Good read, Clifford. I'm with you completely on the mp3 thing-- it just doesn't feel real unless I can hold it. I can't connect otherwise.
FWIW I like Shipp's playing a lot, and he seems like a person I'd enjoy spending time with. Don't quite get the whole to-do. My favorite recording is The Multiplication Table. By The Law of Music is one of those I pull out every so often, like Braxton's 3 Compositions of New Jazz, to see if this will be the time I "hear it". Still hasn't happened (with either of them).
But I heard casually, secondhand, an anecdote about something he supposedly did that I don't like, so actually, fuck him ...