The Stick Palace and the SIT-4

Throughout my hundred years, I've told everyone who'd listen: If it's adventure you seek, the best way to find it is to stand on the right corner at the right time wearing the right hat, and when the limo pulls up and the driver says, "Get in," do not ask where it is going.

- HERB REICHERT

This strategy has served my life story well. It has placed me without striving in countless cinema-worthy locations, hanging with all types of legend-worthy characters.

Lately, that corner where I stand wearing the right hat is in front of the Polish newsstand at the intersection of Manhattan and Greenpoint Avenues in Brooklyn.

Twice in two weeks, I woke up early to be standing by that newsstand at the right time for my friend Beau to pull up in his metallic blue saloon. Both times I got in, I neglected to ask where we were going. Both times, I ended up somewhere like Oz or Wonderland. Both times, I came home thinking "Wow, I am blessed to be a traveler in this audiophile hobby. It keeps putting me on roads, opening doors, and introducing me to wizards, scholars, monks, and abbots."

The first time, I thought we were driving to see our friends Dave and Jeffrey of Salt Cellar EMIA fame,' but when I stepped out of the car, I was standing in tall grass in front of a raised-bank barn built in the 1830s. The barn's nearest door framed its far side door, which framed a miles-deep landscape on the leeward side of the structure. (See photo.) For a long moment, the scent of clover dominated my attention. Then I spied acres of it all the way to the forest at the edge of the valley. "So, Beau, where are we? Did we crash on the highway and pass through the Vail?"

Just then, framed in the first doorway, I spied the Paganini-like silhouette of my old friend Pern, an authentic audio monk, whom I've known since I was building amps under the tutelage of mutual friend and humble wizard Arthur Loesch. Pern was Arthur's running buddy and part of a gang I was a member of.