Biophilia

In new settings you can't help but be helpless. I wasn't much use opening CDC Friday morning because I didn't know where the rugs went in the doorway, and I didn't know which discount CD racks belonged where outside. I'm certain the process took longer than usual on account of my 'help.' I suppose that's part of investing sometimes; you slow down a bit at first and become more efficient for it later.

My first customer on Friday handed me a sheet of paper listing various piano and violin sonatas from Mozart, Beethoven, and Dvorak. I opened up P.N., an engine that searches not only for active or once active archives our store has with all our distributors, but searches a mega-database containing an unimaginable chunk of all recordings ever made, whether they are still in production or not. It's a very impressive archive. A co-worker of mine (they are very quick and seem to be keen to the fact that I might not know what I'm doing) merrily walked over to my computer, greeted the customer, and said to me "that program won't help you. I'll take it from here." He then closed out my search and pulled out a book, a yellow-pages looking book for classical cataloging. I didn't know we had a book.

Not before he was done helping this customer, a second approached me and asked for a certain Brahms work. I'm feeling not so confident in this search program and am not knowing exactly what to do, so I use our distributors search engine, but, not to worry; my other coworker flagged down the customer, lured him to his work station, and pulled out a second book.

A third customer walks in and asks for a recording of "Laudate Dominum," and now I'm thinking "YES! I know this work!" And I got really excited. You mean from the Vespers? Mozart? I even know the KV number for this piece! No way I'm not finding this in the search engine.

I didn't find it in the search engine. I did however have sufficient information to hasten the process as my coworker searched in the book. I felt GREAT!

Thirty minutes later my former professor for contemporary German poetry, for whom I performed and analysed slam poetry as my final project, entered the store. I think most things about him can be characterized by conscious direction, intent, and much passion, though all his excitement never surpasses his patience, which sets a very moderate pace for the way he walks and talks. We had a lively conversation. I told him what I was doing, he told me about his upcoming Hermann Hesse class. He said he could not help me with trumpet, but if I ever wanted to discuss writing he would be more than happy. He then asked if I would sell him the new Björk album, which had come out that day. Professor Höppner is a self-described Björk mega-fan.

Carcassonne, the Spiel des Jahres 2001, is a game in which players collectively build a landscape by placing tiles each turn. The land consists of streets, fields, and cities. Though you build the region collectively, you are competing with one another for territory. The more cities you establish, the more streets you build, and the more farm land you harvest, the better off you are.

Happy Monday :).

-Ben.