1. As the train pulled into the Clark and Lake station yesterday morning, I was pulled out of my reading-trance by someone's earphones. The music was just loud enough that I could make it out; the song blended the speedy first notes of "Chorus of the Bells" with a hip-hop rhythm that I found pretty fascinating. The sounds blended pretty well. Glancing to see who was listening to the music, I realized that it was not, as I'd thought, a clever hip-hop Christmas song, but rather two separate passengers, each listening to his own music.

My musical interlude brought to the surface my PCA proposal for this Spring. The idea of randomness producing interesting/useful meanings seems like a key way to understand electronic media and the logic of the internet.

2. I'm listening to Crash Test Dummies' Give Yourself a Hand this week. It took me a while to like this album, in part because it's different than CTD's other albums. I've come to appreciate the album for its different approach to lyrics, which seem to be more about how they sound than what they say. Reminds me of Soul Coughing.

My favorite line is from "A Cigarette Is All You Get" Brad Roberts growls:

I want to listen to EL-VIS
I want to shake my PEL-VIS

Reminds me of Ulmer's Internet Invention and of Jeff Rice.