Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"What do traffic jams, obesity and spam have in common?

"They are all problems caused by abundance in a world more attuned to scarcity. By achieving the goal of abundance, technology renders the natural checks and balances of scarcity obsolete."

-- Peter de Jager, Globe and Mail, 2003-10-10.

(From the Quotation of the Day mailing list, 2003-11-16. Submitted to the list by Terry Labach.)

I walked into a music store today. It was painful.

I had to force myself to get out of the house to buy soda and bread and chocolate, and I went near a music store, and earlier someone on a mailing list had been asking whether anyone had opinions about Ovation classical guitars (apparently all the reviews on the web are "Love 'em" or "Hate 'em" and don't say why, and no music stores in his state carry them), so I went in to see whether they had an Ovation to try out so I could email him my impressions.

But the classical aisle was near the funky end of the folk section, so first I spotted a Yamaha electric guitar with almost no body, but an outline of a folk guitar attached to it, so it sat on one's lap like an acoustic ... I didn't try to remove the plastic outline shape, but I bet it comes off in two pieces to make the thing ultra-compact for travel. And in the classical rack I saw a similar thing (which I'd previously seen in magazines). And while I was making sure I'd found all of the classical section, I had to pass by the mandolins ... oh, the pretty, pretty mandolins. The shiny, delicate, bright-sounding, adorable mandolins. (It could have been worse; there could have been mandolas. I'm afraid to walk into Appalachian Bluegrass lately because I know there's a certain mandola there waiting to pounce on me. I know it's going to jump into my arms, purring, and I'll feel really bad about not being able to take it home.) And I had to prevent myself from walking down the Fender and Yamaha aisles. And to get to the acoustic guitars in the first place I had to pass the front row of the electric guitar department, and they had this sexy double-neck (six string and bass) sitting out there. And I knew that not far away there was an unseen Takamine doubleneck acoustic guitar (six string and twelve string) that I've tried before and know I need but can't afford.

All those pretties. All those curvaceous wooden beauties giving me come-hither looks with their tuning posts, begging me to stroke them and cause them to sing out in reaction to my touch ... and my knowledge that it'll be a long time before I have any money for buying more guitars.

At some point I'll go back just in case there's another classical in the Ovation aisle instead of the classical aisle. But first I must steel myself like Odysseus against the sirens' call.

(The one I tried was pretty poor, but it was seriously low-end and I think my friend is looking for something much better, so my observations today are probably not useful. On the other hand I did get to flirt for a little while with an adorable Yamaha classical. I'm going to need to replace the strings on my Fender later and spend some time with it. I've been playing the electric in bed and folk guitars at rehearsals and on stage lately, so it's time for a few hours on the classical.)

Oh, and if any of y'all do have firsthand experience with Ovation classical guitars and don't mind writing up your impressions -- what you like or dislike about 'em, observations about the tone -- I know where to send the notes where they'll be appreciated.