RUINS adds a "give me money" option and births some sort of child; or, notes on my summer projects
Hail, friends! As always, it’s a privilege to write to you in this fashion, a privilege for which I’m immensely thankful. As a small recompense to my army of loyal followers—and since I have nothing written at the moment that’s worth publishing—I thought I’d give you some updates on my current projects.
I have about eight essays in various stages of completion. Some just need to be proofread; some only exist as outlines. Most are sections of a multi-part essay on the limits of artistic interpretation. A few partial drafts are part of the six-part examination of the three Great Virtues of 1 Corinthians 13 and the Transcendentals that I mentioned a few months ago; if I ever get those finished I will put them into a new issue of the RUINS print magazine. I have a nearly-complete review of Jonathan Anderson’s book on religion in contemporary art. I have a mostly-complete essay on Giacometti that I’ll have to put on hold because my local library deaccessioned the books I was using for research! I have a messy draft of some sort of attack on Georges Rouault which has big problems and needs to be rewritten, and a detailed outline of something about Grant Wood and localism which I’m hoping to get finished very soon. And—
—my day job office currently includes a whiteboard with this monstrous prewriting about Gustav Mahler’s eighth symphony. This is what is causing all those other drafts to be neglected; I’m very excited abut this project but I know it will take me a long time to finish. As I ponder it, I think the best thing would be for me to publish my research notes as I write them. So: say hello to the first RUINS side quest! I see this as akin to the King Crimson “ProjeKcts” or the breakout sessions that commonly happen at conferences.
It’s probably rather pretentious of me to think that anyone would care to read my research notes, but whatever. If you want to join me you can subscribe using the link above; if not, don’t worry. The Mahler stuff will remain safely segregated and will not pollute the rest of the RUINS ecosystem.
Although I intend to publish whatever finished essay or book these notes eventually become, for now they’re going to be very raw and unpolished. For precedent, I look to Johannes Kepler, who spent several years trying to exactly describe the orbit of Mars. He published his researches in a book called The New Astronomy, in which he basically redefines the structure of the solar system. Despite its great import, his account is presented rather humbly; it’s just a long first-person account of the progress of his studies. From what I’ve heard, it seems Kepler’s book bears a lot in common with those YouTubers who release hours-long play-by-play chronicles of their progress in whatever hobby or endeavor they are involved in.
So: here is the first post at Thinking about Mahler, introducing the project and detailing its scope and methods; and here’s a link to the signup page if you want to come along. This project will probably take me all summer—maybe longer if I have to save up for my own books and music scores. If you want to hurry the process the signup page includes a link to a paid subscription tier: I can assure you that you won’t get much of value out of a paid subscription other than the satisfaction of knowing you are giving financial assistance to an independent scholar. To the same end, you can now take out a paid subscription to RUINS via the link below. I’ll probably use the RUINS subscription money to fund a trip down to Precious Moments chapel (Matthew J. Milliner’s recent account of his trip there gives me a great desire to see it for myself) and to buy some important research materials discussing Grant Wood and Alberto Giacometti since I can’t count on my local library keeping their book collection intact.