“It’s important to note it, to say thank you. Kindness, truth, No? It’s just not the time to be so cool you don’t pay attention. We have the capacity to send love in so many directions. We gotta let each other know what’s Good.“
–Rickie Lee Jones, Fish Sticks, 4/12/2025
“The world will end, but love and music will endure.”
–Gaelic proverb
Lady In White, from a larger writing…
Most of the actors in this film are Italian American. Little Frankie’s family is portrayed as a happy, normal family, with troubles, sure, but lots of love. Kinda like Leave it to Beaver but with Italian food and rhythm and names. This is the kind of thing that helps teach people how we are alike, by showing that what is different is wonderful, not destructive or threatening. It’s important. It is a lesson all of us must learn or we grow up harboring fantastic fears, (you can see it everywhere nowadays) and we grow terrible molds and spores made of rumor and conjecture and convenience, until we are racist, and sexist, and spoiled to happiness. Understanding these simple lessons that films can bring a kid is timely. Different syllables in names can seem like they are insurmountable differences. In the heart of us, we are living the same lives in America. Well, we were, anyway. I believe that we are connected by a common love of one another that is simply not celebrated nearly enough. Films are a way of reminding us how much we value our common legends and history.
—Rickie Lee Jones, Fish Sticks, 10/21/2024
“A world without art is a world without interested, loving, united audiences. It’s a world without a healthy way to find each other and to celebrate communally outside of sports or religion. No thank you. I don’t want to stop finding you.”
— Neko Case, Entering the Lung, 9/26/2023
As described in our “About”page, this blog was born out of the experience that is the Newport Folk Festival. The idea was to spread the festival’s pervasive sense of joy, good will, and community as widely as possible, throughout the year. Of course, this year the “folk family” stayed home. Nevertheless, via social media, the tremendous efforts of the Festival Foundation, Jay Sweet, and numerous other organizers and musicians, we all managed to be together even while apart. Thank you Jay Sweet, Caps, and everyone else for making the weekend happen.
“That’s why we make art, music, film…to connect. I mean, our contribution and our duty, above all, is to love people. And our contribution is to make things that relate to people. And through those things, that’s our vehicle to actually directly, physically, emotionally, connect with them.” —Scott Avett, September 2019
“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.” —Bradley Whitford
