writing – WALKING ON THIN ICE

Tsi-s-de-tsi, the 4-foot mouse Captain

December 2, 2016 No Comments

her third try at drawing Tsi-s-de-tsi

her first two attempts

Lady’s been writing an alternate Earth novel where a 4-foot female Cherokee mouse named Tsi-s-de-tsi is Captain of a large ocean sailing ship with a crew of 6-foot rats who have rescued a young human girl named Beatrice and an even younger human boy named Hill. It’s for both children and adults. She has 64 pages so far, and the writing is beautiful, the story interesting.

Here’s a taste of four recent pages.

I pronounce Tsi-s-de-tsi (the Cherokee word for mouse) as Siesta-sea, but the actual Cherokee pronunciation is something else. You’d have to check online for itthe correct pronunciation.

She reads each new section to me as it is written, and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Lady’s beginning creation mist

October 16, 2015 No Comments

Lady K’s writing a creation story, inspired by her brother/sisterlaw’s impending double adoption of a 4 yr boy 6 yr girl . . .

Story continues…

A long time ago or now in some way there was a bigness in the itness, a colorful bigness tight against itself. Sometimes colorful, and sometimes bereft of color. Sometimes blackness hugging the big colorfulness. Other times the big colorfulness hugging the blackness. Sometimes pleasantly cool, sometimes pleasantly warm. It depended on the itness’s mood.

It could think in itself and around itself. It worked throughout itself and made thought. OR if it felt like it, the thoughts came from it doesn’t know howwhere unless it intuited wherehow.

The bigness felt so lush, like the inside of it was covered in velvet, and the outside warm. Or, like there was no insideoutside, but a lot of itself to turn thisthat way like a churning of sometimes distinct and nondistinct constituent parts. Like a massage insideoutside itself but smeared through totality.

It could make itself really, really small, the bigness itness. But that was just mathematically seen in one way for the germ of it all wasis there like a kerchief in a magician’s magical sequestration space tightly waiting to be pulled into the hungry for fullness of fluttering nonvoidness.

It knew most everything about the simple and nonsimple facts about itself. Even if it couldn’t put words to it, it felt it and knew it that way.

This urge it had was like an itch pushing on the leftrightleft of itself. When the smallbigitness realized it was itchy it wanted to relief itself by inflating like an egg or flattening into a sheet, something to be cracked. Like getting a paycheck and paying the bill. The definite and in.

The bigsmall flattened itself and felt the itch on the leftness of itself like its left ear listening for crunching of creatures solving stiff grasses. Cracks hatched on the left of itself like bubblewrap pop or a scab drying and flaking pleasantly on a scrape, art jutting into mountains of grit and crystals buckling and piling, hatching up. Something made more tangible and textured of its closedsurfaceness, like bark on hands.

Wasn’t all through hatched not like grand canyons or earthquakes or fracks. Was someplaces easy round tessellations of pieces fitting together from completeness. Questions and answers contained in itsbigself. But a tension to pull an orderedness from the right and heap it on the left in piled disarray.

A side note: puzzles are kind of strange because a puzzle could mean that the puzzle is either solved or not. If it’s all together it’s not puzzling, so it’s kind of not a puzzle. But if it’s apart, then it is kind of unpuzzled in that it is not all held together in the puzzle. But it’s also *puzzling* because then it has to be solved. What do you think?

Bigitself thought more could be had pulling the pieces apart and mulling them over. It’s strange, this big thing acting on itself, pulling itself together and apart again again again. Sometimes from the left to the right, sometimes from the right to the left. Wherever it felt something hatching.

One day (day for convenience’s sake) the bigsmallitnonitness felt a kind of urge to play. It felt that more could be yielded of itself, that it had this idea of bobbing waves of trees in a sea of greenness and bobbing waves of water in a cool deepness, of feet walking walking, of its clay wondering, thinking. The undense liquid of air an easy medium for the acts of experiment, of play to be carried. Stars like hot diamonds in the cool easiness of ample space. Stars witnessed through eyes defining our.

– Lady K, to be continued

Smith & Lady Poems March 2015 – Lady’s #12

March 12, 2015 No Comments

Where did we come from? The page’s gutter
for an aesthetic, faille’s golden joinery,
moulden moiré, a book opening softly with
beginner’s mind ribbing interior corduroy,
congruous fingerprints, event set atop
event in wefts of text, vibrating atoms,
topographical map swimmingly coupled
and walking from the dividend,
this singing bowl

~ Lady

WAKING UP

July 8, 2014 No Comments

WAKING UP

Warmup exercises:
coffee, spiritual practices,
writing to Reality

Then work’s task list

It’s like being a climber, actually

I wake, groggy
I start my procedure

I have these little chisels
putting one hand
of my mind
up my mind
then the other

Something busting
outta fuzz

Passing into various lucidities
like sighting minnows swimming in my
peripheral awareness

I ease myself into a clearness,
a cradle I’ve built for myself

It’s like a tent
hanging off
the side of a mountain
or a harness

Just tying my shoes,
just getting up into the ropes
helps me ease into the anchors
laid on the mountain

Footholds from established practice,
muscles built from faith in
previously laid sling

~ Lady

what would Jack do?

August 5, 2013 1 Comment

detail Smith sculpture – foto Smith

What would Jack do?

Reading Jack Keroauc’s truth-disguised-as-fiction “Tristessa” (1960) which I hadn’t known about until I bought it used from Guide to Kulchur for $5.

Kerouac was my main driver of yearning for adventure and travel ever since my 17 yr-old self read “On the Road” in 1963 and it inspired a fire to go to Mexico and smoke dope.

Took me four years to find marijuana, two more months to put a needle in my arm, 44 years to hit Marrakech and six months more for Mexico.

Now I read his adventures and think, hmmm, getting drunk, done that . . . smoking grass, yup . . . joy riding, yes . . . mainlining, been there . . . smoking opium, of course . . . hash in Morocco mushrooms in Mexico, uh huh . . . walking Zen trail, still dabble.

But the one thing I did poor Jack didn’t was pass through the maelstrom of alcohol and needles and snorting and sniffing and popping.

I ended up drinking myself to death 22 years ago and haven’t imbibed since, stopped needles 14 years ago, quit cocaine three years later, and discovered a couple years ago during my hip replacement I no longer enjoy pills.

So I’m down to 2 cups strong coffee daily and grass anytime I have the chance. Last did LSD in 1985 and magic mushrooms down in Mexico 5 years ago, though I’ll do both again in ten years or so.

Find that Jack’s words which excited my 17 yr self now seem tame, shallow, but still the initial thrill that primed my adventure pump by showing there was more out there than suits, suburbs, TV.

What he did and wrote was important because he did it first and he did it well. He hopped the Beat train before it left the station, before it even had a destination. Unfortunately he drunkenly stumbled off part way thru the journey to go home, live with mom, drink himself to death, losing his mad holy light while railing at those still riding, especially the (to him) free loading hippies who hadn’t earned a ticket.

That’s the second thing I did Jack didn’t – I stayed on the train. There’s a third string we have in common . . . we both drank ourselves to a bleeding throat ulcer which killed us, except I rose the third day and walked home sober.

What he did isn’t lessened by later because we’re all weak and constantly stray quit fail walk away, so thanks Jack for the journey. You are my original light, and I cherish your burnt-out bulb. You turned America to the possibility of leaving the sheep pen and having exotic adventures. You also showed us failure.

Both are lessons to use.

2 from Guide to Kulchur – foto Smith

London, 2006 – foto Smith

38 yr-old 45rpm < notes > 18 yr-old t-shirt

June 25, 2013 No Comments

t-shirt back – foto Smith

A few years ago Peter Ball (the music half of Ball & Smith) gave me a 1995 Pere Ubu t-shirt with the cover art from their 1975 single “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” on the front and Peter Laughner’s inner sleeve notes on the back.

Here’s the short story on the back, a night slice of noir.

— by Peter Laughner, 1975:

The big guy and myself had been huddled over bean soup and coffee long enough to watch two sets of customers come and go. It wasn’t that we weren’t hungry, and the food at the Kettle doesn’t disappoint you even if you are looking for nothing more than ballast; we just took our time. He stubbed out Winstons in an ashtray that looked full of gray-white worms, sipped his double-cream coffee, bringing it to his lips with pale, nubbed fingers that shook a little in the transit; he glanced around from time to time in a way that you wouldn’t call nervous or expectant, but you could tell that there was something just under the surface waiting to find an outlet… in fact, if you let the big guy’s attitude get to you, you were liable to feel like maybe he wasn’t such good company… making you edgy… acting like maybe the next customer to walk in the door of the Kettle would be the cue to get up and walk out. The big guy was facing the door, but I got this way of side-sitting in a booth that lets me keep a good view going if I want it, and all I saw come in were two overweight cops, Magnums hanging off their hips, looking for nothing more than a hot meal and a couple of stools to drape their fat rears on. They go their coffee and whatever while “Love Will Keep Us Together” scratched out of the jukebox, and the big guy lit another Winston. I swallowed some black coffee and gave up on the bean soup… it just wasn’t riding right on a gut full of Jim Beam and beer, but I felt as wide awake as seemed possible on an after-hours morning like this. The big guy’s nerves were infectious… I was wired, all of a sudden, on some organic frequency that seemed to take hold of my motor responses and transmit “you are not fatigued but simply passive… use your muscles, your brain, your tissues NOW! MAKE A MOVE!” It was such a strong signal to my system that I reached for my wallet automatically, pulled out a five, and threw it on the table, gesturing frantically for the big guy to follow me up and out, which he did. The two cops at the counter didn’t even notice as we moved through the door at a pretty good pace and hit the street, not speaking or acknowledging looks at all. When we reached the car, it was lightly misted over with ice. We worked in silence, our breath misting, scraping the freeze-up from the windows with a plastic tool and the edge of a grade school ruler. With a few sober belches the machine started, an we were headed east on 90, into a vaporous dawn. — Peter Laughner, 1975

Here’s the song: youtu.be/Rs3kKHhG4m0.

Looked it up and found the 45 available in England for $42 described as 1975 CLASSIC PROTO PUNK/ ART PUNK / PSYCH SCREE FROM THE UBU. THIS 45 PRETTY MUCH KICKS OFF CLE PUNKS RECORDED HISTORY!!! TRUELY AN AWESOME ARTIFACT!!!.

t-shirt front – foto Smith

Appalachian Mr. Haney vs Hollywood Mr. Haney

May 4, 2013 No Comments

Mr. Haney the bluegrass group

(the 4th of 4 pieces written for 3rd Annual Blue Sky Festival for possible press — they’re appearing today 2:30-3:30pm)

Mr. Haney

Mr. Haney, a northeastern Ohio traditional bluegrass band featuring Jim Eisenberg (claw hammer banjo, vocal, hambone), Laura Lewis Kovac (fiddle, feet), Ken Roby (fiddle, mandolin, banjo), Jim Richards (guitar) and Nancy Tozer (bass), will be appearing at the 3rd Annual Blue Sky Folk Festival in Kirtland, Ohio on May 4th, 2012.

The band takes their name from the Mr. Haney character on the old “Green Acres” television sitcom that ran on CBS from 1965 to 1971 about a rich New York City couple who move to a country farm to reconnect with the simple life.

The TV Mr. Haney (played by Pat Buttram) was a scoundrel who sold his farm to Oliver and Lisa Douglas (played by Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor) at an inflated price after first stripping it of all its assets and then selling them back one at a time. Unlike the con artist Mr. Haney, this band is the real deal.

I interviewed Laura Lewis Kovac, the band’s clogger and one of two fiddle players, and asked her some questions about the band. (Appalachian clogging is a traditional percussive dance danced to old-time fiddle music.)

Q: How long you all have known each other?
A: Some of us are old friends, others are new friends. Music is the common denominator.

Q: How did you first get together to play?
A: Jim Eisenberg and I had been playing together a bit and invited Ken, Nancy and Jim to join us.

Q: How long have you been playing together?
A: We’ve been playing together in public a little less than a year, but informally at parties for many years.

Q: What music has influenced the band?
A: All of us have deep roots in old-time music.

Q: What’s it like now that you’re playing for paying customers rather than friends?
A: Old-time music is happy, celebratory music. It lifts the heart and people can’t help but tap their toes or dance. So when we play out, we put the word out to friends and have a party!

Q: Any thoughts you have about music or the group you want to share?
A: We all like each other’s company and when we get together, there’s usually food and visiting involved. We’ve all played in different configurations over the years, but a full band with twin fiddles is pretty great. We look forward to deepening our groove and expanding our repertoire.

Bring your blankets & lawn chairs. There is a playground and storytelling for the kids. Bring your instrument to jam and get a $5 discount. Come enjoy local artists playing original music.

On the grounds of the East Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, 10848 Chillicothe Rd / SR 306, 1/4 mile south of SR 6 in Kirtland, Ohio. Tickets $10 at the door, $8 seniors 65+, kids are free! 11:00am until 7:00pm. Service dogs only at the festival, please.

— Steven B. Smith, 4.28.2013 for Blue Sky Folk Festival

Mr. Haney from TV’s Green Acres

Rachel Brown & The Beatnik Playboys, Blue Sky 5.4.2013

May 4, 2013 No Comments

Rachel Brown

(the 3rd of 4 pieces I wrote for the 3rd Annual Blue Sky Festival for possible press — they’re appearing today at 4pm)

Rachel & The Beatnik Playboys

Retro honky-tonkers Rachel & The Beatnik Playboys will be the local headliner at the 3rd Annual Blue Sky Folk Festival May 4, 2013 in Kirtland, Ohio.

Listening to Rachel’s home page song snippets takes me back to Patsy Cline on early 1960’s country radio and 1970’s bluesy Bonnie Raitt.

Rachel has a big voice. A pretty voice. Full. Rich. Powerful. Smooth. Strong. Sure. Versatile. Beautiful. And the woman can whisper or wail at will.

Toss in her excellent taste in backing musicians and great choice of story songs from the likes of Tom Waits, Dolly Parton, Chuck Berry and Randy Newman, and you’ve a varied merry musical evening.

Her solid old-school country fused with blues, rock, jazz, swing, funk, and soul makes for good listening and dancing. She also plays a mean piano along with a host of other instruments; and just like Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys, she jumps genres at the drop of a cowboy hat.

Her home page says it best:

“Rachel & The Beatnik Playboys is a band comprised of four professional musicians with long histories in playing roots/americana, blues, country, rock, jazz and swing. In any given performance, one might hear Junior Wells or Kitty Wells, George Jones, or the Rolling Stones. The Beatnik Playboys feel that their audiences, like themselves, can love a lot of different musical styles.” (rachelandthebeatnikplayboys.com/).

The band consists of Rachel Brown on piano, Bill Watson bass, Roy King percussion, and Dave Huddleston guitar

Rachel has been singing, writing songs, and playing multiple instruments for over 25 years, opening for such greats as Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Loretta Lynn, Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Ricky Scaggs, and The Judds.

She also performs in Hillbilly Idol, and previously played with The Damn, New Frontier, Blue Moon Express, Sidewinder, Buckshot, and Kalico, and lives a second life as a Cleveland west side middle-school music teacher with a masters degree in classical piano with choral emphases.

Bassist Bill Watson also performs with The Numbers Band, Hillbilly Idol, Alex Bevan, and Clearfork as well as having played with The Damn Band, Reckless Abandon, Mimi Hart & The Bopkats, Deadly Ernest & The Honky Tonk Heroes, Gopher Broke Swing Band, Smackinrrouge, and Better ‘n Bacon Band.

Drummer Roy King has played with Mose Allison, Bucky Pizzerelli, Eddie Bo, Johnny Gimble, and Jay McShann, along with such local greats Alex Bevan, the Gopher Broke Swing Band, Mike Petrone, and Joe Hunter. He also teaches percussion at Woodsys Music in Kent and Medina, and leads his own jazz trio.

Guitarist Dave Huddleston is a vocalist, guitarist, and bassist whose influences include Bach, Artie Shaw, Elvis, the Temptations, the Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald, 1960s TV themes, Gaetano Veloso, Chaka Khan, U2, the Bee Gees, the Isley Brothers, Frankie Valli, Ennio Morricone, Buck Owens.

Their album “Just Look My Way” was released in February. They are scheduled to play from 4-5pm at Blue Sky.

You can friend them on Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Rachel-The-Beatnik-Playboys/126332006901

hear them on Reverbnation: reverbnation.com/rachelthebeatnikplayboys

or watch them on YouTube:
“Love Me Like a Man” – youtu.be/9k5DnC1hRKY (Bonnie Raitt)
“You Don’t Know Me” — youtu.be/MiBV2l9oXh8 (Eddy Arnold)
“Grand Tour” – youtu.be/lqzABib2b1A (George Jones)
“I Just Wanna Dance With You” – youtu.be/Xc2UZngahsg (John Prine)

The 3rd Annual Blue Sky Folk Festival Saturday, May 4, 2013 is a day-long folk music jam with workshops, great food, and an inside main stage. New this year: more tents for jammers and a dance floor near the main stage. More details at blueskyfolkfest.com. Bring your blankets & lawn chairs. There is a playground and storytelling for the kids. Bring your instrument to jam and get a $5 discount. Come enjoy local artists playing original music.

— Steven B. Smith, 4.5.2013 for Blue Sky Folk Festival

Rachel Brown

spoon a little spoon with me

May 3, 2013 No Comments

learn how to spoon with Spoon Too Soon

Here’s the second of four short pieces I wrote for the Blue Sky Folk Festival on this Saturday’s performers.

We’ll be getting there at 11:30 to attend Spoon Too Soon’s spooning workshop so we too can entertain with kitchen implements.

Spoon Too Soon

The upbeat off-beat Northeastern Ohio acoustic duo Spoon Too Soon breaks through the usual wall between performer and audience by using humor, harmony and . . . kitchen utensils.

You can check them out at the 3rd Annual Blue Sky Folk Festival May 4, 2013 in Kirtland, Ohio.

With voices born to sing together, Lenora Darlin and Bow Yocum formed Spoon Too Soon in 2010 to showcase their mix of original, Americana, folk and country with smooth harmony, guitar, fiddle and spoons. There’s a lot of smiles and affection in their performance of positive, up-tempo songs (possibly provided by their getting married last summer), and they always reel the audience in with their spoons, especially the kids. It’s rather like sitting out on the back porch with friends.

Lenora sings, plays percussion and, of course, spoons. Bob says she’s the inspiration for it all, and has a song to prove it (“Don’t Count Me Out”).

Bob has performed in local bands for years, including Better than Bacon, the Hot Foot Quartet, Whiskey River Band, The Silver String Band, and still performs with Abbey Rodeo on fiddle, mandolin, guitar, harmonica and vocals.

Spoon Too Soon’s music swings from 1940’s light-hearted odes of love to old-time classic country. If you want a good reason to catch them, stop by their website at spoontoosoon.com/ and listen to “How’d Ya Like to Spoon with Me.” Their delightful banter is guaranteed to make you smile; if it doesn’t, you’re probably too cranky to be going out anyway. Bob channels a bit of 1940’s Jimmy Durante on this one.

They are also giving a “How to spoon” workshop at Blue Sky (the percussive spoons, not the older meaning of “a horizontal hug lying back to chest, fitting into each other’s nooks like spoons in a drawer”).

Their songs can be heard online:
“A, You’re Adorable” – >spoontoosoon.com/ayouradorable.mp3
“Bluebird on Your Windowsill” – spoontoosoon.com/bluebirdonwindow.mp3
“Don’t Count Me Out” – spoontoosoon.com/dontcountmeout.mp3 (an original song)
“This Old House” – spoontoosoon.com/thisoldhouse.mp3
“How’d Ya Like to Spoon with Me” spoontoosoon.com/spoonwithme.mp3

Find them on Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Spoon-too-Soon/184544301622342

Watch them on YouTube:
“Down by the Water” — youtu.be/TBJ4mZusK6A

— Steven B. Smith, 4.10.2013 for Blue Sky Folk Festival

Lenora Darlin & Bow Yocum of Spoon Too Soon

Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line at Blue Sky 5.4.2013

May 2, 2013 No Comments

Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line

I used to write music reviews for a weekly Baltimore newspaper in the early 1970s (Performance was its name). Only got $5 an article, but I received free records, free concerts, got to sit in an empty movie theater and watch a film before it opened, and sat and talked with people like Tiny Tim and Paul Williams, and got stoned with Alice Cooper and the better half of The Turtles, so there were multiple perks. Plus I saw my by-line in print every week.

So I wasn’t surprised when my wife asked if I’d write a few articles on some of the performers at this coming Saturday’s 3rd Annual Blue Sky Festival for possible press releases. My Ma-in-Law is on the festival committee, so I had an in.

My first was on their national headliner Nora Jean Struthers & The Party Line. They released their new album “Carnival” last month, and the single of the same name debuted at #24 on the Americana charts, and this week moved up two positions to #22.

Here’s my raw write:

Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line

Fresh from performing at SXSW 2013 in March and the April release of their new album “Carnival,” the acoustic Americana quintet Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line are headlining the 3rd Annual Blue Sky Folk Festival May 4, 2013 in Kirtland, Ohio. Out of Nashville, the group weaves three-part harmonies with fiddle, claw-hammer banjo, acoustic guitar, bass, and drums.

The Party Line take their name from the album’s song about the old-time rural practice of several farms sharing one telephone line, and includes Struthers’ longtime collaborator P. J. George (upright bass, harmony vocals, pedal steel guitar, accordion, banjo, mandolin), Joe Overton (clawhammer banjo, harmony vocals), Aaron Jonah Lewis (fiddle, three-finger banjo, baritone fiddle, mandolin), and Drew Lawhorn (djembe, drums, percussion, washboard), all played excellently with gusto.

Nora Jane, who taught English for three years and writes the songs, says she sees herself as a storyteller: “When you go to a carnival, you go into a sideshow tent, and on every stage you find a different person with a different story. That’s why I’m trying to do with this album – craft vignettes, and in some cases more developed narratives, about imaginary people’s lives.”

As for the new album (her third), “I realized that I was writing a collection of story-songs from a female perspective,” Struthers says. “I was able to arrange them chronologically, as teenagers, then women, then old women. The album has a narrative, from girlhood to death.”

The 29 year old has some serious chops in her corner: she won best band at the 2010 Telluride Bluegrass Festival; her new album is produced by Brent Truitt, who’s produced Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, The Dixie Chicks; and NPR’s All Songs Considered chose her band as one of their SXSW Day 4 Highlights. She’s also been a featured vocalist and songwriter in the Alaska-bred, Nashville-based band Bearfoot.

More importantly, she writes good songs, has a great voice, a humorous sense of play, and the music is fine infectious fun. You can catch their joy in these three videos:
“Barn Dance – youtu.be/r2UBDxeIK1M
“Bike Ride” – youtu.be/J6NuihAlRSM
“Carnival” – youtu.be/7fvw77lt6m8

There’s a ton of positivity in her lyrics, even an occasional hint of sweet sex with lines like “Twirl me round Johnny, twirl me round Joe” and “I hope you kiss me my lips have been whispering for your touch all night”, but it’s all in innocence. She treats death the same way when she croons “I am not afraid of travelin’ on.” NJS describes her sound as Appalachian folk rock. Whatever it is, I’m a fan.

Dave Higgs of Bluegrass Breakdown writes, “Her lyrics are simply spectacular and have achingly beautiful melodies to boot. This is one of my favorite all-time albums and certainly the most arresting music I’ve heard in a long time.”

Nora Jane says her sound has elements of Mumford and Sons, Gillian Welch, The Avett Brothers, Emmylou Harris, and Old Crow Medicine Show.

P. J. George will also be giving a workshop on hamboning, a style of dance or musical accompaniment that involves stomping your feet and slapping your body. You can get a smiling taste of PJ and drummer Drew Lawhorn hamboning in “Travelin’ On” at youtu.be/k5Y8kB_enF0 .

Nora Jane & The Party Line are touring heavily from coast to coast, border to border to support the album, playing 18 concerts in April, with five more in May, nine in June, and eight in July.

You can read more on Nora Jane Struthers on her web page at norajanestruthers.com/ . Her blog has a fashion segment since she is into buying vintage clothing, a lot of which she wears performing.

Nora Jane Struthers is on Facebook at facebook.com/pages/Nora-Jane-Struthers/78199484806 and you can hear three more songs at reverbnation.com/norajanestruthers.

The 3rd Annual Blue Sky Folk Festival Saturday, May 4, 2013 is a day-long folk music jam with workshops, great food, and an inside main stage. New this year: more tents for jammers and a dance floor near the main stage. More details at >blueskyfolkfest.com. Bring your blankets & lawn chairs. There is a playground and storytelling for the kids. Bring your instrument to jam and get a $5 discount. Come enjoy local artists playing original music.

— Steven B. Smith, 4.2.2013 for Blue Sky Folk Festival

Nora Jane Struthers