Soundtrack to Human Motion

with apologies to Jason Moran, from whom I stole this title, I am absolutely astonished by not just the prevalence of iPods (here used interchangeably with all portable personal music devices), but also the effects and ramifications of this iPod-proliferation.  I'm not getting up on a pedestal; this isn't a rant about our social disconnectedness, ear damage, etc.  I'm just blown away by some of the effects.

Take for example a (related) case that I've now heard several friends discuss:  Guy walks down the street in average dress.  He starts laughing, humming, or even talking to no one in particular.  Crazy, right?  It's common enough up here.  But no!  He's on a hands-free-bluetooth-wifi-cyberimplant, and now you look like an idiot for assuming he was crazy.  I've even seen this go the other way - people I'm pretty sure weren't mentally stable wandering around with devices on their ear, and being treated as average passersby as a result.

But I digress - iPod phenomenon.

When I was backpacking this summer, I listened to my brilliant little "iPod" often, in fact daily.  I loaded it with about 1 GB of songs when I left San Antonio, and listened to those same songs for 2 1/2 months while I was "on the lamb."  I won't say that I didn't get tired of some of them, but taken together they form the opus of my travels, and every song from that original playlist is indellibly marked with the remembrance of my time abroad.

So when I say that I'm listening  more than I did all summer, please understand how radical an increase that must be.  And I'm loving it!  As most of my long-time friends (and all former roommates) will know, I'm not someone who has ever permitted silence to reign long in my presence.  I like music in the car, during dinner, while I'm working, etc.  Music keeps me going, and it allows me to be intentional and appreciative of silence when I choose to envelope myself in it.

But today I had a rather mundane epiphany followed by a much more interesting conundrum.  I was walking through Columbia's main library, surrounded by studious 20-somethings and 50 year old books, and something about my mood and the song currently bulleting through my eardrums (in this case, I believe it was Datarock's "Princess") was transportative.  Suddenly, I was watching my own autobiography unfold projected in front of me as if on an enormous canvas screen.  The proverbial lights dimmed, and I was getting the hollywood version complete with THX surround sound.

Ryan Weber, uncut.

This isn't a novel idea.  Soundtracks are used to artificially elevate our emotions during cinema (or theatre) to the level they would theoretically be at if we were really there.  Now, we use music to add meaning/interest to the parts of our lives that otherwise might lack it, such as when riding the subway or walking through a semi-silent library.  Several good jokes have been done on the possibility of personal theme music, notably Family Guy.  So ok, nothing new.

Then I rounded the corner, and popped into the Men's room.

Here's a question for you:  What is the proper theme music for using a public toilet?  Have you ever noticed that most bathrooms don't have background music.  You're expected to go in, do your business, and get out.  No messing about, and no need to keep you preoccupied in the interim, as is the focus for Elevator Muzak.  So what happens when you don't take off your earbuds?

Allow me to paint a scene from a first-person perspective.  There you are, with your pants around your ankles and your knees together as you flex various unpronounceable interior muscles in your own quiet effort that is so routine as to be almost subconscious.  You realize that while your body is doing what it was built to do, and your eyes are fixed on the checkered black and white tile floor, you're listening to a rock ballad, or electro-pop, or bebop.  Whatever it is, it doesn't fit.  at all.  in any conceivable way.

And what would?  What could possibly be the "right" music for this moment?  If you were Clint Eastwood, or, let's be realistic, Judd Apatow, and you were filming an interior-monologue-while-on-the-crapper scene (it can't be the first), what would you go with to fill the silence?

I don't have the answer; I'm not your answer man.  

Weber

:: (lame) Texpatriot