LATEST ADDITIONS

The amount of flux in the world of music and the businesses of marketing and selling creativity continues to be absolutely amazing. In nearly 25 years of writing about music I’m seeing things I almost don't believe.

When I was eight, I had a series of accidents that kept me indoors for most of a winter. My parents, thinking I needed diversion, gave me a lab-grade microscope, which completely captivated me. I quickly learned to cut, mount, and stain specimen slides. One day, however, the med student father of one of my friends dropped a bombshell on me—he brought home a box of commercially prepared slides from the university's book store. For the next year, the only comic books I read were the ones at my friends' houses, my allowance went to buying slides, which, if I recall, cost 25–75¢ each.

Over at <I>The Audiophiliac</I>, Steve Guttenberg's CNET blog, there's a superb piece on Daptone Records, Brooklyn's own old-school analog record label. I heard Daptone artists the Budos Band on <I>Soundcheck</I> a few weeks ago and <I>loved</I> the classic '60s sound on their record.

______ "who receive electric shocks carry the device around in a backpack and wear the electrodes 24 hours a day; some are also monitored at all times by at least one Rotenberg Center employee."

I love this stuff. If I was rich beyond dreams of avarice, I would so collect it.

Because, three weeks later, my back, butt, and legs were <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/080707laziness/">still hurting</a>, I decided to go to the doctor. My doctor is an audiophile. He had had a wonderful time at the Home Entertainment Show last May. He's mostly attracted to the more exotic loudspeakers such as the <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2007/051207proclaim/">Proclaim Audioworks DMT-100</a> and <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2007/051507mandarin/">Loiminchay Mandarin Supreme</a>, but he's also very enthusiastic about smaller, more affordable designs from <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2007/051307zvox/">ZVOX</a&gt; and <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/he2007/051407audioengine/">Audioengine</a&gt;.

<I>Living in Stereo</I> has promoted this Daniel Wolff essay on "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" since its publication in <I>Threepenny Review</I> in 1999. I read it on the occasion of Elvis' 72nd birthday and I agree that it's a fine piece of writing&mdash;and well worth linking to.

Forty years ago, <I>Bonnie and Clyde</I> blew away Hollywood's attitude about bloody violence. <I>The Observer</I> looks back.