“Glenn Gould’s Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano” is the subtitle of the book “A Romance on Three Legs”, reviewed on Sunday in the N.Y. Times. Gould’s perfect piano acquired a perfect tuner, Verne Edquist, who was somewhat forced into his career by the limited choice of vocations for someone with congenital cataracts. Edquist earned Gould’s respect by refusing to work on a piano that Edquist recommended instead be taken in for a full service. The piano tuner soon became responsible for keeping Steinway grand No. CD 318 in perfect shape.

Languages evolve over time, but the 80-100 “sleeping” (endangered) California Indian languages have little hope of surviving the dominance of English. A recent “Breath of Life” conference at UC Berkeley brought together speakers and students who want to preserve Native American languages. Parents want to pass this vanishing culture down to their children, the languages lost starting with the Spanish missionaries. Their tools to keep the words alive are old and new: songs, board games, cartoons, and YouTube.

You’ve likely seen it many times elsewhere, but I just can’t let anyone miss out on the carefully constructed Fifth Avenue apartment featured in the New York Times. 18 clues cleverly built into the furniture and decorative elements of the home created a trail of puzzles for the inhabitants. The finale led to the poem that had triggered the entire project. The owners had requested it be hidden in a wall somewhere. If you don’t have time to read the article, take a look through the photo gallery.

The annual Copper River Salmon run is heralded in Seattle with the airplane arrival of the first salmon, carried down a red carpet at Sea-Tac by an Alaska Airlines pilot. This year the plane wasn’t as full of salmon as expected. Fishing has been hampered by bad weather and lower salmon counts. Tack on the higher transportation costs and the prices are sitting at $25 to $35 per pound. The buying public is dealing with higher food prices and fuel costs in their own day-to-day lives so this coveted Copper River Salmon isn’t getting as many takers.

The San Francisco Chronicle checks back for an update on Starr King Elementary’s Mandarin Immersion program. Only one student has left out of the 25 kindergartners who began two years ago. 13 students were added to the first-grade glass, filling the two first-grade classes to capacity. And there are two full kindergarten classes coming up, with the next year’s spots completely full. I think that’s a pretty good metric of success even if the kids weren’t speaking, reading, and writing amazingly great Mandarin already, which they of course are.

There’s an “artisan, small-batch, homemade ice cream rush” going on in the Seattle area. Ice creameries with shops and often farmer’s market stalls include Half-Pint Ice Cream, Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream, Whidbey Island Ice Cream Co., Empire Ice Cream, and the very new Poco Carretto gelato cart from Holly Smith (of Cafe Juanita, fresh winner of a James Beard award). Yet to come, Full Tilt Ice Cream and Peaks Frozen Custard. Snoqualmie Gourmet Ice Cream has been around since 1997 and supplies dairy mixes to some of the newcomers. You’ll find variations on vanilla everywhere, but most carry their own specialty exotic flavors such as balsamic strawberry, lemon verbena, fennel seed, honeycomb.

The Subaru R1e electric car has been under development for a few years now, under partnership with the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Subaru found another power company partner here in the U.S. with the New York Power Authority agreeing to pilot two of the cars on the streets of Manhattan. It’s probably too tiny for the U.S. mass market (though our SUV consumption here is likely to go down!), but the two-seater is a micro-car based on the R1 gas version that is sold in Japan. The battery can be quick-charged to 80% capacity in 15 minutes with a special charger, or it can be plugged into the wall and fully charged in 8 hours.

A couple of guys I know like to harass their (amazing) bartender about not having egg whites on hand to make proper flips. Not being much of a drinker, I didn’t know about egg whites and their contribution to the enjoyment of certain cocktails. After the salmonella scare about a decade ago, the traditional raw egg white addition to certain drinks waned in public bars. But the egg has returned, with San Francisco bars reporting that emulsified drinks are back on their menus and no one is asking them to hold the whites.

In junior high school our small softcover yearbook was carefully edited by the yearbook adviser who also happened to be the typing instructor. She typed up most of the student provided blurbs which resulted in the removal of all mentions of the band Suicidal Tendencies. This was not a critique of the band, whom she had likely never heard of, but of the phrase. I didn’t hear any controversy over our high school yearbooks, but there was likely a strict editing process in place for our senior quotes. This year at Lake City High School in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho the adviser may be wishing she had taken a closer look at the yearbook proofs. With a psychedelic-theme, allusions to drug use and sex, the book has upset many students and parents. They also aren’t happy about spelling errors, misidentified photos, and excessive photos of yearbook staff members and friends. But as the Principal put it “There’s no do-over on it.”

The PBS series “From the Top at Carnegie Hall” is the television offshoot of pianist Christopher O’Riley’s “From the Top” NPR program. Young musicians showcase their serious skills in a light-hearted format. The second season is underway and they’ve put even more emphasis on the peeks behind-the-scenes, interlacing practice sessions and scenes from homelife into the actual performances, something that may horrify straightlaced classical music aficionados. It works well for the hoped for target audience of the next generation of musicians, who are being raised on fast-cut videos and reality television. The episodes are online and the results of these hard-working kids are mesmerizing, plus they’ve certainly been selected for personality as well.