Stephen Mejias

The sun is almost all gone now and the streetlamps along Newark Avenue are just beginning to take on a sort of greenish glow. The sky has become a shadowy mess. We're trying to postpone something. Who would want the day to end like this?

They're opening a Starbucks and a Duane Reade directly across from the Grove Street PATH station, where I catch the train to work each morning. This will certainly bring more people to my growing neighborhood. This morning, the train was so crowded that I couldn't read my book, Murakami's colorful Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. So, instead, I did what I always do when there's no room to read:

Out of habit now more than anything else, I keep my cell phone on the floor beneath my bed while I sleep at night. In the morning, when I wake, I still check my cell phone for any messages.

Like John">http://stereophile.com/thefifthelement/208fifth/">John Marks and my uncle Omarhttp://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/021308sing/">Omar;, I am prone to enthusiasms. It's not unusual for me to hear some new piece of music and wind up feeling that I need it&#151neeeeeeed it. So what? Music is great. It is unusual for me, though, to hear some new piece of music and be so moved by it that I leave work early, race up Madison Avenue, charge down into Grand Central, take the 4 to Union Square, and face the many temptations of the vast Virgin Megastore to buy that new piece of music.

Photo credit: Gordon Polatnick/Big Apple Jazz

From left to right: Selfdividerhttp://www.selfdivider.com/base/index.php">Selfdivider;, AlexO, Jules">http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/jules/jules.html">Jules Coleman, JackCrank, and Jeff">http://www.jeffwong.com/">Jeff Wong. Friday, February 29, 2008, at In Living Stereo.

Yesterday's episode of Sunday Morning on CBS included a segment with Herbie Hancock, whose River:">http://blog.stereophile.com/fredkaplan/101507jazz/">River: The Joni Letters won two big prizes at the 50th annual Grammy">http://blog.stereophile.com/musicroom/robertbaird/021108/">Grammy Awards: Album of the Year and Best Contemporary Jazz Album.