Box 1.

(The title of the strip is "Five Posts You Will Never See on Social Media.")

As of this week, I've officially started intensive work on my dissertation!

Ever since my proposal was accepted in January, I've been mainly doing very light research, and mostly just letting ideas marinate in my brain. But with my Japan visit coming up very soon (mid-August!) I thought that I should buckle down and get this done.

I'm actually on Day 4 of NBR (nothing but research), and perhaps 15% of the way through a first draft. Of course, that percentage is fairly arbitrary, because who knows how long this monster is going to take?! My goal is to have most of it done by the time I visit Satoh-san in Japan (again, just a rough draft!); that is, everything except the analyses of the two Japanese instrumental works, possibly. I haven't yet decided whether I'm MORE or LESS intimidated by this dissertation than a week ago. Either way, it's much more real!

Well, it's probably time to stop procrastinating and start writing. Wish me luck!

http://nyti.ms/1qROo1b

Thanks, Mr. Woolfe, for my second mention in the NY Times!

It's always interesting to read a review of a performance that one has attended. Woolfe did not seem to be very impressed by the music he heard, though he did take care to praise the NJE's "vision," "committed performances," and "one of the loveliest spaces in New York... even lovelier now that a tall spindly, witty Isa Genzken sculpture of a rose has been installed 'onstage.'"

I sometimes wonder how my participation in a performance affects my appreciation for the music. I did enjoy the program, finding that composers balanced new sounds and ideas with accessibility. I understand Woolfe's complaint about the works being "long-winded," though I don't 100% agree with him. I appreciated his compliment of the violin solo in Strindberg's "One Child" ("While [the finale] has a sinuous, swooping melody for violin (played by the excellent Alex Shiozaki)..."), though I wish he could have left off the final clause! ("...even there the work is long-winded.")

All in all, I suppose this is a review that I'm happy with. But my favorite part about the article? The title: "A Sound Tour of the World, Accompanied by Birds." Oh, the infamous birds of MoMA's Sculpture Garden.