Best friends with Michael’s sister Jeanne, Betsy and Michael met after a show in the 1980s and lived together in Vermont for a number of years. The visual richness of the video which Betsy shot at that time has provided us with an opening into earlier years of Michael’s music and a brief inhabitation of the feeling that permeated then. In the midst of a music extravaganza, Betsy and Jeanne join in dance as Robin Remailly, Michael, Gary Sisco and friends play on. It is thanks to Betsy that we are able to include these moments in the film.

Now a professor of English, it is no surprise that Betsy elected to offer up a series of stories and Snock vocabulary from their time together, such as “beam-wrestler” (to describe an individual who’s always grabbing your attention and trying to point it one direction or another) and “repel all boarders!” (used in the detouring of potential house guests). From her persective, Michael was a hard working and devoted artist and self-educator, defending the space he needed to do the difficult and underpaid work of creation. Her admiration for his endeavor remains evident despite time passed and separate paths forged.

We found Betsy's beautiful poem "Days Like Rags" on her blog Hanzer, along with a discussion of South African shipwrecks, botanical journalism, women travelers and more.