CD Baby, I Love You Too

Now that I'm firmly a member of the iPod generation and my collection is mostly on my Mac's iTunes library, I listen to music more than I have in years, but at the same time don't often buy a CD any more.

I usually buy one or two at the Vancouver Folk Festival if there's an act that particularly inspires me; that didn't happen in 2006, but I bought 4 the year before. I'll also always buy the latest from a few select performers whenever they put out something new, Al Stewart for instance.

Beyond that, between iTunes, my increasing interest in classical music (bred in part from my academic pursuits, in part by my taking up bel canto singing) and my general disinterest in the vast majority of what's playing on the top 40 airwaves these days, I might buy a few CDs a year.

Rodney Sharman, my favorite professor, is also a composer - indeed, it is better stated that he is a composer who also teaches at SFU as a sessional instructor. When I talked to him about my papers the other night, I mentioned that through various circumstances I had not yet managed to hear anything he'd done, including missing a premiere of a flute and piano piece on the 12th when everyone in my house was down with some bug or another.

He asked me if I liked Mozart, which for the most part I do, and recommended a CD called "Mozart and Well Beyond", recorded by Michael Sweeney, bassoonist for the Toronto Symphony. In addition to a Mozart piece, it includes three modern pieces, including one by Rodney. Following all the links to purchase the CD took me to the site for CD Baby.

The transaction was completed with the usual internet shopping efficiency and I thought little more of it until I got my email to confirm the order. First off, the from name was "CD Baby Loves [L'Etat]". The top part of the message was the usual transaction log (item, price, net total), but then the rest of it was brilliant:

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure
it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money
can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Thursday, January 18th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all
exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music
phone: 1-800-448-6369 email: cdbaby@cdbaby.com
http://cdbaby.com

Well, that was probably one of the funniest things I've read in a long time, and it led me to go back to the site to check them out in more detail.

They have a great collection of stuff based on my idle browsing. I particularly like the Flavor section of the site, which has suggestions based on an astonishing array of fun categories. For instance, under the "Match Your Mood" rubric, they have a category for "Sick of all Normal Music", described as "Sick of music? Tired of verse/chorus pop songs, major/minor keys, 4/4 rhythms, or ANYthing predictable? I know the feeling. These CDs defy any expectations, and blow your mind wide open."

This is a site after my own heart, and I'll definitely be shopping there again. They're also down in Portland, OR, so now I have two reasons to go (the other being Powell's Books).

Focus

One of the features of the "new" version of blogger is it tells you how many posts your blog has. This will be number 100. So, in honor of #100, some meandering chat about goals and positivity.

This morning at the gym, the cycling class instructor asked us about New Year's resolutions, and mentioned she's already broken two. I had to chuckle a little, because I remember the last time I made a New Year's resolution - it was 1978, and the resolution was to no longer make New Year's resolutions. So far, I've stuck to that quite successfully. After all, if something's worth doing, then why not resolve to do it regardless of what the calendar says?

Recently, I took a one-day "How to give presentations" course through work. The instructor, Bruna, was fabulous. She added me to her mailing list and sent out a link to a wonderful article she wrote on the power of thinking positively.

The article brought to mind my "life plan" document, which was the product of a lot of introspection and hard work during a philosophy class I took in the fall of 2003.

My life plan gives me focus. It's not something etched in stone, it's just an electronic document that I've printed out and I carry it with me. Every once in a while, I'll pull it out and have a look - sometimes it's to remind me what I've written down as important, sometimes to make little edits or notes. I update it once in a while as goals I've set for myself have either been completed or have dropped off my personal list of ThingsIHopeToAccomplish(tm).

Now, I'm not going to share my life plan per se, but I will share the elements that put it all together. It's a two page document (one double sided page).

The top left has a photo of me. It happens to be from last April when I was on business trip in Paris enjoying a moment in the sun at the Rodin museum. To the right is a paragraph that I would describe as my global outlook on life - it's quite positive (and for those who know me well, that should come as no surprise).

Following that is a statement of my intrinsic values. What I think makes me, well, me!

Those two things are actually the hardest parts of the entire document. It requires that you do that navel gazing introspection that most of us are absolutely loathe to do. The mirror isn't always pretty.

The next section is the meat of the document. It lists my currently most important goals in a variety of categories. Before listing any goals, one need to do a personal "inventory" for each category. It's quite possible you don't have any specific goals in a given category at the moment.

The categories, briefly, are...

• moral goals - what kind of life do you want to lead, ethically speaking?
• spiritual goals - do you believe in a higher power (like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, say)?
• love goals - are you happier single or in a relationship, and what should that look like?
• friendship goals - what kinds of people do you want as friends, and what kind of friend are you?
• education goals - formal or informal, what makes you want to fire up your brain?
  
• career goals - what kind of work do you want to do? and what's holding you back?
• leisure goals - what do you do for fun that lets you recharge your batteries and gives you a sense of accomplishment?
  
• health goals - super fit or couch potato? Or somewhere in between?
  
• economic goals/consumption level - do you crave endless amounts of money or are you happy with less? are you filling the world with more krap from Wal*Mart or do you have more minimalist expectations around stuff?
• place-of-residence goals - happy with your condo, or do you want a mansion with servants?
• political goals - vote? run for office? speak out about issues you're passionate about?
• autonomy goals - leader or part of the herd?
  

My goals have shifted over time. Some have been accomplished and have been replaced by other things. Some have been dropped as I've decided to do something else instead. Keeping a written list has been an interesting experience. There's an immense satisfaction in crossing off accomplishments, and an equally immense one in saying "phooey! I don't want to do that after all."

The next section is "my rules for sane living". I only have seven, and I should probably edit them down to four.

Finally, I have a long list of things that bring me pleasure, including simple things like eating a ripe pear from the tree in my back yard. I have about half a dozen categories.

It's a great tool. Even I feel like I'm in a rut sometimes. Focus is a good thing.

In closing, a great quote, courtest of Bruna:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?" - Marianne Williamson

I have that printed and posted at my desk at work.

Ready?

Simon Fraser University, where I am a grad student at the moment, has decided to change their crest. The current crest is over on the right.

For various reasons, they are taking out the crosses on either side of the book and replacing them with more books; the new crest will have three books across the top. According to an article on the 27th on canada.com, "Gill [VP external relations] explained the crosses, combined with the fact the university is named in honour of a person (explorer Simon Fraser), has led ''foreign cultures'' to mistakenly conclude the university is ''a private religious university, as opposed to a provincial institution.''

For my part, I don't mind the change. However, while I was dining solo at Risty's yesterday, I picked up the Friday Province and was browsing through idly when I saw a letter to the editor (this is where I learned about the planned change to the crest).

The letter, written by someone claiming to be a current student at SFU, was of the usual knee-jerk reaction to any form of change, with the opening line of "SFU's mandate is as a provincial learning institution, and it has been primarily funded by provincial dollars"; but what amused me the most was the notion that the change dishonored the entire current crest, right down to the latin motto.

This is where I had to laugh out loud. The motto on the SFU crest says "Nous Sommes Pret".

I don't think the writer is "pret" to graduate yet.