A death and an anniversary.

While driving around today, I heard a little segment of To the Best of Our Knowledge about the 20th anniversary of the recording of The Trinity Sessions, by the Cowboy Junkies. Margo and Michael Timmins talked about the recording, which was made in a church in Ontario with a single microphone, a fact I never knew during the period of time when I was listening to this recording all the time--I just knew it sounded eerie and spare, mournful, a little spooky, and mesmerizing. Listen to this for what I'm talking about, in case you never heard it:



Apparently, they're doing a revisiting of the session, which, hmm, strikes me as a little ill-advised, but who knows? They've got Natalie Marchant, Vic Chesnutt, and Ryan Adams helping with this new project. Maybe it will be amazing. In any case, it was sort of startling to hear this music again, which instantly made me remember a time in my life with utter clarity and vividness, the way music can.

And Bernie Mac, who is just my age, just died of pneumonia or complications thereof. This has made me feel unexpectedly sad. In what struck me as an original way, the man was truly funny.