The 2022 MacArthur Fellows are architects of new modes of activism, artistic practice, and citizen science. They are excavators uncovering what has been overlooked, undervalued, or poorly understood. They are archivists reminding us of what should survive.
Their work extends from the molecular level to the land beneath our feet to Earth’s orbital environment—offering new ways for us to understand the communities, systems, and social forces that shape our lives around the globe.
—Marlies Carruth Director, MacArthur Fellows
“The MacArthur Fellowship is a $800,000, no-strings-attached award to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential….Since 1981, 1061 people have been named MacArthur Fellows….
“Nominees are brought to the Program’s attention through a constantly changing pool of invited external nominators chosen from as broad a range of fields and areas of interest as possible. They are encouraged to draw on their expertise, accomplishments, and breadth of experience to nominate the most creative people they know within their field and beyond….
“The MacArthur Fellows Program is intended to encourage people of outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations. In keeping with this purpose, the Foundation awards fellowships directly to individuals rather than through institutions. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, or those in other fields, with or without institutional affiliations. They may use their fellowship to advance their expertise, engage in bold new work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of their careers.
“Although nominees are reviewed for their achievements, the fellowship is not a lifetime achievement award, but rather an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential. Indeed, the purpose of the MacArthur Fellows Program is to enable recipients to exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society.
“The Foundation does not require or expect specific products or reports from MacArthur Fellows and does not evaluate recipients’ creativity during the term of the fellowship. The MacArthur Fellowship is a “no strings attached” award in support of people, not projects. Each fellowship comes with a stipend of $800,000 to the recipient, paid out in equal quarterly installments over five years….”
“There are three criteria for selection of Fellows:
Exceptional creativity
Promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments
Potential for the Fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.”
Meet the newest crop of very fortunate creative sorts, this year’s MacArthur Fellows, who will each receive $800,000/year spread over 5 years, to do WHATEVER THEY WANT!
MacArthur Fellows 2022 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Imagine: There are no outside or public applications or nominations. The process for selection is so secretive and unknown that very few people (no one outside the Foundation, supposedly) even knows who the nominating and selection committees’ members ARE each year!
In the Foundation’s favor, this year—for the FIRST time since I’ve been tracking it, which is many years—the female-appearing Fellows are exceeding the male-appearing Fellows: 9 seeming males, 16 seeming female and 1 nonbinary fellow. The Fellows process has been great on “diversity” and varying geographic locations for quite a while. This year, only about 5 appear to be Caucasian. You can check out the stats on their site any time.
Again, LOVE this! Here are mini-bios of each Fellow for 2022:
Jennifer Carlson of Tucson, AZ,is a sociologist who studies “the motivations, assumptions, and social forces that drive gun ownership and shape gun culture in the United States.”
Paul Chan of New York, NY, is an artist, “testing the capacity of art to make human experience available for critical reflection and to effect social change.”
Yejin Choi of the University of Washingtonis a computer scientist who uses, “natural language processing to develop artificial intelligence systems that can understand language and make inferences about the world.”
P. Gabrielle Foreman of Pennsylvania State Universityis a literary historian and digital humanist who specializes in “nineteenth-century collective Black organizing efforts through initiatives such as the Colored Conventions Project.”
Danna Freedman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyis a synthetic inorganic chemist, “creating novel molecular materials with unique properties directly relevant to quantum information technologies.”
Martha Gonzalez of Scripps College is a musician, scholar and artist/activist “strengthening cross-border ties and advancing participatory methods of artistic knowledge production in the service of social justice.”
Sky Hopinka of Bard College is an artist and filmmaker who combines “imagery and language in films and videos that offer new strategies of representation for the expression of Indigenous worldviews.”
June Huh of Princeton Universityis a mathematician who studies the “underlying connections between disparate areas of mathematics and proving long-standing mathematical conjectures.”
Moriba Jah of the University of Texas, Austin, is an astrodynamicist “envisioning transparent and collaborative solutions for creating a circular space economy that improves oversight of Earth’s orbital spheres.”
Jenna Jambeck of the University of Georgia is an environmental engineer “investigating the scale and pathways of plastic pollution and galvanizing efforts to address plastic waste.”
Monica Kim of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is an historian who examines “the interplay between U.S. foreign policy, military intervention, processes of decolonization, and individual rights in regional settings around the globe.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer of SUNY-Syracuse is a plant ecologist, educator, and writer “articulating an alternative vision of environmental stewardship informed by traditional ecological knowledge.”
Priti Krishtel of the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge (I-MAK) in Oakland, CA, is a health justice lawyer “exposing the inequities in the patent system to increase access to affordable, life-saving medications on a global scale.”
Joseph Drew Lanham of Clemson University is an ornithologist, naturalist and writer “creating a new model of conservation that combines conservation science with personal, historical, and cultural narratives of nature.”
Kiese Laymon of Rice University is a writer “bearing witness to the myriad forms of violence that mark the Black experience in formally inventive fiction and nonfiction.”
Reuben Jonathan Miller of the University of Chicago is a sociologist, criminologist and social worker who traces “the long-term consequences that incarceration and re-entry systems have on the lives of individuals and their families.”
Ikue Mori of New York, NY, is an electronic music composer and performer “transforming the use of percussion in improvisation and expanding the boundaries of machine-based music.”
Steven Prohira of the University of Kansas is a physicist “challenging conventional theories and engineering new tools to detect ultra-high energy subatomic particles that could hold clues to long-held mysteries of our universe.”
Tomeka Reid of Chicago, Ill., is a jazz cellist and composer “forging a unique jazz sound that draws from a range of musical traditions and expanding the expressive possibilities of the cello in improvised music.”
Loretta J. Ross of Smith College is a reproductive justice and human rights advocate “shaping a visionary paradigm linking social justice, human rights, and reproductive justice.”
Steven Ruggles of the University of Minnesota is an historical demographer “setting new standards in quantitative historical research by building the world’s largest publicly available database of population statistics.”
Tavares Strachan of New York, NY, and Nassau, The Bahamas, is an interdisciplinary conceptual artist “expanding the possibilities for what art can be and illuminating overlooked contributions of marginalized figures throughout history.”
Emily Wang of Yale University School of Medicine is a primary care physician and researcher who partners with “people recently released from prison to address their needs and the ways that incarceration influences chronic health conditions.”
Amanda Williams of Chicago, IL, is an artist and architect “reimagining public space to expose the complex ways that value, both cultural and economic, intersects with race in the built environment.”
Melanie Matchett Wood of Harvard University is a mathematician “addressing foundational questions in number theory from the perspective of arithmetic statistics.”
I spent a wonderful (but kind of sad; see below) evening last week (Friday, May 4), at Emerson Unitarian Universalist Chapel in St. Charles, Missouri, USA, listening to the fabulous Roy Zimmerman sing, talk, and cleverly satirize many social, political, cultural and legal developments and issues from the last several decades.
Roy Zimmerman, ReZist show, performing in St. Charles, MO, 5/4/18
Roy Zimmerman is the most recent addition to my life’s intentional collection of dozens of extremely talented and special musicians, writers, filmmakers, poets, playwrights, other artists and performers and, of course, political/social leaders who continue to inspire, encourage and demonstrate commitment to whatever movements they believe most in. These often outspoken heroes and heroines also collaborate with and support others day after day, week after week, year after year, decades on decades.
Is there a category—a title—for such a role in our culture? I wish I knew what it is or could invent one. IDEAS HERE, please: http://www.sallyember.com/blog
I wanted to take a moment, here, to name the ones I can remember best who have personally inspired, entertained, encouraged and led me, and without whom I would certainly have given up feeling optimistic and collectively working for positive change a long time ago.
“Big Mike” Lainoff
—My first and most treasured inspiration is the recently-deceased and much-missed former director of the four JCCA (Jewish Community Center Association [of St. Louis]) summer camps I attended as a child and teen: Camp Council (a day camp), and residential Lake of the Ozark area camps, Camp Hawthorn, Red Bud Camp and their successor, Camp Sabra, Harold “Big Mike” Lainoff (I wrote about him prior to this). In addition to being a recreation manager/leader, Big Mike was a gifted guitar player/singer/songleader and storyteller who could captivate, involve and educate a mess hall or a campfire of over a hundred rowdy kids, teens and staff for long periods of time despite pouring rain, high humidity, blazing heat and roaring wind. Amazing.
“Big Mike” Lainoff, circa 1965, Camp Hawthorn, Kaiser, MO (Lake of the Ozarks)
When I first heard Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie‘s songs and stories, I thought they had stolen them from Big Mike (I was 7 when I met Big Mike…). Later, I realized it was the other way around. But, who cares? Big Mike brought Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary, Phil Ochs, John Lennon, Tom Paxton, Donovan, Jackson Browne, Tom Lehrer, Judy Collins, Odetta, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joni Mitchell and many more USA civil rights’ and social activists’ songwriters’ lyrics and melodies directly to us—mostly Jewish kids, from the suburbs of St. Louis, in the 1960s—while we learned to swim, make campfires, pitch tents, hike, canoe, sail, waterski and so much more.
I grew to love these songs whose lyrics explained class differences, racial injustices, yearnings for peace and equality, deep and abiding love for each other and for a special person, recognitions of mistakes and ways to rectify them, inchoate longings for a better world and to be a better person. I learned the words and melodies and sang them to myself all year long, for decades. I still remember most of them: “Banks of Marble,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Respect,” “The Song is Love,” “Both Sides Now,” “Fountain of Sorrow,” “Changes,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” “Reel, Oh Reel,” “Oleanna,” “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More,” “Summertime,” “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “We Shall Overcome,” “There But For Fortune,” “The Draft Dodger’s Rag,” “Imagine,” “One Tin Soldier,” “The Sounds of Silence,” “This Land Is Your Land,” “Universal Soldier,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Black and White,” “What Have They Done to the Rain?” “Oh, Freedom,” “Hair,” “The Power and the Glory,” “I Ain’t Marchin’ Any More,” “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” “Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends,” “The Circle Game,” “Fixin’ to Die Rag,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!” “We Shall Not Be Moved,” “Four Strong Winds,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” “I Can’t Help But Wonder (Where I’m Bound),” “The Last Thing on My Mind,” “Ramblin’ Boy,” “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream,” “Eve of Destruction,” “How Can I Keep From Singing?” “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” I can’t ever list them all.
Big Mike helped create and then raised my social consciousness, informing without indoctrination so that we became subliminally aware of social/political music and key movements: 1963 was the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, and the middle- to late 1960s were the Vietnam War’s protests’ heydays.
I hadn’t yet heard of the Freedom Riders (which was going on every summer I was first at camp!), I was too young to march in anti-war protests (14 in 1968) even if I had known about them. I was old enough to understand “Jim Crow” segregation and discrimination laws in St. Louis, Missouri, and HATED them. Big Mike and other camp songleaders chose songs whose lyrics’ sentiments felt right to me. I needed to sing, to protest, to be wishing and working for everyone’s equality and freedom. I was excited that more people felt that way I did than I had ever known existed.
At the above-mentioned camps, joining and adding to Big Mike‘s contributions, were several talented musical counselors and staff: special shout-outs to the Kean brothers, Ron and the late Mike (“Nix”); the cook, Maxine; “Fitz“; “Howdy” (Howard Schwartz) and “Twinkle” (Laura Resnick), for international and Israeli folk dancing fun; and, so many more, for adding to the songs and artistic experiences.
Big Mike‘s stories and songs my nascent ideas about social justice, fairness, anti-racism, anti-war, collaborating for peace and practicing nonviolence were developed and nurtured first. Blessings on Big Mike and his inspirations as well as his heirs and successors, forever.
Some places and people are pivotal in our lives, right? These people formed the foundations for mine, preparinhg me for the ones who came later.
Further creating a foundation and launching me into adulthood was a group of people I met in several places in the late 1970s in New England. Many of these key people lived at/founded or attended events at Boston’s mid-1970s spin off of Project Place, the Another Place Conference Center in Greenville, New Hampshire, and its spin-off, Spring Hill, Massachusetts, were then and later became great leaders of artistic social and political movements, personal growth and community-building for me and many others. Here are the “stars,” below.
Robert Gass
—It was through Another Place that I got to go to Spring Hill and meet Robert Gass and The Wings of Song band. Briefly, I performed with and sang in the band’s chorus (I am listed as “Sallie Fleishmann [neither name spelled correctly] on their first album, Many Blessings, pressed in 1980). Singing with this chorus was my first experience of spiritual uplifting through song. It had happened without my understanding it through some camp songs; Robbie‘s songs were intentionally written and selected to raise up the singers and the listeners, the audience and the dancers. We were inspired, connecting, infused with desires to serve and to love.
Robbie and his wife, Judith Ansara (Epstein) and a few others, created the formats for the popular personal growth Opening the Heart workshops (which I attended with my then-partner in 1979) which morphed into their current work, Sacred Union. Robert (as he became known, later) still sings, makes albums and leads people to inner and outer growth (now living in Colorado). Judith is also a dancer and a poet.
Robert Gass, circa 1989
I still hum and sing some of Wings of Song‘s tunes/songs to myself, but I can’t find my favorite anywhere online or for sale. Sad.
“Not My Will, but Thine” is the first line of the chorus, but I don’t know what title the song actually has. Perhaps “Teach Me to Love,” or “Kindle my Heart’s Flame” (all in the lyrics)?
If you know where to find a recording of this song, please email me at sallyember AT yahoo DOT com
Medicine Story
—I also met Medicine Story (Manitonquat, Francis Story Talbot) at Another Place in 1978. He is an author and storyteller as well as Native American activist who also lived at Another Place. Story, with his then-wife, Emmy (Emilia) “Rainwalker” Ianniello and their first son, formed the nucleus of the second of my many communal households in New England. Story and Emmy introduced me and dozens of others to Native American sweat lodges (building, experiencing ceremonies in, learning about) and to living in wiki-ups (outdoor structures more sturdy than tents), as well as to praying and connecting with the earth and animals and many other sacred rituals, origin songs and songs/chants.
Add these sweat lodge experiences to my Finnish saunas in Rhode Island (1977-78) and the Dutch-esque saunas at Stepping Stone Farm in the 1980s. When I went camping with some friends in the 1980s and 1990s (before hypertension took me out of the game) who were offering sweat lodges, they wondered how a Jewish girl from St. Louis knew so much about how to build them, use them, be in them? Why was I so comfortable with nudity in high heat and various ceremonial rituals that involved sweating and chanting? I mentally thanked Emmy and Medicine Story.
We would go into the sweat lodge to settle conflicts, build teams, get inspiration, celebrate a birth or birthday, prepare for a marriage, strengthen commitments, purify, cleanse, dream, remember, honor, be grateful, grieve, pray, sing and chant. Some participants used mind-altering substances in small amounts before or during; I did not. Many would fast beforehand; it’s recommended not to go into a sweat lodge on a full stomach.
This photo, below, is of a sweat lodge that looks a lot like the ones we built.
If you’ve never built, prepared and then been in a sweat lodge, it’s probably impossible to imagine how close relative strangers can get and the kind of bonding that occurs during such experiences: unmatched.
Story and his second wife, Ellika Lindén, a playwright, actor, director, and collaborator, created Circle Way and currently travel around the globe to raise awareness of earth-related preservation and community-building.
Medicine Story and Ellika Linden
Bill Whyte and Katie Schwerin
—Several other songleaders, ritual organizers and community activists lived at and were my friends from that era, including those who shared our first New Hampshire collective household with Story, Emmy and their first son. Katie Schwerin and Bill Whyte and Katie’s daughter joined our group to live in Sharon, NH, in 1978-79.
In addition to learning many songs and chants from each of them, I also credit them with showing me how to live collectively, since we shared a household for two more years after that in several SW NH locations. We were pregnant at the same time and had our two home births (Katie‘s second; Bill‘s first and my only) in one of those homes in 1979-80 in Stoddard, NH. Katie and Emmy, with Cindy Dunleavy, all lay midwives, then (Cindy still delivers babies), attended the homebirth of our son.
Katie, along with director an co-creator, Pamela Faith Lerman (also someone I met in 1978 at Another Place), with about eight other women and I were in a show in Peterborough, NH, in 1980 that included poetry, songs and dramatic scenes from many feminist artists and sources, a fundraiser for a women’s health center we were trying to start for the Monadnock region.
Katie and Bill also founded and, with two of their adult daughters, operate the family-friendly Badger Balm, a “B” (Benefit” Corporation, that “makes certified organic and all-natural body & skin care products including healing balms, natural sunscreens, skin moisturizers, muscle rubs, aromatherapy and other personal care products,” Bill Whyte and Katie Schwerin, who run the business with their award-winning two daughters, Emily Schwerin-Whyte and Rebecca Hamilton.
Badger Balm‘s 2016 founders, family and staff
Katie and Bill taught me a lot about organic food (gardening and cooking), herbal and natural healing, nutrition, raising children respectfully and living collectively, starting me on a life-long path in those areas, beginning in 1978. Bill also introduced me to creative visualization and “green” building via his company, Whyte Light Builders.
Additionally, Katie brought Waldorf education (Rudolf Steiner’s schools) and the Unitarian Universalist (UU) community into our family’s life. Because of her influence and connections, I was hired to accompany the Eurythmy movement program classes for one year, in 1987, at the newly created Monadnock Waldorf School in Keene, NH, where we then lived. The following year, our son attended the Monadnock Waldorf School from 3rd – 8th grades (1988-1994). I took over the Director of Religious Education (DRE) position at the Keene UU Church in 1988 from her when Katie left on maternity leave and then to go back to school for her master’s in Waldorf education, where I stayed until 1990, when I decided to return school to get my master’s and doctorate in education myself.
FUN FACTS:
1) The Monadnock Waldorf School‘s Eurythmy teacher then is the mother of ER and The Good Wife star, actor, Julianna Margulies;
2) Before he became my Buddhist teacher, Wyn Fischel (Lama Drimed)’s first wife, Susan, was a Eurythmy teacher;
3) Before I met him, Wyn taught woodworking at the other nearest Waldorf school, Pine Hill, in Wilton, NH.
4) For several dramatic productions, both I and my then-partner, Christopher Briggs Ember, helped with music, blocking, directing, make-up and other aspects of the plays for Monadnock Waldorf School.
It is not an exaggeration to say that my entire adult life would have been different (and much smaller and less satisfying) had I not had the great good fortune to become involved with the Schwerin-Whyte family. I am so grateful to know them. We all had so much hope, optimism, energy, faith…
Katie is also a performer whose interest in drama brought me to my long-time collaboration with Mario Cossa, playwright, actor, performer, dancer, singer, lyricist, songwriter, director, choreographer, and nonprofit manager who became a counselor and then psychodramatist.
—Mario Cossa is yet another person I met at Another Place in 1978 whose contact with me altered my life’s trajectory profoundly and for the better.
Because of and often with Mario, I was able to earn money through part-time and full-time work in areas I loved and have many amazing experiences, including:
working in several youth-serving nonprofits;
co-writing and -directing, performing in, narrating/facilitating audience-interactive performances for and touring with several plays and dozens of improvisational scenes (the play I wrote, Crystal Dreams, won a prize that featured a performance of it at a professional public theatre, the Portsmouth Theatre-By-The-Sea, in 1984);
Cast of Crystal Dreams, 1984
learning to tap dance;
learning some A.S.L. (American Sign Language) and using it in a few plays;
learning to and performing as a clown;
becoming involved in Co-Counseling International (CCI);
meeting Caroline Myss, who became a close friend of mine for many years;
practicing and learning more about conflict resolution and mediation;
improving my storytelling and writing;
expanding my repertoire for improvisational acting;
learning about and leading prevention/mitigation and education groups on topics ranging from substance/alcohol abuse/use, pregnancy postponement, HIV/AIDs, suicide, teen homelessness/running away, Tourette’s Syndrome, learning and behavioral disorders to family systems conflicts;
co-leading groups for kids, youth & adults/families that utilized expressive arts;
participating in collaborations with other organizations and individuals;
becoming more familiar with and meeting/working with interns and faculty at Antioch/New England Graduate School who were part of the Dance Movement Therapy profession (which my daughter-in-law graduated from in 2016, over twenty-five years after my first exposure to it);
taking groups of students to see live musical theatre productions in Boston and New York City for several years (we saw Rent, Big, Miss Saigon, and a murder mystery audience-interactive play whose name I can’t remember);
conducting ethnographic research on gender and sexual orientation social identities that became the basis of my dissertation for my doctorate degree;
editing and assisting with other pieces and books Mario wrote which also were published in the 1990s and 2000s;
Acting Out book cover
learning to write grants (to solicit funding from individual donations and family foundations for as low as $50 to multi-million/multi-agency federal proposals);
developing/designing and implementing program evaluations;
preparing and managing budgets; and,
working in outreach/marketing for nonprofits (something I did for many years for several other nonprofits).
Mario founded and runs Motivational Arts Unlimited, based in Bali, Indonesia, and travels around the globe doing psychodrama and sociodrama trainings, educational programs and certifications.
Mario Cossa, circa 2008
More in each about the impact, feelings, uses, singing spiritually
Ellen Fleischmann, my singer/songwriter, conductor/pianist middle sister, introduced me to Holly Near in 1978. THANK YOU, again!
I had told my sister that I was bored and needed music because I worked as a packer for a wholesaler/warehouse that packaged and shipped herbs, spices and essential oils to specialty and health food shops all around the USA, Attar, in New Ipswich, New Hampshire. I spent 30 hours each week NOT using my college degree in elementary education, having been burned by several jobs and needing a break. All day, I hefted huge barrels, bags and bottles and wrestled their contents into smaller containers/bags, boxed, labeled and prepared the boxes for shipping. I was usually there alone since it was a “mom-and-pop” shop and they had a young child. So, very under-stimulated, I craved music. Ellen sent me tapes from her dorm room at Brown University to play on my boom box.
—Oh, Holly! What a revelation it was to hear Holly Near‘s amazing voice, lyrics and energy pouring into my otherwise silent space. She also sent me tapes of James Taylor, Carole King and a few others, but it was Holly I kept coming back to and memorizing. “It Could Have Been Me,” from A Live Album, 1974, inspired by the government-sanctioned murders of college students at Kent State University in Ohio during an anti-Vietnam War demonstration in 1970, made me cry, rage and want to continue to/return to ACT UP.
Her songs included sentiments about being bisexual and discovering her love for women for the first time in “Imagine my Surprise,” moved me because it spoke directly of my experiences. After my male partner and I had a child, her song “Started Out Fine,” made me laugh and cry. So many songs, so many inspirations, such great lyrics.
Holly‘s songs have supported and propelled movements, such as the “zipper” song (we can insert other lyrics in key places and keep singing): “We are a gentle, angry people, and we are singing, singing for our lives,” which became the AIDS’ activists’ anthem and the LGBT-rights’ marching song. I also memorized and sang, often:
We will have peace;
we will because we must;
we must because we cherish life, and believe or not, as daring as it may seem, it is not an empty dream, to walk in a powerful path;
either the first nor the last, on the Great Peace March:
Life is a great and mighty march.
Forever, for love and tor life, on the Great Peace March.
from “The Great Peace March,” by Holly Near
I listened to Holly for several more albums/years, but never got to see her live. UNTIL I found out that my good friend, the dearly missed Jaye Alper (her death anniversary/Yahrzeit was this past Tuesday, 5/8/18; gone 6 years; I miss her all the time), had a connection. Her mother, Jackie Alper, had been an original member of the singing group, The Weavers, which had included Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman , and Pete Seeger (Jackie had left the group to stop touring when she became pregnant with Jaye and to help fight the HUAC (McCarthy-era “witch hunts”).
Jackie Alper, Ronnie Gilbert, Pete Seeger,
the remaining Weavers, reunited, circa 1998.
Jackie had stayed active in the social justice/women’s music scene, having her own radio show (“Mostly Folk” on WRPI) for decades, helping start and run the Old Songs Festival (see below) in the Albany area, and staying friends with “Aunt” Ronnie, as Jaye knew her.
In the 1990s, Jaye contacted Ronnie, since Ronnie was performing, making albums and touring with Holly, and they were coming to the Boston area (where Jaye then lived). Jaye brought me backstage to meet them. I stood, starstruck, as Jaye and Ronnie hugged and talked. Holly was standing in the doorway, smiling at me and eating spaghetti, which she offered (I declined).
Holly Near, 1970
Holly Near, 2017
Holly started Redwood Records in 1972, “to produce and promote music by ‘politically conscious artists from around the world.'” She has included so many political activists/musicians on her albums, tours, and concert stages over the decades, many of which I was lucky enough to attend.
Beyond being a renowned and beloved singer songwriter, Holly is a former TV/film/Broadway star and ongoing political activist, still going strong at age 68. Holly Near has mentored dozens of others (see below) and continues to fill my life with inspiration and songs. THANK YOU!
In addition to introducing me directly to Holly Near, Jaye and Jackie Alper had invited me and my family to the Albany-area’s annual Old Songs Festival (officially, the Old Songs Festival of Traditional Music and Dance in Altamont, NY) where we got in free to help Jaye (as “Crystal,” the name she had gone by in the 1970s) sell iced tea and her famous baklava, chocolava and maplelava each June. The musicians there played music which has often been featured or discussed in Sing Out! magazine walked amongst and camped with us. We encountered, met, had lunches with and heard the late Utah Phillips, Sally Rogers, The Amidon Family, Arlo Guthrie, Pat Humphries, Cheryl Wheeler, John McCutcheon, Tom Chapin, and many more. Quite a scene, for a folk music lover like me!
Beyond and including Holly Near, I met fans of “women’s music” through friends, lovers, colleagues and family members throughout the 1980s and 1990s, attending many concerts/performances and enjoying festivals outdoors when possible, which expanded my repertoire to include Margie Adam. “The Unicorn Song,” “We Shall Go Forth,” “We Are The Women We’ve Been Waiting For,” “Sweet Friend of Mine,’ and many excellent piano-accompanied songs became favorites I learned to sing and play on the piano (and lead in sing-alongs, sometimes).
After I moved to California in 2002, I went to many concerts and performances that featured Holly 9she lived about an hour from where I lived) and felt lucky to be able to see her perform and hear her speak so often. She was always on top of knowing what cause needed championing, available for fundraisers, awareness-raising shows and gatherings of all kinds. Holly always remembered me; in the smaller venues, she would smile and come over to say “hello” after her last encore. Before the spring of 2012 (when Jaye passed away), she had always asked about Jaye.
Both Jaye and Jackie had passed on before Pete Seeger (who left us in the winter of 2014), so I went to the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley to attend the tribute concert for Pete, which Ronnie, ill and using a cane, also performed in and which Holly was the emcee and main performer for; Holly and Ronnie had organized most of it. During intermission, Holly came over to me and we shared a few tears and a hug. What treasures these people are/were!
—Cris Williamson, solo and with Meg Christian, Teresa Trull, Tret Fure, Barbara Higbie, Linda Tillery, Lucie Blue Tremblay, and many more great women musicians, brought me and my family the inspiring and beautiful, fun-to-sing songs from Cris‘ albums, The Changer and the Changed and the musical play, Lumiere, and other amazing songs, like “Waterfall,” “The Changer and The Changed,’ “The Rock Will Wear Away,” “Lullaby” (“Like a Ship in the Harbor”), and “Lean On Me (I Am Your Sister).”
Meg & Cris at Carnegie Hall, 1982, album cover
I learned so much about feminism, bisexuality, intersectionality, positive parenting, social activism, many types of love, community and collective efforts from these wonderful musicians.
—The talented brothers, the late Happy Traum and the late Artie Traum were some of the musicians I met when I worked at Camp Med-O-Lark in Washington, Maine, in the early 1980s, because of my enduring friendship with yet again a contact from Another Place from 1978, Zea Moore. In addition to getting me and my then-partner two wonderful summers with jobs at this camp (because her then-partner, Neal Goldberg, owned and directed it), Zea introduced me to Wiccan & Goddess Chants, Libana, and so much more of the newly emerging women’s spirituality music and rituals.
Thanks to these live music venues, without whom I would not have heard most of these singers live: The Folkway (Peterborough, NH), The Iron Horse (Northampton, MA), The Colonial Theatre and the Keene State College’s 1990s Coffeehouse (Keene, NH), The Common Ground (Brattleboro, VT), Temple Mountain Ski Area (Temple, NH, outdoor concerts in the not-snowy weather), Passim Coffeehouse (Cambridge, MA), Brighton Music Hall (Brighton, MA), The Freight & Salvage (Berkeley, CA), ACTING OUT’s 1990s coffeehouse series (Keene, NH), and many more.
PLUS, radio stations that play and support “Americana,” “Women’s Music,” “Folk Music,” and many other overlapping genres that play music to inspire and activate us all. Here are some: KPFA (“Across the Great Divide” and “American’s Back 40” are my favorites, there); KRCB (used to have many shows; now, not so many); other NPR affiliates, everywhere; KDHX; WRSI; college/university radio stations also often have shows/D.J.s that feature great music like this. Check our your local or online options.
SUPPORT LIVE MUSIC!
—If you haven’t heard Christine Lavin‘s story songs, parodies and other political music, please give her a listen!
Please also go find and listen to the songs of any of the amazing individual singer/songwriters/activitists who also sometimes play as the group that includes Lavin, 4 Bitchin’ Babes:
Patty Larkin (“Not Bad for a Broad,” “Metal Drums”) Megon McDonough (“Amazing Things,” “Wake Up And Dream”) Sally Fingerett (“Home is Where the Heart Is,” “Here’s to the Women”) Julie Gold (“From a Distance,” “America,” “The New World,” “Love is Love is Love,” “Goodnight, New York/Ellis Island”)
and others have comprised this fun, talented quartet.
Also, these musicians/singers/songwriters are great to find/remember:
—Nanci Griffith (“Cold Hearts/Closed Minds,” “If These Old Walls Could Speak”),
— Fred Small (who began his career as a lawyer and later became a Unitarian Universalist minister and climate change activist/leader; “Peace Is,” “Only Love,” “No More Vietnams,” “The Peace Dragon”),
—Judy Small (unrelated to Fred, and a judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia who was previously an Australian entertainer, folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Known for her feminist, often patriotic, and political songs, usually following a traditional theme, she produced twelve albums) (“You Don’t Speak for Me,” “How Many Times?” “Montreal, December ’89 (What is it about men?”),
—the late Rosalie Sorrels (“I am a Union Woman,” “Always a Lady,” “The Baby Rocking Medley”),
—the late Stan Rogers (“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” “The Mary Ellen Carter”),
—RosenShontz, Bill Shontz and the late Gary Rosen (“Hugga Hugga,” “Share It!”)
—Betsy Rose (“I Can’t Imagine Life Without … (Popcorn),” “For the Mothers,” “Welcome to the Circle,” and who shares others’ songs, such as, “Return Again,” “Sending You the Light”),
—the late Malvina Reynolds (“Little Boxes,” “It Isn’t Nice,” “Turn Around,” “What Have They Done to the Rain?” “Magic Penny”),
—the late Peggy Seeger (half-sister to Pete, full sister to Mike) (“I Want to be an Engineer”),
—the late Dave van Ronk,”The Mayor of MacDougal Street,” who re-arranged and covered many “traditional” and others’ songs so well,
—Gould and Stearns (Stephen Stearns and Peter Gould),
—Ani DiFranco, founder/owner of Righteous Babe record label, a la Redwood Records and Oliva Records,
—Ruth Pelham, founder of “The Music Mobile,” which “brought singalongs, simple musical instrument construction, merriment and a message of hope to generations of youths at inner-city parks” in the Albany area for 39 years (“Look to the People,” “The Turning of the World,” “Under One Sky”),
—Bill Staines (“The Roseville Fair,” “A Place in the Choir,” “Child of Mine,” “River”),
—David Mallett (“The Garden Song,” “Open Doors and Windows,” Parallel Lives”),
—The Roches–Maggie, Terre, and Suzzy Roche (“Dear Mr. Sellack,” “Another World”),
—Eric Bogle (“The Band Played ‘Waltzing Matilda,'” “No Man’s Land/The Green Fields of France”),
—Cosy Sheridan (“Quietly Led,” “The Losing Game,” “Sharp Objects”)
—Catie Curtis (“People Look Around,” “Truth from Lies”),
—Dar Williams (“When I Was A Boy,” “The Christians and the Pagans”),
—Lucy Kaplansky (“This Morning I am Born Again,” “Reunion”),
—Susan Werner (“Sunday Morning,” “Help Somebody,” “Heaven So Small,” “Did Trouble Me”),
—Cry Cry Cry, = Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Shindell, with many others accompanying/doing back-up vocals (“Arrowhead,” “Ascent” — Shindell; “I Know What Kind of Love This Is,” “Fall on Me”—Cry Cry Cry),
—Molly Scott—not the politician! (“Centering Home,” “We Are All One Planet”),
—Si Kahn (“Gone, Gonna Rise Again,” “Aragon Mill”),
—Sarah Pirtle (“Earth, My Body” and more, here: http://sarahpirtle.com/hope-sings/index.htm)
—Susan Osborne, Paul Winter, David Darling and the rest of the Paul Winter Consort,
and many others previously mentioned in this post or which you find while wandering around YouTube and the internet listening to these. These singers/musicians share songs that are inspiring, moving, intelligent, funny, thought-provoking and insightful as well as musically very fine.
—There are many ministers, singers and song leaders I met through the Unitarian Universalist (UU/UUA) Association’s events and fellowships/churches, starting with Rev. Rick Paine (co-founder of Spring Hill and co-creator of the Opening the Heart workshops, with Robert Gass, Judith Epstein and others) and Rev. Sydney Amara Morris (co-founder of Another Place, with Bill Whyte and Mark Sarkady). Later, I met and sang with Nick Page (who doesn’t love to sing “More Love”?), and so many others. In 2011, the UUA published a great compilation of their music, 50 YEARS OF UU MUSIC, available here: https://www.uua.org/ga/past/2011/worship/185029.shtml , which features “Let It Be a Dance”). Also, check here: https://www.uua.org/worship/music and here: http://www.recessionals.org/ and here: https://www.uua.org/worship/music/hymnals
—Have to mention the great storyteller, singer, performer, Jay O’Callahan, since his stories and songs kept us happy on long car trips across the country in the 1980s, and we got to see him perform live in Boston during that time.
A Cappella Women’s and Other Choruses Respecting Socially Conscious Diversity
—I sang with and joined several choirs that are part of the Threshold Choirs as founded and formatted by Kate Munger,who led two groups I was part of in California in the mid 2000s. If you know someone ill, dying, or giving birth, that is the time these singers will come when asked (if there is a choir near you): A Capella singing at its best.
—The A Cappella singing of the singers of Sweet Honey in the Rock inspired many women to start community women’s choruses, and I was lucky enough to belong to two: the /Brattleboro Women’s Chorus, founded and conducted by Becky Graber, and Keene, NH’s Animaterra Women’s Chorus, founded and conducted by Allison Aldrich Smith (but now also conducted by Becky since 2016, after Allison moved to Maine), in the 1990s.
I miss those groups a lot and have never found any like them since then that met close enough to other places I have lived. If you are looking for a women’s chorus like these, check out this site and see if you get fortunate enough to live near one!
The Sister Singers Network is an international, “cooperative web of feminist choruses and ensembles, composers, arrangers, and individual singers working together to support and enrich the women’s choral movement.” http://www.sistersingers.net/index.shtml#.WvNEeKQvypo
The Threshold Choirs (see above) are a part of this network, but have a specific mission.
[NOTE: I found and temporarily joined Charis: The St. Louis Women’s Chorus here in St. Louis, MO, and it is all females (except for the conductor, which I found odd), but the style, the music, the format, the ambiance weren’t at all like the A Cappella choirs in New England that I’d loved, so I dropped out after a few months. Not for me. Many love it, though, so if you’re local, you should try it out!]
As I said at the beginning of this post, this is what I meant when I said that attending and listening to Roy Zimmerman‘s lyrics and being at that performance was somewhat sad, bittersweet, in this horribly disappointing, discouraging, horrifying period in our lives.
Our generation, and specifically, some of the people I knew and admired enough to mention in this and other posts, HAVE accomplished a lot. However, so much of what we fought for and won is threatened, unraveling, already destroyed beyond repair: it’s happening RIGHT NOW.
What else can do besides sing, listen to and make music? VOTE! ORGANIZE! MARCH! OBJECT! RESIST! Please?
I end with this, one of my favorites, written by Sally Rogers, who also gives us “What Can One Little Person Do?” “In the Name of All of Our Children,” and so many more great songs,
How many famous and important people do you actually know (besides yourself, of course)? How does this benefit you?
Do I know more than you, or more than most? I’m in the mood to brag, by association, about having such amazing friends and former associates and colleagues. I also want to share how knowing these extraordinary people benefits me.
Some definitions seem helpful, here.
By “grew up/worked with” I mean: I KNOW/KNEW these people. We ate together, went to school or camp together, swam or canoed together, were friends/colleagues for more than a few minutes (some I’m still connected to strongly; several were lovers). Not only would I claim them, but they all know and remember me well.
By “celebrities,” I mean that these are people who have:
been on the covers of national magazines and/or featured speakers/presenters at national/international events/conferences;
won national or international awards or positions of great importance;
invented/started something significant;
wrote/starred in/produced something significant in the way of art/music/books/movies/plays;
achieved a high level of renown in their chosen field;
are known by many others as “great” in their field;
been stars of series TV shows and/or featured on popular talk shows;
are known by and hang out with other celebrities.
(in no particular order)
From Ladue Schools in St. Louis, MO (apparently, a disproportionate number of important contributors to society, culture, science and justice are graduates from my well-known and -regarded Horton Watkins Ladue High School, not just the ones I list, below):
Dr. Jonathan D. Fleischmann, M.D. My older brother is a urological oncologist who has patented surgical techniques, medications and other treatments as well has being the mentor/teacher for many other surgeons/researchers in these areas. Our mother lost a kidney to cancer in the 1960s and is fortunately still alive today.
D. Scott Bassinson, J.D., one of my first serious boyfriends and long-time friend, is an Attorney who has argued at the USA Supreme Court, now a Judge and always, a Musician/Composer. It is due to Scott and his brother, Kevin (also a celebrity)’s resignations that I became Ladue High School’s rehearsal and performance accompanist and a professional accompanist for musicals, choruses and performances.
Karen S. Raskin Kleiman, MSW, author of several books, founder of the Postpartum Stress Center, and leading researcher in Postpartum Depression and its treatments (featured on many TV talk shows, including OPRAH, in magazines and websites).
Rich Rubin, journalist, playwright, Founder/Producing/Artistic Director, Quince Productions and GayFest! (Philadelphia), was my first piano-playing duet partner under Deborah Rosenblum in the early 1960s, and we graduated from Ladue together in 1972.
Craig Pomranz, singer, recording artist, live cabaret performer, children’s book author, was another one of my high school “more than friends” that I’m still in touch with and regard highly.
Dr. Alice Conway, J.D., Ph.D., attorney and philanthropist, blind since aged three, first blind Board Chair of the The St. Louis Society for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Alice and I had many classes together in junior and senior high school.
Dr. Michael Green, M.D., Ph.D., Professor at UMASS Medical Center in Gene Function and Expression, the recipient of the Searle Scholar Award, the Presidential Young Investigators Award, and the McKnight Neuroscience Award and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Michael was my second serious high school boyfriend and I went to the first college I attended partly because he was there (sorry, feminists). I knew his little brother, Eric, as well (see below).
Dr. Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D., director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, recipient of numerous awards and author of many scholarly articles.
Joel Meyers, longtime sports broadcaster (currently play-by-play announcer of the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association). Joel and I went to school together from Kindergarten through high school, but we weren’t exactly friends.
Frances Ginsberg, Opera Singer (deceased) with the New York City and Spanish operas before her death several years ago sang in our high school’s Chorale and musicals. I accompanied her solos.
Want to see more about some of these Ladue alums and more? In 2012 (the year of my 40th high school reunion), Ladue held its 60th “Distinguished Alumni” Awards Ceremony and it is on YouTube: http://bit.ly/10vTEaP
From Camp Hawthorn (the St. Louis Jewish Community Center Association’s Missouri Ozarks overnight camp, until 1969):
Sheldon Mirowitz (also from Ladue Schools), soloist musician, producer/arranger and sideman, professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston, film and TV composer, winner of awards at the Sundance Film Festival and other accolades for his music,including three Emmy nominations and one Peabody Award. I met Sheldon in 8th grade at camp and then we we re-met in high school and have been friends ever since.
Chuck Blitz, became independently wealthy in the first dot.com boom and turned that to opportunities to be a philanthropist, environmentalist, social/environmental activist, particularly in the Santa Barbara, CA, area, and with Ram Dass and the White Lotus Foundation (ecological, social community and world service (SEVA) programs and yoga teacher training). I went to camp with Chuck; his sister, Judy (“Jay”) was my first counselor, but he and Glenn Savan were/are my brother, Jon’s, age, so we weren’t really friends.
Glenn Savan, (deceased in 2002), author of White Palace, a semi-autobiographical novel turned into the film in 1987, starring James Spader in Glenn’s role and Susan Sarandon as the love interest, using the local “White Castle” hamburger joints as the setting. I knew Glenn from camp, but we weren’t exactly friends.
Colleges and New England living (University of Wisconsin/Madison and University of Bridgeport/Connecticut (undergrad) and University of Massachusetts/Amherst (graduate)
Dr. Hans van der Giessen, Ph.D., Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs for and Political Science Professor at the Univ. of Bridgeport, Hans was a close personal friend for many years. We aren’t still in touch, though.
Dr. Rahima Wade, Ph.D. (deceased, 2012), almost single-handedly brought “service learning” into public schools in the 1990’s. She also introduced me to the idea of returning to school as a parent of young children and we both attended UMASS/Amherst at the same time. I first met her in Keene, NH, since we belonged to several of the same community groups.
Dr. Mary Kalanzis, Ph.D., and Dr. Bill Cope, Ph.D., Professors, authors/researchers in Multicultural Education and Workplace Diversity globally. I met them when Mary came to Keene State College in New Hampshire as a Fulbright Scholar from Australia in 1990-91 with her husband and colleague/co-writer, Bill, and son, Philip. I then traveled with my partner to visit them in Australia in 1996. Mary and Bill are now at the University of Illinois/Champagne, where she is the Dean of the College of Education.
Dr. Sonia Nieto, Ed.D., Dr. Jerri Willett, Ph.D., Dr. Peter Elbow, Ph.D., Dr. Masha Rudman, Ed.D., Dr. Barbara Love, Ed.D., Dr. Maurianne Adams, Ed.D., Dr. Pat Griffin, Ed.D., among others at UMASS/Amherst, when I studied there in the early to mid-1990s. These particular professors taught/advised me and are authors/ researchers/ activists of great renown in their respective fields (Teacher Education, Curriculum Development, Multicultural Education, Second Language Acquisition, Social Justice Education, Writing Education, Lesbian/Gay Studies, Literacy/Children’s Literature). Because of them, I have held positions as an instructor/trainer in various subjects at various colleges/universities and several nonprofits around the USA.
Dr. Caroline Myss, Ph.D., best-selling author, speaker, medical clairvoyant, teacher. I met Caroline in 1983 in New Hampshire and we became close friends, seeing each other almost weekly until she moved to back to Chicago in 1992. Since then, we stayed in touch, sporadically, but she travels internationally and is unusually busy even when she “lands” somewhere. She mentions me and our friendship in several of her books’ dedications/acknowledgements.
Other notables from the Antioch/New England Graduate School in Keene, NH: Faculty members/authors/ researchers, David Sobel, Rick (Youst) van der Poll, and Mario Cossa (who is also a longtime good friend and colleague). Mario, two of our students and I co-authored one book about the program he started that I helped fun for many years in Keene, ACTING OUT,
and I edited Mario’s second book.
Recently, Mario was introduced to some colleagues in Israel as “the most prominent psychodramatist in California.” How exciting!
From Camp Med-O-Lark (in Washington, ME)
Bari K. Willerford, actor in the National Deaf Theatre and star of MathNet children’s TV show on PBS as well as continuing to appear in many other TV series, movies (American Gangster) and TV episodes.
From Community Matters in Sebastopol, CA:
Rick Phillips, M.S. Ed., co-author and co-creator of the Safe School Ambassadors anti-bullying program and book, which I helped edit, write and edit. I worked at CM for almost five years, up to 2010.
From Northern California:
David “Gus” Garelick, musician, composer, conductor, teacher, author/researcher, D.J., founder/artistic director of “The Hot Frittatas,” “The Gravenstein Mandolin Ensemble” (both of these groups have CDs available) and “The Wild Catahoulas,” also plays/has played in many other duos and bands and on many recordings, including with Queen Ida.
David and I are friends (meshpucha, Yiddish for extended family [by blood and not by blood]) who also play music together (he rather well, I rather badly). I posted our last California duets on my YouTube Channel! Have a listen/look when you’re in the mood! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqnZuobf0YTCiP6silDDL2w/feed
David has planned a series of three volumes about mandolin music, including his own and others’ tunes. Here is Volume I:
Allegra Broughton and Sam Page, singers/songwriters, musicians, founders of “Solid Air,” members of “The Wild Catahoulas,” also play/have played in many other duos and bands. Author of a series of books about and original tunes for mandolins, David also writes a column for Fiddler Magazine and is a national, state and regional fiddle champion and often, judge of fiddle contests. Solid Air has many great CDs available.
Don Coffin, singer/songwriter, musician, teacher, former husband and member of Kate Wolf’s band, member of the “The Hot Frittatas,” Don also plays/has played in many other duos and bands. Don taught well-known guitarist, Nina Gerber, when she was first learning guitar.
Dennis Hadley, musician, singer, member of “The Hot Frittatas,” “The Wild Catahoulas,” also plays/has played in many other duos and bands. Legally blind since birth, Dennis is one of the best accordion players and enthusiastic vocalists in northern California.
From Chagdud Gonpa, my Buddhist Community (Sangha):
Our main teacher, deceased in 2002, His Eminence, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, was a meditation master, teacher, author and Buddhist scholar. A contemporary of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Rinpoche studied with him under many of the same teachers and escaped Tibet to India at about the same time as the Dalai Lama. His books are well-known and -regarded, and the Western students he taught and groomed to become teachers before his death are well-known and -regarded as Buddhist meditation masters and teachers in their own rights. Among them are my teachers, Lama Padma Drimed Norbu (known as Lama Drimed) and Lama Padma Shenphen Drolma (known as Lama Shenphen), who are also authors and Buddhist scholars.
Rinpoche’s books are well-known and -regarded, and the Western students he taught and groomed to become teachers before his death are well-known and -regarded as Buddhist meditation masters and teachers in their own rights. Among them are my teachers, Lama Padma Drimed Norbu (known as Lama Drimed) and Lama Padma Shenphen Drolma (known as Lama Shenphen), who are also authors and Buddhist scholars.
Among our sangha members whom I know personally are two authors: Barbara Gates, who wrote a thinly fictionalized novel about her early years at Chagdud Gonpa’s main residential meditation center, Rigdzin Ling, with these and other teachers and sangha members, In the Buddha’s Kitchen; and, photographer/teacher, Cary Groner.
Now, all of these (still living) celebs can brag that they know ME!
Holly Near, 1970
Sally Ember, Ed.D. 
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