It's been 20 days since I signed up with the city's Early Notification System for neighborhood council agendas, and so far, the total number I've received is zero. I signed up for every Valley neighborhood council -- about 20 -- and nothing has come over. Initially, I worried that my e-mail would be inundated with detailed agendas of committee meetings and the like. I hadn't anticipated receiving absolutely nothing.

The third, a personal favorite, has Lasorda trying to coax a Chicago Cubs fan out of a tree. The man's face seems to reflect inordinate pain and frustration, almost as if he wants the owners to sell and set him free. (Maybe we are internalizing too much here.)

Tower Records was different. It was a chain, yes, its vaguely Stalinist red-and-yellow signage instantly identifiable, its blockbuster hits stacked high on the end racks; but something made it a shelter for would-be individualists wandering the malls of America, for whom pop music was not just a diversion but the key to fulfillment.

The something was "deep catalog," an extremely broad selection of product that attracted musical obsessives and helped novices evolve from casual fans to connoisseurs. Deep catalog was the commitment Tower made to the regular shopper: the jazzbo looking for that weird fusion project on the American Clavé label, the dreadlocked hippie browsing the Jamaican imports, the hard-core punk looking for anything with speedy guitars and a shouted chorus. By allowing its product buyers — a motley crew of aspiring musicians, bohemian lifers and undergrads willing to accept retail wages just to be near all that music — to stock the shelves with virtually every pop derivative imaginable, Tower created a physical space where the music's variety came alive, where the snobbish geek and the casual listener were equally served.