There are plenty of things to love about Carrie Brownstein, who hangs with the cool kids at NPR Music and pens the Monitor Mix blog. One thing to love is her latest post, which belatedly chronicles her arrival in New York City:
As for the music in the car, it was the least consistent of any of the travelers present. Rarely did the songs provide motivation or inspiration -- or, more importantly, stave off sleep or restlessness. There were a few mixes on hand, most of them too worn and familiar to be of much use. What I thought would be reassuring (Led Zeppelin, The Zombies or The Magnetic Fields, for instance) only made me anxious. Strangely, it was songs that I wouldn't listen to in most other contexts that underscored the momentum of the trip: Big Country's "Big Country," Jackson Browne's "The Pretender," anything by Neil Diamond. Basically, I was programming my own radio station, trying to make the music feel surprising, random and somewhat novel.
During my own nonstop jag from Sante Fe to Richmond in the 1990s, I listened to The Cranberries until my ears bled because nothing else kept me from becoming stir crazy.
But here's the sentence that makes Brownstein genius in my book:
In the end, I downloaded a somewhat asinine book onto my iPod and came up with the idea of truckers' reading groups.
Like she thinks that's a dumb idea? It's gold!
