I hope this finds you well.
PODCAST. I have launched a podcast, which has required learning a lot about (scratching the surface of) sound editing. The first episode is called Points of Departure. A reading from an unpublished book, on the (in)stability of memory, the self, family, art & so politics, and the need to carry on nonetheless. Maybe my best work. Enjoy.
A thousand thanks to Vince Parlato, who wrote original music, and helped mightily with the sound editing.. I understand that there is a logic behind the composition — that is, I don’t really understand — but I am encouraging Vince to share in due course.
PHOTOGRAPHY. I have just finished a new photo essay, Pictures Without Subjects. Has been a bit demanding. At least for now, this essay is part of a larger project, “Nothing As It Was,” about the time before Covid and after the GFC, and some things that might have meant for thought.
Also, the NGO Honoring the Future has republished a selection of my images on social media. You can see the entire photo esssay from which the latest were drawn: Three Days (Existentialism 2.0).
ARTICLE. From the Ivory Tower to the Strategic Retreat is the draft of a long goodbye to a certain ideal of the university, an ideal that I found (fatally?) attractive as a young man, but find myself abandoning, even as ideal, much less practice. A bit dense, definitely black diamond. I’m not sure it is 100% finished . . . but at some point we move on.
***
I am hoping to do some audiobooks, and more conventional podcasts. A number of very smart friends are being supportive, so I’ll probably take advantage of their generosity.
Projected (desired?) photo essays are stacked up like planes awaiting landing clearance.
I’m also working on some theoretical issues in political economy, anthropology and law, but I’m not sure how broadly interesting such efforts may be.
On work: with a suddenly if never entirely empty nest, everyone healthy enough, and a respite from teaching, I am finding myself under intense pressure to produce. What will be produced, however, is . . . well, we shall come to know.
Cheers/stay safe,
DAW