"The Office" (workstation series) 111 (back in the saddle edition)

Blogging light this weekend. But for the sake of both the blog and my own concentration, a status report on "Office" (e.g., professional musicology) chores:

Draft of book chapter on Afro-Celtic interaction for The Irish in the South collection: submitted;

Third chapter of rock-history text drafted--but I'm holding off on submitting, as this particular editor never seems to get it together to request the next installment until the night before he absolutely has to have it. I'm happier if I'm a draft ahead of his requests, so as I complete each one, I hold onto it until requested, and as soon as I send it, I start on the next one, which I'll likewise delay until requested. Makes for a much less stressful life.

Haven't done near as much work since August on the minstrelsy project, with the very significant exception of the work for the "Irish" chapter above. That "chapter" wound up being about twice as long (around 8700 words), and it became pretty evident pretty early in the composition process that, as is typical for me, I was going to wind up writing the "whole-picture" story; e.g., the historical/cultural/economic factors that shaped Afro-Celtic musical interaction across the continent, not just in the South and over the entire time-span between the Revolution and the Civil War, not just the 1830s-50s. As I say, this is typical for me--I have a hard time understanding how I want to cut or specify certain aspects of a historical/analytical narrative until I have the whole narrative laid out before me. It's kind of like wanting to make the whole batch of sausage before I go slicing individual links.

In this case, that works out, because, by framing the big picture first, I can then slice out that portion of the narrative that pertains specifically to the topic of the Irish in the South, while retaining the full document. And, with comparatively straightforward and self-evidence adaptation, that becomes Chapter Three of the minstrelsy book.

So I guess maybe I have been getting some book-stuff done.

Excellent pub session last night, part of the Fall Fest. First of the Celtic Ensemble concerts drops tonight.
----------------
Now playing: La Musgaña - Lubicán
via FoxyTunes