A few things contributed:

"The same acoustic silence, embedded in two different excerpts, can be perceived dramatically differently," writes Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis in an article in the June issue of <I>Music Perception</I>.

<I>Living In Stereo</I> argues that, far from being the best Beatles album <I>SPLHCB</I> was the worst . . . least best . . . um, not greatest non-soundtrack album.

"A stinking, rat-infested cesspit that would never be tolerated now." And your point is . . . ?

Neil Gaiman argues that the science fiction novels of H.G. Wells, while fine, pale compared to his short stories. Gaiman says that the SF stories survive, while "many of the mainstream novels he considered more important and significant are gone and, for the most part, forgotten, perhaps because the novels were very much of their time."

I loved the first six volumes of <I>Tales of the City</I>, although the recently published <I>Michael Tolliver Lives</I> sounds pretty dire. Still, few writers have ever written more lovingly about the city by the bay.