covers of some of the LP’s are beautiful, and some of the records are old and look pretty interesting. I have no idea if they are worth any money. Every now and then I take out an LP and put it on my record player. But I just don’t have any relation with this kind of music.
There is some jazz that I do like, and it is obvious that Louis Armstrong is a great musician, but it is not my cup of tea. I have began making a compilation CD from all the LP’s several times, but I never found more than a handful of tunes that I found worth re-listening.
Now that I have to find space for the records that I got from Alex Sas, I think I will have to get rid of my Louis Armstrong collection. Anybody interested?
here is Louis Armstrong, not from one of these LP’s, but from a 45 that I once bought.

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