Waxing poetic about my records and turntable

Music in the streaming age is weightless. It reaches you through the aether from servers thousands of miles away into whatever speaker happens to be nearby. It seems almost infinite, is completely free of friction, and incredibly easy to take for granted. I recently bought a record player and my first three records, with plans to buy more. To anyone used to tapping a glass screen to hear any song ever recorded, this looks like too much work to listen to a limited number of tunes. Records are bulky, inconvenient, require physical storage, and only hold about twenty minutes of music per side before you have to get up and flip them over. Yet, much like taking the time to manually grind whole coffee beans instead of stirring instant powder into boiling water, the friction adds to its appeal. The instant coffee vs. freshly brewed coffee analogy breaks down when it comes to quality though. Any coffee connoisseur will say brewed coffee tastes better than instant (due to a variety of…