Stephen Mejias

Just like me, Belle and Sebastian write about love. The band’s new album is due out here in the States on October 12. It will be mine. You can listen to a clip on the">http://www.matadorrecords.com/matablog/2010/08/16/belle-sebastian-write… Matablog. The song, “I Want the World to Stop,” sounds just as dark and groovy and infectious as you might imagine. I’ve listened to it about 69 times already.

The October issue of Stereophile shipped to press yesterday afternoon. (Hallelujah.) We are already deep into the November issue, while our new editorial assistant, Ariel">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/the_young_guy/">Ariel Bitran, is tackling the 2011 Buyer’s Guide. In addition to all of that, and on top of the regular stuff, the entire office is in the">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/boltz_cd_rack/">the process of moving onto the 6th floor of our 261 Madison Avenue location. Construction crews are tearing down walls and building new cubicles, painters are turning white and gray into blue and cream, movers are carrying tables and desks up flights of stairs. My office is cramped with boxeshttp://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/buried/">boxes;, but this time they’re moving boxes.

Sort of like a drunk wandering around the East Village in search of companionship or something, I stumbled upon this">http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97dec/vinyl.htm">this outstanding article by Stereophile’s former senior contributing editor, Jonathan Scull. The piece, “All Sales Are Vinyl,” which appeared in the December 1997 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, takes the reader on a brisk tour of Greenwich Village record shops. Though many of the shops mentioned are long gone, others such as A-1, the Jazz Record Center, Academy Records, and Other Music are still going strong, and Jonathan’s writing is at its best. Not only does he capture the joy of the vinyl hunt, he illuminates this unreal city, and does so with his unique, charming wit&#151his comic timing is brilliant.

And look who’s back: It’s Ariel Bitran! Ariel worked as our part-time editorial intern, enabling us to complete the 2008, 2009, and 2010 editions of the Stereophile Buyer’s Guide, before departing for a full-time gig with Mini-Circuits.

Today is my 10th anniversary with Stereophile. Hmm…on the way home today, maybe I’ll buy myself a nice beer. Or a record…

Photo: Melissa Horn

I received an interesting call today from a man named David Garrett in Atlanta, Georgia. David has 25 years of experience as an architect (in fact, he grew up in Highpoint, North Carolina—“Furniture Capital of the World”) and, for the last 13 years, has operated his own interior design company. He is aggressively and enthusiastically looking to change directions, however, and has recently started an LP rack business called Nomad Crates.