My supervisor last year, while finishing my Masters, told me fifty percent of people who start PhDs don’t finish. Wonder which statistic I’ll be when I start this fall and I suppose, given the virus, classes will be on video. I never go to large concerts because of the screens, why spend all that money just to watch someone on video? Why put the effort into a PhD and be instructed by someone on video? But they do have a great name – the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation and they’ve asked me to consider contributing to their next publication, about current transitions of musicians from the non virus economy to whatever it is we now are in. I’m not convinced this even is a transition. Most musicians were at the poverty line the week before the virus started. What’s new about being at the poverty line with a virus? Most musicians I know do not have much of an audience, now there is no live audience. Is that a substantial difference? Ashley MacIsaac recently hosted a concert online with two thousand people buying tickets @ $6 each to view. That also doesn’t sound different than the way things were before the virus if you have a substantial following. I wonder if the IICSI will be ok with me writing something that doesn’t agree with the premise things are so very different? Fifty percent don’t finish… oy