Experiment: Music

Today begins a grand experiment: iPod swap! My good friend and I have profoundly different tastes in music, but fearing stagnation, and possessing in us both the tendency towards self-torture, we have agreed to switch iPods for the duration of the day. They must be kept on random, and we are only allowed 5 skips each, so we must be conservative in case we encounter a 20 minute long live Phish jam, or a 35 minute Merzbow track and be left with no other option but hurling ourselves off a bridge (self-termination is not outside of the rules).

Despite the risk of Barenaked Ladies (a constant threat) and jam bands, I think this should be a very worthwhile exercise. I hope to implement it with more formality in the near future. We get very easily stuck in our own worlds. I think it is important to venture out from time to time and open ourselves up to thoughts, sounds, and images that we would never explore on our own. For instance, already I have learned that Wilson Phillips rules, and that I still do not care at all for Ani Di Franco. Other realities are so close by. We have the ability to explore them every day and yet we rarely do.

..It is only great restraint the keeps me from skipping the Alanis Morisette song which has just come one. ...Oh but then Tuvan Throat singing is the reward! Endless surprises abound, if we only take the minimal risk to venture out.