Whew, okay! This "biweekly" newsletter I've been keeping since 2009 went three whole months without an update...
but it's because I just became a dad! I hope you'll understand and stay on board. Thank you for tuning in!
Here are some of the new things I've created for you (and for the sheer fun of it):
Four new paintings, one new live album and a 360º video "single," and an entire treasure box of awesome conversations. Enjoy, and drop me a line anytime if you're inspired!
gratefully yours,
Michael
"Our Lady of the Late Cretaceous"
24"x36"• acrylic and oil paint pens on canvas
"Xenoscaping III & IV"
2x 12"x24" • acrylic and oil paint pens on canvas
"Fire Jelly Fronds"
12"x24" • acrylic and oil paint pens on canvas
sold • view in context on instagram
Live at the Apothecary
(Santa Fe, NM • 2019.05.11)
My first concert as a father, and my first concert as a Santa Fean, this show was warm, intimate, and magical. Dear friends were in from out of town, and new friends were won over from the dinner crowd. My old friend Sydney Wright from Austin, Texas – one of the regulars at my two-year Austin residency, Loopers' Night – joined me while starting off her tour of the Western States, and captivated all of us. (Her songs were not recorded at this show, but I encourage all of you to check her out.)
Big thanks to Mya Kass & Cheryl Casden for inviting us to play this show at the Santa Fe Oxygen Bar Apothecary Restaurant – and even more for buying an entirely new PA system so Sydney and I could have the best possible sound for this. And thanks to Andee Jean Ostara for her concert photography – you can and should follow her new professional instagram account.
Here's one of my favorite moments from the show:
"Indecision" (Ukulele Arrangement) in 360º
In the moment before acting lies a void
where every future gleams,
reflecting every other
every moment a uniquely blooming world.
In the space between two thoughts
where every other instant grows
expanding now into infinity
and every possibility unfurls...
How do you choose your next life?
It may seem your heart has stopped between two beats.
It's not the universe that's ended
but that you're already dead,
but that you're already dead,
remembering everything at once
seeing past the limits of your head.
seeing past the limits of your head.
In the seconds it would take to drain
the oxygen from your exquisite brain
a few mere seconds, all your life replays
an intimate refrain.
It isn't just the fireworks of dying neurons firing.
You are slipping from the grip
of that which kept you in the slow procession.
Now your feathered eyelids open to behold the whole terrain...
I'm especially excited about the Future Fossils Book Club on Patreon and the amazing video calls we've been having about the most mind-blowing books I can find. Our first call on the science fiction horror masterpiece Blindsight by Peter Watts was great, and our second call on Diana Slattery's psychedelic science and philosophy opus Xenolinguistics was (for me, anyway) even better.
We're doing a call for Cixin Liu's Hugo-winning The Three Body Problem sometime next month.
I'd love to hear you chime in on our next group call!
And since it's been so long since my last update, here are NINE new episodes of Future Fossils.
There's something here for everyone: Nadja Oertelt teaches scientists to speak to non-scientists; Bruce Damer's team might have figured out the origins of life; Erick Godsey has the most inspiring stance on personal mythology; Android Jones and I discuss what being visionary artist dads is like; Mitsuaki Chi leads therapeutic mushroom groups in Amsterdam; Sean Esbjörn-Hargens is about to teach a course about the philosophy of science through the lens of UFOs; Bernie Taylor has a powerful new angle on some of the oldest cave art in the world; Eliot Peper offers his empowering and sober view of history and tech; and Kevin Wohlmut offers up the first guest episode with essays on the next ten billion years. Enjoy!
“All that is becomes connected even in its difference, as being and becoming share the same confused territory of ‘feathery incandescence’; ontology itself becomes not only dynamic but synesthetic.”
– Richard Doyle, Darwin's Pharmacy
