fashionRIP: Todd Snider Traveling Folk Show

Monday, August 12, 2013

Todd Snider Traveling Folk Show

( Photo courtesy of NUVO Indy's Alternative Voice)

I went to the Zootunes last night and was charmed by Todd Snider's near the opening, remarks.

Loosely paraphrased:

"I'm a folk singer and i share my opinions not because I think I'm so smart and that they are so great and I am not trying to change yours, I share them because they rhyme. "

What a great way to settle the house before problems arise!! Thanx Todd for this helpful hint.

The night before. I had a similar lesson from the PBS "Extraordinary Women" series.

"Martha Gellhorn became a war correspondent almost by accident when her lover, Ernest Hemingway, urged her to file a report from Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. It was the beginning of a remarkable career spanning some sixty years. She carried on reporting well into her eighties. Martha was committed to reporting the truth and she worked hard for her reputation as one of the greatest war correspondents of the twentieth century. The remarkable life of the war correspondent, novelist, travel writer and journalist is chronicled."

Wow, I am apalled that this is the first time i ever even heard of her. She had more integrity, moxie and style than Hemingway so what's up with that?
(rhetorical)

Aside from my being so happy to have finally "met" her, my personal take away comment was about why people loved her articles. The answer- because she was not SHRILL She said things calmly, hiding her anger under the script. The reader could feel it bubbling down below but it never exploded onto the page.

This is important, as i have been told my anger and frustration, my ranting and scope turns people away. That is a problem for a story teller, especially if that story is intent on a total paradigm change.

Is this a case of show not tell? Is my job to open the door just enough to let a small bit of light spill into the room? Create the seductive invitation and then step back and let the "audience" do the rest.

If i can stoke the curiosity, design the safe place, inspire.and back off - what might unfold? Interactive spaces are more compelling then diatribes, I am thinking this is my lesson.

Defense: But diatribes let the heat escape, allow the passion to blow. Somehow i have to deal with this as a whole, I am sure there is a solution and it will look different than i can visualize now. On it.

So, back to Todd Snider with a huge "thank YOU, for driving home a much needed point that i have been dodging.

& do catch Mr Snider if you can. He has a great voice, style and presence.. It is so refreshing to hear songs that set off for deeper waters, we are all feeling the energy of the stuff under the surface despite our denial, cognitive dissonance or whatever.It is best to rip open the flimsy veils and give the issues some air time.

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Why it Matters

What's the matter with more and more fashion choices?

It sounds good; we love to be able to pick the perfect outfit. You wear it once or twice and then ....what was the real cost here?

Your time to shop and the money spent, not so much ....go a little deeper and consider the fiber source, the dyes and chemicals used, the health toll on the workers, the energy to run the machines, the transporting carbons...and now it just takes up closet space. But so what? It's been going on for-almost-ever and you didn't make the rules.

In fact we are told this is what a "healthy" economy looks like.

You will recycle it after all, give it to charity or your sister. This is more transportation and more release of those greenhouse gases. We are using a lot of our personal energy and the resources of this planet to make, use and dump "trash" Some rags, remnants and tawdry bits will molder for eons in landfills, as nature's microbial actions are hampered by our normalized, everyday toxic lifestyles.

This goes beyond dumps as the breakdown cycle that nourishes the life of this planet has been sorely challenged by GMO crops, fertilizers, pesticides, antimicrobials..RIGHT!!. All the "living better through chemistry" propaganda after WWI and II- AKA how to sell your "garbage," is our legacy. Well no more, not on my (our) watch, we are seeing things quite differently.

As we now carry 298 toxins in our bods that weren't there in the 1930s the toxic residues of normal are haunting us more and more. Ironic, no? Advanced is merely a word.

Go to the So Whats the Point blog in February for the numbers.

fashionRIP posts are copr at time of posting thank you

Extinctions ...So What?

Life evolves, some species survive some don't. We like to allude to Darwin's "natural selection" or Herbert Spencer's "survival of the fittest" because we are so good at reproducing and taking over this planet and justifying that side of our natures. The fact that we are wiping out the food chain by destroying habitat, fouling air and water and generally behaving like arrogant, tinkering idiots, is called business as usual. .....Well I and others are no longer buying that "sell."

We are wising up to the idea that we too, are dependent on these resources. We too, are physically an organic species and we really don't know what little extinction will be the start of the chain reaction that collapses the structure that we too, are dependent on.

Is this the price we are willing to pay for a pair of plastic shoes?

I say no, that despite the focus on the physical, we are more. We are heart and soul, mind, body, spirit. We are born of stars and we can and will leap over this world view based in old, untrue beliefs led by a science of isolation and religions of patriarchal, hierarchical constructs (your basic dominating Dad- with self reflective rights to rule). It is time to come together and heal. To transition into our fuller expectations and open the new possibilities. We are born with genius...let us help each other get to where we all can shine.