[kevbin]

Gödel, Escher, Bach is a prog rock concept album: 70s, deeply focused on consciousness, indulgent, holistic/synthetic, great displays of technical virtuosity, three-letter acronym, umlaut. Even if you love it, were changed by it, hear selections from it in your head, you keep it a little on the down low because it is so far from the mainstream notion of cool, acceptable. Occasionally, you find a fellow traveller and you share some guilty passion for its awesomeness, like you would for Rush's Hemispheres or Genesis' Lamb Lays Down... Back at the farm you've got to fall in line, claim allegiance to the essentialist raw power of K&R, the baroque symphonies of Don Knuth, and the chart-topping successes on Tim O'Reilly's Top 40. When you're alone, lounging in your earth chair, you slip on your headphones, crank-up your stereo hi-fi, pop in your GEB 8-track, and you're gone...

[scrame]

Holy shit, you nailed it. Now I'm thinking of Metamagical Themas as an early 80's new wave album.

(And GEB is all about barouque symphonies and Don Knuth)