This isn't a traditional reRECs album.

There are many reasons we recommend RECords here. Sometimes, a RECord makes us laugh or entertains us; sometimes it's graphically striking; sometimes it's a tune we can't get out of our heads; sometimes it's something we think could be REmixed into something very special, or that could be a useful element in a lot of new RECords. These aren't any of those.

My mentor, Alejandro García-Rivera (RIP), writes in his book, Community of the Beautiful, that "beauty is that which moves the heart." I've also quoted art historian and curator Peter Selz on this site several times: he has said (to a class I was in) that for him, "great" art is "a visual metaphor for significant human experience." Of course, "visual" can be substituted with whatever word is appropriate for the art form. Peter also contrasts "great" art with works you only have to look at once and you're done with them. Great works, on the other hand, reward any amount of time you give them, any number of times you return to them.

The day I first made this album, two RECords had moved me so much, that I decided I wanted to put together a re-REC album based on those two quotes from García-Rivera and Selz, and based on the fact that those RECords continue to speak to me no matter how many times or how long I look at/read/listen to them. These are RECords that move the heart, that I would put up there with any of the truly great works of art I've seen in museums (or the equivalent for non-visual art RECords). Stuff I would canonize if it were up to me to set the canon.

I'm going through my recommendations (sadly not all 2000+ of them—I'm sure I'm missing some that should be here), so this isn't just new stuff. That's another reason this isn't a traditional reREC album. Also, I'm not going to give individual descriptions, because for these works, I can't. They're too deep, too layered, to toss out any simple reason for their inclusion here. (The exception is that I want to say I picked Riana's "Pieces" vocals-only because the whole collab generated so many amazing versions I can't pick one!)

As we all know, great art inspires more art. Or, to cite philosopher Elaine Scarry, beauty makes us want to reproduce it, to make more beauty. So these RECords certainly could do or have done just that. They don't need to be REmixed or tinkered with for their own sake, but they could be; or they could inspire something new. They could be "sampled" as one does with music. If I'm hearing him correctly, Joe's always going on about how copyright laws as they are tend to put roadblocks in the way of that sort of creative reproduction (in Scarry's sense), and we all at hitRECord are specifically and deliberately trying to push beyond that, in part by the very radical (but also very human) act of giving others permission to use our work here any way they like. So, however great I consider these works to be, however finished they are in themselves, they aren't static. Art is never static.

What we're doing here at hitRECord is revolutionary: we're not condemning great works to live on sterile museum walls; we're reclaiming the fact that art gives life, and that it belongs to everyone. I reserve the right to add to this album over time. :) I'd encourage anyone to make a similar reRECs album! RECords you can return to again and again... you know the rest. --Elaine <3

I'm trying to organize this, but am having trouble. For some reason, the site isn't letting me add records to this album at all.

I created another album, "2 Nov 2011 General Strike (Occupy Oakland)" http://www.hitrecord.org/records/569888 to try to begin organizing, but I can't add it here. Maybe I'll be able to later. So if you were looking for something here, it might've moved over there. Sorry for that inconvenience! Please do check out that other album. And since I can't add anything to this album right now, I'll be uploading new records into another album as well, which will eventually be dumped into this one.

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These photos were taken between 4-5pm on October 27.

Two days earlier, the police had evicted everyone from the plaza & lawn in front of city hall, because it's "illegal" to camp there overnight. (Laws like that are for the purpose of criminalizing houselessness and protests.) That night, as the people refused to leave the area, the police rioted and injured several people, one of them really badly, so a couple of days later, the mayor decided to allow the camp to return and not enforce that law, at least for now. There's a lot of PR work for the city to do...

People and news vans/choppers were trickling in during this hour I spent photographing. I must confess I'm not an active participant, although I'm a huge supporter of this movement.