Together Forever/Aeropostale: With Love From the Lower Ninth

I wonder if the real reason we are here is to help solve the little problems, one by one. To  treat each one as its own essential potential for growth and learning. No individual problem is unsolvable-it is when we combine several together that we feel helpless, or hopeless. Conversely, the biggest accomplishments, when broken down into a step-by-step process, are conceivable: nothing is impossible. That for me is the lesson after volunteering in New Orleans, and working for five full days to share music with some fantastic kids.
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When a concert changes one’s life, it is not larger circles of life that shift, not the shape of the buildings or the direction of one’s life, but the very small circles, the inner gears themselves.  The air feels different, the sky less cold, one’s heart a different timbre.  Using the lessons learned from falling in love, one knows one need not shout the moment to the stars, open one’s lungs to the night. Instead, there is a quiet reserve that has been filled, and with each breath it seems possible to feel once again the velvet, hear again the tangible silence of three thousand people waiting for the first sound to emerge, almost to see once again the sound as it blooms in the air, matures, explodes and dies in ecstasy upon one’s ears.

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McCain and Able

Watching Barack Obama’s acceptance speech two weeks ago, I felt like I was a part of something great, something important in the history of this country. Hearing him speak, watching him in a stadium of 82,000 people, speaking live in front of what-40 million viewers, I felt like we were a part of a speech that was every bit as eloquent, sincere, profound, daring, and prophetic as those of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King in the late 60s. Those speeches, which I used to watch and feel like there was no one who could speak like that anymore-those speeches are now something we’re a part of. Because Barack is on that level. He’s that kind of leader. Read the rest of this entry »

Philippe Petit, the man who walked between the Twin Towers the morning of 7 August, 1974, has finally had a worthwhile film made about his epic triumph. The film has been out for several months, after a successful premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last Spring.

On the high wire August 7th, 1974

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An article that has long interested me, as a teaching artist. It brings up important issues, not necessarily suggesting the same solutions I would. I advocate a) a nationally-mandated percentage of a school’s budget to be dedicated to the arts for every school in the country. b) At least 2 days of hands-on arts classes per week per pupil in every grade.