HSIOT

Holy S***, It's Only Thursday.

Weekend approaching with my wife leaving for two days. Relaxing solo time used to be peaceful but I'll be playing choo-choos and pushing my son at the swings in the park. I'll struggle with breakfast and the nap and hopefully be able to sit outside and read while he sleeps. I'm looking forward to a couple of days of not thinking about school but have been run a bit ragged this week and need some time and rest.

Tomorrow's anniversary can not be lost on me, my students or you. Look it up if you don't know.

Saturday, big day, of course. It's the shared birthday of Bruce and Coltrane. Records will be spinning. Oh, the packaging and overall goody-bag of the re-release of the Seeger Sessions has me excited for October 2nd. American Land and How Can A Poor Man Live? are two of Bruce's best songs of the last twenty years. The fact that Bruce not only revisited the American song book but added to it with songs of populist anger, rage and hope give further evidence to the man's essential importance to folk art. Coltrane, on the other hand, is a gift from above for entirely different reasons. I'll be walking the streets of Manhattan with the falling sheets of sound from Afro Blue as I make my way through SoHo. I also have to remember this time all my Simon and Garfunkel and Dylan lyrics as I eat breakfast in the Village but as many Allmans licks as I photograph the building that is the late Fillmore East. Then to Central Park and the Dakota, where I'll do everything in my power to keep from crying. I'm getting in that New York state of mind...