In the midst of a very nice din­ner of seared Ahi tuna and veal scalop­pine, served along­side a pleas­ant and richly fla­vor­ful bot­tle of Luc­carelli Prim­i­tivo, my wife and I were chatting.

I had just told an anec­dote of my day (hello there, Adam!), involv­ing a younger col­league ask­ing me the name of a “song from the 50s or 60s, some­thing about ‘Bill’ in the title.” I pointed out to him that, dude, no, the only song in my men­tal cab­i­net from “way back” with Bill in the title is Camper Van Beethoven’s “Where the hell is Bill?”

“In my head are the loud, edgy, rau­cous, and exotic sounds of the early 80s and 90s, Indus­trial and Prog and Grunge and –”

My wife pointed her fork at me, right there, at that exact point in the sen­tence, and said to me: How long did that guy say the mys­te­ri­ous life­time of lit­er­ary gen­res was? Huh? 20, 30 years, no? Isn’t it a bit odd that we don’t buy music any more?

Or even many books?