Talk about mixed feelings. I remember listening to this stuff years ago and getting a good laugh out of it due to how incredibly ridiculous and awkward it was and I can’t imagine that Chris Burke has been in on the joke. So is Chris Burke being exploited or is he drawing attention to down syndrome? Is this the kind of attention down syndrome needs? Would I simply be mocking a handicapped man by sampling his enthusiam for the Giants? It’s hard to say. It seems like exploitation and promotional education should be on opposite ends of a spectrum but, the more I think about it, the more it seems as though these two interpretations lie on either side of a thin line at the center of a spectrum.

I think there’s a weird reliance one develops with the technologies they use on a day-to-day basis. How many people feel complete when they leave their homes without their cell phones? I certainly don’t. I feel disconnected when I can’t instantly Google that odd concept I suddenly became curious about. How would I have casual conversations with friends without text messaging? How will I know what time it is or what my mom’s phone number is? I think leaving my recorder behind will have the same naked effect for me.

I’ve also come to realize that some of the most interesting things I’ve recorded would be some of the most difficult to use in songs. On the one hand, I don’t want to bar the use of anything as that would be out of the spirit of the project but, on the other hand, I don’t want to cause unnecessary problems either. I didn’t really expect the issue of privacy to become so important as I figured most of the issues with privacy would be with my own privacy, in which case I would just stomach it, but I can’t stomach it for other people, and I really have been documenting more than just my own life.

In any case, I figured this little rant was apropos considering how close to the end of the year it is. That’s all.

[Update 1/1/2012: Yup, definitely feels weird to not be recording.]

I also spent a little time mixing all my classical tracks down to flac format. These are lossless, meaning the quality doesn’t diminish when the files are compressed into something that doesn’t take up an enormous amount of space. They’re still bigger than MP3s but not significantly. Seems to me that this is the way everything you find online is going to start going so I’m gonna jump on that train. They’re already widespread in torrents…..

Anyway, I’m considering making flac versions of everything I’ve done and possibly even remixing old songs that I absolutely butchered in my more ignorant days. We’ll see.