Stephen Mejias

I would like to be at home right now, sitting on the orange couch, listening to the hi-fi. Because Bill Callahan has been on my mind, I think I would choose to listen to Smog's A River Ain't Too Much To Love, an album that soothes me, that makes me feel good.

And Bill Callahan has been on my mind because he's got this new album coming out. It's called Woke On A Whaleheart, and isn't that an exciting name? What does it mean to wake on a whaleheart? I wonder. It feels like something special, something magical, something important. I see deep red and brilliant blue, and I imagine growing closer and closer to some sort of truth and beauty and peace. I imagine some quiet and profound understanding.

I'm just writing now, without too much thought. And, now that I've made that confession, I've begun to think.

In any case, I am looking forward to this new Bill Callahan album. And I've mentioned this already today, in the forum. I mentioned it in the forum because I felt the forum needed some cheering up. You know, it gets kind of rough in there sometimes, and, to tell you the truth, I don't always know how to deal with it. I'm not one of those moderators who gets a kick out of banning people and talking like a weird robot, user banned user banned user banned WHAM. I'm not going to do that. I don't sympathize with people who enjoy that sort of thing. Of course, there may be a time for banning, but I haven't reached it yet. The only bans I've made have been against spammers.

I believe in our guys, especially in those tough situations. Willie Randolph says you gotta keep him in there. Go ahead and let Ambiorix Burgos pitch to Ryan Howard, even though you're leading by only one run in the sixth, you've got an open base at first, there's a righty on deck, and you've got a lefty warmed up in the bullpen. Howard might just smack a three-run blast into the stands, but so what? You've shown faith in your guy, and who's to say that your team won't stage a rally and come back to win 11-5? Huh?

We've been busy around here, and my mind is a monkey. My mind is a monkey. It was eight years ago, I think, that I spent some time at a youth hostel in Clichy, France. Have I told you about that? Such an interesting collection of people I met there. I have pictures and poems. A woman joined me in the elevator one afternoon as I was returning to my small, blue-gray room. She was in her fifties, I suppose, and she stared at me, and told me, very plainly, that she knew me. She certainly knew me. We'd lived together, she said, at some time, in some past life, in a beautiful old house that sat atop a hill and offered a wonderful view of Paris. I don't remember this woman's name, but I remember her saying, "My mind is a monkey." And that is that.

What have we been busy with? We've been busy shipping the June issue, which, you'll see, offers a fine balance of cost-no-object gear and some much friendlier-priced stuff. Despite the complaints from certain readers that we review too few real-world products, it seems to me that we actually review a lot of budget gear. I wonder if people aren't really asking for more reviews of cheaper stuff, but are actually asking for less reviews of the very expensive stuff. And I wonder how often people really aren't asking for what they seem to be asking for.

We've also been busy preparing for the Home Entertainment Show. Those t-shirts that I mentioned awhile ago have been ordered. Hallelujah. You have no idea. Budgets and compromise and phone calls and specs and e-mails and phone calls and setup fees and compromise and there's no way you're ever going to make everyone happy and aren't we shipping a magazine? I hope people buy the t-shirts. If you don't like t-shirts, we're also making baseball caps.

In addition to that, we've been putting the finishing touches on the next Stereophile CD, Attention Screen's Live At Merkin Hall. JA put so much work into capturing the complete range of dynamic expression experienced that night, and Wes Phillips composed a set of the most lovely and perceptive liner notes, and all of this works together to celebrate an intensely special event, and maybe even brings us closer to some truth. I think you're really going to love it.

What else? There's more, I know there's more. What else? I think I'll go check on the forum now.