Our ever more sophisticated arsenal of stars and thumbs will eventually serve to curtail serendipity, adventure, and idiotic floundering. But more immediate is the simple problem of contamination. When the voices of hundreds of strangers, or even just three shrill ones, enter our heads, a tiny but vital part of ourselves is diminished. Suddenly we’re breached, denied the pleasure of articulating our own judgment on this professor, or that meal, or this city. It’s a fundamental bit of humanness to discover, say, the Velvet Underground for the first time—to rifle through that box of records at 13 and to reach an unbiased and wholly personal verdict on those strange sounds. Is it pretty? Ugly? Why are they out of tune?
Especially like the comment dialogue between Peter Mosher and ElyasM. Mosher’s points are well-made in an easily-comprehensible prose stlyle. I give him a solid 4 out of 5. ElyasM — having had the benefit of Mosher’s response on which to draw and the class to acknowledge his wisdom out of the gate — presents in even loftier, yet still lucid, style her interpretation of the author’s piece. Ultimately, having found the article of enough interest to note myself, ElyasM earns additional consideration from this reviewer. Call it the “birds-of-a-feather” bonus. I found her review more helpful, thank you very much. 5 out of 5.
