Take a trip to Italy in spirt and in solidarity during this time of global pandemic and lockdown. What unites us is that we are all immigrants of one kind or another. Here is one family's tale out of Calabria. What's yours?
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OP-ED LIMERICKS: “Fauci,” “Mother Jones,” & “To Be Kind”
I am doing my bit to man the barricades by helping to Illustrate the op-ed limericks by a sister-in-arms in West Virginia. Baby Trump balloons feature prominently.
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Ten Years After: Remembering the Faces from Upper Big Branch
It is has been ten years since the Upper Big Branch mine Disaster in West Virginia, which killed 29 miners, from their 20s to their 60s. Here is a video remembrance of their faces, as still-grieving families brace once more for Don Blankenship to rub salt in their wounds.
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“TAKING TO WING”: A Pandemic Diversion
If you can't fly away from the Covid-19 pandemic, take this diversion into the skies, set to a 4th grade flute thingie, two guitars, and a whole lot of birds.
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SONGS OF COMFORT, SONGS OF HOME: “Till There Was You”
They were young idealists picking up trash across America. One of them could nail a tune from "The Music Man." (NOT "76 Trombones.") Enter a ponytailed, cigar-chomping Cincinnati jazz pianist in a Parmesan-wedge of a club in the hazardous part of town.
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Take a 10-Minute Trip to Havana & Back
You couldn't have a better traveling companion than to head to Cuba with Susan Werner. Needing a trip out of quarantine? Take a ten-minute jaunt down south to Havana.
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“SKATEBOARD MAN”: Bruising Tale of Determination Caught on Video
Take a few lessons from Skateboard Man. Not quite so much about how to skateboard. But about how to be determined! To skateboard through life. It's tough out there downtown.
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SONGS of COMFORT, SONGS of HOME: A West Virginia Medley
I don't know whether spending the better part of a day crafting a music video from an old performance is the height of absurdity and uselessness as a tsunami of global suffering bears down upon the human race. But we could do worse, as we hunker down together, than to listen to this Clementines version of Hazel Dickens' great "West Virginia, My Home."
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The Joy of Little Things and Carrots, too
If we cannot feel joy in daily pandemic life at the moment, perhaps we can find some teensy joys in our shut-down experiences. as daily human interaction telescopes down to our living room couch. A contagion meditation on carrot videos, Falstaff and a 'furiouser and furiouser' ruling regime
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THE ARCHIVES: Ann Magnuson Channels David Bowie
Sometimes, nothing else will take your mind off crappy news of the day than Ann Magnuson channeling David Bowie. I've been combing through my old video archives and seeing what's worth preserving and—as an old therapist liked to tell me—"lifting up" for your attention.
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It’s a Cuba Thing
Take a trip to Havana and some Cuba-inspired music in the debut episode of "The Listening Room," featuring troubadour Susan Werner.
