The vinyl I didn't buy

Yesterday I was at my favorite library and was about to buy Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert vinyl. I resisted the temptation and put it down. Here’s the problem: I don’t have a turntable. Part of me is convinced that certain fundamental vinyls are worth having, no matter what. They’re just beautiful artifacts (and TKC happens to be one of the finest). And then there’s the fact that albums such as this one, I feel they really made me, very much like the books I read. The famous Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote: “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” I feel it holds for selected music too. Last September, I took Serena to see Calibro 35 perform live. She didn’t know them, and she was instantly in awe. At the end of the concert, I suggested we buy their album, right there at the booth (I already owned it in digital). She declined on the grounds that we don’t have a turntable, and I argued that the vinyl would be a memento of…