My basic on-line sales site, CDNOW, has been very tardy of late in sending
me the recordings I have ordered.  So, yesterday I went to a local store,
feeling somewhat deprived.  I picked up two used cd sets of Haydn operas
on DHM (period instruments) and the new David Daniels disc of arias from
Mozart, Gluck, and Handel.

While driving home, I was debating which of the three new acquisitions to
play first.  When I got home I noticed that my mailbox was tilted badly,
a sign of heavy stuff inside.  Sure enough, there were two good sized
boxes from CDNOW inside, each having 6 recordings I had ordered.  It's
hard, at work, to remember them all, but there were three Walton cd's
from Naxos, three Mahler symhonies (Gatti, Tilson Thomas, Levi), Haydn's
Seasons from Kuijken on Virgin, Bach's Art of Fugue on organ, Bach's
Inventions/Sinfonias from Suzuki on BIS, and a few more.  Feeling deluged
with music, and having no idea what to play first, I sat down and watched
the national news with my collie Katie who quickly got bored and left the
room - she wanted to watch the Animal Planet Network.  I soon got bored
also and noticed that I had no place to put the new cd's I bought.  I
remembered that there's a shelf in my wife's bedroom closet that's empty,
so I put them all on that shelf.

One thing about having a spouse is that he/she shows up at home sooner or
later.  My wife, Ellen Jane, is no exception.  She got home, went to her
closet, and asked me what those cd's were doing on her shelf.  She said
that she had plans for the shelf.  I answered, "is it possible you don't
have plans any more"? She shot me a look which conveyed more to me than
any Bach composition could.

What gets to me about this space problem is that I assumed that a 2,500
square foot home would easily house all of my possessions.  I was wrong.
We serious record collectors need more than one residence.  I think it
would be a great idea for the Federal Government to sharply reduce its
Arts spending and use that money to provide subsidies to serious record
collectors for vacant mini-warehouse space rentals.  Storage is what made
this country great.

Don Satz
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