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In January 2005, NYT restaurant critic Frank Bruni wrote a review of Little Giant, the "refined comfort food" (his words) on Orchard St., in which he spent at least half of the review discussing the owners' brilliant music choices. ("Siouxsie and the Banshees? Circa the early 1980's? Didn't I own that album?" Oh, Frank, you little Goth teenager, you.)

Then, the other day on his Diner's Journal blog, Frank was at it again:

At Little Giant, I was consistently amused by the fruits of the owners' iPod: Wilco, Squeeze and a group I hadn't encountered called Postal Service. But I learned a valuable lesson about context. I went home, bought the Postal Service disc "Give Up," which is what I'd heard in the restaurant, and realized I didn't really like it much at all. Removed from a scene of restaurant revelry, unhitched from a hum of conversation, Postal Service's music left me cold.

Hmm, okay. So, no Postal Service on the stereo, check. We're just wondering how someone with a pair of ears hadn't heard of the Postal Service before January 2005.

The Answer Man: Easy on the Ears [Diner's Journal]
As Stomachs Wait, Ears Are Sated [NYT]