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

 

View/Share on FB • View/Share on FB

16"20" – acrylic paint on canvas

both currently available

 

View/Share on FB • View/Share on FB

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.

Now on Patreon, Live at Boom Festival, New Live Painting, Technoshamanism at Moogfest, New Future Fossils Episodes, How To Resolve A Paradox

Hello, friends!  A note about creativity and courage:

If you're reading this it's probably because we met while I was painting and I inspired you to stay in touch.  The funny thing is that I've been an emblem of this "daring artistic lifestyle" for several years, but visual art was something I stumbled into as a way of making ends meet. It wasn't a courageous swan dive into the creative life; it was the path of least resistance for someone who'd grown up doodling in class. I've always liked painting but being called a "painter" is like getting stabbed a little.

Now I'm at the point where I either put the emphasis back on my writing and my music, where my soul really is, or I die a little inside. And I'm standing at the edge where I've seen so many people falter, on the cusp of taking that leap of faith and embracing the thing I can't imagine actually paying for itself, and pissing off most of my supporters in the process. And wow, it really IS scary here!

Selling art was never going to buy the life I wanted for myself and for my imaginary future family. (At least, not without my heart in it.) But NOT constantly producing pretty flash for people to consume means stepping out across a chasm with no bridge in sight.

I've set up a Patreon account for anyone who cares about the work I offer and who'd like to see me emerge victorious from this transition with an album and a book and lots of extra podcast episodes.

If I've inspired you at any point I hope that you will join me for this ride, and that I can be – more authentically and deeply than ever – a living example and a catalyst for anyone who's scared to follow what they love beyond the point of sense and into wondrous things...

And now onto the offerings I'm proud and grateful to share with you today:

Live in 360º at Boom Festival’s Chillout Gardens

Audio Recording Here (Name-Your-Price Download)

My concert at Boom Festival's Chillout Gardens was the most amazing gig I've had so far: playing to an audience of thousands in an eighty-foot-tall psychedelic stupa ringed with a six-point Funktion One sound array, stretched fabric and cushioned red carpet flooring on the beach of Idanha-A-Nova, a glorious and glistening lake that literally shimmers with flecks of golden mica.

I played the first set (after a short break) following an epic five-hour dance party by Gaudi – can't ask for a better energy than that – and improvised an hour of music that was alternately spacious, spooky, lively, trancey, woodsy, futuristic, and serene (and sometimes all at once).  For the first time I read some excerpts from a favorite book to deepen and intensify the space of my performance – in this case, William Irwin Thompson's book-length essay, The American Replacement of Nature.

Also for the first time, I included software piano – and recorded the first 25 minutes of the set as a 360º videosphere.  Check this out – you can scroll around and watch everything I'm doing with my pedals, gaze up at the amazing stretched fabric roof of the stage, and look out into the sultry deliciousness of the Chillout Gardens audience:

PS – You can see all of my 360º photospheres from Boom Festival and Portugal here.

New Painting: Eclipse Flower

Buy 11"x17" Prints

Astrologically speaking, I have a Pisces Moon.  That means I'm an intuitive, moody, empathetic, emotionally slippery kind of person.  This is true.  And at no time did it seem MORE true than in the final stretch of working on this painting, when a Lunar Eclipse on the exact degree of my natal Moon (24º) cast me into a Persephonic pit of oozing darkness known to the Internet as "THE FEELS."

In every medium, I find myself trying to express the dark-bright beauty of life's messy emotional paradoxes.  Like, for example, the closing track off my first album, "It Hurts So We're Not Dead."  And here we have the visual representation of that:  is it one plant blossoming riotously in the moonlight, or is it two plants fighting one another for supremacy?  Do these distinctions even make sense when it comes to the inherently conflicted inner landscape of emotion?

This piece is for anyone who has ever felt like an alien cactus possibly attacking itself.

Original piece painted live on 40"x30" canvas with oil & acrylic paint pens at the Denison Cultural Arts Festival, SPRATX, and at home from 16-20 September over the Lunar Eclipse.

New Future Fossils Podcast Episodes

Subscribe / Rate / Review Future Fossils Podcast at iTunes

My podcast with cohost Evan Snyder, in which we take the perspective of future archeologists digging through the digital remains of modern culture.  What messages of value can we send posterity?  Explore the nature of time and our place in it through the conversations of the unconventional, bizarre, free-roaming, fun, irreverent, and thoughtful kind...an auditory psychedelic to get you prepared for living in a wilder future than we can imagine. Our latest episodes:

Author Kingsley Dennis on the emergence of planetary "new monasticism."

Author Ashley Dawson on the relationship between capitalism and mass extinction.

Both conversations were amazing.  Check them out on iTunes and leave us a review!

Video + Audio: "Technoshamanism" at Moogfest 2016

Stream/Download Audio

My talk from Moogfest 2016 was a highlight of my career as a public speaker – Consequence of Sound called it "Easily the most mind-opening presentation Moogfest 2016 had to offer," which is no small statement on a lineup that included virtual reality inventor Jaron Lanier and gender-bending transhumanist Martine Rothblatt.

I think part of what made it so effective was the audioreactive visualization software Synesthesia, transforming my words into flowing imagery behind me while I spoke. You may have already heard this talk as Episode 508 of Notes from the Psychedelic Salon, but seeing it is a very different thing. It was like having a cybernetic collaborator, early AI offering the digital ground to the figure of my presentation.

I've also made the talk's audio available in my own archives as a free download, for which I thoroughly edited most of the "ums" and "likes" so that you can listen to me wax visionary without having to suffer my atrocious Valley Girl dialect. ;)

Time-Lapse Mural Video: "How To Resolve A Paradox"

I had a little fun with the time-lapse app on my phone to capture most of the process while I threw this paint pen mural up in my friend's camper van.  Unfortunately he moved before I could finish it!  But here you are.  Voiceover from my talk at Sonic Bloom 2015, music from my latest album. 

 Hopefully this helps somebody you know that's confused about an either/or dilemma.

Catch Me Live

An intimate show with the amazing musical talents of Daniel Hansen aka RootFlute, who makes his own sacred instruments; and Johannes Rath, the only "guitalimba" player in the world.  Both of these guys are experts in weaving trance-inducing, magical music out of their virtuosic playing – and we're going to mix solo sets with a group jam for maximum effect.  Plus we get a double cherry on top:  live painting by two of my favorite Boulder artists, Martin Cash and Joshua Wine Morriston.  This is my only public concert on the entire Front Range until 2017!  Details and RSVP here.

FINALLY!  I'm teaching a class AND playing an instrumental cyberguitar set at the global epicenter for visionary art, Alex & Allyon Grey's Chapel of Sacred Mirrors.  My three hour afternoon workshop will focus on focusing – that is, how to gather and apply attention – yours AND your audience's – for the benefit of all beings.  Details and tickets here.

For anyone in the New York area who can't make it out for the COSM gig (and also those who can), I'm also playing music for this amazing event with Alex & Allyson Grey, Luis Eduardo Luna, Ralph Metzner, Daniel Pinchbeck, Allan Badiner, Steven White, Esthela Calderón, and my friend Skytree.

"Join leading authorities on ethnobotany, ayahuasca, anthropology, visionary art as we explore the cultural history, traditional and neo-shamanic practices, artistic and literary inspirations, and the scientific, therapeutic and ecological dimensions of the sacred Vine of the Amazon."  Details and tickets here.

My Most Prolific Month to Date! New Full-Band Recordings, Solo & Collaboration Paintings, Mural, Podcast, & New Show Announcements

Hello from Santa Fe, New Mexico!  I'm here at Synergia Ranch this week to join in an historic moment with some of the psychedelic revolution's luminaries – folks like Ralph Metzner, Rick Doblin, Dennis McKenna, Allan Badiner, Gay Dillingham, and more (this place is such a trove of first-wave genius, I am soaking up as much as possible).

More on that soon.  But in the meantime, can I suggest you keep this open in a separate tab and graze on it occasionally?  I promise never to finish this many projects in one month ever again.

Love you for even reading this.

May all this crazy season's life and movement be a great adventure for us all.

And now...

A NEW COMMUNITY PROJECT!

Stream or Download the best hour of music from our first event.

Enjoy these tunes!  They are the kind that happen when a big band magically emerges from the intersection of a motley crew of hand-selected instrumental talent and jams together in conjunction with a dozen painters – this is raw, immediate, spontaneous, lush, textured, driving, spacious, beautiful material, and I'm honored that I got to be a part of it.  

Paint Jam ATX is a new monthly in Austin I just started to address this culture's need for places where live music and live art can get together and inspire each other.  Bring your own art supplies and soak in all the creativity.  It's our little prayer to the continued thriving of this city's Red River and the cultural district on its banks, now threatened by a meteoric rise in rent that could destroy the vibe that makes this place so great.

This is the kind of party Austin needs, perhaps the kind of party all of these United States could use, real medicine for those of us who need more substance and participation in our revelry.

I hope that you can join us for the next one! RSVP for our May 1st event here.

FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE:

Paint Jam #1 Collaboration 

w/ Omar Chow & Tourmaline Todd

oil, acrylic, and aerosol paints

on 40"x30" stretched canvas

Read about this piece / Order prints

Check availability of the original

Share from FB

The residue in pigment of our first Paint Jam ATX event.  I am on a new collaboration bender – there is no better way to manifest real magic and accelerate the learning of all those involved.

Binary System

oil & acrylic paint pens

on 48"x24" stretched canvas

Read about this piece / Order prints

Share from FB

SOLD

Another window into what I think the future of humanity might be – a world in which the made and born, machine and biological, the other and the self, are all so intimately intertwined that all these basic categories lose their meaning.

Painted live at Gem and Jam Festival and The Music Run, as well as during plenty of intense late nights at home and in my friends' apartments.  May I recommend you click to view this piece as large as possible?  There is so much detail and delicacy here, such intricate biomechanics...

Particle Accelerator

oil, acrylic, and aerosol paints

on 48"x24" stretched canvas

Read about this piece / Order prints

Check availability of the original

Share from FB

Another piece that is so damn detailed you won't appreciate the time I put into it if you don't zoom in a little...once I made the leap to disciplined and regular studio work, I've noticed major changes in my sense of daily rhythm and experience of being something called an "artist."

This piece – reminiscent of and dedicated to the submicroscopic realm and those cathedrals of modern science that explore it – was a commissioned album cover for Mystical Sun's new LP of live in-studio analog modular synthesis – a deeply psychedelic ambient endeavor that I resonate with as a fellow wizard working in the great Electrical Imaginary.

(On that note, if anyone you know would like to buy a VIP pass to this year's incredible Moogfest, I'm speaking on technoshamanism and leading a workshop on live looping...and I'm glad to part with either of the two I have for less than their face value.)

Cretaceous Texas

View the whole photo album on Facebook

My largest piece as of March 2016 is this mural of the prehistoric ocean that was where this water tank now sits in Johnson City, Texas. Once upon a time – that time is 70 million years ago – there was a vast (but shallow) Intercontinental Seaway that is now the Midwest USA and Canada.

This region was the source of life for much of the ancient world, and the hardest hit when something (comet, asteroid, or meteor) collided with the Yucatan Peninsula to end the Mesozoic Era, punctuating the 5th Mass Extinction. But for much longer than we can imagine, this was paradise: a warm and shallow sea, inhabited by giant marine lizards like Mosasaurus and flying reptiles like Pteranodon, as well as giant sea turtles like Archelon and many species of now-extinct shelled Ammonites.

I'm always eager to portray the natural world as I imagine it must be to those whose brains do not use language – the vivid and immediate intensity of raw sensation, not papered over with our words. The Texas of the Late Cretaceous, violent though it must have been, was truly beautiful. I love to think about it as I walk this land today.

Sea Horse Lovers

collaboration with Chaeli Cardenas

oil and acrylic paints and Copic pen

on 10"x8" stretched canvas

Read about this piece / Order prints

Check availability of original

Share from FB

Oh, and since I picked up this delicious 12-string guitar in Arizona after Gem and Jam, I had another case to paint.  Above are the results of me + one paint marker + an evening in the golden light...

Email me if you would like for me to ornament your [anything] with art.  

No project is too big or small!

AND NOW TO BLOW YOUR MIND

Click here to Stream or Download this amazing conversation.

As the host of Third Eye Drops put it on his page:

Welcome back friends and thank you for once again plugging your consciousness into our nest for catma-filled novelty nuggets!

Erik Davis is an author, scholar and lecturer. His tremendous book, Techgnosis Myth Magic and Mysticism In the Age of Information draws novel, fascinating correlations between technology and mysticism.

Michael Garfield is an all-around silver tongue-tipped spear of information. He also writes for websites like Big Think, creates art and music and is just generally bordering on star child territory.

This conversation is all about evading the awe-sucking tentacles of society’s deeply-entrenched dogma dealers. It’s not easy, but to do it, we need to expand, reconsider and diversify the types of knowledge we’re willing to explore. We’ve got to be active wonder-seekers. We have establish our subjective inner-worlds as frontiers worth exploring, developing and celebrating.

We’ve also got to be careful not to take our catma (I’m in love with this word) quest too far, for if we do, we’re sure to end up deep in the realm of woo, a place where few are taken seriously.

SOME UPCOMING SHOWS

These are just some of the amazing things I get to do this year, while I'm not grinding at the noble goal of making a living selling paintings, starting conversations, and playing and teaching music (I give lessons now, online and in person, if you're interested).

You can find my full calendar here.  If you don't see your town, please let me know you'd like to have me pay a visit!  Maybe we can figure something out.  :)

Lo, soul, seest thou not God's purpose from the first?

The earth to be spann'd, connected by network,

The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,

The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near,

The lands to be welded together.

A worship new I sing,

You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours,

You engineers, you architects, machinists, yours,

You, not for trade or transportation only,

But in God's name, and for thy sake O soul.

- Walt Whitman, Passage To India

New Time-Lapse & Live Music Videos • Collab with Tourmaline Todd • Mural in Progress • Festival Announcements

“Technology reflects who we are. If we want to have better technology, we must be better people.”

– Nikola Danaylov
(Review the Future Podcast, Episode 57)

Thank you for reading this...you are the one for whom this work is made.

If you have any questions, say hello.  I'm always glad to hear from you!

love,
Michael

– Music – Paintings – Writing – Talks –

Beyond Duality - POV Live Painting Time Lapse

Watch on YouTube
Free Downloads: Narration | Music
Buy a print of "New Age Cleopatra"

What happens when we cease identifying Nature as something outside of us?  What will our culture look like when we see our cities and our songs as something Earth is doing?  This video features my Google Glass first-person footage while live painting my own vision of a future in which "made" and "born" are not two separate categories, narrated by an excerpt from one of my talks on human evolution and transpersonal psychology, and scored by music improvised on acoustic guitar and looping pedals as a performance of this new cybernetic nondual paradigm.

"Really" featuring Jenuine Cello

Watch on Youtube

Download music (pay what you like)

I've been waiting years to grab a solid video of this song, one of my favorites – it goes deep, says a lot in few words, and has a lovely funky little break in the bridge that opens up this modest number into something truly groovy.  Superb accompaniment by my friend and frequent co-conspirator, Jenuine Cello.

Recorded live on Febuary 4th at the monthly live looping residency Jen and I have held at Strange Brew Loungeside, Austin's finest listening room, for 14 months now.  (Incidentally, you can now like the Loopers' Night fan page on Facebook or join our Facebook group for more direct participation.)

Lyrics:

Nothing ever goes away, really

It only ever changes shape.

Innumerable masks and shades peeling

off your only lover's face.

We grieve and overcome the late

weeping, stranded in an elder age

but everything has been exchanged

sealing the gone in all that still remains...

We have traded blood and even if you die

no flood can wash away the sky.

In the cold and mud we're left asking why

but love will only answer, "I AM"

We lean on battered hearts and faint

weakened, wounded for the want of taste

but nothing ever leaves or stays, here

cuz Heaven permeates all space...

"Living Ships"
New Small Studio Collaboration with Tourmaline Todd

12"x16" – studio – oil and acrylic paints on canvas
Buy a print of "Living Ships"

Really getting into more collaboration paintings this year (check my Instagram for more on that) – this one, my homie Tourmaline Todd let me take home and finish.  I really like the opportunity to catch the pass and bring it home across those last few yards, to use an awkward football metaphor for art...the markers lend themselves quite well to finishing and detail work.

This piece is one of several in a new "best of" collaborations section in my store.

Mural in Progress

Not much to say about this one except I'm having a blast working on something bigger!  This painting is on the curved ceiling of a friend's camper here in Austin – about seven feet wide or so.

 I've taken little clips of time-lapse video on my phone using Lapse It Pro for Android and a magnetic-footed Joby Gorillapod, which I'll be sharing soon.  That's a gift you can expect to keep on giving – expect 1080p time-lapse videos to be a thing, now.  :)

Upcoming Events

All that hard work's finally beginning to pay off – the quality of festivals inviting me to join them this year is amazing, and I now curate not one but TWO monthly gigs in Austin (Loopers' Night and Paint Jam) that are each unique and excellent in their own right.

Highlights:  I'm presenting on technoshamanism and teaching an interactive live looping workshop at this year's Moogfest in Durham, North Carolina.  And I'm playing music at Boom Festival's Chillout Gardens in Portugal this August!  Hot damn, folks – if you'll be at either of these, hit me up...

I'd love to know where YOU think I should be this year – check out my calendar and let me know if you think anything is missing!

Behold! All At Once, A New EP, Tutorial Video, Two Paintings, & A Hat

Greetings, friends!  I'm trying to put these things out frequently and keep these updates shorter, but Good Lord.  It's been a very busy and productive, gratefully engaged, enthusiastic, driven year so far.  I hope you're feeling some of that ignition in your life as well!  Here's what I've got for you:

My Newest Tunes, Your Next Adventure

Download Here

"Five minutes in and I've forgotten every bad dream I've ever had."

– Ivan Marko

(And how exactly am I supposed to remain impervious to reviews when I hear stuff like that?)

This music is a gift, and medicine* (*this statement not evaluated by the FDA).  So take it.  You can read more about it on the download page if you like knowing about records before you listen to them.

(It's also a solid starting point for diving into the 69 releases I have captured live and shared for free since I began to loop guitar.  Intuitively, I would also recommend this one and this one.)

In related news, here is the annotated video I made of the performance.  I have waited years for footage I could use to show folks how I build my sound on stage, and here it is: a "how to" on how one mic and guitar become these intricate, expansive, braided, glitchy, burning grooves...

Watch in HD with Annotations on Youtube

New Studio Painting: 
"Many Beginnings & No Ending"

Buy Poster Prints • Share on Facebook • Original Available

I don't ordinarily paint like this at home (unless it's custom hats).  But when I do, I'm also listening to documentaries.  Awesome nonfiction videos I watched while working on this painting:

Fresh Dressed // What Are Animals Thinking and Feeling? // How Stories Last

Why Ordinary People Need To Understand Power // Blue Planet // Cosmos

New Live Painting: "Lucky Fish"

Buy Poster Prints • Share on Facebook • Original Available

I was born with the Moon in Pisces ("the fish") – according to astrology, a recipe for moody artists and dreamers. We evolved from fish, and the fish lives on in all of us; our hands modified fins, our fishy brainstem still at the base of our instinctive action and intuition. (You can read all about this stuff in science journalist Neil Shubin's awesome evolutionary biology book, Your Inner Fish.)

Fish are also a sign of luck in many cultures – whether as the decorations in a Japanese garden pond, or as a symbol of plenty and abundance (eg, Jesus's loaves and fishes in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew). They take on mystical significance in the life-changing synchronicities that inspired the visionary science fiction of Philip K. Dick, and even look valuable – all those shiny scales! So it felt right as rain to paint one, finally.

Original piece painted live in Austin, Texas with oil, acrylic, and aerosol paint on masonite (24"x32") on 22 January 2016 at Flamingo Cantina to the music of Irie Samurai, Dosage, Sharkweek, and Bonus Junk; and on 24 January 2016 at the HOPE Outdoor Farmer's Market to the music of The Mismatch and SEFO.

Custom Painted Hat #182

You can now use this page to learn more about, and order, a lovingly detailed, one-of-a-kind hand-painted, waterproof, and awesome custom hat.  Thanks for your business!

You May Have Missed: Hummingbird Blankets!

Look Closer, Learn More, Maybe Buy

Yep, these are a real thing now.  They're real!  And they're even more soft and comfortable than I'd hoped they'd be.  The first to order just got theirs and folks have sent me lots of happy pictures of their new throw blankets (you can see a few on Instagram).  They're huge, they're made in the USA from cotton grown in the USA (60% recycled), and they're woven on some kind of crazy robot loom that reads my painting and turns it into some crazy robot language in order for this to be.

Really, when you think about it that way, they're a bargain.  I totally agree and I'm super grateful to finally have something so nice available so affordably.  And they're freakin' practical!

Upcoming Gigs – Full Calendar Here

Parting Thought

"Why do almost no films ever show civilization functioning, institutions doing their jobs, democracy working? The answer is simple: laziness. A storyteller’s job is to keep his or her characters in pulse-pounding jeopardy for 90 minutes of film, or 600 pages of a novel. It’s hard to do that if they can dial 911 and get skilled professionals to come to their aid... It takes real writing to come up with a way of keeping your characters in jeopardy, despite there being skilled professionals who want to help them."

– David Brin

• Prints & Original Paintings • Music Downloads •