When television was first projected to an eager public, people wondered what they looked at in their radio days. By now, everyone knows that radio is a visual medium and that people saw it in their mind's eye. Go back a bit; when sound came in they wondered what was going to happen to movies and then television seemed to threaten movies as well. Things disappear, evolve, change. When recording began, I think there were cylinders to play the sound back. I think I saw one in my grandparents' attic. Then there were big, thick disks with music on one side, then slimmer records with two sides of sound played at 78 rpm, then smaller ones at 45 rpm and more efficient ones at 33 1/3. Vinyl, they called it and vinyl is supposed to be making a comeback for aficionados. Does anyone remember the 8-track, fighting a losing battle with audio tapes? And now where are the tapes and tape decks and all that stuff? I guess I should have gone into this yesterday, considering the disappearance of music, but today the disappearing "fact" of life is television, or so they say, so it's all related, isn't it? We keep on filling our lives with sounds and pictures, refining and improving (?) and increasing our consumption, all the while mourning the death/disappearance of the previous tools of delivery. Television has not disappeared for the older generation, like me. I haven't gone so far as a wall-size screen but I like to watch a screen that's bigger than my face. I've already told you how I feel about buds stuck in my ears. Younger people use different devices to get their story (and music) fixes, but they're still watching, and listening. It surprised me when I first heard a grandchild singing along with to-her-familiar words to a hit song. I could scarcely recognize the words, let alone repeat them. Since that discovery I have learned to listen more closely, but only if I have to. (I had to review John Samson's lyrics as poetry. It took a while; I was on a new learning curve. If you're asking who's John Samson, look up the Weaker Thans.) Anyway, at this point I cannot afford the time, money or energy to pursue the knowledge further. Time and I are finite. I guess television is, too.

Well, they say music is going to disappear, like books. Well, not music, of course, but the traditional ways of acquiring it and listening to it. Actually, the music industry is way ahead of the book publishing industry. It has gone through its crises and its purveyors and creators have learned that they have to give a little to get, eventually, a lot. When we were married we enjoyed one of Bill's first acquisitions, a radio-record-player console - does anyone remember those things that looked like a real piece of furniture, designed something like a coffin with nice handles/ hardware? It boasted continuous play: the record player dropped the next record down to be played, although record manufacturers didn't know that, so that you got side 3, not 2, and so on, for a long time. I used to play records - 33 1/3 rpm, Broadway shows - while I ironed. Those were in the days before Perma-Press. The first thing I bought with the first money I earned by writing was an electric mangle because I liked ironed sheets and - can you believe it? - tea towels. I had an aunt who used to iron diapers!!! I digress; this is about music. Yes, well, we had babies, four of them, and we couldn't afford to buy music, not for a long time. I missed too much to catch up, so I hung back with Vivaldi and Smetana et al. I am still interested in Broadway and now I usually get the Tony Award musical winners. I am a case of arrested development: I stopped at CDs. I don't understand iTunes. But then, I don't like ear buds. (Is that what they're called?) I have never liked wall-to-wall sound inside my head. It's too invasive. I have read of writers who like to write to music but I find that hard to believe. What happens to the inner dialogue with that kind of interference? Music should be pervasive, not invasive, but it's not going to disappear. That's all I can say about that.