Michael Cooper <[log in to unmask]>:

>Pablo mentioned:
>
>>Heh, heh...  here's the trap: precisely at the prices of cars and
>>discmans....  Nowadays in Argentina you must be a sort of millionaire
>>(or a Trapist monk) in order to buy some silence.
>
>If Pablo is not joking, I will be happy to pool with other list members to
>buy and send him a discman which can be obtained quite cheaply in the US.
>Perhaps about $50, probably a bit more if the roads and buses in Argentina
>cause enough bouncing that he will need skip protection, and from his
>statements it sounds that they do, so I am guessing about $80 plus
>shipping.

Thank you very much, Michael.  Your proposal to help the poor (of me) is
deeply moving and I appreciate it very much.  However, I have a discman
already (gift of my girlfriend)....  it costed about u$s 120, much *before*
the crisis...  By the way, I know that this list has about 1000 recipents
or more, so...  could we better try a poll to buy me a BMW? (this would be
a good solution for the skip problem:-)

>So, is Pablo serious? And if so, does anyone want to help contribute? I
>am serious about the idea, and sympathetic to his situation, due to my own
>experience riding in vehicles where they play such horrible music, such as
>buses and my girlfriend's car.

I'm partially serious, as is my custom.  Talking seriously, there's a
true and unavoidable situation that Argentine CM lovers will have to face
during the next years:  the prices of CDs will increase highly, due to
the strong devaluation of our currency and the subsequent inflation.  The
prices of classical CDs in Argentina have been always a bit more expensive
than the international prices, despite the famous (and now dead) "1 to 1"
currency with the American dollar.  I've never knew why.  For example, much
before the crisis, Gardiner's version of "L' Incoronazione di Poppea"
costed about 80 pesos (i.e.:  u$s 80).  I don't know the price of this
particular recording at, say, USA or Canada, but I would bet that it's
lower.  The Naxos series CDs costed about 10 dollars and any single
Deutsche Grammophone release wasn't under 21 or 25 dollars.  However,
during 10 years we had in Buenos Aires a well supplied market of classical
music recordings, in which we hadn't to miss anything that was going around
Europe, Canada, USA or Australia.  You can easily imagine what's happening
at our new situation:  Tower and other major record shops have simply left
the country a few months ago, and local shops surely will not import
recordings anymore since now.  The remaining stock will increase highly its
price (due to speculation) and the inmediate result of all this will be a
desert offer.  Surely we will have soon some little local companies, buying
patents of old CBS, EMI or DG recordings and releasing them at cheap prices
(and cheap sound quality).  That was what happened at the 80's during the
later period of the late military dictatorship and during ex- President
Alfonsin's administration (1983-1989), when the inflation reached tops
without precedent.  So, my dear listmembers, the kind of feeling that I
will experiment since now reading Steve's, Don's and other people reviews
on new recordings could be described in two words:  EN - VY!!!:-)

PS: is there a Classical Music Napster or something like that....?

Pablo Massa
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