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EDWARD JACOBS

Author: Ed Jacobs

  • 15 December, 2024

    Jackson and Nate (driver) in Thailand!

    I am in awe of Joe and Cristin’s passion for traveling, and for their dedication to assuring that their boys (5+ and 3+) get accustomed to seeing new things, places, and people. They landed in Bangkok Saturday morning, and this pic from their first day there. They report that the boys were great on the long trip–and that Qatar Airways is the best. After a few days in Bangkok, they’ll head north to Chang Mai for about 10 days. What a great way to enjoy the holidays.

    They’ve moved recently, to boot, so this is a very busy few months for them. New schools for the boys, which are going well; a promotion for Joe at work; and the new house seems to offer a great neighborhood, and the best schools around. All good news.

    We are enjoying some relaxing down time here in Raleigh. After travel to NY (helping on the move), then to Tennessee to help Tim as his house nears finishing, we’re in one place for a few weeks before our next trip. Looking forward to sampling the diving in St. Croix in January!

  • 11 December, 2024

    A titan lost: Nikki Giovanni

  • 1 December, 2024

    I’m slow to record these impressions, having been back from Fayetteville, AR for nearly a week now. Perhaps it’s easiest to share the letter I wrote to Chris Knighten, Director of Bands at UA:

    Dear Chris,

       Today’s been a day of getting everything together for moving up to Tim’s place in Tennessee.  From the attic to the third floor to the basement, I’ve put in lots of stairs today.  Thank goodness Pattie was ready for a break, because my hamstrings and quads are about to go out on strike.  Yesterday morning, I started to respond to your text with a text, but my reply got too long.  So email it is, and finally I have time to sit and write something.

       The past week with you, Jann, your colleagues, and your students has been extraordinary.  It was really 4+ days, I know, but it was so packed with superb moments that it felt like a week’s living.  I’ve been searching my vocabulary for an appropriate adjective, but I can only characterize it as extraordinary.  

       In the days leading up to such a trip, I never know what will happen musically.  Once a piece is done, what it becomes is in the hands of its performers, its temporary advocates.  So I’ve learned to temper musical expectations; rather, I look forward to the interaction and exchange with performers more than musical results.

       Before we left Raleigh, even as I anticipated meeting your ensemble and talking about music and music-making, the reason I was so looking forward to this trip was because we would get to spend time and relax with you and Jann.  Reconnecting with you was the treat I was genuinely excited about.  And, indeed, it was just so nice and comfortable to spend time together.  As you’ve said, a dear friendship of more than two decades is rich with memories and many accumulated bits of shared wisdom grown from lots of experience.  If feels like the greatest gift of growing older is enjoying the maturing of friendships, learning from friends’ experiences as much as one’s own.

       And then we headed to Friday’s rehearsal.  As you spoke about the ways in which you’d approached this music, it became very clear that you knew the music, and your ensemble, to a degree I’ve rarely experienced in an ensemble director.  By the time of the rehearsal, I was more than impressed, yet again, with not only your musicality, musicianship, and leadership, but the maturity of your wonderful ensemble’s roster.  I know they aren’t all music majors, but they all make music with a significant depth of seriousness of intent and engagement with the music before them.  And that is developed and nurtured from the leader; and it’s just so evident what an effective and respected leader you are, both personally and musically, to everyone around you.

      This trip was a stunner all around, a trip to remember for both Pattie and me.  Spending this time together has been magical for me, but equally so for Pattie.  She enjoyed exploring the area, but even more so loved getting to know Jann.  Bonus treats for us were getting acquainted with Sara, Ashley, Chase, Carla, Chris, Cy, Andrew; chatting with students; sitting around the fire and feeling so totally relaxed.  And an enormous extra was the strongest performance I’ve yet heard of Prismata.

       I mentioned that I’ve not taken pencil to paper since May.  That’s largely because we’ve been so busy travelling, but I’ll admit that I’ve been ok taking a breather; the breather from daily expectations of myself.  Yet when you raised the idea of a future project, a future collaboration, ideas began jumping to mind steadily.  Ideas musical, dramatic, spacial, as well as harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic.  I don’t know yet if they’ll continue to blossom, but I’m welcoming their presence in my head, as I don’t have expectations, just curiosity.  When we return from Tennessee, we’ve got almost a month before leaving town on January 7, and I hope to begin exploring that curiosity to see where it leads.

       Thank you, Chris, more than I can express, for all of these past days, and all that’s led to these past days.  The friendship and musical collaborations have been fabulous nourishment for a long time, and I look forward to the years ahead.

  • 22 November, 2024

    In Fayetteville, Arkansas for a performance, and Pattie and I had a fabulous evening with Chris and Jann Knighten last night. So wonderful to see friends and to catch up!

    Am looking forward to meeting lots of staff and students here over the coming days. A rehearsal of Prismata this afternoon will be nice, I’m sure. Pattie will do some exploring on her own, then we’ll connect for a tour of the campus before an evening dinner again.

    https://news.uark.edu/articles/72919/u-of-a-bands-to-hold-final-concert-of-fall-semester-nov-25

  • 20 November, 2024

    Just received a wonderful suprise gift in the mail from a former student. The book, Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C. Clarke) came with a lovely note, but I can’t make out the signature! So I can’t send a thank you, as much as I’d like to. If you happened to have sent this my way, please send me an email so that I can thank you!

    Pattie and I are very excited to head out to the University of Arkansas tomorrow, for a performance with Chris Knighten’s Wind Ensemble there. We are both looking forward to exploring the area, to seeing Chris and Jann; and I am particularly looking forward to meeting students, colleagues, and staff there!

    Onward to a Razorback football game, too!

  • 18 November, 2024

    It’s been a busy week that’s helped me focus on important matters close to home.

    Pattie was down with strep throat for almost a week, now well on the mend. But b/c she wasn’t well, I made the trip up to NY alone to help Joe, Cristin, and the boys move into their new home. So it was a week of working to address immediate issues.

    It is so very helpful to live in the moment for a while. Taking care of problems that are right in front of your face–getting Pattie’s medicine, packing a box or moving a light fixture. Making an effort and actually seeing the positive result, rather than focusing on problems of a grand nature, has improved my mood greatly.

    The next day or two will be about preparing/packing for our trip to UArkansas. A performance of Prismata on Monday night will be a highlight of a trip including a few rehearsals and perhaps some time with student composers. But as much as anything, we’re really looking forward to seeing Chris and Jann again, as it’s been too long!

  • 11 November, 2024

    Veteran’s Day.

    I haven’t slept more than four continuous hours since a week ago now. Up between 2-3am, then fall asleep again for an hour at ~6:30.

    Still trying to process, though unsuccessfully.

  • 9 November, 2024

    My response to yesterday’s email:

    I appreciate these words, and the better part of me maintains a belief in human nature.  The last thing I would ever want to do is pull further on these dark threads, only to reveal an abyss beneath. [now, having completed this email, I apologize for doing just that, though.]

    I think we all/each make choices about whom to surround ourselves with, and in those choices we promote the values we want to see and live in our society.  We create our own little society in the choices of relationships, I think.  For whatever reason, I learned and hold dear liberal, broad-minded values; and choose our self-built societies accordingly.  I am proud of the little world I have built around me, or found myself in.  

    But, of course, I know that this my world is one of my building and choosing.  The solace I held in knowing that it was the electoral college’s flaws (flaws in the system), rather than the popular vote count—i.e., Bush, Trump, etc.—was at least a little comfort.  This election makes clear to me that the flaw is more than in the system, it’s the majority’s will.  By a significant margin, we are the minority in what will be an increasingly unchecked administration that needn’t conceal its corruption or self-serving motivations.  I can’t even allow the concession that people are actually doing what they think is right for the country, and I just disagree; the motivations are so obviously about Us vs. Them; about padding “our” pockets; about pulling back from the world’s politics.  The US has zero influence in making the world a better place, as we are no better than Germany in the early 30s, or Putin, Xi, or Orban now.  

    I too believe in the long arc of history, but with people like Musk at the helm along with Steven Miller, Bannon, let alone Tucker Carlson, and those who preceded him—while the country discounts the words of those who have served in the room with Trump—I’m afraid the long arc will weather some very treacherous waters before finding land.  And I’m quite certain I will not see things improve in my lifetime.  The Supreme Court will surely move even further right, which will mean horrid things for our kids’ generation as they reach our current ages.  Truly, no one lives life without confronting injustice and evil, but what, exactly, represents those injustices and evils seems to really a matter of perspective.  The very relativist world that conservative thinking abhors has become the justification for identifying injustice and evil among those in the center and left.  There will be no signing ethics agreements required by the government for transition, because those are unjust; the Jan 6 convicts will be let go, because evil forces conspired against them; and on, ad nauseum.  And there will be no ethics on the Supreme Court, and most certainly ethics disappeared from the House and Senate years ago, if ever present at all.

    I will continue to make the same choices about my circle of associations and relationships, even as I’m increasingly aware that in so choosing I am becoming ever more “isolationist” myself.  I will continue to speak out on issues that matter to me, even as I’m increasingly aware that I’m only making noise in an echo chamber.

    We are a minority.  The country, and perhaps the world at large, simply doesn’t share our perspective of what is of value in life.  It seems that our human nature simply isn’t shared.  But we will continue, even if as a minority.

    Well, I’m afraid I’ve revealed the abyss I’m feeling when I pull the threads.  But—and I’m not at all kidding here—I know that descending brings me joys, too, like playing around with sea lions, and making friends with octopuses.

  • 8 November, 2024

    I shared yesterday’s post with a few people in my life with whom I share many perspectives, and for whom I have enormous respect both intellectually and personally. One provided the response below:

    “Dear Eddie,
    Cannot have that dark dark piece be the last word, as true as it appears right now. Musings:
    I believe that character, kindness and decency matter.  
    I certainly feel betrayed by my countryfolk.
    My friend, (an African-American man), who knows a thing or two about loving a country that has often betrayed him, tells me this country has always fought for every small step  and that he swears things are better now than when he finished college in 1968.

    Etty Hillesum knew a great deal about the evil in the world and she wrote:
    “Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others.” 

    I have come to the conclusion that the western idea of progress is not true.  We believe in the “long arc of justice” that twists and turn but goes forward. The Eastern and Hindu idea is very different: that there is an unending cycle of creation-maintenance-destruction-creation-maintenance-destruction………….. Our lives and the seasons mirror that idea and it’s the one that history demonstrates.

    Not sure there’s solace here, maybe just another viewpoint.”

  • 7 November, 2024

    Another day of feeling stunned. Just not processing well. A friend sent me this, which I find frighteningly on point:

    “A friend sent this. It is from Christopher Robichaud, Senior Lecturer at the Harvard School of Government. I don’t know where she found it. 

    I’ll say this, and then I likely won’t be saying much more on here for quite some time, to the relief of some, I’m sure. But my farewell warning is this.

    Everyone in the days and weeks ahead will use this loss as an opportunity to seek validation for their own hobby horse complaint. Harris lost because she campaigned with Liz Cheney. Harris lost because she didn’t embrace Gaza. Harris lost because she didn’t choose Shapiro. Harris lost because she wasn’t progressive enough (possibly my favorite one).

    Take a good hard look at the map, my friends. Trump has won the popular vote. Trump ran the table. Explaining that with your hobby horse issue isn’t going to cut it, tempting and consoling as it may be.

    The problem isn’t the electoral college. The problem isn’t that we didn’t have a full primary. The problem isn’t Harris. The problem isn’t that Dems didn’t have the right message. The problem isn’t even inflation or the border.

    The problem is so much worse than any of those things. Those are all technical problems, with straightforward expertise fixes. If only it were so! No, our problem is not technical. It’s very much adaptive. A party that embraced the Big Lie, supported an insurrection, and has been selling conspiracy-addled madness for years was widely and enthusiastically embraced. Voter turnout was profound! People didn’t sit this out. 

    Simply put, the problem–as some of you have rightly posted–is cultural. America, culturally, has completely abandoned a politics of decency and respect and has embraced instead a politics of resentment, revenge, false nostalgia, and bullying. And if you look at the demographics, you also won’t be able to comfort yourself that it’s just a white thing, or a working class thing, or an education thing. It’s multi-class, multi-gender, multi-educational and multi-racial. That’s what winning the popular vote means. That’s what running the table amounts to.

    A culture that has descended to this level of debasement is not easily fixed. In fact it may not ever be fixed. The timeline for changing something like this is decades–at best–not two-to-four year election cycles. You can extend that in this case, because with the GOP likely controlling all branches of federal government and the courts, they will ensure that mechanisms are in place to keep them in power long after their popularity has waned. You can count on that.

    The GOP evolved into a party of rage, lies, and revenge–and it correctly diagnosed that there was and is a large appetite for that. That’s what the country wants. At least, enough of the country wants it to ensure broad appeal and widespread electoral success. The old GOP will never return, and the Dems have nothing to say to American culture at the moment. Nothing. They’ve been speaking to a country that’s gone, like dust in the wind.

    And that’s my final thought, which my posts last night alluded to. The America I knew and loved is gone. This new America–nah, I won’t even bother. I will say that cultural change is less likely to occur in politics, or in the academy. You’re not going to get people to see how vulgar they’ve become through a clever argument or a nice campaign speech, that’s for sure. 

    This would be time for the arts, broadly understood, to step in. The arts can change hearts and minds. Too bad the arts have been systematically dismantled in education in this country, and on the other end, the tech industry’s assault on the arts through AI is sure to hollow out any good-faith efforts that might emerge.

    And for the rest of the world, America’s rightward lurch is, I’m afraid, bad news for you too. I know you know this. Because it’s not isolated, is it? It’s just at the moment the most prominent example of a burgeoning trend. And this will embolden others in other countries, to be sure. We need not speculate what happens when countries become mired in lies, embrace resentment, and savor bullying. We know exactly what happens. Bloody conflict and global destabilization. 

    The first quarter of the 21st century will therefore in hindsight be viewed as the seed-planting stage for the absolute shit show that’s about to unfold globally over the next two and a half decades. Count on it.

    Adopt whatever coping and endurance strategies you have available. You’re going to need it. 

    I think that’s all I’ve left to say.”