I Return From Summer Tour Bearing Gifts & Blessings

While I sit here riding the tail of an absolutely epic three-month tour, I hope the sun-baked transformational friction of everyone's summer was as fruitful as my own!  All of the lush multimedia festivals and amazing underground concerts inspired some of the greatest art and music I have ever made, and I'm in the thick of the editing process so I can share it all soon.  Here is the first of two updates celebrating a summer we'll long remember...

"The SACRED (whatever that means) is surely related (somehow) to the BEAUTIFUL (whatever that means)..."

– Gregory Bateson

"Play is our greatest natural resource."

– Laura Seargeant Richardson 

"You Don't Have To Move" | Live at Austin Airport

Watch on Youtube | Free .mp3 Download

Listening music for the rest of this newsletter.  The original recording of this song from 2009 remains my most popular video, and rightly so – it's the most ludicrous braid of avant-guitar techniques I've ever managed to pull off while singing.  Three years of live performance have turned what started as a three-minute pop song into this sprawling acoustic prog opus...

I'm falling out of these open eyes

filling up all of the world outside

I'm seeing more than fits in my mind

spilling the bliss out through bright surprise

If there's one thing I know,

it's that angels appear

when you stop trying to prove them

and the clouds clear

you don't have to move

I'm falling out of these open eyes

challenging all my ideas of size

What was once narrow feels miles wide

all of a sudden, in all of time

If there's one thing I know,

it's that angels appear

when you stop trying to prove them

and the clouds clear

you don't have to move

You can stream or download this entire album, An Aria for ABIA: Live at Austin Airport, for free.

I'll Meet You There

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24"x48" – paint marker on 1/4" masonite panel
(Click to enlarge.) 

Painted Live At:
2011 12 09, 10 Cartographie Psychedelica, Oakland CA
(Cello Joe, Random Rab, Mochipet, Sugarpill, iLL ESHA, Joe Mousepad, MiHKAL, VNDMG)
2012 04 27, 28 Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom, Denver CO
(Umconscious, Jamie Janover, Russ Liquid, David Starfire, GRiZ, Human Agency, Sugarpill, Octopus Nebula, Bluetech)
2012 05 05 The Manifestation Celebration, Dallas TX
(Nadis Warriors, EOTO, The Human Experience, Thievery Corporation)

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing

and rightdoing there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass

the world is too full to talk about.”

– Rumi

11" x 17" signed poster prints  | iPhone cases | lapstop stickers | iPad & laptop sleeves

 

Custom-Painted Hats

Here are a few new ones available for sale, as well as several recent commissioned designs on some interesting hats.  You know how to get ahold of me if you'd like one of your own – just hit me up with your budget and design specs and we can take it from there!  (Here's the full gallery of my adventures in hat painting.)

Click on each pic to get a better view:

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Burning Man: Taking The Year Off!

Also, I meant to get this out earlier:  I didn't make it out to Burning Man this year, but my friends put together some amazing lecture series at Palenque Norte, Fractal Nation, and Area 51.  If you didn't make it out there, stay tuned because I know at least some of the recordings will be online for free soon, and really cool!  I designed the 5' banner they printed to use as a schedule board out in the dusty expanse – click on it to get a better view:

Off-playa, I've been giving a lot of talks as well. While I'm getting the new stuff online, you might find some inspiration listening to the archives...

While I'm getting the next newsletter together, feel welcome to write me personally with your feedback, suggestions, questions, or great ideas. I deeply appreciate you taking the time to read this blog and wish you the best!

The Enlightenment Conference, New Print Store, & Plenty More Art

"People wish to be settled; only so far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them."

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

"When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge."

– Tuli Kupferberg

Register for The Enlightenment Conference!
Click here for more info

I was just confirmed as a speaker for one of the most awesome online events I've even heard of: The Enlightenment Conference, a three-week intensive with luminaries the world over, including Alex & Allyson Grey, Lama Surya Das, Father Thomas Keating, Jean Houston, Howard Bloom, my singer-songwriter role model Stuart Davis, my friends The Nadis Warriors, and dozens of other amazing people who will be sharing their insights on how to wed spiritual development with life in the world of business, family, and the everyday.

Not only can you just sign up for free and get all of the recordings as they're released, but you can also apply for a student or low-income scholarship (although the whole thing costs less than a hundred bucks, if you're sitting pretty).  They're also accepting late registrations...sign up today and get access to the collective wisdom of an utterly inspiring group of people!

My Latest Article on BigThink

When I have the time for it, I write and speak on issues of human-technology co-evolution in loose affiliation with the Hybrid Reality Institute, whose blog on BigThink.com has featured some of my finest writing.  The latest installment is an excerpt from my epic two-hour conversation with poet-philosopher William Irwin Thompson, one of the most incandescent minds I have ever encountered.  We spoke about why prophecy is not prediction, compared the futures of Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Kurzweil, discussed elemental magic, and much more...

The Singularity & Other "Dimensional Failures of Topological Imagination"

If you're interested in how the past connects to the future – and who isn't? – it's a great read.  :)

New Video: "All That's Left Is Stars"

From my April show at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.  An old song, a sweet song, one that captures that feeling I went on to try and express in almost all of my improvised instrumentals...the lyrics are below so you can read along while you listen:

Watch on Youtube

Lyrics:

We laid on the lawn, the grass to our backs

and emptied our minds in frozen silence.

Night stretched on with imperceptible swirls,

our ghosts through space in a patient spiral.

The constellations drifting apart.

Meaning is lost and all that's left is stars.

Dim clouds milkshade the pointillist black.

There's nothing but breeze through open quiet.

It's a slow pulsing fade from tense and withdrawn,

expanding in place with broken lightness...

The constellations drifting apart.

Meaning is lost and all that's left is stars.

You can download the whole album here:
An Aria For ABIA: Live at Austin Airport

New Convenient Way To Buy Prints

Until today, ordering my prints has been kind of a pain: by email only, and there wasn't a single place online where you could see absolutely all of my paintings and make an informed decision.

But I fixed it!  Take a look at my new merchandise shop at Bandcamp and scratch your head, as I did, at how I managed to crank out over 250 paintings (!) in four and a half years. Once you've enjoyed a stroll through the archives, it's easier than ever to buy the ones that sing to your inner ear.

(As always, I offer discounts if you want two or more prints; for that you'll still have to contact me with your order.) 

Verdilux

Collaboration with Chaeli Cardenas and Jeremiah Allen Welch

6" x 12" – paint marker & spray paint on masonite

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This was an orphan piece for almost two years, after Jeremiah Allen Welch gave me this stenciled board during the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference in 2010.  But then I pawned it off to my friend Chaeli Cardenas and she got me inspired to work on it again...  Lord only knows what we're looking at, here.

Body Art at Firefly Gathering

 

Click to view the album on FB 

Custom-Painted Hats

Wheee!  All the live long day.  If you want one, hit me up with your hat style, size, favorite colors, any ideas for symbols or patterns, budget (typically between $80 – $150), and mailing address.  Right now touring slows everything else down but I'm still turning around orders in about three weeks.

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Upcoming Festivals

I book new shows all the time, so be sure to check my full calendar on the blog or facebook – especially if you live in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, or Indiana – but here are the biggie festivals I'm excited about:

Thanks for reading, stay in touch, and have a beautiful day!