In terms of your second question, I get exposed to new music more often through Pandora than I ever did in a music store - I wasn't ever a devoted enough browser to try random things. I have watched more new movies since getting Netflix Instant Queue than ever before as well, and my Kindle has made me much more likely to try whole new genres of fiction.

I'm sure these are common experiences and definitely point up the advantages of the all access digital world. The whole Pandora algorithm neatly does the things you might get from a good record store geek, without the snotty attitude.

I'm more interested in the flattening of value of things when everything's available. OTOH, that's a virtue, in that simple market forces of supply and demand can't make some worthy bit of music unavailable because collectors have snapped up the only available copies.

There's something more subtle (I think) going on, though, where because things come to you, then you don't have to go to the works. Not just physically, but emotionally/intellectually.

Obviously, the new approach makes it much more easy for you to explore new books (Kindle) and movies (Netflix) and songs (iTunes). But several articles I read today noted the virtue of only having 20 records in your collection but knowing them deeply, completely, inside and out. Every lyric and every nuance of the song's production.

Which is different from flitting from playlist to playlist, trying to find something to match your mood or change your mood. There's less investment in some ways. It's not inherent. You can certainly buy Demon Days and listen to it through and through, day after day. But that experience becomes less common.

Each cultural event becomes less an expression of an individual creator that requires some movement/effort on your part, and it trends to becoming a commodified event solely to satisfy your expectations.

There's something of that creeping sense of entitlement that some teachers and staff have noted here about younger students. The expectation that not only will all needs be met, but all wants as well.

Certainly there's nothing wrong with anybody deriving satisfaction from their books or movies or music. That's why we read and listen and watch. But the very plenitude (I suspect) may be dulling in some way. I certainly don't think that's the end-game for our culture. I would guess that it requires different kinds of institutions. That something like Mark Reads is a blueprint for a 21st century salon.

I personally love movie theatres, though the talking, cell phones and general rudeness make it harder to love. It's probably not a coincidence that all my favourite communal viewing experiences were in independent rep theatres.

Two examples: 1) Seeing Three Colours: White in Vancouver. There was a large Polish contingent in the theatre who laughed at a lot of references the rest of us did not get. One joke about faking the circumstances of a death by having the character seem to be decapitated by a train really set them off into gales of laughter. We laughed because they laughed, but I still don't know why.

2) Again in Vancouver (it's a great city for film-going), at a jam-packed screen of A Brief History of Time at the Ridge, a 800-seat theatre. The movie had already started and some guy was wondering the theatre saying "Bob?", "Bob?" Instead of grumbling, most people giggled. And when Bob finally replied, "Over here!," the whole audience applauded.

Also, some movies just work better in theatres. Fellini's Satyricon is one I had to watch on VHS fro a film class that just bored and confused me. Then I saw it again at a Fellini retrospective in Vancouver. There was one sequence where my mouth was hanging opening for the brilliance of it. I bought the DVD a few years later and tried to watch it again, but a TV screen can't seem to transmit its genius. I was once again bored, if less confused.

But several articles I read today noted the virtue of only having 20 records in your collection but knowing them deeply, completely, inside and out. Every lyric and every nuance of the song's production.

Yeah, I get that, though I think a lot of people who used to listen to music that way will still have that experience. It's going to be less common, but people who really love music and are deeply interested in it will still obsess over certain albums and come to know them in the same way.

I decided recently to give up my eMusic subscription, because although it was nice to be able to get pretty good albums for pretty cheap, the fact is, I was downloading three or four albums a month and then almost never listening to most of them. I've started deleting albums from iTunes that I've never or very rarely listened to, and saving them to add back later, at a much slower rate, and I already have something like 50 albums waiting for me to re-experience them.

I really should try and track down a theatre screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, because the one time I saw it on my mom's 26" tv screen, I was bored beyond belief.

Well, if you find a screening, Kathy, remember to toke up before you go, for the full late-sixties experience. I saw it in theater, and still dozed off. Maybe a toke would have helped?

Beverly, it might have given you more interesting dreams.

The big advantage of having things so available, especially when they're available electronically, is that those with small (if, so often, fervent) markets can find them and deliver what they want.

Well, if you find a screening, Kathy, remember to toke up before you go, for the full late-sixties experience. I saw it in theater, and still dozed off. Maybe a toke would have helped?

this was my experience too. (I was about ten at the time, but still.)

Yeah, I get that, though I think a lot of people who used to listen to music that way will still have that experience. It's going to be less common, but people who really love music and are deeply interested in it will still obsess over certain albums and come to know them in the same way.

I agree. I think that there will always be people who click with a certain bit of media (movie, book, album, whatever) and will immerse themselves in it. Isn't that the nature of fandom for anything?

I agree. I think that there will always be people who click with a certain bit of media (movie, book, album, whatever) and will immerse themselves in it. Isn't that the nature of fandom for anything?

Yeah, and I honestly don't see that having changed except for that the clickers can find fellow clickers more easily these days, be it clicking with a piece of music, or a movie, or a TV show, or book, or a style of bathtub.

There's a lot of OFFAMYLAWN I see cropping up, but the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Umm... there's an app for that?

Seriously, the Grindr model could be ported to a lot of things.

I don't often see movies in the theatre. Too much money for something I'm not sure if I'll want to spend a few hours of my life watching. I did see a movie on Friday! In a theatre! For SIFF! And as much as I enjoyed the movie (which I did), I HATE going to movies where the audience large crowd of well-mannered film buffs who are outside my social circle. They have this 'tude. I want to smack them and make them STFU while we wait in line. I do not bond with them over our shared enjoyment of the movie, these strangers. I find them annoying, and find that they detract from my viewing pleasure. (As this was a festival movie having its first NA showing, and I have no idea if it will ever be available on DVD or Blu Ray stateside, it was worth dealing with Film People. BARELY.)