Cry
A novel approach to Cancer season
Dear Friends,
I have been recovering! I have been taking time, slow to respond, and not doing much. I have been playing the Final Fantasy VII remake and reading sporadically, sleeping whenever and wondering what it all means. This time last year I did not know anything about what Boston was like or would entail, a whole world that had yet to open up to me. This time last year I was flying high on scholarly momentum, where now I am confused and aimless. I left all the books I wanted to read in Boston, but St. Louis has treasures of its own, either those occurring naturally or that I tucked away for myself to return to.
At the cusp of Cancer season, I’m thinking about the Four of Cups. All fours are cards of rest and recovery, but the cups suit in particular raises that therapy word: integration. It invites us to take the time we need to process whatever it is that’s happening to us. There will be time yet, for that fourth cup; it will not go anywhere. In the meantime, rushing on ahead will only land us somewhere we feel unprepared to be. Yuck!
Updates/Gratitude/Attention
Some great pals got married this month, and I was honored to officiate. I’d never done it before and managed to keep most of my crying for the parts where I wasn’t addressing rows of happy attendees. I bought a summer suit because St. Louis is like New Orleans. It was a gorgeous occasion in every way.
A new and wonderful review of Big Feelings has been published in the journal Popular Music History. I’m very grateful to Shayna Maskell, who seemed to receive the book in exactly the way that I hoped readers would. That’s far from guaranteed, and even if it happens, readers will inevitably respond in different ways. Beyond personal reactions, it can also be really difficult to get a scholarly book in a peer-reviewed journal in the first place—even as such reviews have been traditionally important factors in building tenure cases. There’s just so much good work out there, and so few of us with the kind of jobs stable enough to allow for this volunteer labor. So to have a review at all—let alone one this positive—feels really special.
Last month I attended my second Feminist Theory and Music Conference, which I do recommend checking out. It’s particularly welcoming to (and composed of) grad students, a great venue for trying out weird papers, new directions, and tentative experiments.
Relatedly, if you got anything out of my earlier ramblings related to nonfiction publishing, you may enjoy my latest for the Cleveland Review of Books, where I once again take up Sarah Mesle’s Reasons and Feelings but this time in conversation with Alia Hanna Habib’s Take it From Me.
As the outside world continues its headlong torquing, I am so very grateful to be indulging in the simplicity of a domestic routine with Hannah, so very like and so very unlike the rhythm of my independent living. What I’m saying is it’s good to be home.
Finally, one other piece I want to share is this short reflection in the latest issue of Talk Vomit. I wrote this because I wanted to think about Joan Osborne’s nose ring, and while I accomplished that goal, the essay also took on a bit of its own life. If the crush book ever gets off the ground, I want this to be the preface. I think it’s my best piece of writing-writing. I’d really love for you to read it.
cry hard/happy solstice/talksoon
What a great review. You're right that responses to one's work like this one are rare and to be treasured. I also very much like the questions posed at the end and the way that the critiques of your book are posed more as ways to expand upon what you have brought to the table. What would an analysis of music business practices look like or read like if it centered its analyses around what it felt like to decide to cut musicians out of the cycle of revenue?
Yes, also, to the Talk Vomit piece. And its polish. It's very clear. It shines.