Going through the piles of records at those stores was a major part of the fun. I didn't care about getting down onto the dusty floor if I had to—I wore the dust as a badge of honor. And I learned so much just from looking at the singles' labels. It was a real education in who wrote what, who produced what. And the joy of finding a record that I never knew existed that was written or produced by one of my favorite creative people—like all that weird and wonderful Joey Levine/Kasenetz & Katz stuff that kept turning up.

All those memories and more come to mind reading R. Stevie Moore's brief e-missive [that's him at right], which he has generously allowed me to reprint here:

From: R. Stevie Moore
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 10:46:59 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Records

i just awoke from a deeeep dream about our old used vinyl hunts and haunts. wow! those days are sadly gone (us now and our Amazon, eBay and Google...Ha! whod'a ever thunk?), but here i sit on the kitchen floor in 2003, going thru all my old 45's!! thank jesus i didn't toss them (yet).

god, it's so incredibly spooky! that musty smell, checkin A & B-sides, chart positions which I'd scribble on faded labels, matched record company sleeves to discs... man, i love my records! 45 years of 45's!!! I still own some of my very first 7-inchers. ones uncle Harry gave me when I was only 6 (!!), which still have those tiny adhesive stickers with brown numbers for organizing in some strange order. remembering those old carrying cases with the manila folders, A to Z.

still got many of my original mid-60's purchases (77¢!)... many with colorful Dymo-tape "STEVE MOORE" owner identifications carefully lined up & stuck on the labels.

when I first moved up here, we usedta go buy them by the trunk full, bring 'em home, clean 'em up. always the fun game of 'you can't judge the condition merely by sight'. some looked mint, but on playing they sounded horrific. and vice versa: ones that were grimy and gouged might explode from the speakers, and the more they were cleaned and played, the better they would come to sound. would often hafta regularly wipe off the stylus of accumulated gunk! ugh! and, often a skip caused by an 'external' dot of dirt could be repaired like new, simply by scooping it out with fingernail and spinning it a few more times!

and off center pressings! often when making fill-up cassettes, would need to carefully reposition the 45 (without the adapter!) so that it would be properly centered.

i love my 45's!! alphabetically stacked, i still got the rockers, the pop vocalists, the old classical, the doo wop, the spoken word, the hits, the misses, the country, the punk imports, the soul, the jazz, the parakeet teaching records, ALL of it! many stuffed two to a sleeve... it's sentimentally hard to weed out the worthless junk ones.

still pulling 'em out, oughta keep burning 'em all on CDR.

so incredibly sad, a lost golden era.

"Records are second to none, the way I choose to entertain myself..."

i'll take them to my grave, i guess!

"Hey, why's everybody watching TV? I got some RECORDS, people!!"

and nowadays, the very memory of 45's is becoming as archaic as 78's and wax cylinders!

forever young,
teenage mooreman

Things to Do in Hoboken When You're Sick: I wrote to Todd today and, mentioning I was home from work with a cold, asked if he could recommend things for me to do with my time. His response was so perfect that I am reprinting most of it here. I adore it because it takes that greeting-card sentiment of "a friend is someone who knows all your faults and likes you anyway" and brings it to life. It also shows that Todd, if he ever wished, could make his fortune as a purveyor of surrealist humor, something he's also indicated with his Alzheimer's Elegy on the Web site he edits, HealthFactsandFears.com.

Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 10:07:36 -0400 (GMT)
From: Todd Seavey
To: "Dawn Eden, Petite Powerhouse"

Apply for editor positions at several second-tier music magazines where you could dominate the wills of your co-workers.

Continue sorting things in the back room.

Clean up the kitchen area, which is more likely to be seen by guests.

Send an e-mail to Lauren.

Write a '60s-style pop song based on the weirdest parts of the Book of Revelations.

Buy ice cream, but not too much.

Listen to that best-of Monkees CD.

Lie in bed for a few minutes cracking your back, then sigh deeply
and trudge to get some tissues.

Flip channels on the radio, trying to figure out which is the best rock station in the area these days.

Sketch a picture of a monkey fighting an electric eel (cool!).

Send a broad I'll-do-anything letter to NYPress, asking if recent changes leave them in need of a copy editor, even a part-time one.

Read James Randi's website, since he's Todd's hero.

Lie in bed for a while longer, feel a bit sluggish and lame, get up, pace for few minutes.

Sing made-up words along with your favorite instrumentals.

One of my favorite things about John and Wendy is that they're very warm and welcoming, and they are great at bringing creative people together. I mean, at what other party are you going to find OpinionJournal editor James Taranto enjoying a political discussion with the head of the New York office of the Del Shannon-founded publishing powerhouse Bug Music?

Speaking of Mr. Taranto, at the party, I took the opportunity to get my photo snapped with him for the first time in over a year. (The last time was when we both attended one of Richard Ryan's Cocktail Caravans in February 2002.)

When I got there, the guard told me it had been pushed back to 1:30, but I could go in anyway. I thought, fine, I'll just grab some instructional material, and sit down until the course starts. But when I got to Assumption Hall—which turned out to just be a rec room—a class was already in progress, so I couldn't go in. I could only listen, and look through the windows in the room's doors.

I immediately noticed some handsome men, and I congratulated myself on choosing to take a course that would attract men who were not only handsome, but also cared about their fellow human beings.

These men seemed to care about their fellow humans a lot—especially for the women they were training with. These women appeared to be squatting, and then men squatted behind them, with their hands on the women's waists. This really seemed to be one heck of a fun course. Especially when the young female instructor said, "Try this when you're in bed."