The Pope is in NYC today and the fact that he was in the proximate area to our apartment was signaled by the sound of helicopters overhead. The sound was ongoing for awhile and when I went outside I saw four helicopters hovering in the sky right above our street. They were spaced evenly in relation to each other and were mostly staying in place. Due to their spacing, at most I was able to get two into one picture.

These are some experiments I’m working on with one drawing in a draft stage. In one of the sketches below I’ve isolated specific elements to see how they look by themselves.

The final piece isn’t actually done yet but I have basically figured out the colors I want to use. As usual I’m also looking at negatives to see how the colors change.

[Note: This is the colored version of the drawing in #49]

The album Raising Sand, a collaboration between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, came out in 2007. It wasn’t until today that I started actively listening to it. Wow! This is some of the very best music I’ve heard in a very long time. There’s real magic between these two singers and though I’ve been a Zeppelin fan for years, it’s refreshing to hear Plant sing this material. I’ve respected bluegrass artists but thought the genre isn’t really my thing - but after hearing Krauss’s singing here, I have to surrender. She’s fantastic.

Songs like “Killing the Blues”, “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)” and “Stick With Me Baby” were easy on the ears during the very first listen. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the album.

Here’s a video of Plant and Krauss performing live the song “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On).”

Here’s a Charlie Rose interview with Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and T-Bone Burnett about the album and how it all came together.

I read a bit of an interview with Moby that was posted over at CNN’s site. I am not hyper-knowledgeable about Moby’s music but I liked the way he made a specific point about different kinds of working relationships:

If I work with a really well-known, established musician, you have to deal with their lawyers, you have to deal with managers and agents, and you have to book flights and hotel rooms and studios. And if I have a friend come over to sing, they come over, we work in the studio for a couple of hours, we make spaghetti, we go see a movie. The whole process is just a lot more fun.

In the interview he also discusses a site he’s created that makes his music freely available for use by filmmakers. Overall, I thought it was a pretty cool interview and I liked what he had to say.