Stephen Mejias

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I have been filling in our master spreadsheet for the Buyer's Guide all day today. More often than not, I am the one who sees the spreadsheets first. I make as many corrections as possible, and then pass them to Stephen. Stephen does the final edit and puts them in a folder for me. From there, I input them into a master sheet and ::PoOf:: the master sheet is beginning to look like an issue after all. So far, 573 loudspeakers will appear in the November issue, but we've only hit the tip of the iceberg.

The number of e-mails and faxes has died down a bit, which is a very good thing because it means that we have the bulk of our information already. With the exception of a few rude manufacturers and a handful of late stragglers, hundreds of manufacturers have submitted their entries without any problems at all. But, despite how much work we've already accomplished, I was feeling a bit uninspired today. In all honestly it has a lot to do with the fact that today is Monday, and everyone feels a little "blah" on Monday. The other half of it is that I spent a little too much time in the sun this weekend and the sun has soaked up my soul, so to speak. So, I paid a short visit to google.com to find a little inspiration.

I looked up quotes about filmmaking, just to humor myself and found a number of good ones that I bookmarked for a later time. But there was one that stuck with me and I decided I needed to post a new blog entry.

I am eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see.
—Dziga Vertov, Kinoglas

I am Ear?
I wondered how many audiophiles would be so daring as to say, "I am Ear!" It has been my own experience to try to tell stories about my world through images, as photography has been a hobby of mine for some years now and I hope to pursue a career in cinematography in the future. Sometimes I very consciously show a world of my own, but sometimes it happens accidentally and I don't notice a lot of what my picture says until it is printed out in front of me. Part of what I find interesting about photography is that it's experimental when I want it to be. Sure there is a more correct way of composing an image sometimes, but a lot of the time my best photos are created through a hit-or-miss strategy. That could mean one of two things: A) I am a good photographer or, B) I am a lucky photographer. Nonetheless, my images are the likes of which only I can see.

Not knowing a heck of a lot about high-end audio equipment, this quote made me wonder if the satisfaction audiophiles get out of listening to perfectly positioned loudspeakers was at all relative to the satisfaction I get from a pretty image. I would naturally assume there are crossovers, but would you go so far as to say "I am ear. I am a mechanical ear. I, a machine, am allowing you to listen to a world, the likes of which only I can hear."

That is as insightful as I can get on a Monday with sunburned shoulders. Hopefully I will have enough in me to be the mechanical eye later on today.