This is a great response to a bone-headed manufacturing ploy. Yes, it happens—a reviewer contacts a manufacturer for a review sample and the manufacturer responds, "Sure, as long as you guarantee good press."

<I>Drivl</I> gets it about right.

I've just discovered <I>Think Denk</I> (thanks to a link from Alex Ross' <I>The Rest Is Noise</I>). Billed as "the glamorous life and thoughts of a concert pianist," it's a good read&mdash;and Jeremy Denk is good company. Now I have to hear him play.

It is a well-known fact that a rock guitarist's ability to squeeze those really hard-to-reach notes out of a guitar is directly tied to the facial muscles. Over at WFMU's fabulous <I>Beware of the Blog</I>, Scott Williams has posted a tribute to the "guitar face."

Stop me if you've heard this one. . . .

When Harvard Business School Press wouldn't let Robert Sutton title his book <I>The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't</I>, he walked. Sounds like it was HBSP's loss.

In November's "Aural Robert" (p.154 in the print mag), music editor Robert Baird sees technological advancement as the major cause for the decline of the independent record store. He writes: