One Final Dispatch From Last Decade: New Paintings, Music, Podcasts, & Reading Lists

"One's ideas must be as broad as Nature, if they are to interpret Nature. “

- Arthur Conan Doyle

"Einstein thought nature would protect us from the formation of black holes."

- Janna Levin

Happy New Year, everyone! This update is, I know, more than I can hope for you to actually digest — and that's okay. I'm glad you even took the time to check it out — and think you'll be rewarded with each step into it you take.

The reason for this tome is that I've been so busy making work of lasting value that I haven't had the time to share.  Exhibit A:

I've been working hard to figure out how I can balance old and new responsibilities (including sharing the extraordinary conversations I've been hosting for the Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Podcast, about evolution and ecology, economics and sociology). The art and music still comes, just slower, more deliberately than it used to. My hope is that you too value quality over quantity.

That said, here's the last dispatch from the 2010s, a few days late due to subspace anomalies:

A few new tees and tapestries featuring my artwork made it up on Acidmath's new website:

Because a lot of people have asked me for reading lists, I've started a new shop at Amazon where I list my favorite non-fiction, fiction, and graphic novels, and if you buy them I get some small percentage of the sale:

I also got a lot of airtime in the last few months — getting interviewed by The New Modality as an advisor to their amazing new magazine, and appearing on podcasts with Cory Allen and Hardy Haberland. I left Chris Ryan a voicemail he played on Tangentially Speaking, and got name-dropped in my friend David Titterington's awesome essay on "black goo" and/in the films of David Lynch. And my public talks were quoted extensively in Marzia Braggion's lovely experimental art film, "The Great Unknown" — as well as for one of the weirdest and funniest hip hop videos I've ever seen, Jonah Mociun's "Still Life (The Ensouling)".

Two new live recordings found their way online last week: the highlights from my concert for the Psychedelic Society of Minneapolis, and the ambient set I played in Arizona for Stargate Reunion. (The former's free and public; the latter an exclusive for Bandcamp & Patreon supporters.)

 

Note: I got to play the best gig ever in December, opening for Papadosio at Meow Wolf, and I'll have that for you in the next update — along with the live painting that I made with them that weekend, and the special episode of Future Fossils I recorded with their lead guitarist and my dear old friend Anthony Thogmartin.  It seemed a bad idea to bury that in this massive update, so hold tight!

As for the painting life, I've been waiting for a while to get my hands on the scan of this deliciously disturbing pens-and-airbrush collaboration I did last year with brother-in-arms Byron Aldridge. We are not making prints of this but the original is up for purchase, if you're interested. (24"x36" on gallery-wrapped canvas.)

And if you aren't subscribed to Future Fossils Podcast yet, the four latest episodes are easily four of the best to date:

 

 

Recent Patreon-supporter-exclusives include another four solid conversations (including a personal favorite with comedian Ramin Nazer), as well as our final book club call of 2019:

 

In parting, probably the proudest non-baby art I've made in the last several months were these two studio recordings, "Transparent" and "Signal." Listeners have likened them to everything from "the kind of music Bon Iver wishes he could make" to "like listening to The Flaming Lips for the first time."

You can dig them both on Spotify, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, or anywhere you like to go for music. Or stream them while you read their lyrics and their backstories, on Medium:

Thank you for your attention!  Love and warm wishes,

Michael

An Overflowing Cornucopia of Cool Stuff for Autumn

Hey friends! It's been six weeks since I last sent you anything, which means this latest blog is bursting at the seams. You're probably as busy as I am, which makes it totally amazing that you're reading this. So thank you!

If you're not though, here's a ton of cool stuff for you that will help you fill your time with something nourishing, instead of mindless scrolling:

NEW ART

Signed Prints

Painted live on Procreate for iPad through a visual projector behind and during the music of Minneapolis-based DJs Simon Alaya, Jacob Hoffman, and Neil David Fox at The Hook & Ladder Lounge on Sunday, 6 October 2019.

For digital remixes and time-lapse video of this piece, visit my instagram account.

Feel free to email me if you'd like this printed or remixed for something specific!

NEW MUSIC

Name-Your-Price (Free) Download

When I recently released the Joining Forces EP, featuring my old musical partner in crime Andrew Noble on violin, I made an out-loud wish we'd have another opportunity to play together soon. He lives in Austin, still, you see, and here I am in Santa Fe...

...and then the wish came true! Andrew just so happened to be here to join me for my monthly residency at the Santa Fe Oxygen Bar. Brave soul that he is, he sat in on both improv duets and some originals he'd never heard before.

No rehearsal, additional takes, or post-production. The drums are nylon brushes on my acoustic guitar. The bass synth is an Ebow run through pedals. Everything you hear is either a guitar, a violin, or my own voice.

These tunes are spacious, atmospheric, deep, warm, and organic – dreamy, and then groovy, and then both at once. (My favorites are two improvisations – "Dream River" & "Jigsaw" – which I liked so much I think I will commit them both to memory, and keep on playing them.)

If you'd like to share this with your friends, please feel free! I'd love their feedback.

NEW & OLD WRITING

I've moved a lot of my old articles from Reality Sandwich to Medium after RS, long the bastion of psychedelic culture, has been taken over by some folks who do not seem to care about the site's community of contributors. It's sad news to find out RS is now some weird and hollow imitation of itself, but hopefully they'll find a way to steer it in a good direction.   

Meanwhile, you can find some of my favorite pieces from The Good Old Days below. It's interesting to see how they've aged, and how they haven't:

• Coevolution and the Technology of Desire
• Global Brains & Singularities: Cadell Last & Michael Garfield Debate the Technopocalypse
• Painting is Dangerous
• Transcending Possessiveness in Love & Music
• Love and Other Pranks: An Interview with Tony Vigorito
• Let A Hundred Futures Bloom: A Both/And Survey of Transhumanism
• Self As City, City As Self (a transcript from my talk at Burning Man's Entheon Village, 2010)

I also found a never-published piece to add to the bonfire, and it seems timely:

• Don’t Optimize Your Life

NEW PODCASTS

First of all, I had an intense (albeit amazingly friendly, open, and curious) debate about emergent order, creativity, and the nature of time and the imagination with philosopher Tim Freke on his show.  I recommend watching this for a model of how to politely disagree with someone very smart about a viscerally divisive issue – a skill we all could benefit from cultivating in these crazy times:

Next, some of the most epic guests that Future Fossils has ever had have graced the show in the last few weeks.  (Yes, I know this looks outrageously white and male.  I have a ton of great female guests in the queue – hold tight!)

 

 

And the Future Fossils Book Club had our fourth call, about the awesome work of Cixin Liu.  Our next call, for his novel Death's End, will be on October 20th.  Even if you haven't read the book, you're welcome to join our calls and listen, or absorb the recordings at your leisure, by supporting me on Patreon at any level:

That's "all" for now! Thank you so much for taking the time to absorb this.  Reach out anytime.

"The growth of languages into their present shape and form—their syntax and grammar—has a universality that suggests a common rule. The rule is that languages have followed their own requirements. The rule is that they are charged with describing the world. There is nothing else to describe."

- Cormac McCarthy

New Art & Conversations From The Road To The Eclipse & Burning Man

Spotify • Bandcamp • Facebook • Instagram • YouTube • Twitter • iTunes • Available Paintings

Hey friends!  I'm on the road to the Global Eclipse Gathering in Oregon this week, then Burning Man, to speak and play music at both events – so I'm keeping this short and sweet.  If you'll be at either of those, check my full performance schedule here and come say hi!  I have both hugs and stickers for you.  :)

And now onto some fun things:

News & Interviews

I just gave an exclusive interview about my music, art, life, mission, work, etc. to Keyframe Entertainment on Reality Sandwich.  It's a solid piece, especially if you're new to my work:

"...perhaps the world’s only paleontologist-futurist, a psychedelic poet-artist whose work in every medium communicates a vision of emergent planetary renaissance, and celebrates the curiosity and play required of us if we are to make it through this age of transformation."

And a very different, short-form podcast interview on Austin's WizWarp Artist Spotlight about the intersection of my songwriting and my motivation for creating an archive of vital conversations with Future Fossils Podcast.

Those of you who like some meat on the bones of their conversations will dig my second guest appearance on Cory Allen's The Astral Hustle Podcast, in which we discuss how meditation's only growing more relevant as we walk half-blind into a world of AI-assisted forgeries and automated economies.  Cory's smart as hell, hilarious, and full of liberating insights.  Highly recommended.

Lastly, two art projects deserving of attention:

I donated 20 prints of my frog painting, Zabka, to help fund the conservation of the Sonoran River Toad, threatened by overharvesting for its potent toxins, which contain the so-called "God Molecule" 5-MeO DMT.  A beautiful and sacred creature.  Help out if you can at the Terra Incognita Project.

And my work will be joining the art of dozens of other visionary painters from around the world in a massive group show this winter, Seeds of the Anaconda in Sierra Nevada, Colombia.  It's a celebration of the prophesied reunion of the five indigenous tribes of the Sierra, and a gathering in the name and spirit of global peace and unity.  Learn more about it here.

New Paintings

"Space Pastry"

18"x24" – available

painted live at Cherry Cola Dog (Austin) & at home

prints available here

"Martian Arts"
collaboration with William Allan Ross

16"x20" – taken

painted live by Will during my set at Martian Arts Festival & finished at home by me

prints available here

FOUR New Future Fossils Episodes

Newly Exhumed Short Writing

Pieces from my old gig as the editor of Globalish – where we investigated timeless spiritual themes as they arise in modern culture – these pieces have been unavailable to anyone for two years, until recently republished on my Steemit profile.  

The New Scarlet Letter: Hong Kong Uses DNA Tests To Publicly Shame Litterers

Diriye Osman's Queer Somali Storytelling Helps Us See Beyond The Story

Sex, Drugs, and Evolution: Are We Smart Enough To See Through Separation?

Experiencing Edgelessness in the Floating City of Kompong Khleang

How New York's "Projection Napping" Turns The City Inside-Out

See You Out There...

Parting Thoughts...

"If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh…well, there it is. Life finds a way."

– Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Saddhu: “Master, I can walk across the water.”

Buddha: “But the ferry’s only a nickel!”

Greetings from Australia Tour! Abundant Creativity From Oz & Onward

“Through how many dimensions and how many media will life have to pass?”

– Loren Eiseley, The Incredible Journey (p8)

Greetings from the last week of my Australia tour!  This last month's surges of intense and revolutionary energy have served my citizen diplomacy and art so well, and I'll be sharing videos and fresh work from this trip for quite a while to come.  Some of the most amazing moments:

- Painting my first collaboration with my friends Randal Roberts & Morgan Manley;
- Giving a talk on psychedelic transhumanism to executives at the largest bank in Australia;
- Visiting the Easternmost point of the continent and its stark, beautiful eroded beaches.

That is not to say that it's been easy.  This has been the most demanding, difficult, and complicated journey that I've had in years, and knowing that it's all scored to the music of my country's painful transformations hasn't made it any easier.

My heart goes out to everyone who's suffering right now, but all this just reminds me of the deeply valuable, important work ahead of us, to keep our minds sharp and hearts open.  Here are some things I hope will let some light into your life.

Australia Tour 360º Travelogue (Part 1)

Here are the photos (and videos!) I've been taking with my Samsung Gear 360 camera while on painting/music/speaking tour Down Under. I'm so excited to share these with you!
360º photography is such an immersive, rich, delightful way to share the feeling of a place, the energy of all these festivals and underground gigs carrying me on a song-line through the synchronistic magic of Australia.

See a few select annotated photos.

Read more and see the whole series so far.

How to Live in the Future Part 3: 

The Future is Both True & False

The latest section of How To Live in the Future, the book I'm writing in public, is a timely message for an age of fake news and splintering realities:

'Lying will persist as long as there are lines to cross, as long as there are others to communicate with. So you cannot really say and mean that lies are fully false; for each of them contains the truth, reflects it, and says yet more about the hidden mind that models and presents such falsehoods. (You can, but then you would be lying to your self, aware of it, and holding both perspectives from opposing banks across an oxbow of your fractal subjectivity, and only ritually “siding” with one view to immanentize and involve and push-against, cuz God gets bored, so what?)'

Read the whole piece here in 5 minutes.

Making Sure Technology's "A Good Trip"

Here's the slideshow for my five-minute talk at Ignite Freelance Austin last autumn, "Tech Ethics As Psychedelic Parenting." Twenty slides on how to rightly think about the future.

I've never given such a whirlwind talk before – just 15 seconds for each slide – and it was great to wrangle my discursive and nonlinear ideas into a simpler presentation.

Comments welcome!

New Paintings: Red & Green Bioglyphs

 

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16"20" – acrylic paint on canvas

both currently available

 

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18"x24" – acrylic paint on canvas

both currently available

New Instrumental Track:

"Slow Dream Through A Wet Wood"

Free Download

Okay, not new, exactly.  I recorded this in March of 2014 with Casey Smith of Spindlegraf on voice and Ableton, back in the peak of my engagement with the Boss RC-300 looping pedal.  What starts off as very dark and sparse grows roots and crystallizes into something groovy, rolling, even funky.  It is unique amidst my hours of solo music, similar ideas but somewhat different colors, more inflected with the faerie magic of a sylvan film score and the curiosities of small things...

Future Fossils Podcast with Cory Allen

“It’s just all what is. And I accept every state of being as glorious.”

Join two dedicated truth-seekers and cosmos-abiders as we make a lot of dirty jokes and somehow manage to harmonize our angles on the practice of rigorous inquiry into the nature of reality and consciousness…

We have a totally tangential, irreverent, penetrating conversation. (Luckily for you it’s audio only.) Somehow it all hangs together…much like Cory and I would, if they ever found out about the unrecorded parts of this chat. (Kidding!)

Episode Show Notes & Download Permalink
Subscribe/Rate/Review Future Fossils Podcast on iTunes

Third Eye Drops with Douglas Rushkoff

I also had the honor of another guest appearance on Third Eye Drops Podcast, this time with Douglas Rushkoff, one of my favorite authors on the complex interplay of magic, myth, and media.  We went deep, as per usual – check out our whole chat here.