Done USA!

Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival

Again this was an extraordinary experience with wonderful food [all vego cooked on wood fires and lots of broccoli], fantastic acts and wonderful womyn. There was one Australian womyn, who happens to come from Adelaide called Sia on the night stage. Had I heard of her ...well no but Silver had mixed her some years ago at Women Performing. She had changed a bit since then and everyone seemed to like her as she belted out a few songs and assisted the protest ‘Trannies belong on the land’ protest group to stand up for a moment but it wasn’t until that we knew what that was all about! Impact zero!

Silver and I camped in the same area as some women from Chicago who looked out for us and let us sit on a comfortable chair for a few minutes! There was also a woman from NZ, who had worked in Sydney and was a trying to emigrate to Canada! Apparently you need a lot of money so you don’t cost the country money when you get older!

Best act for political content was the ‘Slanty Eyed Mamas’, 2 Anglo Chinese Americans who sang about their experience and also played an amazing electronic violin. They were poitical, very funny and in your face. I went to the Lesbian Revival tent with Sister Caroline of the Sisterhood of the Sacred Synapses. It was very satirical and used the whole evangelistic style of presentation to discuss very important issues! Check Sister Caroline out online.

Another workshop, run by a very able woman who trains across the UK, US and Mexico for a living, was on ‘Internal Misogyny’. Sounds heavy but it was for a great reflection time, sitting under an Oak tree in the woods. Probably the most practical discussion that was on was called ‘Chicken Chat’! It was good to find some women who were thinking about recycling, growing food and enjoying the process. We ran out of time. The chicken bag was a feature of the discussion.

Each festival there is a quilt constructed from scratch. This year it was particularly brilliant. It is paraded on the last night and is one of the raffle prizes. I would like to say we won it but it was not to be! I would have made an exception and bought another bag to bring it home. [photo quilt]

There was a lot of discussion on the political action, working together, coalitions and the American way of life. Holly Near left us with this thought of Dr Bernice Reagon [from Sweet Honey in the Rock] ‘that if you are doing coalition work and it is easy, then you are not doing coalition work’ ....hhhhmmmm?

Just been stymied by the ultimate piece of capitalism. There is an announcement to say free internet! I hooked in only to discover access to the home page was free but to do anything else apart form look at their site costs money!!! I would prefer to go to McDonald’s so my posts are a bit later than I had hoped.