Thursday, March 31, 2011

Some thoughts, after attending a lecture by Dr. bell hooks.

I am not a spontaneous combustion, no great creator. I am a feverish collector of the beautiful, the dark, wabi sabi, the beleaguered, of sounds and misspellings, and from that mixed bag of sensation, a constant vibration which I keep myself open to (it is boorish but also kind), I ejaculate pictures and thoughts and sometimes songs, which are never more than words on a ransom note, oily and strong-smelling, a particle made from a wave.

My songs, poems, essays, these are not creations, not my children, I will not make that metaphorical association like so many male thinkers have, and so casually, they take what is not theirs, that act of creation, as does the Judeo-Christian God, of whose womb the Bible speaks literally. That hermaphroditic God is a cruel and stupid Father/Mother, to normalize a gender split so foreign to his own image. His/Her creation marks Him/Her anomalous, His/Her creation which fears anomaly.
[this isn't the painting I was looking for, but it'll do. I always liked wizard-Jesus.]

For I know nothing of creation, I have not once sung beauty or hideousness that was my own, in any way that can be likened to the literal construction of a human body which a woman molds with inherited tools and prescient chemical instinct, deeply and genetically is this act taught by the womanhood of all her ancestors, taught by the unspoken cycles of seeds, and blossoms, and understood by the cold and plastic cultural acts with which she is sexualized.
[see what I did there?]

Though I am feminine, for a male, and though I write, or draw, or sing, my creativity is only mimicry and when I combust, it is through a chaotic and wild transformation of the present materials, fuel, and friction. The product is not new life; it is a taxidermied cross-species. It is mysterious to me, but my exploration of that mystery will not be so selfish as to confuse an act of secretion for a child.
[This is the physical manifestation of my songwriting process.]


Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Spoon Animal



A note: I spend an embarrassing amount of time at my computer lab job watching short-form videos that are at times mildly amusing, mostly underwhelming, and don't often make me laugh, as in, really laugh. This one did, for some reason. maybe it's because I wasn't expecting it, the first couple jokes are dumb and predictable, and then it just flies off on a jetpack of its own silliness.

I chuckled, out loud, and this lady looked at me, disgusted. She's annoying anyway, and always needs help with the printer and never thanks me, so I just smiled at her and kept laughing. I'm wearing all black today, which is weird. I wonder if people who met me today think I'm sad.

It occurs to me that this is hardly a reason to update my blog, and that's why I started rambling quasi-lyrically just now. I'm working on a real blog post, I promise. New songs, writings, comics (I started drawing comics). I think it's time to actually use this blog again. See you again soon.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Live Video!


Luke Williams- The Seamstress Live from Dada Factory on Vimeo.

Hey, blog-friends! So, Mr. Davey Davis of the Dada Factory filmed this more than a year ago, and we just got around to releasing it. It's footage from a show where I was playing a lot of the Weary As We Are material for the first time, so i'm playing a different (and sort of awkward) early version of this song. I think it improved a lot by the time it got on the album, but I also think it's fun to watch a song evolve, and I stand behind this performance and the feedback I got afterward as an important part of the development of the thing, musically. Plus, I think the rawness of the live footage and the rawness of this performance are conceptually well-fitted to my vision for Seamstress as a song.

Immense thanks to Davey for putting together this awesome video, and to all the beautiful people who came out to this show and who continue to support my music. If you don't already know about Davey's current adventures in Palestine, I highly encourage you to check out his blog. He's doing great things, that one.