Something in a recent diary by Hulver stalwart and all-around smart guy, lm, kicked off a whole chain of associations. He mentioned the various characters in his home taking turns reading to one another while they did chores.

    Reminded me . . .

    In the factory town Lowell, during the 1800s, the women who worked in the textile factories used to take turns reading novels aloud to one another while they worked. The workers would split up the reader's workload, dividing it among enough hands to the extra load was negligible. Then, the next day, some other woman would take the position of reader and the others would take her work load for a day. The women found that it made the work go faster, which is why the bosses tolerated it despite the Victorian concerns that novels, especially sensationalistic ones (particularly popular among the working class women of Lowell) were bad for the intellectual and moral development of the young ladies.

    When I used to work in a factory, way back in the late 1900s, several of the work groups would listen to the radio together or play books on tape to the whole group. There was something pleasant about the collective experience of listening together. I don't remember how the particular radio shows or audio books were selected. I don't remember any votes or anything like that. I also don't remember anybody complaining about the selections. There was something so pleasing about the group listening experience that it often made the choice of material irrelevant.

    The material was never particularly notable. If it was talk radio, it was almost always some conservative windbag droning on. Funny think about political talk – listen to it long enough and it becomes abstract squawks and honks, not without a sort of jazzy charm, but pretty much devoid of any representational value, like the wonk wonk talk of adult characters in Charlie Brown cartoons. It helped that the issues were almost always un-debates. More often than not the squawk-box hosting the show was getting their panties in a bunch about some minor, one-of, isolated issue, for example: they'd hold up a single semester no-credit elective on the erotic gay art of the ancient Babylonians as some small liberal arts school as an example of the utter destruction of the education system – as if every student in America was being legally required to take the course. When the issue at hand did threaten to touch on genuine substance, the debate was always so superficial and lopsided as to verge on the surreal: a string on non-sequitur responses tied to the theme in only the most general way: "We can't be experiencing global warming because there are now more national parks than there were when Columbus landed. Besides, it is all the fault of the liberal tree-huggers because cows, which cause climate change, are so protected by the ACLU that all-American blue-collar leather workers must now drive further to work in order to find states where fashionable shoes are still legal."

    If it was a book, it was inevitably a generic mystery or thriller, usually a middle number from some on-going series. Interestingly, several of the factory workers would take considerable pains annotating the series references for the newcomers, a task that was unnecessary as the original authors, doing their level best to ensure that any airline passenger in America could pick up any of their books and start in, almost always made the same efforts.
    Audio book: "David Gat looked out over the dance floor. Amanda was a great dancer."
    Worker commentary: "That was his wife. But she's dead."
    AB: "Amanda's death had left a dark pit in his heart. He could hear no music, taste no food, feel no joy."
    WC: "She was killed. And he wants to find the dude who did it."
    AB: "Only revenge would fill the hole in his heart. Gat had made a sacred vow to Amanda's memory: punish the man responsible."
    WC: "Only he don't know who did it. He's only got the picture of the guy."
    AB: "Only he don't know who did it. The sole clue to the murderer's identity was a small photo of the police's only suspect."
    WC: "Gat keeps the photo with him in his wallet."
    AB: "Correct. Next to the photos of Gat's kidnapped daughter, his assassinated Army buddy, his brainwashed aunt's missing college roommate, and the bowling league co-captain who was certain that he was being tailed by a terror cell of Quebec separatist."

    The music was inevitably AM pop of the America's "You Can Do Magic" sort.

    Now that I work in an office, listening to music or books or talk radio is a strictly solo experience. Folks sit in their cubes, wires running from their ears to their computers. To be honest, no radio or book on tape would be any more or less annoying than the random conversations, odd office noises, and other distractions that fill the day. Nor is our work any more or less demanding. Brainless labor is no more engaging just because we happen to bang is out on a keyboard rather than with a hammer. Still, there's a generalized sense that our work must occur in isolation. Listening should divide us in the same manner cube walls do.
    Also, I reckon, folks in the office are proprietary about their culture in a way the factory folks weren't. Whether it is a product of education or wealth, the office dwellers seem to have a sense that cultural products have differing levels of worth and this worth reflects on the consumer. Exposure to anything other than one's own products is not just a source of annoyance, but a minor threat. Like having to stand next to some guy with a nasty, disgusting cough – not only is it distracting, but there's always the fear that it might be contagious.
    This seems to be generational, to a degree. The folks I worked with in the factory were, mostly, older types. They pretty much set the template for there likes and dislikes in their teens and twenties – from the 1950s to the early 1980s – and, by design or accident, kept that. My generation, on the other, has made heroic efforts to prolong their cultural teen years, continuing to chase trends and developments well into our adult lives. We've also kept a bit of the old school yard dynamic of in-and-out. Announce that you can't stand America's "You Can Do Magic" on the factory floor and it becomes part of the ritual of listening. When that song comes on, you'll be expected to object. If you don't, folks will remind you to object. If you're not on the floor, they'll even object for you in absentia. You're always in. They know you and they know your position on the music and you always have a role. By contrast, in the office, you belong to one of the several sub-tribes of cultural consumers or you're out. You get it or you don't.

    I'm not sure that one is better than the other. There's something a bit lonely about living in our little sonic fishbowls. But, on the other hand, there's something stifling about the assumed collectivity of the shared experience. There's something spiteful and petty about the individuality the cube approach promotes. However, there's something creepy about the reduction of individual taste into a ritualized motion of the collective norm. I'm not certain I would sacrifice the sense that some music, some books are simply better than others. As unsupportable as that position may be, I feel it to be true and I can't shake the sense that the better stuff matters in a way the lesser works don't.

    And, perhaps most importantly, America's "You Can Do Magic" is utter crap and I don't understand why anybody should have to listen to it.