MAG,

For me it was a sublime experience. Seeing so many old frinds. Hearing so many old friends do the music so well. Celebrating Fred Holstein's life and music rather than only mourning for him. And all this was tied into my personal baggage with Fred (good and bad) and how hard Steve Goodman had tried to LIVE while Fred chose the slow downslope road of self abuse out of this consciousness like too damn many other incandescent fires of life. And I do miss the folk road scene. Never thought I'd say that. Chicago looked so lovely coming in from I-55 and heading North on LSD past where I grew up, along Lake Michigan, past where I blew out my knee playing football for Lake View High at Waveland Park, then the site where the Plaza Hotel stood once where I first loved and was loved. (Now Latin School is there.) The Plaza Hotel at Clark and North Avenue was Chicago's version of New York's Chelsea Hotel I've always thought---. That's how a venerated old hotel with all so many tales to tell ought to smell---musty and old--pheromones and death and life and heat. It's a wonder it didn't ever burn down.

None of this was sad!! If time is the fire in which we burn, bringing back these moments will stay with me to enlighten my way for a long while I am sure. Photography and singing the old folksongs have always been very similar I have always thought; A few of the ways to hold stuff close.

This be thread creep me thinks. Well, whatever. I doubt Gerry will mind. ;-)

All the best,

Art