As a prospective father, I have been bombarded with new studies suggesting ways to turn my child into a superstar quarterback and genius. Stuck in traffic one night listening to Prodigy, an electronica band, I realized that once the baby arrives the decibel level would have to be much lower. My ears are a lost cause, but hers will be shiny and new. This made me think of the recent study discovering that babies and young children who listened to classical music later have better math and science skills. The governor of Georgia has had the state manufacture CDs of classical music to give to every new mother.
Pregnant women place headphones over their swollen bellies.
The least I could do was replace Prodigy with Mozart. Then I recalled my childhood visit to the caravanserai, and my subconscious notice of the ghosts and echoes of a lost time. Classical music embodied all that was great about the beginning of the Rational Age. But the logical time and measure of Mozart's time has been forgotten in the ad hoc reality of the Web-connected desktop. Gone too is the concrete, predictive scientific method taught in schools.