What a little moonlight can do

A counterpoint to Sunday's blip! Thanks for all the stars and hearts -- it made it to page 2 of Popular, which is an extreme rarity for me. Very little effort went into today's blip -- I lazily poked the camera out of the window to take the photo, massively cropped the result, and decided to make a feature of the noise by upping the grain.

A day's work which nearly made my head explode. So rather than write about that, here's an interview with Cecile McLorin Salvant (who won a Grammy for her recent album). It still amazes me that she's only 25. Selected quotes:

"I have to spend time as a hermit by myself. For a number of reasons, but also to be able to find that thing that drives me and that fuels me and also to just simply work on my music and develop my music and my voice and my art. I don’t think it’s possible to develop any craft, any work, if you are doing it with a bunch of people, and you are in a social environment, you are just not concentrated on what you are doing, you are distracted. The only way you can advance, the only way you can really learn anything is by finding yourself alone and really being confronted with whatever it is you are trying to deal with."

"To me success is when you really work hard on something, and you’ve made something, you’ve made an object or whatever it is that you’ve really given yourself to, and abandoned yourself to. And it’s there and it’s no longer a part of you - you kind of give it to the world, you share it. When you are able to do that and be alright with it I think that’s the moment of success, a moment of pride. And to continue doing that throughout a lifetime - that would be success."

Soundtrack