Over the weekend I received various gifts: a library book that I had misplaced and was stolen, was recovered for me; a disability bus-pass form; an f.m. clock/radio in its modern mode of headphones. In trying to tune the last to a public broadcast station (which I never did find) I traversed the whole spectrum of f.m. broadcasts and discovered a couple of remarkable things: (1) the quality of sound-reproduction is phenomenally good; and (2) everything that is broadcast, presumably for the pleasure of listeners, is detestable. God awful. Stupid. Meretricious. Trash. All that "noise," which I have resolutely ignored when people around me have been listening to it, or, more precisely, playing it loud as if they meant to listen to it--jazz, salsa, hip-hop, grunge, Broadway show tunes, etc. (Actually I falsify when I attempt to classify it; I'm not really familiar enough with any of it to know its putative kinds and categories. Let us say, as objectively as possible, contemporary popular music)--when actually listened to, is unspeakably ugly, depressing, boring, low-minded, mean-spirited stuff. Say that music is feeling: Who wants to feel like that?