A wonderful evening in Bloomington (IN) last night. Carrie Newcomer held her cd release concert at The Buskirk-Chumley Theatre to an enthusiastic full house. I did an opening set, and then enjoyed hearing many of Carrie's new tunes. Favorites (of mine) on the album include the beautiful title track, "The Gathering of Spirits" (with Allison Krauss) and, "I'll Go Too"....I'll concede here a truly positive function of the internet-- after you've read this, you can go directly to another site (in this case Carrie's) and take a look and give a listen--(www.CarrieNewcomer.com). I also had the opportunity to meet Scott Russell Sanders, an admired Hoosier author, who introduced Carrie. His books (I'm most familiar with "Writing From The Center", and "Staying Put") are worth seeking out. Scott and I look forward to getting to know one another better. Wendell Berry's name came up, and I was reminded of a quote of his that jumped off the page at me not too long ago (from the recently released "The Art of the COMMON PLACE: The Agrarian Essays"): "We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world, will be good for us. And that requires that we make an effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in the processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it." from "A Native Hill" WENDELL BERRY
