The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Thirty seconds is my guess. The generation of 20-something over-stimulated technophiles has notoriously short attention spans, fitting snugly within the confines of rapidly flashing images in 30-second commercials, mind-numbing YouTube videos, maniacal iPod shuffling and ever shifting favoritism to "bands of the hour." But some musicians have managed to cash in on our generational ADD. Girl Talk is the best example.

A story appeared in The New York Times on Valentine’s Day with the headline “Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?” It cited several recent books that bemoan America’s seeming self-satisfaction in the knowledge, that, well, we don’t need no knowledge, ’cause we’re Amurricans.

After days of agonizing over much hard work lost to a dead hard drive. After weeks of researching digital news media for an upcoming story. After months glued to my laptop for your reading pleasure. I took refuge last night in a friend's home, where I can always turn for the simplest bohemian pleasures. Five to seven bodies huddled in a dim-lit room strumming guitars and plucking banjos, blowing blues harps and crafting verse.

But even the most sacred of spaces has been infiltrated by the net, even the doggerel.