What a labor of love Eisteddfod is (and there's plenty of labor for the few devoted hands who pull it off) ! Wonderful vibe this year, and more great moments and artists than One should try to squeeze into a single post.

Discanto, a terrific Italian group from Abruzzo, was a revelation. And in the aforementioned NYS concert, listening to Dave Ruch and Jeff Davis channelling William Sidney Mount's Long Island fiddle repertoire was an immediate delight and a historical revelation all at once.

Ballads ? New Songs in the Tradition? Harmony ? Traditional singers as compelling as Colleen Cleveland ? It had 'em all. And then there was Len Graham, whose lifetime of collecting and singing the songs of Northern Ireland (or perhaps collecting the singers of those songs as friends and mentors) enables him to set every one so you can imagine yourself in the community in which the song really lived.

Oh, and if you had stringband joneses,the festival ended with the Wreck Room Stringband. No you haven't heard of them, Yes, you should regret that, but it's not really your fault. These guys - who get together about once a year and then vanish like the wee folk under the hill - have been doing what they do for over thirty years.And they can put to shame most of the professional stringbands and bluegrass groups you'll ever hear.

They have taste and heart, those few who put the Eisteddfod together. And its originator and guiding spirit, Howard Glasser, is still around to remind us what joy there is in the music and the bond we share in it.

So it's in Queens. People go there every day (most of them were on whatever street I chose to be on). It's worth it. It is one of those labors of love that deserves our support and repays it with interest.

It is why I do this stuff at all.

- George