Ralph—The Real Dog
Ralph died last week (September 11, 1991), his great and faithful heart stopped in the aftermath of an affliction not too uncommon for older, larger dogs—a gastric torsion. He was approximately 12 years old.
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Record Store Day!
Tomorrow is <a href="http://www.recordstoreday.com">Record Store Day</a>. Celebrate responsibly. Celebrate appropriately. It will make you feel good.
PSB Synchrony One loudspeaker
"Something's wrong. It sounds confused."
Hootenanny
Amongst all the hand–ringing and head–scratching and kvetching about the music business and what we're going to do with our CDs and LPs and how iPods sound like shit but are the future whether we like it or not (in my case, the jury's still out), it's a good idea, at least in my overamped case, to step back, close–a–dee mouth and occasionally remember that at the bottom of all this claptrap, there's still music. Which I (we) presumably still love.
Inhumanly Perfect Performances?
<I>"Modern recordings, for all their glory . . . have conditioned audiences to expect an inhuman degree of performance accuracy, comparable to what a recording studio's editing team can produce by patching together the best moments from multiple takes."—James F. Penrose, </I>Wall Street Journal<I>, January 25, 2008</I>
On the Way Home
I ran into Lauren on the way home last night. Lauren is from Leicester, England. She is twenty-five years old, friendly, bright, and beautiful. It was a little before 9pm, and we were both just coming in from work. She complained about her hours. Lauren would prefer a nine-to-five job. These eleven-to-eight hours are taking up the best bits of her day. But it's a job. She's had it for only two weeks, but she's already looking for another. She doesn't know what she wants to do. By thirty-five, she hopes to be retired.
Between The Band and Betty Davis
It is spring! Without doubt, it is spring. The skinny trees on Monmouth Street have suddenly bloomed all pink and purple and white, while the birds outside my kitchen window have learned to sing new songs. They make a wonderful racket in the morning. I like it. It makes me feel somehow closer to the world, to nature, to love and god and shit. This music of spring is a nice contrast to the sirens and jack hammers that normally make up a Jersey City morning.
Hansen Audio Prince V2 loudspeaker
No matter how well you think you know the specialized world of high-end audio, there are always new companies, new technologies, and new products you just haven't gotten around to knowing yet.
Best YouTube Clip Ever!
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Really Listening
Managing Editor, Elizabeth Donovan, and I have spent all day in a training session for Adobe InDesign. We are finally switching over from Quark. It's going to be great, I think, but right now isn't the best time to spend an entire day in a training session. Elizabeth is also trying to ship the June issue.