Tonight’s daily dose is from the late Solomon Burke, performing Valley of Tears with Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch. Mighty fine.
I was familiar with some of Burke’s Atlantic recordings from back in the day, but when he released Don’t Give up on Me, on Fat Possum, I listened to that recording over and over and over. When was that? 2002 maybe? It was just overflowing with soul. We were fortunate to attend one of his performances at Massey Hall. That was a great night.
I’m happy to report that we’re seeing continued turnover in the 27th Street Book Box. There have been a number of kids books appear and disappear lately, and I’ve noticed some parents taking their kids to the book box lately. There are a few excellent books in there that haven’t moved since they appeared, to my surprise. In particular, I’m thinking about Iron and Silk and Anatomy of a Murder. Others seem to come and go very quickly. I love that it’s taken on a life of its own.
Books Rock
The “Books Rock” sign has a Newfoundland dog image on the right of the sign. That’s Ellie Mae – regular readers know we lost Ellie less than a week ago. I’m happy that we have her image right up at the front of the house.
October hollyhocks
hostas
Movember – that happy time when you get to see me grow a moustache – all in support of men’s health initiatives. Some gentle readers, looking forward to a month of me looking goofy, have already bellied up to the bar so to speak, and sponsored me. You can too. Just go to my Movember page and turn loose your credit card. You know you want to. Just remember, I’m growing a moustache so you don’t have to.
In fact, if sponsorship is good, I may even order up some moustache wax and keep the party going long after Movember has passed. I’ve never before grown a moustache that hasn’t been attached to a beard. I thought, nope, not for me. Never. However, I’m learning not to take myself so damned seriously (how can a guy who plays a banjo made out of an oil can take himself seriously, you might ask?).
Please go to the page and ante up. He (or she) who hesitates is lost. The early bird gets the worm, and all that jazz. To learn more about Movember, start here.
Because there is room for people like Dwight Diller who dedicate themselves to mastery of a traditional form way outside the star-maker machinery known as the music industry. Mr. Diller has some excellent music on his YouTube channel. Here’s one I quite like…
….we do up fall real good.
I cut out the shapes for the two cardinal mosaics this afternoon. That’s Shadow making sure he’s in the shot. We then paint the back and sides of the wood with a good exterior latex. In the past we had been using spruce ply, but this time we’re testing out some birch plywood.
We have quite a few cardinals living in our neighbourhood. In fact we’re really enjoyed watching them out the window from right where I’m typing. They come to the tea cup bird feeders in the canoe garden for sunflower seeds.
For our next mosaics, we’ve decided to do a pair of cardinals. The first step is to draw them out….
Later today, I’ll cut out the shapes with a scroll saw. We have quite a selection of tiles and broken crockery but each mosaic has special colour demands and we’ve learned that having a good variety of colours and textures and thicknesses in the right colour ranges adds a lot of character to the mosaics. Today or tomorrow, we’ll visit thrift stores with our colour palette in mind and try to find a selection of inexpensive items to turn into tesserae. This will be our first attempt at a pair of birds, and cardinals will be a good choice for that since the males and females look very different.
And just one more….Ellie Mae was a great snorer
And another, from March of this year….
27th Street 