Hello to you all where'ere ye be.
A long while since I pecked these plastic keys for a newsy blast to you all. So much for keeping up with a quarterly letter to keep the dialogue flowing.
This edition contains:
A. Wintry harvest musings
B. New QTN wordless CD and Colouring Book
C. "Food" is finally a downloadable single!
D. QTN Reverbnation page
E. A fun interview posted for your enjoyment
F. Bite-sized news
A. Ahhh, the turn of the trees, smell of a woodsmoke fire, the rains, chanterelles, and bounty of the year’s harvest. It's more than a quarter past the time of another Heron Moon and with the blush of new apples and pears, peppers and kale to hard squashes to store for winter, t'would be a grand time to be on the Upper Left Edge of the country except I headed east instead to the midwest for another road spin and still won't be back for another week or so.
Moving between worlds as much as I do makes me think of bats. Bats as a totem are transformative instigators and luckily, there's plenty of bat energy for me this year again. For the last several summers, a l'il bat has lived behind a fabric picture hanging on my porch. Since everything was late this year, it wasn’t around for the early part of the summer like previous years but returned the beginning of September. A good companion that bat and a fine presence who circles around my head when I was outside in the yard in the evening, flying back and forth through the porch grabbing moths and mosquitoes.
Just before I left Oregon for fall meanders, at 4 in the morning, little bat flew in the loft window. In sleepiness I figured it must’ve been outside making all that noise but when I opened my eyes, there it was flying around in the cabin looking for a way out. I got up to open the door and flew around my head one last time and left. Next day, I saw it had gone for good as his behind-the-picture hiding place was abandoned. Like me, he was on his way to other adventures. As Yogi Berra has said so eloquently "You can observe a whole lot just by watching."
Seeing the change of the season from the land I began in is always a big turn of events no matter how many times I’ve done it. Slanty light is rarified wherever we find ourselves as we find ourselves transforming in ways we never could imagine. There's plenty to move through and renegotiate; plenty to sift through and release. Stuff to let go of is only the tip of the iceberg. Lettuce bee.
This time of year we are encouraged to reflect on where our gratitude lies and to say thank you thank you in appreciation. Humility and respect - the most important watchwords in every situation. Having a tough time with somebody or a strange situation in life? It seems humility and respect gets us lots farther than opinions and pride. Listening is still better than going on and on defending a single person phenomena. I am reminded of the lyric: " Nothing is often a very good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."
Now the season turns again towards the cold, contracted and sleepy. Darkness comes and its a good time to listen deep, to lighten loads, to make more space for breathing, creative repose and for casting aside excess and remembering to hold space. A good time too to set intention for winter months and transformation into the new decade named the 20tweens by a recent Rock Island concert audience. Alas,
nontheless is all the more so here we go into the next tidbit...
B. My new CD of wordless guitar music, Guitarred & Feathered, is out and flying this year, getting airplay on many stations around the country and world. Ten tunes on one guitar, gorgeously recorded, wrapped in splendicious artwork and a great gift for yourself or someone else dear to you. Copies are $17 postage paid and can be mailed to you directly in time for whatever hoopla you have planned. Also new this year: a QTN colouring book folks have been enjoying since Kerrville. It's called LOLOLOLOLOLO and you can have one sent to your post (or to the kid of your choice) for $6. The cover is posted here and kids of all ages are enjoying it plenty. Break out the crayons and go have some fun. Ordering CDs or colouring books with a check by mail or through my website using paypal is easy and the most artist-friendly way to get hooked up with fun music and stuff. CDbaby continues to be a help in getting this music out to the world too. If you have a CDbaby account, write reviews of any QTN albums on the pages too. My page is here
C. Food -The SINGLE! So many folks still ask for my out of print 45 from nearly 10 years ago (!). Now Food (People Need Food) has finally being released worldwide as a downloadable hi-res single. at CDbaby. Within a week or so, it will be available through iTunes and other outlets for $1.25. At last you can put it on yr mixtapes and iPods. It's electric, beautiful and was recorded with the dynamic duo of Adam and Kris and it sizzles! Go here for more.
D. A new ReverbNation page online is where I've posted tunes to hear. It's a webpage but there's nothing to join and is easier to navigate than Thatspace which seems to have been abandoned (for good reason). If you have suggestions of songs you'd like me to post, let me know. Sign up there for the mailing list if you haven't already. There is a FB-enabled link too for those of you so inclined here and an FB Artist page here The FB page is odd, put up before it was deemed necessary to make a "profile" first, so I never have. It's a good way to say hi and pass around news all the same, but email still works best to reach me. Stop by if you haven't yet and wave.
E. A new QTN interview with Jeremy Bonfiglio was printed by the St.Joseph Herald-Palladium last month when I played in Michigan. It's posted on this same blog so just scroll down the page for the interview post.
F. Bite-sized Mantras were out of stock but are back in action now. Thanks for the letters and inquiries. A bit late but still in time for the holidays, order decks here.
Giving thanks I am and not just because it is the officially-sanctioned time of year to do that. Some folks on this list have been with me a very long time. May you know your support and beholdance is much appreciated. For coming out to hear live music, for offering places for me to stay while this peripatetic way continues. for the thoughtful letters in return and sharing the music I make with the others you love, it is all a circle and as it says in "Everywhere I Need to Be", I couldn't go the distance without you.
Your corn forest spondent,
bq
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