Rolling like thun-dah

This past week, StraightMan embarked on an "organization" project: He uploaded all of the CDs that we own onto his computer. Turns out we do not have all that many. The compact disc became the audio medium of choice during our college years. Speaking for myself, I bought only the CDs that my suite-mates or friends did not buy. I mean, how many copies of the same REM / Indigo Girls album could we possibly need?

I think I reached the peak of my music purchasing years when I was 17 or so. The medium then: Cassette tapes. Which I rather miss: The Smiths' "Hatful of Hollow," which I bought at a record store in Andover, Massachusetts, because it felt then like I hadn't had a dream in a long time...

These days, I rarely buy music, unless it I heard about it on NPR. Which means that it is a critic's darling kind of album or an iconic 80s pop rocker reinventing himself as a roots artist. Does Bryan Adams have a tribute to Muddy Waters? Or will Cyndi Lauper please record an album of Brazilian bossa nova with lush orchestrations?

That said. I sooo was feeling Elton John. I'm still standing...

Conspicuous consumption

How has the existence of this not come to my attention before?!

So exactly like it was

Did you attend any heady institution of higher education during the 1980s (which in my opinion ended in 1991) and major in English? If so, then this bit (lampooning specifically Brown) might seem familiar:

Semiotics 211 was limited to ten students. Of those ten, eight had taken Introduction to Semiotic Theory. This was visually apparent at the first class meeting. Lounging around the seminar table, when Madeleine came into the room from the wintry weather outside, were eight people in black T-shirts and ripped black jeans. A few had razored off the necks or sleeves of their T-shirts. There was something creepy about one guy's face - it was like a baby's face that had hideously aged - and it took Madeleine full minute to realize that he'd shaved off his eyebrows. Everyone in the room was so spectral-looking that Madeleine's natural healthiness seemed suspect, like a vote for Reagan.

From a short story in the June 7th issue of The New Yorker, "Extreme Solitude" by Jeffrey Eugenides. Whom I heart.