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Resonant Thoughts: Jill Lepore’s “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State” (2026)
“farms of servers, clouds of data, AI ecosystems—the allusions are always to the natural world that the machinery is destroying” (5). “Within the Artificial State, nearly every element of public and democratic life—civil society, representative government, an informed citizenry, equality of rights, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and faith in elections—is vulnerable to subversion… Continue reading
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Composing Lessons: Traces
Georgia O’Keefe, Blue and Green Music (1919-1921) “Music evokes a sense of sightlessness or loss — a loss for which it is both lament and compensation.” Geoff Dyer, The Ongoing Moment (2005, p. 25) Music always contains traces—of its composers and performers, of its time-place-culture origins, of the instruments used to make it, of its… Continue reading
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Elements of Enough
Caravaggio, The Lute Player (1596) A reoccurring feeling I have when trying to make music is the sinking recognition that I don’t have enough at hand to make it. Enough of what, exactly? Aptitude or technique? A meaningful sound set? Inspiration? An audience? A style context in which the music could make sense and find… Continue reading
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Fragments
Photo Credit: Fragments from The Tithonus poem by Sappho (630-580 BC), about a singer who will lose her beauty as she ages but retain her musical abilities. • Quickly commit then slowly edit. I spend little time finding a sound, but a lot of time finessing it into a more interesting version of itself. Altering… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: George Newman’s “How Great Ideas Happen” (2026)
“From this point forward, Mondrian iterates endlessly on this same motif. During the second half of his career, his paintings have an almost obsessive quality as he narrows in and refines. It’s as if he is trying to understand the very limits of what this combination of elements can produce and unearth all that he… Continue reading
