Happy Festival of Fire and Death

Happy opening of the door to the Otherworld, and also some concerts announced

Åsgårdsreien by Peter Nicolai Arbo (1872)

It’s the last day of October, a doozy. I’m not actually that knowledgeable about the details of the old holidays, and I get itchy when the word “believe” gets said, but I say Happy Halloween to you because this one just feels right. Happy opening of the portal between worlds. The veil is thin. The dead are near. There are gods and demons among us and a rot pile awaits.

These nights formed my mind as a kid, the demonic joy of running in the darkness, wet leaf decay and candle roasted pumpkin, murk, mania, actual mystery and terror replacing familiarity on the streets gone dark. I stand by the belief that we would all be enriched by WAY MORE of that energy throughout our lives. Everyday magic, banal reverence for the invisible and not necessarily benevolent forces.

Nonetheless, my kid is going as a Titanic victim (she’s obsessed) and I’m going as Feed Egg.

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miniature tour with Black Belt Eagle Scout

The big announcement here is that Mount Eerie and Black Belt Eagle Scout are playing a series of co-headlining all ages shows in the “pacific northwest” in December. It was just too good playing together on the recent southern hemisphere tour to leave it at just that. This will be Mount Eerie full band version. Tickets on sale this friday at 10am PT.

• Weds. Dec. 13th, 2023 - WSÁNEĆ, Lummi and Tulalip territories (Orcas Island, Wash.) - “Freezing Moon” at HOULME, 6 to 8pm, free, big fire and food outside

• Thurs. Dec. 14th, 2023 - Samish territories (Anacortes, Wash.) - the Unknown, 1202 7th Street, 7pm, a benefit for AMP rock camps, TICKETS HERE

• Sat. Dec. 16th, 2023 - Duwamish, Muckleshoot territories (Seattle, Wash.) - Black Lodge, 429 Eastlake Ave. E. / two shows: TICKETS FOR EARLY SHOW (4pm doors) / TICKETS FOR LATE SHOW (8pm doors)

• Sun. Dec. 17th, 2023 - Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories (Vancouver, B.C.) - Red Gate, 1965 Main Street, / two shows: TICKETS FOR EARLY SHOW (5pm doors) / TICKETS FOR LATE SHOW (8:30pm doors)

• Mon. Dec. 18th, 2023 - Multnomah, Clackamas, Cowlitz territories (Portland, Ore.) - Polaris Hall, 635 N Killingsworth Ct. / two shows: TICKETS FOR EARLY SHOW (5:30pm doors) / TICKETS FOR LATE SHOW (9pm doors)

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We played in New Zealand and Australia

It was really fun. It was a quick zip around and it all feels like a warm dream in hindsight, but I’m 99% sure it really happened. I flew on airplanes from home to Dunedin, NZ and met up with KP and Camas from Black Belt Eagle Scout. We played our loud songs together, ate food and drank coffee and walked streets, drank in the surroundings for the brief days we had, and then it was over. I got to spend my 2 days off driving around alone in New Zealand. I ended up climbing a small mountain near Raglan and staying in a little rented cabin through the gnarliest typhoon I’ve ever been in. The walls and roof and I survived. Cows in the pasture hunkered. I did laundry in the sink and hung it to dry in the storm winds off the Tasman Sea. On the way back to the city I blasted early Stereolab and drove with so much exuberance I got a speeding ticket.

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personal news

I swear I’m getting back to writing and recording more songs. This activity that is the actual center of my life somehow easily gets pushed way to the back over and over. I am home, resisting the urge to plan more little trips, set up more little shows, fiddle around with more little building projects. The studio is set up, the ideas are yelling at me, the fires are stoked. It’s time.

It might just have to be true that in order to sufficiently prioritize a creative practice, to give it the juice it deserves, almost every other part of one’s life must suffer. Right? The meals get lazier, the floor accumulates pine needles, the laundry overflows, I don’t email you back, we don’t go on our walk together. I’m staring at mail from 6 months ago deserving response. It’s a sticky fantasy that some secret equation can be discovered where every part of life thrives simultaneously. I always feel like I’m just about to discover the way.

The truth is that everything I’ve ever made was made in a mode of semi-chaos, neglecting important aspects of life, in deliberate denial about what also needs to be done. And the truth is that this is actually my top choice of how I want to spend this rare brief human life. Of course I want to center this sloppy creative pursuit of some ambiguous dream idea. The squalor that must litter the path is no big deal when viewed from my imagined death bed life-review moment. I choose paint smears and missed meals.

But then of course, once this dark creative part of the mind gets nourished, the imbalance wobbles back into some kind of equilibrium and everyone’s happy. I’m more friendly, if partially vacant (I’m thinking about my project). I’m a better parent and partner when I feed this invisible garden. It’s the most crucial food of all. So here I go.

I built a shelf in the new studio space.

recently read: the Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
Holy moly dang wow, I immersed in another world, here on earth, deeper into the Himalayas, deeper into the heart of Buddhism. I hadn’t planned on loving the book this much. I am still there.

currently reading: Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein
Oof. Huge. My mind is living with this book, grabbed and dwelling, whether it’s in front of my eyes or not. Totally gripping. It rings a bell for me, that premise of having one’s public self mistaken for some other uncannily off version. But yeah, Naomi Klein rules. She goes way deeper, tougher.

Maybe it’s time I ease up a bit on my own personal glitching nervous system. Confronting our daily atrocities remains a necessary task, but we have to care for our freaked out little hearts at the same time just in order to function. These are particularly brutal times to be paying attention at all. To the present ongoing rolling genocides, wars, and authoritarianism, let alone to try and illuminate honestly the mountain of injustices our world is built on.

Non-metaphorical decolonization now!

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other thing: I have a spread of art/writing in the new edition of Presence, a magazine journal thing put together by Liz Harris, the wizard. It looks like you can still get one of the rare copies from Liz directly.

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Thanks for reading everyone.

No special paid subscriber treats this time, but forever thanks for those of you who support here monetarily. It is extremely appreciated.

see you,
Phil