cello_suites in a silent way there are supposed to be six suites for unaccompanied cello in this collection, by johann sebastian bach. it's incomplete; suites two and five are missing, leaving me with two-thirds of a three-LP set. the cover art is a strange juxtaposition of colours, looking like a still image from the opening credit crawl of a low-budget yakuza film. a small piece of scotch tape that once held the torn protective material together has fused with the grey background of the sleeve, having lost its adhesive properties long ago. what's left of its jagged head protrudes like the remnant of an amputated finger. i listened to one of these records yesterday. it needed to be played on the cheapest turntable i have; its stylus was the most forgiving of the many deep scratches. this was one of my grandfather's records. he took terrible care of almost everything he owned. when he died and i inherited his vinyl collection four years ago, almost none of the LPs were in their sleeves. most of them were caked in dust and grime. it took hours for me to clean and organize them to the best of my ability. we never really talked about music. we hadn't talked about anything at all in the last four or five years before he passed. he erected a great wall around his heart, and it became more difficult to scale with the passage of time, until it no longer even seemed worth the effort. he spent the better part of his life driving away anyone who tried to get close to him. when i first sat down four years ago and let my eyes scan these records that belonged to a man i seemed to have nothing in common with, i was stunned. almost the entire collection was made up of great jazz. bill evans. charles mingus. cannonball adderley. duke ellington. music i'd come to love with no guidance or encouragement from him. i'd found my way on my own, but he had been there all along, waiting for me to catch up. after all the years of frustration, and all the failed attempts at breaking through that wall, i'd found our common ground — something we could talk about without the conversation degenerating into another excuse for him to lacerate me for not being the grandson he'd hoped for. something we could agree on. and it was a conversation we would never get to have, because he was nothing but ashes in an urn. there were a few classical records mixed in with the jazz. so yesterday i listened to the bach. the solo cello sometimes strained to make its voice heard above all the pops and crackles, alternately mournful and uplifting, damaged by time and neglect, but still beautiful. i listened, and i imagined him sitting in his disaster of an apartment, an old man alone with his filthy records and his memories. was he lonely, or was he content to be alone? what did he dream of at night? did he regret always being so abrasive, or did he die angry at the world for never living up to his expectations? maybe we're not so different at all. maybe i'll end up just like him. alone, for different reasons. surrounded by relics of a life i never really felt a part of. i don't know. here's what i do know. for forty minutes or so, the music felt like an accidental microcosm of his life. and inside that small pocket of time, i felt i understood him more than i ever have before, in a way i can't put into words. the last image i settled on was of him smiling, lost in the music. and for a moment, i was right there with him. 130108 ... () (this is beautifully written. thank you.) 130108 ... in a silent way thank you for the kind words. that means a lot. 130108 ... D this was very well written and felt. . 130108 ... in a silent way thank you doar. 130109 ... unhinged . 130109 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I love your descriptions. ... My parents have 30-40 records, some from my grandparents probably, but no working record player. A lot of music that I can't listen to (here(ish), now)... 130110 ... in a silent way thank you e_o_i. :) if finances and space allow, i'd suggest taking a look at local pawnshops. sometimes you can get lucky and find something good for not a whole lot of money. i once found a great little all-in-one system (cassette deck, radio, record player, speakers) for about eighty bucks. i've had it for half my life now, and the thing still works without any issues. 130110 what's it to you? who go blather from