Tuesday, March 21, 2006

LEFT TO MY OWN DEVICES

Pitchfork Media's album and singles review are annoying for their smugness and self-possession about music taste. But that comes with the territory of rock journalism in the US and UK. However, some of their columns and features are great. I like the monthly dancehall, grime/dubstep, and techno reports, and this week's feature is a piece about a polka DJ. But one of the best music pieces I've ever read is William Bowers' Big Fat iPod Diary, two parts (so far) of his Puritan Blister column. It follows the intrusion of the iPod into his life and the ways the mind and everyday behaviour work to deal with its presence. He's defenceless for the most part. Or was he just predisposed to accommodate the little thang that way. Makes me think about the way I cannot live without mine. Or I wouldn't be prepared to try.

In the McCarthy era paranoid classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (remade several times), the aliens who replaced humans emerged from pods.

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