Vinyl Archives - Bob on Books

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Baby, It’s Cold Outside!

Both in central Ohio, where I live, and in many parts of the U.S. we’ve seen some of the coldest weather we’ve had in recent years. From some observations, I’m convinced that humans, and especially bibliophiles, have a hibernation instinct when it gets cold.

Last Saturday, ahead of the cold stretch, we stopped into our local Barnes & Noble while waiting for a take out order from the restaurant next door. The place was packed, with a long line at the cash register! I did not see any special promotion going on. Instead, I concluded that people were loading up on books to read when they were hunkered down in sub-zero cold.

It probably was a good idea. We had several days of school cancellations because of the cold. I go for daily walks, and usually generate my own heat. But that was barely the case this past week even with extra layers.

How inviting, then, to sit down in my favorite chair with a hot cup of coffee and just savor some good theology in the morning and lose myself in a mystery in the evening. While reading is an all-weather activity, I do think there is something especially comforting about a thick book, a warm comforter, and a hot drink beside my favorite chair on those cold days and colder nights! Although I can’t explain it, I can’t help but wonder if storing up that TBR pile beside our reading chair is the form that hibernation takes for booklovers!

Five Articles Worth Reading

Unfortunately, it’s not been cold everywhere. Los Angeles is burning, resulting in displacement and ruin for thousands, including some friends. One of the most referenced articles in discussions about the fires is one written in 1995 by Mike Davis, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn,” reprinted in this 2018 Longreads post. He explores the clash between the native ecology and the decision to build in a firebelt.

Francesca Wade reviews Randall Fuller’s BRIGHT CIRCLE: Five Remarkable Women in the Age of Transcendentalism, in “You Know Emerson and Thoreau. Why Not Their Female Counterparts?” We’ve heard of the men. The book and review introduce us to the women in that circle.

At age 50, Leo Tolstoy struggled with the question, “What will come from my whole life?” He was strongly tempted to commit suicide. In a review of Open Socrates by Agnes Callard, Tim Clare explores how Socrates found a way through “:the Tolstoy problem.”

In “Laugh a Little: Why We All Should Be Telling More Jokes,” Allison Wood Brooks explains why we all could use more humor in our lives. The article is an excerpt from her book, Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves.

Finally, in an age of digital streaming, there is a resurgence of vinyl. I can attest to this. I participate in a Facebook group of over 20,000 enthusiasts of classical music on vinyl. In “A Phenomenology of Spotify and Vinyl,” Dolan Clay thinks Heidegger can help us understand what is going on.

Quote of the Week

Edith Wharton was born on January 23, 1862. I think there is a lot of wisdom in this observation:

“If only we’d stop trying to be happy we’d have a pretty good time.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I got my hat trick of championship ball caps for Ohio State (see below). There is a story for the good sports writer in this team’s season. Seniors chose not to go pro. A transfer quarterback bonded with the team. After a devastating loss to arch-rival Michigan that had people crying for the coach’s firing, the team pulled itself together to beat four top ten ranked teams. I love a good sports read. I hope someone writes it.

My Buckeye Champions ball caps from 2002, 2014, and 2024. “©Bob Trube, 2025.

Timothy P. Carney’s Family Unfriendly is a thought-provoking read. He explores why the birth-rates in the U.S. and other Western countries have tanked. He argues that we have created a “family unfriendly” culture. Carney looks at communities of large families and explores the relation of faith, being around other large families. And he considers allowing, not forcing women (or men) to choose stay at home parenting, and even how we configure our neighborhoods.

We all have blind spots. I’m reading a book on the theme of love in the parables, the subtext of which is a rather uncharitable polemic against Christian orthodoxy through most of history across the major branches of the church. I wonder if the author is aware of this contradiction. But I also wonder about my own blind spots–the places where I try to remove a speck from someone else’s eye, unaware of the log in my own.

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Ed Uszynski, Untangling Critical Race Theory.

Tuesday: Jacques Maritain, An Essay on Christian Philosophy.

Wednesday: William Kent Krueger, Red Knife.

Thursday: Michael Licona, Jesus, Contradicted.

Friday: Ellis Peters, A Rare Benedictine.

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for January 19-25, 2025!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

I saw this scene yesterday at our local Barnes & Noble and it brought back memories of the hours I spent as a teenager bent over bins of LPs at record stores around Youngstown. I find it amazing that vinyl is making a comeback–I think they were devoting more space to vinyl than to CD’s in this store. They said back in the late 1980’s that vinyl was dead. It has apparently experienced a resurrection. Actually for years, I’ve known people who prefer the sound of vinyl, including a number of young listeners. And I’ve picked up some great recordings in used record stores–yes, you can still sometimes find me over those record bins! It appears that CD’s are on the ropes as people either download or stream music they want to listen to digitally.

Perhaps the place to go for records at one time was Record Rendezvous in downtown Youngstown on W. Federal Street. This was the place where you could go and listen to music before you bought it, particularly on 45’s, and some LP’s. They advertised regularly in the Vindicator as I recall, with lists of the top 10 hits. As I understand it, they were part of a chain of Record Rendezvous stores in northeast Ohio. From a Vindicator obituary, I learned there was also a Record Rendezvous in Niles.

I have to admit, I didn’t shop there regularly personally. When I was downtown, I was usually at work at McKelvey’s, later Higbee’s, and they had a decent record department up on the fifth floor during the time I worked there, and I could use my employee discount, which often gave me the best price on new vinyl. It was one of my favorite places to go on break, other than Plaza Donuts in the old Parkade. In high school, my tastes were more to rock and roll–classic groups like The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revivial, and Jethro Tull. In college, I discovered jazz and artists like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Dave Brubeck (still one of my favorites!). And because of a friend at Dana School of Music who exposed me to classical music, I began to buy some of the great classical works.

I always loved the album art on LP’s. The little booklets in jewel cases just weren’t the same. I think, for example, that my love for my recording of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony has just as much to do with the beautiful forest scene on the cover with a woman in white in the midst. Remember trying to figure out the significance of the cover of Abbey Road? Was Paul dead? Or the minimalist cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon–a black background, a thin ray of light passing through a prism creating a spectrum of color? There were the surrealist covers by Mati Klarwein on Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew and Santana’s Abraxas. Great music, great art. This never shows up on “best” lists but Cream’s Disraeli Gears cover strikes me as one of the best psychedelic pieces of art.

Camelot Music and National Record Mart eventually came on the scene at the malls, with much bigger selections than the department stores but whenever we were in K-Mart or Woolco, we’d check out the record section because they usually had the best prices. Camelot became the place to go for me to build my jazz and classical collections as well as pick up some of the latest hits. But I remember that the YSU bookstore had some great sales, usually on “cutouts” but I found some unusual classical and jazz at some of these, including a great collection of Schubert Symphonies.

I’ve been trying to rack my brain as to whether there was ever a Peaches Records in the Youngstown area. It would have had to be after I left. There was a place called Oasis records for a while in the Boardman Plaza and I loved to go over there while my wife took her mom shopping on visits back home.

Stores just dedicated to records are fewer and farther between these days. Barnes & Noble stores have a growing selection of vinyl as well as other media. I found online three independent stores in the Youngstown area, Geo’s Music in downtown Youngstown, Underdog Records in Hubbard, and the Record Connection in Niles. I’ll have to put these on my Youngstown Bucket List because I still love perusing through the bins of vinyl looking for that special recording.

Did you enjoy hanging out at record shops growing up? Where did you go to get your music?