I was poking around the paratexts of someone’s blog when I clicked on their Amazon.com wishlist and immediately noticed that this person has musical tastes similar to mine. I thought, “Hmm. Wouldn’t it be a bad idea for bloggers to publicize their Amazon.com wishlists and list a few CDs they’d like to have, hoping that some reader might contact them and offer to burn them a copy of one of those CDs? Perhaps it would also be a bad idea if that reader were to send the blogger a link to their Amazon.com wishlist to see if the blogger would offer to burn a copy of one of those CDs.”

So whatever you do, do not look at my Amazon.com wishlist to see which CDs I would like to have. And do not email me at ghw[at]wordherders[dot]net to offer to burn me a copy of one of those CDs that you might own in exchange for my burning you a copy of one of my CDs that you might like.

It would just be wrong.

Update: So where did all these musicians come from? They’ve always been there, but because of the way the music industry works, most of us don’t get to hear them. I like popular music well enough, but I also try to find music that’s out of the mainstream. I get recommendations (and gifts) from friends, listen to non-commercial radio stations via the Internet, check out tracks from Epitonic, read and check out tracks from
Pitchforkmedia, look up information on Allmusic, which has a nice “similar artists” function. You can also learn a lot by reading blogs, ya know. Here, let me point you towards this Allmusic entry on a genre of music known as post-rock.