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Jon Carroll is always worth reading, but you really don't want to miss a column that has this lede: "This is such a wonderful story. It should serve as an example to us all, and as a shining light to the young. Yes, you can do something positive for society, while still breaking the law and cheesing everybody off! It's win-win."
Sam Tellig doesn't call the office often. In the seven years that I've been at Stereophile, Sam has called only a handful of times. When he does call, however, it's serious. Sam just called.
I imagine he had to pry himself from his listening chair to do so, but he did. Most likely, in fact, it was the music that inspired him to pick up the phone.
"Hello Stephen. It's Sam Tellig."
"Oh! Hi Sam. How are you?"
"I'm fine. Yourself?"
"I'm well. What's up?"
"Stephen, have you read my latest column?"
"Yeah."
"About the LFD…
PBS has posted a site dedicated to Nikola Tesla, my candidate for coolest scientist ever. Among other things, it includes a virtual tour o the Niagara Falls electrical generating plant and a fascinating hint that Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was created out of fear that the USSR had perfected his charged-particle beam weapon (you see, there's this huge controversy over what happened to his papers after his death).
Exploring the site is like venturing into a science museum's attic, it's chock full of fascinating tidbits—such as Tesla's death mask and documents from his FBI files.
Sigh, The Golden Compass opens this week and the kooks are out denouncing it as "atheist propaganda." I read—and greatly enjoyed—Pullman's trilogy and I thought it was more an argument with Milton than with God himself.
Laura Miller is one of the few writers who actually appears to have read and understood His Dark Materials. Even better, she spoke with British clergy who also had read it and "got it," to the extent that they welcomed a work of ideas that led to discussions on the big issues of life, death, mortality, and humanity's place in the cosmos.
Moreover, as one British…
A partially mummified hadrosaur has been discovered in North Dakota. It's probably the most complete dinosaur ever found—it even has intact skin (with stripes) and possibly even soft tissue. But does it have a head? The head's the best part!
Read all the way to the end and you'll thrill to "the hand of doom."
Scott Glover set out to find his birth parents. The truth doesn't set you free, it turns out. It entangles you.
The PATH train ride from Grove Street in downtown Jersey City to Church Street in lower Manhattan takes about seven minutes, maybe less, and offers a chilling tour of Ground Zero. For just a dollar-fifty, you get a Disney-like theme park stroll through a chalky gray wasteland that'll have you wondering why no real memorial exists.
Plant a tree, for fuck's sake. Lay down some sod. Something.
Something.
Once you arrive, you'll be rushed out onto an unusually clean platform. The word "clinical" might come to mind. You'll climb hundreds of steps before you reach…
Bill Bruford ponders his place at the top of the food chain.
Back in the day, I lived on a commune in the country, where we decided to start our careers in animal husbandry with a passel of chickens. Noticing that the kids seemed awfully fond of them, we grew concerned that we were going to run into resistance when it came time to harvest them. Testing the waters, we asked three-year-old Meredith if she liked the chickens.
"Yes," she lisped. "Fried!" You go, girl.
Yesterday was the anniversary of Frank Zappa's death in 1993. The good news is that the Zappa estate is releasing tapes of The Grand Wazoo tour and that Zappa Radio is back online. Wowie zowie.