Last month I anticipated the dark days of January. They have also been illuminated by snow so intense that life sort of came to a stop. I couldn't drive for a week and some life problems and issues got more complicated. Still, the snow physically made the world bright and that's a good thing.

Sometimes I get started on an idea and can't stop. I started writing ragtime compositions recently. Of course the most fun comes in making titles, but I had the idea to retain traditional meter and syncopation and make my own kinds of creations inside the form. I have written Little Elmer's Rag, Balls and Strikes Forever, Sandbag Rag, Lean and Griefy and most recently Picot, a Spanish tinge number. I guess I have fun reexploring traditional forms to see if they can be worked out differently in a sequence of ideas that is only 16 measures long. I recall Emily Dickinson, for me the most radical of all American poets, who explored wild combinations of language, image and rhyme and did most of it within the framework of traditional Christian hymns, which is to say Ballad Stanza, alternating eight beats and six in four line patterns. I am delighted by this little project and would like to see where my enthusiasm takes me. Accepting limits of form sometimes increases the energy to find new life in unexpected places of sound. I give you one stanza by the great woman.

I noticed people disappeared,
When but a little child,---
Supposed they visited remote,
Or settled regions wild!

Michael Steinman wrote many kind words about the new CD with Jim Goodwin. He referred to our "conversations" which he may have meant musically, but the CD does have a few. When we play "The Charleston" you can hear me saying "No Charleston beat, ever." That's how we did things.

Looking forward to Fresno. I hope to see a good turnout. This is a major festival with good music. I wish it well.