I always enjoy CES. Like the Big Apple, or the City of Angels, the Consumer Elecronics Show is stimulatingly frenetic and enjoyably fatiguing—things that would soon put me in the funny farm if I lived with them year 'round, but can easily cope with twice a year. In fact, attending CES is rather like visiting the city of my birth, a place whose culture is one with my own because I grew up there, and where half the pleasure lies in seeing once again those audio people—the Allisons, Marantzes, Frieds, Beveridges, Haflers, and Tuckers—whose durability as friends always reminds me of how rapidly time passes and how little of it we may have left.

There is a pile of boxes in my office. Nothing unusual. Boxes are a fundamental aspect of our lives here at <i>Stereophile</i>, a fundamental aspect of the lives of most audiophiles, I imagine. Inside these boxes, however, there are no amplifiers, no loudspeakers, no turntables. These boxes hold the packaging materials for our Attention Screen release, <i><a href="http://www.stereophile.com/musicrecordings/907att/">Live at Merkin Hall</a></i>.

German Barbie

Late on Saturday, the last night of SXSW, I somehow ended up having a pint with a mixed party of American and British band members, only one of whom I knew previously, when suddenly the subject of the British government’s support of the arts came up. Seems these four young lads, and their frontwoman&#151;one stunning fulfillment of my perky blonde English chick singer fantasy (oh my)&#151;hadn’t used their money to come all the way to Texas. No, the government had picked up the tab. The fact that they were vaguely ashamed&#151;because being on the dole is unhip and kind of the opposite of DIY&#151;told me it was true.

<i>Photo: Karyn Haag</i>