Four or Five Things:

Originally, this was a note to link to something Ronnie Pontiac had written concerning a topic on this blog. For various reasons, that original blognote has been deleted at the request of some of the people involved, so this is simply a note telling you to think about Ronnie Pontiac.

If you check out the link to Pontiac’s band, Lucid Nation, I definitely recommend downloading “Kindred” from the CD Tacoma Ballet. To my (obviously untrained) ear, it reminds me a little of the best of Romeo Void, sans the saxophone. “Welcome to America” also rocks in ways that any fan of Patti Smith or The Doors will find simpatico. All, it is worth noting, bands or musicians with a high level of literacy.

Second (or third), the traffic on this blog has spiked upwards in the past few weeks, so much so that I didn’t even notice that our 300,000^th visitor came & went.

Third (or fourth), even tho the blogroll to the left hasn’t increased in size in the past month, it has almost 50 new names. I’ve managed to delete a lot of dead links. Yesterday I added both Norman Fischer & Harvey Bialy.

Last, for fellow Blogspot users, one very useful trick I’ve learned. When making changes in the blogroll at certain times of the day (e.g., when highschools get out & every teen in the world is online), Blogger can hang for ever in that “republish your blog” mode. That’s because Blogger appears to assign template updates the lowest possible priority. Instead, go back to your most recent post and make an innocuous revision, such as adding a blank space at the end of a paragraph. Now the “republish” command gets the highest priority & the site updates quickly.