It requires more, but we're strapped for time. We were supposed to ship to prepress yesterday. "Recommended Components" always ships late, and no matter how careful we are in our proofing, there are always—always—mistakes. John caught errors that I didn't catch, I caught errors that Elizabeth didn't catch, Elizabeth caught errors that John didn't catch, and round and round and round, but there are always more errors.…
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We spent almost all of today proofreading the April 2008 edition of "Recommended Components." One day of proofreading, however, is not enough.
The Sony Cards are in!!!! The Sony Cards are in???
"I want my Maypo!!!"
To paraphrase the Doobie Brothers, what was once ridiculous has now become absurd. To the Nth power.
Here's the deal with Sony's latest effort to fight piracy, the piracy by the way that they allowed occur in the first place, an idea straight from the boys in accounting and legal: Platinum Musicpass. You go into a Best Buy, Target or Fred's and purchase a credit card with fancy artwork for each album you want to download in what the press release calls, "high-quality MP3 files." Each card costs…
Much of the April issue shipped to prepress yesterday, and the big "Recommended Components" feature is on its way out right now. All that's left to go is "Letters," "Industry Update," and the table of contents. Often, our shipping days coincide with the arrival of our office supply of the previous month's issue. That is, as we send off the April issue, the completed and bound March issues are arriving here.
We keep our supply of back issues in a medium-size storage room. Inside, there is the smell of glossy paper, cardboard boxes, and good work. After we've shipped an issue…
I've told you about my love for CBS' Sunday Morning news program. The show is simply fantastic. Charles Osgood is the host. Charles Osgood wears bowties and talks in perfect rhyme. Mo Rocca knows how to dress. David Edelstein takes me to the movies. Bill Geist is the most charming buffoon. Ben Stein has a strange way of lifting the human spirit. Serena Altschul makes me sigh.
You should watch this show. That's it. Just watch it.
I feel like Art Dudley, I feel like Sam Tellig.
I'll be sure to watch this Sunday's episode. I will sit on my orange couch…
In my first job in New York, my boss walked into my office one morning with a folded sheet of paper and a pained expression on his face. I asked him, "What's that?"
"My Grammy ballot. I don't even know who most of these punks are," he said.
"Like who?"
"Any of them, other than the classical section. I guess Bob [Ludwig] and Greg [Calbi] know who these people are, since they mastered most of them, but I have no clue about any of the popular stuff."
"I've always suspected that's why the Grammies seem so removed from reality," I said. "I reckon half the people in…
Writing about the idiocy known as the Grammy Awards Show just isn't that much fun anymore. I used to take great glee is slicing and dicing them but they’ve been so dumb for so long that, to quote Mr. King (as in B.B.): the thrill is gone. That said, I now look at it as live comedy, of the squirm in your seat variety. It's always mildly amusing to see the U.S/U.K. music business make an ass of itself for the entire world to see. In no particular order here's a few Grammy 2007 observations.
On one of those occasions when the camera whirled down and across the crowd, I saw Jeff Tweedy of Wilco…
May Pang spills the beans about her relationship with John Lennon.
And, just in case you missed it, here's a lovely assessment of what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi actually did for the Beatles, especially Lennon. Having never met Lennon, it's fatuous for me to say that some of Michael Gerber's insights ring true, but this line seems like it must be: "John Lennon always needed two things: something to do, and something to fight."
My great friends, Omar and Mikey, striking The Audiophile Pose, at Audio Connection in Verona, New Jersey.
See these two smiling faces? That's my uncle Omar on the left. He's standing with John Rutan of Audio Connection in Verona, New Jersey, a short and happy drive from downtown Jersey City, along the Parkway and up good old Bloomfield Avenue, dotted with trees and liquor stores, pizzerias and movie theaters. A very fine place, indeed.
What's Omar so happy about?
This was my first time at Audio Connection. I'd been meaning to visit ever since I noticed their ad in Stereophile, five six seven maybe almost eight years ago. I was not disappointed. We walked into the quiet…