Rhino Westwood, an iconic indie music store in southern California, announced "with utmost pain and sadness" that it is closing. The store has been selling records, then CDs, since 1973. I relate to the sadness, and easily slip into fond memories of my record-store adventures (in New York) as a teenager. Always, a cross-genre scavenger, I recall one time startling the guy at the register when I put the Chopin Etudes (played by Augustin Anievas) and Jimi Hendrix into one shopping bag. And that delicious anticipation of getting home, the impatience of putting vinyl on the spindle, the glorious artwork, the inevitable and honorable sonic scratches.

Then I pull myself up short. Memories are grand, and sentiment is dreamy, but if we had imagined today's consumer tools when we were kids, we would have fainted from intoxication. Give me playlisting, give me online jukeboxing, give me single-track instant purchasing, and there's no need for record stores. I know that's harsh and sentimentally incorrect, but it's backed up by my own local experience. In Princeton there remains a local institution: the Princeton Record Exchange. Operating for decades, this store offers new and used vinyl and plastic, and by itself used to be a good reason for living in Princeton. I stopped in nearly every time I walked past it until a couple of years ago. By then the momentum of my online music lifestyle simply pushed the Record Exchange off the radar. Now, when I'm tempted to dive into it, I think of Rhapsody and eMusic and everything else waiting for me at home, and I think, "Why bother?"

If the Record Exchange ever shutters its doors I'll be infused with sadness and reminiscences. But not regrets. Give me progress; give me the future.