How anyone was surprised that Britney Spears has shaved her head is beyond me. As <I>Stereophile</I>'s assistant editor, the intrepid Stephen Mejias reminded me, she was brainwashed as a toddler thanks to that malevolent mindfuck known as The Mickey Mouse Club. Add to that she's a piece of unreconstructed white trash from Louisiana, who's now been coddled beyond all description and suddenly head shaving looks like the least of her worries.
Ben Yagoda on <I>meh</I>, <I>awwa</I>, <I>feh</I>, <I>heh</I>, and all those other interjections. How could he leave out <I>d'oh!</I>?
Conductor Kenneth Woods has some thoughts about "honest" recordings. Follow the link to the University of Houston's listserv for a surprising revelation about another widespread classical hoax.
Carl Zimmer gives us the straight, er, poop on tapeworms.
While we listen to music, the areas of your brain that enable our bodies to move are active, even if we're not. The brain, it seems, likes rhythm.
Today Kurt Cobain would have been 40. Seems like yesterday when we were seeing that searing image of his suicide: the photo taken in the room where he died, of his Converse All Stars, still on his feet, sticking out from behind a piece of furniture.
For Nick Mason, it's driving; for Roger Waters, it's being driven.
Pay attention, class. This little rope-climbing device looks pretty slick. As the article says, the real trick isn't ascending the rope, but ascending the rope without damaging it. The rule of thumb we used when I did technical caving was to retire any rope we had "shocked" with an impact or weight-bearing kink.
Even if you read my <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/021907hatto/">news article</A>, about Joyce Hatto's recordings, David Hurwitz' <I>Classics Today</I> editorial will supply new information.
Kind of cool—and very well done, although the first thing I loaded in was "argh," which Kate could not pronounce.