My friend Debi makes fun of me for listening to The Carpenters in 
my car. It seems like every time she visits I've got one of their CDs playing, and she thinks I'm a dork because of it. (Note that she doesn't visit very often; I usually listen to NPR or Radio Disney or the non-Garfunkelly sound of silence but occasionally throw in a CD.)
Karen Carpenter's voice was as near perfection as humanly possible, in my opinion. I'll never forget an article by a music critic years ago that said something to the effect of "Saying you dislike The Carpenters is saying you dislike music itself."
Had she not died on this day in 1983, I wonder what she and her brother would be doing now. Would they have a show in Branson? Would they be a joke, a punch line? Would they have tried comeback after comeback, à la Barry Manilow, Tony Bennett, David Lee Roth, and all those other stars who've also had hip replacements? Could they have adapted their style to be more hip? I don't know. I do know that the world lost a beautiful thing 25 years ago.
I've got quite a bit of driving to do tomorrow. Guess what I'll be listening to?
