Chris Guillebeau writes:

What If All Your Work Disappeared At the End of the Day? : The Art of Non-Conformity.

No comments section, so I thought I’d respond here: what he describes in his blog post is why I was a musician.  The attraction of music and other performance art for me was precisely the ephemeral nature of the work.  You perform it for a group of people, it goes up into the air and disappears, and just leaves some sort of impression that might last anywhere from a few minutes to the rest of someone’s life.  Recorded music, on the other hand, is really a whole different art form, revolving around permanent artifacts that can be revisited, like painting, literature (the analogy might be to conversation) or (especially) photography.

When I wrote music, I started with the distinction between recorded music and performed music.  Quite different ways to work.

2008 or so: Iran, declaring itself the enemy of the US is building a nuclear weapons capability.  The US administration under Obama gathers a coalition of like-minded nations and imposes sanctions, then offers negotiation with the opposing government.  A deal is hammered out over years, with the result that Iran stops building its offensive weaponry.

Candidate Donald Trump and the Republican Party declare that the deal is terrible for the US.  Trump swears to rip it up and start over when he’s president, because he’s famously good at negotiating deals.

2017: North Korea, declaring itself the enemy of the US is building a nuclear weapons capability.  The US administration under President Trump resorts to yelling at the North Koreans and whining that other states (China) haven’t done their utmost.  Tension rises.  No negotiations under way.

What happened to the Great Negotiator?