I don't know if it's in my power, but every once in a while somebody expresses an idea so clearly and elegantly that it cannot be ignored. Would we with our banjos and dulcimers be willing or able to produce, if we could, songs with that kind of appeal and enough deference to popular culture that it would sell (become widely heard), or is it too late for that? I think the thing that attracts many of us to folk music is its gentle nature, and gentleness is definitely out of the national character these days. Would the little movement around such bands as the Squirrel Nut Zippers give us a way in? Will it have to wait until there's a big disaster to comment upon, as Lincoln did at Gettysburg? I like the idea but it looks at first as if it would have to be a rather small movement or there would have to be some concession to what is widely listened to now. Maybe it would take a movie about something unifying with a soundtrack by people who don't like violence. Soundtracks are big these days. And who will write it? Maybe something by Steinbeck; maybe one of us. Something else to think about - creating a masterpiece. Ideas, we need ideas!

Chet W.