full circle

Why is that we humans have this thing about starting big, then going smaller and smaller and smaller, until suddenly we're back to big? I'm talking about mobile phones and portable music players. We went from carrying packs of CDs around, to bundles of mini-discs, to ipod nanos, but we're really going backwards because the new head-fashion is humungous earphones. How did we go from mid-sized, ugly, foamy headphones in the 80's to slim, black earpieces, to white iPod imitation earpieces and now those big-ass things that are twice the size of any ear under it?!

Oh, wait - I know. I just worked it out this evening. I took my hacked little-boy mullet™ to a bar-cum-restaurant-cum-club in the Marais (Paris' hip 4th district) and guess what I found? The big, padded earphones double as *purdy* necklaces when worn with black baseball caps! An indispensable accessory in any social situation. Wearing a cap indoors is always classy and having a cable dangling from the back of your neck just completes that 'plugged-in' look. Wow.

So, I have a khaki cap and tiny, tiny earphones....sighhhhh.... a long way to go.