26. Touring the Cloud Bazaar (Part 1)
You hand your ticket to the clerk wearing a puffy white hat.
She waves for you to get closer, then bam! Stamps your forehead with the ink outline of a raindrop.
You’re ushered into the flow of foot traffic. Muddy sneakers, jostling families, sudden laughter.
[ While shuffling, steal glances at the pamphlet pressed into your hand ] —
It’s written in a language of odd symbols — like nothing you’ve seen.
But while none of the runes make any sense, an illustration of a brass tractor pops out as worth visiting.
Oof. The crowd has stopped right in front of it.
The tractor’s no tractor at all: a colossal contraption, yes, but outfitted with valves and spinning instruments measuring its environment. So, either a science experiment or a factory on wheels. Could be both.
It seems to be preparing something.
The crowd waits — watching its own reflections in the machine’s chrome, which has been polished to a golden gleam. Children look expectant. The young ones can be caught watching their parents for how they too should feel.
At first subtle, a clacking sound from inside the machine grows louder and faster — until it’s a low hum. The hum rises in pitch, lowers, rises again . . . then, sudden stop.
No one makes a peep.
A boy pulls on his grandfather’s trousers, points to the sky.
Out the chimney tube, at the engine’s top, thick smoke appears. But not emitted so much as extruded, congealing into a grand ball of fluff, forming what appears to be quite the lifelike, 3-dimensional sheep — right above your heads.
Cheering and applause erupt. Someone jumps, reaches just shy of the new cloud.
You leap high as you can, hand outstretched.
The sheep starts to rain.
// Side B //
Thanks for listening! Those were two live-concert excerpts, both fully improvised. The first was from Tributary 1: Embarkation, 13 months ago (announced Issue 13); the second from Tributary 2: Windfinding, some months after.1 New York City subways presented the above photo opportunity, the week I moved there and found myself flabbergasted by talent at every turn.
Pick your favorite glyph! Mine’s duck-on-a-ball — 5 down from the top: clearly the story of Atlas, just upside-down and waterlogged.
Table of Contents
writing saves my ass
recent art finds
I’m always doing things I regret tomorrow
secret music 🏴☠️
I didn’t want to admit it, but . . .
. . . I’ve been overwhelmed.
Last issue, when publishing lessons learned from creating Live Happenings, all the signs were there. Fully 3 out of 8 items on the list professed the need for clarity and organization!
Some good news:
My journey to clarity is now underway, with steady progress.
I’ve been documenting the process as I go.
Ongoing observations will be distilled, then summarized, for all readers of Campfire Sparks, in case they’re helpful to anyone else.
Can anyone relate to:
There are so many things I want to do, accomplish, and build, but I don’t know how to achieve all of them?
Variants of this thought have bubbled in my head for 6–12 months, reaching their peak the weeks after the Taimom exhibition. The end result, crystallized:
I now know everything dreamt can be made reality. But I doubt my ability to.
Seeing this made me step back.
All my personas and I gathered for a huddle. Okay, what’s going on here — where are these doubts coming from, and who among us knows a way out of this mess?
And why was I keeping myself busy, trying to plow through one project, then another, incessantly task-switching without seeing the big picture?
A Miracle Worker Returns to the Job
For 20 years my best way to examine and solve things: writing.
I began journaling in 8th grade in Boulder, Colorado. It started on the computer. I pecked notes into a file called “women.txt” — for it had become non-negotiable, my need of an outlet for thoughts and (let’s be honest) mostly frustrations.
Months later I created another file.
That series — each titled by the dates it bookends — recorded the “leftover” thoughts, though that changed after an evolutionary leap:
But I have to admit women.txt is more entertaining than this more serious, less interesting file.
01 - 09060407.docJANUARY 30, 2009, EVENING: NEVER-ENDING INTROSPECTIONIST
By the way! Women.txt is history. All pontifications now go here :).
02 - 01080209.docQuickly it became my closest confidante, keeper of secrets, cheerleader too. Whenever I found myself at wits’ end — basically all the time — I’d collapse in a heap before the journal’s blinking cursor, desperate to make sense out of the latest confusing life-thing. At some point in each entry, the tone would switch to addressing myself as “you”, channeling the 1-year-older brother I never had.
It worked wonders.
But that system’s no longer enough.
Consider the current mix: I’m in Journal #20 on the laptop, Journal #6 in paper notebooks, a forest of voice memos and apple notes. I’m swimming in a sea of introspections, ideas to convert them into actions, and attempts to corral those into priorities.
There’s the problem. The pen, my trusty tool for helping me make sense of life:
is still great for reflection, but
less-great for transforming ideas to reality.2
Until now.
How I Learned to Love the Pen, Again
Do you, too, want to shape blobs of thoughts into succinct action-plans?
Among the things I tried, here’s what ended up moving the rollerball. All four connected to writing:
Step One: Gave myself the boldest prompt I could muster.
What’s your life mission? You can revise or update this at any time, but what is your purpose, as you understand it here and now?
This came out:
I empower people towards freedom. I can best achieve this through invitations to wonder; through facilitating experiences of music, art, and connection; and through the exchange of helpful ideas grounded in honesty and love. 3 vehicles to action:
• By creating revelry and welcoming others to join.
• By initiating/collaborating in art experiences centered on unique music for people to explore and participate in.
• By helping ignite creative potential: you, too, have a universe to express in your own ways.These surface 3 roles. Festival + Event Creator (taimom, ßupercollider, Live Happenings). Artist (music, photos, words; live, crafted, collab). Coach (piano liberation workshop, educational courses).
Now each project needs its own mission, too, tying back to the big kahuna. For example:
Piano Liberation Workshop: Start improvising on piano immediately, at any level, even from scratch.
Falling Sea (record label): Helping artists offer meaningful experiences with music at the core.
The Air Is Made Of Music (a.k.a. Taimom): A global art collective elevating the magic of music in our culture.
Music + art projects also require purpose — e.g.:
Travel Poems (album series): Cinema, with your eyes closed.
Teleportation Booth (mobile art exhibit): Step inside to be transported by music & sounds.
Proof of Play (photo/video series): Open-studio snapshots of music and photography in progress.
1 neat side effect of this “define mission” step is it makes presentation of work easier. Everything was already written.
Step Two: The pen has new tricks.
I have a confession: I’m scared of drawing.
This is an embarrassment royale with cheese, because if I try to describe my fear, my own voice echoes in my head. It’s the voice that reminds me to practice what I preach. It’s the voice that knows “piano improv” in and out, who will go toe-to-toe against any music school, instructor, or student, any hour, any day, to argue that everyone can learn to improvise on the piano, which can and must be based on joy, with absolute zero “talent” requirements, with no need to learn theory, sheet music, etc. . .
My go-to analogy for years has been: “playing piano should be made as intuitive as drawing — one can start anytime, no expectations.” 👀
I’m even afraid of sketching a mind-map (of mostly words)! But a month ago, dear friend Camille recommended that I make one, to define Taimom more clearly, for communicating to others, to continue building the team, to grow it into what it needs to be — so I grit my teeth:
Step Three: Write everywhere.
As someone who gets distracted easily and has a hard time remembering fleeting thoughts — I have been craving a Master List Of Lists for a month or two now.
What’s in the LOL?
Story ideas + scenes from the day
Things to write / publish
Inspiring quotes
Project ideas
Active projects // Progress // To-do
People (to reach out to)
What I learned + found
Stuff to check out
Most of these are running lists I can add to: they end up as separate apple notes already categorized — or, if the phone’s not available, I’ve doubled-down on keeping the notebook in tow, everywhere, even bedside.
Writing everywhere includes voice dictation: combining walking/biking and speaking ideas works wonders especially when ideas yearn to be freed onto the page but somehow got clogged.
Step Four: Honor the flow.
Seems everyone has always known about the Pomodoro technique, including myself, and yet I never tried it until two weeks ago.
I’m head over heels.
My current timer settings are for 33 minutes and 33 seconds of work, alternated with 5-minute, 55-second breaks. When writing, the break timer can be frustrating when it sounds — but when I get up from the desk to jump and run around, I’m free to continue brainstorming or talking through what I was writing about.
Then when I sit back down, the flow continues.
Knowing that there’s a time limit presses me into focus mode.
I haven’t found a workable way to combine Pomodoro with piano time, but maybe it’ll appear. Do you have your own experiences with the method? I’d love to hear.
Latest Fascinations
You know when you’re in a movie mood but aren’t sure what to watch? The search party commences, flashlights rattling.
Last week, the lady and I browsed a few, then struck this bumbling cold-open:
I took the government’s advice to, um — fuck, what do you call it? — uh, retrain . . .
. . . I’ve retrained as a ceramicist because it’s no longer viable to be a musician.
Nick Cave, drier than a martini. We set off on a revelatory journey through Nick’s music, musings, shot and recorded in mesmerizing splendor.
My favorite part of This Much I Know to Be True (2022) is the tender tension between Nick and Warren, especially when discussing their (hilarious) differences in songwriting process.
The finest, most condensed, most entertaining introduction to storytelling I’ve encountered: Matthew Dicks interviewed by Shane Parrish for The Knowledge Project.
Does anyone else find it fun to learn about the inner workings of stories?
While I do want to become a better storyteller in the way that Matthew defines it — I’ve started doing his “Homework For Life” (anyone wanna join?), and agree with all his perspectives — I’m also curious about the outer edges of storytelling.
As in: lesser-explored paths, poetic meanderings that grab us in other ways, and novel framings. Experiments include this newsletter (all issues above the fold) and other writing that seeks momentum through offbeat means, for instance:
Sidebar: Matthew’s close attention to story beginnings mirrors my fixation when teaching piano improv, namely: we must get to the enthralling stuff immediately, instead of boring people with “the facts” most people think “need to be established first”. In the case of storytelling, that’s background/historical information; for piano improvisation, that’s learning scales or other common, unnecessary barriers to connection + musicality.
I adored this conversation between Esther Perel and Rick Rubin — it’s a smooth skipping stone across Tetragrammaton’s stream of surprises:
I’m Always Doing Things I Regret Tomorrow
You ever thought of pleasure and happiness as opposites?
Not me — despite years of trying to pronounce eudaemonia in college — until last month. Endocrinologist Robert Lustig:
Pleasure and Happiness
A lot of people equate the two.
But I’m here to tell you that they are completely different.
Pleasure is short-lived, Happiness is long lived.
Pleasure is visceral, Happiness is ethereal.
Pleasure is taking, Happiness is giving.
Pleasure can be achieved with substances,
Happiness cannot be achieved with substances.
Pleasure is experienced alone,
Happiness is experienced in social groups.
The extremes of pleasure all lead to addiction, whether they be substances or behaviors -- yet there’s no such thing as being addicted to too much Happiness.
And finally #7 -- most important --
Pleasure is dopamine, and
Happiness is serotonin.
There’s one thing that down-regulates serotonin: dopamine.
Pleasure: the more you seek, the more unhappy you get.
Las Vegas, Madison Avenue, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Washington D.C. very specifically, and in a coordinated fashion, confused and conflated the term Happiness with the term Pleasure -- so that you can “buy happiness”.
And in the process, we have become most decidedly unhappy.
(Source link)Robert’s talk stuck with me. The more I think on it, the more obvious he’s right.
When considering the limited hours in our days, in our lives, the choice to pursue pleasure- vs. happiness-boosting activities places them in direct conflict.
How stark the consequences.
Compounded over time, routine prioritization of one over the other leads to polar-opposite life outcomes.
A razor could be fashioned, used at any decision point:
Will I be happy I took this choice tomorrow + next week?
(Plus its fun variation) What choice makes for a better story?
There’s even a twist — some things are both!
Whatever you find in life that enhances both pleasure and happiness: treasure these for all your days.
What’s on your shortlist of pleasure- and happiness-causing stuff? I’ll post mine here on a post-it in a few days.
You Are the Ones Who Make This Possible
It’s almost time to record The Tributary and I’m getting nervous about it.
For two years, I’ve locked myself in a cabin out in the woods, crafting a story by candlelight.
If I keep tinkering in secret I’ll go crazy.
If I abandon it I’ll get even more insane.
But if I reveal everything now, before recording the album, I won’t be able to make it at all.
Pretty weird.
I’ve shown the ideas to a few close friends, obliquely through live shows — 2 small Tributary-themed concerts, outdoor open-studios earlier this summer — and a more linear, course-by-course presentation here, at the tail end of Campfire Sparks issues, for paid subscribers.
If you were there at Tributary: Windfinding, after the 2nd clip up top you would have witnessed it morph into this creature 🐙: