I promised you a small book update, and so you shall have one. It's getting progressively difficult to do updates on the book, only because it's easier to write about conceptualization than about execution. But I'll do my best!

Yesterday I did another review session with HS. Between holiday and travel schedules (he'd just returned from Montreal where he recorded a new piece for the upcoming Winter Olympics), it's hard to make time to sit down, but were able to manage an hour or so, and that was all we needed. At this point, we're mostly going through Shore's quotes with a fine-toothed comb to make sure he's happy with everything he said. His assistant, Alan, joked that HS could change any quote he wanted, as long as he spoke the revision out loud--that way we could could still claim to be quoting him accurately. 

With these edits incorporated, the text is now set to ship to the publishers, which it will later this week. Like most of us, they'll have some down time at the end of December. But come January, we'll begin the layout process. I think we're providing a pretty good template with our mock-up, but I'm very curious and excited to see what real layout artists can do with this. It'll feel strange to have someone poking and prodding something that's been my sole property for so many years, but such is the way of things. As the axiom goes, creative efforts are never finished, they're just set free. 

And anyway, I should have my hands full with The Rarities. The waveforms posted here last week were indeed commentaries in mid-edit. I don't want to say too much about how we're using them just yet, but that probably surprises very few. It looks like I'll be back in NY in late January/early February to finish up recording material for TRA, but there's still plenty to be done after that.

So between the book and The Rarities--and deleting the unending posts from Car Insurance Susan--life is busy! But, I'm not ready to finish off the year just yet...

If all goes according to plan, we should have one last big announcement for everyone before 2008 goes down for the count. I hope it'll be in the next couple days, but that's not in my hands. As ever, stay tuned...

See you on the boards!

-Doug