Conference Time!

Yeah! Hanging with Laina D. Met/spoke to Rob Fields, Maureen Mahon, Reebee Garofalo, Greg Tate, Portia Maultsby, Suzanne Thomas (whee!) and Mellonnie Burnim! All folks whose work I love and they were all supercool! I thank them sincerely for that!

My dissertation title

is what keeps me going!!! It is the most awesomest title EVER! I see it on a book cover already and every time I tell friends, colleagues, fellow scholars they love it! Part of the title is inspired by a horrid old rap group album title and come to find out -- and thank you universe, God, Goddess, -- a woman of color guitarist I came across WHO IS ALSO GOING TO BE AT THE CONFERENCE -- has the exact same tagline of sorts as a descriptor of her and her band! That keeps me going because how awesome and random is that!! If I connected like that, then I am still on the right path! Go me!

saying stuff

The question is what organization or association or entities will give me money to do this research...attending grant writing workshops to suss this out...slightly frustrated...have decided to focus the disseration on black women guitarists in "rock" and do papers for conferences and other stuff leaning more toward black women guitarists and blues...I hate dichotomies...people are not easily divisible by the music they play...how do I make this work feasible and still get across a sense of generalness and specificity...that's a dichotomy...sigh...how do I universalize the topic as one scholar instructed me...also, I need a third professor for my orals committee...someone versed in the south and rock and blues, etc...I have someone in mind...I'll be damned if such an exciting topic becomes boring at the hands of other folks...No! No! No! I'm sticking to this...must get at the truth from their perspectives first...alla this in all its messiness of performance, race, the body, creativity, gender, sexuality, space and place.

Now that I have this list...now what? Because plenty of folk still act like black women who play the (electric) guitar are like leprechauns, rarities, anomalies...boo to that!