still playing

We're finishing up the first week recording the next Jars project. What a week! We're blessed to be in a studio atmosphere that allows everything to be ready to play when needed. It is freeing and makes it easy to let the creative juices flow. Still no comment on the sound...it is all over the map, but honing in. We're about halfway through the songs, and having so much fun.

I just finished reading A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa by Howard French. He's a New York Times journalist who offers reflections and testimony from his years spent reporting from West Africa, particularly Nigeria, Zaire, DR Congo, and Mali. I recommend it to anyone wanting to get a sense of some of the faces and situations, as well as the distant and recent history that is a part of the Africa we know today. My only criticism is that the book ends without a hopeful picture as he leaves his assignment in Africa...you almost have to read the introduction/prologue again in order to remind yourself of the hopeful intentions of French. A conclusion or some sort of epilogue would better propel the reader into action instead of paralysis.