Jane: Arts for Flood Relief

Bruce and I saw an original musical last night called "Moving Home". It was a play written about the 2008 flood, with original music. As Bruce said "there were lots of ways that could have gone wrong." But it didn't. It was a wonderful play with great music, and it was a fund-raiser for Flood relief.

The play consisted of Flood Myths, stories people shared about flood experiences (like the dad going back to the flooded house, finding the lawnmower was OK, and mowing the lawn), music, and art. The art was a local painter painting a huge landscape of Iowa flooding and recovering while the play went on. It was awesome.

The main songwriter was Dan Bern, someone whose music we really like. His mom used to live down the street from us. She is a fierce and intelligent woman; she was a teen in Germany at the time of Kristalnacht, and escaped to England (they are Jewish). Her late husband was a music teacher at Cornell College.

Dan Bern reminds me a lot of Bob Dylan--guitar, folky, blusey style. Sardonic wit. So he was a great person to write this music; he wouldn't veer off into sentimentality.

If you want to hear some music by him, you can check out Dan's page on the "Free at Last" website. Scroll down to the bottom, where you'll find some songs to play. We all like "Jerusalem." I wish you could hear some of the music from the play. We have a CD (which the cast made "Tuesday night," the director said.