Someday music will be only air. There will be no objects to hold or fetishize and people will simply collect lists. No disc, nothing spooled or grooved, nothing to scratch or break, no heads to clean, no dust to wipe, no compulsive alphabetizing. Nothing to put away in shoe boxes in spare closets and be embarrassed about.
The Washington Post:
Unspooled. "It was a nation of tapeheads, living on some social margin, out past the faint hiss, waiting for nuclear war." I'm a sucker for these Style articles, but this one is different. It's an elegy, a last rewind; that excruciating moment when the tape runs out and the song cuts off and an apology is all that's left. Like a haircut so drastic you no longer recognize yourself in the mirror, it's time to throw those cassettes away.
Comments
This is the ground Hank Steuver works best. I don't read his stuff when they make him write about snipers and other such current events. Leave him to deconstruct pop culture, sez I.
And I can't throw away my cassettes! Never mind that I haven't listened to any of them in months. I know I'll never be able to get rid of them.
Posted by: nedlog | October 30, 2002 11:20 AM