✨ Painting Sale + Big Band Magic in Santa Fe + UFOs, Psychedelics, & The Future + Much More
Plus: Featured in The Santa Fe Reporter + Releasing Secret Podcast Archives
🎨 More New & Old Art for All My Festie Friends
For everyone who might otherwise unsubscribe if I don’t share more visual art in this newsletter, like the good old days:
Rest easy, as I have new paintings coming soon! My core Santa Fe crew and I are deep on a large collaborative canvas at the moment, but these things take time. I will share updates on my Instagram.
Furthermore, I still have lots of paintings up for grabs! I’m planning to take some of them to Denver for the Psychedelic Science conference, so this might be your last chance to get one at a “homie" price. Go check ‘em out and make an offer. Just ignore the listed prices. My entire family, currently scraping by on Patreon and unemployment, thanks you in advance:
NOTE: I am also open for commissions. Hit me up if you would like a custom piece. I’d love a reason to spend more time on the easel, and I adore allowing folks to reign in my imagination with specific asks. I can schedule custom work for anywhere from $300 up and I am happy to split payments in whatever way you need.
✨ Big Band Magic in Santa Fe: Highlights & Shows
The Tumbleroot Music L.A.B. ("Large Animal Bioassay," named after Sasha and Ann Shulgin's chemistry lab) brings together acoustic, electric, and electronic musicians with live painters and dancers in long-form large group improvisations — a psychedelic spaceship exploring the frontiers of the atmospheric groove, medicine to soothe the wounds of the pandemic's social isolation, and a showcase for the absurdly intense concentration of artistic greatness that Santa Fe has to offer.
Join us for the last edition of our Spring series on May 12th! It’s going to be the biggest and bet yet, with an interactive art table, live clay demo, over a dozen musicians in rotation, half a dozen masterful dancers, and more…
➡️ Info + Presales on Eventbrite + RSVP + Share on Facebook
(And scroll down for some awesome coverage this series just got in the local paper…)
More recordings will be posted to this album after our last edition of the Music L.A.B.’s spring series this Friday. Follow me on Bandcamp for updates.
🗞️ Relatedly: Interviewed by The Santa Fe Reporter
The wonderful Alex De Vore and I discuss why I left academia, how I reconcile my dual passions of songwriting and long-form improvisation, how making music is like cooking, and why I love the scrappy little scene we’ve been brewing up in the Tumbleroot Music LAB every month. Best newspaper coverage I’ve ever had! Dig in.
🎧 New Podcast Appearances to Trip On
“During the conversation we learn how Michael's life-long fascination with Dinosaurs and Paleontology developed, his earliest psychedelic experiences including a state of Samadhi (a highly advanced state of meditative consciousness) during a camping trip, how his encounters with Alien craft (UFOs) have informed his views on consciousness, and finally, precognition, time and whether or not the future already exists and if we can peer into it as a human species. This is part one, a future episode will dive in even deeper. Enjoy!”
Listen Anywhere You Go For Podcasts
Comedian Matt Neal, whom I met when he was sitting on the board of MAPS.org, is a total mensch and a delightful conversationalist. In an unusually political discussion, we talk about what stands in the way of collective progress on the biggest issues in the U.S.A. and why I sympathize with everybody’s flawed and partial points of view. Plus much, much else! Some refreshingly different fare for your ear holes…
🎶 New Music on Spotify
You can now enjoy my original score of psy-ambient electroacoustic music for the UC San Diego Qualcomm Institute Gallery’s Biosphere 2 retrospective on Spotify, where God intended. (Just kidding! God prefers Bandcamp, just like I do. But now at least all those who find themselves locked into streaming services can like and follow.)
To whet your appetite, the best review I have received of this LP so far came from a cherished Patreon supporter:
🏴☠️ Trove of Secret Future Fossils Eps Released!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/28180038
More secret patrons-only podcast episodes to come, but given how frequently I talk trash on the enclosure of the commons, it seems like a good time to release some captive media. Enjoy:
These six recordings won't ever make it to the main Future Fossils feed for one reason or another – either because they strayed too far off-topic, or the sound wasn't as great as I'd like, or it would have involved asking permission from dead souls (and I already do too much of that as it is). So, for your listening pleasure:
• Michael Garfield at CBA Innovation Lab, Sydney, Australia
...in which I tell the employees of Australia's biggest bank that the internet is LSD.
• Panel: Time at Starseed Gardens, Byron Bay, Australia (Somara 2017)
...in which every single panelist has a completely different idea of what time is.
• Harlan Emil Gruber (Architect)
...in which my friend and I discuss building interactive sacred geometry.
• Kate Willett (Stand-Up Comedian)
...in which I have a kind-of awkward first conversation with a comedian I like.
• Sarrah Rose (Tantrika)
...in which we talk time, sex, intimacy, and the self with a hefty side of nonduality.
• Panel: Public Art at Arcosanti, Arizona, US (Convergence 2018)
...in which we almost descend into an argument about identity politics but thankfully it remains a meaningful discussion about the diversity of artist experiences.
💡 Parting Thoughts
Thanks to SFI’s Cris Moore for turning me on to these inspiring quotes:
“What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?”
— F. Sherwood Rowland
“Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.”
— Alasdair Gray