Thread by @doctorow

I first encountered @jmcdaid through "Uncle Buddy's Funhouse," his 1993 ground-breaking, award-winning hypertext project - one of the first CD ROMs written up in the NY Times. It was such an exciting, original, weird and artistically satisfying piece, especially the music.

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Later, John and I became writing colleagues, attending workshops together, and then friends - for decades now. His work remains weird, erudite, accessible, madcap and brilliant.

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He's just released a new album of filk/folk music: "Trail Of Mars," recorded during the plague months with an all-star set of session musicians whom John was able to contract with thanks to the unprecedented drought in musical work.

johnmcdaid.bandcamp.com

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The music is both fun to listen to and (obviously) brilliantly performed and mixed, but the standout here is McDaid's lyrics - superb, funny, weird and unexpected poetry in the mode of a Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan in Subterranean Homesick Blues mode.

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The top single on the album is "Lost in Translation," a track I listened to three times in a row and have been thinking about ever since:



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The album is $12 on Bandcamp, DRM-free, with a 16-page booklet including lyrics and notes. McDaid is a wild man of enormous and varied talents. Highly recommended.

eof/