Brown paper packages tied up with string

Well, it wasn't tied up with string so much as sealed up with sticky tape. And it was a box rather than a package. It was pretty big and came in the mail yesterday. Like, over 30 bucks' postage big. My mail packages usually come from amazon.com secondhand book suppliers or EBay CD sellers. This one came for free, from a real live generous soul from Minneapolis and contained a book AND music :) Spoilt girl.

Several of the CDs were mix tapes. Mix tapes I say!!! Well, they're mix CDs actually, but just as CDs are still called albums, so the mix tape shall always and forever be known to me as the mix tape, whatever incarnation they come in. (Anyone read High Fidelity by Nick Hornby? Much better than the movie, though that was good and Jack Black did a pretty good Barry it has to be said. Opinionated music lovers and compulsive list doers will love this book, which sings the praises of mix tapes with the reverence that is their due :)

The lovely mail package came from Jon, party head extraordinaire of Something Else fame. The book was one his grandfather wrote about what he discovered when reading the bible, dismissing the claims of mothership christianity, and using his own mind to think for himself. A heady combination, and I look forward to reading what he has to say. What is more attractive than a mind having original thoughts? I don't even need to agree with the thinker for it to be a wonderful intellectual experience.

The mix tapes I haven't listened to yet. I am saving them for the weekend, when I shall have my house to myself again, at least for the few days of the weekend, and hopefully for good (please God. Please. P-l-e-a-s-e). Listening to mix tapes has to be done in the correct time and place, especially ones that have come accompanied with their own liner notes and require playing very loud and reverently, as a very personalised peek into another soul that they are :)

And the charm of receiving an illegally copied disk of the latest Metallica album from a fellow Christian was not lost on me :) For many years I didn't think there existed any sort of Christian like that :) Now I find there's thousands of you!

Thanks Jon, it really made my day getting this package :) If I had a teleporter machine sitting in my backyard, you and your wife and kids would be on the list. Especially on a day when you're having one of your parties ;)

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