Friends and Neighbors and Strange Relations

Ben Krieger keeps an appropriately weird and mysterious blog called Haikutennany: Personal Music Reflections in 17-syllable Bursts.

And that about says it all.

My personal favorite concerns The Fiery Furnaces. If you read it, I think you’ll see why it’s my favorite.

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In his blog, You Can Go To Jersey Or You Can Go To Hell, Jim Teacher is afraid he's forgotten how to communicate, and, so, decides to sing to the trees and animals.

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I really love this, but of course I do: Sean Langon has created a slide-show documenting past Multi-Purpose Solution performances and times, from 2000 to the present. Sean took all the photos, and designed all the posters.

Man, we’re getting old.

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Over at The Sold Coast, Tris McCall muses on the architecture of a music city. He writes:

Around the corner, at Pearl Street, a long line of locals hugged the curves of the sidewalk; across Main Street, singer-songwriter fans crowded into the Calvin for a early show. Closer to Smith College, a wino with an acoustic guitar (not Sufjan Stevens) banged out songs about Connecticut to bewildered passersby. Northampton is singing.

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Back in the everyday world, Todd called me up to let me know he had had a great day.

"A great day?" I asked.
"Yeah. I received an e-mail from PayPal letting me know that I had a $9 credit."
"That’s cool."
"Yeah, I was surprised—I had no idea what it was for—and then I realized that someone had purchased one of my At Work CDs. It was my first sale."
"That’s awesome. Congratulations."
"Thanks. So then I went into the sales log where I could track down the purchase to the actual buyer, and found that it was someone who had read your review at Donewaiting.com!"
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Wow, thank you for telling me."
"No, thank you for writing the review."

Writing the review was, of course, my pleasure. I’ll do anything I can for Todd. I’m just so happy to have been part of this strange, little interaction: Todd e-mails me one day to ask for a review; I write the review and post it on Donewaiting.com; someone visits the site, reads my review, and decides to purchase Todd’s album.

How awesome is that?

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Finally, I want to share one more website with you. Recently completed by my friend, Jaime Keiter, it really has nothing much to do with music, but is certainly as beautiful as any song. [That wonderful picture up top was taken by Jaime.]

COMMENTS
Todd Steponick's picture

The photo of the sky is spectacular. The sky loves Jaime Keiter.

Josh Gladstone's picture

I bought Todd's At Work CD. I just received it at work (natch). I guess I'm completing the cycle by commenting on your post about the transaction.The intarweb is a divider, sure. I dare say that Teach's real world ill communication is a symptom of his all too oft presence in/on this great electronic spinning yarn.The intarweb is also a uniter. My ability to find more great music than the industry would have me even know exists is proof positive. It's like a treasure hunt for me... pick up the clue, track down song clips, press a button to send my digital dollars to NJ. 'X' days later, this wonderful CD finds me at my desk. Take THAT industry naysayers!Stephen: Some music requires poetry - a language of abstractions - to describe it. You gave a vox-less artist an appropriate voice by proxy. We both thank you.At Work: If the wind were a synth wave and crickets were 1's and 0's... they might sing this CD together on a starlit night... while driving down the Turnpike. Great job!

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