Join Us

Empowering the Next Generation of Women in Audio

Join Us

Here Is A Story Called: Applesauce Takes All Day

2008  Woodbury VT

When I looked up the clock read 12:37.  My appointment was at 1 o’clock, more than an hour away.  Every single surface (kitchen, personal) was, if not covered, certainly touched by something that came from an apple.

Ring Ring.

“Susan, I’m so sorry.  I started my applesauce early this morning and thought I’d be done by now, but it’s nowhere near finished.  Could we please push our appointment back?”

She chuckled.  “Let’s reschedule.”

“Oh no!  I really think I can make it.  Just…later.”

“Ah, Willa, when will you learn?  Applesauce takes all day.”

2020 Oakland, CA

 

Time didn’t stop for me with Shelter-in-Place.  Something much more nonlinear happened.  Is still happening.

A  musician and a bodyworker by trade, those professions went up in a puff of shit-green smoke.  As business fell away, so did busy-ness.  For some months I managed to fill the action back up, anyway.  Frantic.  Until one day it proved untenable.  The day before that I had awoken in such panic I actually wondered if I was about to have a heart attack.  “Willa, you can’t go on like this; it’s going to kill you.”

The next day it nearly did.  Not a suicide attempt, but the unequivocal point arrived at which everything had to stop.  It stopped for me.

In a way, something did actually die.

I canceled everything – there wasn’t any faking it, I could barely talk – and sat there.  Sat there in my garden.  Sat there on my couch.  Sat shotgun while my honey drove me down the coast to sit on the sand and look at the water.  Walked from room to room like an old dog that won’t bed, wondering what to do if not doing what I normally do (biting off more than I can chew), what to be if not being as I normally am (heinously, proudly, productively driven).

I developed a touch of what felt like agoraphobia – not for being outside (I could manage the grocery store) but for real interactions with people I knew.

In general (even pre-’Vid) it’s really challenging for me to process emotions near people.  It feels like stopping my car in the intersection to check the oil – dangerous and rude and focus-pulling.  No, far preferable to drive into the wild where it’s me and the crows and then inspect the planetary gears where no one’s going to ask me about it until I’ve done what I’m doing and the grease is off my hands.  (Fine to have some on my jeans, though – sexy.)  To be clear, what I mean by “process” is “feel.”  It’s actually hard for me to feel strong things in the company of other people.  The feeling comes up, I access it largely cognitively, and then I put it somewhere for filing, labeled “feel this later.”

Then I accidentally on purpose mostly usually misplace the file.

Which means when I’m feeling a lot, it’s really hard to be around people.  Particularly close ones, because they See me and if I’m trying to have a feeling I don’t want to be Seen.   (This can wreak unparalleled havoc.  It’s viscerally confusing and piercingly painful to whoever is close to me: “You seem to be having a strong personal experience, but you’re unable to warm to communication and have maybe turned to stone of some nature.”)  I’m still learning how to both feel strongly and relate simultaneously, in proximity.

Which premise, it may be obvious to you, dear reader, but was not until recently obvious to me, is predicated on feeling in the first place.  So: not misplacing the file.  Fully, completely, feeling.

Three months into this “I’ll be right there, I’m just gonna pretend to rest a minute” hiatus, my back went out.  Sweet day, feeling pretty stable, donuts (Boston creme and plain yeasted), went to sleep early…woke in the night unable to move.  Physically idiopathic.  Emotionally crystalline.  I hadn’t gotten still enough, yet.  So my bodysoul wrote a poem called, “That’s Cute, But Your Ass Is Mine.”

I lay on my back for three weeks.  Tectonic pieces began to move.  Foci shattered, blew away in the wind.  “That thing you thought mattered?  Hilarious.”  Shadows came into focus.  Buried Memories came up to speed, like turning the quiet hall corner into a well-lit kitchen.  Stolen Sadnesses.  Ungranted Forgiveness.  So.  Much.  Rage.  Rage at others, Rage at my own repeated, dragging self-betrayals. Rage, which turns out is just Grief in tight clothing.  Grief that made clear why people sing about drowning in tears, the waves of it so unremitting I couldn’t locate the surface to get air, sand in the eyes, hair in the kelp.  Awe so shameless my atoms danced with the atoms of the leaves on the pear tree outside the window.  Undoing.  Unmaking.  Stillness.

Some hours I lay there, breathing.

Feeling.

There was literally nothing else to do.

“Where could this be going?”  But there was literally nowhere else to go.

Thich Nhat Hanh describes meditation in this way: when we Sit we are as apple juice that has been allowed to rest; the particulate matter settles and the juice becomes clear.  (See?  It really is an essay about apples.)

Because I had slowed down some – even dramatically – I had thought I could “make it to the 1 o’clock appointment.”  But slow enough to hear myself think wasn’t yet slow enough to hear myself feel.

And that may well take all day.

Susan Comen, of the applesauce story, is a writer, musician, educator, homesteader, and bio-geometrist in Middlesex, VT.  She’s also a voice of great, smiling reason.

She would – and I would join her – encourage you to pace yourself honestly and kindly, in these times more than ever.

Willa Mamet: Singer and songwriter, Willa was born in a trunk and raised by performers of all kinds. She’s made music since about that time, singing irrepressibly and playing piano and guitar. With her musical partner, Paul Miller, she recorded two albums, East Hill Road and Let Somebody Love You, both of which won the VT Times Argus “Tammy” Album of the Year in 2013 and 2015. Her next album will be born in Spring 2020. Meanwhile, she plays out sola, with Miller, and other beloveds, bringing her unique blend of rapier tongue and honey heart to her audiences. Hear the voice that Patti Lupone calls, “Heartbreaking. Musical. Contemporary and ancient.”

Willa lives in Oakland, CA, with her beloved upright, her uncle’s guitar, a whole lot of elderberry bushes, and her six-pawed cat. She travels. A lot. For music.

Read Willa’s Blog

Here Is A Story Called “Use Your Words”

 

 

“Copying is the sincerest form of plagiarism.”

David Mamet

 

I’d like to start by modeling attribution.  My dad has said this to me a million times.  It’s not only hilarious but points directly at the problem.  Copying isn’t, as the old adage goes, a form of flattery.  It’s a form of theft.  (“Of course I don’t need credit or remuneration for my hard work – just knowing you like it [enough to steal it] fills my heart/belly/wallet/CV.”)  Since I did not generate this newly-spun adage, I’ve put it in quotes and added the author’s name, to ensure that people know that these words are his, not mine.

Once upon a time, I was plagiarized.  It was shocking to browse ye olde internet, see a post and think, “Gosh, that sounds familiar…Oh, because I wrote it.”  When I brought the incident to the attention of the people involved, a potentially incommodious situation blew into a shitstorm en flambé.  The people responsible (whether or not they “did it” – the people responsible for the people who may have done it) didn’t respond as I might have expected.  Including, but not limited to: no apology and an approximate shitton of gaslighting, with a hefty pinch of name-calling for flavor.

We worked it out, the posts came down, but wow was it uncomfortable.  And eye-opening. A friend said to me, “I am just so surprised to see women doing this to other women.” To which I replied, “I’m not; we’ve all been poisoned by the same stuff.”

Which got me thinking about colonialism.  The white supremacist, hetero-normative, capitalist patriarchy just loves to say, “I’ll take that.”  And, living under these oppressive systems as we do, we’ve all been crop-dusted with the poisonous influence.

We see this in the swimsuit aisle, bikinis covered in the sacred patterns of Indigenous peoples who were disallowed from using the patterns themselves. In rape culture (as if women aren’t capable of enjoying sex, so it has to be removed from us forcibly).  In the mining of mountaintops.  In the dollars “saved” over industrial meat.  In the white rock-n-roller who’s never heard of Sister Rosetta Tharpe.  (This paragraph could be very, very much longer.)

We also see it on the internet, over and over, brazen copying, indistinct misattribution.  Different disguises, same thief.  Rampant, because it’s just so easy to copy and paste.  (“How will they/who will ever know?”)  Maybe we don’t even mean to.  Or perhaps didn’t bother hunting for the original author.  Or forgot to mention that we didn’t create that thing we put forward, so people assume we made it.  (Further forgetting to correct the assumption.)  Occasionally I see things in quotes with no name attached.  “INSUFFICIENT!”  I yell at the screen.  (Also, I realize, insufficient.)

Before I go on, let me be completely clear: someone using my copy on the internet led to an unfortunate misuse of my time and energies.  It was a heinous pain in my ass and I was sad about it for community reasons.  This situation was not of the same severity as rape or cultural appropriation.

And but it’s also not unrelated.  The point I want to make is that the impulse to take without request or reciprocity is the same impulse, however, applied.  It grows both gross violences and subtle misdeeds.  To varying degrees, but without question, it’s in all of us.  And it’s all theft – petty pilfering or grand larceny, but all of it theft.

“Yes, I’ll take that.”

Well, don’t.

Don’t take that.

“What does one do, sensibly, once it’s clear one has swallowed poison,” asks educator Pamela Samuelson.  “If one’s got their wits about them, one spits it out.  How do we cure ourselves of our colonial heritage?  We disavow the ways of colonial heritage.”

Spit.  The poison.  Out.

Truth provides agency.  The truth, in this instance, is “I do that.”  Somewhere, somehow, I do.  You do.  We do.

And we need to hunt for it.  (By “we” I really do mean “all of us” – and those of us who have benefited more from the taking will have more work to do.)  Every time we find an instance of “I’ll take that” in ourselves, the next logical step (now that we “have our wits about us”) is to assiduously enact its antithesis.  Courteously request and learn how to take no for an answer (consent can only be real if dissent is an option).  Find exchange in equity and reciprocity.  Attribute, celebrate, and acknowledge the work of others – especially that which has made our work possible.

But there’s one more piece.

What shocked me most about the whole copying situation wasn’t so much that they did it (shit happens, benefit of the doubt, ok, alright), or that they are women (identity won’t save us from unfortunate behavior), but that the first sentence off their keyboard wasn’t an apology.

And it needed to be in order for us to proceed with understanding.

Apology composts rift to grow repair.  It is the only thing which can because it’s based on acknowledgement of all aspects of experiential relationship – me, you, us, past, present, future.  “I see that I did this.  I see that this caused you harm, which I not only regret, but take responsibility for – and I commit to doing less harm.”  A true apology includes, preferably stated, the commitment to do differently.  To grow.  May it be, to grow towards one another after a breach has distanced us.

In the words of Maya Angelou, “Do your best.  When you know better, do better.”

There is better to know and better to do.

We did not get to choose what poisons came in the cloud of culture.  But we can diligently work, quietly examine, fight tooth and nail to locate every last drop in us, and spit that shit out.  Again and again.  Acknowledge to ourselves and those we have affected.  Apologize.  Repair.

What is the alternative?

With my thanks to KDay and Zoe Gardner for their peregrine pointed feedback. Deep bow to Pamela Samuelson and Sara St. Martin Lynne for further besideness and word-wielding.

Willa Mamet: Singer and songwriter, Willa was born in a trunk and raised by performers of all kinds. She’s made music since about that time, singing irrepressibly and playing piano and guitar. With her musical partner, Paul Miller, she recorded two albums, East Hill Road and Let Somebody Love You, both of which won the VT Times Argus “Tammy” Album of the Year in 2013 and 2015. Her next album will be born in Spring 2020. Meanwhile, she plays out sola, with Miller, and other beloveds, bringing her unique blend of rapier tongue and honey heart to her audiences. Hear the voice that Patti Lupone calls, “Heartbreaking. Musical. Contemporary and ancient.”

Willa lives in Oakland, CA, with her beloved upright, her uncle’s guitar, a whole lot of elderberry bushes, and her six-pawed cat. She travels. A lot. For music.

Read Willa’s Blog

 

 

13 Ways To Support Music and the People Who Make It 

To say the very least: It’s strange, strange times.  So many of us in this business has probably had months’ worth of work obliterated.  Or worse. Well, as Hunter S. Thompson said, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”  So here are some ideas about how we (as a community and as musicians, ourselves) can keep music and the people who make music afloat, alive, and a-thrive.  It’s time to turn pro, weirdlings.

  1. BUY MUSIC + MERCH.  Go as close to the artist as you can (IE: through their proprietary website or Bandcamp, rather than through Apple, etc.) and buy what you can afford.

  2. SUPPORT THROUGH PATREON or DIRECTLY.  Decide what you can manage and pick one, two, ten artists to support at even $1/month.  Most musicians have a Venmo account, you bet they do. Send them some $$ directly.

  3. BUY TICKETS TO LATER SHOWS, NOW.  Nothing lasts forever; not even the apocalypse.  Buy tickets to shows in, say, November 2020, or onwards, if you can.

  4. IF YOU HAD TICKETS TO CANCELLED SHOWS, CONSIDER DONATING THE MONEY TO THE VENUE OR THE ARTIST ANYWAY.  If you can, of course.  Or even a portion of. Non-profit venues (like the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley) help by making your donation tax-deductible.

  5. ASK WHAT WE NEED.  You’d be surprised – it might not (just) be money.  A friend went grocery shopping (gloves, wipes, mask) for me today.  (Thank you, Mimi. I hope you enjoy the kimchi.)

  6. EMPLOY US HOWEVER YOU CAN.  Get creative with this one.  Many of us do/make things that aren’t music.  (I need a new cutting board and just found out my local storyteller, Morgan, makes beautiful ones.)  Trades just got even more meaningful.

  7. TRADE.  Put it out there.  What do you have to offer?  What do you need? Imagine broadly.  Bank for later, if that works for you.  Peer outside the dollar box. It’s groovy out here, too.

  8. HOST or PLAY a LIVESTREAM SHO. My beloved, Pamela Samuelson, says, “Even a bathroom will do”; meaning you don’t need much space.  Live sound wizard Lolly Lewis explains, “People are listening through computers, so don’t bother too much, as it won’t end up mattering on the other end.”  Up to you! Play a show yourself, or, if you’re in quarantine with a musician, help them set one up, or if you’re a platform with an audience, be the “online venue” for them.  Hit me up if you want help with this. Genesis Fermin and I just hosted a festival that currently has about 36,000 views (in five days). That’s only to say: if a couple of buddies can pull this off, so can you.

  9. CATCH UP ON ADMIN.

    • Register ALL your released songs with your PRO, with Harry Fox, Music Reports, etc.

    • Sign up at SoundExchange if you haven’t.

    • Get all your music up on that Bandcamp page.  (Then tell people it’s there.)

    • Fix + update your website and social media sites.

    • Type your lyrics and put them on your website or LyricFind.

    • Edit and organize photos for FB or your website.

    • Get your sound files properly named and organized.

    • Make a list of back-logged thank-yous and write them.

    • Clear your desk.  Clear your floor. Get through that stack of paper.  Goddess-speed.

    • Edit your back-logged videos.  Post them or calendar them for posting.

    • With my thanks to Rex Strother for many-a-reminder.

  10. GET SOCIAL.  Pick one, two, ten artists and go boost their socials by liking, following, subscribing, etc., to their Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and on and on forever.  Invite folks to watch streaming shows. You get a cookie for making a post about someone’s music, sharing a photo or video, and being sure to tag them. It’s a cookie from my heart – easy on the belly and very low glycemic index.

  11. AMPLIFY, CODDLE, or GENERALLY LOVE ON SOMEONE.  Professionally or otherwise. Boost someone’s signal, as above, AND/OR If you’re feeling stuck in your own terror, look outside yourself.  Ask what you can do for a beloved, a neighbor, someone you barely know. It feels good to help someone else feel good and it’s fine to do that to make you both feel good.  (Thank you, Ash Fisher, for bringing me the best drawing ever.)

  12. REST.   As you can.  As much as you can.   All those red Xs on the calendar add up to one big opportunity to SLOW…..THE….FUCK….DOWN.  Writing as your friendly, neighborhood holistic health practitioner (yep, that’s what I do when I’m not making music… Did you know “there’s a plant for that”?) this is actually one of the best things you can do to support your immunity.  Yes, move your body and yes get fresh air and yes eat nutritious food. But truly: the presence of calm + sleep (and absence of stress) do more for your immunity than most things you could put in your body. Now’s your chance. Take that nap. Witch doctor’s orders.

  13. MOST IMPORTANTLY: TAKE TIME TO MAKE YOUR ART.  Once you’re done making sure your life, your family, your business is OK – and even in between, as that’s obviously a rolling concern –  USE THIS TIME. Practice. Play. Sing. Write. Stare. Listen. Be quiet. Take heart and let yourself be filled, even a little, even if it aches.

The world is not over; it’s changing.  We will come out the other side of this, loves.  Even if we look like Jodie Foster in a wormhole while going through it.  From saxophonist Phillip Greenlief, “Conceiving of a future seems the first step to realizing it.”  Chin up. Gaze inward and onward.

Here we go, together.

Yes, still.

Together.

Willa Mamet: Singer and songwriter, Willa was born in a trunk and raised by performers of all kinds. She’s made music since about that time, singing irrepressibly and playing piano and guitar. With her musical partner, Paul Miller, she recorded two albums, East Hill Road and Let Somebody Love You, both of which won the VT Times Argus “Tammy” Album of the Year in 2013 and 2015. Her next album will be born in Spring 2020. Meanwhile, she plays out sola, with Miller, and other beloveds, bringing her unique blend of rapier tongue and honey heart to her audiences. Hear the voice that Patti Lupone calls, “Heartbreaking. Musical. Contemporary and ancient.”

Willa lives in Oakland, CA, with her beloved upright, her uncle’s guitar, a whole lot of elderberry bushes, and her six-pawed cat. She travels. A lot. For music.

Read Willa’s Blog

Clothes or Leaking Focus

Let’s start with clothing, shall we?

I wear clothes. Being a musician, I even wear them to perform.  Someone asked me why I wear what I wear on stage.

I’m a jeans-and-t-shirt woman. On stage, I’m a nice-jeans-and-nice-t-shirt woman, often with a button-down – clean, patchless.  All clothes must pass the Goldilocks Test; they’ve got to be jusssssst right.

First of all, they’ve got to FIT.  My body changes often due to a million and two factors (menstruation, inflammation, diet, exercise, how many hours I spent in the car yesterday, the passage of time) so there are various jeans for various size-shapes of me.  I can’t be on stage sucking in my belly or pulling up my pants and wasting precious energy that should be spent on doing my job. I can’t leak focus on discomfort.

I have to be able to MOVE in whatever I’m wearing.  Nothing fancy. No Martha Graham stuff, just move like a person in the world.  Stand up, sit down, grab a guitar, lean back from the piano, feel my feet ground down and my chest and belly open easily for air.  (Bra too tight, I can’t breathe. Bra too loose, potato sack – or my boobs feel like they’re falling into the world. If it’s over ninety-five degrees, maybe no bra, but that has to fit my mood and the feel of the shirt. Sodden boobers, yech.)  If I’m wearing a belt, it has to do its hold-up job without corseting me. Pants don’t have to stretch, but if they don’t they must allow for my actual shape and motion. Shirts can’t snag my armpits and they have to be long enough to address the irremediable case of plumber crack. Socks, cushion me enough in my boots. Boots, light enough to let energy move through my legs.

The clothes have to FUNCTION.  Certain kinds of cotton will make me sweat out a shirt in minutes. Too light a color and I’m a blur in bright lights. Polyester will stink faster than it takes me to look up how to spell “polyester.” (Selling merch or hugging friends post-set I don’t want to worry about armpit-tear-gas. Side note: Please stop with the tri-blend nonsense; It stinks!!!)

Maybe this is the night to wear my WOMEN 2020: BECAUSE FUCK THIS SHIT shirt. Or maybe that’s tomorrow night. Ruffling feathers is great, but if I’m going for impact, I want it to land. If I need layers, they’ve got to fit and move, too. Blazer with nothing under it? Probably not in a freezing cathedral.

And on the road, all this needs to be easy to pack and easy to clean.

Slightly more ineffably, the clothes have to FEEL right. I need to feel like myself. After a lifetime of dysphoria and dis-ease, I simply refuse to be uncomfortable. (You think I “look like a boy”? Get out more.)  Further: I dress for myself. Yes, I like to feel attractive (to the people I like to feel attractive to, which may be a smaller sliver of humanity than some) but I find that if my clothes fit, function, move and delight me, I probably do feel attractive.

The stronger at home I am the better I can bring my Voice through. On stage (at work) and off. The more at home I feel, the easier it is to access Delight, Groove. Fun, Surprise, and MUSIC.

And THAT really is my job.

So I ask you, women, especially, what are you wearing to work?  Does it fit? Honestly? Do you have clothes for all the shapes and sizes of you, physically and emotionally?  Can you move enough to do your job? Do the clothes function for what you’re doing? Did you put those clothes on as yourself, for yourself?  Put differently: do you feel safe and at home? Do you feel strong, capable, available to yourself and your work?

If anything on or near your body makes you leak focus, GET RID OF IT.  Set that shit on fire. And then get some clothes that, whatever your profession, allow you to make music of your work.

PS: When something has fallen out of rotation or no longer matches the criteria, it’s out.  Clothing exchanges and trading at consignment shops are my faves. When I find things that work, I hunt down their siblings on eBay for cheap. (And keeping stuff out of the waste stream makes me happy.)  Line-drying helps jeans, button-downs, and black cotton band T-shirts (yep, a whole drawerful) last longer. What tips have you got?

Willa Mamet: Singer and songwriter, Willa was born in a trunk and raised by performers of all kinds. She’s made music since about that time, singing irrepressibly and playing piano and guitar. With her musical partner, Paul Miller, she recorded two albums, East Hill Road and Let Somebody Love You, both of which won the VT Times Argus “Tammy” Album of the Year in 2013 and 2015. Her next album will be born in Spring 2020. Meanwhile, she plays out sola, with Miller, and other beloveds, bringing her unique blend of rapier tongue and honey heart to her audiences. Hear the voice that Patti Lupone calls, “Heartbreaking. Musical. Contemporary and ancient.”

Willa lives in Oakland, CA, with her beloved upright, her uncle’s guitar, a whole lot of elderberry bushes, and her six-pawed cat. She travels. A lot. For music.

Read Willa’s Blog

X