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Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.The saxophone is a contradictory instrument that has rooted itself in the soil of pop culture. It''s the "devil''s horn," it''s the voice of jazz - an extension of the player''s soul - it is a character trait of U.S. Presidents, YouTube sensations and cartoon characters. It has both enhanced and ruined songs, it is sensuous yet abrasive, and it is the only instrument widely excluded from symphonies and orchestras, never quite being taken seriously. But this object is also symbolic of living on the margins of society; the saxophone has never been kind to its players. Blending memoir, research, and cultural criticism, S phone explores more than just the history of this quirky instrument. Mollie Hawkins turns the lens around to ask us all: what does it mean to love something so contradictory - even if it kills you? Can an object hold such power over us?>
List of contents
Prologue
Part I: Before It Was Cool1. Dark Origins
2. The Sound
Sheet Music #1: Raised by a Sax Man
3. Everyone Is Laughing
Part II: On the Margins 4. Improvisation
Sheet Music #2: No More Weddings, No More Funerals
5. Obsession
Sheet Music #3: Call and Response
6. Seduction
Sheet Music #4: Nuisance
Part III: A Cult of Personality7. Sacred and Profane
Sheet Music #5: Pointless Devotion
8. Nonconformist
9. Influencer
Epilogue: Two Horns
AcknowledgementsIndex
About the author
Mollie Hawkins holds an MFA in Writing from the Bennington College Writing Seminars. Her essays have appeared in Marie Claire, Salon, The Daily Drunk: Mall Ras Anthology, Sheepshead Review, PoemMemoirStory, and others.Christopher Schaberg is Director of the Program in Public Scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis, USA, and the author of The Textual Life of Airports (2012), The End of Airports (2015), Airportness (2017), The Work of Literature in an Age of Post-Truth (2018), Searching for the Anthropocene (2019), Pedagogy of the Depressed (2021), and Adventure: An Argument for Limits (2023), all published by Bloomsbury. He is also the founding co-editor (with Ian Bogost) of Bloomsbury's Object Lessons book series.Ian Bogost is an author and an award-winning game designer. He is Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, Director of Film & Media Studies, and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Bogost is also Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC, an independent game studio, and a Contributing Editor at The Atlantic. Bogost is author or co-author of ten books, including Alien Phenomenology (2012)and Play Anything (2016).
