[Through a series of interesting circumstances yesterday, I was led to the amazing artwork of Lesley Anne Numbers (the above is just one example). Wow!]
Last Saturday night, after a heads-up from my daughter Sarah, I tuned into Banding Together: A Concert for the Colorado Music Relief Fund. From their website:
Live music is central to Colorado’s culture.
Our musicians, their crews, and our venues are iconic and beloved across the world. Music is a force in the experience economy; attracting tourists, new residents, and business leaders to the culture of Colorado in good times. In times of hardship music is our salve.
In this pandemic, everyone is hurting.
The economic and fiscal impacts on Colorado’s rich music industry resulting from COVID-19 are already significant. Music employs over 16,000 Coloradans and generates 1.5 billion dollars annually and the vast majority of that revenue relies on public gatherings. These activities are unlikely to return to ‘normal’ for the foreseeable future.
The music industry will not be back to work for perhaps a year or longer.
Whether it is navigating unemployment, small business loans, or other quickly disappearing relief funds, the music industry is not getting the lifeline it so desperately needs.
We need to raise funds and awareness in Colorado for this beleaguered industry and its workers that mean so much to our economy and our own health and well-being.
We’re going to use the power of music to do this.
Three hours of joy, beauty (Red Rocks!), and inspiration as so many artists (Dave Matthews, Brandi Carlile, The Avett Brothers, Michael Franti, to name just a few!) donated their time and energy to raise money for this worthwhile cause. We contributed a bit, and it lifted my spirits to do so. Click here to see/hear in its entirety for yourself... 💖
So, it is indeed Feel Good Friday. From the depths of despair at the beginning of the week, I am feeling a bit more hope: the other three officers were charged in the George Floyd situation, and Chauvin's charge was upgraded to second degree murder; there is an increase/emphasis on youth protest; demonstrations are more peaceful now, as many law enforcement officials changed their tactics to allow people to demonstrate while still maintaining peace.
As is tradition, five items below of beauty, interest, and humor to brighten your day/weekend/week. Enjoy!
~ First Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman: First ever National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, Amanda Gorman, performs her original poem, In This Place: An American Lyric, at the Library of Congress (thanks, ElyseB!)
~ Fewer Boats Means a Safer Spring for Miami's Marine Creatures: Over the past few weeks, amateur photographers have been capturing images and video of manatees, turtles, and sawfish in South Florida waterways and posting them on social media. Stay-at-home orders have meant fewer boats out on the water. And that's meant a safer spring vacation for Miami's aquatic creatures, many of which are coming back to shore.
~ Sesame Street Joins CNN to Host a Town Hall Saturday Addressing Racism
By Good News Network: Back in April, Sesame Street partnered with CNN to explain the ABC’s of coronavirus in a televised ‘town hall’ for parents and kids. Now, it’s time to help young families educate their children about racism. This Saturday, June 6, at 10 a.m. ET, CNN and Sesame Street are hosting a 60-minute special Coming Together: Standing Up to Racism. A CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall for Kids and Families.
~ Bank of America pledges $1 billion to fight racial inequality: Bank of America is donating $1 billion over the next four years to community programs and small businesses to help address economic and racial inequality that has been exacerbated by Covid-19.
SONG: Eachother by Grace Potter
BOOK: Music is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice, and the Will to Change by Brad Schreiber
POEM: Pledge by Jehanne Dubrow
Now we are here at home, in the little nation
of our marriage, swearing allegiance to the table
we set for lunch or the windchime on the porch,
its easy dissonance. Even in our shared country,
the afternoon allots its golden lines
so that we’re seated, both in shadow, on opposite
ends of a couch and two gray dogs between us.
There are acres of opinions in this house.
I make two cups of tea, two bowls of soup,
divide an apple equally. If I were a patriot,
I would call the blanket we spread across our bed
the only flag—some nights we’ve burned it
with our anger at each other. Some nights
we’ve welcomed the weight, a woolen scratch
on both our skins. My love, I am pledging
to this republic, for however long we stand,
I’ll watch with you the rain’s arrival in our yard.
We’ll lift our faces, together, toward the glistening.
QUOTE: “Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. there is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.” ~ Henry Miller
