I have a new musical love: French classical guitarist, Thibault Cauvin.
This album, which is a collaboration with many other renown musicians, is great for chilling.
I especially like track nine, “New York-Mad Rush.” This track was my introduction.
The B52s, Thank God /
What is your favorite B52s album? It’s not an easy question. On any given day, I could say Whammy, or Wild Planet, or their self-titled album from 1979. One thing is certain in my mind, though: 1979-1983 were their golden years. I couldn’t get enough of those three albums.
And remember when the DJ played “Rock Lobster” at the dances, and everyone spiraled down to the floor and lay on their backs and shook their arms and legs in the air at the crescendo of that musical spiral? The dances were the best. Yeah, they were filled with a lot of anxiety, too—would anyone dance with me? would I dance with so-and-so? would I meet anybody new? But that was part of it. Most of the time, I didn’t; once in a while, I did. Dancing to good tunes was fun, though. So much sweat; just letting go; lost in the music, darkness, flashing lights.
Good times.
Fred was so intense. I loved it. That guy could bang a tambourine!
I think my favorite B52s song is “Give Me Back My Man” just saying.
Does anyone remember that Cindy Wilson and Ricky Wilson were siblings, and that Ricky Wilson died of AIDs in 1985 at the age of 32? So sad. His death had a profound effect on the band for several years.
The band had a huge effect on me. They helped me let my hair down and have fun during those tough adolescent years.
#B52s #NewWave #80s #GenX #geneverybody #postpunk
A Patriotic Painting /
Patriotic Painting, 2006
mixed media on canvas
40”x30”
This playlist is a companion to my 80s coming-of-age novel, Your Silent Face. Stuart Page is a protagonist obsessed with 80s New Wave and Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Divison. All of the tunes and bands in the playlist get a mention in the novel. The novel is available on Amazon.
In Which Is Recounted the Writing & Reading Pursuits of Your Preoccupied Blogger /
A third Blade Runner poem is coming soon. I am also making progress on a new painting. And I am reading a very interesting book: The Long 1980s. I am also reading Malina, by Ingeborg Bachmann, and The Cyborg Manifesto, by Donna J. Haraway. Also, watched Stop Making Sense the other night. It holds up.
Oh, and I am reading Philip K. Dick’s final interview, which in part has also been fueling the Blade Runner poems.
This playlist is a companion to my 80s coming-of-age novel, Your Silent Face. Stuart Page is a protagonist obsessed with 80s New Wave and Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Divison. All of the tunes and bands in the playlist get a mention in the novel. The novel is available on Amazon.
Another Blade Runner Poem /
I always paint in series. I guess I’m writing a poetry series, now, too. Here’s another Blade Runner poem. The films (Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049) fascinate me to no end.
As usual, the poem is mine, but I do not own any rights to the image.
#BladeRunner2049 #BladeRunner #ryangosling #contemporaryart #contemporarypoetry #poetry #lovelansing #GenX #cyberpunk #philipkdick #doandroidsdreamofelectricsheep #thebladerunnerpoems
A New Blade Runner Poem for Agent KD6-3.7 /
It has become pretty clear to me that I have begun working on a new series of poems inspired by the Blade Runner films, and by Philip K. Dick’s last interview which was published under the title What If Our World Is Their Heaven. Naturally, I have started referring to these new poems as the Blade Runner poems.
The Impostor
for Agent KD6-3.7
In Blade Runner,
Rachel’s childhood memory—
of baby spiders
hatching from a spider’s
egg before
devouring the mother—
have been
implanted, are like
newts
wriggling under the
thin skin of her
wrist. Androids, of course,
are engineered,
do not have mothers.
Rachel falls in love
with the central character
who hunts down
rogue androids—
& she suffers.
A devoted mother
might have
warned her not to fall
in love with a murderer. Might have
breezed into her
room & swept away the
nastiness of the
spider living outside the
window. In his final
interview, Philip K. Dick
claims to have
written the first story
about an android
that believes it is human.
The cruel
revelation comes
as a shock,
just as it did for Rachel.
Just as a salamander
wriggling under one’s
skin might
paralyze one with
bone-chilling
fear. The title of Dick’s
story is “The Impostor.”
I am
warning you,
all of us have hatched
painful moments
we can’t undo or recognize.
Once implanted,
you would do well
to destroy those
memories.
#BladeRunner2049 #BladeRunner #ryangosling #contemporaryart #contemporarypoetry #poetry #lovelansing #GenX #cyberpunk #philipkdick #doandroidsdreamofelectricsheep #thebladerunnerpoems
Video Recording of New Poem: Perhaps I Am a Program Watching a Film Starring Androids, Humans & Beautiful Facsimiles /
I don’t read out very often anymore, but I do enjoy making these recordings. I hope you enjoy this recording of my new poem, “Perhaps I Am a Program Watching a Film Starring Androids, Humans & Beautiful Facsimiles.” Written after watching Blade Runner 2049 for the fourth or fifth time.
I have watched Blade Runner many times. A time will come when I can say that I have watched Blade Runner 2049 many times. In both films, I always find myself empathizing for the replicants. Think about that for a second. Empathizing for machines. How? Why? I’m fine with it. I am rooting for them.
We are capable of mistreating anything and everybody. The mistreatment of machines (AI) is going to be the end of us someday, or at least radically change human existence. We’re radically changing human existence, as it is. Some of it for the worst; some of it for the best. The best is perhaps always driven by the worst. What would happen if we stopped mistreating people, animals, things, the planet, ourselves? Would we flourish? Are we afraid to find out?
#BladeRunner2049 #BladeRunner #ryangosling #contemporaryart #contemporarypoetry #poetry #lovelansing #GenX #cyberpunk #philipkdick #doandroidsdreamofelectricsheep #thebladerunnerpoems
One Day I Became Who I Was /
I think it is pretty appropriate that on Loving Day, I have sold two paintings that explore my Ojibwe identity. Thank you for the love and support.
Both paintings are from the Double-Universe Topology series. In this series, I was thinking about what it is like to present, and be perceived, one way while identifying another. Living with an identity duality or multiplicity that creates tension within the history of our flawed society. The suppression of family heritage for whatever reason. Or opting out of embracing an identity as an injurious, subconscious coping mechanism for avoiding offending family.
