Commonplaces

For Theodor Adorno

Rare is the teenage son who thinks his father's Frankfurt School sociology books are cool. I listened to my dad's LPs when I was a little kid, but at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen no way I was dropping the needle on Chuck Berry or John Lee Hooker. Instead: cassettes of ABC and Madness and Big Country and Run DMC and the soundtrack to Beat Street. There was also no way I was going to read about how some tedious philosopher hated saxophones when I had Vonnegut and a fat omnibus of 1930s boys' aviation adventure stories my mom bought me at a library sale.