On Barthelme and Radiohead

(I have to write more. I have to write more. I have to write more.)

Last week, I had been really lucky to take advantage of two absolutely swell deals that don't come often. Bad luck makes me. But once in a while there comes a time, although fleeting, that makes me smile and forget. So here were the two small, really small, transactions that I made:

Before I enter a BookSale store, there is a fraction of a second when I think, "Let me find a good deal here", meaning that I hope that I would be able to find a nice copy of a book that I want to read, not just something that, although inexpensive, has a minimal chance of being read and therefore only serves as a shelf-filler. Giddy emotions as well as surprise then came as I locked my eyes on Donald Barthelme's "Sixty Stories", sandwiched between two non-fiction titles I would never think of reading. More giddy emotions as well as surprise came as I looked at the price: 15 pesos. I checked for major spine creasing. None. I checked for torn pages. None. I checked for underlined sentences. Fifteen pesos. 31.25% of what I pay for toll from Sucat to Makati. 12.5% of a decent meal at McDonald's. Less than 3% of the price of the same writer's "Forty Stories" at Fully Booked, which, obviously, has 33.3% less stories. I had to smile at that. I love BookSale.

Radiohead made an impact in the music industry recently when they suddenly announced that they'll be releasing their new album on the Internet in ten days and the price of the download is the buyer's choice. It seems like they're free agents these days so they have all this freedom to make up their own business model for the album's distribution. Whether or not this actually is a good idea has been discussed in hundreds of blog posts and news articles, so I won't comment on it anymore. On the day of the release, I went to the website and confirmed if it was true. I found out that it is and moreover, you can download the whole album for 0 pounds, so that's like, for free. Now I'm a big Radiohead fan. I have all their albums on original CD (except for Pablo Honey, which I have on cassette) and am proud that I'm in the minority because I honestly think Kid A is their best album. I would have gladly paid up to $10 for In Rainbows. Problem is, I don't have a credit card. By choice. I am personally against the concept of having a credit card, the reasons of which I don't want to explain further. Anyway, I had no choice but to download it for free. So there you go. I may have been a frugal fart for betraying one of the few bands that I truly admire, and I feel bad for it, but as I've said, I really had no choice. I listened to the album and holy crap! it's amazing. It's the album I've been waiting for since their sudden shift on Kid A. It still has the experimental tone of that album but also the accessibility of OK Computer. To top it all off, the songs' lyrics are less cryptic. I felt frustration at their post-Kid A albums, with lines that are either too enigmatic or too trite; nothing in between. With this, they're back in the big leagues. Thank you Radiohead, and I apologize. Here's the website for the download. And please, if you have a credit card, it won't hurt shelling out a few bucks for some awesome music.