"I don't understand it," I said to John. "With all of these people out there listening to their iPods, how is it that the entire city isn't dancing like mad?"
The question comes from my rather new experience of listening to music (in this case, Dinosaur Jr.'s latest, the messy and powerful Beyond) through an iPod using Shure SE310 earphones. I have to imagine that all of these men, women, and children, plugged into their iPods, are listening to music that moves them — music they love, or, at the very least, like. So, why am I the only guy out there fighting against flipping out like a fool, possessed by the beauty?
And not just fighting, but desperately grappling, wrestling — all-out MMA-style Bas Rutten vs Ken Shamrock stuff — waging war against the urge to dance. This morning, again, I struggled. It took everything I had in me to keep from bouncing around on the PATH train. I would have stomped upon several shiny shoes and a few flip-flopped toes, too, I know, possibly sending many passengers to the dirty floor, but I nearly did it. I nearly broke. It's what my body wanted to do. How is it that the entire city isn't dancing like mad? Maybe it's because they're using those piece-of-crap stock earbuds. Maybe it's because they're listening to compressed files, music that's had the soul squeezed out of it.
I don't know.
"With all of these people out there listening to their iPods, how is it that the entire city isn't dancing like mad?" I asked.
"They are," JA said. "On the inside."
