Analysis - On Cycles

Adam Dietrich

In my living room stand three largish bookcases, all of which are positioned around yours truly in the picture above. Each contains one or more forms of media: one holds books, another one comic collections, and a third a mixture of movies, video games and CDs. While I’m attempting to introduce new hobbies into my routine, my first and foremost pastime will remain the collection and cataloguing of media. I really do love it, whether it involves organizing, maintaining or, of course, enjoying my collected works.

However, roughly 2/3rds of that material will remain relatively untouched for the same amount of time in the year, and it’s not just in random batches: the actual medium I’m interested in can change on the fly, leading to another two or three months obsessed with everything literary or cinematic or musical or what have you. At the moment my preferred formats are primarily visual—video games and movies—but just a couple months ago I was so into music I amassed a simply terrifying quantity of Frank Zappa albums.

Though to be fair, any quantity of Zappa is terrifying.

I wish I could be more varied in my tastes, mostly because I worry I end up subjecting those around me to a swath of unwanted media and information. I was able to secret away music through the use of headphones but movies can be a little more bombastic, especially since I prefer to watch them on my badass TV. My roommates have walked into the living room to find me watching Petr Harmy’s “Despecialized” restoration of Star Wars on more than one occasion in the last two weeks.

It’s as though my interests rotate on some sort of immeasurable cycle, shifts occurring when I least expect them to—or, perhaps, when I’ve unconsciously noted that the incumbent medium has overstayed its welcome. I’m aware enough of these shifts to know not to invest too much into them, or else I might have actually gone through with buying an analogue synthesizer priced at several hundred dollars, one which I almost certainly wouldn’t be playing right now. I’m a fickle beast.

And so most of my personal library is pretty much neglected for the bulk of the year, though I don’t see that as a waste. A lot of what I own isn’t just there for me but for the enjoyment of any friends or family who might be interested—and, I can assure you, at the best possible quality—because there’s no fun in enjoying this stuff purely by yourself. Art is an experience meant to be shared, and so I remain generous.

Also I don’t charge. So you might as well hit me up.