I watched Billy Bragg & Wilco - Man in the Sand (The Making of Mermaid Avenue) last night while making a MILLION cookies. (Really, the cookie count is only a smallish exaggeration.) It was an interesting film but Wilco being included in the title is a wee bit misleading since only a tiny bit of Wilco footage is included. I love the album Mermaid Avenue (I was referred this album by a random guy sitting next to me in the balcony of a Wilco concert in Dublin. He and his friend were really nice and moved a seat so my mum & I could sit together. Dude, wherever you are, that was really nice of you - the seat AND the album.)

I think, for me, the most enlightening part was learning more about Woody Guthrie. Did you know he wrote the lyrics but borrowed a gospel melody for This Land is Your Land? (Yes, I am that woefully ignorant about American history). One of the additional verses of the ever-popular-choice-for-elementary-school-children (and a song I hated) originally written in 1940, was also eye-opening:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;

Sign was painted, it said private property;

But on the back side it didn't say nothing;

That side was made for you and me.

How did I not know this song was so cool?

Anyway.......next knitting project may be this.. The Retro Redux Shrug from Lace Style. It looks interesting enough that I may even overcome my fear of Shrugs. I already have a lovely yarn possibility in robins's egg blue sitting, just sitting, leftover from something else. Any thoughts?