Minibabble: Woman holds the knife on the sharp side
Some thoughts on the proverb, “Woman holds the knife on the sharp side.” Why would she do such a thing? Is it because she was given a knife without a sturdy handle?
Podcast: The Babblery
Minibabble: Getting to Know Us – Liberal women in coastal California
This is your host, Suki Wessling. Since 1996, I have been living, working, raising children, and making music on the central coast of California. When the Women’s International Newsgathering Service….
Minibabble: Don’t look at the tree!
When I learned to ride a motorcycle, the instructor gave one of those specific pieces of advice that end up being applicable to life in general: “Your bike will go….
Minibabble: Listening with our bodies
Last month, I interviewed avant garde composer Anne Hege about her work as a musician, composer, and conductor. Find the full episode here. In this short piece, we focus on….
Minibabble: Making music together = moving toward the good
Making music together = keeping time together
We often talk about “spending” time with friends, but how about keeping time? When we make music together, we literally interact with the time that we’re “spending,” keeping it, beat by beat, as a shared resource. There’s really no other [public] activity that we can do with other humans that allows us to interact in this way: when we play music, our bodies move in sync, our mouths say words together or in response, we are literally joined together in time.
A Walk Through Santa Cruz, or In Defense of Liberals
I was ambivalent about going anywhere on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, this year otherwise known as Inauguration Day. It seemed like the two events were canceling each other out….
Minibabble: Singing as…
An ode to humanity’s first instrument In which host Suki Wessling reflects on a life of singing. Singing as therapy, singing as memory, singing as body, singing as meditation, singing….
Bodies making music: composer Anne Hege
“It’s really kind of transcendental, this way that a group can come together to bring meaning to sound through our bodies.” Composer Anne Hege practices a rarefied profession. Not only….
Minibabble: Thinking about greed in the redwoods
This is an unusual version of “Just me, talking to you.” In this case, I recorded my thoughts while walking in the redwoods. It’s largely unedited (I took out a….
Minibabble: “The California girl I needed to be”
A transgender elder reflects on the election I spoke to Stephanie Jacobs for the first time on the phone. It wasn’t until we’d spoken for a while about politics and….