Du Cote de Chez Swann

Hunger by Elise Blackwell (revisited)

2009-03-28T10:15:00.000-07:00

So, I've given the book a little more thought since yesterday. It's actually haunting. Like Brokeback Mountain, which I kind of liked and thought pretty good, but which then haunted me in a way I didn't expect after I left the theatre. That's how this book was. The book itself was interesting, with moments of lyrical prose and vibrant, sensual evocation. But it was only after, thinking about the protagonist, and his struggle with the moral compromise that he enacted, and how that shaped his sense of himself. He wouldn't have survived if he hadn't done what he did. But in surviving, he was forced to watch his strong, deeply-adored wife fade away. He did good things after, but there's still the sense of the disquiet of his own conscience. There are a lot of interesting issues explored in the book--the question of what it's acceptable to do for one's children, but not for oneself alone, the question of the different kinds of bravery and cowardice, the question of where you draw the line on what you will or won't do to survive. And of course, what amount of good works after would justify morally-questionable actions undertaken in one's past.

But it was the image of his wife, starving and dying, that haunted me the most. The notion that there can be golden, happy years in which there's little or no inkling of doom, and then suddenly everything changes and life unravels into sadness, loss and desperation. I think, because I've seen this so often, I actually live, waiting for that axe to fall. I don't feel any particular privelege, except the sense of gratitude that so far, I have lived in a peaceful and relatively prosperous time (even with the financial crisis, we haven't yet been reduced to eating bark, grass and dirt to try to feel full. We've lost a lot, but we're still a long way from that and relatively speaking, we are still a prosperous nation and people for the most part). It puts things into perspective, but it also makes me wonder if and when the axe will fall. Of course, we'll never know that. But knowing how often in times past, peaceful, prosperous lives have been shattered by large-scale disaster leaves me in no doubt as to the presence of the axe--nor of the fact that if I manage to live my life without it falling, at the societal, not the personal level (since to live is to have axes falling in one's personal life. That's just the nature of life itself), it will just be sheer good luck for me.

Hunger by Elise Blackwell

2009-03-27T14:33:00.000-07:00

Part of my new plan is to try to read a book a day, whenever possible. I have no restrictions on type of book (fiction, non-fiction etc). But, in preparation for law school, I need to apply some speed reading techniques to my regimen. In theory, this will provide me with that opportunity.

But alas, today, I didn't speed read. I just read, at normal pace, a relatively short book.

It's called Hunger. In a strange bit of synchronicity, it takes place during the siege of Leningrad, among a group of botanists who work at a seed bank. They are embattled because the prevailing theory of "vernalization"--i.e. the notion, put forth by Trofim Lysenko, that seeds can acquire and pass down traits that are not part of their genetic code, but that are rather, parts of environmental exposure--has meant that the government has decided to view bona fide geneticists as enemies of the state (vernalization became part of the official party policy and resulted in poor harvests and lots of suffering). This is later, as this small group must live daily with seeds but resist eating them in a time when people were eating dirt, and bark and so on in order to survive.

It's oddly synchronous because a week or so ago, Tom was telling me about Lysenko and his experiments. And then this past week, we heard about him in my Russian history lecture. And now, I stumble upon this book, which I bought years ago, when, for reasons unknown, the dollar store at the corner was suddenly getting really intriguing books in, which they in turn sold for a dollar. I'd come home with bags of books--a biography of Zora Neale Hurston, a couple of intriguing non-fiction treatises, a translation from Russian of a classic SF novel, a copy of Ender's Game that I gave to a friend, and so on. Very intriguing. This was one of them. The back cover mentions nothing about Lysenko nor Leningrad, for that matter. So it was really chance that I picked it up and opened it. And then I thought "I'd better read it--it's oddly relevant to the moment."

It's not long, which is why I managed to read it today without doing speed reading stuff--only 130, rather sparsely-printed pages. And it's not even full trade size.

It's not a bad book. I didn't find it wonderful, but perhaps it is meant to be dwelt upon for longer than a day.

She uses the recurring motif of Babylon to create a parallel between two lost cities--the Leningrad that existed before the war, and Babylon. It's an imperfect parallel, I think, in the sense that there's a feeling of halcyon days and glorious idylls to do with Babylon, whereas prewar Leningrad was no fun, because the purges were in full swing. But she does keep the chronology somewhat unclear, so a reader might not realise this. She describes the protagonist's halcyon days in Leningrad years before (and elsewhere as he travels to collect seeds), but doesn't go into all the details of the purges and oppression of the late 30s. So, in the book it seems like the dark times somehow came with the war, though this isn't really the case.

On the other hand, perhaps her intention is to create the parallel between Babylon and the seedbank and the people who populated that, in search of knowledge and the stories and histories hidden in ancient grains.

She has an evocative writing style--an occasionally remarkable turn of phrase. Similarly, the halcyon days, both abroad and in Leningrad are encapsulated in prose that has a luminous, vibrant clarity to it that is nice to read. It seems a crime to skip over such carefully crafted prose.

I don't know how I shall do it. But that will be one of my projects for the summer--to work on improving my reading speed, but also to work on being able to turn it on and off at will. Skim here, read closely there.

This book was pleasant but only occasionally moved me, and then not all that deeply. The imagery surrounding the hunger was sometimes potent, as was her evocation of detail in what people would eat in order to sate it--which was tragic. Also, the wife, Alena's, inability to have children, of course struck a poignant note for me.

A final element that struck me was the protagonist's talk of how it would have been easier with children (in his opinion) because then, during the starvation, the justification would have come more easily. It is more acceptable to steal and to do extreme, morally-questionable things when your child's life is at stake. People understand and accept that, where they judge those who would do the same to save their own lives.

But I'm not dwelling on it overlong--there is too much else to do, though I hate giving any novel, particularly a well-crafted one that has obviously taken a lot of work and research, short shrift. There are undoubtedly layers and nuances that I have missed in my quick read through of it.

Still, for now, that is the nature of the undertaking. I'm writing this--coming back to this blog--to remind me of my impressions of the books I read during this undertaking.

And as for this one--if a fictionalized visioning of the subject matter interests you, then by all means, track it down. It was interesting, but not deeply potent, for me.

The Pagan Christ by Tom Harpur

2007-06-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

Just in the process of reading it.

The basic argument:Christianity as we know it was shaped ~3rd century C.E. and at that time it was decided that certain common myths and archetypal elements of the hero's journey be personalised and embodied in the life of Jesus. So, elements including divine ancestry, a virgin birth, a guiding star as well as the sermon on the mount, the torture and crucifixion were taken out of the general mythical context and applied to the life of Jesus. According to Harpur, we actually have very little evidence regarding what Jesus's life might actually have been, but it seems likely it has little to do with the story that has been passed down, because all of the above elements (and more) pre-existed the Christian story and can be found, for instance, in Egyptian mythology.

From my understanding, Harpur feels that when these elements exist in a common "mythosphere" [my coinage], we can apply them to ourselves and derive power from them. By literalizing them and embodying them in an individual's life, early Christianity created a paradigm against which everyone would fall short--and robbed the myth of its metaphorical power and resonance.

My concern with the book: Harpur does state at the outset that this is meant to be a widely accessible work rather than a scholarly piece of writing. Still, given what little I do know about the early texts, a lot of the information that is derived from them seems sketchy and open to a wide margin of interpretation. Some of his neat little etymological progressions [Osiris=el Asar (Hebraic version)=El Asar-us (Latin suffix)=Lazarus] seem a little suspicious and overly convenient. I cannot help but wonder whether some of his other connections are also that way. Also, his version of the Horus myth is very different from the one I'm familiar with. There are often different version of myths out there, but still, it makes me wonder how much it has been tweaked to fit in with certain arguments.

Little Miss Sunshine in Kinky Boots

2007-03-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

Recently viewed:

Shaun of the Dead: Cute, quirky. A little bit of a long lead in, but ultimately fun. (spoiler warning) Finally, a zombie movie that presents a resolution and some measure of a return to ordinary life, after the zombies show up.

Little Miss Sunshine: Cute, quirky and Abigail Breslin really is charming. Nothing groundbreaking, but fun to watch. A review I read identified it as "a mainstream movie masquerading as an indie" which I think is fair. It's funny to realise that stuff like gayness and drag are just about normal at this point, which leads us to...

Kinky Boots: Cute, quirky. Fully Monty but with drag queens instead of strippers.

Connie and Carla: Cute, quirky. Some Like It Hot, but with women who pretend to be men who are spectacularly convincing drag queens (you'd think I was on a drag jag, except that I didn't realise that drag was part of the premise when I signed it out, as the cover copy is rather coy about the whole issue). Charming, if you like show tunes and cheesiness (I do). I had very low expectations, and so I was pleasantly surprised and actually enjoyed it, as I might not have done were my expectations higher. Precisely the kind of thing I would imagine that Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette would do as a team. No doubt far edgier when Julie Andrews did it in Victor/Victoria, but with fewer warm fuzzies...?

Delirious: Rarely cute or quirky. I can see that it might have been groundbreaking at the time, and certainly see how people like Dave Chapelle have been informed by it. Sometimes funny, though the homophobic opening was offputting (and there were other facets as well that didn't age gracefully). On the other hand, perhaps with standup, it's more admirable to note that there were actually some parts that I still found funny so many years after it was done...?

Films of Interest

2007-01-30T13:34:00.000-08:00

The Queen
Little Miss Sunshine

Unleashed (with Jet Li)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Pan's Labyrinth
Volver
For your Consideration
[maybe] Stranger than Fiction

:-)

Raising Helen and UltraViolet

2007-01-25T20:13:00.000-08:00

Well, we didn't get to the more substantial picks--Hotel Rwanda and (so I understand?!) The Green Mile. Maybe next time 'round, as I feel I'm ready to see them both. But Tom also wants to see 'em and he's been too busy this week.

So instead, I rented a number of forgettables (sorry to say that about anyone's films, but I really don't believe that I'll remember these very well in the years to come without the aid of these notes).

Raising Helen--Romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson (I'm still not sure whether I like her or find her annoying, though she's likeable enough, I suppose) and the DJ guy from Northern Exposure whose name eludes me at the moment (he was also in My Big Fat Greek Wedding). Chris something--Corbett, perhaps. It was pleasant enough. It followed a fairly standard story arc, though I thought it took too long getting started/establishing her life before the catalyst/inciting incident. I can't say the idea of dating a Lutheran pastor holds great appeal to me, regardless of how trendy he is, but I guess it's a notion that has some appeal within the culture as it's evolving right now. And of course, it was pleasant and innocuous enough.

UltraViolet--neat visual effects; they've done it up so that it has a video-game, vector-based feel to it that's kind of cool, though ironic, in that game designers work so hard in video games to make them seem real, and here's a live-action flick that's voluntarily taking on that vector-y look. Neat premise of vampirism as a disease (originally created for a form of biological warfare gone awry).

It seems, though, as if Milla Jovovich is really getting typecast as post-apocalyptic tough chick in action flick type roles (the two Resident Evil films come to mind. I know there was some kind of epidemic involved there as well, though my memories of it are vague. Was that a Zombie-making one?). She works well in such roles because her features seem chiselled and honed, but she has this funny, slightly twitchy way of holding her mouth that makes her seem vulnerable despite the tough veneer. It works, IMO.

But, the real reason I like her as a screen presence, I think, is because of her role in the film Dummy in which Adrien Brody plays a wannabe ventriloquist. MJ plays Fangora--Fanny for short--this gangly, wacky and socially inept friend of his. She gives him all sorts of advice in order to forward his love life and--unfortunately for him, he follows it, with disastrous consequences. And yet the character of Fanny is so goofy and well-meaning that the viewer forgives her. That was also the first movie in which I really noticed how much work she's done with her accent. It's impressive.

At any rate, having seen her in that, pulling off humour so well (which I really do believe is one of the more difficult modes to do successfully--particularly when the character is deadpan and unaware of how funny she is), it does seem to me that she's somewhat wasted in these kickass chick flicks with the bared abdomen and the kaRAte-chop moves.

But perhaps she divides her time between those and indies like Dummy. One can only hope so.

Save the Cat

2007-01-25T12:12:00.000-08:00

An intriguing-sounding book on screenwriting to check out at some point: Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.

Also, the book on music basics Tom was talking about. :-)

The Lost Generation

2007-01-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a little about them recently (and of course, the many lost generations, in 1491, which so far impresses me).

At any rate, I'm curious to see the film Last Call (about F. Scott Fitzgerald, starring Jeremy Irons and Neve Campbell), so I thought I'd best add it to the list before it falls out of my line of sight, to be forgotten evermore. Zelda Fitzgerald seems an interesting figure.

Catching Life by the Throat in 1491

2007-01-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

Two new books from the library (my ambition knows no bounds):

Catching Life by the Throat: How to read poetry and why by Josephine Hart (this sounds great, and includes a cd of a live reading at the British Library by people like Ralph Fiennes, Harold Pinter and Juliet Stevenson). We've only heard one poem so far and the recording quality is terrible, but it's really neat all the same. More later, when I've had more of a chance to read it.

1491 Which hopefully has more legitimacy (I've read that it does--it's actually reasonably well-regarded) than 1421.

Films rented for the week:

Hotel Rwanda
The Green Mile
The latest Harry Potter (lost track of which one it is)

We haven't seen any of them yet.

Diary of a Bachelorette

2007-01-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

Or something like that. A friend of ours taped it because it turns out that a mutual acquaintance was featured in this particular episode.

The show is about a bunch of attractive single women in search of "Mr. Right." They had women of different ethnicities and also of different sizes, which was refreshing to see. They were certainly likeable and appealing figures as presented in the show.

At any rate, it was a strange sensation, watching this episode, because the acquaintance was the "disaster" figure of the show. He was basically shown to be mister incredibly and horribly wrong--and though he has a reputation among those who know him that one might say is somewhat in line with this, I wonder to what extent the interviews, comments and clips were cut to make him look even worse.

So it was really kind of uncomfortable watching the show because on the one hand, it was funny--and if I didn't know this person, I'd probably be chuckling away--but on the other, I felt bad and wondered how he would feel about being portrayed in this way. Or rather--I don't know him at all, so I couldn't really wonder or presume to imagine how he would feel. But because I've met him and heard about him and so on, let's say he was closer to home, and so it made me think about how I would feel under those circumstances, if I were to turn on some show for which I had signed a release form and so on, and found myself portrayed in such a manner.

I guess the moral of the story is, don't sign that release form... :-)

Little Snowy Mosque...

2007-01-17T20:19:00.000-08:00

We watched the much-talked about Little Mosque on the Prairie last week, amid much television snow, since we no longer have cable and CBC doesn't come in very well. We both felt Little Mosque was a bit cheesy and the acting wasn't very good. We're hoping it will improve on the latter score at least, as the actors develop a stronger sense of their characters and the story arcs.

I guess it's kind of cute, but I'm not blown away.

I also watched a rather snowy episode of Dr. Who (the second of a two-parter). Again, not much to say.

I haven't been reading or watching much because (drum roll), I've been working on my book! Yippee! I actually managed to get a couple of scene written (they'll need tightening, but it's something at least). I hope to get much more written on it tomorrow and do cleanups on still more scenes that don't require heavy revisions. This is happy news indeed...

Brideshead Revisited

2007-01-09T06:19:00.000-08:00

Watched a couple episodes of Brideshead Revisited again (love it!)--inspired by friends Ian and Denise who watched and loved Best of Youth on our recommendation and wanted other suggestions. BR was near the top of my list. It's darker, but covers a long sweep of years as well and is so much about character and a portrayal of particular times and places in Ryder's life. And of course I chortled like mad over John Gielgud's scenes. Those were hilarious.

Books:

Humanity: A History

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (just looked this one over quickly at the library). It's not about the signified (i.e. humanity), but rather a history of the word "humanity" and how we have defined it in different times. He talks about our connection to different animals via legend, anthropomorphization and shamanic beliefs. Also, about how Lucy and that other chimpanzee learned sign language (though I believe that has, in some way been debunked--I remember looking into it when I was reading Dragons of Eden because Sagan also mentions those two examples) and so on. Because I recalled that it had been debunked, that did undermine his credibility about such things.

One of the notions that I did find interesting was that he pointed out that our inclusive and egalitarian view of humanity is a relatively recent conceit. Prior to that, there were hierarchies within the classification, drawn along racial (or, to be even more precise, racist) lines. As Djikstra also mentioned in Evil Sisters, in the early days, Darwinism was used to reinforce these prejudices and notions of racial superiority.

At any rate, it was more an extended contemplation of this idea than anything deeply informative, IMO (as Fernandez-Armesto calls it, an extended essay). I didn't love it.

Reading:

Blink

About "thin slicing", the idea that we make a lot of valid snap judgements that serve us well in everyday life but which we cannot explain or verbalize. I.e. the power of the "gut feeling," based on the internalization of numerous, often small but cumulative experiences. He also talks about those biases which lead us astray without our realizing it and that we should be trying to resist. The other big concept introduced is priming--namely, we can unknowingly be primed towards thinking a certain way by seeing a profusion of words or images (e.g. if we are asked to make grammatical sentences from a number of assembled words, we might not notice, scattered within them, words about, say, politeness, because we see them used in a different context. But, the unconscious, "thin slicing" part of our brain does associate them and our behaviour changes accordingly, in subtle ways). It's actually quite a lot about things that Ian covered in his "Faith and Politics" class at UU--really neat stuff.

This book, The Tipping Point and Freakonomics were three books discussed together at Denise's baby shower (which Denise wasn't able to attend because she was in labour!!)--most of the people there had Psych backgrounds and so they were talking about how TTP and Blink were both about fairly basic concepts within Psych circles, but which might have been new to laypersons (true)--and how according to someone's Economist friend, Freakonomics was similar in the latter area--trendily repackaged for popular consumption, but generally fairly basic ideas.

Funny thing (also pointed out by one of the women there): TTP and Freakonomics both talk about the same phenomenon of dropping crime rates in NYC, but cite completely different root causes.

The Tipping Point

Just a few pages in, but the Tipping Point seems to be a trendy, catchy repackaging of the notion of memes--ideas as forms of virus or bacteria that can spread. More viable ones propagate and grow and reach a point of widespread saturation after a while.

January 4-6

2007-01-06T09:01:00.000-08:00

Reading: Inevitable Illusions by Massimo Piattelli-Palimari

--Like optical illusions, which (simplified) involve shortcuts taken by our optical apparatus, there are a number of mental shortcuts we tend to take when making choices and reasoning things out--estimates that lead to faulty reasoning and decision-making. This is known as "mental economy" though the author unmasks this as "mental sloth" that can lead to potentially problematic choices or decisions made.

Much of the book is examples of different varieties of this in the form of puzzler type questions, categorized by type. It's interesting in grand strokes, but I found the diction and syntax of the author to have that particular quality of formality/awkwardness/oddly-fitting idiom that is often an indication of a translation or native speaker of the Romance languages (esp. Spanish and Italian--reminiscent of many of the translations I've read of Latin-American fiction, for instance). I find that peculiarity of idiom enticing in fiction, leading to unexpected descriptive phrases and evocations. It didn't work as well for me in non-fiction. The "voice" felt heavy, long-winded and not very readable, despite a friendly and accessible tone (make no mistake: there weren't issues with grammar that I noticed... it was more subtle than that).

Viewing: Silent Hill

Felt like a video game. Made little sense as a film and slightly more sense as a video game--but there were still large gaps in logic, motivation, etc.

Syriana

Kind of neat; kind of confusing. It wasn't a big revelation to me and I thought it could have been more clearly and suspensefully done. Ultimately I liked it, but didn't love it. It's not like unmasking the corrupting was some deep insight, but I did like that there was no one specific villian of the piece, and most people were shown to be acting in what they felt was a reasonable way, in the context if his situation. It wasn't one of those "heh heh heh, what evil can I wreak today? I know! I'll scapegoat some lackey as a sleight of hand gesture in order to consolidate my big business and lotsa money position--and just cause it's a rotten thing to do." Each of the characters really did feel he was the hero of his own story and we saw them walk that tightrope of moral compromise (or even fall off) all the while believe that he did so for a bigger, better cause (family, country etc.). Nice to see that balance without any kind of attendant glorification.

2007-01-03T09:44:00.000-08:00

Viewing:

Prison Break (season one completed)
Capote

Reading:

Freakonomics

To look into:

When We Were Orphans (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Mesoamerica
Truman Capote (In Cold Blood, Breakfast at Tiffany's and a biography about the man)

_1421: The Year China Discovered America_ Notes

2006-12-30T09:51:00.000-08:00

About 100 pages in. I like the detail and evocation of medieval China; lots of fascinating little bits and pieces. The problem--which may just be my bias, knowing that much of the info has been discredited--is that he seems very ready to make assumptions or leap to certain conclusions. E.g. certain phrases like "Without that experience [of sailing the same possible routes the Chinese fleet had taken], I could never have followed the elusive trail of evidence across the globe that revealed the incredible journeys made by the great Chines treasure fleets. If I was able to state with confidence the course a Chinese fleet had taken, it was because the surviving maps and charts and my own knowledge of the winds, currents and sea conditions told me the route as surely as if there had been a written record of it."

I like the magical realism of an idea like this: namely, that he could have, by knowing the winds, currents and sea conditions, been able to plot the course so precisely. I'm sure there's some element of truth to that (though there's also the question of how much those would have changed in 600 years. I really don't know the answer to that)--you'd be able to infer the likelihood of one route over another. But it seems a leap into conjecture to claim that by knowing the winds etc. you'd be able to infer whether they went to a place or not. If they went there, one route might suggest itself as likelier than another, but that seems a rather big "if".

Of course, he's still talking about better-documented visits at this point, where there seems some evidence that they went to Africa etc. to corroborate his claims, so perhaps all he is claiming at this point is that he knows the likely route they would have taken, on these reasonably well-known trips. But he does mention an "elusive trail of evidence across the globe" that would seem to imply that he's making this claim about other, less well-documented trips as well. Problematic.

There's also a MR element to an earlier note of his, in which he mentions that looking at older maps, he can figure out the angle from which they approached the shoreline etc. because of his navigational experience. Kind of cool.

Hereafter....

2006-12-29T14:28:00.000-08:00

I hereby declare this my recently read/seen or in the process of reading/seeing blog. I'll reserve actual commentaries for my main blog, but this is more by way of tracking stuff for myself...

So, recently scanned:

Woman Warrior
Adam, Eve and the Serpent (Elaine Paggels)
Evil Sisters (Bram Djikstra)
Goddess Within
Hero with a Thousand Faces

Recently read:

Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro)

Recently viewed:

Partway through Prison Break
Final Cut (Robin Williams as editor of others' lives in expiation of guilt he feels over a childhood mishap)
Battlestar Galactica (partway through season two)
Alias (up to end of season two)
Apocalypto
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

Currently reading/scanning:

Fairy Faith in Celtic Cultures
Beginnins, Middles and Ends
How Great Generals Win (Bevin Alexander)
1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered America
Stranger Things Happen (Kelly Link)
Politics: A conceptual approach

To read soon, I hope:

The Book of Lost Things
Lost Girls (Andrew Pyper)
Freakonomics
The Psychology of War

Test

2006-03-23T12:43:00.000-08:00

A photo from our visit to the Adirondacks. As a test for posting pics.

The future of the music industry

2006-02-22T06:25:00.000-08:00

On our recent trip to San Antonio, struck by a sudden hankering for coffee, we headed over to the Riverwalk in our search for Starbucks. We found it. As Tom put it, once we had climbed to the street level where it was located, "But this isn't a coffee place, it's a music store."

And so, indeed, it was. A music store with hip, minimalist displays of actual cds and a series of flat-screen lcd "listening stations" with stools poised in front of them. A music store that happened to also sell coffee. The merchandising was, IMO, brilliant.

The music that was now playing over the store's sound system showed in a corner of the screen, so you could, at any time, pull up the album it was from and listen to the whole thing. If the cd you wanted wasn't in stock, you could compile a custom cd of your own at a fixed price for the first seven or eight songs, and a lower price for each successive song. But, if the cd was in stock, it looked like you'd have to shell out the label price in order to get your desired songs. They also seemed to have a setup that anticipated some sort of "upload to the mp3 player" option down the line.

Fascinating indeed to see these various adaptations to the changing music industry--ways to allow people who don't want to steal music, but who also don't want to spend mucho dinero on a mediocre album with one good song, to legitimately test drive the music and buy just what they want. Which of these service provider adaptations will survive and propagate, I wonder?

In theory, this should raise the bar on the kind of music that gets produced. As with the mp3 format, the variety will likely increase, but at the same time, the competition for airtime in establishments like the Starbucks will grow fierce, and the backers with the sheckels will be the ones whose clients will be heard (the "check out the whole album from what's playing" system works, btw--I bought both the cds that I explored after hearing one of their songs playing in the cafe).

In practice, the need for songs people will buy a la carte (as opposed to using the "menu du jour" format of the traditional cd) could be problematic. On the one hand, it means that fewer people will be willing to take the plunge on an album they don't love right away--and so there will be fewer instances of discovering a "gem" on the b-side that, after a few listens and a bit of getting used to, becomes a favourite. The "raised bar" of having songs that are catchy from the first listen is also counterbalanced by the radio syndicates, all putting the same "lowest common denominator" music into high rotation across the continent--though in turn, those could be counterbalanced by the democratic medium of the podcasts...

So, it will be interesting to see the lay of the land, once the dust settles. Where will the new borders and battle lines be drawn?