Of course, the production and collection of albums on vinyl and the production and exhibition of film on celluloid are different things. Articles […] claiming that film will be “dead” by the year 2015—when it’s estimated only 17 percent of global movie screens will run 35mm—talk about celluloid still existing as a “niche projection format,” but the obstacles to that are severe. Pressing albums for a niche market is cheap, and record-owners can drop $20 on a copy and it’s theirs; film is a much more complicated and expensive transaction, because it costs thousands to strike a 35mm print, and there are rental fees and rights issues bound up in screening them.

—Scott Tobias, “Sweet Emulsion”

A manic revival of the ‘Mission Revival’ has swept over Southern California during the 1980s as gentrifiers and collectors have rediscovered the heirlooms of the Lummis era. Business Week, 31, July 1989, reports that an ordinary Mission Oak couch, factory-made by the Stickley Brothers at the turn of the century, and worth only $100 five years ago, now sells for $20,000.

—Mike Davis, footnote from City of Quartz

…there was but little realty to tax, and it did seem as if nobody was ever going to think of the simple salvation of inflicting a money penalty on murder.

—Mark Twain, Roughing It

Obviously the economic outlook for a lot of labels is poor at the moment – and it’s obviously the small labels we should worry about – but referencing the international electronica market in your album sleeve seems a bit like a great painter blaming poor weather for a rather dour set of canvases.

—Derek Walmsey