Hello from a warm sofa on a quiet, chilly November morning. Thanksgiving was yesterday-- and a very different kind of holiday for me. I come from a very large extended family and I'm used to about 30 people gathered in one house at three or four different tables, having 8-10 different conversations at once. After dinner, everyone would either find a place to sit and talk, or help clean up dishes, or go press apple cider in the back yard, or play football with a rubber chicken (because we never could find a football, and no one ever thought to bring their own). Yesterday, as the grandchildren have spread out and the grandparents have become less mobile, tradition was broken and everyone sort of stayed in their own regions of the state. I traveled down to one of my aunt's homes in Circleville, Ohio for a quieter dinner than usual, but no less satisfying. Special note should be made of the organic vegan dressing which had cranberries in it and which I could have eaten an entire meal of. (It had cranberries in it.) Traditional, no. Delicious, yes. I even gave my little sister a piano lesson after dinner, and we performed a duet for the four or five other people that were present.

Earlier this week, upon realizing that I'm on vacation and thus don't have a whole lot that I have to get done, I decided to record a couple songs. Adam dug out his mini-disc recorder and microphone and we had an old-fashioned amateur demo session. The mp3's can be found on the music page. (You may also notice that “Feels Like I'm Dreaming” has been labeled as “Sold Out”. Album number one is officially out of stock. Selections will be posted shortly, for those of you who figured you'd have plenty of time to purchase it. It can also probably still be found at Borders Books and Music stores in the Dayton area...)

The first new unreleased song “Batula” was named after the 5 year old girl who inspired it (upon suggestion from the audience at the last Over the Rhine show). A Somali Bantu refugee, Batula came to the states about 6 months ago with a group of families who were resettled in Columbus to escape persecution, violence, and enslavement. There was a story in the paper about one such family, but the father was still stuck in Africa missing his family, due to immigration problems. This song was written from that father's perspective. I've been helping Batula and a classroom full of others like her as they learn English. It gives me some small comfort to see that, even in the current state of this nation, at least one small thing is being done to help human-beings rather than to drop bombs on them.

The list of songs that's up there will be expanded shortly, because boy, I forgot how much fun recording is! Let's do that more often, shall we?

A photograph of Lucy, who at this moment is curled up next to me on the couch, serves as Sphinx of the Unreleased Songs. It seemed appropriate to honor her for her patience since she always has to sit there silently listening when they're being recorded, occasionally being shooed out of the room if she's too jingly. Who knows what she thinks of it all. (Thanks, Luc.)

Enjoy the turkey sandwiches.

*rlc