[edited, boy did this one ever need an Oxford comma] Cooking, websurfing, sleeping, and hanging out with people on a similar wavelength—whichever I haven’t OD’d on at the moment. I’d like to say hiking or practicing drums or designing my own furniture from found objects or teaching kids the wonders of science or something…but I’d [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsIt’s so close now—I hope so! I’ll see Sarah Harmer at the Ann Arbor Folk Fest in January…will ask her for ideas. Ask me anything
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsI sleep like the dead, so I couldn’t tell you. He might yodel in his sleep or juggle swords and I’d miss the whole thing. I will say that I’ve never met anyone who can fall asleep so FAST. He’s nodded off between navigating turns in a residential neighborhood. Ask me anything
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsYes please! Wonder if I could tag along on Ari Hest’s next jaunt through. I’d love to visit Dublin, recession or no. Always wanted to hang out in the country Luka Bloom calls "a nation of four and a half million people, three million of whom are singer-songwriters." Ask me anything
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsQuiklok WS550. Compact, adjusts to lots of different heights, super-stable, and you don’t get bruises on the shin of your pedal foot (or lose your pedal to low coefficients of friction onstage, and fail to nudge it back because your knee gets stuck under the X…I’ve had some interesting multitasking moments on stage with X [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsDug this up from my lyrics journal: "8 Oct 2007: …I was recalling something J said about moving to Korea, how part of the appeal was the prospect of being there at an historical moment—reunification of North and South, or at least an opening of borders, the kind of thing that would send people spilling [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsWhy yes! We just added Denver and Vail shows with the wonderful Glen Phillips for January 21-22. http://viennateng.com/tour/ Ask me anything
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsProbably rather foolish for me to try to answer this sincerely, but… I believe in the paradox that 1) life doesn’t inherently have any meaning, and 2) anyone who’s fully alive knows that it’s incredibly meaningful, and why. We don’t experience the world as it is "out there" in some objective reality; we experience the [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsVery interesting (if worrisome) stuff—thanks for passing it along! This article about effective teaching micro-behaviors (among other education topics) is great too: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html Ask me anything
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsI’d tell her/him to please visit Josh Ritter’s blog without delay, and to do as he advises, particularly in Vols. 2 and 3: http://www.bookofjubilations.com/2010/10/making-living-in-music-introduction-to.html Ask me anything
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsNatural Capitalism—the reason I’m in school now, ten years after hearing one of the authors speak. An Inconvenient Truth, for sure. Hans Rosling’s talks ("let my dataset change your mindset!"). Freakonomics. Also, I read Atlas Shrugged on an overnight train ride once and spent the next several months/years arguing in my head with Ayn Rand. [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsHi schizophonia! And thanks. There was a lot on Inland Territory that was musically hard to do. Figuring out the dissonant parts of St. Stephen’s Cross was a beast (Alex ended up guiding my piano meandering into something with an arc, in the studio). Singing White Light was a doozy too—still not convinced I pulled [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsI actually looked forward to getting old when I was younger; there was something about having that much personal history, that much experience to reflect on, that really appealed to me—a lot more than being a lovelorn twentysomething. There are some aspects to aging that give me pause: the way your body starts to betray [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsI do. Currently jotting down ideas for the next record and trying to block out days here & there to work on it. Some days it gets ambitious (concept videos! multi-instrumental choreography for the live show! city-by-city collaborations! an accompanying graphic novel!), some days I just want it to be small and real and good. [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsJust ones that don’t sound very good with the musical configuation on stage. (Nice of so many of you to ask for songs like Love Turns 40 or Radio at solo shows but…really, guys, it would only be awkward for everyone. Come to think of it, though, maybe I should take that as a challenge—solo [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsWonder whether two ?s mean "because that would be SO COOL" or "because that would be WACK, my friend—meat rules"… I’m not vegetarian and I don’t think I ever will be, but I’m working to get to a point where bacon (mmmmbacon!), roast chicken or a salmon fillet are very occasional treats, and preferably from [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsWhen it tells me it’s done. Sometimes there’s still stuff in there that I’m not sure I’m happy with, but it’s already off and running around the yard and there’s not much I can do about it, other than learn to inhabit the song as a performer as best I know how. Once in a [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsHmmm…it really depends on the songwriter. (How’s that for a cop-out?) I’ll tell you one mistake that I make all the time: getting paralyzed by believing that everything you come up with has to be amazing. It doesn’t. You have to put in the hours. Writing crap leads to writing better crap leads to writing [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsThat means the world. So glad the songs found you! Ask me anything
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsHi Lizzi! Very few, really. Once in a while there’s someone who means well but who’s totally oblivious to social cues. Or someone who forgets that my singing in his/her headphones does not mean that we know each other in person, at all. Fun rule of thumb: the ones who say "Sorry, you must think [...]
November 19, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsEventually. Sadly, not quickly enough—I think I’ve bummed out a few people by giving them the Groundhog-Day treatment: "Great to meet you!" "Well, we’ve met at five of your shows now…" I do remember people a little better when they go to a string of shows in a row and say hi after each one. [...]
November 13, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsTo give a TED talk. I figure it’s a good goal, because getting invited to give a TED talk would indicate that I’ve done a lot of other things I want to do. Ask me anything
November 13, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsBetter, thanks for asking! I took it as a sign to try getting more than 4-5 hours sleep a night; that combined with a few restorative walks in the woods and many mugs of tea has worked wonders. Ask me anything
November 13, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsImpro by Keith Johnstone: http://books.google.com/books?id=b6V_PwAACAAJ&dq=impro+keith+johnstone&hl=en&ei=8_TeTMHmFMegnwedltzzDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA I’ve read this book again and again over the years, and often wished I had a group of friends to try out more of the exercises with. Ask me anything
November 13, 2010Categories: generalNo commentsPizza House—mostly because we always go there after our Wednesday-evening seminar on climate change, and the prof generously buys the first round (which means free weekly root-beer float for me)! Ask me anything
November 13, 2010Categories: generalNo comments