LATEST ADDITIONS

Last night, in Manila&#150like heat, I trekked southward on Manhattan Island to meet with Jim Davis, owner of Music Direct and one of his right hand men, Colie Brice. One of the best online sources for audiophile wares, both soft and hard, (now, now, let's keep those high fidelity minds up out of the gutter!), Music Direct, as many of you know, also owns the revived Mobile Fidelity label. MoFi was and maybe again THE proudest audiophile label of them all. The extra dynamics they squeezed out of Nirvana's <I>Nevermind</I> will forever amaze me.

Several folks make the case&mdash;Agnes Selby, author of <I>Constanze, Mozart's Beloved</I> does so most emphatically. <I>Sound And Fury</I> has it all covered.

George Kerevan reviews Christopher Duffy's <I>Through German Eyes: the British and the Somme 1916</I>, which sounds like a corker. In the first 24 hours of that battle, Britain lost more men than in the Crimean, Boer, and Korean wars combined.

Over at <I>The Independent</I>, Jessica Duchen lists her favorite works of literature that prominently feature music. Mirroring Heine, she starts out, "Music begins where words end," which is more or less true&mdash;after all most writing about music sucks the juice right out of it.

Jeff Wong passed along this obit, which I find interesting for all kinds of reasons. Mickey Spillane, the creator of Mike Hammer, was a Jehovah's Witness?

<b>From:</b> Mejias, Stephen<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, July 08, 2006 5:53PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Jay Rein, Bluebird Music<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Exposure 2010S system

Well yes, obviously&mdash;but Mexican epidemiologist Rodolfo Acu&#241;a-Soto thinks that the 16th Century plague that reduced the Aztec population from 22 million to 2 million was <I>not</I> smallpox brought over by the Spaniards. Aztec historians of the time referred to it by a different name than smallpox, with which they were familiar(!), and, after 12 years of research, Acu&#241;a-Soto concurs.