search
On Monday, The Washington Post published a long, enthralling article on Richard Mellon Scaife's messy divorce.
It "includes a dog-snatching, an assault, a night in jail, and that divorce court perennial, allegations of adultery.
"Oh, and there's the money. Three words, people.
"No. Pre. Nup."
I was happily reading Sasha Frere-Jones' blog about CMJ, when he dropped this linkbomb on me, asking, "If you do not think there is any drumming in this cover of 'Satisfaction,' watch Björk’s hips. Also, a question for physicists, audio engineers, and clerics: how can Björk sing so loudly and not drown out Polly Jean Harvey, even though Harvey never raises her voice particularly high? And a question for music lovers everywhere: why has this song inspired so many good covers?"
And the big one: How could I have been unaware of this clip?
"Pools and pools and pools of chocolate—fifty-thousand-pound, ninety-thousand-pound, Olympic-length pools of chocolate—in the conching rooms in the chocolate factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Big, aromatic rooms. Chocolate, far as the eye can see. Viscous, undulating, lukewarm chocolate, viscidized, undulated by the slurping friction of granite rollers rolling through the chocolate over crenellated granite beds at the bottoms of the pools. The chocolate moves. It stands up in brown creamy dunes. Chocolate eddies. Chocolate currents. Gulfs of chocolate. Chocolate deeps. Mares’ tails on the…
The very first issue of The Stereophile appeared 45 years ago, in October 1962. It had been founded by a guy named J. Gordon Holt. The "J." is for Justin. I've never met him, never even exchanged e-mails with him.
In the opening essay of the November 2007 issue of Stereophile, now on newsstands, our editor, John Atkinson, asks J. Gordon Holt a few questions. It's a good read. But I was hoping to discover a charming, wise, happy fellow. Instead, J. Gordon comes off like an angry and bitter man. It sucks to admit it, but, judging just by the words on the page, that sure seems to be…
Music patron, writer, wife and biographer of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Michael Church writes an incendiary review of Anne Sofie von Otter's newest CD, which won't be released here until spring.
I was interested for several reasons. First, Church makes a strong argument for von Otter's passion for the songs. I was also intrigued by the inclusion of the Schulhoff violin sonata, which John Atkinson and I recorded in 1997.
Church is right: This is an amazing disc. And, it seems, ASvO has a personal connection to the Holocaust.
Sam Anderson knows exactly how to talk about a book called How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read.
"My biggest gripe is that Bayard’s conception of reading is entirely social—a way to rack up points at cocktail parties. At the risk of sounding like the fusty old crank everyone does impressions of in the faculty lounge, I still believe in the private ecstasy of reading. It’s one thing to jockey for social position by saying that Dostoyevsky introduced psychology into the novel, or that Chaucer had a fuller grasp of humanity than Shakespeare. It’s another thing to experience, with your…