driving to evanston with sal

Sal hooked in his iPod FM transmitter. The tacit arrangement became that he would control what song was played, and I would control what volume it was played at. This worked well after the tension induced by his choosing to follow Metallica's "Unforgiven," for which the volume was sharply lowered, with Metallica's "Enter Sandman."

Later:

"This has got to be one of the Top 5 all-time songs."
"Yeah. Top 5. Ever."
"Are you mocking me?"
"I do think it is a great karaoke song."
"Top 5 all-time!"
"I also agree there is something special about the lyric 'Your hair reminds me of a warm safe place where as a child I'd hide.'"
"Can you imagine a world without this song?"
"It's like the microwave oven. Once it was invented, no one could understand how they'd ever lived without it."
"Nothing brings people of different races together like this song. Everybody, everybody comes together and sings along to this song."

Songs Sal chose that resulted in the sharpest volume increases: "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse, "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, and "Luka" by Suzanne Vega (for which I also rolled down the windows and opened the sunroof). Non-Metallica song that resulted in the sharpest reduction in volume, "I Want To Sex You Up" by Color Me Badd. There needs to be a way that you can turn down the volume far enough that sound starts to get sucked back into the speaker.