Ahoj Friends, from the post-apocolyptic jungle of Central Texas. This is so: sixty days of rain early in the growing season has got all the green things expanding to extraordinary proportions. The okra's twelve feet tall. The pecan trees are hanging heavy, gravid with tasty nuts, succumbing to gravity. And, when speaking of climatic irregularities, one can't help but address the attendant Butterfly Explosion. They're here in such great number and variety--yellow orange white, neon green velvet black and powdery blue--tiny and vulerable, drinking from a mud puddle, or enormous and slow, fluttering with such bravado, it almost warrants stopping in the garden to shoot the shit with them. Lest we dismiss the Lepidoteran* bretheren as another precipitation-induced anomality, we ought to consult the elders for some insight. The Blackfeet people say the butterflies bring you a dream. The Irish think they're human souls waiting to pass through purgatory. The Maya thought them dead warriors in disguise. What is going on, winged harbingers? Perhaps this: the River Styx is overflowing its banks, and so souls flow freely, to and fro. Could you dig being a butterfly? after you die. Flying around, high on flower nectar you sucked up with your curly tongue, seeing ultraviolet secrets with your compound eyes? * * * * * * Well the High Plains and Peaks Western US Tour was an epic ramble through the unconventional venues, river canyons, mountain passes and cottonwood plateaus of America's Left Half. Rolling with master musicians and beloved friends Michael Hurley and Ralph White, pulling notes from instruments on friendly stages or by campfirefight, sleeping under the stars, hearing the earth twitch and groan below its thin skin. Nobody got sick, abducted by aliens (though they were observed by the full moon above the Snake River Valley, two days prior to our crossing of it) or left for dead at a Greyhound Station, freedom tickets flowed at a sustainable velocity from doorman to gastank, and you: people, I tell you! You are great. Kisses and cosmic gratuities go out to all of you who set up the shows and those who came and joined in; and those who took us into house, shack, bus or driveway, shared gifts from the garden, home cookin' and conversation...THANK YOU! Michael Hurley's brand new long player "The Ancestral Swamp" is out now. When you get in then seatsprings creak their greeting. The dashboard's big enough to hold everything and there's windows in places you usually can't see through. This birdsong carries clear above the din of the creek, so you'd best get your vinyl while you can, kids. Tweet! http://www.midheaven.com/artists/hurley.michael.html I have posted a photo zine of our tour here: http://ats.highplainssigh.com/photos.html a Sleepography here: http://highplainssigh.com/news.html Howard Wyman in Crawdaddy: "They played with every bit of gumption as they would by the fire or in front of a crowd of thousands" Read the rest of his review of the rest of our San Francisco show here: http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/Article.aspx?id=3056 * * * * * * Thanks to the miraculous union of a hand-held cassette player and a USB cable, I was able to post an MP3 of the April '07 live performance by The Places Fractal Folk Trio (Amy Annelle, Joshua Housh, and George D'Anunzio) on Michael Leahy's KDVS "Cool As Folk" program. The fidelity of which you may find intriguing: http://highplainssigh.com/music.html And finally, an update on Ralph's dog Stella, the Rattlesnake Bit Catahoula Dog. It's been a week now and she's definitely out of the woods! Thank you for your well-wishing! Fare Forward, Voyagers! xxamy annellexx *Lepidotera: scientific order of butterflies, moths, and skippers