Monthly Archives: June 2019

Back in the 1960’s, “juke joints” were major hang outs for black performers. Chuck Berry made a song about these enclaves, where beer and chicken pies can be consumed “til” 6 am. There is an up and coming town, “down the road a piece”, from Washington DC, it is called Columbia, Maryland. There are noContinue reading “DOWN THE ROAD A PIECE”

The subject of traditions  came up for discussion, as it often does every summer. In Maryland we talk of music, beaches, laughter, stirred in the mix of charm and frivolity. We, like the rest of America are a people of compromise, and as such, food and culture define our influences. The Maryland Arts Council isContinue reading “FRIED CHICKEN, MOON SHINE and PINA COLADA”

No one thought it will ever happen. It has happened in many cities all over the world, where political infighting between politicians, create a distaste, and an economic downturn for the residents. This unbelievability became a reality in the city of SHAKESVILLE, where its biggest crop was not corn or soybeans, but music. It becameContinue reading “HOW BETTY (not Crocker) Saved A City Named SHAKESVILLE”

She is sitting in a wheelchair, giving off a vibrancy of confidence not often exhibited by artists, who tend to hide modestly behind their works of art. She wants to be humble, but her confidence betrays that wish. This woman who lived with a mother (ELIZABETH TALFORD SCOTT, born in 1916) is now a celebratedContinue reading “CULTIVATING AWE”

“Like a circle in a spiral, Like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning. Like a clock whose hands are sweeping, past the minutes of its face. the world is like an apple, whirling silently in space, like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind” (words from the hitContinue reading “The Windmills of Your Mind”