Back on Mermaid Avenue

I have to say the Mermaid Parade was on my brain this week for two reasons. 1) This girl I went to elementary school with grew into a very buxom 30-something (like myself but a bit more buxom), and went to the parade and posted photos of herself on Facebook in a bikini top / see-thru wrap mermaid get-up. 2) People who photograph the Mermaid Parade and then post them on flickr is a frequently cited example in Clay Shirky’s excellent Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations which I’m almost done reading. I highly recommend this book on how society is changing in unexpected ways because of the proliferation of the web. Shirky is a great writer and a revelatory thinker, I’ve been enjoying watching him connect dots and ask the relevant questions. And yes that is an affiliate link.. I suggest you use it!

The thing I’ve been thinking about since that post is Mermaid Avenue, the Billy Bragg – Wilco collaborative album based on unused lyrics by the great Woody Guthrie. “Damn right, that’s an affiliate link!” he said with pride.

This is a cool collection of songs that almost never were and you can get a little taste for it here with “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key”, Billy Bragg singing with Natalie Merchant on back-up. The video is made by artist Johnny Smooth and according to the description it shows a bunch of his paintings because someone he knew wanted to buy one. Meanwhile his Etsy store is devoid of products at the moment or I’d be linking you over there, even with no affiliate link. That’s just how I roll.