Singing Praises

I know I usually write with a critic's voice, but today, I want to rave about a singer and some upcoming events she has coming up.

Namoli Brennet
When I was working up in the Albany, NY area, a friend of mine, who happened to be one of the judges for the "OutMusic Awards", convinced me to go see Namoli at a local coffee shop.

I have never been the same about music. And now he tells me that Namoli is having an East coast tour (she's from Tuscon, AZ). I checked out her tour dates, and she's going to be performing at a little coffe house in Trenton, NJ on March 16th (about 30 minutes from where I live). I am definitely going to make it my business to be there with as many friends as I can convince to go see her.

Click on her site to hear samples of her music, and if you like it, click on the "Calendar" link to see if she'll be playing near you anytime soon. You'll be glad you went.

Current Knitting
I've finished about 15 inches on the second sleeve of the dark tweed pullover. Still working diligently to finish this up.

Current Reading
Over vacation, since I didn't do any knitting, I was able to finish quite a bit of reading, so I thought I'd take a minute to review the two books I was able to finish.

The first book, was a recommendation by my mother. Key Witness by J. F. Freedman is an enjoyable, although rather formulaic legal thriller.



It reminded me a lot of Pelican Brief. Freedman does an excellent job of character definition, especially with the protagonist. Like most dime-store novels, which I consider this one, I was thoroughly engrossed in the story (perfect beach reading), although I felt that the author got lazy at the very end, and created a rather ridiculous "walking into the sunset" ending for the hero of the book.

The second book was from a friend who was with us on vacation. I finished my only book way too soon, and she gave me one of hers after she finished it.



The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith is everything I want in a book. It's got a great plot and not in the least formulaic, the characters are interesting and out of the ordinary and the writing is practically perfect in every way. This book was published 1969 by the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley. She lived in my neck of the woods for a while, and the mother of the friend who lent me the book, used to edit some of Ms. Highsmith's writing.

I will definitely need to check out some of her other work.