Wes Phillips

Countdown to Ecstasy

Wes Phillips May 07, 2007 First Published: May 07, 2007

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Tonight, John Atkinson is going to give me an honest to God production copy of the Attention Screen Live at Merkin Hall CD. You need to get one too. In the meantime, here's an interview with one of the truly great improvisors, Keith Jarrett.

Wes Phillips

Words and Music

Wes Phillips May 07, 2007 First Published: May 07, 2007

MIT Media Lab has posted a survey seeking to discover "what words people use to describe sounds—and whether everyone uses a common vocabulary, or whether the choice of words is related to a person's musical or cultural background—and how the chosen words relate to a sound's timbral characteristics."

Wes Phillips

A Matter of Scale

Wes Phillips May 07, 2007 First Published: May 07, 2007

Subway maps of the world, rendered to scale. Why do I link to that? Because it's got subways . . . and maps . . . and, uh, scale.

Wes Phillips

The 25 Most Exquisitely Sad Songs in the Whole World

Wes Phillips May 07, 2007 First Published: May 07, 2007

Spinner picks 'em. Yeah, it's a list, but this one has the songs embedded, so you can hear the ones you don't know—or the ones you love, for that matter.

Wes Phillips

Duck-Billed Platitudes

Wes Phillips May 04, 2007 First Published: May 04, 2007

Freida Hughes is less than reverent about a Robert Service poem. She's right—the callow lad got bent out of shape when his booty call wasn't the idyll he had imagined.

Wes Phillips

What's That?

Wes Phillips May 04, 2007 First Published: May 04, 2007

Bagheera's bug huntin'!

Wes Phillips

Why Is This Cat Laughing?

Wes Phillips May 04, 2007 First Published: May 04, 2007

Because I thought I was the boss of him, that's why.

Wes Phillips

With a Hey, and a Ho, and a Hey-Nonny-No

Wes Phillips May 04, 2007 First Published: May 04, 2007

"These syllables might be nonsensical, but they are telling and resonant."

Wes Phillips

Welcome to the CIA Museum

Wes Phillips May 03, 2007 First Published: May 03, 2007

"Housed in the Agency's Headquarters Building in McLean, Virginia, this unique collection illustrates the history of US intelligence—which effectively began when this country was still 13 separate colonies—by showing some of the artifacts and tools used by men and women serving in various aspects of espionage."

Wes Phillips

Sky Racers

Wes Phillips May 03, 2007 First Published: May 03, 2007

In the 1920s and '30s, fliers would race their home-built and "suicidally overpowered" single engine aircraft—sometimes in front of 60,000 spectators. The Granville Brothers' Gee Bee Model Z was little more than a massive motor with stubby little wings attached, but it paved the way for the fast fighters the Air Corps put aloft in WWII.