Category: Personal

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This is an older article, but it was recently brought to my attention.

As L.S.S.I. Takes Over Libraries, Patrons Can’t Keep Quiet

Where does it end? Must every aspect of the commons be sliced up, sold off, and turned into a profit-making enterprise? (I suppose if Bain Capital SuperCuts Mitt Romney becomes President – *shudder* – that just might happen.)

Yes, I’m angry. My beloved Jawa Girl is getting her MLIS degree, and I shudder to think that her chosen field is being turned into Just Another Corporate Wasteland by the forces of privatization at L.S.S.I. and elsewhere. We’ve been fighting (and arguably losing) this battle in academia, and I don’t want libraries to fall victim to the scourge of Capitalism Über Alles as well.

WF

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(1) Compose a new anthem for a friend’s choir.

(2) Get back to walking one to three miles a day, every day.

(3) Successfully get to Minnesota and buy a house.

(4) Plan three great classes.

What about you?

WF

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Been a while since I’ve done one of these.

As regular visitors to this little popsicle stand know, I’ll be teaching at the University of Minnesota Morris starting this fall. I’m quite excited about it, and have already been planning my first semester there. I’m about to completely overhaul how and what I teach; it feels good and right.

In addition, I am told by future colleagues that there may be a few performance opportunities. Put simply, I think I may be on the verge of forming a new tuba-euphonium quartet. This makes me very happy, for as Berio (after Beckett) put it in the third movement of the Sinfonia for 8 voices and orchestra (a piece that I can finally start listening to again, only a year after finishing my dissertation), there’s “nothing more restful than chamber music.” I played in a quartet all through my undergraduate years as well as one year of my MM.

So here’s a question for any quartet players out there – what literature do you like? It has been over 15 years since I’ve regularly played, and I’m not up on the current rep.

WF

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As I’ve mentioned before, one of the nice things about moving is going through everything to determine what makes the trip. I’ve found a few things I had forgotten about, including a paper I wrote for my History of Theory class about the paradigmatic shift in instrumental instruction treatises in the 17th and 18th centuries.

If anyone wants to read it and offer comments, I have a .pdf of it. I think I might actually be able to expand it into a small article.

WF

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For those of you wondering why I am so vociferous in my support of Trayvon Martin…

Every day I teach, I work with young black men, most of whom are within three years of the age that Mr. Martin was when he was gunned down. Mr. Martin’s only crime was being black around someone who was a paranoid sociopath with anger management issues. That could have easily been one of my students. The attempts to smear Mr. Martin’s name by digging up a suspension (I have an immediate family member who was suspended once; if something bad happened to that person now, would it all be OK because he was suspended?) or tying him to an *empty* bag that had some marijuana residue in it is nothing short of victim-blaming. I am not asking that Mr. Zimmerman be convicted without due process; I am simply angry that, until this outcry, there was *no* due process for Mr. Martin. Again, *that could have been one of my students.*

So yeah, I’m angry about this. I am angry that a young unarmed man was killed. I am angry that, once again, our media and a good hunk of the right wing is happy to demonize said unarmed man for no other reason than a President they hate said something neutral-to-nice about him. I’m angry that normally decent people are quoting stuff that is sourced to Stormfront (a neo-Nazi website) about Mr. Martin being a “gangbanger” and “violent.” And I’m incredibly angry that people are engaging in deflection (“Al Sharpton! Duke lacrosse! New Black Panthers!”) instead of dealing with this incredible stain that is spreading fast. Look, kids – the New Black Panthers are three guys in Philly with a fax machine. People are only “scared” of them because Faux News tells them to be so. I’m pretty sure that the system *worked* in the Duke lacrosse case (and I’m not too awful worried about rich white kids landing on their feet – Mr. Martin will never be given a similar opportunity), and yes, Al Sharpton is a demagogue. Happy now?

WF

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I’ve been traveling a lot lately for job interviews. One of them panned out. I received an offer, accepted the offer, and received the contract today. I will be signing it and returning it on Monday (there are a couple other pieces of documentation they need, and those are at the office).

Starting in August, I will be Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the University of Minnesota, Morris. As you might expect, Amanda and I are very excited about this, especially since I don’t have to spend two hours of every day looking for and applying for jobs. I won’t bore you with the details of the contract (and it’s none of your business anyway), but suffice it to say this will be an improvement over my current situation in every way.

Thank you to everyone for the good wishes over the past few months. This position offers many wonderful opportunities, and I am fortunate to have wonderful new colleagues. If you ever find yourself in west central Minnesota after August, let me know!

WF