Hi-i!

I was thinking about collaboration, when it hit me....

When I'm writing or drawing - or in any art or activity, really - I'm in deep interaction (collaboration) with all sorts of non-physical energies.


(Message me for info on where I first displayed THE LIPS ARE REAL.)


THAT'S basically the thrill of it all.

Long before any end user or critic or publisher or editor or co-writer even gets to walk in the door, there's been this intimate exploration through invisible pathways and slides and climbs and cozy moments in nooks and cranies, and it's almost startling when I'm suddenly reminded that I have physical collaborators, too!

HOT WOW! :D

Sunshine & Blessings,
Giovani

Hi-i!

One of the things I love about creating art is the insight it gives me into what we may REALLY be doing, here on Earth in these fleshy bodies that live in time and space.

Well, any "game" might offer such insights.

But conceptual art, for me, makes this obvious moment-by-moment.

One great example is how I've imposed certain rules upon myself, which have sometimes made maneuvering about a real challenge.

One rule, in many cases, has been the imposition of glamor.

By glamor, I mean something close to what other people call sexiness. But it's not the same thing. What I mostly mean is showing skin. However, when people speak of sexiness, they often include the idea of seduction and a sort of knowing attitude in which I'm simply not very interested.

(cc) Jacrews7 on Flickr

So, I just mean I like to bring attention to revealing clothes or to introduce nudity (or even simply make panties visible) in a piece of text. (And, yes, luxury DOES figure into this - but that's the easy part.)

Why?

Well, of course, part of it is simply that I find it titillating. It has a way of pushing up the energy level. I'm talking about feminine glamor, now - women. Why? Because our society has created a powerful opportunity to feel a great charge through feminine glamor, while preserving the freshness of physical innocence. None of this is automatic, of course, but it IS available. Not so much with men.

In many cases, I go further, ONLY visibly populating these works with women. One sex, but two genders, in many cases: not male and female, but tomboy and princess. Even in works that feature both sexes, I almost always focus on the female sex. Why? Mostly in reaction to masculine default. (It's also the reason why I sign all my art: G. Saintiny.)

Rules, rules, rules. But I'm always curious just how far I can push these rules.

In songs, for example, I live by what I consider to be the #1 rule of songwriting: Never say die. I mean it literally. I just about never use words like: die, kill, or murder.

Mind you, I wrote a song ABOUT a firearm. The plot of the song is about a woman teaching someone how to use one. She basically says that you point and you squeeze and there's no turning back. She asks, "Is this your first time," and we realize it must be. She makes it clear that "She won't be your wet nurse."

I never say kill.

On the other hand, in my rock opera BLOOM I say kill, outright. Why? Because it's the macabre story of a man who has lost his mind and performs a murder. It's a story soaking in beauty, but it's about a fundamentally ugly moment. So, if the entire context is murder - a meditation on murder - different rules apply. (James Bond movies are a good example, too.)

But I seldom write such things. I wrote BLOOM a long time ago and have no desire to write further horror material, though I still cherish that work. It's a TRUE rock opera. There are only about nine words of talk dialog. The whole thing is propelled by song. And the songs are amazing!

(Nonetheless, I seldom look them over for singing or to reminisce. It's just not my thing, and - even then - I felt the only available niches for my imagination were violent. But finally I decided that I would decide, regardless of society's presumptions - or my projections.)

Rules are what help us create and slip into forms. Sounds pretty metaphysical, no? ;O)

It's thanks to rules that we can create a sonnet and then refresh ourselves by creating haiku.

Anyway, back to glamor.

You'll notice another rule behind the rule I mentioned about glamor. Most people spell it with a letter U. Well, I've grown up in the USA and can't understand - for the life of me - how it is that the "m-o-r" inflection exists, and yet Americans often spell it "m-o-u-r", which looks totally British to me.

I do use a few Britishisms, but with purpose behind them. For example, when discussing movies, I speak of a "theater." But when discussing plays, I speak of a "theatre." Very handy, no?

In other words, I do my best to write in living languages. I create melodic chant, for example. These aren't unheard of. But they are all but unheard of in English (and seemingly in ANY living language). Well, I have no interest in creating the next melodic chant in Sanskrit or Latin. I want it in English and to have vernacular vigor.

Now, I've spoken of glamor and innocence. To take it further, I'm especially interested in glamor as a means of activating our divinity. This is not a new idea. It's the reason why fairies are often nude or very very glamorous. It's why many ancient deities are portrayed in the nude (Remember Venus/Aphrodite?). A divine concept is rendered spectacular through glamor. That's the basic formula.

And there are other formulas, as well. One of my most glamorous references is to two "supreme beings" (as Deepak Chopra calls them in CREATING AFFLUENCE) who represent wisdom and wealth. He identifies them as Sarasvati and Lakshmi. I call them Princess Dawn & Candy (sort of a wave vs particle thing). But why does one have a title and not the other, if they're both SUPREME beings? As Chopra puts it, relating their legend, "When you pay more attention to Sarasvati, Lakshmi will become extremely jealous and pay more attention to you."

So my formulation is literally a wisdom and wealth blessing! And I play with it in many ways: via the title for Princess Dawn, via the way they interact, and by always making Princess Dawn a little more glamorous than Candy.

Rules, rules, rules.

When you're imposing them on yourself - Well! Ya gotta love 'em! ;O)

Sunshine & Blessings,
Giovani

Hi-i!

Have you ever collaborated with a writer?

If you think about it, the answer has to be yes. After all, when you see the words, "Princess Dawn gathered the pleats of her miniskirt and climbed onto the horse," you're filling in a lot of details. After all, I didn't say what color horse, and I didn't describe Princess Dawn, herself. Did I?

And that's a big part of what makes writing fun, for me - that collaborative aspect to it!

And it's not just with the reader. Even this blog post owes so much to so many people doing so many awesome things! Think of all the programmers who created the basis for social networking and those who combined the code into Ning sites, and those who promoted Ning enough for us to be able to find it, and Ben-Arion, who took on the responsibility of giving this site its identity, and all the bloggers who make it worth people's while to visit often enough so there's a pool of interest by the time I got here!

Wow!

THANK YOU, all of you! :D

And, I also write songs of various types: especially sacred melodic chant and sacred song in the longer pop song format. These are a wonderful opportunity for me to play with musicians and singers (I especially enjoy female voices, though much of my work is gender-neutral).

(cc) Joint Base Lewis McChord on Flickr

And, let's face it, even what some think are forms I originated are throwbacks to forms from earlier civilizations and other cultures - with innovations, for sure. But I'm basically collaborating with people from centuries back! How awesome is that??? Collaborating with the ancients! Maybe a thousand years from now, someone will take one of my innovations a step forward. It's thrilling to think I could be doing a duet of sorts with someone living a thousand years in the future! Wow!

Hahaha! :D

Some of my melodic chant involves a combination of call-and-response and counter-melody. So, I can see - for example - two women singing one of them together. The chant is repeated and repeated and repeated. I can see percussion figuring wonderfully in many of these chants, because I marry them onto original pop tunes - usually to something like a disco beat. Due to the simplicity of it all, I can see the singers naturally embellishing the syllables and having a lot of fun as the chanting gets wilder and wilder and more and more earnest, as the meaning settles more soundly into their hearts (and the audience's).

There are hints of melodic chant in contemporary English-speaking cultures, of course. But I'm more of a purist about this than most. But think of the "Let the sunshine in" portion of the song AGE OF AQUARIUS, from the musical, HAIR! THAT'S what I'm talking about when I say melodic chant. And, of course, it would be interesting to devise such for other living languages. French (since it's my mother tongue) and Japanese ('cause I loooove the sounds of the language) are at the top of my list.

*MELT! ♥*

And, of course, there's the collaborative help of editors, directors, conductors, producers, and engineers!

My PUSH-BUTTON BLISS recording was engineered by Paul Ruest (Argot Network), who is a true artist at the control board! The bamboo wind chimes at the start and end of the recording sound naturally chaotic, but were - in fact - carefully coordinated and remixed for maximum effect. And I did everything I could to speak the specially timed script in one take, but I slipped MANY times. You couldn't tell from the recording. I was amazed by this, because the rhythm is very special, but he knew exactly what I was after! Awesome!

And the producer, Sarah Sims Erwin, first heard it during an artist's circle. I played it off of a really ratty little cassette tape that I recorded under truly lousy conditions. But she could see the potential and took my hand and led me to her awesome friend, Paul, and kept me calm and serene, which made all the difference in the world! And THAT'S what I mean by collaboration! No way I could have done all that without her guidance and serenity.

I know I'll get to enjoy more experiences like that one. I just love this kind of thing! It would be nice if it could happen, right now! Hahaha!

But, as Abraham-Hicks likes to put it, it's all right if it doesn't happen "this red hot minute." Or this week, month, year. Hey! Even if it never happens, I've got such precious memories and artifacts to love and enjoy. I love this process, and the memory and joy of creating hand-in-hand with others will always be with me! So, no matter what happens, it's all good.

Maybe you, too, have had an enjoyable collaborative experience. Why not share, if that's so, in the comments? Actually, any comment you make will be another meaningful collaborative experience for me. So, I definitely encourage it! ;O)

Sunshine & Blessings,
Giovani

Hi-i!

This piece exists as an mp3 file, which I occasionally share with those truly interested. But it's not for sale. Perhaps, if I find a truly curious distributor....

Let's get right into it!

You know, when you're listening to a disembodied voice like now, you're in the middle of something bizarre - not big time bizarre, of course. Still, it is curious.

And, if you want to know the truth, right now, as you listen and breathe and consider what you've just heard, you're in an even curiouser situation than if you were listening to some other kind of disembodied voice like a voice on the telephone, say, or a voice on the radio, or - come to think of it - it's about as odd as a voice you might mentally be listening to if it's somebody who has helped you feel at ease in the past, if it's relaxing, that is.

If you're here, listening to this and you are feeling at ease, interesting situation as this is, then the truth is it's your breath that you should thank. That's because, you know, breathing is a magical thing.

From a certain point of view, what's happening is that your breathing has made a sort of a trip to a grand and magical gate. And that gate received a certain secret tickle the breezes like to tickle the gate with on those languid sunny summer days.

And the gate, therefore, let you in. And, here you are, you see? Okay, let's breathe. It's good to take in a relatively deep breath, every now and then. And you know what helps? A good thought. Let's take in a good thought and a few good relatively deep breaths.

In fact, rest assured, if you consider how healing a cleansing breath can really be, you have a good idea what everything you're hearing really means.

So delicate a
breeze that, turning back to walk,
one might outpace it.

You may notice feelings moving around inside you that are, in some ways, surprising . So, let's look at all this just a little more closely.

So delicate a
breeze that, turning back to walk,
one might outpace it.

You get the idea. So, getting back to where we left-off: And, of course, the gate says welcome. She says, welcome to the garden of my heart. And, the breeze says welcome in the massaging language of the breeze, also known - did you know this - as the language of refreshment....

There's much more to the PUSH-BUTTON BLISS experience than the script, a chunk of which is quoted, above. It starts, for example, with the orchestrated sound of bamboo wind chimes. Also, the rhythm of my voice is timed to generate greater production of Theta brainwaves (a trick I learned while studying sutras in ancient Sanskrit. (I'm not a big student of the language, but did sit in on a few sessions at two Siddha Yoga ashrams. It's amazing how much one can learn in such situations. As a result of this study and contemplating the rhythmic "hypnosis" via which the so-called Indian rope trick is performed, the relationship between the rhythm in which the sutras were read and Theta rhythms became very clear.)

But it makes sense to consider the script, too. There's a lot going on there.


What made me want to write this was my annoyance at the boring way hypnosis recordings and guided meditation recordings (same difference, really) "induce a trance." Usually, it's by counting backwards from 100 to one or describing you going down flights of stairs or having you tense and relax small muscle groups. BOOOOORING! :P

Why bother?

After studying about Theta brainwaves, I realized that generating more of these is associated with paranormal activity like telepathy. As I thought more about this, I realized there are many situations where this happens almost instantly. It was easier for me to see this, because I'd had a very intense (though short) career as a street magician and had noticed strange things I couldn't explain but could make happen.

How? Pretty much the way a storyteller does. I noticed the same things as a poet. I also noticed these things happening in situations such as the telling of ghost stories. And, as I thought of these things with the writing of PUSH-BUTTON BLISS in mind, I remembered the opening of the Twilight Zone series.

These went something like: You are entering another dimension. A dimension of time. A dimension of space. A dimension of mind. You turn the corner. There's a signpost up ahead. Your next stop? The Twilight Zone.

In thirty seconds, Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, was able to put a huge portion of the United States into a trance in which anything seemed possible. My instincts told me immediately that this was Theta. And, if you watch the opening sequences, there are direct reference to hypnosis: a spinning spiral disc, a pendulum (on a clock).

I realized that, by directing attention to the uncanny, one could instantly induce a trance.

Serling did it by creating a sense of spookiness, but I felt this had a negative edge to it. Surely, that was just extra baggage, easily left behind.

Another thing that didn't sit well with me in existing recordings was how they would make presumptions that did not match my situation - an instant buzz-kill. For example, one might say, "Imagine you're on a wonderful vacation. Go ahead and lounge. Hear the sounds of the surf coming in and out." WHOA! You said vacation - what if I presumed I was hiking? There's no surf where I am. Lounging doesn't sound like the right word for resting in the woods, either.

That's how I stumbled upon an interesting thing that every listener of hypnotic recordings has in common: they're all experiencing of a very odd - an actually uncanny - phenomenon: a disembodied voice!

Just by pointing this out, I could induce a trance. Later, I would see something very similar in INCEPTION - the Mr Charlie tactic, in which the Leonardo DiCaprio character points strange dream elements out to his subject, partly to help his subject go more deeply into the dream state (and earn his subject's trust).

If you're familiar with Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) or poetic enchantment (to get a little more folksy), you'll notice a lot of interesting tactics in the quoted text, above.

If you create guided meditations, etc, see if any of these ideas can help improve your creations.

With growing sophistication in these forms, they could someday rival movies, theme parks, and psychedelic substances. :O)

Sunshine & Blessings,
Giovani

Hi-i!

Let's start, right away, with the story - no titles, no list of characters. I like that! :D

(Prologue. Full company sings opening song:)

COMPANY
No one knows what's at the bottom
Of GREENCOOL POND
It's the kind of adventure
You can simply dive in on

No one knows what's at the bottom
Whether you're young
Or old, big or small
No one's gonna stop you
If you've heard the treasure's call

Is it dark or mysterious
Or shiny and fun or maybe serious?
No one knows what's at
The bottom of it all

(Scene 1. TATIANA and BRIAN in raft.)

BRIAN
Okay, explain it Ms Hurwit.

TATIANA
There's a rope and a weight here, Brian.

BRIAN
Looks like a shoe.

TATIANA
Yes, a shoe, but a heavy shoe.

BRIAN
And I see the rope's knotted.

TATIANA
Every three feet.

BRIAN
Plus the shoe, that's four feet?

TATIANA
No, I start at two feet and a shoe.

BRIAN
Every three feet. I see, Ms Hurwit.

TATIANA
"Ms Hurwit." That's so silly, Brian. And, of course, in the meantime...

BRIAN
My favorite part.

TATIANA
...I'm making us a pot - 

BRIAN
Of black -

TATIANA
Blackberry sorbet.

BRIAN
When the sun's hot
And the wind's forgotten
How to blow

TATIANA
Sun's hot
So what kinda kid won't sell
Her soul for a bowl
Of freshly crushed ice-cold
Blackberry sorbet

BRIAN
Ms Hurwit, will you have time to mind the bowl?

TATIANA
Why wouldn't I, Brian?

BRIAN
Seems like I should do it, Ms Hurwit. After all, you'll be at the bottom of the pond.

TATIANA
I'm not jumping in today, Brian. Today is what we treasure hunters call exploratory work.

Thus begins the story of fiesty Tatiana Hurwit and her loyal sidekick, Brian, in a world of wetlands treasure-hunting, dealing with a rich brat competitor, making peace with a goofy forest spirit, learning about science and statistics, and living it all out in song, song, song!

(cc) Fort Meade on Flickr

The fun began, for me, when I felt driven to write something educational and 100% fun for kids, in the form of a one act play. The story took me over and spit me (and a script) out in a mere seven days. "Wow!" I thought. "That was fun!" And, as soon as I finished reading the one act, all I could think was how amazing this would be as a musical.

That's when the opening line came to me.

"No one knows what's a the bottom of Greencool Pond...."

And, I was off!

Another week passed, and I came down from the mountain with two stone tablets - Oh, wait! Wrong story. ;O)

But that's what it was like. 

I knew, as soon as I picked up the pen (The first draft was long-hand), that I wanted there to be almost too many songs. I was tired of musicals that only had an occasional song and were mostly talk, talk, talk. And, I knew that I wanted the songs to drive the story. I was tired of songs that seemed to interrupt the action, slow down the story, or that seemed to want to live outside the story more than in it.

And, I wanted spectacle and dance!

And, everything I wanted I got! YAY! Writing THE BLACKBERRY KIDS GO TREASURE HUNTING was a job from Heaven! And, best of all, I love the whole world of Pondside. I loved the heroic characters: Tatiana, Brian, and Rachel (a.k.a. Rocky) - the Food Co-op Refrigerator Door Weekly's reporter. And I also love the villain, believe it or not: Perky, the rich brat, along with that seeming forest spirit of ambiguous morality (and the villain's biggest fan) Mickel!

To me, they're ALL the Blackberry Kids.

I thoroughly appreciate having had the chance to field all those energies, and capture them on paper. Seeing the magic on stage - the very thought makes my heart swell!

Ahhhhh!

I love being a writer! :D

Sunshine & Blessings,
Giovani