LATEST ADDITIONS

I have reviewed and owned so many Paradigm speakers that they feel almost like members of the family. I've owned the v.2 and v.3 versions of the Reference Studio 60, and reviewed the v.3 version in <I>Stereophile</I> (in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1204paradigm">December 2004</A>, Vol.27 No.12). My long and intimate relationship with this speaker is founded on the best of reasons: We are extremely compatible. The Studio 60, in all its incarnations, is large enough to be used as a full-range speaker with nearly any program material, and yet is compact enough to be easily accommodated in my relatively small Connecticut listening room. It neither looms over me nor disappears into the space. Used as a center-channel speaker, it's just short enough to clear my line of sight to the video display. Finally, and despite inevitable price creep over the last decade, the Studio 60 still comes in under $2000/pair&#151;my line in the sand for a <I>reasonably</I> priced system.

My favorite moment in the Zack Snyder film <I>Watchmen</I>&#151;apart from the Dylan-fueled title sequence, which itself contains some of the most memorable scenes in recent cinema&#151;comes when retired crimefighter Daniel "Nite Owl II" Dreiberg arrives home to find the doctrinaire and mildly crazy Walter "Rorschach" Kovacs in his kitchen, eating beans straight from the can. The startled Dreiberg asks his visitor, "Would you like me to heat those up for you?"

"Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think is creation's."&#151;E.M. Forster, "The Raison d'&#202;tre of Criticism in the Arts," 1947 (footnote 1)

You don’t <i>have</i> to wear a thin mustache and skinny jeans to rock the new Betty Davis t-shirt from <a href="http://store.americanapparel.net/6401vbty.html">American Apparel</a>. (Really, I promise.) The t-shirt comes from a partnership between the hip fashion outlet and <a href="http://anthologyrecordings.com/newspost.asp?blogid=140">Anthology Recordings</a>, an all-digital reissue label devoted to rare and out-of-print music from around the world. For $27, you also get a digital compilation, curated by Anthology, featuring tracks from Betty Davis, Karen Dalton, Father Yod, Telegraph Avenue, Shoes, and other obscure, forgotten artists.

Hey, have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a <i>Stereophile</i> staffer? (I have.)

Nellie McKay’s <I>Normal As Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day</I> (Verve, CD and LP) is the unlikeliest delight of the year. Who’d have thought that the snarkmistress of <I>Get Away from Me</I> (her 2004 debut double-album, with its “Explicit Lyrics” label, downtown cool, and sharp-wit irony, to say nothing of the title’s savage slash at the then-raging darling, Norah Jones) could produce such gentle covers of hits once sung by the queen of wholesomeness?

We can’t let Sarah Palin have all the fun.