LATEST ADDITIONS

"Imagine that your only contact with 'English' as a subject was through classes in school. Suppose that those classes, from elementary school right through to high school, amounted to nothing more than reading dictionaries, getting drilled in spelling and formal grammatical construction, and memorizing vast vocabulary lists&mdash;you <I>never</I> read a novel, nor a poem; never had contact with anything beyond the pedantic complexity of English spelling and formal grammar, and precise definitions for an endless array of words."

This 10-minute F. Lyle Goldman/Max Fleischer cartoon about how talking pictures work is full of interest for us audiophiles. Vintage technology, vacuum tubes, and Western Electric Research Project humor&mdash;what's not to love?

Remember when <I>Rolling Stone</I> actually wrote about music? Me neither.

Unconventional portraits of US presidents, the works in <I>Mr. President</I> "run the gamut from irreverent humor to deeply felt homage."

Speaking of having fun . . . .

Is depression an epidemic? Barbara Ehrenreich says that the way that depression seemed to sweep across Western Europe in the 17th Century <I>looks</I> like one, but is probably the result of the modern age's celebration of individuality. An increased sense of personal autonomy was accompanied by the loss of communal rituals and festivities that emphasized belonging to communities.

I have no idea how <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/technology/03music.web.html?hp">this<…; is going to impact the world of digital music.