I'm reading the other comments of lament and I went the opposite: I left my tiny urban apartment, cramped with shelves of records, DVDs, and books and settled into a suburban home where the records could just have a room to themselves. We built shelves in odd places like stairwells and lofts for the books. However, the DVDs/VHS are in totes, taking up almost half of the attic.
I'm quite the hypocrite when I watch the kids in the playroom and suggest they cull their toys a bit.
Right now I'm staring at a little shelf of 12 VHS tapes that contain the entire run of I'll Fly Away (PBS reruns, actually) that I've never thrown away because I knew NBC would never release it on home video or streaming.
Which is to say, I know how you feel. I have a smaller bin than you did, full of DVDs that I've culled a few times, and I think I'm at the point where everything in it is a keeper. Some of them, I know this physical object is the only way to watch this particular show/movie; others are things readily available on streaming but I like being able to watch it whether or not I have that particular streaming service, or if I'm going to a vacation rental and we want to watch something specific while we're there. And frankly, I don't trust entertainment executives as a class, so I'm prepared for the streaming landscape to change.
The complete dvd set of The Singing Detective? Color me jealous. I still have the VHS set which has served me nicely over the years but I always have the feeling that someday I'll witness the tape spewing wildly out of my antique combo VHD/DVD player never to be viewed again.
As a side note, was there a better TV scriptwriter than Dennis Potter? The Singing D, Pennies From Heaven, et al----and let's not forget to mention his utter loathing for Rupert Murdoch.
How did we all live in the "be kind, rewind" world of VHS? But we did. And that tape scenario is real, at least it certainly was on my old cassettes for music. So many catastrophes was mix tapes, beloved mix tapes, just unspooled and caught and snapped or folded into knots. GAH.
Oh, and yes indeed. Dennis Potter is Hall of Fame great.
I don't pay for a storage unit -- but I essentially have one in my garage, which we remodeled a few years ago, installing a bunch of cabinets along the wall. All of our DVDs are packed in there and I'm 95% certain that there's a copy of "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" somewhere. (When I logged onto Amazon to see if it was still in print -- IT IS! -- Amazon helpfully reminded me that I'd purchased my copy back in 2009.)
I was a huge "Northern Exposure" fan back in the day and the reason I've never rewatched it is due to the fact that I read that there was a rights issue with the original music. With so many of those old TV shows, the music heard during broadcasts has been stripped and replaced by public domain stuff.
Remodeling the garage is a great idea if you need the space because as Rick said above, at some point paying for storage just doesn't work anymore. It wears you down. I have no doubt that you have Andy Richter in there somewhere!
And yes, the Northern Exposure hold up was almost entirely music based. But I'll watch it for sure. I think what made holding them special was you couldn't find it. Now that I know all those episodes are available, for sure I'll watch. I mean, it's been forever.
Regarding books, someone said once that reading and collecting books are two completely different activities. It's true! I am still a sucker for eBooks on sale (luckily that doesn't waste space), but it's a much easier thing to do than actually sit down and read a book! I suspect that is somewhat true for movies and TV, although moreso TV since it's more time consuming to get through even a season. I most related to the DVDs you own that are still in its original plastic. Yup. The dopamine hit of ACQUIRING something nice sometimes doesn't get followed through with actually CONSUMING said object. We're human. We like to hunt and gather.
Yes, I know people who have so many more books than I do (and I have a lot, so maybe I need to go back and edit my response to Rick and admit that I have too many books) and those people are not budging on reducing. They are holding. I get that. Books are comfort. Same as music. That we got it all in one space is at least some admirable progress. My biggest dopamine hit is finding furniture steals. It's the Marge Simpson thing of being so cheap you can't not buy it. A few days after my birthday my present to myself was to "just look" at this place where I get all my good stuff -- they were having their first ever sale of a bulk of things that made up one of their warehouses. I seriously wanted to rent a truck but I figured that would make my "just looking" promise ridiculous. Well, guess what? I probably missed a lot of deals (I had been looking at a lot of things that were "must go" for years, so I knew items immediately on sight and...first day of the four day event I spotted a couch that goes for close to $10K new -- and this one was in great condition -- for $150. Pulled out the phone, called Lugg, had a truck there in 30 minutes. It's now our primary couch (duh) at KBs and one of her kids will I guess get her "old" one. I still feel great about ACQUIRING that for sure. Dopamine rush on the daily.
DESIGN books. Design books and architecture books and big books on typography that have to put, like, one word per page to appreciate the letterforms in the way a Mies van der Rohe retrospective will dedicate 80 pages to a chair (and what a chair it is). They're not 6" x 9" hardback novels, either. Let's format the book to be tall and skinny like the building it's about. A book that has to stand out on the coffee table. Hell, make it bigger than the coffee table itself. But what happens when you have a dozen of them? Do you put them on a really big shelf? Could it fit into a Uhaul TV box?
When we left the US almost seven years ago, I couldn't take all of the books, LPs and art and got a storage unit. Count me as another one "paying for storage what I would eventually consider not worth keeping." It took six and a half years and the thieves that are Public Storage tripling the rent for me to conclude the unit had to be cleaned out and shut down. It absolutely was not easy, emotionally, to let go of decades of collecting things that meant so much, but it had to be done. A friend who is an experienced reseller sold the LPs and books that he didn't keep for himself.
It actually feels good to let go and not have so many possessions. You feel lighter, as someone else here already said.
But damn, if I had a copy of Andy Richter Controls The Universe, I would happily watch it again. That's quite a collection you have there.
This is really my only collection of things (other than furniture, and there's a finite number of what you can get and keep there....I'm still sad I can't have ALL the chairs) and the DVDs used to be much, much larger. But I'm a minimalist through and through, so I keep things pretty curated in my life (yes, even the furniture...although, sometimes at these big sales where stuff is going at ridiculous prices, it's very hard to resist) has served me well and I do feel lighter. KB and I have been reducing tons of clutter forever it seems. I'm with you in that at some point, especially these days, I looked at the cost of keeping shit in storage and said, "Enough." I'm proud of winnowing things down through the years and this year especially. Something very satisfying about getting it all out a day or so before the month starts. I can spend that money on wine, or just living, now.
Oh yeah - being old (and thus somewhat old-school - I love the physical media. Given that I had to leave my 300+ LPs, speakers, turntable and amp in LA when I retired (no room here, and I found an eager recipients for all), they -- whoever "they" are -- will have to pull my CDs and DVDs from my cold, dead, arthritic hands...
Streaming is fine, but I just like to have a few ... okay, more than a few ... old faves and classics like "Lady from Shanghai" at my fingertips.
Of course, I too have redundancies -- several DVDs of "Touch of Evil" and "Bladerunner," among other duplicates, and yeah "The Singing Detective," and of course box sets of "The Wire," "Breaking Bad," and "Southland."
BTW (slight digression here): I'm wondering if you've seen both versions of "Touch of Evil" -- the orginal theatrical release which was edited without Welle's supervison, and the Walter Much re-edit that was done following the 53 or so pages of editing notes Welles left for the studio editor, which were ignored -- and if you have seen both, what did you think? I like both versions, but for different reasons.
I know ... when I finally shuffle off this mortal coil, I'll have left a dumpster fire of ancient media for some unlucky person to pick through, most of which will probably end up like me, in a land fill of one sort or another. Dust to dust, the good book says ... or was that "Kansas"?
No, I had no idea that there were two versions of Touch of Evil, so that tells you something.
I do regret -- well after the fact of course, not back then -- of dumping my album collection. Yikes. What that would be worth now.
We were talking a little bit about what you're alluding to with "Lady from Shanghai" -- that some nights it will be great to not spend hours thinking about what to watch, but just seeing it on the shelf and saying, ah, yes, that. Perfect. And in it goes.
Do not throw out that copy of The Singing Detective! Michael Gambon rules and the music/dance numbers are terrific. Interesting fact: all the incidental music (i.e. what we hear, not the characters) was free library music, not composed for the series. The psychological story is devastating as it unwinds and the shoiw has stayed with me since I saw it back in the day. Episodes on YouTube.
Oh, trust me, I'm holding onto it and we are rewatching it on high priority soon. It's been a long time since I saw it. I love the incidental music stuff -- that's how you stay out of court! At least one way to make a show come in on budget.
Tim, you'd be surprised how many people look for those out-of-order TV season sets and movies on DVD. Yes, it's true that many of them aren't worth more than a few dollars, but there ARE some worth more than that (I'm speaking as a part-time reseller who was surprised to learn this myself). You wondered if there are completists: hell yeah, there are! Plenty of DVD purists are out there who'd like to complete their collections, or who are just interested in the one-off oddballs — heck, I'd buy that Felix the Cat DVD off you! :-) There are many places to donate them too, as I know you know, but it's worth reminding anyone else who's also overburdened with a tower of physical media & doesn't happen to have a moneymaker in their inventory. (As far as books go, to anyone who reads this: unless you have anything printed before the early 1900s, feel free to pass them on as well — hospitals often take books and sometimes DVDs, as do local libraries & thrift shops that use them for fundraisers). Myself, I still can't decide if I should part with my complete DVD series of The X-Files. It used to mean so much to me, but now, you know, YouTube. I think I may have to take a page out of your book, Tim, and take on the Physical Media Project myself. It's way past time. (Don't even get me started about my VHS tapes...)
Oh, well this gives me some hope, or at least hope to pass on to my daughter if she decides to take it up. I could make a good case for keeping that X-Files collection, easy.
And are there other places to donate them to as well, or are those the best you'd recommend? I have a feeling a bunch will be left over. There were so many that were just critic screeners and not actually boxed that I was surprised I still had, spilling out all over. A ton of PBS/Masterpiece Theater ones, rolling round the garage...
I ripped most of my music collection and traded files with a group of friends who worked with me at a music distributor. Still have the ads plus a stack of VHS tapes despite not having a VHS deck for at least 15 years.
FYI-Monty Python and the Holy Grail is in theaters for a special run for it's 50th anniversary. We saw it on Sunday and I'm so happy.
One of my better days in Hollywood was on a small crew filming John Cleese do a few costume-and-comedy routines for some long forgotten German production. He ate lunch with us -- no "star trailer" for John Cleese -- so there I sat right across the table from him as he told stories of working on "Life of Brian" and "Holy Grail." That was big fun. He's such a pro, a real gentleman, and one ridiculously funny guy.
I'm reading the other comments of lament and I went the opposite: I left my tiny urban apartment, cramped with shelves of records, DVDs, and books and settled into a suburban home where the records could just have a room to themselves. We built shelves in odd places like stairwells and lofts for the books. However, the DVDs/VHS are in totes, taking up almost half of the attic.
I'm quite the hypocrite when I watch the kids in the playroom and suggest they cull their toys a bit.
Right now I'm staring at a little shelf of 12 VHS tapes that contain the entire run of I'll Fly Away (PBS reruns, actually) that I've never thrown away because I knew NBC would never release it on home video or streaming.
Which is to say, I know how you feel. I have a smaller bin than you did, full of DVDs that I've culled a few times, and I think I'm at the point where everything in it is a keeper. Some of them, I know this physical object is the only way to watch this particular show/movie; others are things readily available on streaming but I like being able to watch it whether or not I have that particular streaming service, or if I'm going to a vacation rental and we want to watch something specific while we're there. And frankly, I don't trust entertainment executives as a class, so I'm prepared for the streaming landscape to change.
The complete dvd set of The Singing Detective? Color me jealous. I still have the VHS set which has served me nicely over the years but I always have the feeling that someday I'll witness the tape spewing wildly out of my antique combo VHD/DVD player never to be viewed again.
As a side note, was there a better TV scriptwriter than Dennis Potter? The Singing D, Pennies From Heaven, et al----and let's not forget to mention his utter loathing for Rupert Murdoch.
How did we all live in the "be kind, rewind" world of VHS? But we did. And that tape scenario is real, at least it certainly was on my old cassettes for music. So many catastrophes was mix tapes, beloved mix tapes, just unspooled and caught and snapped or folded into knots. GAH.
Oh, and yes indeed. Dennis Potter is Hall of Fame great.
I don't pay for a storage unit -- but I essentially have one in my garage, which we remodeled a few years ago, installing a bunch of cabinets along the wall. All of our DVDs are packed in there and I'm 95% certain that there's a copy of "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" somewhere. (When I logged onto Amazon to see if it was still in print -- IT IS! -- Amazon helpfully reminded me that I'd purchased my copy back in 2009.)
I was a huge "Northern Exposure" fan back in the day and the reason I've never rewatched it is due to the fact that I read that there was a rights issue with the original music. With so many of those old TV shows, the music heard during broadcasts has been stripped and replaced by public domain stuff.
Remodeling the garage is a great idea if you need the space because as Rick said above, at some point paying for storage just doesn't work anymore. It wears you down. I have no doubt that you have Andy Richter in there somewhere!
And yes, the Northern Exposure hold up was almost entirely music based. But I'll watch it for sure. I think what made holding them special was you couldn't find it. Now that I know all those episodes are available, for sure I'll watch. I mean, it's been forever.
Regarding books, someone said once that reading and collecting books are two completely different activities. It's true! I am still a sucker for eBooks on sale (luckily that doesn't waste space), but it's a much easier thing to do than actually sit down and read a book! I suspect that is somewhat true for movies and TV, although moreso TV since it's more time consuming to get through even a season. I most related to the DVDs you own that are still in its original plastic. Yup. The dopamine hit of ACQUIRING something nice sometimes doesn't get followed through with actually CONSUMING said object. We're human. We like to hunt and gather.
Yes, I know people who have so many more books than I do (and I have a lot, so maybe I need to go back and edit my response to Rick and admit that I have too many books) and those people are not budging on reducing. They are holding. I get that. Books are comfort. Same as music. That we got it all in one space is at least some admirable progress. My biggest dopamine hit is finding furniture steals. It's the Marge Simpson thing of being so cheap you can't not buy it. A few days after my birthday my present to myself was to "just look" at this place where I get all my good stuff -- they were having their first ever sale of a bulk of things that made up one of their warehouses. I seriously wanted to rent a truck but I figured that would make my "just looking" promise ridiculous. Well, guess what? I probably missed a lot of deals (I had been looking at a lot of things that were "must go" for years, so I knew items immediately on sight and...first day of the four day event I spotted a couch that goes for close to $10K new -- and this one was in great condition -- for $150. Pulled out the phone, called Lugg, had a truck there in 30 minutes. It's now our primary couch (duh) at KBs and one of her kids will I guess get her "old" one. I still feel great about ACQUIRING that for sure. Dopamine rush on the daily.
And you know what's worse than regular ol' books?
DESIGN books. Design books and architecture books and big books on typography that have to put, like, one word per page to appreciate the letterforms in the way a Mies van der Rohe retrospective will dedicate 80 pages to a chair (and what a chair it is). They're not 6" x 9" hardback novels, either. Let's format the book to be tall and skinny like the building it's about. A book that has to stand out on the coffee table. Hell, make it bigger than the coffee table itself. But what happens when you have a dozen of them? Do you put them on a really big shelf? Could it fit into a Uhaul TV box?
Moving these books is obviously the hangover.
Laughing. Yep, I’ve got a number of those. Hard to box. Hard to carry. And yet — worth it!
When we left the US almost seven years ago, I couldn't take all of the books, LPs and art and got a storage unit. Count me as another one "paying for storage what I would eventually consider not worth keeping." It took six and a half years and the thieves that are Public Storage tripling the rent for me to conclude the unit had to be cleaned out and shut down. It absolutely was not easy, emotionally, to let go of decades of collecting things that meant so much, but it had to be done. A friend who is an experienced reseller sold the LPs and books that he didn't keep for himself.
It actually feels good to let go and not have so many possessions. You feel lighter, as someone else here already said.
But damn, if I had a copy of Andy Richter Controls The Universe, I would happily watch it again. That's quite a collection you have there.
This is really my only collection of things (other than furniture, and there's a finite number of what you can get and keep there....I'm still sad I can't have ALL the chairs) and the DVDs used to be much, much larger. But I'm a minimalist through and through, so I keep things pretty curated in my life (yes, even the furniture...although, sometimes at these big sales where stuff is going at ridiculous prices, it's very hard to resist) has served me well and I do feel lighter. KB and I have been reducing tons of clutter forever it seems. I'm with you in that at some point, especially these days, I looked at the cost of keeping shit in storage and said, "Enough." I'm proud of winnowing things down through the years and this year especially. Something very satisfying about getting it all out a day or so before the month starts. I can spend that money on wine, or just living, now.
Oh yeah - being old (and thus somewhat old-school - I love the physical media. Given that I had to leave my 300+ LPs, speakers, turntable and amp in LA when I retired (no room here, and I found an eager recipients for all), they -- whoever "they" are -- will have to pull my CDs and DVDs from my cold, dead, arthritic hands...
Streaming is fine, but I just like to have a few ... okay, more than a few ... old faves and classics like "Lady from Shanghai" at my fingertips.
Of course, I too have redundancies -- several DVDs of "Touch of Evil" and "Bladerunner," among other duplicates, and yeah "The Singing Detective," and of course box sets of "The Wire," "Breaking Bad," and "Southland."
BTW (slight digression here): I'm wondering if you've seen both versions of "Touch of Evil" -- the orginal theatrical release which was edited without Welle's supervison, and the Walter Much re-edit that was done following the 53 or so pages of editing notes Welles left for the studio editor, which were ignored -- and if you have seen both, what did you think? I like both versions, but for different reasons.
I know ... when I finally shuffle off this mortal coil, I'll have left a dumpster fire of ancient media for some unlucky person to pick through, most of which will probably end up like me, in a land fill of one sort or another. Dust to dust, the good book says ... or was that "Kansas"?
Onward, into the mist...
No, I had no idea that there were two versions of Touch of Evil, so that tells you something.
I do regret -- well after the fact of course, not back then -- of dumping my album collection. Yikes. What that would be worth now.
We were talking a little bit about what you're alluding to with "Lady from Shanghai" -- that some nights it will be great to not spend hours thinking about what to watch, but just seeing it on the shelf and saying, ah, yes, that. Perfect. And in it goes.
Do not throw out that copy of The Singing Detective! Michael Gambon rules and the music/dance numbers are terrific. Interesting fact: all the incidental music (i.e. what we hear, not the characters) was free library music, not composed for the series. The psychological story is devastating as it unwinds and the shoiw has stayed with me since I saw it back in the day. Episodes on YouTube.
Oh, trust me, I'm holding onto it and we are rewatching it on high priority soon. It's been a long time since I saw it. I love the incidental music stuff -- that's how you stay out of court! At least one way to make a show come in on budget.
Some might say this is on the list of The Greatest Things Ever On TV. I would be part of that Some.
It definitely is.
Tim, you'd be surprised how many people look for those out-of-order TV season sets and movies on DVD. Yes, it's true that many of them aren't worth more than a few dollars, but there ARE some worth more than that (I'm speaking as a part-time reseller who was surprised to learn this myself). You wondered if there are completists: hell yeah, there are! Plenty of DVD purists are out there who'd like to complete their collections, or who are just interested in the one-off oddballs — heck, I'd buy that Felix the Cat DVD off you! :-) There are many places to donate them too, as I know you know, but it's worth reminding anyone else who's also overburdened with a tower of physical media & doesn't happen to have a moneymaker in their inventory. (As far as books go, to anyone who reads this: unless you have anything printed before the early 1900s, feel free to pass them on as well — hospitals often take books and sometimes DVDs, as do local libraries & thrift shops that use them for fundraisers). Myself, I still can't decide if I should part with my complete DVD series of The X-Files. It used to mean so much to me, but now, you know, YouTube. I think I may have to take a page out of your book, Tim, and take on the Physical Media Project myself. It's way past time. (Don't even get me started about my VHS tapes...)
Yes, I found this flea market YouTuber that flips things on eBay and he says TV seasons on DVD always sell well.
Oh, well this gives me some hope, or at least hope to pass on to my daughter if she decides to take it up. I could make a good case for keeping that X-Files collection, easy.
And are there other places to donate them to as well, or are those the best you'd recommend? I have a feeling a bunch will be left over. There were so many that were just critic screeners and not actually boxed that I was surprised I still had, spilling out all over. A ton of PBS/Masterpiece Theater ones, rolling round the garage...
I ripped most of my music collection and traded files with a group of friends who worked with me at a music distributor. Still have the ads plus a stack of VHS tapes despite not having a VHS deck for at least 15 years.
FYI-Monty Python and the Holy Grail is in theaters for a special run for it's 50th anniversary. We saw it on Sunday and I'm so happy.
Oh, I really need to see that MP Holy Grail movie in theaters! No doubt I will be unbearable around the house for weeks after, but I need to see it.
One of my better days in Hollywood was on a small crew filming John Cleese do a few costume-and-comedy routines for some long forgotten German production. He ate lunch with us -- no "star trailer" for John Cleese -- so there I sat right across the table from him as he told stories of working on "Life of Brian" and "Holy Grail." That was big fun. He's such a pro, a real gentleman, and one ridiculously funny guy.
This Wednesday around the country. It was awesome.
Fellow VHS-tape hoarder, I empathize. ;-)
I had exactly one in the pile: An Eames movie. Definitely keeping it.
I've gotten rid of my hard media a long long time ago. I travel really light. LOL
There are definite advantages to THAT, no doubt.