NOTE: This post is to introduce you to the 39th episode of François Matarasso’s and my monthly podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.” It will be available starting 19 April 2024. You can find it and all episodes at Stitcher, iTunes, and wherever you get your podcasts, along with miaaw.net‘s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen on Soundcloud and find links to accompany the podcasts. This podcast moves through several chapters. Two that I think may be most helpful to listeners turn on shifts in understand ..read more

NOTE: This post is to introduce you to the 38th episode of François Matarasso’s and my monthly podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.” It will be available starting 15 March 2024. You can find it and all episodes at Stitcher, iTunes, and wherever you get your podcasts, along with miaaw.net‘s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen on Soundcloud and find links to accompany the podcasts. I’ve known Sebastian Ruth, founder and executive director of Community MusicWorks (CMW) in Providence, Rhode Island, for qu ..read more

My husband and I were watching a TV program in which a young girl’s parents die suddenly, leaving her in the care of a grandmother she has never met. I told Rick I needed to stop watching, then burst into tears. “I was that little girl,” I told him. Not because my circumstances matched hers, but because I knew how it felt to sustain such a loss and deal with it alone. I’ve outlived my father by decades. Mack died suddenly at 47, a month after my tenth birthday. His death and its aftermath occupy a lot of space in my heart and mind. But mostly, when I’ve talked about my childhood, if I felt saf ..read more

NOTE: This post is to introduce you to the 37th episode of François Matarasso’s and my monthly podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.” It will be available starting 19 January 2023. You can find it and all episodes at Stitcher, iTunes, and wherever you get your podcasts, along with miaaw.net’s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen on Soundcloud and find links to accompany the podcasts. While cohost François Matarasso takes a break, I got to speak with David Francis, Director of the Traditional Music Forum ..read more

NOTE: This post is to introduce you to the 36th episode of François Matarasso’s and my monthly podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.” It will be available starting 19 January 2023. You can find it and all episodes at Stitcher, iTunes, and wherever you get your podcasts, along with miaaw.net’s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen on Soundcloud and find links to accompany the podcasts. While cohost François Matarasso takes a break, Owen Kelly (miaaw.net cofounder and author of Cultural Democracy Now and o ..read more

NOTE: This post is to introduce you to the 35th episode of François Matarasso’s and my monthly podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.” It will be available starting 15 December 2023. You can find it and all episodes at Stitcher, iTunes, and wherever you get your podcasts, along with miaaw.net’s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen on Soundcloud and find links to accompany the podcasts. Click here to subscribe free to The MIAAW Monthly and stay informed about podcasts, resources, and ideas related to cult ..read more

NOTE: This post is to introduce you to the 34th episode of François Matarasso’s and my monthly podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.” It will be available starting 17 November 2023. You can find it and all episodes at Stitcher, iTunes, and wherever you get your podcasts, along with miaaw.net’s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen on Soundcloud and find links to accompany the podcasts. Click here to subscribe free to The MIAAW Monthly and stay informed about podcasts, resources, and ideas related to cult ..read more

We watched the three-part documentary Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity on Amazon. I highly recommend it. Shorter, who passed away last spring at 90 years of age, was imagination and creativity personified. The film illustrates a point I’ve made countless times in my writing and speaking, that many people vastly underestimate the degree to which young lives are saved or shaped—or both—by art. I put myself somewhere on the vast list of the saved. I can’t think of an artist I would place in first position besides Wayne Shorter. The film recreates moments from the young life he shared with his brother ..read more

“Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” Bob Dylan “The law of unintended consequences is never broken.” I thought I would find many citations when I googled this, but since I found none, I’ll attribute it to myself. Quite a few people I know have been expressing the same sentiment. Let’s call it soft nihilism. Mostly these are middle-aged and older, generally thoughtful and liberal individuals not given to extreme sentiments. Today I heard it this way: “Maybe we just have to burn it all down and start over.” Not long ago, I heard it this way: “Someone ..read more

NOTE: This post is to introduce you to the 32nd episode of François Matarasso’s and my monthly podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.” It will be available starting 15 September 2023. You can find it and all episodes at Stitcher, iTunes, and wherever you get your podcasts, along with miaaw.net’s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen on Soundcloud and find links to accompany the podcasts. Click here to subscribe free to The MIAAW Monthly and stay informed about podcasts, resources, and ideas related to cul ..read more