Aaaaaaaaand, May

 Hi y'all. May 6th here. Up in the morning and dedicated to getting something online for this month so here:

Up at 6:30 a.m. after sleeping like a proverbial baby last night. My sister-in-law Amy is sleeping, Lee Ann is at work, and here I be. Outside, past my computer monitor, the open blinds, the window, and the thriving Red Maple in our little yard, it's 50 degrees Fahrenheit with unblemished blue sky and a forecast of more of the same and a high of 80. Cool. Then warm. I camped again this past Sunday and Monday nights, bailing Tuesday morning to pick up Amy at BNA and forge home from what is normally a 20 minute airport commute to nearly an hour and a half in (ahhhhh) Nashville traffic. 

A little traffic was irritating, but not so much in the light of "news" announcements this week that more than half of "AI experts" believe there is now a more than one in ten chance that artificial intelligence will end human existence. 

Amy flew in to take her sister to Nissan Stadium to attend the Bruno Mars concert that filled the place night before last. That is so close to 40,000 humans in one place it's not worth arguing; and though the weather was threatening and drizzly, they both were still a-gaga with bright shiny fan eyes all day today. They were adorable in their evening selfies and snapshots:

Just for the record, I love these two.

As usually happens when our Denver seester is in Music City, we have eaten out twice so far, and Frankie's won the ratings war, far outdoing Bad Idea, which was aptly named. Our server at the latter was charming, but we found the food ridiculously overpriced and underwhelming. I won't go into detail, because it would be too easy and fun and I don't like to cut any restaurant a new backside, honoring the hard working service workers who are trying their best in an increasingly challenging time. I will note that the "sin tax" on liquor by the drink in Tennessee combines with standard appx. ten percent sales tax levied on everything to achieve a whopping 24.5% tax on any alcoholic beverages one might imbibe.  That makes it hard for everyone wanting to have a nice glass of wine with dinner. Five dollars tax on a 20 dollar glass of wine? I'm swearing off. Good job, fascist state government/buzzkill. 

Tonight is Friday, and we'll once again be calling Lyft or Uber to get downtown, this time to a concert featuring the inimitable Sonus Choir, to hear and see my dear dear daughter Miranda sing with this most impressive and enjoyable a 'Capella choir. 

Amy flies home to Denver tomorrow, but we get to attend a premier of symphonic rock genius Cody Fry's new documentary short film "The Unlikely Mariner", which highlights his new symphony in four movements. Why? Because Sonus performs in it, and because Miranda's much loved husband/drummer genius, Tim Buell, is also in it! Tim joined Michael W. Smith's band full-time this year, and he's on the road with Smith's 2026 tour currently. Life overfloweth.

I did another couple nights camping this past week, up at my favorite spot on the mighty Cumberland. Gonna slap a link in here to the pic album from that time. It was, as always, the schizzzzzz.

See the album

Last week in April 2026

 Well, well, here we are, the last week of April, Saturday the 25th, and I did not post in March and have almost let this one of a dozen slip by without a word. 

There have been words, though, and I'll share some of them. There has been a three night camping jaunt, some fishing, some music, a great puzzle, gardening aplenty (or meadow-tending, as may more accurately been the case), significant amounts of planning for travel in July, grown children making lives, paint applied to canvas, and if there were a god I'd say god knows what else.

I made the painting below, and shared it at my scottmerrick.me website and in Second Life at the scottmerrickdotnet gallery. It's the largest I've so far completed, and that because I found a castaway canvas from art.com in one of the alleys my Lemon walks with me and drove back to fetch it. I picked up a fresh jar of white gesso at Michael's art supply store and slathered layer after layer on it to overpaint its mass produced image and ready it for painting, then I began throwing ideas and textures at it, knowing I would find images in the resulting mess. When I think of sculpture, in particular the sort that involves some carving, I often remember the description I read somewhere in my past about an artist bringing out the embedded life within a piece of wood or stone or clay. Most bronze work is created with casts made of carved other material, I do think, and so there you go with my criterion for this painting. 

At the end of it, when my senses said it was almost done, I saw three shapes that suggested candles, and my final act was painting three black shapes indicating wicks. Though I had intended to paint candle flames, I stopped just short of that, opting for the unfulfilled, the thing the viewer can add, completing the piece her or himself, or themselves. I call this, at 36"x48", "candlesinthemaelstrom". 

I spent some time a couple weeks ago at my favorite camping spot. For me, it's ideal, open, shady with hundred year old pecan trees, close to home, and riverside. It's at Lock-A, Cheatham Dam Campground, an Army Corps of Engineers getaway just the other side of Ashland City. That is all for now. Excepting: 

Take a look at my little Google Photos album of the 3 nights camping at Lock-A in Cheatham County.

Nature Writing Reading

 Hey, all,

I have been reading a lovely tome every morning for several months. I sometimes stop at one of its brief entries, and I sometimes read two or three. I found it quite randomly, perusing the shelves at a local treasure--the Rhino Booksellers about a mile and a quarter from our home in The Nations, here in Nashville. Rhino's does have some social media identities, and a (single page) website, but seriously, the only way to "get" Rhino is to visit it. Make sure you have plenty of time.

I had been looking for anything by Tristen Gooley, having read and thoroughly enjoyed his Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs. That accounts for my being so investigative of the nature section; but though I didn't find any Gooley, my explorations proved to my advantage when I discovered this hardcover edition of The Oxford Book of Nature Writing. It had been marked down from 11 to 10 dollars, the 11 on its liner page lined through with pencil and the 10 entered (in the same handwriting) in pencil beneath it. Whoopee! 

So I opened the book and read its brief introduction by editor Richard Maybey, a celebrated nature writer in his own right, and scanned the first few pages. They include several paragraphs from Aesop, and nearly two pages from Aristotle, 344BC. I flipped through and saw brief writings by folks like Darwin, Emerson, Thoreau, GM Hopkins, along with many from authors unknown to me. The final writing is from Primo Levi in 1985. The book is arranged in chapters, each roughly identifying with one of seven historical periods chronologically.

But I digress. Imagine that. 

Anyway, when I read these passages, I sometimes find myself reading aloud, because the language, oh, the language. The varied voices, some in translation, come alive in the reading, so so vividly and with such detail. I recorded a few of them to see if they sound as delicious as they read, and I think one could make that argument. Here's a just under 6 minute reading of one of them, credits at the end. I'm slowly creating a collection of them, and though they may sound better read by a digital voice in Speechify or another speech to text app, they are so much fun to read aloud that I'm going to share one here. I highly recommend this little book!

Nature Writing Reading 5

The Oxford Book of Nature Writing

The (first) ice storm of 2026

 ...and I hope it's the last. 

Wow, it was, and remains an impressive, visually stunning evidence of Nature's anger. I know, that's anthropomorphism at its worst, but there ya go.

Gonna post my images so far here, if for no other reason than that I haven't blogged in a minute. 

It was, and remains, a challenge for many fellow humans. In the great scheme of things, with my dearest human recuperating from major (~5 hours long) intestinal repair surgery January 8, the storm hit us 6 days ago with a couple inches of snow, which in Nashville is plenty 'nuff to cripple the city for a bit, followed by a major ice storm with "freezing rain" and an ice build-up that was the 2 punch in the old 1-2 knockout. Power was lost to hundreds of thousands just in our Metro area, and somehow we were spared that, here in our little one decade old tall and skinny home in The Nations, just west of downtown and filling up over the past decade with people and more overpriced homes. Not that I'm complaining--you know, equity.

Yes, I'm the king of the run-on sentence. Hello.

Early on, we did our little community bit by my venturing out into the icy streets to bring a young friend back to power and warmth, along with her spunky, a little freaked-out kitty, Luigi. Lee Ann was about in shape to go back to work anyway, starting part-time and now working up to almost full, though her business, Tinwings, took the income hit with virtually every other small business, cancelling the week's pickup orders and deliveries and limiting hours for walk-in market customers. She's back at work now, and our extended family member, an employee of that food gem as well as a dear friend, is joining her to cook for the market so people who can get out can choose delicious, made from scratch, original food, cooked with love and the highest possible standards of cuisine. 

I'm back painting, playing some mandolin, walking the dog, keeping house, playing Legacy of Thieves, and, well, blogging. I have had some fun sailing my 22 foot Loonetta boat in Second Life, and I'm continuing to make sure the neighborhood has access to information from the Card Campaign for Democracy, papering the occasional utility pole with the current or favorite card of my printing, and leaving them in public spaces for citizens. This is a small thing, but it's better than an old man doing nothing. Consider it for your own extra hobby. You too can be a pamphleteer--if it's good enough for Thomas Paine...

I will be offline Friday to support the General Strike in support of Milwaukee Americans and against the vicious despotism of the Trump Clown Circus. Yes, it's gotten deadly. His masked thugs are executing  people in the streets, and if you don't think it will come to your town eventually if unchecked, you are literally dead wrong.

Click to view my developing photo and video album:

Lots of Work on scottmerrick.me

 Hi, It's 2026 and I gave up on Wix's decision to eliminate pop-up tool-tips on images, a former accessibility feature they eliminated without prior notice, as far as a quick search yields somewhere this past Fall. I just stumbled upon it one day, while innocently adding a new painting to my https://scottmerrickart.wixsite.com/myart website. WTF?

Wix is an Israeli site offering free or low-cost html5 tools for website creation, and no, I don't care that it is sometimes considered "unprofessional" to utilize it for its purpose. I, without shame, do not consider my passion for making art "professional." The tool-tip feature was reportedly eliminated when the EU dropped a previously required html design requirement. There ya go.

I originally designed the site over a year ago to share my graphic art, mostly acrylic paintings, with others, mainly because my artwork is not a "professional" endeavor. It's a pursuit of interpreting the mundane in light of its sublimity. 

That said, I spent the better part of a day last week labeling all of my images on the "Paintings" page of my site with text boxes indicating title and information. I think it works, and maybe even better than using that previously auto-displayed, upon mouse float, information pop-up. I do miss the info displaying on the larger image that pops up when an image on the page is clicked, but, well, beggars can't, you know.

So there. That's what I have today. And I think it serves my purpose for it.

All that said, I am considering an effort to clear paintings that currently live in a rack out of my home studio at Chez Merrique in The Nations neighborhood of Nashville by promoting a "sweepstakes" that will get some paintings into homes and businesses. You can see some of them at my wife's superstar catering business, Tinwings, in our neighborhood, but if you visit the art site by clicking the link up top or by simply typing "scottmerrick.me" in your web browser, and you identify a painting you like that is noted as "available" in the painting's description, use the same site's "Contact" feature to let me know if you want to make an offer or just come pick it up gratis. I'm not planning to ship at this time to the free folks, but otherwise I will either get it to you, if local, or you can drop by and it'll be on our front porch. That clear out effort has not yet begun and readers of me bloggy can get a jump on the throngs that will participate. Heh.

Just sayin'.

Seeeeee ya... Keep your head down and hold on to your hope. I still have a little faith we can avoid our once truly great nation's complete descent into authoritarianism. See Cards for Democracy Project's site for how you can do a little to help without placing yourself in harms way, at least for now.

Shakespeare was a Big George Jones Fan

 Happy Boxing Day. Your 2025 present is the video (embedded here or watch on YouTube), recommended by John Prine in direct quotation by Tom Piazza in his book, Living in the Present with John Prine. I highly recommend the read and hope you will consider purchasing it at your local intelligent book store or online as you will. You are welcome.

Oh! Virtual Learning! The Book!

Hello, and may this day find you well and safe, two iffy constructs in these dark days for American government and public safety. But that's neither here nor there (although it may feel like everywhere).

I stumbled across this in my Dropbox whilst looking for an ancient song I had written in the mid 1970s. It is from Sharebook, a feature that appears no longer to be available at blogspot.com for bloggers to archive their work, and it begins with a post from May 7, 2007 and ends with one at February 21, 2012. The blog went on for a few posts, and featured a revival announcement in August, 2023. That last is, though, the last. The revival never was followed up upon, and will not likely be.

Still, this little online book, spreading across some 277 pages of .pdf file, is fun to explore, at least for me. Many of its links got lost in the process of publication and a cursory click-thru demonstrates that many of the links that survived take one to a polite "page not found" message.

During Oh! Second Life!'s publication online, I was teaching young kids about technologyin independent then public schools whilst helping my wife to raise our own two kids, and Second Life for education was my primary creative side hustle. My involvement with virtual worlds for learning spread and grew over decades, until upon my May, 2022 retirement I audibly brushed together my hands and for reasons I can understand better than I can explain, I turned my back on the teaching world. I will herein say that I was so done with the reshaping of schools into businesses, and the data-driven administration of them (just how accurate was that data, beginning with standardized testing results?),  that I was, like, outta there, and for good--for my own, if for no one else's.

https://bit.ly/scottsecondlife will get you there.

So. There you are. Pretty much the sum total of my educational experience over 5 years of the nearly two decades of what people called Leadership in that field. I made friends, and many of those were from other geolocations--Australia, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, Japan. Once we loosely organized, we were always just on the "about to be" side of the Bell Curve of Adoption. It may be that those still involved will always be, and will pass, in turn, their own fascination and dedication to its newbies, who will one day do the same. It may be that the experiences within virtual worlds are simply so unfathomable to the unitiated that they will never be of real use to the powers that shape "the education system." Who knows?

What I know is that these engaging fascinations, with their promising and unfulfilled possibilities, are archived palpably in the blog, which is still available on Google's blogger.com platform (possibly useful if one wants to pursue a lost link) and shared here for as long as my Dropbox footprint evades the inevitable and eradicating winds of time. 

Stay well. Stay safe. 

Be Good and Have Fun.

Scottmerrickdotme Gallery in Second Life

Well, it's there, and done, and regularly updated as new art arrives into the tumultuous
"real world". I'm going to post here and update soon with a video tour, but I wanted to get it out there for anyone who may be interested in seeing it "in person" in Second Life.

Seasoned Second Lifers may need no introduction, but maybe others can use some media here. I'll pursue and add as I can. Click to visit: 

Scottmerrickdotme Gallery in Second Life:

iGtab Start Page and more

 Hey, all.

All five of you. All you beautiful readers. All of you who care.

Yes, I'm doing fine.

Autum is engaged in becoming real this year, dancing in and out from summer to winter and stumbling into itself with a rye vengeance, then slipping into one or another again. I'm painting, as evidenced in my work displays at scottmerrickdotme and in my new Second Life gallery at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Kerlingarfjoll/178/118/48.

I'm walking my beautiful Great Pyr mix, Lemon, and cheerfully taking her pictures on my iPhone 13, an endeavor which I once would have characterized as "wasting a lot of film," but which now seems just another minor obsession of an old man. There is a sizeable gallery of such pictures at my Google Photos storage site. Here's one I took yesterday morning: 

 so you can see why.

Mainly I popped into Blogger today to share the "Notes" section of my iGoogle start page. I found this feature of Google when I retired, yielding subscription to an online start page service I had used for teaching for years whose name not unnaturally (for today) escapes me. I'll paste it in here when it does re-enter my dusty old memory bank. 

Anyway, as you'll see if you investigate its link above, "Gtab" has one of the various optional sections called "Notes." I really like this and it's turned into a little staging ground for smippets from my readings and living. I looke at it as a place to retain  and celebrate for oneself (for oneself is precisely why one might have such a page--look into it for your own "oneself".)  It's totally revisable, inside a simple text box iframe. Here're my current Notes:

   "Twain rarely found any experience, be it gay or gruesome, that did not make him laugh." --Mason Curry, Daily Rituals, How Artists Work
"Time is our perception of change. Each individual perceives change uniquely. Therefore, there is no common time, no time that is "the" time. Or is there?"-- moi
"Rather than being a mysterious limitation, uncertainty appears to be the essential feature that makes everything else possible, if indeed energy and uncertainty are inseparable." --Rocky Alvey

     “Every moment of our existence is linked by a peculiar triple thread to our past—the most recent and the most distant—by memory. Our present swarms with traces of our past. We are histories of ourselves, narratives. I am not this momentary mass of flesh reclined on the sofa typing the letter a on my laptop; I am my thoughts full of the traces of the phrases that I am writing; I am my mother’s caresses, and the serene kindness with which my father calmly guided me; I am my adolescent travels; I am what my reading has deposited in layers in my mind; I am my loves, my moments of despair, my friendships, what I’ve written, what I’ve heard; the faces engraved on my memory. I am, above all, the one who a minute ago made a cup of tea for himself. The one who a moment ago typed the word “memory” into his computer. The one who just composed the sentence that I am now completing. If all this disappeared, would I still exist? I am this long, ongoing novel. My life consists of it.”― Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time
     "Sunny day today. And I'm inside myself again. My body just walking or standing on top of its shadow and I'm way up in my head, crouched panting in some far corner crying God please let me be. Please let. Me be. And from my corner I can gaze out through two gaping holes and then through two round windows paned with dusty glass. And finally over that hill of flesh in the lower center of my view I watch the images play.

Once had a dog, when I was six,

I taught her how to fetch me sticks.

I loved that dog, she read my mind,

since she once died I ain't

stopped

crying.

     That I am at times unable to hold the images to forms is not really worth mentioning. I mention it anyway. So that we might mutally come to better grips with the situation. Which is, he said with quiet desperation. I do not exist after you close this magazine and cease to think about me." -- Scott Merrick, Druid, an Humanities Magazine, Fall, 1970

"I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere." -- Leonard Cohen

"Relentless maximization is the strategy of a cancerous tumor, not of health."--Kelly Clancy, Playing with Reality, epilogue (in the context of gamification and game theory as applied to economics)

From Mary Jane Harvill: Wise and important words from sociologist Jennifer Walter about what is happening in this country right now and what to do about it:

"As a sociologist, I need to tell you: Your overwhelm is the goal. The flood of 200+ executive orders in Trump's first days exemplifies Naomi Klein's "shock doctrine"—using chaos and crisis to push through radical changes while people are too disoriented to effectively resist. This isn't just politics as usual; it's a strategic exploitation of cognitive limits.

Media theorist McLuhan predicted this: When humans face information overload, they become passive and disengaged. The rapid-fire executive orders create a cognitive bottleneck, making it nearly impossible for citizens and media to thoroughly analyze any single policy.

Agenda-setting theory explains the strategy: When multiple major policies compete for attention simultaneously, it fragments public discourse. Traditional media can't keep up with the pace, leading to superficial coverage.
The result? Weakened democratic oversight and reduced public engagement."
What now?
1. Set boundaries: Pick 2-3 key issues you deeply care about and focus your attention there. You can't track everything - that's by design. Impact comes from sustained focus, not scattered awareness.
2. Use aggregators and experts. Find trusted analysts who do the heavy lifting of synthesis. Look for those explaining patterns, not just events.
3. Remember: Feeling overwhelmed is the point. When you recognize this, you regain some power. Take breaks. Process. This is a marathon.
4. Practice going slow: Wait 48hrs before reacting to new policies. The urgent clouds the important. Initial reporting often misses context.
5. Build community. Share the cognitive load. Different people track different issues. Network intelligence beats individual overload.
Remember: They want you scattered. Your focus is resistance."

You, my friend, are welcome. Some fun now.

Camping at Lock A, Cheatham Dam, This Past Week

 

I have a little photo album of my camping trip to Cheatham Dam Lock A Campground last Monday through Thursday. Well, to clarify...

I had reserved Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights at my bestest favorite campsite up at "Cheatham Lake," really just a wide spot in the mighty Cumberland River. From  HISTORIC CHEATHAM COUNTY TOUR SITES:

               ASSEMBLED AND WRITTEN BY
                     J. M. ALLEN
                        Corresponding Secretary CCHGA
                     FOR THE CHEATHAM COUNTY HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL ASSOCIATION

LOCK "A" & FOX'S BLUFF

CCHGA 3

    Located at the end of Cheatham Dam Road off Highway 12 North in Cheatham County. The Lock was completed and placed in operation November 26, 1904 at a cost of $490, 010 .77. It was 52 feet wide and 280 feet long. lt was erected to control the waters of Harpeth Shoals, a fivemile stretch of the Cumberland River between Ashland City and Clarksvillle which interrupted more steamboat business than all other natural impediments along the navigable course of the river.

    On November 19, 1906 Captain W. T. Hunter became the first Captain on the Cumberland todeliberately "Jump" a Dam with a Steamboat. He accomplished this feat at Lock "A" on the "H. W. Buttorff", while the water was at high level.

    The peak of the cliff overlooking Lock "A" is Fox's Bluff with one of the most scenic and picturesque views of the Cumberland Valley anywhere in the area. It used to be one of the local points of interest for visitors to the area but is now inaccessible due to the area being part of the Camp Grounds at the Cheatham Dam Recreation Area ..

NOTE: SEE: "Steamboating on the Cumberland" by Byrd Douglas

The whole story of the building of the site and the Army Corps of Engineers campsite there is an engaging one, and I recommend more research, and a visit if you are anywhere in striking distance. One of my favorite features is the grove of pecan trees that lines the river, lacing through the campsites and yielding delicious nuts every year, that is if you can time your harvest to beat the squirrels to them.

Anyway, long story short, I got to the campsite in a light drizzle and set up my tent and other gear, spent one rainy night and awoke into a chilly but lovely day riverside. I wanted to hike on Tuesday but the Cumberland River Memorial trail is closed, small bridges and who knows what else having been eradicated by recent heavy rains. So I spent Tuesday chilling in my chair and hammock, for which I had just purchased  a nice, heavy but portable stand, and fishing. Reading and playing mandolin. It was a very lovely relaxing day. Toward the end of the day I checked my Ventusky weather app and was convinced that it was going to start raining at dark and essentially not stop, with at times downpours, for the next three days. I made the difficult decision to pack it up. 

I did that, then I added all my remaining local firewood to the campfire and sat in my camp chair playing mandolin and enjoying the fall light on the Cumberland until the drizzle started to increase in intensity, threw my chair into the car, and headed home. I'm glad I did, since Ventusky had done me a solid. I enjoyed the next couple days as my usual ones, relaxing and painting in our lovely home in The Nations neighborhood of my birth city. 

Here's the few pics I took. One of them yielded a painting subject, and a piece to paraphrase Philip Levine, a long ago mentor at his teaching residency at Vanderbilt, to celebrate the exquisite in the mundane. That will be at my scottmerrick.me site when it is finished, but the photo is in the album. Look for the stone on the ground with a mossy bowl inhabited by a tiny, perfect, plant. Here, click the photo for the album, silly:

My Americana Fest 2025!

It was a blast. I took a few minutes this morning to slap together a single image summary of my travels in my home town this year:

I cannot recommend this experience any higher. This is, I think, my fourth year of spending nearly a week (5 days and nights) exploring known and unknown venues in my hometown of Nashville, TN, and what do you know? I was better at maintaining notes on where I went and who I saw. 

A few of the names of solo performers and groups are those I saw only a song or two because of scheduling, or perhaps I was not taken enough by their presence to hang around when there were so many other talents abounding about, but I think I did a pretty good week of turning my C note and a quarter into a big bucket of memories and experiencing live new music to add to my Spotify. 

Yeah, I'm still on Spotify. Why? I actually LOVE the algorithm that brings me new music attuned to my listening habits. Which are considerable. I love that my own work with The Last Frontier Band is there (ancient history, but fun), as well as my solo instrumental offering from a decade or more ago. I also like the playlist feature with its access to pretty much anything:  One thing I like to do is create lists containing every cover of a song I can find. There's a folder of these at my account, free to check out at will.

Just google any of the names or venues above to learn more, which, friends and neighbors, I did in abundance this past week. It's now Sunday, the day after, and I'm a happy puppy, listening to one of my new found faves, the Aussie artist Falls.

This won't be long, but quick takeaways:

In the new to me category, from Tuesday to Saturday, I was completely taken by:

• Sister Sadie
• Fancy Hagood
• The Carlile Family Band
• Lisa LeBlanc
• Macon Music Review
• Jackson and the Janks
• Cat Clyde
• John Cragie
• Bek Brooks
• Vanessa Jade
• Jordy Lane
• Falls

In my already-known and can't get enough online or off category, 

• Amanda Shires
• Brandi Carlile
• Kathy Matea
• Suzy Boggus
• Sista Strings
• JesseWelles

And, almost without exception, everyone I heard and saw. I walked, in totale, maybe 4 miles those 5 days, not of course to mention my daily strolls with Lemon, my canine girlfriend. Here's a pic of her:

Lemon dawg

I had very few regrets. I'm glad I added everything I would have liked to see into my "My Schedule" portion of the AmericanaFest app, so I could pick and choose on the fly. In a festival like this, spread out all over the city (and beyond), one is at any given time missing more than one is seeing, but that's just an embarassment of riches. I'm happy to have had so many great conversations with so many good people in so many venues, some of them new to me. I smile to myself, and will for a good while, when I think back on the musical highs I experienced all week. 

I regret missing Amanda Shires (again :) at Musicians' Corner in Centennial Park, which I left early to get to Basement East for Craig Finn. He was good, but Amanda is, well, Amanda; and she slayed at Exit/In on Thursday night. I'm on pins and needles for her new album drop the 26th of this month. I regret leaving The 5Spot Aussie BBQ to hit one of my favorite places, Joelton Hardware, for their two stage venue, their first venture into AF. There weren't many attendees there and though the performers I saw there were good, there is no one on my "newly found" list above from that venture, and everyone I saw at The 5Spot made that list.

I told ya it wouldn't be long. Did you have your own AF2025 experience? Comment here if'n you did. 

But before I sign off, I want to mention you can watch some of the best of the best shows archived at the NPR Music Channel on YouTube. I did not make the Americana Day Stage from WMOT at all, partly because I watched a couple performances at YouTube and loved the groups but didn't think I wanted to sit in what looks like a church auditorium (why? it was formerly a church auditorium) in a folding chair all day, row by row filled by fans. I'll watch each and every one online.

I loved the awards show, even though it came across like the stage manager called in sick, with all the dead moments in transitions, and John C. Reilly died multiple deaths onstage as host. I think he's a good actor, but his hosting skills can only improve if he watches the thing, though I don't otherwise know why he'd want to live through it again. I had seen Jesse Wells the night before and he always seems to get a tear or three from me. The awards show, and his eloquent and simple acceptance speech for winning the new "Free Speech in Music" award from the Americana Music Association was no exception. He closed with the stirring comment, "Life's too short not to always say exactly what you think, all the time." You go, Jesse. You go.

Thank you to the Americana Music Association and to the whole AmericanaFest staff and volunteers for making my week, hell, making my year, at least in music!