As you will surmise from the title, this is the third in a series of laments over the digitization of our music, the movement from sound associated with something tangible, the vinyl record or compact disc, to the intangible, mere sounds captured in a digital and portable format. Today I'm sad over the loss of tangible objects --- sound recordings --- which embody and hold particular and rich memories.

Lately my listening has focused on a favorite singer-songwriter of the Seventies, Jackson Browne. I need not remind you of Browne's talent. Listen to The Pretender, a record that qualifies for my Essential Listening roster (check out the sidebar). I can go on about Browne's talent some other time, but today I'm interested in the record as an object, or artifact, something which embodies and holds cultural memories. Now some memories are more important than others, meaning some artifacts are more culturally important than others, but for each of us our own private artifacts serve an important role in preserving memories and, with memory, a sense of God's providence, His outworking of a good plan in our lives.

But on to the memory. It's 1976 and I'm enrolled in an institution of higher learning here in the South. Since ninth grade I've been collecting records, trading records, and listening to records (the vinyl ones). And so this freshman, though without much in the way of other possessions, lugged a record collection of around 300 albums with me to college, one of which was Jackson Browne's The Pretender. I shared the record with a girl I met that year, and she asked if she could borrow it to listen to with her roommates --- four other freshmen girls. Reluctant as I was to part with it, I did, as I would have done anything to endear myself to these women. Two weeks later I'm invited for a meal. The record is playing, and Karen advises that it has been playing non-stop for two weeks and "thank youe SO much for loaning it to us." When the record stops, I lift it to turn it to the other side, and I swear I could see through the record it was so badly worn! I restored it to the turntable, left it, dated one of the women for a few months, had a hot date with two of them after which they lectured me on the proper way to treat women, and have never, never seen any of them ever again. That goes for my Jackson Browne record as well. I replaced the vinyl with CD, and every time I pick up that jewelcase and look at that cover, I'm reminded of all that and more, not just events, but people, feelings, even conversations. And my then poor, sad love life.

But that's not the end of my experience with Jackson Browne records. Fast forward to law school. I'm a first year student living with a first year medical student and first year MBA student. One day I'm devastated to learn that Hold Out, a later Jackson Browne record, is badly warped and unplayable. (Well, you can play it, but Browne sounds like he's yodeling on it.) I have an idea. I take the record into the kitchen. I heat the oven to 250. I figure I'll warm it up and bend it back to shape. By the way, this probably ranks up there with one of the stupidest things I have ever, ever done. (But then, I'm a lawyer, not a rocket scientist.) I fried my Jackson Browne record that day. I had a mess to clean up in the oven. And it seemed like such a brillant plan. So, every time I see Hold Out (#2), I have to smile, and all the embarrassment of that moment (can you be embarassed when no one is around to see it?) comes back. I remember my roommates, studying for the Bar exam, my smallish room, and my fishbowl of a world, all because I have a tangible artifact that carries those memories. I can still smell that cooking record.

In one of his last memoirs, entitled The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found, Frederick Buechner takes us into his library, the place where he writes, the place that holds his memories. Using the books, photographs, and memorabilia of the room, he takes us on a journey through his life, inviting long-dead family members and friends in for discussions, ruminating on the meaning of life, and relishing the grace God has shown to him. He calls his memory room The Magic Kingdom, his haven and sanctuary:

What is magic about the Magic Kingdom is that if you look at it through the right pair of eyes it points to a kingdom more magic still that comes down out of heaven adorned as a bride adorned for her husband. The one who sits upon its throne says, "Behold, I make all things new," and the streets of it are of gold like unto clear glass, and each of its gates is a single pearl.

I guess that's what I'm doing now, building a Magic Kingdom of artifacts brimming with memories, reminders of a time and place I once inhabited, and promises of a future Kingdom. And I need more than an IPod full of disembodied sounds to do that. I need the real thing.