Franklin writeup posted

Franklin (almost a year past) was the first of what will eventually be 13 Canadian border town concerts. As I relate in the writeup, it was once the staging area for an invasion of Canada by Irish Republican American Civil War veterans. It is thus implausibly timely for our present insane historical moment, which is the reason I bumped it to the front of the queue as I deal with the backlog of 40 or so undocumented performances. That, and so I could have it up in time for St. Patrick's Day tomorrow.

As with Williston, I got maybe carried away with the interesting context. But this is what makes the writeups fun for me. I approach them as artistic creations just as much as the programs. Maybe more so: they are like compositions, and as people sometimes say about art, a way of making experience make sense. 

And they give the project a sense of solidity and completeness. Also I have a sieve-like memory, and without the writeups, past concerts would quickly dissolve into a hallucinatory vagueness.

complete comic by Kate Beaton here

Williston write-up posted

Here. I got maybe a bit carried away with some of the town context. But it’s a big part of what’s fun to me about the writeups and about the shape of the project as a whole. Of course, for most of the towns I know very little to start with, and not that much more even after reading and visiting. Because we lived in Williston for 5 years, and because Williston looms large in the contentious debate over development in Vermont, I had more to share.

It’s been a long time since my last writeup. Almost 6 months. I’m now about 40 behind—more than half of the 77 completed concerts, with the oldest undocumented concert almost 2 years old now. 

But my crack webmaster, UVM CS major Lindsay Hall, has designed an improved concert writeup template that allows for more flexible and easier-to-compose layout. And with each video clip I’m getting a little more fluent with Final Cut, my editing software. Clearly I need to examine how much background and detail I put into each writeup, but I’m optimistic these developments will help me get through the backlog in a few months.

It’s also been a long time since my last blog post—about 4 months. I have a lot to say, but recent events make me feel different about what’s worth saying. Also just other, non-earth-shaking life stuff has kept me extra busy. Still, a bunch of my thoughts do want to get said, so that will happen eventually.