In case you came to this site to listen to my podcast about Bloomington, you’ll need to click on “December 2007″ and “March 2008″ to catch the podcast episodes. (And I won’t repeat again the reasons why I went on hiatus and then stayed there.)

Since this weekend is the Lotus Festival 2011 and I’ll be working the rest of the week to help manage sites/setup and work “on call” one night, it’s unlikely that anything more will happen on this podcast/website in the immediate term.

But yes, I’m aware of the cobwebs, hearing the crickets, and feeling the prodding of my creative muse to get back to work here.

As time has gone by, I’ve gotten more and more involved with and responsible for TEDxBloomington. I’m proud-as-a-papa to announce that Iam now co-curator!

It’s a delightful, intense, exciting, near-terrifying, gratifying, ride that’s become pretty much a full-time (unpaid) job.

So check out TEDxBloomington.com, apply for a seat (or watch the Livestream if you can’t get to town), and we’ll see when I have the energy to return to this hobby site of mine.

We’re starting to hear a rumble (and tweets!) in Bloomington … excitement about TEDxBloomington is building!

Though I’m delighted to have more people visiting my blog, my luci@tedxbloomington.com e-mail is now running, so if you have questions specific to TEDxB, it may be best to catch me at that address.

I’m coordinating much of my local efforts with the event curator, Christian Long, who’s in the process of moving his family from Texas to the Midwest, closing out a school year with his students, travelling across the country speaking about education, and generally being a busy, busy dad, so if you’ve left me a message and I haven’t responded yet, please know that I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I can, or Christian will.

And, more news as it becomes available!

There’s a Cirque du Soleil performer living in Bloomington!

I’ve been talking to more and more movers-and-shakers in Bloomington about the upcoming TEDxBloomington in May 2011, doing more research about how other TEDx events work on a logistical level, thinking about who and what and how to make this “Wisdom of Play” event (or series of events!) fabulous … and getting more and more excited with every conversation!

I’m especially grateful to Christian Long, curator for the event, for letting me insert myself into his team and for being so willing to share the wealth of play and creation — my favorite things!

I’m also loving brainstorming with Michael Shermis, Kevin Makice, Debby Herbenick, Peter Lopilato, Malcolm Dalglish, Mia Dalglish, Claire Arbogast and Kalynn Brower  (more links to come) — my latest and greatest resources for more energy, more inventive ideas, more contacts, and more productive creation.  I know a LOT of people in this city, but I’m so grateful to have these opportunities to meet even more excellent Bloomingtonians.

I started this blog and the podcast because in the last 20+ years I’ve become convinced that Bloomington is an astonishingly rich place filled with amazing people, and even though I have been distracted from writing here and producing podcasts, now that I’ve become involved in the TEDxBloomington process, I’m feeling reinvigorated, so I think this blog will reflect aspects of both these branches of my Bloomington love.

And in the context of getting more people to “play” with Christian and me this year, I present this three-minute video that I saw courtesy of the TEDxDU webcast yesterday, about leadership and “first followers.”   If you’re reading this, I sincerely hope you’ll actively become some of our “first followers” and help begin to build TEDxBloomington into an event we can all be thoroughly proud of!

If you don’t already know about TED.com (TED = Technology + Entertainment + Design + a whole lot more), then after reading this post, go directly there and prepare to spend many minutes and up to many, many hours watching all the videos there.  You will be inspired!  But first, read this:
I have been a big fan of TED for several years now: I go there when I’m feeling disheartened about the state of the country and the world, and I always leave feeling much, much better.  There are so many brilliant people who are doing great things to help, and they want us to do great things, too, and they’ll point the way … or, at least, they’ll point some of the ways, and invite us to find our own.

So I was DELIGHTED to learn that, after 25 years of Ideas Worth Sharing at TED, they decided to share even more ideas by letting folks use the good TED.com name to have smaller events everywhere, branded “TEDx(Whatever).”  And then I was SUPER excited to learn that there was already planning in the works for a TEDxBloomington event.  And then my enthusiasm increased exponentially after I started conversing with Christian Long, the curator for the Bloomington event, about my myriad ideas for local involvement and venues, and he named me the Local Lead and Champion!  Fabulous!

So.  Check out the TEDxBloomington site, and if you’re interested in being more involved, contact me and we’ll talk about it.  For the moment, it’d be best if you contacted me here or at my TIMB e-mail address, since my TEDxB e-mail isn’tyet set up.

And in the meantime, I’m also feeling reinvigorated about this site and the podcast again, so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!

Once again, the Lotus Festival has announced the artists they expect to perform, and once again, I’ve made a list of what’s available at eMusic.  19 out of 26 acts, people!  And if you’re new to eMusic, you can download 50 songs for free by following my link.  (Actually, you can get them without following my link, but I would appreciate the referral so I can get a few extra free downloads myself).

My list of who’s available on eMusic from the 2009 Lotus lineup can be found here.

And of course I would be remiss if I did not remind folks to check the official Lotus website itself.  By the time I’ve posted this and you’ve read it, the artist lineup may have changed: such is the way with tentative listings.  If this happens, please leave me a comment so I can change things to match.

More later, friends!

If I knew more about WordPress, I’d delete the dates from previous posts so you wouldn’t see the enormous gap(-s).  But it’s been a helluva year.  Most notably, I spent seven months helping my good friend and fairy godmother, Colleen Cleary, as she went through treatment for metastasized brain cancer and then made her big transition to The Promised Land in March.  Those of you who listened to Episode 1 heard her voice in the bit about lunching at the Turkuaz.  The day we made that recording she complained of a headache and joked about a brain tumor:  if I’d known then that she was even partly serious, I would have dropped everything and dragged her to the doctor.

Scratch that:  I would have *attempted* to do so.  Knowing my headstrong friend, I wouldn’t have gotten out the door with her.

Anyway, I’m back, and once my kids are settled back in their school-year routine, I intend to pick up the pieces here and start again. If you’re reading this and I interviewed you last year but didn’t actually produce a podcast, I think I’ll probably ask for another bit of your time to re-record as I have different production plans now.

And if you’re reading this and I did *not* record you last year but you’d like to join in, please leave a comment or send an e-mail to host@thisismybloomington.com and we’ll talk!

I’m not sure if they’ve posted them on the Lotus Festival website yet (although if they haven’t, they must be having technical difficulties there because it’s past the deadline they said at the concert), but here’s a tentative list of the artists appearing this October in Bloomington.

detektivbyrån ~ analogue electronic waltz from Sweden
Sogbety Diomande’s West African Drum and Dance Company ~ Cote d’Ivoire (sorry, I can’t figure out how to make the little angle over the o)
Etran Finatawa ~ African tribal fusion music from Niger
Etugen Ensemble ~ Mongolian folk music
Julie Fowlis ~ Scottish Gaelic folk song
Frigg ~ String folk music from Norway & Finland
Bill Harney & Paul Taylor ~ Australian storytelling and didjeridoo
Gaida Hinnawi ~ Arabic song from Syria
Little Cow ~ Ska/rock/funk/Gypsy fusion from Hungary
Lo Cor de la Plana ~ Polyphonic song from Occitan/southern France
March Fourth Marching Band ~ Absolute crowd favorite marching band (I describe them as “Drum Corps Without Adult Supervision”!)
La Musgaña ~ Traditional music of Central Spain
Pistolera ~ Latin Alt-Folklorico
Reelroad ~ Modern Russian folk music
Son de Madera ~ Traditional music & dance from Veracruz
Jayme Stone & Mansa Sissoko: Africa to Appalachia ~ Appalachia/Mali fusion
Vieux Farka Touré ~ Desert blues from Mali
Waltz With Me: Annbjørg Lien, Bruce Molsky, Christine Hanson, Mats Eden ~ International folk music string quartet
The Wilders ~ Old-time country (but I think they’re much more fun than this description, myself.)
And as they say … “With more surprises to come!”  The LotusFest website is supposed to have updates throughout the summer, and they note that the artist roster is subject to change.

So it’s summertime and my kids have been off school for a month and a half, with me pretty much 24/7.  It’s been near-impossible to find moments of quiet here (except for the hours when we’re all asleep … or my insomniac nights when I dare not make noise that might wake anyone else in the house).  And surely it’s clear to you that I haven’t gotten anything done on the podcast lately.

But this past Friday and Saturday nights were the Summer Night(-s) of Lotus, and once again, the Lotus has inspired me, reminded me of my great love not only for the music that the organization brings to town, but for the people of this small city:  I love the activity of attending these events, of people-watching, of seeing folks in a different context and finding new ways to enjoy them and myself.  I especially loved bringing my new friend Pat out for the Saturday night concert, introducing her to a few friends, and watching her delight at the music, too.  Since she’s new to town and from the culture-rich city of New Orleans, I’m always particularly delighted when I can help her love her new home a little more.

So because of this weekend, I’m inspired and invigorated to bring my attention back to this languishing blog and podcast, to return to this craft, nevermind the gap between what I imagine it to be and what it is, currently.  (I’ve been too busy paying attention to the gap to stay focused on the dream.  I’m now publicly stating my intention to return to the dream, to get aligned with the good vibe and each time I stray from it, to purposefully refocus.  It’ll take practice to overcome years of negative thinking, but I’m committing — again, today, now — to doing exactly that.)

Serendipitously, I came across a YouTube video this morning of Ira Glass speaking to exactly the monkey-thoughts in my head that I’ve allowed to stop me from working on the podcast.  Ira Glass, as many of you know, is the host of This American Life, a public radio hit that 1.7 million people listen to each week.  And in this video, he shares with you what he wishes someone would have told him, early in his career.  It’s exactly what *I* needed to hear, and will likely need to hear repeatedly through the next few weeks/months/years.  Geez, I hope it won’t take me years, but that’s what he says to expect.  We’ll see.  But the main message is, it’ll take a lot longer if I don’t actually Just.Keep.Working.

Enough of me talking about what Ira says better.  Have a listen.