Janet Haven

My relentlessly groovy travel companions (you know who you are) finally got to me, and I've broken down on this trip to the United States and bought an iPod. And not just one. Anticipating Husband's unrepentent thievery (and remembering that our CD player was long ago loaned out to a friend for a party and never came back), I forked over even more cash to Apple: I got a 60GB iPod to use around the house as a default stereo system and a Shuffle for trips, as well as A/V cables and a compact little dock to display the new acquisition appropriately. Hooray. I've spent the past few hours fiddling around with iTunes, ripping CDs from my parents' classical collection (I'm now listening to Gloria of Beethoven's Mass in C), familiarizing myself with the iPod logic, etc. Obviously, it's just super. Er, right?

Actually, I'm thinking back to the trip I took to Uganda in January. As readers may remember, I traveled with my friend Stephanie, a woman who firmly occupies a place among the digirati, and one of the prime iPod influencers in my life. While we waited for our flight to leave from Schipol airport in Amsterdam, she bought a new camera -- a film camera. When I expressed my surprise over her retro choice, she said she was sick of using digital cameras...the extra cords, the batteries running out, missing shots, etc. And, she said, she was already overwhlemed with digital detritus -- cell phone and charger, laptop and charger, iPod and cords and earbuds, etc, etc.

Now, looking at the tangle of USB cords, lanyards, earbuds, and other small parts while I will now need to keep track of, I can't help but think that Stephanie was on to something. I remember my first WalkMan, for instance, which didn't need to be charged, and had no accompanying bits and pieces. Of course, one could point out, it's a lot easier to haul around a few cords and an iPod than 100 tapes and a clunky box the size of a wireless router: true, true. But given the iPod flotsam spread across my floor, I don't think that this problem has been solved just yet.