I recently discovered something on the Internet that absolutely blew me away with how terrific it is.

If that sounds a little too "gee whiz," let me explain. There are both good things and bad about the 'net, and some of the bad things are really bad -- hate sites and other sites that allow people whose behavior is well beyond the pale to communicate with each other.

I had heard about Pandora before, and I listened to some of the music when I was visiting my daughter in Seattle and she was playing it on her laptop. I put it out of my mind, but today I was goofing around and I called up Pandora on my own computer. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it was more. I thought I would be able to listen to stations that already existed, but it's better than that.

<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1505" title="pandora" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/pandora-300x219.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="219" /></a>Since 2000, the founders of Pandora have created something called the <a title="Music Genome Project" href="http://www.pandora.com/mgp.shtml">Music Genome Project</a>, an attempt to capture the essence of music at the most basic level of all.

I don't know how many thousands of songs are in the Pandora database, but I created a station -- starting with the music of Eric Bogle -- and what I realized very quickly is that Pandora created a playlist filled not only with Bogle's best songs, but with great songs by other artists that someone who likes Bogle might also like.

Pandora showed me Jackson C. Frank, a '60s folksinger who had roomed with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in 1964 in London. He made one great album, produced by Simon, called "Blues Run the Game." Frank died in 1999, and an expanded version of his single great album was released after his death.

<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/bluesrunthegame.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1508" title="bluesrunthegame" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/bluesrunthegame-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /></a>It's a great album, and without Pandora, I would never have been aware of it.

I also heard some great stuff by folksinger John McCutcheon, another person I discovered through the Bogle channel. Now I'm looking forward to trying all sorts of musical combinations.

It really is wonderful.

And for some reason, I was reminded of one of my favorite movies. In "Notting Hill," Hugh Grant says something to Rhys Ifans about opening Pandora's box.

Ifans' reply:

<em>"I knew a girl named Pandora once, but she never let me see her box."</em>

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