Tweets for Today

( Cut to spare the uninterested )

More regarding Playing for Change

Since I posted about Playing for Change, I've probably played their "Stand By Me" video about forty times since I loved it so much. I went and joined the Playing for Change mailing list and sent them a small donation (I can't do much with charities this year, given our situation, but this is one organization I'd really like to get behind). I'm going to let my nephews know about this organization: they're musicians, and they co-run a music production studio. Maybe it's something they'd like to get involved with, too.

I also found a piece on Bill Moyers show on PBS, where Mr. Moyers interviewed Mark Johnson, the founder of Playing for Change. Yes, I had my finger EXACTLY on what Mr. Johnson is trying to do with this organization: decreasing worldsuck by making the world come together with music. See the interview here (it's about fifteen minutes long, and includes the "Stand By Me" video again) or read the transcript here.

Edited to add: Awesome: A little more digging found this link, by David Elliot Cohen, who was working on a different project to decrease worldsuck, a book of photographs that he hopes might change the world for the better. He talks about creating the photograph that inspired Mark Johnson and got him started.

My latest book, What Matters, contains 18 long-term photo essays about essential issues of our time by some of the great photojournalists of this generation. . .I created this book because I believe in my heart that one great photograph can change the world. And if I can show 250 great photographs about the crucial issues of our time to enough people, then maybe one of those people, or maybe a few people, or, maybe even many of those people will connect with an image. And when one great image resonates with one talented and dedicated person, and that person digs deeper, learns more and takes some action that creates positive change in the world, then What Matters can be considered a useful exercise. I can't predict who that person will be or which of the 250 images in What Matters will resonate, or what action that person will take, but I completely believe it will happen.

The proof of that distilled theory came very quickly, and not how I expected. Two months after What Matters was published, a friend e-mailed me a link to a Bill Moyers interview with someone I never heard of, a musician named Mark Johnson. (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10242008/watch3.html) Turns out, Mark had done some amazing things. He created a documentary film called "Playing for Change" in which musicians from all over the world – New Orleans, Italy, the Congo, South Africa – all played the same songs, and Mark mixed their distinctive musical styles together to create beautifully affecting medleys. More concretely, Mark also built a music school for kids in a poor township near Capetown, South Africa, a community center that brightens these kids' otherwise difficult lives. And that first school was such a success that he is now building similar schools all over the world. At one point in the interview, Bill Moyers asks Mark Johnson why he decided to do all of this good work. Here's Mark's answer, which I've shortened a bit:

Many years back, my brother [gave] me a Christmas gift… a photo book called A Day in the Life of Africa. And in that book was one photograph… and the caption was something along the lines of, "One of the more dangerous townships in South Africa finds solace through backyard jazz." And I had this picture on my wall for years. And it served as a symbol for me and for the crew that I [was] traveling with.

I did some research. And I found out that the bandleader was the upright bass player named Pokei Klaas. When we traveled down to Cape Town, South Africa, we heard this music down the street. So the crew and I walked over to hear their music. And when the song was over, we asked Joe Peterson, who was the singer in the band, "Have you ever heard of Pokei?"

And he said, "Oh, yeah, Pokei. He's my best friend. I'll take you to see Pokei."

So the next day, we all got in a van and we drove out to Guguletu township. We passed thousands of shacks and [it was] an incredibly humbling experience. I remember there were a number of little homes, and a lot of sorrow because there was a lot of HIV in the area. A lot of poverty.

So we decided, okay, we'll put on a little concert in the backyard because the people here need something to celebrate.

And I have never in my life seen something more beautiful when the people came out of their little homes and just started dancing and celebrating this music. And all the sorrow was gone, and they were now filled with all this joy and connection to us and to each other. So we asked Pokei, "Well, what can we do to give back to your community?

And Pokei said, you know, "The kids here, they really need a music school. They need some hope. They need something that can give them some inspiration." And so just a couple months ago we went down there with some shovels and we built the first Playing for Change music school in that exact spot. In the backyard. And now it's a chance for kids to get together, to have something positive to look forward to. And what we're doing with this foundation is we're going to build hundreds of schools around the world.

So there it was – proof of concept. One person, Mark Johnson, connected with one photo shot by a black South African photographer named Fanie Jason in a book, A Day in the Life of Africa, that I created six years earlier. That photo hung on his wall for years, and eventually it inspired him to build music schools for disadvantaged children around the world.

So, like I said, I don't know which photograph in What Matters will connect with which talented, dedicated person like Mark Johnson, but it will happen, I promise, because I know in my heart that one photograph can change the world.

It all ripples out, doesn't it?