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Not a ton of info, but if anyone is interested, here’s an interview with Mr. Zhou, of Light Lens Lab, on their recreations. I’m lucky enough to have several of the lenses discussed, including the 8-element, 1966 “Noctilux” (one of my faves), Z21 Angénieux, and the recent Double Aspherical. Big fan.

That's a tough one.....they were incredible.... On a more personal note, RIP to a friend, Pete Savickas. Pete was a partner to a woman who knew Karen from New York City single days in the 80's. She moved up to a small town in NH and expanded a house on a small lake there. She met Pete many years back and - while they never married - were partners all those years. No kids, but a nice life and acclimated to small town living. Pete was a bit of a curmudgeon, but he could've been in the Dos Equis beer commercial; he was one of the most interesting people I've ever met. He and Debbie were our New Year's Eve partners for several years. A great cook, boater (he had two beautiful wooden Chris Craft boats), wine & beer connoisseur, investor, weather watcher, animal whisperer, and so much more. We would talk about so many things, and I'd learn something new every time we chatted. It was a pleasure to chat about audio, finally something I could teach him; and his interest was always there to learn. I will raise a glass to him, if you are drinking and think to toast him, please do.

‘We get a lot of requests for it be used in sex scenes’: how Goldfrapp made Ooh La La https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jan/26/sex-scenes-how-goldfrapp-made-ooh-la-la-baudelaire

Looks good. I'll check it out.

Dinner tonight was at Javalina Indigenous Dining at it was excellent. We had a variety of dishes but the only one I snapped was the elk fry bread with a significant pile of pulled elk, arugula and pickled onions on fry bread. Delicious. At the front counter, there was a basket of whistles for anti-ICE protests and support of the targets of this fascist aggression.

Smoky Moroccan Chickpea Soup (formerly Stew) a la Mishka Makes Food

I've going over my collection, filling in any items I'm missing, I felt I really should have a modernized version of the Sigma. I came across a rather abused normal bias set which needed new drivers but wanted to try something different... so here is the SR-Sigma 507: The housing was very discolored so I wanted to try my hand at painting it. The frame was primed and painted satin black but I left all of the other parts in the primer color. The plan was to make them gloss white but this looked too cool so this is how they stayed. The drivers and cable are from a 507 so it took a lot of work to get this right. The drivers are in the cage that Stax introduced with the x07 series so I glued the drivers and fitted spare metal grills to them. In terms of sound, this is the best Sigma I've ever heard. The bass is overblown, as is always the case with Sigma's, but it has some real power to it and is more controlled than every other I've heard. The top end is nice and clean and the midrange is just sublime. A fun addition to the collection.

Just in the last few years: Lagerfeld, Westwood (who was also predeceased by her natural successor Alexander McQueen), Miyake, & more recently Armani. Now Valentino last week: The remaining big Japanese designers of that era: Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons) & Yohji Yamamoto are both getting up there in age. Ralph Lauren is up there too, and thankfully still active for the brand. With Donatella having stepped down from Versace, who else is left from that period (70/80/90's)? Is Calvin still working? Mucia Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Tom Ford (Gucci), Marc Jacobs are a few young-ish [sic] names I know crossing over into this century. I have no idea who is leading classic houses like Chanel, Dior, etc. On a positive note, I am currently amazed at Coutre to the Max, who appears to be an old soul in this young boy's body, & doing amazing things. Can this be real?

My bologna doesn't chub as much as it used to.

RIP Sly Dunbar, 1/2 of the greatest rhythm section of all time. Robbie Shakespeare preceded him 4 years ago.