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Cua Cua Ra, Cua Cua

We're shipping our November issue today. Shipping gets me all excited and nervous. I don't sit, I shake. I don't walk, I dance. I don't talk, I sing. Like Willie Colon: Cua cua ra, cua cua!

We're shipping our November issue today. Wait until you see it. It's gorgeous and bold, and filled with great, cool things — stories of ass-kissing and revenge, laughter, music, and the strength of 45 years of excellence. You can build an entire system around our November issue.

Lucky for you, you have the October issue to keep you busy until then. Cua cua ra, cua cua.

Bring Back Personal, Individual Embarrassment

Euan Ferguson took the Tube last week. "Only three stops on the Piccadilly line between Knightsbridge and the centre of town, and I would have got there more quickly, pleasantly, and safely by crawling backwards through the linking sewers with a twitching rat in my mouth and open bleeding weals on my bare backside."

A Dictionary You Can Trust!

Word!

32 Bars of Nothing

Moises Kaufman has written 33 Variations, a play that explores Beethoven's obsession with Diabelli's inane little waltz. Sounds worth seeing—or you could buy this.

Painfully Obvious

This Wall Street Journal article asks: "Are MP3s and the iPod ruining pop music?"

Included are comments from recording engineers such as New Jersey's own Alan Douches, who has worked with Fleetwood Mac and the Multi-Purpose Solution, and hi-fi scribes such as Stereophile's own Michael Fremer.

Also included is a little listening test that you can try at home.

Friends:
The difference in sound quality between MP3s and full-resolution audio files is painfully obvious. Really.

All
you have
to do
is
listen.

But, be careful. If you've…

Oh the Ironing

I think this is a not so subtle ruse to get guys to iron. If so, good job.

Hat tip to Nancy Friedman.

Survivor's Story

Stevie Nicks would like her forties back. "'It was eight completely wasted years of my life.' Here's the irony, she says: the 'powers that be' had sent her to the psychiatrist in order to keep her working, but the 'treatment' he gave her made work almost impossible. 'It's very Shakespearean. It's very much a tragedy.'"

Dark Star

Universe Today has posted a photo of a pulsar eating a star. Well, I'd never seen that before.

Bees on a Drowsy Day

Chet Raymo manages to coax an entire essay out of a description of a kiss: "The way bees on a drowsy day suck honey from fuchsia."

I recognize deadline flopsweat when I read it—and I also recognize that Raymo has delivered a graceful, lyrical gem. And on time, too, I'll wager.

Welcome Back My Friends

ELP As Christmas approaches, the reissues have begun to trickle in. Today's bounty was Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery or what the notes call "Prog Rock's masterpiece."

Listening again after 20 years reminded me what an overblown bunch of jackasses those three truly were. The only three guys in England who could make Rick Wakeman look disciplined. But as soon as I pushed play, the odd pleasures of this record all came rushing back: the bleeding chunk out of Ginastera's piano concerto, the sacrilegious bit of William Blake to open the record, the gongs, the moogs; those…