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...In the Crystal Bridges hall that night, the rich sipped a vodka-and-lemon drink called the Beena — a mash-up of Bentonville and Geena — and ignored the bowls of bulk-bought pretzels and Chex Mix. William H. Macy, Judy Greer, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Miss America mingled. Onstage, Jewel sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," a capella....At the after-party, Jewel took the stage again, this time with her guitar. She told a room of merchants that she used to shoplift. As a homeless teen, she started with carrots ("a gateway food") and escalated to a sundress. When she caught a glimpse of herself, dirty and desperate, in the dressing room mirror, she put it back. "I realized I'd become a statistic," she said. By the time she was 21, she'd gone platinum. Now she was in Bentonville to promote her self-help website, Never Broken, and, as she’d mention later during the panel "In Control of Her Own Destiny,” gauge interest in a kids' TV series about mindfulness.Between songs, Jewel flattered the Walmart employees ("How do you handle transportation? What does that mean?") and the company itself ("Walmart speaks with humility about doing better") while chipping away at conservative capitalism. She talked about the time her call-center boss fired her for refusing a date, about her immigrant grandparents, about when she nearly died for lack of health insurance. Her acoustic set was totally punk rock. Jewel talked more than she played, and when loudmouths talked over her, she'd stop strumming until they shrank into silence. Pop's biggest hippie had cowed the corporate world into buying her every word.
What would this even be?
