First, let me offer praise to the ancestors who are here in the very ground I stand on these days. Aren’t they always? This time, I mean it literally: Harriett Jacobs is buried just blocks away from where I live right now.
I stopped by to pay my respects; I left some lavender on her grave. Her family plot includes her daughter, Louisa, and her brother, John. One of the first facts that Jacobs relates in her narrative is that she didn’t know she was enslaved when she was a young child; it’s fitting, to me, that before the end of her life, she knew she was free.
“Patient in tribulation, fervent in spirit in serving the Lord”
There will be more. Now. What’s in the cards for this season? Fall, that is. It’s always the start of big things, to me, because I’ve been on the academic calendar for most of my life. It occurs to me that this was the shortest summer I’ve had in a long time–it began in the Spring quarter, in June, and it’s ending earlier than usual, in line with Labor Day and the beginning of a semester!
Most of my work this year, on Audiofuturism, will be taking place here: on Harvard’s campus, at the Radcliffe Institute.
There will be a gallery exhibition September 13 showcasing some of the extraordinary work of my colleagues. I’m including a soundscape, along with some of the print materials I’m drawing on for the project.
Before the work really gets underway, I have had the good fortune to catch up with friends and colleagues and to hang out with a few locals whom I feel really fortunate to spend time with while I’m here. And yes, there are birds!
Here are some recent highlights.
The turkeys are fearless
Downy Woodpecker was really going at it
Below the cut, I’ve posted a video of a Red-tailed Hawk in Mount Auburn Cemetery. The video is actually pretty graphic, because I caught the hawk in flagrante delicto–eating its prey.
Predator
C’est la vie.