I want to reject Starbucks: I don't like the parasitical way they enter a neighborhood, driving out local businesses; I don't like their deals with exploitative coffee growers, and the way they co-opted and then undermined the Fair Trade movement; I don't like the precious, faux-bohemian design of their shops (especially all those red leaves and ribbons at Christmastime, which lasts over three months); and I don't like the way they steam milk well past the scalding point, giving their lattes an unpleasant carbon aftertaste.

But I'm finding it impossible to avoid occasionally patronizing Starbucks. They're just too darn convenient, offering drinkable coffee, wi-fi and other amenities in communities that lack them. My justification mechanism is in full gear, producing the following line: most independent coffee shops aren't any better on labor, political, aesthetic or gastronomic issues than Starbucks is. Indeed, as was pointed out on the podcast, they're all playing the same music.

A generation ago it was classical music; now it's Sonic Youth. It's interesting that Angelique Kidjo, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Buena Vista Social Club and the occasional White Stripes song now have the same relationship to the dominant culture that Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart and Handel did in the eighties. At that time, Baroque music played on "period instruments" represented freshness, taste, clean lines, and the expectation of shared values and education levels with one's fellow espresso-sippers. (The term "period instruments" represents a positive development in performance practice and undeniably better-sounding Couperin, but like the terms "organic" and "biodegradable" it can also be abused, mis-used, and wielded as a weapon of smugness.) See, it couldn't be just any classical music--Rachmaninoff or Puccini would be too crass--it would be like playing Madonna or Whitney Houston. But the occasional Beethoven piece is fine despite its rough edges, because it's canonical, like Ray Charles.

But now classical music has gone the way of croissants: they're still there, relics of the past, but fewer and fewer people are eating them. Now they're eating individually wrapped Rice Krispies treats and listening to the music they heard when they encountered Rice Krispies for the first time. That combination of comfort food/cultural identification with the worldly/chic trappings of espresso and afro-pop---I guess that's why Starbucks is a success. Who needs local businesses--we're all just one big tasteful global community.

I know this article has passed its sell-by date, but I wanted to refer people to this article:

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It's Louis Kaufman's recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons in 1947 (the first one ever made--the Americans beat the Italians to it!) that really started it all. GIs back from WWII wanted a taste of the cafe society they experienced in Europe, and this was the perfect soundtrack. This recording (which some say helped determine the length of the new invention. the LP--two seasons per side) introduced Americans to VIvaldi and, by extension, a new aesthetic. This artwork, more than any other, drove the postwar obsession with the highbrow--that's when many regional symphony orchestras were founded and halls built, ballet and opera were on TV, modern art and modernist furniture became popular, European cuisine became synonomous with class, and Sunday mornings were spent sipping coffee, reading the Sunday paper and listening to Vivaldi. I am convinced that Louis Kaufman is the real inventor of Starbucks.

Thank you. I am certain that had you the assignment of writing this article it would have been a great deal more interesting and far more worthwhile.