Brilliant Corners #28: The McIntosh MC225 and Jerome Sabbagh's Analog Tone Factory
There are things that make me feel so unpleasantly lightheaded that some days I worry my cranium might float away like a helium balloon. Like baby animals generated by AI that I can no longer distinguish from real ones. Skin care for tweens. Headlines about American politics that read like headlines about Turkmenistan. The music of Charli XCX.
And being middle aged. Even the term is a con. At 54, I'm not in the middle of anything, and given the way my back feels in the mornings, the thought of living to 108 fills me with terror. There are things about this stage of life that arrive imperceptibly, and not just the physical frailties. Chief among them is the way one's time on earth begins to feel unsettling and sometimes poignant in its suddenly tangible brevity. Now, when I speak to people in their early 20s, I find myself amazed by their belief that life is brimming with endless possibility and lasts nearly forever. I suppose I might envy them, but I remember being their age and wouldn't relish being that person again.
Fortunately, there's more to middle age than bewilderment at cottagecore and one's worsening nocturia.
And being middle aged. Even the term is a con. At 54, I'm not in the middle of anything, and given the way my back feels in the mornings, the thought of living to 108 fills me with terror. There are things about this stage of life that arrive imperceptibly, and not just the physical frailties. Chief among them is the way one's time on earth begins to feel unsettling and sometimes poignant in its suddenly tangible brevity. Now, when I speak to people in their early 20s, I find myself amazed by their belief that life is brimming with endless possibility and lasts nearly forever. I suppose I might envy them, but I remember being their age and wouldn't relish being that person again.
Fortunately, there's more to middle age than bewilderment at cottagecore and one's worsening nocturia.