Now Hear This

Perhaps you’ve had a friend and neighbor like this, who plants sunflowers that grow as tall as a building, who’s hidden a big, white rabbit named Zeus or a male pot plant from the landlord, who’s entertained as Pocahontas or brunette Barbie at kiddie parties hosted by crazed, piñata-bashing moms, who’s swept glass out of your car seat after some loser has smashed in a window, and who predicts marvelous fortune from the grounds left in a cup of Greek coffee. 

This friend might seem to be at a remove from the vagaries of a world unstable enough for our President to liken our country’s economic foundation to a pile of sand. 

Then again, this friend might be quietly making sense of it all, drafting lines like a whisky-voiced Emily Dickinson gone subversive under the glare of too much sun. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m fortunate enough to have such a friend, the indie blues singer/songwriter Michelle Fontaine, and I hope you’ll visit her mySpace page to hear Corporate Cowboy and other recordings.