Time Essay: Portable Music for One and All

They are everywhere, and always going full blast. They play nothing but frenzied music, day and night. They are inescapable. The innocent can get battered with jazz at the newsstand, rock at the bus stop and the diabolical thump-and-shriek of disco before and after. "Shake, shake/ Shake your booty" blares forth from one of them, but not quite in time to drown out another one that is roaring out with "Ring my bell/ Ring my bell, my bell/ Ting-a-ling-a-ling." It is as though the Great God Muzak has berserked out of the dentist's...

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