Roll Over Beethoven
"Intelligent teenagers often listen to heavy metal music to cope with the pressures associated with being talented, according to research."
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Everything We Thought We Knew About the Sun Is Now Out of Date
The Japanese orbiting solar observatory Hinode has captured startling images of the Sun's outer limb and giant magnetic field loops crashing down into its surface. "Where astronomers expected to see a calm region called the chromosphere, they saw a seething mass of swaying spikes."
Touchstone
It's a good thing for us that Jeremy Denk got restless at a concert recently. One thought led to another, he rushed home to check out a CD he thought linked to his thoughts, and the next thing we know, he's deep into an analysis of the chorale in Beethoven's "Spring" sonata (No. 5 in F, Op. 24).
As She Climbed Across the Audiophile
"Nice blogging," says JA.
Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction
Especially when it comes to Nikola Tesla.
Music and the Brain
Greg Stepanich watches <I>House</I>. It seems like he got more out of the recent episode featuring Dave Matthews than I did.
Made in New York
<I>Business Week</I> has a cool photo essay on the making of a Steinway. The accompanying article is worth reading, too, but the pix are primo.
Pimp My Book Cart
Who knew there was so much librarian humor out there?
And Stereophile, Takeout Menus, Acres of Porn
Check one and two, but you won't find any of three in my apartment. Unless, of course, you count <i>Story of O</i>—and you <i>might</i>. I like to think of it, however, as erotica. Then there's <i>The Forty-Eight Ways</i>. Is that porn? Nah, it's more of a manual. Takeout menus are few, and include: Wild Fusion (their green curry is delightful); Frank's Pizzeria (a large regular costs five bucks!); and La Conguita (their <i>pernil asado</i> reminds me of my grandma's). I don't keep a very large collection of <i>Stereophile</i> back issues at home, but I do have a few special issues on the bookshelf in my living room.
SXSW Part Two
SWSX 2007. It was the year of the female singer. And of course of Iggy.
Let's do Mr. Osterberg first.
South By Southwest usually saves the best for last, which always seems to mean the final act at Stubb's on Saturday night. For those unfamiliar with Austin, Stubb's is a BBQ joint, once owned by CB Stubblefield or "Stubb," a Navasota, Texas native who opened his first pit out in Lubbock after returning from the KO-rean (as they say it in Texas). While C.B. and his Lubbock restaurant are gone now, his name lives on in a line of nationally marketed sauces and in the Austin location, which has what can only charitably called a "venue" out back. Big, slanty, mudhole is more like it. Instead of an amphitheatre, Stubbs is a hillside sloping down into a gulley which collects rain, trash and chicks showing their tits to whatever heartthrob (Iggy Pop?) is onstage at the time. If it rains, forgetaboutit. Last year I stood in the rain and watched the Pretenders and promised myself nevermore. This year I watched an earlier act on the same bill, the Kings of Leon, who were absolutely wonderful except for the fact that they've now adopted a weird, pretty boy kind of look. They played a set heavy with the material from their new record, <I>Because of the Times</I> which was <I>Stereophile</I>'s Recording of the Month for March, and it rocked.