Saving things for best

[David Ayers]

Maybe your parents or grandparents did it, maybe you do - stuff you 'save for best' and as a consequence never use. Sometimes its clothing, sometimes the best crockery and cutlery. I'm guessing the habit usually has an economic component...but not only. I was thinking about recordings I have saved for best. Not so much the unopened Mosaics because they are a big commitment so some I never got round to. But I have some others, four I think. There are two double LPs of Cecil Taylor on tour in Europe, Bologna and Vienna I think. Since I attended the Rome concert I saved the records for later and that special moment never comes. The other two are Japanese CD releases, one with Bailey and Hano,the other with Haino and Brotzmann. They were so hard to find at the time, and so pristine-looking when I got them, that I 'saved them for best' and to this day haven't removed the cellophane. Ahem.

What have you saved for best, music or otherwise?

[xybert]

After being caught out a couple of times where i had to go to a fancy-ish shindig and had 'nothing to wear' (i.e. nothing suitably dressy enough), i purchased a really nice and expensive jacket that i keep in the closet in case i need it for an event of some sort. Of course, i never need it, and it's so nice/expensive that i'm terrified to wear it anywhere 'normal' in case it gets damaged. So there it sits. But hey, it'll all be worth it if when i get invited to anything!

Music wise, i have a habit of buying new/sealed copies of albums that i already have second hand copies of. I guess it comes from the paranoia that, although they play fine, the second hand copies might conk out one day and then where will i be? Sometimes the new/sealed versions have new masterings and unreleased tracks that i will never hear because i want to keep it new/sealed. I'll also buy box sets when i have all the material aside from some unreleased tracks or alt takes, but keep the box sealed... so that it's kept nice... for when i need it... ummm... I always knew that it was kind of dumb, but as the years fly by i increasingly, painfully see the pointlessness of it, for so many reasons.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I have a very dark grey, almost black, suit I keep for best, and a pair of black shoes. I won't say I NEVER wear it, because I wore it to two funerals, but the more seldom I have to wear it, the happier I am.

On music, because of the tendency of K7s to get buggered up or filthy, I've frequently bought second copies, to be brought out when this happens. Trouble is, they're all in a big wooden box in the garage, under a pile of other stuff so big I'm certain I'll never get them out. Well, that's what garages are for, ain't it?

MG

[paul secor]

As far as music goes, I have a small pile of recordings that I haven't listened to yet. I usually save certain unlistened to recordings for a time when it seems right. Usually that's not for too long because I don't want to let things pile up.

The one time I can think of that I did save something was Doug Sahm's last recording, The Return of Wayne Douglas. It was issued after he passed and I held off listening to it for a year or so. I think I just didn't want to let go. As for clothing, etc., I wear it or use it as needed. No saving there. (Although we do have dishes that are used on special occasions, not everyday. So I guess that counts as a saved thing.)

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Oh yeah, we have crockery we don't use. It's not the best, though, because I insist on using the best until we reach the not best (then work down the pile until the dishwasher's full - we haven't got a lot of best ). But the stuff at the bottom of the not best tends not to get used ever nowadays.

MG

[ejp626]

Not me, but I heard of an English professor (at U Toronto?) who was saving Jane Austen's Emma -- for his deathbed perhaps.

I generally don't think in those terms, though I certainly do have a moderate pile of CDs and a huge pile of DVDs I haven't gotten around to yet...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

6 hours ago, ejp626 said:

Not me, but I heard of an English professor (at U Toronto?) who was saving Jane Austen's Emma -- for his deathbed perhaps.

I generally don't think in those terms, though I certainly do have a moderate pile of CDs and a huge pile of DVDs I haven't gotten around to yet...

Now that's just mind-blowing! What, I have to ask myself, does he think he'll feel like if he dies halfway through chapter six?

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

My grandparents (in Ireland) kept their front room 'for best'. They lived in the kitchen. Quite common at that time, as much to do with heating costs as anything else, I imagine. 

My parents had various things 'for best' like a huge set of crockery they brought back from Singapore. It was still something expected then. My father was obsessed in his last years as to who would inherit it (I happily allowed another sibling to take it!)! 

I don't think I keep anything 'for best' (I do have a jacket I only use for formal occasions; though as I no longer have to do parents' evenings I doubt that it will get much use). I tend to associate the idea of 'for best' with an older world (I may not have lived the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle of the Sixties but I embraced the informality wholesale); however, I'm still cursed by the Depression/Post War Austerity outlook of my parents when it comes to spending money. I paid for a taxi from a rail station to a hotel last night (£13) instead of waiting 25 minutes for a bus (£2.70). It's something I can afford yet I still feel like I ought to go to confession! 

[kinuta]

17 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

My grandparents (in Ireland) kept their front room 'for best'. They lived in the kitchen. Quite common at that time, as much to do with heating costs as anything else, I imagine. 

My parents had various things 'for best' like a huge set of crockery they brought back from Singapore. It was still something expected then. My father was obsessed in his last years as to who would inherit it (I happily allowed another sibling to take it!)! 

I don't think I keep anything 'for best' (I do have a jacket I only use for formal occasions; though as I no longer have to do parents' evenings I doubt that it will get much use). I tend to associate the idea of 'for best' with an older world (I may not have lived the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle of the Sixties but I embraced the informality wholesale); however, I'm still cursed by the Depression/Post War Austerity outlook of my parents when it comes to spending money. I paid for a taxi from a rail station to a hotel last night (£13) instead of waiting 25 minutes for a bus (£2.70). It's something I can afford yet I still feel like I ought to go to confession! 

My grandparents did the same thing. The closest I was allowed to approach was a quick peek round the door. The first time I saw it used was the Coronation. My grandma was a royal lover and talked my grand dad into buying a new fangled televison set for the big event.

Although I was only seven at the time I remember it well. All the men were in suit and tie and the women in their best frocks. I was more interested in the tele with it's art deco walnut cabinet and flickering midget sized screen. It seemed like a technological marvel from the future.

I also have the parsimonious attitude to paying money and will walk three stations rather than pay the fare. It no doubt comes from my childhood when we had no money, no bath, outside toilet and not much at all besides a radio that was on all the time. Luxury !

[catesta]

So I noticed this weekend, yeah I do this sometimes. Not to the extent of my parents. My father would buy a new TV and hide the remote, never to be seen again and that way it would never get broken.

I do the majority of the cooking at home and realized there new pans and various cooking tools I have never christened. It's as if I didn't want to ruin them which is completely ridiculous. My wife bought an immersion blender at my request maybe a couple of years ago and this weekend was the first time I ever used it. She nearly fell out of her chair but I said, "that's it, I'm opening all this shit". I stock pile certain things in my office too and hate to give them out.

My wife on the other hand doesn't have this problem. Oh sure, she keeps some things mainly for decoration or very special occasions but for the most part it's all to be used.

It's funny because when she wants a cocktail she goes straight for the best crystal glassware and I grab a juice glass.

[David Ayers]

I'm pretty sure that keeping things for best has some deep cultural roots in poverty, where the model was that manual workers would seek to keep an area of quality and cleanliness, such as they could afford, separate from the grime and tattiness of everyday. So working men would enter through the back door and never through the front which was rarely opened. All the nice stuff would stay in the living room which might rarely or never be used, but the things there were on display - to the neighbours, as much as anything else.

[Jazzmoose]

That brings back memories of my grandmother.  "The living room is for company!"

[A Lark Ascending]

On 11/21/2015, 5:21:44, kinuta said:

....besides a radio that was on all the time. Luxury !

That's an interesting one. My parent's also had the radio permanently on. We didn't have a TV until I was about 5 (1960) and until the mid to late 60s that only came on in the evenings. Strangely they virtually stopped listening to the radio from the 80s; the TV was on virtually constantly. 

One of the effects of a grammar school education on me was instilling a suspicion of TV (pure class snobbery, I know). I went for a good ten years in the late 70s to early 80s watching no TV at all. I still feel immense guilt if I turn it on before about 9.00 pm. Though I feel safe watching a DVD opera in the late afternoon....that is 'improving' after all!!!

The good thing about the radio being on constantly was the range of music you got exposed to. We only ever had 'The Light Programme' (later Radio 2 in the days when it's focus was on M.O.R. and pre-rock nostalgia) on. But when I started listening to jazz it was amazing how many standard tunes I already half knew.