Dear friends, I’m very sad about the recently unfolding Kurdish situation. I’ve heard reports of families with children being killed. I’ve heard reports about thousands of people identified with ISIS who’ve been detained by Kurdish people, whose oversight may be uncertain. I’ve heard many concerning likelihoods. My friend, Travis Moe, explains a critical heartbreaking element …
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Announcing Song CSA Memberships!
Please consider ordering one! Modeled off veggie shares, this program allows me to share consistent doses of song with people in my world, at prices or trade set-ups that work for you! Membership information here. Claire
Living on Mackinac Island: Loving Life
My July 17 post listed challenges to societal well-being in a description of Mackinac Island (consumerism, militarism, unjust immigration policy, racism, and rural poverty). You could get the impression I was against them. I still am . . . . Partway through this summer I became convinced loving life is as important as is protesting …
Bit by a Musical “Bug”
Where were you on October 6, 2018, as Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court by the Senate? I was at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, singing along with Ani Difranco‘s timely punch back toward our patriarchal system. I was also sitting in a bushy area that would …
Seeking Percussive Possibilities
I’m lacking tools to emphasize and play with rhythm, noisemakers and accentuators. Send me some of yours?
What are the Grand Hotel Garden Recordings?
The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan, symbolizes inequality. One of the island’s largest employers, most of its workers come to the U.S. on work-related visas to help their families survive. It blows my mind to imagine the difference between the lives of those who spend hundreds of dollars each night per person to stay …
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Where I Am: Mackinac Island, MI
This summer I returned to Mackinac Island, MI, working for the state park and focusing on the side on song. I visited here when a child and worked here for a summer when I was 19. Where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron connect, the Straits of Mackinac feel wide open, and they hold history, from …
Claire Bates Music 