At Houston and Broadway
Last week, the third RoomGroove arrived. It took about two minutes to unwrap and plug in. Presto! Music in the living room. The same music that hitherto could only be heard in the bedroom and the blue room. As it was a weeknight, the Black Nano was playing the nearly six hundred “songs” that I’ve uploaded onto it. Although there’s still plenty of empty space on the Black Nano, it takes more than five days (barring the hours of sleep) for it to plow through the “Classics” playlist — which is the only playlist on that device.*
Meanwhile, I’ve uploaded nearly forty CDs onto the Grey Nano. There are two playlists, “Jazz” and “Standards,” the difference being that all the vocals have been shunted into the latter. Here’s the mystery: it’s as though the Black Nano and the Grey Nano were two completely different types of music source, instead of exactly the same. During the week, the pleasant round of Handel, Mozart, Schubert und so weiter creates one kind of apartment. Then, on the weekends, the place gets a paint job. When the Grey Nano shuffles its way through Keith Jarrett, Benny Goodman, Dexter Gordon and so on, we’re not in quite the same house.
Is it just the music? Of course not. It’s the flow of music, its endless, effortless unspooling. It’s as miraculous to me as water running from a tap must have been to the children of pioneers. And rather more atmospherically potent. Listen, I’d only just gotten used to not having to turn the record* over!
* You might then ask, “Why have a playlist at all?” Ah, so did I, at first.
* LP. We knew it was vaguely illiterate to call LPs (and 45s and — for those of us whose parents hadn’t thrown away theirs — 78s) “records.” But the usage did not die until the format did.
