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I've got these sounds in my head. …

Not just the woman this morning who, in a drive-through lane at the bank, screamed "GET IN THE CAR SEAT" over and over at a kid who had crawled from the back to the front. Or "Don't Stop Believin'," a semi-constant presence since the "Sopranos" finale. There's also Aerosmith …

Borrowed a hit set from the library and keep gravitating toward "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" — sublime cheese, and the video was more watchable than "Armageddon" — and the "Crazy"/"Crying" era, when the songs were good and those videos with Alicia Silverstone were just fab.

You were beginning to wonder when I was getting to Silverstone, weren't you?

Anyway, the Aerosmith videos led into "Clueless" and the moment when Silverstone appeared to be the It Girl, the new Julia Roberts. Instead, she made movies that didn't do all that well, and a TV series ("Miss Match") that lasted only one season and, more recently, another TV series ("The Singles Table") that didn't even get on the air.

Meanwhile, Reese Witherspoon, who for a brief time played at being Nouvelle Alicia ("Clueless," "Legally Blonde," compare and contrast), used that as just one card in a hand that now includes an Oscar. I won't dispute that Witherspoon is a much better actress than Silverstone. But you can still look back at Silverstone's It Girl opportunity and wonder, what should she have done differently, how did she let the magic get away?