Weekend and more on Aurora

CNN has another report on Aurora and J-1.

Anne McCue and Peter Mulvey

Frank and I saw Anne McCue and Peter Mulvey this weekend at the Snow Goose. Both are artists that you should check out.

Anne McCue is from Australia, and is one of Lucinda Williams' favorite songwriters. She plays guitar well, and her melodies are really great as well as the lyrics. We bought the album below at the concert, and it is really great. If you go to the link you can also hear some excerpts:


Peter Mulvey was the headliner, and I was quite suprised that I liked his music also. He is also a gifted songwriter and also an interpreter of other songwriter's music also. Steve, if you see this, most of these people tend to circle around Boston quite often, apparently because Chris Smither does a show every week from a club there so you HAVE to go! Just like above, the link will tak you to some excerpts:


Moose!
Frank and I saw three moose in total on Sunday on our way to New Sagaya, lower down the hillside from our house. They were our first moose sightings since the first week we got here, partially due, I'm sure, to the fact that neither of us have much animal sighting experience. It was such a beautiful morning, with the birch trees covered in white snow, and all these huge ravens flying through the sky.

Every day I'm amazed at how different each day is here. Today, we have fluffy clouds that are grey passing by an ice blue sky. Since the sun is still finding its way out of the mountains, the horizon is kind of a peachy-white color. When the sun goes down in the afternoon, there's always something different also -- I've seen pink/peach sunsets, as well as different cloud patterns. My favorite time is just as the sun goes down, the mountains stand out as light blue against a dark blue sky.

I'll try to take more pictures so you know what I mean :).

Christmas plan
Ever wonder how all the exaggerations about Alaska come about? Apparently, there is a tradition up here to exaggerate stories when going "Outside". I thought Frank and I could work on this while we come home for Christmas. Frank has new big winter boots for his Christmas present, so if he would only grow a big bushy beard, wear a fur hat, flannel shirts, and talk funny, wouldn't that be cool? I could do my best impression of Mrs. Crabtree from South Park. We could talk about our pet moose and the igloo. The stories of our antics trapping our own food and mining for gold would be priceless. The clincher would be when we started talking to birds, like people here talk to ravens.

However, Frank for some reason does not think this is a good idea. Something about integrity, looking silly...yah yah. We'll see...I have 11 days to work on it before we leave :).

Also...everyone send good vibes to Anne, who debuts two more songs at the Jazz Factory in Louisville on Wednesday!

UPDATE: I've added the links to the CD's on the side of the page for posterity :)