"The Office" (Workstation series) 43 (archive-mole edition)

Close to ground zero for the minstrelsy project. Just up the road is the museum which holds the vast majority of my antebellum painter's works, drafts, and papers. I've got 10 days clear to work through that material, find out what's there, and plan for the detailed and specific reading in November. Hotel is boring, the highway is deadening, but the wireless is free (damned good thing: daily rate is outrageous).

Good meeting today with a friend who's executive music editor at a major textbook publisher. Disappointing news, but no surprise, about the market for musical memoirs (we're talking, like, typical sales of 1,000-2,000--shit, I've sold more than that just to guitar players).

BUT, major though very hush-hush news about a new project that suddenly hove over the horizon. Can't talk about it right now, but it might shape my academic writing for the next several years (beyond the ways in which the minstrelsy project and the "100 Greats" memoir already is). We'll see how it pans out.

Tomorrow, photos from minstrelsy Ground Zero.