sooner or later it begins to get to you; you have to take a religious fanatic's stance toward the conversation and either avoid even hearing accounts of it, or immerse yourself entirely; and sooner or later you find yourself picking a side; the only mistake is when you imagine that picking a side has the sort of epochal importance that choosing a side in a war might have; it doesn't; you can declare rock dead today and soak up Led Zeppelin all day tomorrow; there is no loss of face in this; no-one cares; it doesn't matter; that's the beauty of the whole thing; that has always been the beauty of the whole thing; this I mean: that the questions about genre and pertinence and historical context and whatever else you've got to bring into the battle simultaneously matter & don't matter; are and aren't matter; will and won't make any difference in the end; might, to you; might not; you never know; you can't;