LATEST ADDITIONS

It was a hot, humid, New York City evening in early August, and I was thankful to be sitting in the air-conditioned dark of Avery Fisher Hall, up in the Second Tier, for a Mostly Mozart concert. Listening to cello soloist Alisa Weilerstein in Osvaldo Golijov's hypnotic Azul, I was suddenly jolted by an explosive mix of primitive cello sonorities, accordion, and staccato riffs on ethnic percussion instruments. My thoughts turned to the importance in music of both power and delicacy, and of how Bryston Ltd.'s 28B-SST, a 1000W monoblock power amplifier, was designed to address both.

"We've tried making it more powerful. When I was away on holiday, some of our people cooked up a more powerful version and presented it to me on my return. It sounded awful."

The Melbourne Symphony plays music on VB bottles. My kind of musc.
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What’s the point of having a blog if you can’t be self-indulgent now and then? So allow me to plug my new book, <I>Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power</I> (Wiley & Sons). As the subtitle may suggest, it is not a biography of the Monkees but rather a journalistic dissection of <I>why</I> the United States’ global adventures and image have gone to hell in recent years. Some of you may know that I write a twice-weekly column in <I>Slate</I> about such matters. My book is <I>not</I> a compilation of my columns; it’s all new stuff. The official pub date is February 4, but it’s already in stock in many bookstores and on amazon.

Hi! Where've you been?

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) announced that it will launch "a new consumer technology event," Digital Downtown (D2), 'to showcase the latest electronic lifestyle and workstyle products to residents and employees of Mahattan's Financial District." D2, which will be held from June 12&ndash;14 at the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center, will be open to the public, unlike the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Nigel Tufnel gets an <A HREF="http://chronicle.com/media/flash/v54/i18/guest/">honorary degree</A> at the Berklee College of Music.