LATEST ADDITIONS

The creator of <I>Calvin & Hobbes</I> gave a legendary (some say notorious) speech called "The State of Cartooning" in 1989. I'd heard of it, but never read it until <I>Planet Cartoon</I> posted it yesterday.

Dave Taylor has it right, I think. Sony, once the personification of innovation, quality, and vision, now has none of them. That <I>is</I> the beginning of a lingering death.

Fiona Maddocks writes a fine rebuttal to Norman LeBrecht's <A HREF="http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/070124-NL-tchaikovsky.html">grous… dismissal</A> of the BBC's Tchaikovsky Experience.

Joseph Epstein muses on entering "early old age."

"An audience member unhappy with the sound in their part of the auditorium can change seats, but we [concert pianists] cannot," Byron Janis says. "Therefore the position of the piano on stage is of utmost importance&mdash;moving it only a foot in either direction can make an enormous difference in the sound and therefore in the performance."

If you're interested in a really special look at some of the best albums of 2006, you can visit <a href="http://www.trismccall.net/index.html">The Tris McCall Report</a>. You'll find that Tris has just begun to unveil the results of his annual <a href="http://www.trismccall.net/critics_poll_2006_results.htm">Critics Poll</a>. Today, he shares his thoughts on the voting results for the year's top albums. If you like what you read, check back each day this week for further commentary.

Last week I went to an advance screening at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) of <I>Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life</I>, a new film about the short, creative, and ultimately kinda sad life of songwriter/arranger Billy Strayhorn. "Strays" or "Sweet Pea" as his friends knew him was part, some would say most, of the brains behind Duke Ellington's success in the forties and fifties. The film will be shown on PBS around the country in February.