Research Weekend

For some unfathomable reasons (or several fathomable ones) my lecturing work is very much front-loaded this semester.
This weekend I have three lectures to research and write for next week, as well as some transcription for the Music, Gender, Differenz conference in Vienna that I am going to in two weeks (with my fingers tightly crossed that the University of the East will pay my expenses!).
Par for the course, one of the interviews that I did in Glasgow didn't record and I am extremely grateful to Laura for filling out an email version of her interview because I'd never have remembered it all.
I also had the pleasure of re-interviewing Zillah Ashworth this week, who is very much a driving force behind the band Rubella Ballet. We sat in her garden and talked in the autumn sunshine; little apples decorated little apple trees and spiders busied themselves amongst dusty grey curtains of seasonal webs that festooned bushes and plants. Sid, Zillah's partner, brought out the tea and cakes, and we talked about anarcho punk, and Poly Styrene who was Zillah's close friend.
So... first lecture: Authenticity. Adorno and Benjamin decorated by thoughts from Middleton and Moore... and Theberge and yes what the heck, one of my fave guys Baudrillard (sounds like a brand of duck, I think).
I will also do a bit of playing. I have had a fiendish cold this week and have mostly been controlled by chemicals. There's no way I can sing but I don't want to forget what a guitar feels like.
Naturally, the week has contained more than its fair share of adverse experiences in spite of my attempts to plan for disaster, think laterally and slither past conflict. I shan't dwell on those; I have secret plans to thwart the problems. They don't call me Boudicca for nothing!