We're All Kept Alive by Magic

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Bill: I have no heart-beat. I have no need to breathe. There are no electrical impulses in my body. What animates you no longer animates me.

Sookie: What does animate you then? Blood? How do you digest it if nothing works?

Bill: Magic?

Sookie: Oh, come on Bill! I may look naive but I'm not, and you - you need to remember that.

Bill: You think that it's not magic that keeps you alive? Just 'cause you understand the mechanics of how something works, doesn't make it any less of a miracle... which is just another word for magic. We're all kept alive by magic, Sookie. My magic's just a little different from yours, that's all.

(This True Blood conversation is my favorite tv/movie moment ever...)

Buffy Sainte-Marie found this passage in Leonard Cohen's novel "Beautiful Losers." She sang it to him once and later recorded it - "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot". Lately I've been inspired yes, by this song, by my current reading, by drawing fairy mandalas, by anxiety, by music, by Mexican folkart, by love. I'll talk more about folkart later. Now, need to go hooping <3 LOL that's my Facebook profile pic at the moment:

The Most Beautiful Woman on This Particular Planet

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...is Buffy Sainte-Marie. IMHO. I put together this video of her song Qu'appelle Valley Saskatchewan with pictures of her (and other fitting pics that I came across). I just love the spirit of that song.
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Buffy wrote the classic Universal Soldier in 1964 for her first album It's My Way! and that song became really famous when Donovan covered it. Joan Baez did too. And she won an Oscar for Up Where We Belong. I just remember hearing her records since I was a kid -- I would look at the back cover of Sweet America in awe... So soulful and pretty :)
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She was on the US government's black list in the 60s for opposing the Vietnam war and in the 70s for being a Native rights activist. When she was invited to TV shows those times they told her not to talk about issues because it's "unfashionable" but her attitude was cool: "I'm not interested in being hip so much as being effective. I wanted to change things, not just be a loudmouth complaining about things."

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Lately Kaisu and I have been singing Native music, especially this one song about old shoes. I'm thinking of recording it soon and putting the notes and words for it up here, in case you would like to learn it too. Some time ago I looked online for resources to learn Native American songs but couldn't find any -- I had to go all vintage and rummage around in actual libraries with shelves and ceilings to find any notes. So I got this bright idea that I'll start posting those songs here as I figure them out, notes, melody, words and all. Stay tuned :)

Street Performing in Helsinki :: hoop dance & poi

PS. It was 2 Celsius/ 35 Fahrenheit that night. Typical Finnish spring.

PPS. We made maybe 15 euros.

PPPS. Next time I'll go in the day time. If I'll go. I'm kind of wanting to. It was so much fun. What can I say, I'm a Leo - I like to perform! And be a princess. I mean, the princess. Hee hee :P