Art Dudley Listening

"How could there be a bad song called 'Iron Man,' or 'War Pigs,' or—my cup runneth over—'Rat Salad'?"—Nick Hornby, explaining his youthful fondness for Black Sabbath

Once upon a time there was a violin maker who had two quarrelsome sons, and their names were John and Rudolf. When the boys came of age, their father put them to work in his shop, but John and Rudolf found it difficult to get along with one another, and they quarreled even more bitterly after the old man died.

You dodged a bullet.

It's a strange sort of progress: As culture and commerce evolve, most people look for simple, easy solutions to their needs. Enthusiasts, however, go out of their way to complicate matters, often choosing products that are expensive and difficult to use. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the world of home audio, where typical consumers have embraced the notion of smallish, self-contained music systems—yet audiophiles, who are surely as crazy as bedbugs, seem bent on parsing an ever-increasing number of individually distinct products from the basic concept of a music system.

"Spread out."—Moe, addressing Larry and Curly

Nothing is wonderful when you get used to it.—E.L. Howe