Sheer magic on a Friday afternoon

Not the greatest day, as suddenly I am walking with a cane (having wiped out on the stairs and pulled a muscle in my leg). But there's this, and though I have listened to it a thousand times, I still marvel at the delicacy, even tenderness of the musical interpretation. And it's just a bunch of tiny holes punched in an awkward, warped slab of metal. The automatic disc changer sounds like an unoiled garage door - and then the music starts. Pure enchantment, and it ALMOST makes me forget I'm hobbling around on a cane like some little old lady (which, technically at least, I guess I am). I will never understand how these discs were created, and how the creator would have any idea how it sounded. I do not think something like this could be recreated today. As with so many things, the best has been forgotten in the mad race towards technological progress. 

Celestial passions

Lord, how I love these old contraptions! They are musical time machines transporting us back to a simpler, more ingenuous time. This baby must have been a high-status piece of equipment in the Victorian era, like the stereos of the 1960s (when you invited your neighbor over and turned the amplifier up to 11). It amazes me how pristine the sound quality is: I don't think this instrument could be reproduced today to sound any better.