It’s August Already!?

Posted byajkluthPosted inUncategorized

(Where have I been?)

I’m quickly realizing I only have a few weeks before being swallowed again by the academic semester. It’s been a blur of a summer and there’s still so much to do. As an exercise in memory and self-narration—and an explanation for not getting to all the things?—I’ll try to remember some of what I’ve been getting into since the end of last spring semester.*

This last academic year was the densest I’ve yet encountered. I was teaching three courses which included doing my best to advise twelve ambitious undergraduate capstone projects. Courses met twice a week but advising also included extensive Zoom meetings and draft reading/responses. This, while also serving as advisor for fifteen first-year students – helping with their academic planning and navigating the university. OOF. Alongside that role, I continued to grow a strand of ongoing research and presented a paper at the SAM conference in early March. My colleagues are awesome and I received SO MUCH useful feedback. Back at CWRU, since November I’d been planning some inter-departmental programs and a collaborative concert to take place at the Cleveland Museum of Art with some world-class artists. While my department was entirely onboard and supportive in spirit as much as with funding, I had been handling all the fund-raising and organization between seven donor entities. That event finally came together as a sold-out performance on March 24. It was hugely fulfilling and taught me so much about event organization, institutional structures, and – of course – collaborative music making and struggles for race and class justice. Now able to sit in the afterglow of this project for too long, I was flown out to Massachusetts for a campus visit at a school there just three days later. Another one of these in Connecticut would surprise me in mid-April. These require A LOT of quick preparation of a research presentation, a class lecture, and a multitude of meetings/interviews. Neither of these jobs would pan out, though this wouldn’t be confirmed for months, holding me “hostage” until mid-summer, unsure if I’d be relocating or sticking around Cleveland. While the semester was finishing up, I accepted some work as a pit musician in the All-City production of In the Heights at Playhouse Square, which helped me dust off my flute a bit, among other things. Just a few days, I started on a three-week run playing with the original Broadway touring production of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, also at Playhouse Square. The semester ended just as Tina was beginning and I was happy for the additional work as it seemed to me that I could use the income as soon I was either moving to the East Coast for a new TT job or buying a house in the Cleveland—the latter turned out to be the case.

The early summer brought wedding season with it and, as mixed as I sometimes feel about this kind of work, I’m pleased to have the opportunity for additional income to help paying off my school loans while playing music with friends. I’m grateful for my position at CWRU for so many reasons, but my salary there certainly doesn’t allow me much room to save or pay down the school debt accrued to be eligible for such a position. Taking on this extra work throughout the year – but especially in summers – is a crucial supplement to my income. It’s still going to be some years to pay that off, but this helps immensely – though the commitment of time for rehearsals/performances challenges my social life as much as my focus on research or original music projects. A respite from this took the form of two short tours (seven shows) in the first half of June with Me:You that brought me first to the Quad-Cities and Chicago areas for a few days, and then out East for a week. Mostly back in Cleveland since then (apart from another trip to Chicago to catch Hermeto Pascoal and short vacation in Rhode Island), it’s been weddings and miscellaneous gigs every weekend with a smattering of big band dates. At the time of this writing, it’s been sixteen weddings this season so far (at least eight more on the horizon), nine big band gigs, and various public small-group dates in different contexts – thirty-nine played by the time of this writing, not including about twenty-five musical theater performances. I’m so lucky to play so many kinds of music with so many people in the Cleveland area – my old tenor is getting a lot of work these last months.

In the cracks of that work, I’ve been reading A LOT of recent musicological literature as a member of the SAM ’24 Conference planning committee and as an award committee member for an AMS Study Group “best essay” award. These have been so. inspiring. and reminded me how many brilliant folks are doing great work in this discourse. Also, I served as an instructor for the Roberto Ocasio Latin Jazz Camp for a week in the first half of July and more recently was a seminarian for the Anisfield-Wolf book awards (discussing Chang’s The Family Chao (2023)) in early August.

What more, my partner, Nori, and I decided in June that I wasn’t getting these TT gigs on the East Coast (despite not yet hearing the official word confirming this until late July) and that we needed to get our living situation together. We started looking for houses, I got a loan pre-approval, we contracted our friend as a realtor (thanks, John!), and we started looking for houses. After not too many trips out, we found a great spot in Euclid that surprised us and made an offer. We moved out of Ohio City and into Euclid at the end of July.

So, now: in the next two weeks before the new academic year officially begins, I’m hoping to finish up a book proposal that’s been languishing among all this as well as finish up a syllabus for a new class. It’s been helpful to organize all this and see just what I’ve meant when I apologetically tell folks I’ve been “busy.” Is it always like this? Will it even out this year? Despite having just bought a house in the Cleveland area, the job market is starting up already. I love my department at CWRU and the community in Cleveland I’ve been finding these last four years. However, I’m still optimistically looking out for a tenure-track position that’ll allow me the security from which to do even more good in my community and discourse. In any case, I don’t expect things to slow down any time soon. All positions are precarious, all matters radically contingent. I’m lucky to be here. Let’s keep going.

A few favorite books read this summer :

A few favorite podcasts keeping me company:

  • Horror Vanguard – seriously nerdy leftist podcast analyzing horror films as cultural text
  • Weird Studies – Phil Ford and J.F. Martel bringing the weird – casting a wide net, to be sure.
  • What’s Left of Philosophy – a group of young philosophy/theory folks discussing relevant stuff with a leftist slant

*This recounting is in now way trying to be a “busy brag” or a complaint. I’m grateful to have so many irons in the fire and to be part of so many people’s projects. Much love to all my family, friends, fellow musicians, colleagues, and comrades for the support, challenges, and hugs!

Leave a comment