i wanted to write something in honor of the spider currently living in my mailbox. i see her every time i open my mailbox (though i rarely receive any mail addressed to me at this new residence) and am thus reminded with a start of her small black-and-brown existence. as i sift through the letters, her tiny body scurries out from lying in wait and then remains still, unsure. i sense that she is assessing me - am i a threat? a friend?
and there is something in this gentle gesture of sizing me up, which i've seen in several different species of animals, that makes me smile and feel some sort of swelling in my heart. it's the most innocent thing, the desire to live, and as she is so very small in relation to me, it makes sense that she would be so still. though her defenses aren't anything to laugh at, i could easily squash her into nothingness.
but why would i?
i mean her no harm and never could. she is allowed to live just as i am. i would love for her to remain there as long as she can stay warm and dry and perhaps even mother some babies, who knows.
i'm reminded of this fear that we sometimes feel when faced with an unknown. we stop and stand still when looking into its eyes, expecting we know not what, but often believing somewhere inside us that pain awaits us. it must be some primitive defense mechanism acting up, rearing its ugly head as we navigate the world around us.
recognizing this process helps to discern what is protective and what is preventative.
the universe is capable of smiling back at me just as i smiled at my mailbox she-spider, looming over her like some sort of loony giant. i long for her to survive as long as she is able, for thriving is beautiful and miraculous. why would i expect any less of a reaction from that-which-looms-over-me?
it's a funny question, but we will be forgiven for tending to expect the worst. universe smiles aren't delivered in the way that we humans expect, which seems to more resemble a constant dopamine rush than anything else. i imagine that it is more, instead, along the lines of a tibetan buddhist monk's sand mandala, that slow-building ritual, than an endless stream of opening birthday presents.
it would appear that any warmth we might experience as we live in this roiling and ever-shifting tapestry of vibrant and electric unfolding is both an act of effort and an act of non-effort. in one sense we work to even be able to feel any sense of acceptance and belonging in the universe, but in another it's not really work. not really.
i keep thinking these words to myself, 'light feeds light.' it's strange, but ever more these days does it seem to be the only way to put it. positivity (or, whatever adds to as opposed to whatever takes away) is an all-inclusive entity which knows not our human-made divisions, even those divisions which appear to separate us as beings. positivity exists within and without, inside yourself and outside. once accessed it births itself, almost like some metaphysical cell reproduction, copying and re-affirming its existence, continuing on in its mission.
6.11.18
5.10.18
with the sun
not too long ago, but seemingly forever ago (the days melt together like candy stuck under a car seat), i was stuck in traffic.
i realize that as i grow older i hate driving more and more and find all the excuses in the world to not do it. being trapped in a metallic cage, a slave to my surroundings and to others in a way that chokes my lust for freedom (ironic, i know, as cars are a symbol of individual liberation) is not my favorite activity. admittedly, this sense of being trapped is most prominent within the confines of a city much too small to have such a large amount of people passing through daily and residing inside permanently.
alas, on this particular day, my head was spinning with the late afternoon heat. sun beating down and intensifying the claustrophobic atmosphere of my car, once a safe haven, i turned on the radio, hoping for some reprieve from the reality of my situation.
the sound of intricately-picked guitar met my ears, and my spirit became quite literally frozen. i pride myself in being able to identify within milliseconds what sounds resonate with me and which do not, and whether this is due to heightened musical senses cultivated by years of focused listening or to a deep and often-undermined understanding of my own self i am not sure. but i knew instantly that this perfect guitar sound, accompanied by a warbling and deep voice reminiscent of none other in the absolute best way, must be further investigated.
and so it was, and now you, too, may share in its glory.
i present to you sunny war, and her song "static," off of her album with the sun (2018).
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creation is the wild and uncensored stream of input/output;
data collection/then processed;
filtered information/flowing outwards.
i realize that as i grow older i hate driving more and more and find all the excuses in the world to not do it. being trapped in a metallic cage, a slave to my surroundings and to others in a way that chokes my lust for freedom (ironic, i know, as cars are a symbol of individual liberation) is not my favorite activity. admittedly, this sense of being trapped is most prominent within the confines of a city much too small to have such a large amount of people passing through daily and residing inside permanently.
alas, on this particular day, my head was spinning with the late afternoon heat. sun beating down and intensifying the claustrophobic atmosphere of my car, once a safe haven, i turned on the radio, hoping for some reprieve from the reality of my situation.
the sound of intricately-picked guitar met my ears, and my spirit became quite literally frozen. i pride myself in being able to identify within milliseconds what sounds resonate with me and which do not, and whether this is due to heightened musical senses cultivated by years of focused listening or to a deep and often-undermined understanding of my own self i am not sure. but i knew instantly that this perfect guitar sound, accompanied by a warbling and deep voice reminiscent of none other in the absolute best way, must be further investigated.
and so it was, and now you, too, may share in its glory.
i present to you sunny war, and her song "static," off of her album with the sun (2018).
she is classified as folk-punk and her lyrical content deals heavily with addiction, and that of alcoholism especially.
she isn't trying too hard. she is a fantastic guitarist. every song on the album is just as lovely as this, although i have to say i enjoy her acoustic versions (as that is how i first encountered her music) slightly more than the fleshed-out texture of those tracks on her album, but this is a minor complaint.
thanks, sunny.
日
i've been writing, as a form of exercise or maybe therapy, and it feels circular and cyclical but somehow conclusive. i write myself into the state i wish to be.
something's been lost in the ebb and flow, and i'd like to find it again.
日
i'd like to come at this whole displaying-of-my-self-with-words thing from a standpoint of not knowing - hoping, maybe, that i'll come to some conclusions along the way in a reasonable manner.
after all, the ego is what allows the artist to feel any right to make any claim, to say anything with any certainty ...
(or maybe the SELF has all the right in the whole fucking world to claim anything at all and stick to that claim, as who could actually place restrictions on the SELF, anyway?)
after all, the ego is what allows the artist to feel any right to make any claim, to say anything with any certainty ...
(or maybe the SELF has all the right in the whole fucking world to claim anything at all and stick to that claim, as who could actually place restrictions on the SELF, anyway?)
日
creation is the wild and uncensored stream of input/output;
data collection/then processed;
filtered information/flowing outwards.
日
,
all purpose is either absurd or altruistic. something serves or it indulges itself. one may choose to act out of one or the other at any level of abstraction but i believe those are the most condensed forms of what we generally do as humans, as artists, as floating selves, as meat sacks.
i guess i struggle with purpose as i don't inherently find much of one in this existence. this (un)fortunate state of mine is perhaps more a result of years of intermittent depression than anything else, but even if that is the excuse i'm choosing to go with (there are perhaps plenty of other things which factor in?), it's a pretty uneventful way to go about life.
so maybe in writing meaning is found, is searched for, is created. i don't believe there really must be a meaning, as i don't know quite what we humans mean when we say the word. it is a concept that intends to, ideally, add more to that which we see than what is there. giving depth, placing into context, involving potential masses and linking together disparate cultures and traditions - meaning can bundle up a large group of people into collectively acting according to similar codes, and can help push forth the aspiration towards a specific, shared goal.
that sounds a bit too technical, convoluted. there must be a better way to explain meaning, because in explaining the meaning of meaning one could most likely decide whether or not it's something worth bothering with.
and in the case of it being a mere figment of human imagination (i mean, aren't the objective existences of our more abstract concepts completely impossible to prove?), what's stopping me or anyone from being abrasive, discordant, maddeningly mundane with my life, with my work?
.
the truth is, i don't want to upset anyone. in fact, i'd like to do the very opposite, if i can help it.
giving happiness brings happiness. that much is true, whether the philosopher in me wants to acknowledge it plainly or not.
this is plainly seen, but is more difficult when bringing the happiness to one's self, to legitimize the good feelings one feels the same way others so effortlessly do when you see a smile on their face. what about the smile on your face? what about the weight being lifted off of your shoulders when laying in your favorite meadow, unashamed, basking in the golden ocean of existence?
sometimes the simplest truths aren't so simple.
happiness might not belong only to the conscious.
doing something out of necessity, like creating art as an act of salvation, desperation, redemption, might bring about happiness. sometimes that satisfaction is felt much later along the road, at an unexpected or inopportune moment. and sometimes it is a private moment, never to be shared, but a blossoming all the same.
constructing a happy state is not often a carefully-calculated thing.
i hardly think it can be - just as recipes followed to a t are kind of dead things, a fabrication of an original, perfectly imperfect motion.
"perfectly imperfect" is a concept i'd like to familiar myself with more.
the runaround of life, its ups and downs, its repetitive sunups and sundowns, has beaten me up lately.
i ought to allow the repetition a chance to charm me once in a while.
magic still exists, even in this far-off place.
all purpose is either absurd or altruistic. something serves or it indulges itself. one may choose to act out of one or the other at any level of abstraction but i believe those are the most condensed forms of what we generally do as humans, as artists, as floating selves, as meat sacks.
i guess i struggle with purpose as i don't inherently find much of one in this existence. this (un)fortunate state of mine is perhaps more a result of years of intermittent depression than anything else, but even if that is the excuse i'm choosing to go with (there are perhaps plenty of other things which factor in?), it's a pretty uneventful way to go about life.
so maybe in writing meaning is found, is searched for, is created. i don't believe there really must be a meaning, as i don't know quite what we humans mean when we say the word. it is a concept that intends to, ideally, add more to that which we see than what is there. giving depth, placing into context, involving potential masses and linking together disparate cultures and traditions - meaning can bundle up a large group of people into collectively acting according to similar codes, and can help push forth the aspiration towards a specific, shared goal.
that sounds a bit too technical, convoluted. there must be a better way to explain meaning, because in explaining the meaning of meaning one could most likely decide whether or not it's something worth bothering with.
and in the case of it being a mere figment of human imagination (i mean, aren't the objective existences of our more abstract concepts completely impossible to prove?), what's stopping me or anyone from being abrasive, discordant, maddeningly mundane with my life, with my work?
.
the truth is, i don't want to upset anyone. in fact, i'd like to do the very opposite, if i can help it.
日
giving happiness brings happiness. that much is true, whether the philosopher in me wants to acknowledge it plainly or not.
this is plainly seen, but is more difficult when bringing the happiness to one's self, to legitimize the good feelings one feels the same way others so effortlessly do when you see a smile on their face. what about the smile on your face? what about the weight being lifted off of your shoulders when laying in your favorite meadow, unashamed, basking in the golden ocean of existence?
sometimes the simplest truths aren't so simple.
日
happiness might not belong only to the conscious.
doing something out of necessity, like creating art as an act of salvation, desperation, redemption, might bring about happiness. sometimes that satisfaction is felt much later along the road, at an unexpected or inopportune moment. and sometimes it is a private moment, never to be shared, but a blossoming all the same.
日
constructing a happy state is not often a carefully-calculated thing.
i hardly think it can be - just as recipes followed to a t are kind of dead things, a fabrication of an original, perfectly imperfect motion.
"perfectly imperfect" is a concept i'd like to familiar myself with more.
日
the runaround of life, its ups and downs, its repetitive sunups and sundowns, has beaten me up lately.
i ought to allow the repetition a chance to charm me once in a while.
magic still exists, even in this far-off place.
日
it takes courage,
striving to see yourself as exactly what you are
it takes courage,
striving to see yourself as exactly what you are
21.8.18
moon
here as in every other where i am i and all is now:
words are vehicles for grand-seeming ideas which need not be so grand.
do i let myself be, do i let the vines climb?
not enough.
i title this entry moon for she is the elder sister i never knew i had - the sistermother living within me who knows no origin, knows no death.
she appears to me so frequently, so infrequently; at perfect intervals, i am guided through pitch-black dirt paths deep in magical forests. bird songs act as a constant thrumming accompaniment to the madness of this journey. i will never tire of their song.
(by the way, a bird revealed to me as my absolute favorite of all birds in the fading twilight hours of rural appalachia is the gray-cheeked thrush. its song can be heard here, and i have always thought it to sound like rustling jewels when heard twinkling distantly in the forest.)
what continually reveals itself to me, in all its various forms, is my passion for gaining knowledge about Nature and her wonders. what better way to spend time but laying beneath a canopy of trees, perhaps on a bed of rocks beside rushing water, identifying the trees based on their differing bark textures, leaf shapes, and branch tendencies? every plant has a name. when i was in australia visiting what once were sacred forests of the peoples who lived there before any settlers arrived it was clear to me that each plant, each living being had a name and a personality - and whether its function be medicinal, decorative, or even toxic, the people of that region knew intimately the land on which they lived and those beings with which they shared that land. it makes perfect sense to me that i do the same here, where i live, though the parameters within which i live are so drastically different to be almost as in another world...
and still, the trees continue to tower above our heads and cluster together in forests where we humans have no choice but to succumb and cooperate. i am awed incessantly.
here we have a recurring theme of this blog, to be sure, and it goes something like this:
"holy fuck, the universe is amazing."
real talk.
funnily enough i am also becoming even more entranced with the energy of females which surround my being. the energy of that particular world of characteristics which i both posses but by which i am also not imprisoned lends itself a familiarity to music both frightening and comforting. i find myself drawn to those which may have been my sisters, may have been my neighbors, may also have been distant cousins living on opposite ends of the globe.
shaped by our own cultures and conditioned by our own communities i share with you today a few highly inspiring figures of mysterious life energy who are colored female but, again, are not at all limited by this label.
connie converse - "man in the sky" (how sad, how lovely, 2009)
connie converse, an american singer-songwriter operating out of a brightly-lit yet dark obscurity for the better part of both her life and the time thereafter, sang with an ingenuity rarely heard in any-gendered singers of her time. perhaps it is this raw human sound i hear in her mid-atlantic voice, which is such an atypical sound to be uttering such magnificently-unique lyrics atop such lush and intricate acoustic guitar-harmonies, which draws me to play this re-issue of songs all privately-recorded (for friends) over and over and over again.
sibylle baier - "colour green" (colour green, 2006)
a german singer-songwriter this time; sibylle baier also lived a life of relative obscurity, musically-speaking, as the original songs which comprise colour green were not propelled into the collective consciousness until relatively recently. characterized by a voice and aesthetic steeped in the deeper end of our sensibilities, baier often appeals most to those of us seeking to venture inward in our musical experience.
kaitlyn aurelia smith - "to feel your best" (the kid, 2017)
i have been quite obsessed with this entire album for several months now, but i guess i'm just now getting around to mentioning it here. my apologies.
i saw her this year at moogfest, which amazingly happened right outside of my hometown, and didn't even realize what an honor it was to be in the same room as she! she has collaborated with buchla synthesizer-extraordinaire suzanne ciani but even more importantly is one of the modern generation's leading innovator of the buchla instrument series. trained classically/traditionally as a composer, smith claims to have lost touch with music and was ready to give up completely before being introduced by a neighbor to the highly-sensitive and complex system we now as the buchla 200 series. with this smith's personal and creative voice found a foothold, one stronger and more original than she had ever found before, and it is quite amazing to witness what she has created since discovering these instruments.
the kid is the latest in a series of sound experiments where fully organic sounds emerge among others whose origins are harder to pinpoint in a beautifully-woven tapestry of voice and brilliant life-energy. i really really love getting blissfully lost in the soundscapes of kaitlyn aurelia smith's making, and this song, "to feel your best," sounds rather like the sounds one would hear in an alien forest while either tripping or traveling through life-bearing galaxies in the far-off.
... which reminds me of another album composed/improvised upon by a female artist. i haven't been able to listen to hardly anything else but this either for quite a while now~
suzanne ciani - buchla concerts, 1975
fatou deidi ghali (les filles de illighadad) - "telilit" (les filles de illighadad, 2016)
words are vehicles for grand-seeming ideas which need not be so grand.
do i let myself be, do i let the vines climb?
not enough.
i title this entry moon for she is the elder sister i never knew i had - the sistermother living within me who knows no origin, knows no death.
she appears to me so frequently, so infrequently; at perfect intervals, i am guided through pitch-black dirt paths deep in magical forests. bird songs act as a constant thrumming accompaniment to the madness of this journey. i will never tire of their song.
(by the way, a bird revealed to me as my absolute favorite of all birds in the fading twilight hours of rural appalachia is the gray-cheeked thrush. its song can be heard here, and i have always thought it to sound like rustling jewels when heard twinkling distantly in the forest.)
what continually reveals itself to me, in all its various forms, is my passion for gaining knowledge about Nature and her wonders. what better way to spend time but laying beneath a canopy of trees, perhaps on a bed of rocks beside rushing water, identifying the trees based on their differing bark textures, leaf shapes, and branch tendencies? every plant has a name. when i was in australia visiting what once were sacred forests of the peoples who lived there before any settlers arrived it was clear to me that each plant, each living being had a name and a personality - and whether its function be medicinal, decorative, or even toxic, the people of that region knew intimately the land on which they lived and those beings with which they shared that land. it makes perfect sense to me that i do the same here, where i live, though the parameters within which i live are so drastically different to be almost as in another world...
and still, the trees continue to tower above our heads and cluster together in forests where we humans have no choice but to succumb and cooperate. i am awed incessantly.
here we have a recurring theme of this blog, to be sure, and it goes something like this:
"holy fuck, the universe is amazing."
real talk.
funnily enough i am also becoming even more entranced with the energy of females which surround my being. the energy of that particular world of characteristics which i both posses but by which i am also not imprisoned lends itself a familiarity to music both frightening and comforting. i find myself drawn to those which may have been my sisters, may have been my neighbors, may also have been distant cousins living on opposite ends of the globe.
shaped by our own cultures and conditioned by our own communities i share with you today a few highly inspiring figures of mysterious life energy who are colored female but, again, are not at all limited by this label.
connie converse, an american singer-songwriter operating out of a brightly-lit yet dark obscurity for the better part of both her life and the time thereafter, sang with an ingenuity rarely heard in any-gendered singers of her time. perhaps it is this raw human sound i hear in her mid-atlantic voice, which is such an atypical sound to be uttering such magnificently-unique lyrics atop such lush and intricate acoustic guitar-harmonies, which draws me to play this re-issue of songs all privately-recorded (for friends) over and over and over again.
a german singer-songwriter this time; sibylle baier also lived a life of relative obscurity, musically-speaking, as the original songs which comprise colour green were not propelled into the collective consciousness until relatively recently. characterized by a voice and aesthetic steeped in the deeper end of our sensibilities, baier often appeals most to those of us seeking to venture inward in our musical experience.
i have been quite obsessed with this entire album for several months now, but i guess i'm just now getting around to mentioning it here. my apologies.
i saw her this year at moogfest, which amazingly happened right outside of my hometown, and didn't even realize what an honor it was to be in the same room as she! she has collaborated with buchla synthesizer-extraordinaire suzanne ciani but even more importantly is one of the modern generation's leading innovator of the buchla instrument series. trained classically/traditionally as a composer, smith claims to have lost touch with music and was ready to give up completely before being introduced by a neighbor to the highly-sensitive and complex system we now as the buchla 200 series. with this smith's personal and creative voice found a foothold, one stronger and more original than she had ever found before, and it is quite amazing to witness what she has created since discovering these instruments.
the kid is the latest in a series of sound experiments where fully organic sounds emerge among others whose origins are harder to pinpoint in a beautifully-woven tapestry of voice and brilliant life-energy. i really really love getting blissfully lost in the soundscapes of kaitlyn aurelia smith's making, and this song, "to feel your best," sounds rather like the sounds one would hear in an alien forest while either tripping or traveling through life-bearing galaxies in the far-off.
... which reminds me of another album composed/improvised upon by a female artist. i haven't been able to listen to hardly anything else but this either for quite a while now~
it's fairly obvious that ciani has done more for the exploration of buchla's potential as a musical instrument and a compositional device than almost anyone else alive - and to think that this gem was recorded 30 years ago! i saw her live at moogfest this year as well and can say with confidence that she lives and breathes this instrument with such an impressive ease that the experience is akin to watching an expert dancer flow seamlessly and beautifully in time and space. in thinking about and listening to this record, which contains two separate improvised sets, i'm often struck with a feeling of isolation as though orbiting in space from miles and miles above the earth's surface in some sort of isolation unit. strangely enough, however, this isolation leads not to melancholy but a warm kinship with some deeper and greater force which exists outside of my human mind's comprehension. i feel the universe's cold and unfeeling embrace (as paradoxical as it may sound) for the very harmonies we hear ciani play with, which are indeed familiar to us mortals as we have been conditioned to enjoy harmonious music for countless centuries, are produced using technologies and systems almost too fantastical to be considered mere "instruments" - if mathematics, as a whole, were to sing, would ciani be considered to be in intimate contact with this ancient and timeless machine?
you be the judge. :D
bringing this circle of utterly-unique female sound-energy around to rural niger, fatou deidi ghali of the increasingly-popular female rock group les filles de illighadad gives us a private acoustic performance of what it might sound like for a musically-inclined nigerian villager such as herself to pick up an acoustic guitar and play a unique blend of blues and folksong that strikes me of delta blues and indian raga, and much more. wherever the exact roots of such a music lie (it may be impossible to say), i am forever taken by this woman's rawness, as well as the organically-interwoven melody of her synchronous voice and guitar playing.
the soul lives on!
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