Tickling the Ivories
June 2008
My iTunes: Non so piu cosa son, cosa faccio from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro
Sorry for missing the last two days of posting! My time in the archives is limited, so in my non-archives time I try to get as much work done on my computer as I can in order to be ready for the next day. As my research topic solidifies, I'm realizing that basically I need to survey a lot of different documents and look for trends, which means I have to spend a lot of time on interpretation after my time in the archives. To give you an example of one thing I'm working on, last night I spent a couple hours filling out call slips (in research libraries like the one I've been "living" in, you have to write a call slip for each thing you want to look at and the librarian retrieves it for you) for every piece of sheet music relating to opera printed in Philadelphia between 1800 and 1861 that this particular archive has. Then I developed my own cataloging system for the characteristics I'll be looking for when I see the music. Today I'll be sending the poor librarian (who is worth her weight in gold!) running to retrieve them all for me. So I'll spend quite a bit of time cataloging and taking research photographs.
So, with all that business, not only have I not had time to post, I've not had time to shoot, either. But I thought this image would be appropriate. I took it in Philadelphia, even though it's not the sort of shot you can only take in Philadelphia, so I think I can post with impunity. Besides, it relates to what I've been working on for the past two days!
But lest any of my concerned readers think I'm spending miserable hour after miserable hour working away, I'm actually enjoying myself. Surprisingly, I'm happy as a clam in the archives -- I can even listen to opera as I work! And yesterday I spent some time being pleasantly distracted by Moi's commenting on my posts -- every two minutes or so, I would get an email saying that I had a new comment! It was great! :) (Check out her blog here!)
Well, I'm off to finish the last of my prep-work before catching the metro down to the archives...
1 comment:
Christy,
I LOVE this picture. And it seems very relevant to where you are and what you're doing. I'm not sure which concerned reader(s) to whom you might be referring. Something tells me I might be on that list for the hard time I give you for working so hard. I do it with a sense of, "I'm proud of you" from a teacher's perspective. And I am glad to hear you're happy and enjoying yourself. That's important. So, patiently we'll wait for more pictures. But there are no complaints on this one. Before we get rid of our tired, run down piano, I just might attempt such a shot. Thanks for the inspiration. :)
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