The Marie Kondo blues 

I began haunting newsstands when I was ten or eleven, spending my allowance on comic books, monster magazines or MAD before moving on in my teens to sports and music magazines, and National Lampoon. Oh, the fun of spending an afternoon or evening with a new mag. When I got comfortable with eBay, I began searching out more. My first dip into online bidding was a bundle of Hit Parader magazines from the 60s. It was easy and I was hooked; as my mania went unchecked, so did the clutter. 

Now, in anticipation of a downsizing that seems inevitable, I’ve gone on a Marie Kondo kick, looking to rid myself of the things that no longer bring joy – stuff in the attic that had become, literally and otherwise, a weight hanging over my head. 

For years I had a subscription to Goldmine, a thick biweekly publication for record collectors. What I thought were about twenty or so copies in the attic turned out to be closer to 75. I spent the better part of an afternoon going through them and discovered that what was entertaining and relevant 30 years ago today felt marginally interesting, but mostly obsolete and musty. 

Witness the countless letters to the editor revealing the paranoia and suspicion record collectors back then felt about those new-fangled CDs. Questions about their shelf-life (“Won’t the metal start to deteriorate with time?”) and production sources (“Why does my original Little Richard’s Greatest Hits album have noticeable differences when compared with the CD?”). These were questions that went on for years in Goldmine. That and a long running debate regarding the urban legend that if you drew a circle around the edge of a CD with a green marker it would sound better. 

Goldmines aside, another box in the attic held something like 50 issues of The Coffin Corner, a newsletter of original research dedicated to the history of pro football. Seemed like a good buy at the time, but too many of the articles were about subjects I could care less about (“The 1927 Pottstown Maroons: A Closer Look.”) Today you can find similar material – better written and researched – online. 

No doubt, The Coffin Corners would have been of some interest to somebody, but I was resigned to let them go. The entire load, Goldmines included, ended up in recycling. But as I dumped them into the bin, I kept hoping someone would walk over and offer to take all this stuff off my hands and put it in the trunk of his car. 

Next up: VHS tapes, and lots of ‘em.