Mix CDs

A few weeks ago, one of my favorite blogs, Accordions and Lace, (which I first discovered as a wedding blog, but which has now become a wonderful mix of food writing, observations on life, and thoughts on relationships and family) proposed a mix CD exchange, in which her readers signed up and she then assigned everyone a buddy for whom they'd create a mix CD, along with cover art. I thought this was a totally awesome idea, that really captured the things I love about the social networking possible on the internet and about creativity and thoughtful mail. So, I signed up and was soon sent the name of another A&L reader in Philadelphia.

At first, I had a hard time coming up with a list of songs to put on this CD--there were just too many that I loved, and I wasn't sure how to narrow them down, or how to find cohesion. But then, I noticed that several of the songs had animals in the titles or in the artists' names. So, I decided to go with the animal theme and to create a mix CD called "Menagerie," where every song or band had an animal in it. The cover art naturally flowed from there, as I depicted the menagerie present within the songs, along with little numbers matching the corresponding track.

Here are the fruits of my labor, along with the track list (click on the image to enlarge), if anyone's interested...  How many of the animals can you name without checking the track list?