From: The Cassette Mythos, Autonomedia 1990
Cassette art as it is often described seems to revolve around amateur musicians and other such "home recordists." I never quite thought of it that way but in a more literal way--the cassette itself as an end in itself. I suppose what I mean by "cassette fiend" (aside from the fact that I simply like the sound of it) is someone whose life trips around cassettes in a creative and not-so-creative way quite regularly.
I like commercially-recorded music. I also don't think that recording albums is such an awful way to use cassettes; it's renegade, especially when you choose which cuts to use and intersperse them with words or sounds or free-floating weirdness. (This is why the idea of a tax on blank tape is absurd, but then of course you know that already). I like finding old cassettes that have been taped over several times, but in an incomplete manner; listening to them instead of cleaning up the editing is always fun. I love answering-machine cassette messages, especially those of people I don't know. Oh, and I like to fall asleep with my cassette deck on RECORD, waking up and checking out what I caught. Tape all-night talk shows! Get wonderful advice on dealing with life! I really hate my voice on tape (this explains the minute amount of it on my own cassette).
I like taking cassettes apart. I like getting stark raving mad at cassettes when they seek revenge for haphazard use by jamming in my walkman. Rip that tape out! Give it to your baby! Your cat! Wrap your plant in it...Come up with new designs! Teach it to self destruct after playing, like Mission Impossible (I'm still working on that one).
Ms. Dixon also wrote a Lena's Web Pastiche-- revised 12/96
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