From: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org (believers-digest) To: believers-digest@smoe.org Subject: believers-digest V1 #54 Reply-To: believers@smoe.org Sender: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-believers-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk believers-digest Monday, October 27 1997 Volume 01 : Number 054 In Today's believer's digest: ----------------- Review (sort of) [Mary Ellen Nagle ] Re: Review (sort of) [Leslie Dreyer Kalra ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 15:09:08 -0500 From: Mary Ellen Nagle Subject: Review (sort of) I wanted to post some comments about the Susan Werner shows @ Passim's in Harvard Square this weekend (I went to all 4 of 'em), but hearing such a surfeit of amazing music has left me at a loss for words. So instead, here's something I wrote last summer upon arriving home from a great SW concert...Thought that others who like Susan's music might be able to relate...You could call it a review of sorts, not of the concert, but of its effect on me: 6/26/97 I keep wanting to drive off a random exit, find a room to rent, adopt a slower pace to my days... But it's OK to stay pummeling along down the empty road because I'm happy now and the radio in my head never runs out of songs to play, a stream of echoes out of other times...times that got erased, overdubbed with day to day details of the present... I forgot to remember my own memories! It's a stroke of luck, this concert, giving me occasion to get the nerve up to rent this car and drive so far away all by myself...far enough away from the overwhelming NOW of my existence that the past & the future are coming back into view... Lately I've been inhabiting my life instead of living it, and I didn't even realize it till I achieved this escape, felt the freedom of my own foot on the pedal, pulling out of redundant ways and into a place of possibility - there up close and in person! - powering this piece of metal down a curving stretch of concrete, gliding through scenic vista pictures like the kind I normally only see in a calendar on somebody's kitchen wall... The people up here are calm and easy, like the landscape, unlike excitable urban cacophony...Even McDonald's is a scenic stop, with such mountains piled high outside the windows... A sign said "Moose Crossing" so I pulled over and climbed out of the car into the canopy of stars and waited more than 20 minutes but instead of any mooses - or is it "meese"? - I only saw the Milky Way, which kept looking like an accidental smudge to my city eyes... It was reassuring to find that it can still be so dark and quiet somewhere...and there was still a comforting cushion of 150 miles before Boston, with all the time in the world to get there 'cause my boss understands that a Susan Werner concert is an eminently acceptable excuse for letting his employee sleep in late the next morning. I decide to keep a sharp eye on the cars jostling along I93...their numbers are increasing as the distance decreases to that skyscraper skyline shining on the horizon...I'll bet the people behind the other wheels are not as wide awake and aware at this late hour as myself...they couldn't all have these bubbles of joy and this sense of renewal coursing through their system... What are they doing out here? Where could they be going, and why? They can't all be coming back to Boston tonight from a splendid Susan Werner performance in the open air of a beautiful bird-filled brick-lined back-alley amphitheater in Vermont...? It amazes me that I'm so inspired to go out of my way to get to her shows; whether by bike or on foot...by subway / bus / boat...by getting a ride with friends...or putting aside my utter fear of driving so as to put the key in the ignition of a rental car...and even braving the wilderness of a Martha's Vineyard campsite with unidentified wild animals trying to scratch their way into my tent all night long! Sometimes I wonder why I do it - inevitably, the answer arrives with the beginning chords of her opening song and then this answer grows through the singing of a vibrant voice which glows through words and music that weave laughter and beauty and peaceful contentment into my heart, giving me a great big gift every time...(the funny thing about musical gifts is you don't really have 'em unless you give them away)...and she gives freely, as natural as the shining of the sun and the falling of the rain, not even knowing the far-ranging reach of her many gifts. I'd like to thank her, but I can't figure out how. - - Mary Ellen Nagle - -************************************************************************************* - -This has been a posting from the Susan Werner "believers" list - -To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers"in the body of the message. - -To post to the list send mail to believers@smoe.org - -To reach a human, send to charlies@voicenet.com - -Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com - -************************************************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 16:33:43 -0500 (EST) From: Leslie Dreyer Kalra Subject: Re: Review (sort of) [snip!] Really nicely said. Thanks for posting, Mary Ellen! > > I'd like to thank her, but I can't figure out how. I tried to, at a concert last year. I just said, in my own inarticulate way, 'thanks for saying it all so well'. She said 'saying what?', and looked at me quizzically, at which point I wanted to drop through the floor. I got my autograph and slunk away. I've introduced lots of friends to Susan, and we all agree that we wish we could have Susan over for drinks and just sit outside under the stars and philosophize. She seems like a friend who doesn't happen to know us yet...:) Leslie Dreyer Kalra P.S. I share your willingness to travel large distances to see SW concerts. Unfortunately, my husband just thinks I'm nuts. He likes Susan, too, but he's not a groupie like me (since 1991!) - -************************************************************************************* - -This has been a posting from the Susan Werner "believers" list - -To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers"in the body of the message. - -To post to the list send mail to believers@smoe.org - -To reach a human, send to charlies@voicenet.com - -Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com - -************************************************************************************* ------------------------------ End of believers-digest V1 #54 ****************************** -************************************************************************************* -This has been a posting from the Susan Werner "believers" list -To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe believers-digest" in the body of the -message. -To post to the list send mail to believers@smoe.org -To reach a human, send to charlies@voicenet.com -Susan's CD's are available on your desktop at songs.com -*************************************************************************************