Monday, September 28, 2009

Sufjan in Champaign

Sufjan Stevens @ the Highdive from Justine B. on Vimeo.


It was for freedom from myself and from the land...

Saturday, September 26, 2009

New semester, new anxieties

Ah, Starmaster and your guide. How I neglect thee.

It's been a busy month since I started back up with school. Too much of that is too boring to mention here other than to say, I'm back--pendulum-wise--to feeling overwhelmed again. Starting my third year, it seems as though I should know more, be more engaged, doing more scholarly things: but I usually feel just as green as ever.

I'm making steps, however, to fight to become more mature in the field. I've started a new blog called Sonic Rhetorics. It will be an semi-academic space set up to get me thinking more seriously about my interests in the field. I've already done what I can to make it public with academics who have similar interests as me (via twitter)--and doing so requires that the writing and ideas expressed there need to adhere to a certain level of quality. It's a risky move, though. Putting myself out there outside of the carefully structured and gate-kept avenues of the "typical" academic avenues of conference talks and published journal articles can, in some respects, be akin to letting the whole professional community look have a look in your messy room. So, it takes me like three days to compose a blog-post (not the best use of my time, considering everything else required I should be doing).

But, I think it's a good exercise. My current plan is to go less public (no more public announcements via twitter #), but to still try to write like I AM being watched carefully. Also, it might be a good idea to start thinking about which conferences I'd like to submit to this year and also which journals and presses I should start reading more intently.

In other news, it's been an amazing end-of-the-summer/beginning of Fall music season. Still on the bill: Tonight I get to see Sufjan Stevens after emailing the venue every week since the tickets sold out in 5 minutes the night I was in Logan at our Family Reunion. In October: Avett Brothers, Blitzen Trapper, and WILCO!