I got a thirst for a certain cassette recently and my thirst wouldn’t allow itself to be slaked by any stand-ins, and I had to dig out a few of the boxes, bags, and snap-tight Tupperware bins full of cassettes that hide both conspicuously and inconspicuously around the house. While going through them, of course, I ran across a few things (two dozen or so, actually) that grabbed and held my attention with the uniquely fetishistic grip known only to the packrats and collectors who, like myself, are persuaded that even the most inanimate of objects has somewhere within itself a real personality that one can learn how to see if one only has the patience and the right sort of vision.