So far, I seem to pulling off this whole grandiose operation. With style! I’m happy with the sweetness of the sounds and the cohesive quirkiness of the arrangements I’ve cooked up for you. It has been a very serendipitous, collaborative, warm and magical recording process. Some musicians drove through raging blizzards and got stuck in snow banks to play on my album. Some musicians played on my album because they came recommended to me in dreams. Some played the acorn squash, some played the coffee percolator. Some of them proposed marriage after eating the lavish meals I cooked. Others were simply gracious enough to help me eat all the fried eggs I cooked to effect the proper breakfast-y mood on one track. All of them came in with brilliant ideas and laid down magical sounds. We finished in three weekends and my brother and I got most of the mixing done by the time I left to return to Vermont. Now we’re just finalizing the mastering. It sounds damn fine. Damn it feels good to be a gangster.

I am starting to work on the chapbook of writing that I want to package the album in, a project I am little less sure of how to carry out. Which is to say, I have NO IDEA how to design a book or get it printed. But such minor details have never stopped me in the past. By the way, if you happen to have any sweet connections at a small printing press, or some expertise in book design yourself, I would love to hear about it. I used to sell a book of poetry for $2 that I had made with the foolproof MS Word design + Kinko’s duplication plan, but you know, it would be nice if it looked…nice.

But most importantly! You can now listen to a couple of the tracks in their pretty-much final form here on My Ye Olde Space, and I would love to hear what you think of them. If you really like them, maybe you would like to pre-order my album and further my efforts to duplicate a really nice little book for you. Maybe there will even be a glossy colorful picture on the front if you tell your friends to pre-order too!

Fortunately, I’ve made it downright easy to pre-order now, if you’ve got a PayPal account. It’s $1 more if you pay with PayPal, because of the fees they tack on, but it’s much less of a hassle than mailing a check (and damn, stamps are expensive these days!). So if you’re interested, just go to PayPal.com ad request money to be sent to me using the email address sari@saribrown.com--$16 for each album you want to pre-order, and don't forget to include the address you want it shipped to. There's also a handy "Donate" button on my main myspace page that will make it even a little easier.

I hope you all are safe and warm and happy in the unfolding mystery.

Love,
Sari