it was a cold and starry dark, a month or so back at brenda's shack, which is unlike any other home base ever created. brenda is an extrordinary creature who's gone to great lengths to create a suitable habitat. a pad with the appropriate paramaters, paleattes and textures. there's furs and claws, adornments from a dozen decades and a dozen foreign lands. it's a mongolian yurt in an urban yard, there's lamb and millet and lentils from a propane stove and small glasses of red wine and kombucha tea. the books that line the walls all have red spines. a gentlemen who knows what's best might follow a sign suggesting a climb to the top of the loft. the inestimable jolie holland was there that night. the evening was whiled away in gentle celebration. jolie and i got to trading songs. and jana and brenda and chris drury were listening, and chris is a filmmaker, so his camera saw things, and secretly captured these twilit pixels: http://youtube.com/watch?v=lrA2I7NLnXE it's a video of an unreleased song of mine called "Everyone Has Spoken". that's jolie's guitar and her lovely visage in the background, and brenda's belongings abstrusely illuminating everything. ----------------- TimeOut New York's Mike Wolf wrote about our Manhattan Island show: http://ats.highplainssigh.com/press.html some photos from that Continental Tour With No Middle are up: http://highplainssigh.com/photos.html and my apologies to those of you in the middle who wrote me saying..."hey! what's this no middle shit???!" we'll play extra good for you when we do come through this summer, and bring you a brown bag of sweetcorn from a farmer's market. in the meantime. we've seen the leaf cathedral opening outside. while i was gone, green came to be the dominant shade. there's water flowing in the creeks and everything looks alive. and it's all a lie. my man is leaving. i'm tired of weeping, i'm tired of moaning. i'll be here watching for his ghost in the hallway, and recording its reaction when i call it by name. Forward, As Ever, Dear Voyagers, xxamy annellexx