March & April

[Jeanne Mackey]

Greetings,

Hey, the light is returning! It's good for the soul. Here's what's up in my world.

• Saturday, 3/11, 8 pm. Harmony Bones at Cafe' 704. Join Tom Voiles, Linda Teaman, Laz Slomovits, Eric Fithian, and yours truly. Harmony Bones offers traditional, contemporary and original folk songs. Rich vocal harmonies and an array of instruments -- guitar, bass, flute, pennywhistle, fiddle, banjo, accordion, percussion, sitar -- that's Harmony Bones! We've been cooking up some tasty rewrites (Keep Your Eyes on the Prize) and our own versions of classics such as Dance Me to the End of Love by Leonard Cohen and Let's Face the Music and Dance by Irving Berlin. $8/person; $15/couple donation. http://interfaithspirit.org/cafe-704-coffeehouse/
• Wednesday, 3/15, 7-8:30 pm. Rise Again Singalong at Crazy Wisdom. Tonight's theme is Songs of Time & Changes. This is the last singalong for awhile. Bring your own songbook or use a store copy. Suggested donation: $5.  Call 665-2757 or email in...@crazywisdom.net. 114 S. Main St., Ann Arbor. 
  
• My pal Charlie King is coming to town on Saturday, 4/1, 7:30 pm, Church of the Good Shepherd! He's a wonderful social justice activist, storyteller, songwriter, and folk musician. Hope you can make it! Proceeds benefit Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice. To purchase tickets, visit charlieking-aa.eventbrite.com or email charlie...@gmail.com or 734-476- 3399. Given the date, I pity the fool who will be the butt of Charlie's biting humor!

And as promised, here are more quotes for your consideration:

“Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine act of insurrection.”

― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."  --James Baldwin

"We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable--but then, so did the divine right of kings." --Ursula K. Le Guin

"We are beginning to understand that the world is always being made and never finished; that activism can be the journey rather than the arrival; that struggles doesn't always have to be confrontational, but can take the form of reaching out to find common ground."  --Grace Lee Boggs

Might as well end with Rebecca Solnit, who was in our town last week at Rackham! Check out the podcast of her interview with Krista Tippett. about Hope, Lies, & Making Change.

“To hope is to gamble. It's to bet on your futures, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk.” ― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

Peace and persistence,

Jeanne

http://umich.edu/~mackeyj