This is the summation of all my fetishes, rolled neatly into several signatures of paper.
J.J. Abrams is guest editor for WIRED Magazine for May ’09. Abrams, famed for Lost and Fringe and the upcoming Star Trek reboot brings in the theme of MYSTERY:
Think back, for example, to how we used to buy music. You would have to leave your apartment or house and actually move your ass to another location. You’d get to the store, where music would be playing on the stereo. Music you may not have heard before. Perhaps you’d ask the clerk what it was and she’d send you to a bin—those wooden containers holding actual albums or CDs—and you’d look through it, seeing other album covers that might catch your eye. You’d have a chance to discover something.
But wait, you say, iTunes gives you the chance to browse! To that I nod, concede the point, and say, “Bullshit.” Those little icons you scroll past mean almost nothing to most of us. Why? Because we didn’t get on the train, brave the weather, bump into strangers, and hear music we didn’t choose. In other words, we didn’t earn the right to casually scan those wooden bins. Lately I go to Amoeba Music in Hollywood just to watch people flip through albums. It’s a lost art. [source]
Can’t wait to grab a copy off the shelves.