gotta have my ipod in the a.m.

well, well, well. what should i discuss tonight? the make-up lady, the lazy cyclist or this city's obsession with ipods and underground travel?

hmmm, i think i'll go with my final suggestion. the make-up lady and the lazy cyclist can wait.

so this morning, as i made my way into work on the yonge street subway, i decided to conduct a brief and admittedly unscientific study of ipod usage on my train. according to my calculations, approximately 30% of all subway patrons were plugged into the iconic portable media player during today's morning rush hour. that's right. just about one out of every three users of public transportation in this city was listening to some form of audio entertainment as they rode the rails to their places of employment (i presume) earlier today. at least on my train they were.

now speaking of rails, i believe that i once employed the pages of this very blog to rail against the creeping corruption of musical appreciation via the proliferation of digital music players and their accompanying earphone technology. musica, i argued, was always intended to be experienced as a shared communal adventure and not as a means of shutting out the outside world. yet the very design of the modern mp3 player all but ensures that the listener remains isolated in the consumption of his/her personal musical tastes.

so here's my question: why is it that so many residents of this city feel compelled to listen to their latter-day walkmans while they commute to work every morning on public transit? i mean, is it really necessary to get in those thirty or forty minutes of the latest musical trends before the start of the every single workday? after all, it's not as though my fellow metro travellers are barred from listening to their ipods once the clock strikes five or on weekends or statutory holidays or whenever they have some free time. hey, that's what i do. in fact, between youtube and the cd player and the car stereo and the samsung k3 and the radio and the rogers digital music channels, i am hardly lacking in terms of musical indulgence.

so you're on the subway. so what's so wrong about striking up a conversation with one of your fellow passengers? or reading the paper? or reading your fellow passenger's paper? or avoiding eye contact with your fellow passenger? or staring at the poster ads? or straightening your tie? or hiking up your socks? or munching on a granny smith apple? or making a mental to-do list? or dreaming of a better life?

and yes, i am fully aware that most, if not all, of the above activities can be performed while one hums along to the latest eminem release courtesy one's portable musical device. but that's the whole point of this piece. that's the question i've been asking all along. why, in modern times, must we always seek out musical accompaniment to assist us in every aspect of our daily routines?

and just how much magic can lie in those tiny little earbuds anyway?

"music is the wine that fills the cup of silence." - robert fripp

hey, the man was responsible for "stairway to heaven"