Does a teacher facing students, jazz group improvising, swimmer doing workouts, coder fixing software, thinker seeking solace seem safety prone to you? Are these the risk-averse?

Might activists be poster-folk for the risk-willing? They march for justice, take stands, venture into parts unknown, right? 

And do they also pay attention to what works v. what may backfire, waste time, disillusion volunteers? Do they follow best practice like the blandest nine to fiver?

When I’m getting ready for a big show like yesterday’s, I wonder what an introvert like me is doing in a place like live music. But I soldier onward - change strings, replace batteries, load gear and head out for sound check - because there’s nothing more worth doing than a good live show.

by Joyce Sandy, Westlake|Bay Village Observer 

BAY VILLAGE (May 14, 2013) Enjoy a concert of Dylan classics on May 22 at 7 p.m. featuring Cleveland's acoustic duo "Muscle and Bone." Susan Weber and Walt Campbell meld their voices and instruments with songs that span the decades of Bob Dylan's career.

‘You’ve internalized, Bob Dylan - his spirit comes right through and we all feel it,’ says a Dylan fan gesturing toward rows of chairs recently filled with hushed listeners AKA noisy clappers in Fairview Park’s Meeting Room A.

Libraries, we are told, are no longer meant to be quiet zones.

by Chris Mosby, News Sun reporter

CLEVELAND (January 31, 2013) It’s a common experience. Most of us go through it. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, about half of all school-aged children reported feeling bullied at some point in their academic career. About ten percent of those kids said they were tormented regularly.

January is resolution month, when self-contol and discipline are trendy. Grunting and groaning, in vogue for a few weeks, send our guilty pleasures packing.

When Dad showed me the program from his brother Ted’s funeral, I was about to ask him if he had a favorite hymn or two he’d like us to sing at his memorial. But I brushed aside my curiosity and strong organizational bent because there never seems to be a good time to imagine a world where your dear father is no longer here in the flesh. 

Muscle and Bone ventured out on slick and splattery I-480 last night with a car full of gear, heads full of lyrics and shoulders taut with wonder. As in, ‘wonder if anybody’ll show up?’

I just spent a week with elders down near Asheville, North Carolina. Here on my own back porch again, the tree house that folds out into green leaves and bird song, I’m impressed by how this place restores my artist heart.

What you say to your audience between songs is an art in itself. Walter and I don’t want to break the spell of Dylan’s lyrics with stray patter in our Muscle and Bone shows. So this story, though umbilically melded to Queen Jane Approximately for me, is better essay than segue.