ain't no depression

Went to see Anais Mitchell the other night. What she achieved with 5 instruments and a small space was deeply, deeply moving and evocative. She is a singer songwriter out of Monteplier, VT, and her music was a theatrical concept piece she based in the Orpheus myth in a "post apocalyptic depression" revolving around hobos, soup lines, banjos, arias, and shindigs. It's beautiful, refers to the sounds of the Depression, and yet distinctly modern.

On the same note, there is this really magical gig that happens monthly at Banjo Jim's on the Lower East Side once a month called Exceedingly Good Song Night, where people simply sit around in a circle singing folk songs. It's genuinely heart warming and healing. I was explaining it to my boss, and she looks at me with a laugh and says "it sounds like the 60s." I tried to explain it wasn't Woodstocky, and she replied "No, the 60s were a sweet time."

Earlier this week, while returning from said Song Night, all patched up, tumbled and turned out into the starry night, one of my friends who is involved in theatre was telling me that big Broadway is going to be knocked down. "I have seen incredible theatre on street corners" she said, likely in this Recession, as things come tumbling down, theatre will be built up from street corners, with minimal sets.

I'm reading The Revolution Will Not be Microwaved by Sandor Ellix Katz, which basically advocates the synthesis of old folk food ways with modern, progressive and/or urban networking, technology, and ideals. Canning, but in Harlem. Underground bakeries. Guerilla gardens.

On that note, I baked all my own bread this week. Exuberantly empowering, and fits well inbetween ads while watching Grey's Anatomy. Ha!

I don't think that people are trying to be nostalgic, it seems like it's been there waiting for the hyperbole and Humvee exhaust to settle a little.