This will appear in the October 1, 2026, edition of the weekly project instruction announcement email for the Disquiet Junto.
I hope this note finds you well. There are still three full months left in the year, or just under by a few hours by the time you receive this, and yet that proximity can make the year feel almost over: when the end is in view.
I am not one to rush time, quite the contrary, and as someone with a tendency to listen to slow, enveloping music, the inclination grows stronger as the days shorten. At the same time, I am excited about the end of 2026, because the first week of 2027 will mark the 15th anniversary of the Disquiet Junto — and the year will mark the 300th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s original Junto, which of course inspired our own.
While I have you, I want to encourage everyone involved in the Disquiet Junto to, to the extent they’ve comfortable doing so, comment on each other’s work each week. The reason I don’t, myself, do so very often is simple: I have, for the nearly 15 straight years of weekly Junto projects, taken quite seriously John Cage’s concept of removing oneself from a process after setting it up. A strong impulse in that regard is that I wouldn’t want to be seen as playing favorites. But that’s specifially me as the founder and moderator of the Junto. For everyone else involved, everyone participating in a given week’s project, commenting is very important, because it provides resources for mutual self-improvement, which was the foundational concept of the original Junto, way back in 1727. Now, I don’t want to nor would I ever require commenting, because from the start, the Junto has been about the music first and foremost. The Junto is intended as a place where people communicate with each other through music by (1) working through the same concepts at the same time, and (2) then listening to how other people approached the same conceptual undertaking. That said, if you are up for commenting, please do. Communication — musical, verbal — is the life blood of a community.
And that covers it. Thanks, as always, for your generosity with your time, creativity, and curiosity. It means the world.
