CLAIRE de LUNE
The British stand-up comedian Stewart Lee has a bit in which he grumbles that the internet has ruined record shopping. For him, it was all about the thrill of the chase. He cherished the romantic notion of rifling through the bins in some dusty store run by a cantankerous old git in the hope that a long yearned-for gem would suddenly present itself, like happening across buried treasure. Technology has made this journey feel less magical, as it’s now possible to tap the title of a record into a search engine and have it mailed to you overnight. It’s practical, yes, but you lose the feeling of having grappled for this art – of proffering some basic physical exertion that, in some miniscule way, might mirror the exertions the artist undertook in the sublime act of creation. Some might argue that this brave new world allows for inclusivity and diversity. Everyone can see and hear everything instantly. But those people have never taken two trains and a bus in the hope that they might score some discounted Steely Dan rarities at a village record fair.
I had a similar relationship with film in the 1990s and early 2000s. Even though I concede that home media and digital streaming have allowed me to sample was a watershed moment for me – a private screen epiphany that altered my outlook on the function, application and emotive capacity of art. At that time, there were only five terrestrial TV channels and, consequently, a smaller lot of broadcasting real estate had to cater to a far more expansive range of tastes. For a teenager forcibly attempting to broaden his horizons, Channel 4’s after hours programming slots – allied with a gift for being able to function the timer on an Aiwa VHS recorder – meant that a small bounty of subtitled foreign language cinema was mine for the taking.
