Why is it so hard to enjoy music sitting in front of the computer? Your eyes are glued to the screen; your rear end is glued to a chair. Actually the whole mood is office-like and studious. The bloody cord that tethers the headphones to the computer is infuriating. It's harder to get in the mood at a computer than in an auditorium, where you've bought an expensive ticket, and resent being unable to cough or go to the bathroom when you feel like it.

There is an anthropological connection between music and dance, and we all know crazy women who can't separate the two. When music truly moves me, I don't want to dance, but I do want to move, pace up and down, and fidget. Sure, you can buy tinny little computer speakers or wireless headphones. I bought a pair of Zennheiser wireless headphones several years ago.

It was a great idea. Sigh. I dreamed of using wireless headphones to enhance my RV boondocking by sitting outside or walking around my RV, while the dogs disported off-leash, and I admired spectacular scenery in a vast front yard. Just imagine boondocking in the grasslands of southeastern Arizona and listening to John Barry's "Out of Africa."
 


In fact I had just the spot picked out where it looked like the beginning of the movie, when Meryl Streep is standing on the platform of the train going through the high plateau of Kenya, looking at it for the first time.

Alas, the sound quality was mediocre and the headphones would pop and hiss. German engineering.

It seemed that the best way to let the Muse frolic off-leash was to join the iPod era. (Perhaps being a late adopter precludes turning this into a gadget blog.) No, I wasn't willing to literally get sucked into the Reality Distortion Field and overpay for the iPod brand. Because of the return policy I went to Walmart and bought a 16 GByte Sony Walkman, just a few days after they arrived.

I sync-ed the music from my computer; it was gleaned from public libraries' CDs all over the western states. Then, off to a noisy restaurant. I smiled at the counter-girl and announced that, although I liked their food, their music sucked to high heaven, and then proudly showed her my new Walkman. She just smiled and said that she too hated their music.

I deliberately sat underneath the speakers in the ceiling that serenade the customers with pop/rock/country noise; the same noise that you would hear in any store or restaurant in America. I fired up the Walkman, and carefully adjusted the volume so that I could just barely hear the din.

It was like being surrounded by a personal force field or "shield" from Star Trek. I was enpowered; free from the endless racket of modern city life, the diesels, the piped-in music, boom cars, Harleys, and sirens.

Then I turned up the volume on the Gipsy Kings album. What a marvelous sound! I was finally-- finally! --separate from a culture that has become unbearable. I wanted to jump up on the table and start shouting, "I'm free. I don't have to listen to your crap anymore!"

Now I understand how that fellow back in Colorado felt when he looked up, overjoyed, while experiencing the river and his portable music.