First Stave

My name is Irminsul, and I will compose for food.

Wait, scratch that. Bad beginning.

My name is Irminsul, and I am a composer. I am nuts enough to call that my vocation, because that's exactly what it is. I do it during my waking hours, it keeps me up during my should-be sleeping hours. It's like a drill sargeant who walks in right when you start to nod off, and smacks the bottom of your feet with a canestick. For better or worse, that's my lot.

I also play the celtic harp, which is a convenient thing to soothe the stress that comes with the subtitle of this blog - that is, why in the hell someone would want to do this in the Post-Patron Age. What exactly does that mean? Well, it means trying to eek out living in an age where patrons for this sort of things are almost nowhere to be found. You see, centuries ago, if you were an artist of any sort you could seek the employ of any number of patrons, or people with enough resources to keep you eating and with a roof over your head, to offer the best of your creations in return for their support. Sounds crazy, I know, but it was an age where the creation of art and music was more of a humanity and less of a commodity. So there is the rub, and the motivation for this blog. A near daily follow up of what it's like to put little black dots on five lines, and still be able to keep the lights on.

Yesterday I actually saw a guy on the streetcorner holding up a cardboard box sign that said "Will Design Multi-station Computer Infrastructure For Food". So, how bad can this be?