This month I have written and recorded more new music than at any time since 2013. I have also completed my MBA thesis, which leaves just one more hoop to jump through until the thing is finished and all that’s needed is to figure out what to do with my life.
Activities
This will hopefully be the last month of being underemployed, having now submitted my thesis, pending a defence in Barcelona in a month or so.
I have also been frequenting open mic nights, with a view toward a double-LP launch, one of Chinese-language songs and the other of English ones. A full-time job will slow down the process, but only slightly.
In the past month, I have done nothing with prose fiction, but this precedes a massive rush in which I will complete a second draft of my novel, and begin a six-month short story-writing course.
Output
New English-language MVs include “One Question”, a song about God:
New Chinese ones include “Sick Man of Europe”, which is about English teachers in China
And a re-recording of “Migrant Workers”, a song about the unsung heroes of China’s economic miracle.
Wider World
This month has seen the United Nations’ biodiversity chief Cristiana Paşca Palmer state that countries need to get together fast to protect the world’s forests and ecosystems and the road on which I live has been closed by Extinction Rebellion protests. The chances of the world working together do not look good since the unelected British prime minister has called on the monarch to prorogue parliament to push through an act of xenophobic self-destruction, and Donald Trump has displayed behaviour even more insane than during the 2016 election campaign.
All the frivolous activities mentioned above might well be described as fiddling while the world burns. Yet our aggressive, territorial species has been causing mass extinctions since we were walking upright, and we have tended to muddle through. Or at least the more fortunate among us have.
Kevin McGeary 