Reverie

Last weekend I spent 10 hours finishing the staining and Verathaning of a shoe shelf and some wood trim for around our windows. I worked over at mom and dad's but the pressure was on because they came home on Tuesday. It also gave me an extra opportunity to listen to lots of music. This week I made it through my entire discography of Brooks Williams (15 albums), along with relistens to my 2 Josh Ritter albums and the new Cockburn. Also delved into Sarah Masen, who I hope to see in June at the Wild Goose Festival.

But the most amazing listen this week was to the latest David Wilcox release, 'Reverie'. This guy is just one of the best songwriters I know. Plus, he's got a great voice and plays the guitar in a very unique way (lots of alternate tunings and a variety of cut-out capos). His songs though - wow! He has such a wonderful, creative way with words. This new album is just him and his guitar, and listening to it has reminded me again what a master he is - I know why some musicians have called him the 'songwriting Jedi'. The song 'Stones of Jerusalem' is an amazing history of the Middle East in 3 minutes, 'Piece of Me" & 'Little Fish' are insightful songs about what's wrong with so much of Christianity today. 'Ireland' is a wonderful poem/tribute to the love for music in that land and 'Dynamite in the Distance' is an understated but achingly beautiful song about love and communication.
Josie had surgery last Friday and has had to wear a cone/collar to keep her from rubbing her eyes or biting at her leg stitches. She ended up cracking it pretty good in a few places as she's maneuvered around, especially when coming up the stairs (so now we take it off when she has to ascend the back steps). Also need to apply ointment to her leg, and drops in her eyes, a couple of times each day. She's been great with this, although she didn't like the ointment the first few times as her leg must've been pretty tender.
I finished reading 'The Count of Monte Cristo' on Thursday so it ended up taking just over 2 weeks to read these 1063 pages. I really appreciated the iPad's ability to give me quick definitions of unfamiliar words (and there were lots of them - written in the 1800's, translated from French). This is a grand tale of revenge and forgiveness but it is also a very complicated story. At one point the author reintroduces a character and when I checked, the last time he was mentioned had been 675 pages before! After this tome I decided to take a break and read some lighter science fiction, but the unique book I've started, Eifelheim, actually has a lot of challenging vocabulary as well. I say it's 'unique' because it's set in a German medieval village of the 1300's, but an alien spaceship lands in the woods nearby. Very strange, but intelligently written, and the main character is the faithful village priest - I'm liking it.