Pedalphilia

Have to be careful calling myself a pedalphile, easily misconstrued, that one. I can’t say that I’ve developed a full-blown case of effects pedal obsession, but repeat viewings of “That Pedal Show” and other analog gear demos have me more and more interested in setting up an analog pedalboard. I’ve dipped my toes back into the analog world a bit since I switched to fee basis three years ago (actually as of yesterday, I think). I got the Hughes & Kettner Grandmeister 40 and a 65 Amps 1x12 cab a while back and later added the Strymon Blue Sky Reverb pedal. I finally got to the top of the Analog Man Tone King waiting list a few weeks ago, and so I’ve added that pedal as well.

I’m taking a serious look at getting a regular pedalboard and using the G2 switching system. I’ll likely add a few more pedals to the arsenal - distortion, compressor, tuner, modulation and maybe some wild cards. I’ve also given serious thought into getting a few more amp heads, likely in the low wattage range. There are great examples of these from most amp manufacturers. I’ve had my eyes on ones from Mesa, Friedman, and a few others. Of course, all this falls squarely into the “don’t need, just want” category, which describes most of my music gear. I’m not going to pull the trigger on this stuff too soon, but it’s fun to strategize and daydream.

I’ve been okay this week on DTD, although my only writing work has been this journal, which, although it might benefit me on a general level, isn’t furthering the craft by much. I need to get back into my lessons. It’s been a few days since my last drink, after skipping Sunday due to the Saturday hangover, I had the last two beers on Monday. Ironically, I had one of those early wakeups on Wednesday morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I knocked out my Korean study and drawing practice and completed the rest of the disciplines after work, except for bass. My elbows were aching a bit, and Aeyong had wanted to fry up some shrimp, so the cumulative standing including work had my back tired and I decided to chill afterward. All that to say I’ve been noticing the gradual improvement in health and well being. I ran for the first time in a few weeks yesterday, which always gives a greater boost to the mood and energy. We did some extra dry goods stocking up at Sam’s yesterday, just in case there is some kind of run on groceries with the Coronavirus panic.

I’ve neglected the Victorian house reading for several days, but I’ve been enjoying Dracula. The language is a novelty and it’s interesting just how much conversation patterns and language can change over the course of a hundred years. This is assuming that people actually talked like they do in this book, which does display a mixture of dialects and patterns, especially between the more educated main characters and the working-class side characters. The language of the cultural elite can be so flowery and expositional, as though the act of speaking was an art unto itself. This is a huge contrast to the Korean language I’ve been studying. It’s very direct and economical.

For example, in Bram Stoker’s England, a character might take an entire paragraph to greet a friend or colleague and invite them to lunch or for a drink. “My esteemed colleague, a many of many letters and degrees, who so loved the learned halls of Cambridge, and yay, in those days did draft many a treatise and manifesto for the impressionable young minds of London, gathering the wisdom of the ages and the world and imparting his considerable and acute thoughts in service of the betterment of the commonwealth, it was to he that I beseeched for the honor of an evening repast and a leisurely commiseration of days gone by over brandy and cigars…blah blah blah….”. In Korean, this would go - 안녕하세요, 브랜디 마시고싶어요? Which is translated as “Hello, do you want to drink some brandy?” Actually, it literally means “Hello, brandy drink want?” Romanized it sounds like - “Annyonghaseyo, mashigo ship oh yo? The tense is off there, but the gist is the same.

This is a bit of an extreme example since almost no modern speakers add all the filler material to a conversation, and in English, we will often ask “Hey, do you want to get a beer?” In Korean, this would be more like “Beer, drink?” or Maekju mashilay? All the pronouns, direct objects, conjunctions, prepositions, etc. are typically implied and only the most critical words are included. Still, it’s an interesting experience to study Korean and then read Dracula and other period fiction. Such a difference in culture and frames of reference.