This is beautifully put, Robert. I feel exactly the same way, even after 32 years of exposure to early records. When I give my annual presentation to the high school history class I try my best to impart this very feeling. Careful selection of the records goes a long way toward reaching hibernating imaginations. The current h.s. generation grew up in the computer era; being fed information, images, sound and content without having to imagine any part of the media being presented. The imaginations are there, but may be less developed than earlier generations where the 'theatre of the mind' was given more chance to be exercised. For phonograph records, the part that happens in your mind is obvious. For radio, well, consider the following, which I read somewhere along the way (or something approximating this): A young boy was asked, around 1950, whether he liked the old Lone Ranger program on radio (which he could still tune into if desired) or the new one that had just recently been introduced to the marvelous medium of television. The boy replied that he liked the Lone Ranger on radio because the pictures were better. Andy Baron On Dec 27, 2006, at 10:10 PM, Robert Wright wrote: > (...With every record, from since I can remember, I've gotten the > sense of peeking through a window at a frozen moment in another > place and time, and cherished that like magic. I remember staring > into the grooves of any given favorite and wondering, amazed, how > this inanimate, cold piece of material, this squiggly line pulled > under a sharp rock, was capable of making me feel things so > intensely. I still feel the same way.)