I've been writing a great deal lately, but Rum & Donuts has still suffered greatly over the past few months. My writing has been going to other projects, including some not yet made public. I've written so little here that Amazon canceled my Kindle publishing (not that it was exactly successful anyway, save for seeing that tool in action). Hopefully there are still enough readers following to take note of a new post.
I'll be Twenty-Five in a couple of days. I'm remarkably unimpressed by birthdays for maybe the first time. That might have something to do with seeing that maybe I do have time to do the things I want to do. The maddening rush of my early twenties, driven primarily by college, seems to've slowed to something more realistic. I'm not interested in “settling” by any means (not in, not down, and certainly not for), but I am interested by far in more permanence. If there is any maddening pressure it is now to be doing things which contribute significantly, tangibly, not just to my immediate but to my long-term. My casual interests in sustainability, self-sufficiency and all manner of other skills for a life well earned in any circumstances, are becoming less casual.
Many of these interests are very much at home on the ranch, and I am beginning to really get into them. Next years garden, for which I am already preparing, is going to be significant. My goal is to grant my folks a greater degree of self sufficiency, and thus freedom with their income, via a serious garden. To me, this is an investment in my future; Securing my family and beginning hands on learning that will be foundational for practices I desire to make a larger part of my life away from here. Though when I return, soon, to more urban settings I'll not have the same amount of room for raising food, I will still be able to use lessons learned from what I'll have created here.
Taking my gardening with me to the urban space is not all I have desire for, in moving back to the city. A more urban setting is more truly vital for other things I desire to foster. I really wish I had a space in which to create something different. A collaborative space for people who strike marks in the world with acts of iron and flesh; Who find themselves full in those hard actions between civilization and destruction. I envision a space where things come together. A space full of iron and knives, sinew, nylon, and will. That smells of gun-oil, metal being milled, wood being worked, and flesh sweating. A place of performance and evolution: Of pitiless evaluation, and uncompromised growth. The forge running in the yard, iron being lifted and flesh formed inside, heavy bags and mock-opponents being dealt repeated learning blows, fires being started from raw sticks and sheer will. I have friends interested in my pursuits, in the wilds, with tools and weapons and with shaping the flesh, the corporeal self; I desire to create a space for those things to be shared and explored more fully.
I also desire a space which I can fill with books and interesting things of that nature; Records, a turntable, maps and photographs, comfortable arrangements and good lighting for coffee and reading. A pile of books to be lent out by the door, and music always filling the space. I am much more of a social animal than I ever thought I would be, and my socialization is working and thinking, and joying in such things with fellows. Of all the things I miss from the city, that is what I miss the most.
All this takes its rightful place though, as all things must. Captivating, compelling, even driving, these interests and pursuits must still be put aside for more important things. I tell her all the many things I am thinking about, and she scoffs, “You should free up your mind. So, forget the plants, forget tomorrow. Now sushi, sex, and me should be left. What sense do you make of it?”
And I say that it occurs to me “that if the world were a right and just place, I'd be eating sushi off your naked body. Not sure if that is a form of 'sense' or not... but I like the idea”.
Showing posts with label Notebooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Notebooks. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Amanda Palmer
I really don't remember how I discovered The Dresden Dolls, but I suspect it was through a friends Facebook status asking for a coin-operated boy. However it was, that's how I heard of Amanda Palmer, the Doll's lead singer (among other talents). Quickly the Doll's albums, and Amanda's solo effort, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, became some of my favorite music, and continue to get a lot of play. Particularly when I'm writing or being otherwise creative.
But it's only recently that I've started following Amanda Fucking Palmer's blog.
I'm not much of a fan boy. If I like someone's work, I'll promote it to my friends who share my tastes, and maybe mention it here, but not much more. I'm a quiet fan. I follow the artists artistic output, invest my money in the output I want to own or participate in, and encourage fellows to do the same, but that's the extent of it. I'm not a gushing, twitter following, fan-art making fan. It just doesn't work for me. If I follow an artist on Twitter, odds are I'll get pissed at narcissistic irreverence and nonsense and stop liking them. Same for a lot of blogs. For me to enjoy engaging with an artist I like in that fashion, something has to be different. I like artists who blog smartly.
I particularly like artists who talk about art, and the processes behind it, and within it. Whatever their art may be. Even better, artists who talk about the future of their art. Best, an artist who can talk about these things in a manner that's as inspiring as their art.
This is why I'm actually reading AFP's blog, and have linked it at right. She's fucking brilliant.
She's thoughtful, and puts a lot of her energy into her words, making the blog both enlightening and inspiring. It's something a lot of artists just can't do – Their blogs end up narcissistic or dry, or narcissisticly dry. AFP is engaging, funny, energetic, and smart. She also regularly displays a firm grasp on current, and emergent, trends and offers insights that more people should really be paying attention to.
Some of her recent blogging in particular has been excellent in terms of trends and things people should pay attention to. Her ideas and comments about how she, as an artist, is making money and the necessity of doing the work, and how others are succeeding, or can succeed, are great.
More artists need to embrace the entrepreneurial opportunities afforded by the current state of technology and communication. More artists need to stop being shy about cultivating a fan base, being involved with that fan base, and making money from that fan base. Making money is not dishonest, it doesn't dirty up the work. Everyone has a right to try to make a living from what they're passionate about. Go read, seriously. AFP is talking from the POV of a performance based artist/act like a musician, but if I find it valuable as a scribbler and metalsmith, other artists should as well. If you're a musician, video artist, writer, pounder of metal, any sort of artist who wants to make a life an an artist, her ideas are worth a look.
I find her commentary very much in keeping with my recent ideas on writing/publishing, markets and marketing there-for, and making use of available technology and the memes they enable to achieve success in genres and as artists.
On top of that, she's awesome and I enjoy her work, and the things she has to say.
(As a note: I'm thinking about putting up something for each of my recommended reads, who I haven't mentioned before at least, but don't know if I'll get to it. My recommended reading, and the blogs I follow (see profile) are all recommended, or they wouldn't be there. You should check them out.)
But it's only recently that I've started following Amanda Fucking Palmer's blog.
I'm not much of a fan boy. If I like someone's work, I'll promote it to my friends who share my tastes, and maybe mention it here, but not much more. I'm a quiet fan. I follow the artists artistic output, invest my money in the output I want to own or participate in, and encourage fellows to do the same, but that's the extent of it. I'm not a gushing, twitter following, fan-art making fan. It just doesn't work for me. If I follow an artist on Twitter, odds are I'll get pissed at narcissistic irreverence and nonsense and stop liking them. Same for a lot of blogs. For me to enjoy engaging with an artist I like in that fashion, something has to be different. I like artists who blog smartly.
I particularly like artists who talk about art, and the processes behind it, and within it. Whatever their art may be. Even better, artists who talk about the future of their art. Best, an artist who can talk about these things in a manner that's as inspiring as their art.
This is why I'm actually reading AFP's blog, and have linked it at right. She's fucking brilliant.
She's thoughtful, and puts a lot of her energy into her words, making the blog both enlightening and inspiring. It's something a lot of artists just can't do – Their blogs end up narcissistic or dry, or narcissisticly dry. AFP is engaging, funny, energetic, and smart. She also regularly displays a firm grasp on current, and emergent, trends and offers insights that more people should really be paying attention to.
Some of her recent blogging in particular has been excellent in terms of trends and things people should pay attention to. Her ideas and comments about how she, as an artist, is making money and the necessity of doing the work, and how others are succeeding, or can succeed, are great.
More artists need to embrace the entrepreneurial opportunities afforded by the current state of technology and communication. More artists need to stop being shy about cultivating a fan base, being involved with that fan base, and making money from that fan base. Making money is not dishonest, it doesn't dirty up the work. Everyone has a right to try to make a living from what they're passionate about. Go read, seriously. AFP is talking from the POV of a performance based artist/act like a musician, but if I find it valuable as a scribbler and metalsmith, other artists should as well. If you're a musician, video artist, writer, pounder of metal, any sort of artist who wants to make a life an an artist, her ideas are worth a look.
I find her commentary very much in keeping with my recent ideas on writing/publishing, markets and marketing there-for, and making use of available technology and the memes they enable to achieve success in genres and as artists.
On top of that, she's awesome and I enjoy her work, and the things she has to say.
(As a note: I'm thinking about putting up something for each of my recommended reads, who I haven't mentioned before at least, but don't know if I'll get to it. My recommended reading, and the blogs I follow (see profile) are all recommended, or they wouldn't be there. You should check them out.)
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
A Fragment
This is part of a... manifesto? Extended thesis statement? A something I haven't quite figured out what is yet. I wrote this in a burst, and its been sitting there ever since, more than a year now. It is the inspiration for an attempted novel, still in the early stages, but beyond that it is a nothing. Yet.
We are middle children of the west – Not members of the new west fraternity, and not the new immigrant whose bottom-up cultural revolution is more and more successful every day. Our parents worked hard jobs, to give us good lives, working other hard jobs – And the industry disappeared. Cattle, logging, you name it. Skills valuable in todays west do not use strong backs, or toughened hands, they use cunning and false mirth, to plan and plot and sell. And what is being sold is our birthright. It is being sold to others who have not felt the back breaking strain that has been put into the west by the original generations, but who want to buy a piece of a mythology. A mythology created by observers, branded to sell the very acts, and places they were observing, to people even further removed. And in their eyes, it cost the people already there nothing, they can benefit from the increased economic flow, the trickle down. The developers and land-sellers, these priests of an insincere telephone-game mythology, they see themselves as putting in the money, writing the sales pitches, doing the work to sell the west. And they fail to see that what they are selling is the... I don't know if there is a word for it, a single word that encompasses land rich for farming, growing grasses good for cattle, that has been worked and built upon and channeled by hard working believers, disciples of an earned life. Land imbued with all that is, not just their dreams, but the blood of their failures, spirit of their successes, and ideals of existence. What word is there for that? Land does not cover it. Culture does not cover it.
No one who's family has been in the west more than a hundred years has not had ancestors who paid into this. No one who can claim two generations history, was ever expected by their parents and grandparents, to not have access to the full scope of western opportunity, in earth and livestock and timber and hard, hard, work.
What we want to say is, “It is not yours. You cannot buy it”, and instead we pump gas, wait tables, cook meth, work the last holdouts of industries bankrupted by the dreams of new-westerners, or sell out, give in, and start hocking the corporeal elements of our past, our forefathers guarantee of blood and sweat.
We are middle children of the west – Not members of the new west fraternity, and not the new immigrant whose bottom-up cultural revolution is more and more successful every day. Our parents worked hard jobs, to give us good lives, working other hard jobs – And the industry disappeared. Cattle, logging, you name it. Skills valuable in todays west do not use strong backs, or toughened hands, they use cunning and false mirth, to plan and plot and sell. And what is being sold is our birthright. It is being sold to others who have not felt the back breaking strain that has been put into the west by the original generations, but who want to buy a piece of a mythology. A mythology created by observers, branded to sell the very acts, and places they were observing, to people even further removed. And in their eyes, it cost the people already there nothing, they can benefit from the increased economic flow, the trickle down. The developers and land-sellers, these priests of an insincere telephone-game mythology, they see themselves as putting in the money, writing the sales pitches, doing the work to sell the west. And they fail to see that what they are selling is the... I don't know if there is a word for it, a single word that encompasses land rich for farming, growing grasses good for cattle, that has been worked and built upon and channeled by hard working believers, disciples of an earned life. Land imbued with all that is, not just their dreams, but the blood of their failures, spirit of their successes, and ideals of existence. What word is there for that? Land does not cover it. Culture does not cover it.
No one who's family has been in the west more than a hundred years has not had ancestors who paid into this. No one who can claim two generations history, was ever expected by their parents and grandparents, to not have access to the full scope of western opportunity, in earth and livestock and timber and hard, hard, work.
What we want to say is, “It is not yours. You cannot buy it”, and instead we pump gas, wait tables, cook meth, work the last holdouts of industries bankrupted by the dreams of new-westerners, or sell out, give in, and start hocking the corporeal elements of our past, our forefathers guarantee of blood and sweat.
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