What depression? There's nothing like a good old-fashioned listening party for lighting a fire on your savings account. Might as well spend your money now before it disappears. Turn your money into stuff. Turn your stuff into records. <a href="http://www.devorefidelity.com/">John DeVore</a> should charge admission to his new listening room. Perhaps he'll accept payment in vinyl. I'd happily pay one limited edition pressing for an evening of outstanding music and fine company.

Remember my friend, Eden? The one with <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/project_sapphire_at_the_end_o… amazing apartment</a> and the Sota Sapphire? I visited her the other day. Slowly, so slowly, we're revitalizing the old turntable. Getting her ready to spin again. Getting her ready to sing again.

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I went to see Keith Jarrett play solo at Carnegie Hall last night. This may puzzle careful readers of this blog, who no doubt recall my <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/fredkaplan/081107">boycott</A&gt; of Jarrett in August 2007 after his disgraceful behavior at the Umbria Jazz Festival, on top of a career of disgraceful behavior. Well, I decided to call an end my own pique. First, I’m told that Jarrett apologized to the people of Umbria. Second, now that Barack Obama is president, the tantrums of a piano player are more likely to be seen as a mere random annoyance than “yet another example” of American brutishness. Finally, I figured, it’s a new era, I’ll give the guy another chance. He’s too good an artist—too great, really—to ignore just because he’s a jerk. (Jackson Pollock was much more unpleasant, yet that doesn’t stop me from gazing at <I>Number One (1950)</I> every time I visit the Museum of Modern Art.)