LATEST ADDITIONS

"I just want you to know, Stephen, that I spent the entire afternoon recompiling all of the text and graphs and data for the <a href="http://www.stereophile.com//features/338/index.html">Test CD 2</a> booklets."

I have a soft spot for this show, but what really impresses me about this article on the long-running series is that the Sci-Fi network stuck with the show and worked to get viewers versed in its backstory and mythos, instead of just moving it to different time-slots each week like the "real" networks do.

Michael Chabon's rant about the imposition of predetermined boundaries and contours, of a formulary of play&mdash;and why Sid in <I>Toy Story</I> wasn't necessarily a Norman Bates in the making.

<I>The Independent</I> interviews Jared Diamond, author of <I>Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed</I>. The good news? We may not be doomed. The bad news: Yet, that is.

The link is to <I>The Guardian Unlimited</I>'s podcast of Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens debating blasphemy. You might think you don't have time to listen to a 78 minute argument? Well, think again&mdash;<I>this</I> you've got to hear.

<B><I>The River in Reverse</B></I><BR>
Verve Forecast

As a follow-up to my last entry, I was sitting in my favorite watering hole over the weekend, listening to my favorite jukebox&#15118 tunes for 5 bucks&#150when a couple sitting at the bar next to me struck up a music conversation about what was playing: Elvis Costello, The Shins, King Sunny Ade, Lefty Frizzell, James Brown, Arctic Monkeys, you name it. At one point, talking about the cover art of an album I can’t remember now I said, being the absent-minded old man of the bunch, 'Have you ever seen that record?'