one . . . two . . . a – one two three . . .
hi everybody, and welcome. just b here, blogging it out in the middle of nowhere for your reading pleasure. i’m in songwriter’s heaven right now, thanks to a new friend of mine called peter harris – a tapestry artist who also lives around this little chunk of rural ontario. you see, in the last days of 2007, with all the holiday excitement, friends, realatives, and canadian customs roaring away like a hurricane all around me, i started pining for a nice secluded retreat where i could hole up for a while. at the same time, unbeknownst to me, peter had been invited to speak at a big textile conference in india, but was having trouble finding someone to take care of his farmhouse . . . his nice secluded rural retreat . . . see where this is going. he mentioned it to my mom, who mentioned it to me, and bammo – we got in touch, met face to face, and it was decided. i would take care of his chickens, his house, and a sweet heart of a little old lady cat, zorra. so here i am. nice and settled in now.
it’s day 6 of my retreat already. i’m feeling right at home feeding chickens and wood fires. i have no movies or TV (blech!!!!), and i’m rat-tatting this blog on an old windows ’98 machine, and zipping it through the dial up connection straight to you, dear reader. my routine is rustic by today’s standards . . . i get up early (very strange), feed the animals (myself included), start the woodstove, have a little read with tea, and then play guitar and sing all day and late into the night.
officially, i’m here to write songs for the next cd and put together an intimate show so i can start doing some house concerts.
It was another new friend of mine, the extremely talented singer/songwriter dean mctaggert that turned me on to the idea of house concerts. it’s the latest thing these days i guess. there’s a network of people who hold small, groovy concerts in their living room. it’s not exactly a new idea: beethoven, for instance, played little shows in peoples salons all the time in his younger years. and more recently, back in the great depression (1930s) robert johnson and many other great blues artist did the same. juke joins they called them. i had no idea that this kind of thing was going on right under my nose however, so when dean told me about it, suggesting i look into it, i got very excited right away. now to get a few gigs . . . .
unofficially, i’m here to attempt to read all the great books i can. peter’s house is stuffed with great books – fiction, non-fiction, travellogs, magazine collections, plays, essays, graphic novels, you name it. i’ve already read a handmaids tale (margeret atwood), and on the road (jack kerouac). i cracked open the outsider (camus) this morning, as well as allen ginsberg’s howl. on deck is cat’s cradle (kurt vonnegut jr), and cities of the red night (william burroughs).
i’m excited as hell to be here. it’s been a dream . . . like i said, songwriter’s heaven – peaceful and languid. almost wish i could stay a year. well, that’s about it! i’ve blah blah blogged enough . . . far too much perhaps. thanks for checking in. see y’all on side B.
from the boonies of the great white north:
just b
