I just got back from watching Ravi and Anoushka placidly rock out on their sitars at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Sitting down playing that large hunky instrument of wood and many strings did not look at that comfortable for them but the music soared. Most of the pieces started off slow and a bit disjointed (at least for my flaccid western ear) but then everything collapsed together in an haromic frenzy. It was beautiful.

I often think that writing should be that way. Start off slow and a little lost but somewhat enticing till then you get sucked in, unable to escape as the words, sentences, and meaning become alive so allive that you can’t take so you read, read till the end, nearly without breathing. And then are satisfied, satisfied that you not only read something but experienced a piece of beauty that enraptured, fully and totally. I have fantasies about writing anthropology like that but that is exactly NOT to do (or so I am told). The style should be all clear from the start, and you should hold a steady, rhythmic pace, never really jolting the reader but just holding her steady from clear point to clear point. That is the form of writing I am not so good at but am trying… Maybe I can at least have one chapter of harmonic frenzy… I will just suggest that my advisors listen to Ravi and Anoushka while they read it. Then it will make sense and be a totally engulfing aesthetic experience…