And now... reader requests. Reader Z.M. wants to know why the meme she's trying to tag me with is pointless.

It is pointless to ask me about popular music in malls because I'm rarely in malls, and listen to so little of what currently passes for popular music that if one of the obscure bands I do see in nightclubs covered a current radio hit, I probably wouldn't recognize it. (The one radio hit I would recognize is "Coin Operated Boy" by the Dresden Dolls -- their radio hit, to the extent they have one, and also a song I'm respectfully sick of, having heard it at just about every damn gig they've played in the Boston area for the past three years. Amanda, give it a rest).

My only other remark on this general topic is that annoying street musicians can be just as bad as annoying mall music. As to my tactics for dealing with this threat, I will invoke my right to withhold self-incriminating testimony, pursuant to the fifth amendment to the United States constitution.

I pass this meme on to:

• No one. Because it bores me.