We had wound up, instead, as wannabes, geeks, professional worshippers, the sort of guys and dolls who walk around with songs ringing in our ears at all hours, who acquire albums compulsively, who fall in love with one record per week minimum and cannot resist telling people–people frankly not that interested–what they should be listening to and why and forcing homemade compilations into their hands and then calling them to see what they thought of those compilations, in particular the syncopated handclaps on track fourteen. 

–Steve Almond, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life 

This man–this man who I have never met–might understand me more than I understand myself. And he definitely understands me more than the recipient of that last mix CD, the one that kicked off with a Robert Wyatt cover of “I’m a Believer” and ended with a ballad by a seventies singer-songwriter who is rarely described without some seasonal varietal of the word “failed.”  

But really, what did you think about those handclaps?