{"id":6627,"date":"2017-08-28T15:21:25","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T20:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/?p=6627"},"modified":"2017-08-28T15:21:25","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T20:21:25","slug":"cannot-believe-i-used-to-look-like-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2017\/08\/28\/cannot-believe-i-used-to-look-like-this.html","title":{"rendered":"Cannot Believe I Used To Look Like This"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tWhile scrubbing off my “Who Is<\/em> Mark Thomas?”<\/a>\u00a0page I clicked through to this link<\/a>, which sent me to a scan of an article from the first time I was in the New York Times<\/em>. I do not remember the last time I saw this picture. I cannot believe I used to look like this. And this is when I was at corporate, when you’d think I might have carried myself with a little more sartorial and hair-related decorum.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>

I used to look like this.<\/p><\/div>\n

Renovating my contact page<\/a> turned out to be something of a depressing chore. I don’t like looking at or reading about myself, and there is something particularly melancholy about reading comments I made on the so-called Record when I have no memory of saying them. I’ve found writing and music of mine which I had no memory of creating but I actually like that sort of quasi-discovery. I’d like to think it is to be expected given my intermittent periods of prolificness. But in other contexts it feels like I am bumbling and stumbling through this life, not aware of my surroundings or actions.<\/p>\n

It’s actually a really cool picture, though, even if I do not recognize the person pictured. The photographer and I happened to have graduated from the same college. When we made this discovery she asked me, timidly, “Did you like it there?” I smirked and replied “No.” “I didn’t, either,” was her reply. I don’t think anyone had ever asked me that. We did not talk about college much more but it was somewhat gratifying to know I was not alone in feeling ambivalent at best about those 4 years. There were good times, of course, particularly in at the radio station. But for the most part I passed through those years feeling like I just wanted to get them over with.<\/p>\n

The photo shoot for that story lasted something like 4 hours. After all those hours the picture published was one of the very first ones taken. It was on the 36th Avenue N train platform with the Citi Building in Long Island City lurking somewhat anonymously in the background. I might have looked for passable images which used a coin-fed payphone versus the credit card type but it’s all good. The photographer gave me a piece of advice I’ve always remembered: When doing an extended outdoor photo shoot you should always overdress. She also made a comment that I’ve since repeated to others. Regarding her then-recent move from film to digital she said that in the end it only changes how<\/em> you shoot. It doesn’t change\u00a0what<\/em> you shoot.<\/p>\n

I am trying for serenity in my mind. I can’t always achieve it but I’ve taken to less long walks and more time here at the desk. I need to start recording again and to that end it appears I will be in receipt of a new field recorder at a pretty generous discount. I had thought about sending the old Sony PCM-D50 in for repairs but an e-mail correspondence with Sony revealed that they no longer had parts to fix the D50. Instead of sending the D50 in they offered a discount on the D100. It’s not exactly a blockbuster discount but I’ll take it. All in all for the price I think I’m spending only a little bit more than what it might have cost to fix the D50, and it comes with all the accessories. I still was weighing a choice between the D100 and the latest Tascam recorders but in the end the Sony had one feature that was the dealmaker: A wireless remote. The others I looked at had wired remotes — if they had any remotes at all. This is interesting, right?\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While scrubbing off my “Who Is Mark Thomas?”\u00a0page I clicked through to this link, which sent me to a scan of an article from the first time I was in the New York Times. I do not remember the last time I saw this picture. I cannot believe I used to look like this. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flashback","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/i-used-to-look-like-this-1.jpg?fit=436%2C333&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-1IT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}