l o t u s a l l e y

home for the holidays

2007-04-07T02:07:00.000-07:00

so bavab bavab has done it's first and last album
it's first and last comp.
it's first and last tour

currently my energies are going to be used toward
home for the holidays

a duo ensemble of multimedia performance

the end of soul on ice

2007-04-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

"Black woman, without asking how, just say that we survived....And we had thought that our hard climb out of that cruel valley led to some cool, green and peaceful, sunlit place - but it's all jungle here, a wild and savage wilderness that's overrun with ruins.

But put on your crown, my queen, and we will build a New City on these ruins."

tomatoes peppers and eggplant

2007-03-20T22:56:00.000-07:00

lush grown
rich soil things

patiently gorgeous
ripened

even tho change is hard to endure...

2007-02-27T23:06:00.000-08:00

it always makes you question everything
infinite details
placing them all together then understanding
looking back
and seeing
a larger thing than yourself
and you know

you've done great work
with the pieces
leftover from break

that is what i hope for the future...

hang condensed

2007-02-23T12:36:00.000-08:00

the clouds
hang condensed
effortless

the broken table
pieces of glass
covered with piss
and old cardboard

i knew it was precarious
we all did
i knew it was glorious
we all did
as with anything

there is nothing to do
but work
hone ourselves
now

the tribute
will always remain

now
we go forward

i never thought i would make it past 15

2007-02-07T01:48:00.000-08:00

i'd say i'm doing pretty well then...

there are more times than not when if someone were to place bets, it would have been foolish to risk anything on my survival potential...

i think i have come to a very safe place in my life now tho, one of acceptance.

when i chose between berkeley and los angeles i wanted to go where i might make a difference. where my energy would be more sorely needed or rare. i lost a lot, but if i am still standing it means i have held my ground. and now i feel like my training can become useful. i always thought i would teach to serve the community, but i think i can be of greater use here.

i look at my thesis now and i see the goodness in it, but i also see the flaws. it is young work, my first book, and has many weaknesses. there are bright points still, but the sound collages that i got into my masters program with were only built upon for one year. and i am proud of that final piece as well, but i am ashamed to say i failed to retain a single copy of it. none of my past work has survived really. only in the hands of loved ones along the way. or in trade, occassionally for money, but usually trade or gift.

my best trade was for a pair of socks at a thrift store...they were brand new socks. those people were so nice. i really needed socks that day.

i'm tired. i am writing because i have been reading gail sher's book the intuitive writer. she is an ordained buddhist teacher and poet and wordsmith. the book is my life saving breath right now. and perfect for my difficult attention span. regardless of the form of the advice - all writing books will principally encourage daily writing as a way to hone the craft - and since paper and pen don't move fast enough for my mind, and since pages are just stacks of things i can't find later. (they just remind me of that novel i have boxes of writings for that i will finish before i die hopefully)...ahhhhhhhhhhhh............. electronic writing is so very much more efficient.

i used to have these small panic attacks when i would finish a book of writing - it would contain phone numbers, directions, 'poems', grocery lists, brilliant quotes, and then when it was full - i would have to tranfer things over but inevitably lose more than i wished. when i had a full repetoire of self-made songs, i would write the titles of them in the back of every book for shows, but this archer's bag is empty. as i've been ruminating, my own art is almost non-existant right now. i've rarely played so few shows as when i have this space, except for collaborations. it is ironic, but i am quite content. water forms to whatever is kind enough to contain it.

my own art...whatever that is...

2007-02-06T00:40:00.000-08:00

things have been in such an uproar lately. i have realized that in order for the space to continue i must sacrifice to the infrastructure.

i had gone to school to train myself as an artist, but it seems that this space needs someone who loves art, but who will put the space first.

i cannot produce anything right now. all of my energy is used to work on our bookshop or the space. is art a luxury? why did i have the ideal that i could exist in a world entirely for art. the whole reason i went to artschool in the first place was to become a teacher, but i could not handle the commute from venice and the three part time jobs. i have taught art and poetry before and that was one of my most challenging but rewarding things to have participated in. i also took out the trash and answered the phones...that is how non-profit arts organizations work at the smaller level. perhaps they are more like a business in that sense.

my world is filled now with booking and cleaning and just trying to keep it together. i do not think i am very successful at it, but it is not a life that most people want to lead.

i think when i am very old i may write or make something great. but i feel more secure than ever that i am not destined for greatness...i am happy unknown. i think i have been given an opportunity to do something with this space that i could not do as an artist. as i learn more about hosting shows and the business of sustaining the space i can actually do something for the community. i was not strong enough to do it before. i tried, but i did not have the experience or knowledge. i still know very little, but what i do know can be built on.

i am scared a little because i feel like my life just began this moment. but if monks can light themselves on fire and burn to death to protest violence, if people are capable of such great acts...i must be able to train myself to be stronger. i will try to cultivate balance in my life for the sake of this space. right now it seems the most hopeful place for positive change - for me to stumble and learn - and for a more active community of people to form.

i am cursed with idealism, and am very faulty, but i do hope that this can be something great i am a part of.

i cannot help but make art, but with our first visiting artist officially installed all over the walls, i am eager to fill the space with others work.

this space is my work now.

elation

2006-12-16T07:25:00.000-08:00

valentines

tarnished

2006-12-16T07:23:00.001-08:00

dna, spiral galaxies, thumbprints

2006-12-16T06:52:00.000-08:00

stretched reaching

ribbon from the race run around the one in front

need the silence of sand
or snow
the desert in any season
something complete and utter
one bird is noticed
something quiet
let go of

the moment pangea first split
the point of human consciousness
maybe the big bang

supine

2006-12-03T17:31:00.000-08:00

druggist at the heel
wetsword drowning
sluggish at the wheel
needles crowning

reptilian suggestion
making the battlements
making the firmament
harder to climb

you cannot dine on me
i'm not repast for you to consume
i'm not your feast laid down at your feet
for you to spit and suck and spew
you haven't been invited

druggist at the heel
fretbored drowning
rugged strands of steel
turncoats

aleatory

2006-11-29T03:21:00.000-08:00

Aleatory
from wikipedia
Aleatory means "pertaining to luck", and derives from the Latin word alea, the rolling of dice.

Aleatoric, indeterminate, or chance art is that which exploits the principle of randomness.

Literature
An example of aleatory writing is the automatic writing of the French Surrealists involving dreams, et cetera.

Music
Main article: Aleatoric music
Pierre Boulez applied the term aleatoric music to his own pieces to distinguish them from the indeterminate music of John Cage, though both are often described as aleatory. While Boulez purposefully composed his pieces to allow the performer certain liberties with regard to the sequencing and repetition of parts, Cage often composed through the application of chance operations without allowing the performer liberties. Another prolific aleatory music composer is Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Film
In film-making, there are several avant-garde examples; Fred Camper's SN (1984; first screening 2002) uses coin-flipping to determine which three of 18 possible reels to screen and what order they should go in (4896 permutations). Barry Salt, now better known as a film scholar, is known to have made a film, Permutations, seven reels long which takes the word aleatory quite literally by including a customized die for the projectionist to roll to determine the reel order (5040 permutations).

hazel and digipouf

2006-11-29T03:18:00.000-08:00

poet

2006-11-29T02:59:00.001-08:00

according to wikipedia - which is my new favorite thing online right now - "Perhaps no other occupation demands so much thought for so little output. In the Japanese haiku tradition involves production of seventeen syllable poems. Even in other traditions including thousand-line poems, a poet's total lifetime output might fill only two or three volumes. For this reason, poets occupy a peculiar position in society, even when compared to other artists, tending to reside on the fringes of their culture. Even poets who have achieved prominence within their tradition can remain completely unknown in the world at large."

where the "i" came from?...part one

2006-11-07T09:55:00.000-08:00

i just came across a wonderful bunch of posts called vegan ice cream paradise or something, and it made me feel a renewed sense of purpose.

it made me realize that none of us are extraordinary (human beings that is) and in general we've not done the best for ourselves or our living environments (see: war...) but despite the fact, each individual person is all they have.

the individual is a strange commodity, vied for by all corporate interests and small businesses alike. the individual, let's call her/him "i" for short,...

cleaning out the site, the space clears

2006-11-06T02:18:00.000-08:00

i am overhauling my site so that it is more navigable and less esoteric

i remember a time when i was dutifully searching for enlightenment, and tho slightly delirious, i do think i was more clear in many ways.

so, here i go again. an optimistics more than uphill climb to some nothing in the sky, but philosophy and the earth are all i've got.

you can't off yourself when you're in the front seat

2006-09-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

the end of the stranger

2006-08-25T00:30:00.000-07:00

i hope i will last

2006-07-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

there are so many ways to die,
or become immobile, ill etc.

everyone's art seems to take too long...

your own is meaningless

these phrases are small deaths

it is a tired body

i loved tour

daily living has been waiting for us and keeping track however

i hurt

these are rough times

the back of the last compact disc

2006-06-26T05:40:00.000-07:00

the leftovers of the permanent

2006-06-26T05:25:00.000-07:00

::: fire petals in the sky ::: bavab bavab summer tour

2006-06-26T05:17:00.000-07:00

the time gathers value, precious falls from grapsing hands

2006-06-16T14:26:00.000-07:00

scraping against old skin the shedding comes with blood

2006-06-06T00:49:00.000-07:00

fuck this cage

survival fragile tense dependent upon so many things...

2006-05-29T05:41:00.000-07:00

so long the golden days, days that we never even asked for, we are pleased with shiny metal found in the gutter, reflecting sun beneath layer of trash sediment,...

feelings are beautiful weaknesses, my anger becomes greatest when they are exploited...

so much tho i must teach myself of not learning these emotions, even of outrage at suffering, because simple quiet action is all that matters... there are times of release, and they are prepared for, but this is already over, and we already reminiscent of being there...

this is ours...the breathing of the pursed frantic then smoothing lips - the wonder children of all this atomic expansion - and i simply don't care...it's just day to day, but not, but not so urgent and racing toward death, not that anymore so much, thank goodness, and i still don't know anything, but it seems i have a tender living with my most fantastical dreams as my life, so despite the everything unbearable sometimes, there is something larger...even if it is a black hole in my mind, that can devour any linear occurrance and metaphysicize it into the speck before time... there is somthing larger, tho i struggle to retain its addicting gloss to my everyday...and what i may deem the ultimate is nothing more than a small accomplishment of carving another notch into the calender of stretched ahead forever days,...and nights of the torturous dragging silence...

materialism ... what of it?

2006-05-14T11:05:00.000-07:00

if only we could afford a fantastic bio.diesal tour van with a solar panel and some wind generators or two...

the implicit / explicit guilt of living in the 'first world'... the luxury of

yikes...

preparing to embark...scavaging

searching for answers, but it's simply time to build new shelves...

2006-05-09T22:29:00.000-07:00

accumulation, even of knowledge, leads only to the same place any of us can go...

but then not...

i can say there are a few books specifically that have conclusively altered my ways, like the jungle, for example...swiftly became a vegetarian following the reading of that in high school...

i am heady from the cough syrup, i should not have had so much....

what fun an altered state though, when one is as sober as a monk....

waiting for the moment to pass...now this one

2006-05-09T21:34:00.000-07:00

speaking of ingmar bergman films that make me mirror face that thing i hate in myself about humanity and all, from the picture about the artist, who goes mad on the island, when he can't sleep because of terrors and he lights a match and looks, and they watch for the minute hand to drag itself over the whole dial....it seems like that long, only it keeps going....it never ends, it simply never just shuts off....and rests....

the virigin spring...

2006-05-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

inevitably, in order to receive any violence from a movie or performance, instead of becoming deeply disturbed by it, somehow my mind folds the entirety into a single plane, a single being which then has come together in this art form to enact itself fully. therefore the scenes that i am witnessing are not actual violence but symbolic, as with all art, and one might suppose there is nothing but art....

somehow the calm comes...

2006-05-09T02:03:00.000-07:00

it has been painful today, but i survived. that is all one has to be able to say at the end.

i had almost forgotten...

2006-05-08T20:12:00.000-07:00

it's been some time since i was sick, and it's really wearing down. tonight there's a show that i'm going to watch between the virgin spring and dazed half-dreams...if i can get out of bed later...

still in the haze of it...

2006-05-07T14:39:00.000-07:00

i have been quite ill the last few days, culminating in a temperature far above normal, and then breaking along with the bag of ice on my burning forehead into torrents of frozen water waking me from the most strange delusion of dreaming and mercifully i can breathe again in my own heat, not broiling, but merely the energy for subsitence and the smooth internalized functioning...

there must be more order to this endeavor or it will surely disappoint

2006-05-04T20:32:00.000-07:00

:::::::::::: art deadlines :::::::::::::::::::

fire petals in the sky (bavab bavab album) june 3 ? or later? at least by tour...
tour june 23-july 8
salient lockup mid august 2006
spiralbound october 2006

rehearsal / wishing i had more silver spraypaint...

2006-05-04T19:18:00.000-07:00

less than a month away...

today is practice / recording session... everything is working so well but my mind is foul and smeared with tension...the severe exhaustion hasn't worn off yet...i feel like i'm swimming too far from the shore,...like it's out of sight a long time ago, and now getting dark...

between world vagrant

2006-05-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

it's early in the morning. it has been all night for me. thus i phoenix again and want something completely new. want it so much as to combust, spontaneous and frantic in waning dark...

the iris and the lotus on the table pant, i know they are glad it's past dawn now...

delirium is in me, possession akin to madness, yet so benign, mild, nothing compared to true lunatic, just strangely lost around the edges, blurred and slow moving with wearisome thoughts...

i tire of these trappings, complications of technology, sloggy, lost memory, a temptation comes to murder... but what good would that do...

there is never enough time, either that or my lifespan is precarious, improperly used, poorly divided into parts and disciplines, yet untamed, the willful child, unruly, unable to curb wild emotional bursts and screaming grabs the clock with rash hands smashes it down demanding some sparse joy in something from this gaping mouth world....who answers with devouring silence...