Why Norah Jones? I was sitting in the cafe at Border's yesterday, and not surprisingly, they were playing the new Norah Jones CD. It's excellent music to play while people are trying to read, because it just couldn't be less irritating. But, really, what's the big deal about her? Are people hypnotized somehow? This music is so soft and so slow that it makes me wonder what is happening to people.

There is a way that music can be fascinatingly slow. I'm thinking of that really slow Portishead song that was popular years ago and "Fake Plastic Trees" by Radiohead. But when I hear Norah Jones, knowing how incredibly popular she is, I worry a bit that the world is falling asleep. Yet, she's perfectly pleasant and I'm glad Border's is playing that and not something distractingly peppy, which is often the case.