Richard Ouzounian wishes Samuel Beckett a happy centeniary. Well, if it's Beckett we're talking about, "happy" isn't precisely the word we want&mdash;and Beckett was all about <I>le mot juste</I>.

If you were sending a shout out to an alien species, what would you say? Here's what Cosmic Call sent via a 70m telescope in the Ukraine. Let's hope our fellow sapient species are brighter than I am&mdash;I had to click through to the translation.

I've been kicking myself for years for not saving the copy of <I>The New York Times</I> in which Hans Fantel wrote about hearing Bruno Walter's 1938 performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony.

<I>American Heritage</I> takes a comprehensive look at firefighters.

Douglas Hofstadter reconsiders some of his notions about music and artifical intelligence.

Two scientists from McGill University&mdash;Daniel Levitin, a cognitive neuroscientist, and Stephen McAdams, a cognitive psychologist&mdash;and a professor from the College of New Jersey joined forces with the conductor and five members from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, not to mention 50 audience members, this past weekend to attempt to measure how people process music.

<I>Totally new Heads:</I> HeadRoom has released new versions of its <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/1204headroom/">Total BitHead</A> and Total AirHead headphone amplifiers. Both models feature new, quieter volume potentiometers and improved audio chips for superior sound.