The dadaist-collage nature of online life has been discussed before,

but there are times when the topic seems more urgent than ever, as it did yesterday evening, when I found myself gazing at an image of Tom Brokaw wearing a lei, listening to a stream of the new Florence + the Machine album, half-reading an IM about a young comedian, half-reading a text message about oysters, clicking close tab on an article about tax policy and writing the words “Santorum video” in my notebook.