ST. LAWRENCE SWITCHEROO

posted by James Reel

    Tonight's Leo Rich Theater concert by the St. Lawrence String Quartet and pianist Stephen Prutsman, presented by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music (of which I'm an officer), has some unfortunate changes. One of the quartet members won't be coming to town, because his father has just died; they've temporarily replaced the musician, but they haven't had time to work up the promised Hindemith string quartet; that will be replaced by something else, but at the moment I can't remember what--nothing so rare as the Hindemith, alas. The rest of the program (a Haydn quartet and the Shostakovich piano quintet) remains unchanged.

SPARKS

posted by James Reel

    Last week, upon Amozon.com’s release of Kindle, its new e-book reader, I sent you to an old essay of mine about e-books, as well as Farhad Manjoo’s previews of the new device. Now Manjoo has a full-fledged review of it; here’s the gist:

    If you're on the fence about the utility of an e-book reader—if you doubt that reading e-books can match the experience of reading "real" books—a few hours with the Kindle will do much to change your mind.
    Still, there's a great deal Amazon could improve on. Its $400 price tag, its zany user interface, and some of its sillier restrictions make the Kindle a non-starter for all but the travelingest, readingest early adopters.