The Entry Level

The enormous sky above Brooklyn's Prospect Park was a dazzling watercolor. Warm, soft shades of yellow, orange, and violet swept across a saturated canvas as the sun slowly dissolved into the horizon and day reluctantly gave way to night. It was the second week of August and, though no one wanted to admit it, the days had become noticeably shorter.

I walked alone through turnstiles that led to the large band shell where thousands of people would congregate for the final night of "Celebrate Brooklyn," a summerlong series of outdoor concerts. This year's season included performances by a wonderfully diverse and talented collection of artists—some obscure, some renowned, all worthwhile: Andrew Bird, Larry Harlow, Animal Collective, Real Estate, The Feelies, Los Lobos, The Bad Plus, Dr. John, and dozens of others.

Before dropping the needle onto Christine's copy of Sold for Prevention of Disease Only, I shot the record a few times with the Milty Zerostat 3 ($100), a blue, gun-shaped gadget that helps eliminate static. Squeezing the Zerostat's thin black trigger releases positive ions; relaxing the trigger produces negative ions. A complete squeeze cycle results in a neutral static condition—one perfectly in balance, neither too heavy nor too light—and my LPs play quietly. This step in my LP-playing routine grew out of necessity and has become a habit. The process is especially important in the cold winter months, when the air in my small apartment is dry, and debris stubbornly clings to my LPs and my cartridge's stylus.

When I began my junior year at Fairleigh Dickinson University, in Teaneck, New Jersey, I'd already fulfilled the main requirements for graduation, but still had a number of credits to put toward elective studies. The courses in yoga and bowling were already closed, so I devised an independent course in experimental music. Thinking about it now, it seems a strange miracle that the university allowed me to come up with such a thing. Fairleigh's music department had long been abandoned, forgotten, traded in for the money that comes with well-publicized investments in business, economics, and a fast-growing foreign-exchange program. To me, however, FDU's decision to neglect the arts was a blessing: There, in the quietest corridors of Weiner Library, was a world full of LPs, turntables, music journals, and more—all a bit dusty, perhaps, but nonetheless beautiful, and all seemingly reserved for me.