Hope, prayer and action
Make a joyful noise, get out the vote
“Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.” — Rebecca Solnit1
Words I’m holding tight to my chest not only personally but also as we barrel toward this election. Something else is on the side of this anxiousness and anticipation, sincere effort, divisiveness and spin. That said, I’m surprised to encounter folks who don’t mention this momentous moment we’re in.
We attended a few days of the FAR-West Folk Conference in Woodland Hills last week, an opportunity to gather with other acoustic and folk minded musicians and music presenters. Given that some of the most significant figures in folk music — Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez — were prominent social activists I was surprised how little I heard about the threats to our democracy or the need for peace or climate issues. Not one of the main-stage performers addressed the zeitgeist directly and 90% of the songs were about acutely personal concerns (or pets). I don’t know that wasn’t an accident — at one of the mixers, I talked to another artist who had been asked to be on a panel last minute and she said she received some notes about keeping things apolitical and pleasant. And I get it. People want to feel good, to escape, when they can. Music is a tonic. And of course presenters are looking for artists who can offer a show that provides that, but I was a little disappointed. I’m all for making a joyful noise and being real. How lucky we are to be able to gather and play, and that luck, our privilege, is more tenuous than ever.
So I was OK with leaving the conference a day early to play Votezilla! another get-out-the-vote event at Golden Gate Park. Most of my musical energies the past few months have gone toward election-related endeavors.
It was a beautiful day in the park with both music and representation from Activate America, Bay Area Coalition and Third Act Bay Area2. In honor of Kamala Harris’s birthday, I wore a blue-sequined dress that was made in India and played a set gleaned from the past two decades of writing about the times as much as my belly button, including a song I wrote with Tim Salz shortly after 9/11, ‘Dream Me,’ to ‘Joy’ (in honor of one of the HarrisWalz2024 campaign strategies) and ‘We’re All in This Together,’ because I really believe we are all in this together.
The event got media coverage on channels 5 (KPIX) and 7 (ABC7 Bay Area); volunteers wrote 350 postcards to voters, phone banking volunteers were recruited and as were people to knock on doors in the Central Valley. I took home another packet of postcards from Activate America and finished writing them Monday night.
Hope, prayer and voice are what I have to use, so I’m going to employ them where I can. I hope you will, too.
'Hope in the Dark,’ by Rebecca Solnit
“Election Action Now: Activism for Every Inclination,” Third Act Bay Area
Wow, FAR-West is afraid of being political???!!! What have we come to. I'm thinking of writing an open letter for the FW FB page about this. I was the host of the Best of the West event when the great Barbara Dane was the recipient. Can you imagine what she would have said if she had been told to be nonpolitical and "pleasant?" It would not be polite for me to say here what I think she would have said. Let me know if there is anything I can do to aid your efforts. I'm still doing stuff on my end.