LATEST ADDITIONS

"You've set the audio industry back 20 years!"

I was saddened today to read about the December 22 passing of Ruth Wallis, a singer from the 40's through 60's who specialized in creative naughtiness. Born in Brooklyn (where else?), she sang with Benny Goodman and owned her own record label, but it was her risque tunes like, "The Dinghy Song" ("He had the cutest little dinghy in the Navy") that brought her the most fame and which became the basis for an unlikely 2003 Broadway hit, <I>Boobs! The Musical: The World According to Ruth Wallis</I>. Here are a few classic couplets from the Wallis-penned title tune:

"You've gotta be filled
Two fried eggs will never grab him like grapefruits will
(And they're both breakfast foods)
But listen girls, don't try to fool your lover
Remember, he can go to Good Year if he wants rubber"

"Just think if all us girls had boobies with fluorination
We could take the cavities out of the whole damn nation
A nibble a day keeps the dentist away"

"Some push 'em up
Some stick 'em out
And some keep 'em flappin' in the breeze
Some tie then down because if they don't
They would hang down to their knees
Just you tease"

My inbox is blowing up. Every other second, it's <i>ding, ding, ding.</i> New mail, new mail, new mail. Press conferences, product announcements, and party invitations from hundreds of companies who will be exhibiting during the four far too short days that make up the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show.

<I>Technology Review</I>, which is one of the magazines I not only eagerly await, but read from cover to cover, published <A HERF="http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=19845"… 14 page screed against network news</A> by John Hockenberry in the January/February issue.

<B>WAGNER: <I>Siegfried</I></B>
Reiner Goldberg, Siegfried; Heinz Zednik, Mime; James Morris, Wanderer; Hildegard Behrens, Br&#252;nnhilde; Ekkehard Wlaschiha, Alberich; Kurt Moll, Fafner; Birgitta Svend&#233;n, Erda; Kathleen Battle, Forest Bird; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine<BR>
Deutsche Grammophon 429 407-2 (4 CDs only). Cord Garben, Claudia Hamann, prods.; Wolfgang Mitlehner, eng. DDD. TT: 4:10:29

<I>The Economist</I> has an uncredited article about <A HREF="http://www.economist.com/world/europe/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=1027… charts</A>. They're all familiar to readers of Edward Tufte's <I>The Visual Display of Quantative Information</I>, but they <I>are</I> great charts.

When I picked up the mail on Saturday, I had an unexpected package. It contained Vance Dickason's <A HREF="http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9781882580477"><I>Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, 7<SUP>th</SUP> Edition</I></A>. Oh boy!