Michael Garfield's Love Without End Tour Newsletter: Tim Freke
Showing posts with label Tim Freke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tim Freke. Show all posts

13 October 2019

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

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

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.   

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

01 May 2018

Too Many Wonders? You Decide: New Live Albums, Time-Lapse Video, Salamander Painting, Coloring Book, & Podcast Episodes



Whoops – I guess I went a month without updating everyone about the new work...you were probably as busy as I was so let's just call it even.  Hope that this newsletter stays inspiring, not overwhelming.  God forbid that I contribute to the distraction avalanche.

If you'd prefer a bite-sized update every time I make a new thing as opposed to monster digest updates like this one, there's always Patreon (and if you've been enjoying my emails for years, I hope that you'll consider making the migration – subscribers helps immensely and I make a point of showing you I love you).

As an aside, I just republished some of my old fan-favorite essays on Steemit: "Ode To A Paradigm Shift""Transformational Festivals Are A Symptom of Dissociation"; and "A Manifesto For Live Painting".  And I was on my friend's great podcast Third Eye Drops again, this time (Episode 102) discussing the evolutionary biology and mythological dimensions of MONEY.  I say a lot of things I haven't said on record anywhere else, on a topic that is pretty key for all of us.  (Don't know when I will say more on these things, but I really should...)

That's all for now.  Thank you for opening this message and I hope you benefit from what's inside.

love
Michael


New Coloring Book Time-Lapse Video:
"On James P. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games"


I have decided to make the coolest dinosaur coloring book ever – AND the coolest reptiles and amphibians coloring book ever.  At least those two.  As I complete each page I'm giving every Patreon supporter at $5 and up the PDF and PSD files for it, to print out or color on a tablet.

I'd love to make more integrated coloring book time-lapse + music + podcast excerpts videos like this one above a bigger part of what I do – but I'm stretched pretty thin right now. So to that end I've mademore coloring book pages and more videos the object of my current Patreon stretch goal (to make a clean $1000 a month on that platform, which isn't too too far away...)

Here are pictures of the first dinosaur and reptile coloring book pages, both of which have extensive backstories dating back to my childhood that you've been spared, here:


Derp Alert!  
New Barton Springs Salamander Painting
for the Save Our Springs Alliance
24"x18" – acrylic paint on canvas

This spring I took a part-time gig with Save Our Springs Alliance and I'm finally starting to feel like a citizen of Austin. You all know how much I care about the history of place, and it's awesome to sink into the decades-old lineage of conservation work this organization holds and continues. Austin's one of those rare cities that has not yet totally destroyed the natural resources that made it beautiful to live in in the first place...

Austin's Barton Springs is home to a totally unique salamander that exists nowhere else in the world. I painted this to raise awareness of the valiant efforts by Save Our Springs Alliance to preserve the habitat of this beautiful creature, and to alert people to the importance of the Edwards Aquifer in general – which is also the source for clean water for millions of people, and is currently endangered by both deregulated development within city limits and secret fracking about 40 miles west of Austin. This piece is the second I've made of the Barton Springs Salamander, Eurycea sosorum.

Wherever you live, take care of it. Other creatures depend on you. If you live nearby, you can support the Save Our Springs Alliance by donating here.

New Instrumental Album: Live at Flowstorm 2018
Spotify • Bandcamp • Feedbands • Patreon • iTunes

For those of you unfamiliar with my music, you're coming in at a very good time.

This set was improvised live on acoustic guitar, pedalboard, voice, and iPad Pro to an international audience of professional flow artists: hoopers, fire dancers, poi spinners, and many others.

This informal collaboration, as well as the glorious Central Texas wildflower eruption all around us, and the sweet song of the frogpond in the distance, led to what I believe is one of my strongest instrumental freestyle sets of all time.

(It also happened to be on the Eve of Easter and on the third anniversary of my first gig - also at Flowstorm - with my beloved guitar Charlotte, a Taylor 322e.)

All of the tracks are named after local wildflowers. The album art is from one of my greatest inspirations, the legendary Ernst Haeckel, author of Art Forms in Nature.

New Live Double Album: Live at Arcosanti

Recorded live on 11 and 12 November 2017 in the amphitheater of the legendary Arcosanti, Arizona – an historic experiment in ecologically-integrated architecture – for Convergence, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between visionary architects, artists, and permaculturists.

Arcosanti is one of the most inspiring places I've ever been and playing there was the fulfillment of a dream I've had since I first visited in 2005.  The vibe was high, the desert winter beautiful, the crew and venue incomparable. This double album is a landmark record of the sweet, ripe moment when it all came true – if only for a moment.

Most people have no clue that I've been a devoted songwriter since 1999 and that my music matters more to me than almost anything I do...the songs on this live album are the fruit of that long practice and I've polished each of them with love and patience over years.

This really was a magical concert and I'm glad I get to share it with you.

New Future Fossils Podcast Episodes
with Doug Rushkoff, Charles Shaw,
Tim Freke, & Steve Brusatte

Lastly – here are four of the best episodes of this podcast I've ever had the honor of releasing.  The show's on every platform, and you can find links to the show's page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. in each episode's show notes:





That's enough for now.  I'm sure that you agree.  ;)

Gratefully Yours,