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Analog-ish is a weekly interview podcast for people who are tired of being optimized. Hosted by feminist coach Becky Mollenkamp, who believes slowing down is a radical act, each episode features conversations with thinkers, makers, and everyday radicals who are finding their way back to something slower, more intentional, and more human.
We're not here to tell you to smash your phone or go off the grid. We're here to ask better questions about the role technology plays in your life — and to explore practical low-tech ideas that give you more agency over the answer. From reclaiming rest to building real-life community, from protecting your attention to finding unmonetized joy, these conversations are honest, curious, and refreshingly free of hustle culture.
If you're burned out from being constantly online and hungry for a different way forward, this show is for you.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (00:00)
Today I'm joined by Ava Carter, who has always loved technology and now finds herself trying to keep old technology out of landfills, which is what we're going to largely talk about today. She's a single mom, creative music lover, and according to her, children plays lawful good in life, which I have learned is a reference to D &D, neither of us play, but have kids who are interested in or in or are playing. So welcome, Ava.
Ava Carter (00:24)
Thanks, I'm happy to be here.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (00:26)
you have developed in the last what, maybe six months to a year-ish? an interest in reviving, restoring old radios largely. Is that right? Stereo's radios?
Ava Carter (00:29)
Yeah, six months.
Yeah, specifically
vintage hi-fi
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (00:39)
where does this interest even come from? Like
Ava Carter (00:43)
It is the most random thing I have ever come across and started doing. It started from a change in our school district's cell phone policy, basically, two weeks before school started last year, mid-August, we got a notification from our school
that they were going to a hard no cell phone policy.
and my oldest comes home a couple of days later and he's like, this is horrible because we just have to sit when we're all done with everything. We just sit in silence. So he's like, do you have an old CD player that I can take and listen to music? Because they told the kids they can have a device as long as it doesn't have data. So no cell phone connection, no wifi.
So me being me, of course I have an old discman from my childhood. So I pull it out, we find a couple of CDs that I have laying around and he takes it to school and he comes home the next day and he's like, that sucked. It skips all the time. Cause it only had like three seconds skip protection. it spiraled into, well, do you have a Walkman? Cause cassette tapes don't skip. And I had one, but it wasn't good. So I ordered another one.
And then it was like, ⁓ I want to make mixtapes. So I'm going to need a cassette deck to do that. And then I'm going to need a receiver to play the cassette deck. And here we are. I have a house full of vintage audio gear now. ⁓
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (01:59)
it went
from just solving a solution to you discovering, actually enjoy the process.
Ava Carter (02:03)
I do.
yeah, so I started with basically it was the system from my childhood dreams like teenage Ava would have bought this Yamaha CD player tape deck radio system and then I stumbled across some videos on YouTube and they were talking about vintage hi-fi like what your parents had the silver faced radios that lit up all pretty and had not knobs and switches and stuff
and I started looking at it and I'm like, oh man, these are expensive on eBay. But in some of the videos I was watching, it's like, many of them are actually fairly easy to repair because it's capacitors and transistors. And so these things that cost hundreds of dollars then are, some of them, like the more desirable ones, cost thousands of dollars now. They're all based on like,
30, 40, 50 cent parts in this inside. I'm gonna buy a broken one and I'm gonna get it and see if I can fix it. And I was able to with a lot of help from a Discord community and some online forums and research, a little bit of AI.
for like $30 in parts, I was able to bring something back to life that otherwise somebody would have thrown away because it wasn't working right. And like they're beautiful. They light up, they're metal, they have wood, some of them have wood cases. They're very tactile experience, like touch and turn the knobs on. And after doing like the first little repair turned into a bit bigger repair.
It just grabbed my brain. It's all my brain thinks about now. I am constantly on eBay looking for the next project Eventually, we won't be able to fix these anymore. So I'm like I'm gonna fix as many as I can
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (03:43)
Did
you, before this process and you sort of going down this rabbit hole, did you think of yourself as a, an engineer, I suppose?
Ava Carter (03:46)
Mm-hmm.
No, very little. So when I was a little girl, I used to go to spend summers at my grandpa's farm.
and he had this big shop and of course, know, big farm equipment and stuff. I would always find like bits of wire and like old welding sticks and I would try to make things that were never very good because I didn't have any way to like attach stuff or anything. And then that kind of fell by the wayside. I took a physics class in college and it nearly wrecked me. My brain just didn't get it. So I've always wanted to try to tinker and
My mom calls me when something needs fixing and I'm like, hey, we'll try to figure it out But it wasn't something that was like I've always wanted to do it was just something that I could do I changed the oil in my car and I could do minor repairs kind of mechanically inclined but there's just something about this in particular and I think it's because it took that long dormant love of tinkering and fixing things and Combined it with music which is what drives
my soul. So now I can fix it and then I can listen to the music that plays through it. And there's just there's nothing like loud volume music through good speakers through a good radio. I don't think we can get that with our cell phones currently.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (05:06)
what so much of I think this podcast is about.
is the lost art of tactile experiences. We live in this digital world where we don't touch things, we don't experience things anymore. And you're talking about tinkering. And I was just sitting there thinking like, tinkering is a lost art now. it's, people don't tinker anymore, And what comes out of that for you? What is it giving you that maybe you weren't having a year or two years ago when you weren't doing that?
Ava Carter (05:14)
Yeah. ⁓
It gives me an escape. Like the world is, in my view, it's horrible. It is so horrible. And yet we have to go do the normal things. Like I still have bills to pay and kids to feed and school to worry about and that kind of thing. Growing up, when I shifted from...
what we'll say like being a child to being more in the adult role. I always had hobbies, but for me, and just where my life took me, those hobbies had to make money. I had to put food on the table.
I'm a graphic designer by trade. So it was an extra logo project and and it never seemed like those filled that void
Something about this, like it calms me. I can sit down, pull out a drawer of parts, make my list go through very slowly and troubleshoot and figure out, okay, what's wrong? I can clean everything, I can fix it, I can put it back together. nothing is relying on my ability to fix this.
If I don't fix it, I'm gonna be sad, but that's okay. If I do fix it, that's great. I can enjoy it or I can put it up for somebody else to enjoy eventually. my brain just kinda shuts off whatever else is going on and it's just, it's me and my radio. If I'm not doing that, I'm scrolling YouTube or I'm scrolling social media and I'm like, I'm not gonna look at any news today. And then like 40 minutes later, I'm wickedly depressed because the news is horrible.
So it just, pulls me out of that. And my words to live by for 2026 is, is joy is rebellion. For me to be happy in all of this is...
is like it is the one thing that I can do to rebel. But also, I'm gonna chase joy. Like all this crap that's happening in the world, the one thing that I can do to like keep myself from being sucked down is do the things that make me happy. And like this, for whatever reason, is like the thing. it has fully consumed my brain too.
to things, to fix things, to the community that exists around this is probably the most welcoming, inviting, non-p- everything is political, but like, that doesn't seep into the core of this community, because we're also focused on keeping these things alive for ourselves and for other people to enjoy.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (07:42)
What is the heart of that? Why are people so interested? Is it environmentalists who are like, let's keep these things out of the landfill? Is it nostalgic folks who are like, we don't want to lose this technology?
Ava Carter (07:54)
think it's two things. Number one, first and foremost, it's people who absolutely love music.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (08:01)
Mm.
Ava Carter (08:02)
All
of these people, I don't have a large vinyl collection, but I have a vinyl collection. I bought a whole bunch of cassette tapes at an estate sale because it's that, like as you were talking about earlier, it's the tactile experience of interacting with the thing, You have to put the cassette tape in, close the door, push the button, turn the volume up.
in this community, like, they're always talking about their latest record find, the latest track they found on YouTube or streaming or whatever. So it's a love of music. This gear specifically plays music in a way that no other thing does. Home theater stuff, kind of, but having experience both now.
this is significantly different. So in the 70s, before we had loads of cable TV and like all of that kind of media, like music was the thing. Like for a long time, you gathered around the radio. And then the 70s, they went into making them louder and sound better, more like bigger speakers fill the room, make it sound like you're at a live concert.
and we want to capture that. we want to shake our brains with the bass. So that's one. And two is I, for a lot of us, they're just gorgeous pieces. The machined, they are, they're machined aluminum. A lot of them from this era have real wood cases. Some of them are veneered, but they just, they look beautiful and they're...
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (09:12)
So there's an art piece for you.
Ava Carter (09:26)
aluminum knobs and the lights glow, you you turn the lights down in your house and you've got this glowing light with this beautiful sound and going back that a lot of us like to tinker. One of my friends is like a whole lot cheaper than than collecting cars. we all have that that drive to fix things to tinker with things. And because they're small.
they fit on a tabletop or a benchtop. It's something that we can scratch that tinker itch And again, there's, think for a lot of us too, we see the value in that it was kind of before they started building things to break. So like if I have in my teenage Ava system, I have a Yamaha CD player, when it breaks, it's probably dead.
because it's newer electronics. There aren't capacitors in it that I can fix. It's computer chips and that move into the new and the modern. And so we love that these things were designed to be fixed, which we don't get. So I think there's some of that as well. a friend of mine lives in the UK. She just got to go to...
this big show where all these people had all of their vintage gear. And I saw something I didn't know existed. It's like a radio and an amplifier and stuff. The design is gorgeous to me. It is the coolest looking. I want it in my house just because it looks cool. But also it plays really good music.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (10:45)
when I listen to my vinyl, there's a there's a warmth to the music that just somehow gets lost in the blue light of just playing it on a device. And I love that you mentioned that part about things being things are now made to be trashed. They don't last the way they used to. And this is not just old people sitting around saying back in my day. There is truth to the fact that things are not designed to be repaired. They are designed.
Ava Carter (10:48)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (11:06)
fall apart so that you must replace their design for this consumerist approach. This late stage capitalist how much can we sell versus can we sell you something quality that could last a long time, which is also then adding to the problems of landfill and global warming and everything else. So there's that little element of it too, which I know you didn't mention, but surprises me because honestly that would have been the thing that thought most people would be into it for is like, let's keep stuff out of the landfill. Is that just an added benefit? ⁓
Ava Carter (11:22)
Yeah.
Yeah,
I think so because I again like there are certain pieces that just we can't fix like they're just too far gone But in the community that I'm in currently Basically all online because I kind of live in middle nowhere and the focus really is fixing them to listen to the music because you're right they And I mentioned earlier, but like they just sound different and like I have several
receivers now and a couple of different sets of speakers and like literally you put one radio with one set of speakers and it sounds horrible and then you put a different radio with those speakers and it's like the most amazing thing ever and there is just a warmth and a color to the music because again that was the focus you were gonna sit and you were gonna listen and be present for the music I think a lot of times with digital too I'm as guilty as anybody it's background noise like I have to have something going on in the background
A lot of people do podcasts, a lot of people do audiobooks. For me, it's music. And so there is a of times where it's just meaningless. I don't know what track is playing. I don't know what the music is. It's just filling the void. But when I sit to listen to my radios, it is an intentional piece where I'm like, I want to listen to this album through these speakers. And I'm going to turn the volume up obnoxiously loud when nobody's home.
and feel the music and listen to it. But I can't get that, I can get close because I finally bought a decent pair of over the ear headphones. But like when I'm watching my TV and YouTube and music and stuff, it doesn't sound the same. Like it sounds okay because I invested a little bit of money, but it's just, there's just something different about.
things that were designed specifically for the- the on- their only purpose is to play music.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (13:21)
it's funny because some of these things that we're talking about in the series, it's like some of it you just there's like this inability to explain why it's different and yet it feels different. And I think some of what's the heart of that is like, it's just this more human experience when things are more tactile, when they are experiential,
Ava Carter (13:40)
and as I've fallen down the rabbit holes and watching a lot of content based around this too, there are scientific studies where when you're intentional about the music that you're listening to or like the specific radio that you pick to put in your house, even though this one over here, like by specifications and build quality and technology might be the better radio, if this one looks prettier to you,
you're actually going to enjoy the music that comes out of it much more than the fancier high end one. And going back to like you have to be intentional with these things. I can put on a podcast in my headphones and walk around the house and I can go for a walk in the dog. If I'm gonna listen to a record like you mentioned earlier, like you there's that point where you know, it's gonna you're gonna hear a little bit of scratch and then you're gonna have depending on the type, but like the needle is gonna move.
and then you have to go up and you have to flip it. Like it takes an investment of your time and intention to be a part of that experience. And so I think, I mean, look at our devices. We lost, we had computers with disk drives. They no longer have disk drives for the most part. I mean, even cell phones moved away from like tactile plugging in a phone to it's all Bluetooth. So like we've slowly been moved away from this.
having to interact with our devices and it just, it all just hits different. And I wish more things would go back to that, but I know we're not. Although I am excited, France just passed a law that bans planned obsolescence. companies will now face penalties if they are caught designing products specifically to fail. So there's some hope.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (15:08)
made to be.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Europe is always leading the way and then us in the US, if you're listening in the US, those like Ava and I are, it's just, yeah, we're always behind. But what it's been, eight months, something like that, that you've been on this process what have you noticed changing inside of you as you are leaning more into these tactile experiences, the,
Ava Carter (15:26)
⁓ Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (15:37)
the intentionality, the sort of the slowness, what do you feel shifting internally?
Ava Carter (15:42)
The biggest shift is I just want to unplug from everything. I want to own things again. I don't want to rent everything that I pay for. But a lot of it again for me is it's my safe place. It's the place that I can unplug, give my brain a minute to focus on because it's constantly going a million directions and I can take a minute and I can breathe and it
in those moments of working on the radios and getting really frustrated, but also having that breakthrough aha moment of when I finally fixed it. I can also help process some of the other garbage that's going on because it...
It just, I almost can't describe it, because it's still very new to me on having that thing where I can just shut off the brain and focus and breathe and be present actually. It's probably just that being present. Going from a world that I came out to and started transition when like the sky was bright and blue and sunny and it was like this amazing thing and then the world quickly turned into this dark and horrible and scary place.
It's the one thing where I still feel that same sense of joy of when, of like, the world is completely open. And it's the treasure hunt too. I mean, there's always another radio to find, another one to fix, another one, another story to be told in picking up some friends. I went to dinner at a friend's house and they gave me this thing from the 60s. Back in the day, you could buy a box of parts with a radio inside and then you would get a manual that was like this thick.
and you would spend the next, however long it took you, assembling your own radio. And so I have the product of that completed. And like, I'm gonna go through it. I don't know if I will fix it, but I'm gonna learn about it. But like, it just, comes from this time where, and I'm gonna go back to, we just were more intentional about everything. Not everything was a throw away. Our interactions with people, the things that we built were built to last.
And I just feel like the world has moved so extractive from us, like around the world, but specifically in the United States, that it's that one place that I can I can take it back and put it back into something and be like, no, this isn't going away. I'm not going away. This isn't going away. Somebody else can enjoy this next. And then I can do another one and somebody else can enjoy that.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (18:03)
I love the storytelling piece of that, Ava. I hadn't thought of it, but yeah, like each of these radios tells a story of a time of a kind of person, of an experience of what was going on in the world. because I am sure with each of these, you're having to do some research just to be able to do the work you do. And in that research, you're learning about who made this radio, who
Ava Carter (18:19)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (18:24)
designed it, who used it, how they bought it, all of that. That's really fascinating.
Ava Carter (18:25)
Yeah.
It
is really cool and like I'm learning about like all of the big brands and stuff in the discord somebody posted link There's a company called NAD and I'm not gonna remember what it stands for but they they celebrated their 50th anniversary this year and There's it was a short little documentary on YouTube But they've been in business for 50 years the guy who started the company was with the company until he passed in like 2017 and
There are these stories of these people who are passionate, they didn't sell out to like the big conglomerates and they didn't cheapen everything as they go, which happens in a lot of products. They start really nice and then the bean counters get in and then they start whittling away at the expensive components and like, we can get close to that with cheaper components. And I'm like, oh, I want one now because the story is so good. And I like meeting these other people in the discords, it's like,
There's great stories of, found this in my grandparents closet, is this worth saving? And there's a lot of yes or no, or it's like, I pick stuff off one radio that I've got sitting behind me. The eBay listing was, it was working great until a few months ago, and then it's quit working. And then I click buy, and they send me messages, and like, are you sure you wanna buy this? It's broken. absolutely I wanna buy it. And I get it, yeah, and I get.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (19:48)
Why I wanna buy it?
Ava Carter (19:50)
And it's embarrassing, because it was like, it was the easiest fix. It was a couple of fuses. But now I get to take this thing and say, I have the story of this funny eBay ha ha, and then I've got this hilarious picture of what they did on the inside, and then I fix it, and then I can put it up for sale and get it to somebody who's gonna, so I have that story too. Or even just going to my friends and having pizza and talking about all these ridiculous things.
movies from our childhood and stuff. And then he brings out this radio, because he knows I'm obsessed with them. It came with their house, I guess, when they bought it. And now I've got it, and now it's like, what do I do with it? Do I keep it as a showpiece? I'm actually probably gonna try to fix it, because it is daunting. It is the most complex. I don't know how people built these in an evening, in a weekend, because compared to the radios that I've bought and repaired already, this one is wildly complex. I think it was like,
Let's stuff as much technology as we have in the early 60s in this so it's better than everybody else's. But it's gonna be a learning experience just to figure out the basic operation of it and then start figuring out, okay, how do I fix this thing? But I'm gonna have stories.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (20:56)
when I asked you how has this affected you? What have you learned from this? I'm also curious about the tinkering and the learning a skill and learning new skills all along the way, proving to yourself that you can do something that six months ago or a year ago you would have thought impossible. Because we've talked about this off this podcast where I've said.
I desperately wish I had a skill. whenever you watch one of these ⁓ disaster movies or the dystopian future movies, you know, they're part of the rebellion because they have old technology, They know how to tinker. Like those are needed people when we start to think about.
Ava Carter (21:30)
Mm-hmm. ⁓
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (21:32)
fighting
back. like you have skills that I think would be useful should things go haywire. And I just wonder what that's done for you in your confidence
Ava Carter (21:40)
It's exactly that. I've gone through the course of my career, had a pretty dark couple of years there for a minute where my professional confidence was nearly shattered. Like I spent a good amount of time just being like, I can't do anything, like I'm not good at this, I don't know what I wanna do with my life, kind of stuff. it has brought back, I even told somebody just a couple of days ago, I'm good at what I do. And I couldn't have said that.
even six months ago. And in doing these little things, I've always liked to learn new technology, learn how to do, most of it, most of my learning has been around technology. Computers, software, I can set up somebody's TV for them kind of stuff. But those don't feel like tangible skills in that same way. I can change the oil in my car, but again, like most people should at least have some knowledge of that.
even if it's just I know I need to take it somewhere and have it changed. But going back to this, one of the first radios that I did, all it really needed was new lights, but it involved some soldering, which I hadn't done since I was in eighth grade. I did it once, I could probably do it again. But that feeling of accomplishment, putting everything back together, putting the case on it.
and turning the power button on for the first time and having it just like, I put green lights in it where it used to have kind of a blue glow. It was so bright and like it was, I was just like, I did that. it didn't feel like a big thing, but it was just, was this amazing glow and it worked and everything did what it was supposed to do. And so it's bleeding into, there are other things that I wanna do. My sister and I have a web shop.
Somebody asked me to do, make them t-shirts and sweatshirts. A friend of mine owns a boxing gym. And I'm like, I've done a couple and she's like, I need 48. I'm like, I think I can do it.
So I did, it took longer than I thought it would, but I did it. And I think they turned out great. And I normally wouldn't have said, I think they turned out great. it's subconsciously boosting my confidence. I know I'm gonna like fry something, it's electronics, it's bound to happen. But the ones that I do fix, it just, it seeps into you and you're like, I can fix things. I can be good at something, I can do this thing.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (23:54)
Yeah.
Ava Carter (23:57)
And doesn't matter what the thing is, but it's like, if I can do something and do it well, like, I can do something else and do it well. I haven't actually thought about it much until like this very moment, because I've just been obsessed in like fixing things. But yeah, that confidence boost, it's bleeding through for sure.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (24:15)
amazing. I think hard skills are lost these days, people are not sent into trades very often anymore, That is looked down on, which is a shame, And so so many of us have been focused on softer skills, and those are valuable. Yes, I love the soft skills I have.
Ava Carter (24:24)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (24:33)
But I do think there's just something so valuable about these more hard skills, these tactile trade kind of skills that can be useful no matter what. the ability to problem solve to figure out how to do that is huge.
Ava Carter (24:47)
Yeah, it's the problem solving for me that, because even with electricity, I still don't fully understand. I can't tell you how the electricity flows through the radio. My brain is having trouble grasping the core concepts of that. But I can problem solve. And I'm learning to figure out, I know signal comes in here, and somewhere in here it's getting messed up.
and then I have to figure out why is that getting messed up. And then I know enough to be like, okay, I can pull these components out and just test them and see if they're good and then I can put them back in. I feel like in the rest of life as well, it's unlocking that part of that new, just a different way to look at things with, I've got an issue here that I need to figure out how to solve it or how to get past it.
And before I probably would have done it in this way. And now, specifically with the radios, you can like break them into chunks and be like, okay, this part functions, and then it goes to this part, and then it goes to this part. And so it's helping me pick that apart and be like, okay, what is the issue? it a system-wide issue? Is it a very, like is it happening in the beginning? Is it happening in the middle? Or just before the end? And that's bleeding into other things that I'm having to solve, whether it's work or kids in school or.
You know, other issues like family issues or anything. I'm looking at things through a much different lens now because I've been problem solving in a totally different way for these radios having to really break it apart and figure out troubleshooting from beginning to end.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (26:19)
And I bet if your refrigerator broke down tomorrow, you'd probably be able to, even though you've never fixed a refrigerator, the skills you're learning here, you could probably transfer to something like that, right? That's so cool.
Ava Carter (26:27)
Yeah,
it's bleeding because I started with radios and then I've picked up a couple of cassette decks because they have belts and mechanisms that are way more complicated. So I'm like, if I can figure this out, maybe I can figure those out.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (26:41)
That's amazing. That's such confidence.
confidence builder that I think we don't often get because we aren't working with our hands. We aren't forced to have to figure things out. And the world has made it so easy to just drop something off and hire somebody else. Or like you said, throw it away and just replace it because it's so cheap to do that. The last thing I wanted to ask you about, you've mentioned many times community. And I think that's another piece of this that we
Ava Carter (26:55)
Mm-hmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (27:04)
is important to shine a light on when we're thinking about like some of these ways of balancing lo-fi with hi-fi in our lives, Is the piece of this that's so important is the community that can develop for you around some of these offline activities. Even though the community is online, you're all sort of centered around this offline experience that you're all having. What has that community experience been like for you?
Ava Carter (27:28)
it's been huge. when I got into vintage radios, there was, the videos that I was watching on YouTube, there's a store in Des Moines, Iowa that sells vintage radios and that's the channel. Like they do a weekly topic of some kind. And then I got the opportunity to go to the store and like kind of have that little experience of like, my goodness, I'm actually here in like a YouTube, YouTuber shop.
And then in a couple of videos later, they mentioned, we have this Discord community. And I watched, I logged in, and I watched, and I read, and I didn't participate for weeks. And then I'm like, damn it, I'm just gonna jump in. I have this radio that I'm gonna fix, and I will probably need some help on it, so I'm just gonna jump in. And as a trans person,
you're always a little concerned, even online, when nobody can see you. And it's been incredible. They don't care who I am, what my background is. They care whether I love the radio or not, whether I love fixing these electronics.
And there's one older gentleman in there who's been an electrician and an attack for long time. He basically walked me through one of the biggest repair that I did. It was technically difficult to source what the problem was. He's like, while you're in there, you might as well refresh the whole thing. of course, I'm scared to do it because it feels like a big job. But he walked me through, helped me find the parts, and
He's helping me with another one.
But being pretty isolated where I'm at very conservative evangelical community, it's isolating. It is really lonely most of the time. as much as I would like a conversation over coffee or to have these people over and like we can listen to my stereo this week and we'll listen to your stereo next week.
to just have a place to go talk about the ridiculousness of I found this on eBay, is it a good buy, should I repair this one, hey, this happened, how should I fix this, and or to just have this random off topic conversation. There's talks about old technology and movies and all this stuff, like I'm just part of the community. And of course it was really affirming too when I the big fix, I got an attagirl from somebody and from a complete and random stranger, like.
I just, is, again, it's it's the place of peace and rest for me is in this community of people who love music and people who love to fix these things that bring us joy through the music.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (29:53)
of the unexpected benefits of the things that we do, right? I'm sure when you started it, just to solve the problem, you never knew it would bring you here and yet here it is. And it's because, you you allowed yourself that time offline to explore something and just look up from the blue screen long enough to do that. And boy, what a difference than just being, you know, scrolling social media and, you know, the cesspool that is. So. Yeah.
Ava Carter (29:55)
Yeah.
Yep.
There's no drama in a radio.
It's does this capacitor work? Is that transistor blown? Do I need to put a fuse in here? What if I change these from warm white lights to green lights? I have a tendency to at least try green on everything and most people think it's horrible. So I'm like I'm like the green lady over here, but it just it's it is nice because it's it's Back to being keeping things out of landfills
but they produce incredibly beautiful music when you finish it. Like it just sounds like it seeps into your soul. It's community where we don't care who you are or where you're from, know, no drama. let's just like, let's keep these things alive. And there's no outside, like there's no data stream to these devices. So there's no distraction of a notification that pops up or an app message that comes through or anything.
It's just, it's you and the thing and there's none of this shit around the world. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (31:09)
and its presence and its confidence.
Like there's so much you've gotten out of. I love it. Thank you for sharing your story. What's one thing, one offline thing that you would like people to try this week?
Ava Carter (31:15)
Of course.
I would love people to find a CD or a cassette to listen to. you have to pick the one that you're gonna listen to, you can't just jump into a Spotify stream. Pick that one, find a way to play it, and sit and listen to the whole thing. Like, be present for that whole thing. Going from
full circle from that years and years of streaming and like intelligent mixes where it just keeps feeding you music back to it was a jarring experience to like listen to my first full cassette album again but I I finished it and that was exactly what I needed vinyl cassette tape or CD find a way to pick an album and listen to one album from start to finish
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (32:00)
And if you live in a big enough urban area, there are many places now that offer listening stations where you can go and do that if you don't have the option at home. Also, I think some libraries may allow you to do that. So always ask there. Libraries are the most valuable resource. And tell us what's thecraftedcauldron.com.
Ava Carter (32:06)
that's fantastic!
we are a purveyor of curiosities and a boutique creative studio. So my sister and I, we're both graphic designers, so we design silly buttons and T-shirts and mugs and all of that kind of stuff. Some of it's very politically charged, it's fantastic. Some of it's just silly, goofy stuff. I'm a marketer and designer on the side, so I'm open to small projects.
Becky Mollenkamp (she/they) (32:35)
Thank you, Ava. I'll include everything in the show notes. Thank you for your time. I just think it's endlessly fascinating what you're doing. thanks for sharing.
Ava Carter (32:36)
Of course.
Absolutely.
Of course, thanks Becky.