Artificial Artefact

I would love to say that this is the elaborate cover of a distressed ancient leather-bound tome or a piece of antique fabric but it's actually some discarded cellophane from a bunch of supermarket flowers. An emergency blip by any other name!

I  was so sad to hear of the passing of the singer and songwriter Nanci Griffith. I've loved her music since I was a teenager. Her songs, including Love at the Five and Dime and Gulf Coast Highway, have been described as always imbuing a style of musical storytelling that has a literary flavour, focusing on small details of the lives of her characters. She herself did not pigeonhole her music as either folk or country but described it as "folkabilly". She defined herself by saying "You take a whole lot of Woody Guthrie and a whole lot of Loretta Lynn, swoosh it around and it comes out as Nanci Griffith".
She was also known as a great interpreter of other people's songs - particularly the sublime From a Distance. I loved the evocative names of her albums too - The Last of the True Believers, Lone Star State of Mind and There's a Light Beyond These Woods being just some examples. R.I.P Nanci and thank you so much for all the wonderful music.