My friend Joel created this fabulous art-piece/playground. My friend Robin and I chased each other through the veils on a full-moon...
http://vimeo.com/20989308
Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
It is All Music
"The more one studies the harmony of music, and then studies human nature, how people agree and how they disagree, how there is attraction and repulsion, the more one will see that it is all music."- Hazrat Inayat Khan
New Radio Show Streams Here!
New Radio Show Streams Here!
Monday, September 26, 2011
Murky dolphin (short story)
I saw you in a dream. The water was filthy, and I could still see your eye, the outline of your tail. You were alone, but seemed to be smiling. We played together. I felt like I should try to help you, somehow.
I crawled out of the water, shaking from cold. Where was I? Scotland? Ireland? Some Northern country, though the roads and parking places were by now filled with sewage and standing water like in the rutted slum roads of South America. Not steaming hot though.
I remember hiding behind a car parked in near-turquoise sludge. Was it reflecting the sky? Sometimes there are those stagnant pools that grow weird hyper-colored bacteria. I don’t know. I just wanted to get back to you. What had possessed me to be in that murky water?
It was as if I awoke there. I suddenly became conscious of my position as you investigated me. Some part of me wonders if this is really real? If this is a message from my future-self, tickled by a dolphin snout somewhere in freezing-cold, filthy water in some other time? Your eye seemed very real, and like it was probing my brain, smiling, but not maliciously.
Why were you alone? Somewhere in my memory I think of a lone dolphin off the British Isles, but I can’t remember why. People come to visit you by boat, give you illicit ham sandwiches. Where are your pod-mates? Your lover? Your wife? You seemed to me male, not that I could see that far in the polluted water. How is your eye so clear? How could you see me so clearly?
It seemed salty, and green, and murky. Am I remembering this correctly? I am transcribing this from a conversation I had. I told the story to Sean while he was searching for a bottle, lying on the floor in a super-drunk stupor. A murky dolphin? Whaaat? he giggled and slurred, trying to get the top off, his coordination not quite coordinated enough.
We were in my mom’s kitchen, in a haze. My sister Lillie appeared, looking out over the bar at the living room, ignoring Sean like he was a dream, like he was from another time, like she couldn’t see him clearly through the murkiness that pervaded. He was giggling again, still trying to get the top off.
She was melancholy, in a staged-theatre kind of way. I never see the rug as dirty, until you are around. What? I wonder. It’s comparative. When other people are here, I yell at them, ask them to take their shoes off to save the white carpeting. I can see now it is really brown. Dingy. Your being here makes it seem less white.
I know distinctly that this is about time. That this is about not being around. Seeing things as others would see them. Others you respect, others you wish were around more often, to see more clearly. I don’t think I’m judgmental.
I don’t care about the dingy path through the white rug (it’s true, it’s there, you can tell people have tramped dirt through there). It’s clear that she would not care either, if it weren’t for my presence. Sean is still on the floor, banging the bottle and reaching for the under-sink cabinet.
I feel a mild sense of panic for him, him getting into that cabinet when he’s already too drunk to twist off a plastic bottle-cap. I don’t make a move to help him. The scene is dissolving and I join Lillie in looking out over the bar in a melancholy haze, mouthing words that don’t come out as sounds but more like bubbles.
Charlotte Savage 9-26-2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Out of Africa, Into the Big Space
Episode 1 (1st hr) by into the big space
Out of Africa, Into the Big Space
Demo Episode Submitted as Proposal to Baton Rouge Community Radio
hosted by Eric Roy
Episode 1 (1st hour)
1. Nuru Kane – “Colère” (Senegal) // Riverboat
2. Soothsayers – “Freedom” (UK) // Red Earth
3. Hayvanlar Alemi – “Hayalgucu Sporkulubu” (Turkey) // Sublime Frequencies
4. Dara Puspita – “Pesta Pak Lurah” (Indonesia) // Sublime Frequencies
5. Circle – “Vaanen Valtiatar” (Finland) // Ektro
6. DJ / Rupture – “a01” (USA) // Tigerbeat6
7. Neal Pattman – “The Mogul” (USA) // Art of Field Recording
8. Group Bombino – “Boghassa” (Niger) // Sublime Frequencies
9. Yaaba Funk – “Me Nye Me Dofu” (Ghana, USA, Martinique, Jamaica, Italy, Germany, UK) // Hereandnow
10. Flying Lotus – “Do the Astral Plane” (USA) // Warp
11. Man City Lion – “Na Doo” (Thailand) // Sublime Frequencies
12. Afriampo – “ヤーヤーエー” (Japan) // Supponpon
13. S.E. Rogie – “African Gospel” (Sierra Leone) // Real World
Out of Africa, Into the Big Space will be a music show that harnesses the human spirit in its most exploratory, wide-eyed form in tracks from around the world. African music will be an essential part of the show. The Out of Africa hypothesis - which postulates that all Homo sapiens originate from Africa - will be enacted sonically, bridging the massive breadth of African jams with rhythms from around the world, including places like India, Turkey, Haiti, Japan, Eastern Europe, the US, the UK, South America, Finland, and Thailand. Acoustic and electronic will both be embraced fully. The sounds, bands, and vibes experienced first hand while working at an Afrobeat venue in London will be shared, all the while creating an atmosphere both entrancing and inspiring. Efforts will be taken to introduce listeners to underground sounds from these regions in addition to more classic tracks. Commentary will be informative, but brief. The focus will be on the music, sometimes relaxing, sometimes danceable, sometimes more challenging – always inspiring. The goal is to create an atmosphere both foreign & inviting. However, there will be moments of oddness & unfamiliarity (isn’t that one reason we travel?).
This show will NOT be:
- A playlist of tracks from world music collections available at Whole Foods.
- Exclusively international, efforts will be made to illuminate connections between American sounds both new and old and those around the world.
Out of Africa, Into the Big Space
Demo Episode Submitted as Proposal to Baton Rouge Community Radio
hosted by Eric Roy
Episode 1 (1st hour)
1. Nuru Kane – “Colère” (Senegal) // Riverboat
2. Soothsayers – “Freedom” (UK) // Red Earth
3. Hayvanlar Alemi – “Hayalgucu Sporkulubu” (Turkey) // Sublime Frequencies
4. Dara Puspita – “Pesta Pak Lurah” (Indonesia) // Sublime Frequencies
5. Circle – “Vaanen Valtiatar” (Finland) // Ektro
6. DJ / Rupture – “a01” (USA) // Tigerbeat6
7. Neal Pattman – “The Mogul” (USA) // Art of Field Recording
8. Group Bombino – “Boghassa” (Niger) // Sublime Frequencies
9. Yaaba Funk – “Me Nye Me Dofu” (Ghana, USA, Martinique, Jamaica, Italy, Germany, UK) // Hereandnow
10. Flying Lotus – “Do the Astral Plane” (USA) // Warp
11. Man City Lion – “Na Doo” (Thailand) // Sublime Frequencies
12. Afriampo – “ヤーヤーエー” (Japan) // Supponpon
13. S.E. Rogie – “African Gospel” (Sierra Leone) // Real World
Out of Africa, Into the Big Space will be a music show that harnesses the human spirit in its most exploratory, wide-eyed form in tracks from around the world. African music will be an essential part of the show. The Out of Africa hypothesis - which postulates that all Homo sapiens originate from Africa - will be enacted sonically, bridging the massive breadth of African jams with rhythms from around the world, including places like India, Turkey, Haiti, Japan, Eastern Europe, the US, the UK, South America, Finland, and Thailand. Acoustic and electronic will both be embraced fully. The sounds, bands, and vibes experienced first hand while working at an Afrobeat venue in London will be shared, all the while creating an atmosphere both entrancing and inspiring. Efforts will be taken to introduce listeners to underground sounds from these regions in addition to more classic tracks. Commentary will be informative, but brief. The focus will be on the music, sometimes relaxing, sometimes danceable, sometimes more challenging – always inspiring. The goal is to create an atmosphere both foreign & inviting. However, there will be moments of oddness & unfamiliarity (isn’t that one reason we travel?).
This show will NOT be:
- A playlist of tracks from world music collections available at Whole Foods.
- Exclusively international, efforts will be made to illuminate connections between American sounds both new and old and those around the world.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
So I've been getting back into Refused and "Evil Empire"...
(from a dream I had last night)
falling sky,
every time you close your eyes
I take a picture.
I only know you when you're gone.
My teeth fall out
and into clouds.
Away with a breath,
like Medusa blood,
like a boat
on a dry bed
at the edge of the world.
A sandcastle...
You want this to happen.
All collars, all colors.
We won't stop 'til we eat each other.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Just Another Sunny Day
Blue Ridge, you're the best seat in the house.
(There was a time before we were born... if someone asks, this is where I'll be.)
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
I am a Scientist
searching for a voice that resonates.
I would like to make myself clear.
speak clearly,
simply,
without bullshit.
it’s difficult when
what I have to say doesn’t make sense.
it is an indictment of sense,
of precision, perfection,
of often quoted rationality,
of straight lines ignorant of scatter.
Rock and roll anti-hero once sung,
“I am a scientist, I seek to understand...”
…and I do.
I seek to understand what prevents understanding.
Am I a shitty scientist?
Am I a saboteur?
I am a wanna-be gadfly
and, most of all, a humble human being.
yes I admit,
I am most interested in what eludes description.
in life,
in surprise,
in Mistakes (why not just love them?).
Evolution may be Intelligent after all.
dark late night,
on the verge of a great discovery,
eyes in a microscope,
and mooned by a cyanobacteria!
the little (lovely) bare-assed bastard.
I smile and go to bed.
coyote is the metaphor that sticks (owww!).
thank you Donna Haraway.
provocation may be the only way (oh that blue-green bum!).
thank you David Hume.
what is my role?
perhaps it’s to simply
spread the word.
reality is time-dependent.
space-dependent.
knowledge at time = t
is sometimes shit
at time = t + 1 two southern states away.
so, stress the local,
cut out the middle man!
Rock and roll anti-hero once sung,
“You don’t need a weatherman
to know which way the wind blows.”
Suddenly,
it all became incredibly clear.
conversation,
adaptation,
science =
another lost art.
we are all scientists.
I would like to make myself clear.
speak clearly,
simply,
without bullshit.
it’s difficult when
what I have to say doesn’t make sense.
it is an indictment of sense,
of precision, perfection,
of often quoted rationality,
of straight lines ignorant of scatter.
Rock and roll anti-hero once sung,
“I am a scientist, I seek to understand...”
…and I do.
I seek to understand what prevents understanding.
Am I a shitty scientist?
Am I a saboteur?
I am a wanna-be gadfly
and, most of all, a humble human being.
yes I admit,
I am most interested in what eludes description.
in life,
in surprise,
in Mistakes (why not just love them?).
Evolution may be Intelligent after all.
dark late night,
on the verge of a great discovery,
eyes in a microscope,
and mooned by a cyanobacteria!
the little (lovely) bare-assed bastard.
I smile and go to bed.
coyote is the metaphor that sticks (owww!).
thank you Donna Haraway.
provocation may be the only way (oh that blue-green bum!).
thank you David Hume.
what is my role?
perhaps it’s to simply
spread the word.
reality is time-dependent.
space-dependent.
knowledge at time = t
is sometimes shit
at time = t + 1 two southern states away.
so, stress the local,
cut out the middle man!
Rock and roll anti-hero once sung,
“You don’t need a weatherman
to know which way the wind blows.”
Suddenly,
it all became incredibly clear.
conversation,
adaptation,
science =
another lost art.
we are all scientists.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
More Sound & Vision
post regarding the rising Mississippi River and seeing nature as coyote forthcoming...
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The End Is Always Near (???)
Recently, I was introduced to a now dear friend of mine, Corrine. She is a poet/punk/human who started a writing group in which I am now a member. Unbeknownst to all of us, some forms of religion view this upcoming May 21st (as in ten freaking days from now) as the day when the Earth as we know it will be a giant ball of fire/floods/what-the-fuck. After we stopped laughing and picked ourselves off the floor, we decided to make an assignment for this week: to write about our own imminent deaths, or just death in general. Below is what I came up with tonight... It's work in progress (I think).
The clickity-clack of railroad tracks
and the whistles that finally close my eyes
are flying me through pitch-black memories
like a missile in disguise.
I must have been so tired.
I must have been losing my mind
to have laughed that way
so manically,
having denounced everything
and just riding the tide.
Underneath,
these hypnotized politicians
and failed magicians,
born in wine and muddy water,
envisioning selfish decadence
and faltering in the fear of their father’s nightmares.
But like an albatross across the ocean,
I am an alien in their perfect world,
and hovering above in the clouds
like a storm.
Side note: Charlotte, your writing is so playful and chewy! It's like orange juice: the more pulp the better.
Mystery Egg
For Mother’s Day
a desperation of our species:
does childlessness
imply
motherlessness?
without children, what will propel us
toward motherishness?
Cura—the original mother
(toward a vocation of care
in the sense of devotion)
you have seen me
my silhouette cutout
screams MOTHER against the stars.
o black against the sky
(another ode to the void)
pointilles of light shine the outskirts
twinkle holy and point to the area of
nothing there.
the absence tells
of an archetype divided:
in one hand Mommy holds
the miracle of new life,
an egg bigger than a speck of dust
(but not by much)
unfolding itself into a five and a half foot tall woman,
holding her own symbols en sphere
but o inescapable, this new spark
a frown on her face, a tear in her eye,
now looks toward the other hand and
Mommy? has morphed into Kali
terrifying, multihanded, and in each
a multiverse burning in flame,
dissolving in poison, a tiny mushroom-headed –POOF-
coming from, well,
nowhere now.
this daughter, not daring a glance at
what she holds in her own hands,
is now undeniably linked to
death.
created into the world,
our bodies now take on the job of composition and decomposition,
a fancy dance
on grass, on pavement, in trees,
on broken glass with leather shoes,
on fire.
in birth, death.
and in death, rebirth.
Mother is our link between worlds,
the person we know
who gets us in the door to this
bizarre party
so far beyond our fantasy
we spend our time in amazement and shock
at the wonders that surround us.
as children of the planet Earth,
we wander about, dazed and
mouths agape at
the tremendous creative
and destructive prowess
exhibited by our collective Mama
Gaia.
Our human understanding
can only go so far,
our metaphors locked up in our bodies
and in their relative positions to
everything else
determine our abilities to comprehend
just where it is we are.
An appropriately human, and motherly, metaphor is this:
we are protein-bits of her genetic code.
Our mother Gaia is still only an egg herself.
Fire-tailed meteors
(looking, eek, oh-so-spermy)\
on a collision course now billions of years past
exploded previously unknown elements onto
Earth-egg and she
continues to gestate,
each new combinatorial compound
provides x^∞ possibilities of
strange new life on the surface.
In some traditions and in some dreams
time exists as a dragon of fire
eating its own tail.
it struggles against itself to consume itself
at a rate faster than the
burning need in its gullet.
Is this what our universe is
incubating in Earth-as-egg?
I feel tender, motherly toward her, and
wonder what she will become
beyond my limited human scope.
What will burst forth from her?
What will she be when she grows up?
What kind of new ideas and new creatures
are seeping ever-outward,
like mystical smoke?
Mother-daughter-egg-mystery.
Creator, Destroyer, birthplace and
composter of us all, all ideas.
The future is vast beyond belief
we cannot fathom it.
We are bound by our idea of time.
5-8-11 xoc
a desperation of our species:
does childlessness
imply
motherlessness?
without children, what will propel us
toward motherishness?
Cura—the original mother
(toward a vocation of care
in the sense of devotion)
you have seen me
my silhouette cutout
screams MOTHER against the stars.
o black against the sky
(another ode to the void)
pointilles of light shine the outskirts
twinkle holy and point to the area of
nothing there.
the absence tells
of an archetype divided:
in one hand Mommy holds
the miracle of new life,
an egg bigger than a speck of dust
(but not by much)
unfolding itself into a five and a half foot tall woman,
holding her own symbols en sphere
but o inescapable, this new spark
a frown on her face, a tear in her eye,
now looks toward the other hand and
Mommy? has morphed into Kali
terrifying, multihanded, and in each
a multiverse burning in flame,
dissolving in poison, a tiny mushroom-headed –POOF-
coming from, well,
nowhere now.
this daughter, not daring a glance at
what she holds in her own hands,
is now undeniably linked to
death.
created into the world,
our bodies now take on the job of composition and decomposition,
a fancy dance
on grass, on pavement, in trees,
on broken glass with leather shoes,
on fire.
in birth, death.
and in death, rebirth.
Mother is our link between worlds,
the person we know
who gets us in the door to this
bizarre party
so far beyond our fantasy
we spend our time in amazement and shock
at the wonders that surround us.
as children of the planet Earth,
we wander about, dazed and
mouths agape at
the tremendous creative
and destructive prowess
exhibited by our collective Mama
Gaia.
Our human understanding
can only go so far,
our metaphors locked up in our bodies
and in their relative positions to
everything else
determine our abilities to comprehend
just where it is we are.
An appropriately human, and motherly, metaphor is this:
we are protein-bits of her genetic code.
Our mother Gaia is still only an egg herself.
Fire-tailed meteors
(looking, eek, oh-so-spermy)\
on a collision course now billions of years past
exploded previously unknown elements onto
Earth-egg and she
continues to gestate,
each new combinatorial compound
provides x^∞ possibilities of
strange new life on the surface.
In some traditions and in some dreams
time exists as a dragon of fire
eating its own tail.
it struggles against itself to consume itself
at a rate faster than the
burning need in its gullet.
Is this what our universe is
incubating in Earth-as-egg?
I feel tender, motherly toward her, and
wonder what she will become
beyond my limited human scope.
What will burst forth from her?
What will she be when she grows up?
What kind of new ideas and new creatures
are seeping ever-outward,
like mystical smoke?
Mother-daughter-egg-mystery.
Creator, Destroyer, birthplace and
composter of us all, all ideas.
The future is vast beyond belief
we cannot fathom it.
We are bound by our idea of time.
5-8-11 xoc
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Sprout!
Sooooo...
A dear friend of mine from college, Michael, got married on Saturday. As a gift to him, I created a logo for the brewing company he is trying to start (the name he will use is "Sprout"). So far he's created quite a few tasty brews, including licorice and ginger. Being from a Quaker/farming/hippie background, Michael wanted earthy colors for the logo, but he left the rest up to me. I think he was pretty pleased with the end result!
::: Topher
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
phil's dream on dreamcatcher site
for a dreamy account of phil's dream last night, look into www.dreamcatcher.net/philmill/3259
this seems like a really good site, and for dream sharing...an historically important social ritual...
xoc
this seems like a really good site, and for dream sharing...an historically important social ritual...
xoc
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Ill-ustrations.
I decided a few weeks ago that I needed to jump back on this whole "illustration" thing I forgot about for so long. So yeah here's a new one, this being for a friend of mine's band (they call themselves "surf/soul punk"). Check it!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Dare to be a Fool
I came across this quote and it reminded me of you guys.
"Stop bullshitting yourself and go take some acid."
"Stop bullshitting yourself and go take some acid."
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Dear Mom, your other daughter is moving to Spain.
apparently.
apparently.
she needs an ocean of
breathing room.
heh. heh. ocean/breathing? but how? a quartered ocean? delineated water?
drawing lines of waves
charting
freedom
(and knowledge of...
fuck. the edge of the world? what are we looking at anyway?
the open waters like a scene from a movie.
i don't know what happens out there.
tales of dragons snagging ships in clenching, reptilian loops,
easier to grasp at than today’s science-ized creatures of the deep,
hanging phosphorescent lanterns to lure a passing catch of the day,
how are they related to me?
G-O-D in mitochondrial entities,
the same ones inhabit you and me
slough off in skin cells regularly,
so that in just a few short years we are made up of entirely different stuff.
holy?
how can we hold on?
)
love
c
apparently.
she needs an ocean of
breathing room.
heh. heh. ocean/breathing? but how? a quartered ocean? delineated water?
drawing lines of waves
charting
freedom
(and knowledge of...
fuck. the edge of the world? what are we looking at anyway?
the open waters like a scene from a movie.
i don't know what happens out there.
tales of dragons snagging ships in clenching, reptilian loops,
easier to grasp at than today’s science-ized creatures of the deep,
hanging phosphorescent lanterns to lure a passing catch of the day,
how are they related to me?
G-O-D in mitochondrial entities,
the same ones inhabit you and me
slough off in skin cells regularly,
so that in just a few short years we are made up of entirely different stuff.
holy?
how can we hold on?
)
love
c
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