Grow A Brain alerted me to this great performance guide to the Bartók quartets for performers and music lovers.
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I spent an afternoon interviewing the Emerson Quartet when they released their epic Shostakovich cycle.They were delightful. They're dedicated musicians, of course, but also witty and welcoming—just good company.
I love this Sobremesa entry.
This relationship between plants and "energy" is something I think about every now and then. I have a plant in my living room. It's a regular plant. You see them everywhere. I don't know what it's called. It's the same kind of plant my grandmother used to have growing all wildly around her kitchen, the "vines" [not sure if that's the right word] wrapping themselves along the cabinets and falling down the side of the refrigerator. When I was younger, I thought it was just a Puerto Rican grandma thing, but I later came to find that…
I know it's Eskie's 70th anniversary, but the list would have been a far stronger top 50.
Really, does John Sack's "And!" really stack up to some of the others? (And Esquire's web monkeys, here's a handy HTML cheat sheet, so you can code those tough diacriticals in them wacky foreign words.)
The trouble with Tasers, CrunchGear explains, is "there appears to be an aggressive effort by [Taser International] to silence critics and to control data and, on occasion, manipulate statistics with the intent of preserving an illusion of safety surrounding its products."
"What follows is a column, and is opinion. All statements of fact have been attributed to sources. I have to say this because Taser is a highly litigious company that does not take kindly to criticism, as you shall see."
It's safe to assume that Bose held a press conference today. In fact, I know they did. I did not, however, attend. Walking these New York City streets is almost as much. The advertisements for their in-ear headphones are nearly unavoidable. The mailroom guy has seen them, your girlfriend's sister-in-law has seen them, your grandma's seen them, everybody's seen them. And, of course, they've not only infiltrated our great city, but have hit several other markets, worldwide. I forget the dollar amount they've dropped on advertising, but it's something absolutely ludicrous, as…
Bagheera has decided that the roasting pan makes a dandy command bridge for managing kitchen operations.
Think about it, if you reduce the noise caused by airplanes, what else are you reducing—or enhancing?
Tom Watson picks the greatest cover versions of rock'n'roll and comes up with Patti Smith's "Gloria." Interesting choice. I might have gone with "Respect," myself.
But Smith's "Gloria" is incantatory and mesmerizing—and filled with genuine r'n'r passion, so on the day she's inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame, I'll give her props on that one.
In 1979, IIRC, I saw Smith at Portland's Paramount Theater. She ended her set with "Gloria," as usual, but she took it perhaps a bit too far into unknown territory. The other band members eventually left the stage, leaving Ms. Smith by…