cultural observation

It turned out that I left all my good shoes in Cairo. I had to go get another pair.

While finding and buying them, the music playing in the store was a somewhat atonal remix of “This Is My Church.” The chances of that happening while buying shoes in America amount to a quantum vacuum fluctuation– statistically indistinguishable from zero.

The immediate cultural mainstreaming in Europe of techno music (which originated in Detroit) was matched by its near-utter ghettoization in America amidst subcultures– gays, Latinos, Eastern Europeans, and sometimes drug users. My Mexican laundromat in Chicago was practically a trance club when certain employees were working.

The shoe store music in the USA would have been some sort of bland pop. I hope electronic music has its place in the musical palette of post-2040 Arctic Renaissance culture.