Stephen Mejias

Just when
you think

things
with women

can't get
worse,

they do
get worse

but then
they get

better.

This piece of wisdom, like that Silver Jews song, is complicated. Complicated, but good. It ends with hope and hope is good. And I have many good reasons to believe in hope, and many good reasons to believe in Art. Besides, Art rocks the bow-tie. The bow-tie is a complicated thing. Complicated, but good. With age comes more than wisdom. With age comes style. I'm looking forward, anxiously, to the day that I can put that style on, pull that style off.

The story of this love could only have happened in New York. What kind of love can happen only in New York? Complicated love?

Something else grips my attention. Someone's playing guitar in the office. Who's playing guitar in the office? It's coming from down the hall. It's Robert. But Robert doesn't play guitar. And then singing. It's Wilco. Wilco is in the office, singing:

I was chewin' gum for something to do
The blinds were being pulled down on the dew
Inside, out of love, what a laugh
I was looking for you

I get up and walk over to the music. Robert is bobbing his head, tapping his foot, holding the new live Wilco album, Kicking Television: Live in Chicago, in his happy hand.

He looks up as I walk in, and: "Dude, I was waiting for you to come in. Ah, this is killer, isn't it?"
I nod.
"This is gonna be my weekend project."

Indeed, it sounds very, very good. It makes me want to run home and listen to some music of my own. I can't wait.

This morning, John came in with heavy boxes and sighing heavy sighs, the kind of sighs I practice often. Not tired sighs; John is not tired from moving heavy boxes, John is not tired at all. Today's are sighs of another sort.

Looking down at the seven boxes which hold the pieces of the NHT Xd speaker system, John sighs:

I feel
fulfilled,

Stephen.

But I'm sad
to see
them go.

John is echoing Art's statement about the true test of a component's worth being how much the reviewer misses it when it's time to send it back. John will miss the Xd very much, it seems.

A couple nights ago, I sat on my Ikea couch, in whatever amount of sweet spot I've got, thinking that I could live very happily ever after with the system I've somehow magically acquired. Thinking: I got on the merry-go-round, and then got right off. No trouble at all. I don't want to ever see them go. Why should I want anything else? But I'm like this. I fall in love. I was prepared to fall in love with these speakers, and now I have. As much as a fellow can fall in love with a couple blocks of wood and stuff, that is. I love how they sound in my room, I should say. I love what they do, and I don't even really want to think about how they do it. I just want them to keep making it happen. And how nice would that be? To fall in love with the first pair of speakers I ever heard. I could teach my children about fidelity and I could teach them about high-fidelity, telling them, as they gather round the music: "Kids, I waited twenty-eight years to meet this pair of speakers you're listening to now. It could have only happened in New York. I knew as soon as I heard them. It was love at first sound. And we've been together ever since."

But it wouldn't be very audio reviewer of me to stop with the first pair of speakers I brought home, would it? JA has already moved on. "Time to move on," he says, everyday. Time to move on to the next pair of speakers, time to move on to the next issue, time to move on. "Are we rocking?" We're not stopping anytime soon.