Mobile Fidelity, PrimaLuna, and First Watt redux

GRAMOPHONE DREAMS - It's important for readers to remember that I've spent my adult life as an artist and mechanic. Making things. Working as a tradesperson during the day then at an easel or workbench at night.

- HERB REICHERT

When I finished high school, all I wanted to do was work in a fancy, well-equipped shop building drag race engines. Engine building was something I had already shown a talent for, but my parents insisted I go to college. Unfortunately, my high school grade point average was so low I was turned down by every college I applied to. Consequently, my parents forced me to attend Wright Junior College in Chicago, a place where teachers rolled joints for their students. And I got straight A's. Those easy A's got me into Western Illinois University, a small state college in a tiny rural town called Macomb near the Mississippi River. My mother was so proud, she told everybody she knew that her son was accepted into "university," but she could never remember which one.

I enrolled at WIU as a physics/chemistry major, but during my first week of my first semester, I was banned from the physics department and put on disciplinary probation for allegedly assaulting a lab assistant with a red laser. And for parking my Camaro in the Dean's spot.

Around that time, a tall student with shoulder-length hair approached me after a performance of a Samuel Beckett play in the school's posh theater. His first words were, "Are you into plays?" I said, "I like reading plays. I read this one in high school. But I've never before seen a play in a real theater like this one." Then he asked, "What do you know about art?" Whereupon I explained, "My mother's an artist, and she took me to a lot of art museums. But I think art is stupid."

"That's perfect," he said, "Because I am the editor of the school newspaper, and I am appointing you to be the art and drama critic. Here's my office number-can you give me a short, written review of this play by tomorrow afternoon?" I told him, "I can't write, so I never write. I pay people to write my class papers. But I'll give this a try because I do have some thoughts about the performance."