While compiling the data for Recommended Components, I came across High Water Sound's new website. Stark, black backgrounds are broken by quiet images of strength and beauty, New York City's Brooklyn Bridge taken from so many lovely angles, presenting all of its long lines and promises. Brick walls, cold air, and hard work. 2-channel with attitude. It's always a nice surprise to find a good-looking audio website, so I congratulated High Water's Jeffrey Catalano on a job well-done.

I was desperately cruising the web looking for a final post for the day when Jon Iverson sent this tea partay.
<P ALIGN=CENTER
<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PTU2He2BIc0"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PTU2He2BIc0&quot; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

I enjoy reading science writer Carl Zimmer and browse his website <I>The Loom</I> frequently. The post I link to below is a great example why.

The list of poetry editors with whom I am not familiar is not a short one, but until I read this appreciation of Al Alvarez in <I>The Scotsman</I>, I only knew his name from my tattered copy of <I>The New Poetry</I>&mdash;a book that lived on the transmission hump of my 'lime green 69 Plymouth Valiant and got quite a workout as I waited (endlessly) for my waitress girlfriend to get off shift at the IHOP.

The first time I met PSB's Paul Barton, he mentioned that his love of music had been kindled by, among other things, his father building him a violin when he needed a better instrument in order to become a better player.

La Cieca at <I>Parterre.com</I> has posted a new podcast episode of "Unnatural Acts of Opera," wherein Elenore Steber performs at the Continental Baths in 1973. <I>The Village Voice</I>'s Arthur Bell described the performance as "an affair to rank with the coming of Christ, the death of Garland, the birth of the blues, and the freezing of spinach."

Sir John has a different take on the composer who said, "I have never understood a measure of music, but I have felt it."