Microphone Placement Tip
Hint to recording engineers: Anna Netrebko gives it to you in the second sentence of graf 8.
Wes Phillips
The Loudness War, Part 1172
Suhas Sreedhar writes about CD over-compression in IEEE Spectrum. It's a good 'un that goes beyond the usual hand-wringing to the real danger it poses.
The Eggcorn Database
An eggcorn, as regular readers of The">http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/">The Language Log are aware, is the label given to non-standard reshaping of expressions in common use. Substituting "eggcorn" for "acorn" or "baited breath" for "bated breath," for egg samples.
The Colonization of Silence
I don't disagree with the need for contemplative silence, but I find our contemprary society particularly ill-suited to it. Perhaps iPods are the cure to noise pollution rather than the problem itself.
Reading the Polls
According to an AP poll, one out of every four Americans hasn't read a single book in the last year. Okay, maybe I can believe that, but whenever I read articles like this, they inevitably include some guy (and yes, it is always a guy) who says something like, "I just don't have time for fiction, when I read I want to learn something."
Felines and Memories
Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at 10 minutes ago
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again
For 10 whole minutes. . . .
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at 10 minutes ago
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again
For 10 whole minutes. . . .
What a Tool
Nick Hornby gets an unusual request.
O Macdonald!
I've written before about the Crippen & Landru publication of The Archer Files: The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer, Private Investigator, Including Newly Discovered Case Notes, edited by Tom Nolan, which has a cover by my buddy Jeff">http://www.jeffwong.com/caricature.htm">Jeff Wong, who also happens to be an internationally acknowledged expert on Macdonald.
Soviet Poster a Day
Alexander Zakharov posts, well, a Soviet poster every day. Best of all, he provides a lot of useful historical and artistic context for them. I've always been fascinated by the visual bravura of these posters, now I get to discover the "hidden" meaning to them, which, of course, weren't hidden to the proletariat .
Bill On Will
Bryson writing about Shakespeare, that is. The Times offers an excerpt from Shakespeare.