LATEST ADDITIONS

Steven Pinker on swearing.

Tales of the X-15.

My congregation! Ladies and Gentlemen! I tell you, there is a Pod! Some heathens choose to ignore him and burn for all eternity in the depths of hell, while Air Supply plays a continual concert of doom. Others have seen the light, and they opt instead for superior listening experiences.

I say, for the hi-fi community, there is hope. When I came to Stereophile, the first assignment Mr. Mejias gave me was to assess how I, as a young person, felt about the world of hi-fi. When my official term of Summer Intern was over, I had nothing. Well, I had a lot of stuff in my head, but nothing that I was ready to post on the blog. There was so much pressure. What had I learned here at Stereophile?!?!

So much.

Slips, stumbles, and verbal blunders—an excerpt from Michael Erard's new book on slips of the tongue. Inspired by the Decider, by the way.

Martial Solal starts a week of solo piano at the Village Vanguard tonight, and that’s a double eye-opener. It’s only the second time in its 72-year history that the club has featured a pianist playing solo. (The first, Fred Hersch, was in 2006.) More striking, it marks just the third time since 1963 that Martial Solal has played in New York City under any circumstances. The last time was four years ago at the Iridium, with his trio and saxophonist Lee Konitz, and it was a marvel, the fleetest and most lyrical I’d seen Konitz play in years. The time before that, just with his trio, was at the Vanguard—but the shows were in mid-September 2001, a couple weeks after the attacks of 9/11; few ventured into lower Manhattan for anything, much less to see an obscure French jazz pianist. Luckily, the sessions were recorded; Blue Note put out a CD of highlights called <I>NY-1</I>; finally, we could all hear the music behind the legend.

Yesterday's <I>New York Times</I> had a review of Robert Wyatt's new <I>Comicopera</I> by <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/arts/music/08choi.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fR… Ratliff</A> that observed that it included "Brian Eno doing whatever it is that Brian Eno does." That sums up Squelchy's role about as well as it can be done.

A new research project highlights Archimedes' role in developing calculus.