In case you were unawares, I have a bandcamp site where I post my musix-making. This is my latest, an ode to disco and to Satan's interval.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
Thoughts on Creative Identity
I've never not known that I would be an artist in some capacity--in fact, it seemed redundant to say "I want to be an artist," since I felt it was already true if you could say it. Only when I was very very little did there seem to be the slightest disconnect between the "I" and the artist, because I couldn't draw as well as other classmates, or especially my older sister. It drove me crazy to work very hard on something and then see clearly how crappy it was. I wanted to make pretty things, and I could only make humorous or scary things, or worse, something adults would smile condescendingly at and say, "How creative...what is that?"
It wasn't until I started copying my favorite books--Trumpet of the Swan, Dominic, and the novelization of Aladdin--that I realized I was fascinated by the rhythm and aesthetic of words and sentences. I almost became tired of constantly having to define what it was I wanted to be When I Grew Up in school. It was always, author, author, author. Picture of book and pen and typewriter, the ubiquitous icons of literary involvement. Some people suffer their whole lives to find their Calling. I was born into it, I believe. Lucky? Captive?
There's this site BrainPickings that sends me their newsletter every so
often, and I loved this recent issue about the common excuses we form as
adults for not creating often enough. Much of the article quotes a 1949 guide called How to Avoid Work
by William J. Reilly, a career counselor. It follows along the advice I
received once in the ladies' room of the Rock and Roll Hotel in DC,
during the time of my greatest crisis, both personal and vocational:
the woman told me, Don't do it for the money. Do what you love, and the money will come.
(from http://www.brainpickings.org/)
"Actually,
there is only one way in this world to achieve true happiness, and that
is to express yourself with all your skill and enthusiasm in a career
that appeals to you more than any other. In such a career, you feel a
sense of purpose, a sense of achievement. You feel you are making a
contribution. It is not work.
Most
[people] have the ridiculous notion that anything they do which produces
an income is work – and that anything they do outside 'working' hours
is play. There is no logic to that. … Your life is too short and too
valuable to fritter away in work. If you don't get out now, you may end
up like the frog that is placed in a pot of fresh water on the stove. As
the temperature is gradually increased, the frog feels restless and
uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to jump out. Without being
aware that a chance is taking place, be is gradually lulled into
unconsciousness.
Much the same thing
happens when you take a person and put him in a job which he does not
like. He gets irritable in his groove. His duties soon become a
monotonous routine that slowly dulls his senses. As I walk into offices,
through factories and stores, I often find myself looking into the
expressionless faces of people going through mechanical motions. They
are people whose minds are stunned and slowly dying.
To illustrate the idea that "life really begins when you have discovered that you can do anything you want," Reilly quotes Amelia Earhart, a woman of strong and refreshing liberal for their time opinions:
I flew the Atlantic because I wanted to. If that be what they call 'a woman's reason,' make the most of it. It isn't, I think, a reason to be apologized for by man or woman. … Whether you are flying the Atlantic or selling sausages or building a skyscraper or driving a truck, your greatest power comes from the fact that you want tremendously to do that very thing, and do it well.
[Reilly] admonishes against the toxic "should"-culture we live in, arguably all the more pronounced today:
[…]To my mind, the world would be a much pleasanter and more civilized place to live in, if everyone resolved to pursue whatever is closest to his heart's desire. We would be more creative and our productivity would be vastly increased. Altogether too much emphasis, I think, is being placed on what we ought to do, rather than what we want to do.
//
Graduating from college in 2008 was a bad bit of luck, especially with my field of expertise. Print was in a grand state of suffering with the "sudden" global economic debacle, and I had been living in a hole for too long to realize that people were actually taking online printing seriously. It seemed like a masturbatory, un-reviewed free-for-all that I preferred to shun than to hop on board. Plus, the almighty "shoulds" were taking hold. I didn't want to make my parents feel they'd invested in my education in vain, so I applied for every Big Name publishing company and newspaper joint I could think of. I was green, terribly ignorant, terribly idealistic in every way. I also had no idea how to apply for jobs, to be dogged even with scraps for confidence. I received a twenty-minute admonishment from the editor of a jazz magazine (that has since gone belly-up) who detailed everything I had said and done wrong in my application process. It was a time of grand humiliation.
It didn't stop there. After failing to get even a pity-position as a copy editor somewhere, I began to realize that an even greater disservice to the gift of my degree would be to continue to be unemployed for four months. Then it became a question of work ethic. I couldn't ask anyone to pay for me to live while I "merely" scribbled at the novel I was envisioning. I didn't EVER want to sit back on privilege while the vast majority of the world was busy developing emotional maturity through the everyman experience of gruntwork. So I joined leagues with the service industry, at the expense of my very soul.
At first it was easy to romanticize the unromantic, like my older brother figures, Kerouac and Burroughs. I imagined myself the "genius waitress" (or hostess, as was the serial case) Tom Robbins lauded in his novel, the unsung beauty who would be swept up somehow. And yes, I was swept up, as many young women are, not to be encouraged to bloom, but in order to squash what was yet blooming. I learned that people are not so much impressed by and endeared to idealistic young women as they are eager to chop down the tallest, blondest tree. There is such thing as loving humanity too much. It takes you for a fucking ride.
After surviving attacks on my personality, my brainstuff, and my life, I realized I'd gone about it all wrong, by playing safe. Now I can safely say from a distance that perhaps that early suffering did my soul some good, in my understanding of evil, of the pathological patriarchy that continues to be passed through the generations, and of different forms of violence. Not one acquaintance in those almost two years I lived in the District knew or cared that I was a writer, a musician, a philoso-freak with brimming empathy and endless curiosity. I worked and worked at the front of restaurants, getting bullied and flattered and condescended to, making pennies, and having zero energy at the end of the day to actually be creative. I began to realize that no one wanted me to succeed, to blossom. Was I one of them?
That was during the most disease-ridden era of my life. The one winter, I ignored the signs of strep throat, continuing to party obsessively, hoping just once just once I'd recognize a kindred spirit, someone who would recognize my earnest desire to live creatively, and wouldn't just want to sexually abuse me. No luck. Finally, when it was getting hard just to move, I got antibiotics (and if you're a woman, you know just how terrible the cure for that disease can be). When I'd taken the whole regiment, it came right back, with a fury. I went through three regiments of antibiotics before I could speak again. We are psycho-somatic beings, I realize now, who create our own propensities for internal chaos.
While I was taking a much-needed soulrest in beautiful Australia, I posed to myself some hard questions. Was it more important to keep making money, no matter at what, to pay honor to my parents and to the working world? Or was it more important to not squander my talents in favor of some socially-constructed obligation? Would I ever find my true literary voice while deflecting the abusive flirtation of coworkers and exploitation of my managers? Was that really what my parents wanted for me?
It's easy to say "fuck your parents, do what you want." It's harder when you're blessed with generous art-appreciators who you once criticized harshly, but who ended up very literally helping to save your life. Parents are not static overlords. I have sympathy for homosexuals whose parents disown them, or for any adult living the best way she can, making carefully considered decisions, only to be ostracized or alienated. It's a real thing. But people can and do grow, and I believe my parents grew with me. But that quote about not putting too much stock into other peoples' opinions because they know less than you do about what you are really doing and what you need to do it is true. Unless you are following in your parents' footsteps directly--or even if you are--the world of career fields has drastically changed, both through technological advancements, and just the sea tides of human history. Some things never change--there are a finite number of personality types, and only a handful of basic physical types--but art is fluid.
Once I made the decision to plop myself down in the least-expensive and still art-filled city of Baltimore, among old friends who DID know and care what I was becoming while in college, things fell into place. I just squeaked into a dream job that, while not paying handsomely, does perform some critical enhancements to my creative identity: constant stimulation, social interaction, opportunities for problem-solving and to take advantage of the resources at a nationally-acclaimed art school. Though there are times I wonder if I couldn't be making more money at a full-time job within or outside of literary work, I know it is much more important to know that I have never been more creatively prolific. I do not consider it a coincidence.
Money is a disease, a product of the lock-and-key system humanity developed around the time that physical divisions of land became a priority, around the time the role of the female and of magic became greatly diminished. To ascribe too much power to monetary influence is to move away from the mysterious power of the universe, the great vastness that grants us the curiosity, intuition, and the compassion required to create. If we deny magic, we deny an entire portion of ourselves imbued with the possibility of transcendence. And to do that is to empower the forces of evil, the products of fear.
But rather than empower those forces MORE through avoidance, I'd like to train myself to enlist fear in the creation of courage. Creating is a terrifying thing. When we make children, we become more aware of death. When we create art, we become more aware of failure. The stakes change. But all the more so, we are imbued with an exceptional recklessness we can call love, or hope. Only through this creative recklessness will we reach beyond ourselves and touch something of the divine.
Here's to recklessness: may it move us forward into the sublime unknown.
It didn't stop there. After failing to get even a pity-position as a copy editor somewhere, I began to realize that an even greater disservice to the gift of my degree would be to continue to be unemployed for four months. Then it became a question of work ethic. I couldn't ask anyone to pay for me to live while I "merely" scribbled at the novel I was envisioning. I didn't EVER want to sit back on privilege while the vast majority of the world was busy developing emotional maturity through the everyman experience of gruntwork. So I joined leagues with the service industry, at the expense of my very soul.
At first it was easy to romanticize the unromantic, like my older brother figures, Kerouac and Burroughs. I imagined myself the "genius waitress" (or hostess, as was the serial case) Tom Robbins lauded in his novel, the unsung beauty who would be swept up somehow. And yes, I was swept up, as many young women are, not to be encouraged to bloom, but in order to squash what was yet blooming. I learned that people are not so much impressed by and endeared to idealistic young women as they are eager to chop down the tallest, blondest tree. There is such thing as loving humanity too much. It takes you for a fucking ride.
After surviving attacks on my personality, my brainstuff, and my life, I realized I'd gone about it all wrong, by playing safe. Now I can safely say from a distance that perhaps that early suffering did my soul some good, in my understanding of evil, of the pathological patriarchy that continues to be passed through the generations, and of different forms of violence. Not one acquaintance in those almost two years I lived in the District knew or cared that I was a writer, a musician, a philoso-freak with brimming empathy and endless curiosity. I worked and worked at the front of restaurants, getting bullied and flattered and condescended to, making pennies, and having zero energy at the end of the day to actually be creative. I began to realize that no one wanted me to succeed, to blossom. Was I one of them?
That was during the most disease-ridden era of my life. The one winter, I ignored the signs of strep throat, continuing to party obsessively, hoping just once just once I'd recognize a kindred spirit, someone who would recognize my earnest desire to live creatively, and wouldn't just want to sexually abuse me. No luck. Finally, when it was getting hard just to move, I got antibiotics (and if you're a woman, you know just how terrible the cure for that disease can be). When I'd taken the whole regiment, it came right back, with a fury. I went through three regiments of antibiotics before I could speak again. We are psycho-somatic beings, I realize now, who create our own propensities for internal chaos.
While I was taking a much-needed soulrest in beautiful Australia, I posed to myself some hard questions. Was it more important to keep making money, no matter at what, to pay honor to my parents and to the working world? Or was it more important to not squander my talents in favor of some socially-constructed obligation? Would I ever find my true literary voice while deflecting the abusive flirtation of coworkers and exploitation of my managers? Was that really what my parents wanted for me?
It's easy to say "fuck your parents, do what you want." It's harder when you're blessed with generous art-appreciators who you once criticized harshly, but who ended up very literally helping to save your life. Parents are not static overlords. I have sympathy for homosexuals whose parents disown them, or for any adult living the best way she can, making carefully considered decisions, only to be ostracized or alienated. It's a real thing. But people can and do grow, and I believe my parents grew with me. But that quote about not putting too much stock into other peoples' opinions because they know less than you do about what you are really doing and what you need to do it is true. Unless you are following in your parents' footsteps directly--or even if you are--the world of career fields has drastically changed, both through technological advancements, and just the sea tides of human history. Some things never change--there are a finite number of personality types, and only a handful of basic physical types--but art is fluid.
Once I made the decision to plop myself down in the least-expensive and still art-filled city of Baltimore, among old friends who DID know and care what I was becoming while in college, things fell into place. I just squeaked into a dream job that, while not paying handsomely, does perform some critical enhancements to my creative identity: constant stimulation, social interaction, opportunities for problem-solving and to take advantage of the resources at a nationally-acclaimed art school. Though there are times I wonder if I couldn't be making more money at a full-time job within or outside of literary work, I know it is much more important to know that I have never been more creatively prolific. I do not consider it a coincidence.
Money is a disease, a product of the lock-and-key system humanity developed around the time that physical divisions of land became a priority, around the time the role of the female and of magic became greatly diminished. To ascribe too much power to monetary influence is to move away from the mysterious power of the universe, the great vastness that grants us the curiosity, intuition, and the compassion required to create. If we deny magic, we deny an entire portion of ourselves imbued with the possibility of transcendence. And to do that is to empower the forces of evil, the products of fear.
But rather than empower those forces MORE through avoidance, I'd like to train myself to enlist fear in the creation of courage. Creating is a terrifying thing. When we make children, we become more aware of death. When we create art, we become more aware of failure. The stakes change. But all the more so, we are imbued with an exceptional recklessness we can call love, or hope. Only through this creative recklessness will we reach beyond ourselves and touch something of the divine.
Here's to recklessness: may it move us forward into the sublime unknown.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Thumbshot
Thanks to the man in the bowler hat for this depiction of the illustrated Juliana--and for getting my thumbs right.
 |
| Will Shanklin 2012 |
 |
| Will Shanklin 2012 |
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Dungeonesse
Yeah, so, again I find myself gawking at the talent of those connected to me. This time it's the already heavily-covered release of Dungeonesse's new single "Drive You Crazy." The singer is Jenn Wasner from Wye Oak/Flock of Dimes, and the very handsome and talented Jon Ehrens of White Life/Art Department/Spitting Images wrote and helped produce the soundz.
Funfact: I was in this video, but don't look for me.
Yayy!! Can't wait to see them perform live. Rugs will be cut.
Funfact: I was in this video, but don't look for me.
Yayy!! Can't wait to see them perform live. Rugs will be cut.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Woww Ladies.
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| Natasha Khan, Bat for Lashes |
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| NK |
 |
| Maria Minerva |
 |
| MM |
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| Allison Mosshart and Kate Moss--the Mossy twins |
 |
| Mosshart |
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
A Night at the OperaA
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| A lady no man/A moment in the ladies' room can be anywhere. |
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| JUST BE PRETTY TO ME |
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| Prison of JudeoChristian iconography |
 |
| About the time I was in the puddin'. |
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Feliz Ano Nueva
Birthdays.
At midnight on Halloween, I will be one year older. It is a grim celebration as the clock ticks, the thread gets shorter, the body dies a little more. It's also a triumph, and in the spirit of morbidity, a realization of the number of times I've been spared death thus far. I like that my birthday coincides with the heightened awareness of death. Best of all, I love the lore associated with the holiday that traditionally was recognized as a period of marked spiritual activity.
Movies.
As I've been taking a tour through some popular horror movies and cult favorites on Netflix, it's clear why film majors--especially female ones--obsess over these movies as relics of social norms and gender roles. Not to put too bold a point on this, but because it coincides with some of my recent reading, I'm interested in the projection of the female character as told through horror stories. We have the classic "I've fallen and I can't get up" damsel, the punishable shrew who dies first and we applaud it, the brain-dead amorous girlfriend who is sexually devoured somehow, the virgin sacrifice, and finally, the very painfully rendered female hero who exists in a self-conscious reversal of cultural expectations for her sex. She's the one in black leather and a machine gun, pulls out the pin with her teeth. She's probably been sexually abused as in the case of "I Spit on Your Grave." Kind of cool if you can get past that first scene. The rest is a virtual lullaby. And yet, I don't find much in the way of enlightening subject matter, and maybe we're not supposed to have that. But assuming the point of all these movies is to redirect our hearts back to those things that Matter, I'm sure it's meant to be a kind of moral warning that most of us could do without.The tension either grows and subsides or remains at a high level of delirious panic until the sun comes up and our hero limps away while the credits roll. No real payoff. I am not so changed or entertained. Unless it's Killer Klowns from Outer Space, or Troll. They will change your life.
Stories
Many times the horror stories we read are warning to children not to go out after dark, not to steal, rob, cheat, or be false. Death is the ultimate humbling, the revealer of true natures. We are reminded to appreciate what we have in this life because it can be gone in a second and return in a nasty karmic form later. In other words, parables, exploitative of nothing but our own propensity for violence of the spirit. Energy is not created or destroyed, only damaged and pissed off. Don't piss off the ghosts. These are some of my favorite stories for your pleasure:
La Llorona
The Raven
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Childhood
My only recurring dream is that it's Halloween night in the neighborhood where I grew up. I've been busy putting my costume together hastily while my mom prepares spaghetti for me to eat before I go out. I eat hurriedly at the dining room table while we listen to our tape of Halloween noises. I have to be careful not to get spaghetti sauce on my costume. I'm starting to hear kids outside, and I'm getting antsy to get out there in the spirit air too. I eat my traditional orange frosting cupcake, and my friends arrive to take me Trick-or-Treating. I run out the door, and the night is not like any other night. Yards are lit up with decorations and shaking things from the trees, there are those shrieking ghosts with the motion sensor, and our doormat howls when you step on it. I think that no other kid feels the presence out here tonight like I do. It's better that they don't. It would scare them, but the spirits comfort me. They know it's my birthday soon, and they're happy to help me celebrate.
When I come home, I have candy dumped out on the carpet for Mom to check, and I watch all the Halloween specials on TV.
At midnight on Halloween, I will be one year older. It is a grim celebration as the clock ticks, the thread gets shorter, the body dies a little more. It's also a triumph, and in the spirit of morbidity, a realization of the number of times I've been spared death thus far. I like that my birthday coincides with the heightened awareness of death. Best of all, I love the lore associated with the holiday that traditionally was recognized as a period of marked spiritual activity.
Movies.
 |
| Women are more beautiful when they're in trouble. |
Stories
Many times the horror stories we read are warning to children not to go out after dark, not to steal, rob, cheat, or be false. Death is the ultimate humbling, the revealer of true natures. We are reminded to appreciate what we have in this life because it can be gone in a second and return in a nasty karmic form later. In other words, parables, exploitative of nothing but our own propensity for violence of the spirit. Energy is not created or destroyed, only damaged and pissed off. Don't piss off the ghosts. These are some of my favorite stories for your pleasure:
La LloronaChildhood
My only recurring dream is that it's Halloween night in the neighborhood where I grew up. I've been busy putting my costume together hastily while my mom prepares spaghetti for me to eat before I go out. I eat hurriedly at the dining room table while we listen to our tape of Halloween noises. I have to be careful not to get spaghetti sauce on my costume. I'm starting to hear kids outside, and I'm getting antsy to get out there in the spirit air too. I eat my traditional orange frosting cupcake, and my friends arrive to take me Trick-or-Treating. I run out the door, and the night is not like any other night. Yards are lit up with decorations and shaking things from the trees, there are those shrieking ghosts with the motion sensor, and our doormat howls when you step on it. I think that no other kid feels the presence out here tonight like I do. It's better that they don't. It would scare them, but the spirits comfort me. They know it's my birthday soon, and they're happy to help me celebrate.
When I come home, I have candy dumped out on the carpet for Mom to check, and I watch all the Halloween specials on TV.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Prayers to Yemaya
 |
| Colored pencil and pen. |
Take up your bells and mother bata drums and dance.
Canto a Yemayá
Celia Cruz
Ya le recé a xangó
Ya le imploré a oyá
También pedà clemencia a olofÃn
Y hoy le canto a yemayá
Y oxum caridad del pobre
Yemayá, mi guÃa espiritual
Virgencita, yo que soy tan pobre
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
De mi familia, de mis amigos
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Yemayá, virgen maya, yemayá mi caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Canté a la caridad
Le canto a yemayá
Pedà clemencia a olofÃn
Y ahora le imploro a oyá
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Ay, de mi familia y de mis amigos
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Ay, de mi paÃs, ay, del mundo entero
Sólo pido paz y tranquilidad
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Ya le imploré a oyá
También pedà clemencia a olofÃn
Y hoy le canto a yemayá
Y oxum caridad del pobre
Yemayá, mi guÃa espiritual
Virgencita, yo que soy tan pobre
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
De mi familia, de mis amigos
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Yemayá, virgen maya, yemayá mi caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Canté a la caridad
Le canto a yemayá
Pedà clemencia a olofÃn
Y ahora le imploro a oyá
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Ay, de mi familia y de mis amigos
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Ay, de mi paÃs, ay, del mundo entero
Sólo pido paz y tranquilidad
Yemayá, caridad
Sólo clamo por la tranquilidad
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
My dear Lyell
[…]
What a wonderful case the Bedford case.– Does not the N. American view of warmer or more equable period after great Glacial period become much more probable in Europe?–
But I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders.– I am going to write a little Book for Murray on orchids & today I hate them worse than everything so farewell & in a sweet frame of mind, I am
Ever yours
C. Darwin
Monday, October 15, 2012
Doodlin
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| The Autoerotic desert crustacean creature penetrates itself and sneezes the spiderbabies from its nose. A frantic silhouette provides scale perspective. |
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| The Fabulous Ms. LemonLady and her towering lemon cupcake headdress is known for lemon-tipped pasties that reach out to tickle the ears of giant walking phalluses. The effect is not entirely unpleasant. |
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| The Breakup: the boy who wants to be an astronaut to the girl who broke his delusional heart: "I'm going to go into space and tell everyone there that you're a bitch." |
Saturday, October 6, 2012
The Brilliance of Others
If I can be egotistical about anything, it's how freaking talented
the people around me are. Musicians, artists, wordsmiths, they are
mythical creatures that exist in a world of extraordinariness I am just
lucky enough to stand next to. Here's a few of these examples.
This lady Carabella Sands is truly among the faerie people. She evokes whimsy, punctured innocence, devilish obsession with small things. She is my muse, my flame. This is her flickster.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
Then recently, I also was lucky enough to watch my friend record and produce this album by a couple of Aussie-expatriate-turned-Baltimoreans calling themselves Smoke Bellow. Beautiful album.
Smoke Bellow--Old Haunts
And
then just the other day, my newly-Californian Narcissa launched her
blog concerning hydroponic sustainable gardening, reasons to run, and
advocating food rage.
Exploring in Paradise
Another friend of mine, Michael Voorhis (not "Matt" as the tag suggests), read from his novel Jaw Pieces on the MICA radio show Sound Curtain. It's beyond extraordinary.
http://soundcloud.com/the-
Then, yes, I do actually have an opportunity to self-promote. This isn't a game-changer, this isn't poetry, this is barely even good, but I did read it on Sound Curtain a couple weeks ago. I also read it once at the weekly Artichoke Haircut open mic. It's fun to read.
http://soundcloud.com/the-sound-curtain/juliana-converse-good-service
Narcissa may be in a sensory paradise of sun and sand and fresh air, but we've been watching Baltimore experience an artistic renaissance that I venture beats the hell out of our Big Red Delicious Protruding FameRocket TimeWarner Machine.
Listen--look--be inspired.
Long live art for art's sake.
 | |||
| Ms. Sands |
This lady Carabella Sands is truly among the faerie people. She evokes whimsy, punctured innocence, devilish obsession with small things. She is my muse, my flame. This is her flickster.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
Then recently, I also was lucky enough to watch my friend record and produce this album by a couple of Aussie-expatriate-turned-Baltimoreans calling themselves Smoke Bellow. Beautiful album.
Smoke Bellow--Old Haunts
 |
| Narcissa at the farmer's market |
Exploring in Paradise
Another friend of mine, Michael Voorhis (not "Matt" as the tag suggests), read from his novel Jaw Pieces on the MICA radio show Sound Curtain. It's beyond extraordinary.
http://soundcloud.com/the-
Then, yes, I do actually have an opportunity to self-promote. This isn't a game-changer, this isn't poetry, this is barely even good, but I did read it on Sound Curtain a couple weeks ago. I also read it once at the weekly Artichoke Haircut open mic. It's fun to read.
 |
| I'm a slave 4 U |
http://soundcloud.com/the-sound-curtain/juliana-converse-good-service
Narcissa may be in a sensory paradise of sun and sand and fresh air, but we've been watching Baltimore experience an artistic renaissance that I venture beats the hell out of our Big Red Delicious Protruding FameRocket TimeWarner Machine.
Listen--look--be inspired.
Long live art for art's sake.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Goddess
I got a chance to be kind of gawking, awkwardly complimentary of this artist Maria Minerva when I saw her perform at the Depot here in Baltimore. I'd heard her music online and had my own studio apartment solo club bangarang-with-champagne to her latest album Will Happiness Find Me? on Not Not Fun. A great album title, and kind of a perfect artist for me to be obsessed with right now in this particular time in my life. Wanna talk about quarter-life-crises? Me neither. There's a ton of publicity coverage of her and this album--it helps that she's beautiful and also super educated, belied cleverly by her girlish, uncloaked lyrics and penchant for sonic-slapstick, but with textural complexity and melodic simplicity. 
She said she'd just played in New York to like, 5,000 people. In Baltimore at the Metro Gallery she played to about twelve. So I hope she decides to come back, because she's <3ed nbsp="nbsp" p="p">The Wire: Adventures In Sound And Music: Issues
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Orgonomics!
It's not a Reagan administration attempt to explain the reasons why you should not be an official, state driver's license donor--you know, with the little heart. While there may be many rich teenage girls asking for the cute icon and unwittingly passing their newly-crashed supple hearts down to the less fortunate (yeah, right), orgonomics is actually a branch of highly secretive [sic] psychoscience dealing with orgone energy.
Orson (Orgone?) Bean wrote in his memoir, Me and the Orgone, that it was akin to the feeling after smoking a good "stick of pot." Bill Burroughs was an enthusiast, claiming that after a half an hour sitting in his orgone box alleviated his junk sickness.
Reich also invented a contraption that could wrangle orgone energy in the atmosphere into producing rain from clouds, called a Cloudbuster.
Looks like a church organ machine gun. Materials: 6 PVC pipes tuned to the Aeolian mode, twenty garden hoses, a bedframe, and a...what, 50lb? barbell. Done.
Also, the marveloso Kate Bush made this video a long time ago:
So for all you DIY kids out there, here's how to get started on your very own orgone accumulator:
An example of the finished product (sans rabbit fur):
Looks pretty harmless, eh? And it only takes up about as much space in your apartment as a refrigerator. But all in all, not such a bad price to peigh for the ultimate psychosexual experiance. [sicsicsicsicsic]
~Fin~
Orson (Orgone?) Bean wrote in his memoir, Me and the Orgone, that it was akin to the feeling after smoking a good "stick of pot." Bill Burroughs was an enthusiast, claiming that after a half an hour sitting in his orgone box alleviated his junk sickness.
Reich also invented a contraption that could wrangle orgone energy in the atmosphere into producing rain from clouds, called a Cloudbuster.
 |
| Now you know who to call when you want it to rain. |
Also, the marveloso Kate Bush made this video a long time ago:
So for all you DIY kids out there, here's how to get started on your very own orgone accumulator:
An example of the finished product (sans rabbit fur):
Looks pretty harmless, eh? And it only takes up about as much space in your apartment as a refrigerator. But all in all, not such a bad price to peigh for the ultimate psychosexual experiance. [sicsicsicsicsic]
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| Finally, now there's a way to autoeroticize without having to change my dang batteries all the time! |
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