Natalie Merchant

Just taking a few minutes drinking coffee on the back lanai watching the drizzle. At the same time the shear descent in the pool is running and the birds are speaking to each other.

Had an interesting experience (at least to me) earlier in the week. I was driving into work listening to the local morning talk radio. The lady who was on the last three years graduated to Louisville. The format the radio station was trying out was so bad I had to switch to NPR. Just as I made the switch NPR started to interview Natalie Merchant (10,000 Maniacs) about her new life and new album that was being released that day. It seems that when Ms. Merchant had a daughter 9 years ago she gave up the road life and stayed home to care for her baby. During that period of time she spent researching classical poets and poems from the Victorian period and on. It was a fascinating discussion how she found a poem she liked and then researched its author and then put the poem to music. The net result was fantastic. The short pieces of music played during the interview were truly magnificent. They dealt with joys of life and the sorrows of death. Truly inspired. In my mind what what I appreciated most was that there are people around who see an artistic inspiration in their mind and are willing and have the perseverance to bring the vision to fruition.

I greatly admire people who work with their hands. It is very easy to identify a crafts and separate them from "worker bees".

This set the whole tone for the rest of the day.