Monthly Muse: 1/2024
Recapitulation, contemplation, provocation
Monthly Musings are published during the last week of every month. In each Monthly Muse, I recap content from the past month of Handful of Earth, offer some freewheeling reflections, and share a quote or passage that I’ve found especially thought-provoking.
Here’s the January 2024 Monthly Muse.
Recapitulation: Published this month on Handful of Earth
Contemplation
This month featured an archival project documenting and summarizing the essays, articles, reviews, and interviews published on Handful of Earth to date. I’m looking forward to building on this material in 2024 and already have content in the works that I’m excited to share with you in the coming months. After reading the Excavations, if there are any topics or themes that you’d like to see covered further at Handful of Earth, feel free to respond directly to this email and let me know!
I was also in Delhi, India for a good part of this month for a trip that culminated in a concert in the city. For those of you who are only familiar with my Substack, my involvement in India and in music may come as somewhat of a surprise since my writing here focuses primarily on the United States and only occasionally addresses musical themes. However, my PhD dissertation project is on a topic in music history and, though performance has taken a backseat to my research and writing activities in recent years, I continue to play in jazz and Indian music settings. Here are some photos from the recent concert in Delhi:
While I intend to keep Handful of Earth firmly grounded in the American context in which it was born and to which it continues to speak, if you are also interested in reading about India, let me know, and I’ll see about incorporating that into future content.
Provocation
“How are young people growing up going to learn about Charles Ives? How are they going to learn about Dinah Washington and her great work with Quincy Jones? The new generation of educators don't seem to know that information either. So, we watch the ascension of the great nation of China while, at the same time, our country is sinking because many of our young people are not being taught about what and who we really are as Americans.”
—Anthony Braxton, “Anthony Braxton On The Radiance of Standards, His Search for Charlie Parker & The Forces That Divide America”