Today I rectified a big failing with my Paris Image. Almost everyone I pass on the streets or ride with on the Metro is "jacked in" to their mobile phones, wearing ear buds or real over-the-ear headphones, boppin' along to their favorite music, their stride-and-strut matching the music that only they can hear.
Me, I arrived in Paris with an iPhone containing mainly Bruce Cockburn or classical music. As much as I love classical, it's not really bop-down-the-street music, and neither are most of Bruce's songs. So today I set about downloading and installing on the iPhone some Walking-Around-Music, tunes that I can 'bop to. So, having watched "Despicable Me" again this morning with Maya, I settled on a number of songs from those movies' soundtracks. I've been walking around Leiden today, or sitting in cafes, trying them out, giving them the full Walking Around Music test -- are they 'bop-worthy or not? Do they put a smile on my face, and occasionally on the faces of passersby as they look at an old guy 'boppin' along groovin' to music only he can hear? The verdict is in. Here are a few excerpts of the tunes I'll be boppin' to in Paris next week, narrated by the guy who wrote them and one of the guys who made the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9XzdwycIio <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9XzdwycIio>