Monthly Archives: November 2009

Movies: Better at Home

I’m just about to give up on movie theaters, not that I have ever been particularly enthusiastic about the damn things. Despite the lure of gargantuan screens with their matching vibro-lush sound systems, I am fed up with, disgusted with, … Continue reading

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Pick-ups, Tie-ups, Odds ‘n’ ends

Back in September I mentioned how much I had enjoyed the challenge of writing very short, streamlined liner notes for the SF Symphony’s “Keeping Score Soundtracks” releases. How to describe the Eroica in 150 words? Quite the writing étude. Although … Continue reading

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Everything Old is New Again

The title is perhaps a bit misleading; I don’t mean that everything is new again, but that’s the song lyric. It being Thanksgiving break and all, and having caught up with my various activites (including finishing an article on Bruckner … Continue reading

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Digital Doom

Please contemplate the following article titles, taken from a recent sampling of computer-industry websites: Pirate Bay Shutting Down; Are Torrents Dead? Does Chrome OS Spell the End of Desktops? Is Zune the iPod Killer? Apple is snuffing out smokers and … Continue reading

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The Disease, Not the Patient

I don’t hate San Francisco; in fact, I can’t imagine ever thinking of it with anything but love. Not only is SF a beautiful and remarkable city, but it has also been incredibly good to me. I’ve had a great … Continue reading

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Doodad elegance

Nobody who has spent more than a few minutes around me can fail to be aware that I live in a state of perpetual doodad acquisitiveness and experimentation. My life is filled with doodads. Also gizmos, thingamabobs, and whatchamacallits. I … Continue reading

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Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

I have a sweet little Dell Studio XPS 13″ laptop that performs infrequent and intermittent service, mostly as a reminder of the PC world as viewed from my elevated pedestal as a hardcore Macintosh fanboy. There but for the Grace … Continue reading

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How I caught up on my beauty sleep at Otello

Having sat/slept through the current production of “Otello” at the SF Opera on Sunday, as freebie seat-partner to a local critic, I can safely say that in a show such as this — close to its Shakespeare original, intensely dramatic … Continue reading

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Record Stores R.I.P.

It is no secret that record stores have been going belly-up at an ever-increasing rate. In fact, about the only thing slowing down the mass extinction is simple mathematics as fewer and fewer stores remain around to go extinct. The … Continue reading

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Spectacularly Unclear on the Concept

I don’t get it. Entering a conservatory is neither a trivial undertaking nor an insignificant achievement. One cannot simply fill out an application, pay the requested fee, and show up bright ‘n’ shiny on the first day of Orientation Week. … Continue reading

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