Maybe it’s especially resonant if you’re a baby boomer. Or maybe if you’re from New Jersey. Maybe if you’re a long-time folkie. Maybe if you were a teacher or a student at Lincoln-Sudbury. Maybe if you’re Jewish.

Actually, I don’t think any of those make any difference one way or the other; Breaking Silence is simply an outstanding documentary, no matter who you are. Those of you who don’t know Janis Ian as a singer-songwriter will learn what you need to know, and those of us who already know her well from her music (even though not personally) will enjoy the historical retrospective, context, and musical clips.

BTW, anyone who taught with me at Lincoln-Sudbury or was a student there may wonder what the connection is with Janis Ian, as I alluded to in the first paragraph above. Nothing obvious comes to mind, does it? The obscure answer is that her erstwhile romantic partner Peter Cunningham was the son of my colleague, L-S math teacher Claire Cunningham. Six degrees of separation and all that — two degrees in this case. But now I hear you saying “How could her romantic partner be named Peter? I thought she was a lesbian!” Well, no — not exactly. What you mean is that she’s bisexual, so there’s no puzzle here. Glad we straightened that out, so to speak.

Here’s the link, if you didn’t notice it above:

https://www.pbs.org/video/janis-ian-breaking-silence-qhlbpl/

Categories: Life, Movies & (occasionally) TV