I've been making the point for some time that just as a couple of hundred years ago, in the days before sanitation systems, the 'elite' classes carried nosegays in the street to block out the odors, today people are trying to block out extraneous sound.

I think it does have to do with overload. Soon we will all have our ears plugged into the sound we want at the same time that establishments, buses and subway systems assail the unprotected with the sounds they want. It's like going in and out of stores in a t-shirt in the middle of a blizzard.

And I will never understand the need for a Walkman in the forest.

Ebbie