One idea that seems to help pass the time on a long (solo) road trip is to bring along CDs that you haven’t listened to in a long time. Sure, toting usual favorites may make for a slightly more pleasant and simple sing-along experience, but if a music fan has something in his/her library that is a personal “keeper” for more, er, legitimate or commendable reasons (and it doesn’t get heard as often around the house, for one or more reasons), listening to such a work while on the highway can be somewhat enlightening and interesting. And the primary “enlightening facet” is the fact that such albums will probably be sonically scrutinized more intensely than a sing-along favorite; i.e., the latter “category” of album or self-dubbed anthology can quickly fade to melodic background noise if you’ve heard it time and time again. So that’s why Paul Simon’s remarkable 1991 concert in Central Park was such a retro-revelation for yours truly on a recent trip.

His career was already laudable, with umpteen hits from his association with Art Garfunkel as well as a distinguished solo sojourn, but Simon was perpetually in search of new musical frontiers (and such probably still the case).