The End is Nigh

This afternoon I received a nice e-mail from a musician named Ralston Bowles:

Tim,
am wondering if you would be interested in reviewing a debut cd. i enjoyed your candor and honest approach to review i recently read regarding some wisconsin compilation disc. it is that kind of critique which is needed to help discern a path through the plethora of cd releases (both major label
and self releases). if you would be interested i can post you what you may need by provideing an address where to send the package. thanks for the time
ralston

OK. So there's no capitalization but I won't hold that against him. It's the first time someone other than my editor has given me even a modicum of praise for a review at GMR. Although I haven't poked around it much, he does have a website - ralstonbowles.com.

In addition to this, I got an e-mail from Roy in which he noted that he saw my quote in Allan Moore's new book on Aqualung. It's humorous how a rough draft of an essay done purely for fun ends up being quoted by a guy with a Ph.D.

Oh! Nearly forgot: I got a couple CDs yesterday from my editor. I can't recall who the musician is, though. They're Celtic folk and the guy's first name is Lynn or Cary or some such name usually given to womyn here in the States.

My reply to Ralston got a swift reply in return. Either I genuinely do have a bit of writing talent or he's being a sycophant:

"one can sense when a writer has the pallete of terms to describe the essence of a work and i felt that of the reviews i read you came close to accurately capturing that in the piece i read."

About the only thing I consciously do in writing my reviews is to keep from falling into the pseudo-Marxism of the likes of Dave Marsh, Simon Frith, or any of those jackasses.

The end of work is nigh. Must buy butta & plastic wrap. Will make kolacky tonight...