Blogeur. Rhetorician. Writer. Cook. Long-distance driver. Ph.D. Candidate. Dissertator.
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I defended the dissertation this afternoon. It was an unexpectedly satisfying exercise, and I’m lucky to have worked with this particular committee. I'm not quite sure what else to say about the experience at the moment.
I can tell you, though, that grad school has been the most fun I ever had. I’ve never for a second regretted leaving industry.
Short-short by Miranda July and John C. Reilly.
I first blogged this in late 2004, but I’m going to violate my own rules about re-blogging because I want this right up front where I can see it as I finish the current bit of writing:
If any of my kids ever asked me “What do you do for a living, Dad?” the answer would have to be, “What I do is composition.” I just happen to use material other than notes for the pieces. Composition is a process of organization, very much like architecture. As long as you can conceptualize what that organizational process is, you can be a ‘composer’ in any medium you want.
You can be a ‘video composer,’ a ‘film composer,’ a ‘choreography composer,’ a ’social engineering composer’ — whatever. Just give me some stuff, and I’ll organize it for you. That’s what I do.
Project/Object is a term I have used to describe the overall concept of my work in various mediums. Each project (in whatever realm), or interview connected to it, is part of a larger object, for which there is no technical name.
Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa, 1990
Boy in the Bubble has become my dissertation theme song, for reasons that mostly only make sense inside my own head. It snuck up on me: there are versions by Simon, Patti Smith, and Steve Wynn in our iTunes. At first they randomly played, and then I set them to come around more often, and so here we are.
Does this sort of thing happen to you, this association of specific songs and documents?
When I look at photographers’ work, especially Friedlander and Frank, I wonder how they know where the edges of a photograph are. I mean cropping, yes, but something more than that. I myself generally have no idea at all.
There's a functional camera obscura parked in the middle of the Franconia Sculpture Park field. This is on the outside.
At the front gates of Franconia Sculpture Park, which is a nice afternoon trip from the Twin Cities.