LATEST ADDITIONS

One day last year, my friend Larry and I were talking about our college-fraternity days and loudspeakers. Those were four of the best years of my life. Strong friendships were formed, and ever since, we've kept in touch with most of our fraternity's brothers-in-heart. Ours was not a jock house, nor was it the last bastion of rampant male sexuality&mdash;it was, after all, an <I>MIT</I> frat house. But it was full of music lovers who fell neatly into three camps: the California School owned JBL Decades, the New England School had Smaller Advents, and the Renegades boasted bootlegged Bose 901s (footnote 1).

It may read like a page out of a classic corporate crime thriller, but the threat is real. ExpoPul, a company whose factory in Saratov, Russia manufactures vacuum tubes under the brand names Sovtek, Electro-Harmonix, Tungsol, Svetlana, Mullard, and others&mdash;tubes that include the 6H30 "super tube"&mdash;is threatened by one of the many Russian corporate "raiders" who are increasingly stealing businesses from their rightful owners. If the threatened hostile takeover proves successful, two-thirds of the world's supply of vacuum tubes&mdash;tubes vital to the sound of audiophile gear and instruments from such well-known companies as McIntosh, Audio Research, BAT, Jadis, Fender, KORG, Peavey, Vox, Soldano, Carvin, Ampeg, and Crane&mdash;could become a thing of the past.

Since 5:43pm yesterday evening, the sun and rain have been engaged in some sort of <a href="http://www.weather.com/outlook/homeandgarden/pets/hourbyhour/10016?from… tango</a> &#151; the sunshine whips the rain furiously across the dance floor, the rain stomps forcefully upon the sunshine. One moment is blue and gold, the next is streaked with gray. Lightning and thunder have me constantly looking over my shoulder and out onto the City rooftops. All that I can see is wet and droopy and confused. This type of weather makes me wonder what we've done wrong. Why are we being punished? I blame it on Elizabeth. This is what happens when people go on vacation.

Gary Younge discovered that America is a big country&mdash;too big to be just one thing.

That's an anagram of "Brown's bestseller <I>The Da Vinci Code</I>." Oh drat! I just gave away answer #4 on this important cultural quiz. And, if you haven't already done so, read Tony Scott's hilarious review of the movie from yesterday's <I>NY Times</I>.

Bagheera and Huckleberry have pruned the Venetian blinds so they can bask in the late afternoon sun.

Erstwhile <I>Stereophile</I> scribe and <I>Audio</I> editor Corey Greenberg has a new mission: To bring back the manly art of wet-shaving with a badger hair brush and a "real" razor. No matter how obscure the subject, Greenberg's always an entertaining read.