a representative from the record label asthmatic kitty responded to the email i recently sent them about the music industry, particularly the prices of albums.
hi scott,
thank you for your thoughtful message and your support for sufjan’s music. i am glad you saw the show in asheville despite ticketmaster’s ‘convenience’ charge. the percentile of the low price sufjan keeps his tickets at, is huge. if you come up with a system to get around using them, please let us know.
the price of asthmatic kitty records’ merchandise has not changed in ten years. however we have no control over the prices charged by the tour. there is no shipping to pay when you buy from the table. thus, on tour, the cd is $3 more.
despite the ambiguous message conveyed in the “latte” letter, asthmatic kitty records did willingly participate in the program that made amazon’s price available.
we sincerely appreciate you taking the time to write.
please forgive us our shortcomings. it must be those lattes.
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dear asthmatic kitty,
allow me to begin by saying that i feel awkward replying to your last message — for even writing to you in the first place — as i take no pleasure in pointing out the faults of entities i respect, but perhaps i have to keep in mind that i can enjoy sufjan’s music and whatever else and still dislike a silly email sent by the music label he founded, without either stance being problematic, in the same way i can list knut hamsun among my favorite writers without feeling his work is maligned or can be overshadowed by his personal life, i.e. his vehement support of nazi germany. sorry, it sounds like i’m comparing you to the extermination of jewish people. i can assure you that’s not my intention.
while i do forgive you for your shortcomings, i am confused by something you wrote in the latest email. you write that on tour, the cd is $3 more than if purchased from your website because fans do not have to pay for shipping to pick it up at the table. on the surface, such a markup makes no sense (and that is before i think about the fact that you do not have to pay for postage to ship it to the fan). it’s possible that i’m missing something here — perhaps the additional charge is justified because of the cost to ship all of this merchandise to each venue on the tour. i would think there is ample room on the van to store this stuff though, unless sufjan’s friends took up all the extra space. if that’s the case, i’d suggest this is one of the many mistakes alluded to in the song i’m referencing, and one that can be easily remedied.
you know as well as i do that the problems with ticketmaster are unsolvable. we are teacups in their ocean, pawns on their chessboard, forgotten vegetables in the crisper of their refrigerator (i’m not still referencing sufjan lyrics, by the way; i made these up on my own).
lastly, don’t beat yourself up over your penchant for overpriced lattes. we all have our vices, and, in the grand scheme of things, that’s probably one of the least damaging ones.
all the best,
asthmatic scotty
the vignettist 