12.10.2008

The Mighty Blowhole Guide to Vinyl Preservation

He-ey Everybody!

There's a right way and a wrong way to store your beautiful records. Then there is the Mighty Blowhole way... Consider this scenario - Late at night, everything is quiet, and you're blissfully asleep, then... BAM! The living room bursts into flames and your record collection is in peril!

At great risk, you would have to brave the flames attempting to retrieve your wonderful collection! And probably miss one or two LPs on the way out!
... Let me tell you, this possibility does not sit well with us here at Mighty Blowhole and so we present to you, faithful reader, our solution to this horrific problem...

You need to have the right tools, people...hole diggers, box tape, and plastic bags. Pick out a suitable place in your yard that is free from most major catastrophes. This is what you would call the 'safest part of the yard.'
Using your hole-diggers, proceed to dig a decent-sized hole in the 'safest part of the yard.'

The many features of a well dug hole are shown above. Try to duplicate this when creating your own hole. Don't forget to put some gravel in to help with drainage! With a hole properly dug, it is time to prepare the precious records for safe-keeping. You'll need to have your plastic bags and boxtape at the ready.

Carefully double bag each record and use plenty of box tape all around the seam.

Continue wrapping your precious vinyl and place into the storage box and close tightly. Try to use a box that will resist all known corrosion and temperature extremes. This will assist in preserving the wonderful records.

A critical finishing step is enveloping your wondrous collection in a large garbage bag; it has the added advantage of hiding the true shape of the box. For optimum protection, make sure the open end of the bag is twisted shut and all balled up. The all balled up part is very important, don't skip that part!


To help relieve any shock effects from natural or unnatural catastrophes you should simply drizzle fine rock over your sublime vinyl until it is completely buried.

(For Advanced Archivists only) Place a cat on top of the dirt mound to help mark the storage location. Refer back to the cat as needed to provide clear direction during any retrieval process. Cats are known to move from place to place (a security feature that obscures the true location of the vinyl), but will always return back to the same spot.
We hope this guide to vinyl preservation has been helpful!

12.08.2008

Recommended reading...

Black Hole - Charles Burns

This striking + powerful graphic novel was originally released in comic book form, over an agonizing ten-year span. Waiting for each new issue was always frustrating... and always rewarding. Presented in a very stark black and white, Black Hole eerily implies a John Hughes teen-flick script rewritten + produced by David Lynch and directed by Tod Browning. Heavy use of black on the pages and thick lines reminiscent of scratchboard add uneasy weight to Burns' story as it rounds the curve into full-fledged horror.

It's the '70s in suburban Washington state and the teenagers are being suburban teens: hanging out, screwing, getting loaded... catching a sexually-transmitted disease that causes (usually grotesque) physical mutations. An excellent metaphor for the isolation + alienation of teen angst, these physical changes make runaways + outcasts of the afflicted teens. And there's no cure. And then... murder.

Now being adapted to film, with director David Fincher and Brad Pitt as producer. Neil Gaiman was working on the screenplay, but has reportedly now left the project. I've heard no word on Burns' level of involvement or his thoughts on the film adaptation... the people involved have done some great stuff in their careers, but that's no guarantee. Hopefully, Burns is getting a great payday from it!

Check out the artwork here!




Unrelated note: Pin-up queen Betty Page has been hospitalized after an apparent heart attack!
More here

12.03.2008

Carving the bird...



Please enjoy the pictures in this post, which show the damage to my windshield incurred in my car's head-on collision with a hawk in mid-dive. We were coming home from visiting family in Mississippi and, roughly 50 miles before we got to Tuscaloosa, POW!