This recording isn't perfect. But I needed to get it out. I needed to be free of this song, so that I could go on to other songs.

This Song Is A Deep Navy Blue

I learned to play guitar and sing with an anthology of American folk songs, a thick black old hardcover book compiled by Alan Lomax. This song's melody is based on a version of the American folk song "Joe Bowers" (though it sounds totally different, I swear), and the simple lyrics (which I am pretty embarrassed of, to be honest) also seem to be influenced by that same tradition.

Star

Life of a Boar

I really dig this band Frog Eyes. I took some liberties with the melody, because I am not Carey Mercer. I can't be, even if I really want to be.

One In Six Children Will Flee In Boats (Frog Eyes Cover)

Cornflower

Shrine

Hi! I recorded another song. If you want, listen to it. I have lots and lots of songs, in various states of completeness. I'm not sure if/when any of them will ever see the light of day, because recording songs is still something that is difficult for me. This song has been swimming around my brain for about 10 months, and I rather like it.

Planes

Bluebird 3 6 18

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arizona_native/3166999539/
In June 2013 I found a picture of a ship on the second floor of a cramped thrift store in Greenport, on Long Island. The woman who ran store was elderly and nearly blind, and extremely friendly. Also in the store were painted statuettes, tiny porcelain wheelbarrows and card games that are no longer played anywhere. My friend bought some cufflinks that had been owned by a man who died in the army, in some unspecified war a long time ago. They'd been brought to the shop by his widow, who still lived nearby and would bring items in occasionally for the store to sell. His uniform was also for sale. I got the impression that the shopkeep had a mental catalogue of the local who'd brought in each item and a small history for each. There was no story for my framed picture of the DEEPSEA MINER II at sea.
It now hangs on my dorm-room wall, opposite my bed's headboard.
Who would take and frame a photo of "a 1/5 to 1/4 prototype for a commercial system for deep-seabed mining systems" from 1978? How did a picture of a prototype workingship that only ever got tested for two years "about 1100 nautical miles SW of San Diego" end up on Long Island? How long was it in that shop before I found it there?
What kind of person sailed on that ship? What did they wear and eat, what did they sound like? What were their names? What is that weird white epcot-looking hump, and why is it covered in cords?