I was given a wonderful sonic gift by a friend who spent an afternoon with a pod of orcas: a clear hydrophone recording of whale-song.

The accompanying notes, complete with timestamps, describe the sounds as “chirping, squeaking, talking, and squealing.” On first listen, I immediately began thinking of ways to bend, pitch, and manipulate the samples. But once I dropped the recording into the music, it wanted for nothing, aside from some reverb that I wanted more than it did.

Beyond the obvious musicality, I wondered: why did these vocalizations sound so true, complete, and artful? To my ears, there was a communication taking place that was entirely unconfused, honest, and loving. It moved me.

Was I experiencing total authenticity? Is art made good, or better, finally sublime, according to its level of truth? If truth is the measure of art’s power, then nature, would be creativity’s apex, for it can’t be anything other than itself. It doesn’t lie. It’s incapable.

Even the word authenticity has no place in nature. It’s forged from its opposite: inauthenticity, an impossible trait for a leaf, a sunbeam, or an orca to possess.

Is all human-made art derivative of nature, and thereby false? Is total authenticity an impossible human goal because we do not know why we are, and therefore do not know who we are? Is knowing the problem?

We have our animal instincts, but layered over them are imagination, self-awareness, consciousness, and ego. They are powerful gifts and forces, yet they create so many layers of distortion that it becomes difficult to know when one is being true and when one is merely the product of an insane, confused machinery.

I’ve been thinking of the whales often, using them as a barometer for my own falseness, in both art and life.

I pick up a guitar and start playing something that feels good. The chords and gibberish are charged with a feeling of truth that seems to have little to do with meaning. I deflate as the words—the meaning—appear, and the song becomes less true. But songs need words if they are to be sung, so I sacrifice this magic for meaning.

I think of the whales, talking.

There is a man I speak with semi-regularly. He sits in a chair across from the chair I sit in. He smiles when he says things that are nice to hear and when he says things that aren’t. I pay him for this exchange.

I tell him about the thread of poisonous electricity that runs through me whenever I come up against one of life’s major relational pillars. I tell him it feels like something is trying to kill me.

He asks if I want to get rid of this feeling.

My knee-jerk response is: of course I do! but I pause and consider the question more deeply, and a great deal of defensive resistance arises in me.

I seem to strongly identify with the bad feeling, he says, smiling. Well, it’s mine, I say. I’ve worked hard for it—carried it in my backpack for a long time, learning to walk, swagger even, with its counterweight. Who wants to learn to walk again?

I think of the whales, swimming.

I think of birthdays, of November, my birthday month. I like this time for the same reason I hate it. I feel closer to my troubles, which I’ve authored and which have authored me. I want to get closer to them still, and farther away from everybody else. Is this about truth or protection? Or power? I think of the whales.

I talk to a barista at a cafe I frequent. She’s an artist, and we touch on the creative process. She suggests that artists in their late twenties take themselves too seriously.

Oh yes, so true, I say, then continue on about how art has nothing to do with the artist. It is a translation of something from beyond. I have no idea whether any of it is true, her opinions or mine. But I’m fairly certain I take myself too seriously, and I’m well past my late twenties. I have no idea how to take myself, or the creative process, seriously enough, but not too seriously.

Though I am lying, and perhaps we both are, there is genuine warmth in the exchange. There is truth in it, and love, because, well, I don’t know, it’s just a feeling that doesn’t need explaining. Maybe the words, the lies, are sometimes used to help this feeling along.

The whales don’t do any of this.

I play a song and read a poem at a wedding. It goes well. The people are happy, and there are tears. But a different thread of poisonous electricity runs through me before and during my performance. It is the fear of doing poorly and being exposed as unfit for the job and generally unworthy. How can love or truth be fully offered and received in this way? I want to offer them fully, in song and any form of communication. But there is so much interference.

I think of the whales, singing.

I once saw an interview with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He was asked what his superpower would be if he could choose one. He said: to love without judgment.

I’ve borrowed his line many times and thought about the flaw in the idea just as often. To love without judgment suggests there can be love with the inclusion of judgment. But would love not cease to be love once judgment, fear, conditions, or toxicity of any kind enter it? Is there such a thing as a partial love?

I think about oxymorons: Toxic Love. Jumbo Shrimp.

I think about homophones: Flea. Flee. Whale. Wail.

I’m walking through a rough part of Vancouver. It would appear that almost everyone in sight is on death’s door, especially the unconscious man lying on the ground. A grocery-store merchant hovers above him and instructs me to call 911. I do.

The dispatcher walks me through ways to engage the man. Ask him if he needs help. No response. Shake him. No response. Ask him what his name is. No response. Tell him to smile. Hey buddy, can you give me a smile? His dry, scabbed mouth spreads into an overdone, cartoony grin. Kinda miraculous and hilarious. The ambulance arrives, and I carry on.

Not but twenty minutes later, I come upon a bus stop laden with the graffitied words: Smile!! It’s Good For You!! I take a photo of the scene, myself visible in the reflection. I think it would be cute to smile in the photo. I take many photos, checking each one, unhappy with my smile. Unhappy that I care about how I look when I smile.

I think of the man on the ground, responding to nothing but the request to smile, and how the least of his worries was his appearance. I think of my smiling therapist. I think of the whales, never not smiling.

I’m talking to a friend on the phone, giving unsolicited advice about love, breakups, and heartbreak. I am talking to her, but really I am talking to myself. I hang up feeling very satisfied with my performance, the many pearls of wisdom unfurled from my gilded lips still hanging in the air, shimmering.

I wake the next morning with an advice hangover and the awful sense that nothing I said was true or helpful. Moments later, a different friend sends me a Rumi poem that feels the most true and, in a few short lines, contradicts the torrent of my own advice, confirming that, yes, I’m full of shit.

I think about this thing I’ve just written. How desperately far away it is from the initial, wordless sense I had of it. None of it is true aside from the anecdotes. But it began in that stirring, resonant, wordless place that feels like truth emanating from itself. Not to pursue it, even if it ends up dripping with falsehood, which it always will, would be the greater tragedy and, in fact, the greater lie.

May we continue to chirp, squeak, talk, and squeal our truth, no matter how untrue it comes out.

Thanks for stopping by.

Onto the next and into the mine.

-XORG

“BACK PACK”:

LYRICS:

You don’t know what kinda guy I am
What’s in my backpack
It might knock you on your ass
What’s in my past
But can you love me without judgment
Can you love me without judgement
Can you love off the contract
And I’ll love you without judgement
I’ll just love you without judgment
I’ll just love

Remember November
I turn inside
Forever in November
I will confide

There’s a little black book I have
It’s pure trash
You would read one page and be aghast
Hey give that back

But can you love me without judgment
Can you love me without judgement
Can you love though the ink is black
And I’ll love you without judgement
I’ll just love you without judgment
I’ll just love like the sky

Remember November
I close my eyes
Forever on November
I will rely

You don’t know what kinda guy I am
What’s in my backpack

This one’s a bit of a travelogue, tracing a festival run with Mother Mother and the muse.

When we landed in Calgary, I saw I had missed a call from an unknown Newfoundland number. “Goodbye” was all the voicemail said, in an automated female voice. Goodbye, I said out loud. Goodbye, my love. I wondered if I could fall in love with a robot, once they really nail down the technology. I would never admit it, but I think I could.

It was well into the evening by the time we got downtown, but the city was still bright and hot, teeming with Stetson hats. I avoided the fester of idle hotel time and went for a photo walk right away. I met a veteran named Brian. “How are you?” I asked. “Oh you know, just getting older and uglier, but never been happier,” he said, followed by a toothless laugh, slow and wide, like a cat’s yawn. I took his portrait and e-transferred him twenty bucks.

Because it was Stampede, the police were on full display, mounted on horseback, clopping around the city, in what looked like a preening ritual. I thought about the word clopping, and about onomatopoeia, which might be a farce. Before there were words, there were sounds; we just invented the words and assigned them meaning. But in a parallel universe, they might have called a horse a bee, and instead of clopping, the hooves go “bzzzzzzz.”

The clopping:

From which I made a loop:

Every city is different in how it handles crosswalks. In Calgary, a robot man counts us down. He seems nice enough, but I couldn’t fall in love with him. Too controlling.

Carrying on, a street quartet comprising two adults and two children performs wholesomely.

In an effort to obscure the source, I stretched the audio until it was thoroughly mangled. The result was satisfying: a sound that began sweet and innocent, turned into something demented and unsettling.

I wondered whether speed protects us. If everything were slowed right down, could we better see the cracks in character and the nuance of poor intentions? How much are we getting away with simply because we’re moving so fast?

The following day at the festival, I delighted in the backstage restrooms, partly because the stalls were private and sparkly clean, but mostly because the tap was both a kick drum and a hi-hat, throbbing away at the brisk tempo of 172 beats per minute.

Our travels also moved at a fast tempo, landing us in Spokane, Washington the next day. There were storms, however, so we ended up with a 7-hour layover in Denver. I resisted the urge to stagnate in the lounge and instead drifted around with the camera, something I never do in airports. I mostly shot out the window to avoid being intrusive, and played around with in-camera multiple exposure.

We got to Spokane around 2am, so I saved my custom arrival walk for the morning, when Google Maps erroneously led me to a parkade with no way out. Better than a way out, though, it had birdsong and a decent reverb from the empty lot. I wondered if the GPS was flirting with me, knowing the way to my heart: avian music.

Back in another airport utopia, a week after Spokane, we were waiting out more delays, this time in Quebec City. A public piano was set up there, and two children duetted gleefully.

I was collecting steps, walking back and forth from one end of the terminal to the other, passing the young musicians each time. On my last lap, they were suddenly gone, the piano silent and the space de-animated, like an abandoned house where a family once stirred. Were they ever there? I drew on what courage the ghost children left behind and sat down to play a little myself. A young man named Hugo appeared, standing beside me, listening. We had a brief chat. He plays piano but rejects the title of musician. I told him you don’t have to be good to be great, which I believe to be true and meant as encouragement, but I don’t think it landed.

Something I find peculiar is when hotels decide to have the TV on and blaring when you first enter your room. But when we got to Edmonton, the set in my room was on, yes, but its picture was silent and beautifully distorted and pixelated, like a hanging piece of abstract art.

I filmed it for a while and used the footage as the visualizer for the song I made from the sounds above — a song that definitely wouldn’t exist if not for catching the creative winks given by the world and responding in kind.

It’s fun to wink back. It’s fun to flirt. Even with robots.

Thanks for stopping by.

Onto the next and into the mine.

XORG

“GOODBYE”:

If you don’t have a teacher, teach yourself. If you don’t have the information to do that, skip the lesson and go straight to the homework. Perhaps. I don’t know.

I don’t know the exact inroad to creative breakthrough, and I don’t know much about the French Revolution, but I can assign myself the homework to write a poem about it:

The French Revolution

I only remember

The bad stuff

Being told

There were huge gaps in my knowledge

A bread ghost in the throat

Of the city

I revolt

I’m revolting

In my ignorance

C’est la

Vie

This poem isn’t about the French Revolution—not really—but without the prompt, it wouldn’t exist. And it doesn’t matter what it’s about, or whether it’s good—it’s not great. What matters is: trying shit.

Recently, I haven’t wanted to, for fear the work will be just that: shit. This month, creativity has felt sticky, like a trap. Like getting caught in it would mean getting caught as a fraud, an unoriginal. This blog feels like that. I fret about the next, unwritten issue. It will expose me.

But the following I’ve learnt the hard way:

Not doing with no results is more painful than doing with poor results.

So here I am. With a result.

In the last issue of GOLDMINING I offered two creative prompts:

1. Write a handwritten letter (can be to yourself)

2. Go for a walk collecting words from signage and graffiti, posters and bills, etc., and use them for lyrics.

I didn’t write the letter, but I did set out to gather text from the streets of Vancouver. I filled my proverbial sack with language plain and strange, excited to bring it home, convinced I could rearrange it into sheer genius. But when I laid it all out, I felt daunted and aborted the exercise.

Instead of finishing my homework—and this can be both helpful and unhelpful when in a rut—I looked at someone else’s brilliant work.

Recently, I was invited to a private opening of an Edward Burtynsky exhibit at The Paul Kyle Gallery in Vancouver. It’s on until August—check it out if you can, or peruse online. It’s worth it.

I walked to the event with my camera, then spent the latter half of the journey feeling foolish for bringing a camera to a photography exhibit. By the time I arrived, I already felt out of place, my imposter syndrome blooming.

The room carried an air of high art and sophistication, and I was immediately introduced to someone of seeming importance.

“Have you been to Switzerland?”

“Yes, I’ve toured there with my band.”

“Oh, what cities?”

“Stockholm.”

A pause.

“Sweden. Wait—Zurich… Bern!”

And boy did I burn… for the rest of the night. And longer. Still burning.

(Something that haunts me—and I’ve only done it twice—is addressing an audience by the wrong city. I can turn red just thinking about it.)

At the exhibit, I also met a documentary filmmaker and we exchanged emails. After a couple of introductory notes back and forth, I watched one of her films to acquaint myself with her work, then sent some photos of mine that tied into its subject—addiction and homelessness on the streets of Vancouver.

She didn’t reply. Within a couple of days, I’d convinced myself I crossed a boundary with my photos, offended her, and ruined the connection. I spiralled on that for a week.

(She got back to me eventually, and had nice things to say about the photos—she was just busy.)

During the spiral, I drove to Enderby to clear my head and visit The Cardiff Miller Art Warehouse, which she’d actually recommended (and so do I—it’s a jewel). Six hours through B.C.’s interior, I sailed past constant photo opportunities without stopping. I’d hesitate, drive on, and regret it immediately. I regret it still.

Again, the pain of not doing…

I managed to snap out of it and snap a few shots, but it felt more like a redemption tactic than inspired photography. Whatever works.

During the drive, I listened to a podcast on non-duality. At one point, the guest said something that felt brutally relevant: if you want to know how identified you are with your ego, do something embarrassing in public and see how long—and how tightly—it grips.

Ouch.

It’s one thing to feel embarrassment. It’s another to loop it. To buy into it. Same goes the other way—the lift from praise. Different sides of the same attachment.

Self-deprecation, however, is less commonly seen as egotistical, yet it is when you follow it down far enough. So is the fear of failure, or a tarnished image. You don’t fear failure unless you’re invested in some version of yourself that’s meant to succeed. A perceived self with a track record to protect.

I’ve been wondering: is it even possible to create without a trace of ego and fear? Or do you have to be three years old?

When I got back to Vancouver, I tried the homework again, but photographing more graffiti felt repetitive, so I gave up. In a sour mood, I walked on in a shoe-gaze—and that’s when I saw Eckhart Tolle’s precious face looking up at me through the grass.

I picked up the book and felt an energy shift: was this the inroad?

Almost every chapter had the word “ego” in it. Okay, I said to Eckhart. Message received.

When I got home, I leafed through its pages, pulled words, let them trigger my own associations, and made a big list.

I grabbed a guitar, sat in front of the word pile, and began spouting while finding the chords. It was fun, it flowed, and a song came quickly—a song I love, and not because it’s a masterpiece, but because of the writing process: playful, irreverent, mouthy energy you wish you could bottle—energy that helped diffuse a great deal of solemn, cerebral stress that was muzzling my inner child and making me miserable.

I don’t believe there’s much release in thinking about things. Stuff needs to move, to be expressed—physically, emotionally, and, ideally for me, creatively.

If you don’t have a teacher, teach yourself.

To dissolve the ego?

To be free of fear?

Creatively liberated?

To love?

Tall order.

I’d say skip the lesson and go straight to the homework:

Walk, run, sing, draw, cook, paint, kiss… do.

Good luck. I’m on your side.

Onto the next, and into the mine.

XORG

“UN-ME ME” :

Lyrics:

Ego manic

ID panic

Hey baby could you make me

An un-suffering sandwich

Un-feed me

Un-bleed

Un-birth me

Un-hurt me

Un-cut

Un-crush

Un-stuck

Un-fuck me

All over again

All over again

Do I need to be 3 years old

All over again

Deluded delighted

Polluted pilates

Hey motherfucker pay me

I’m an arting starvist

Witness Protection Deprogram

Human collective erection infection

Enlighten

Enfatten

Emphatic in Latin

Cogito ergo sum crapping

All over my pants

All over my pants

So I seem to be three years old
All over my pants

And have you every been to Switzerland

Yeah man Stockholm what a wonderland

And how about the French Revolution, man

Je te pu ton alavec moi compretun

I think therefor I am

I think therefor I stink

I think therefor I think I am the greatest

Piece of shit to ever live

To ever write a song

Ego manic

ID panic

Hey baby could you make me

An un-punishing pancake

Un-feed me

Un-bleed

Un-birth me

Un-hurt me

Un-learn me

Un-Bern me

Un-cool me

Un-cruel me

Un-fool me

Un-spool me

Un-stuck me

Un-fuck me

Un-ugly

Un-drug me

Un-see me

Un-speak me

Un-be me

Un-me me

May I vent about lyricism? Putting words to music often feels like an unfortunate byproduct of songwriting. On bad days, songwriting itself feels like an unfortunate byproduct of songwriting. That is to say, it’s difficult. Until it isn’t. Until something falls into your lap, dusted with heaven, pre-born, fully formed, and certain of itself. Nothing beats that. But most of the time, it’s an effort. Especially the lyrics.

Nine times out of ten, when I sit down to write with intention—about this thing or that, a story, a person, or worst of all, an opinion—the words dry up, turn to ash, scatter away. There’s nothing to say. Nothing that should be said. Everything has been said. Perfectly and poorly. And yet, something stirs—a maelstrom of feelings that demand expression.

These feelings are abstract and wordless, living in a lower chamber of the body. Not the head, but the belly. Let’s call it the soul. They grumble and murmur and desperately want to find voice, and, as it happens, words. Words? I thought there was nothing to say. Very well. Let’s find some. Just not mine. Please, not mine. I beg of myself, stay out of the way. Let the other thing speak.

What thing? I’m the only one in the room. Or am I? When it’s flowing, I feel surrounded; assisted. But when I start thinking my way into a song, the angels flee, taking all the good lines with them. Taking everything with them. “Thinking is the death of creativity,” says the magnet on my fridge, and I think it’s true.

It’s a relief, actually, that anything valuable I might have to say isn’t mine alone to produce. As far as I can tell, it’s some lucky collision of subconscious, emotion, presence, vocabulary, psyche, intuition, voodoo, and consciousness—whatever that is. Not to mention the weather, the day of the week, sleep, and what I had for breakfast. The task of songwriting—and of life—then becomes less about being smart, calculated, or skilled and more about staying open, honest, feeling, unknowing, and willing to let go.

That actually sounds harder than being cerebral, now that I write it down, especially for someone prone to vicious overthinking. Fitting, then, that when I recently sat down to create, the theme that emerged was overthinking itself. In truth, there was no concept or language at first, only the dripping, desperate, pre-verbal coo of a newborn idea, unable to express the infinite wisdom of all its past lives. In other words, gibberish. A common starting place:

And like every parent, you wait and hope your infant’s first words will arrive on time, and that they won’t be trite. That’s a lot to put on a baby. Or a song:

“Oh no there I go once again

No boats, no trains, no planes

Just me in my head”

I liked the words, but felt done with the theme: head in the clouds, dissociated, untethered from reality. It’s not such a bad angle, I’m just burnt out on it. I’m not even sure I write about it that much, but I think about it constantly. I think about my thinking. I’m aware of my awareness, and as a result, I live mostly in my head.

I wanted this song to be about something else. But what?

Oops, I’m imposing my thinking brain on the sacred act and doing exactly what I hate—the thing I’ve been prattling on about and warning against: trying to write a song.

Probably a good time to put it down and go check the mail.

I have one friend who writes me handwritten letters. In these modern, digital times, one pen pal is a lot. I feel very fortunate to receive these letters. They are thoughtful and poetic. After reading them, I always tell myself I’ll write her back. I never do. There is guilt. But there is still time. If there is still guilt, there is still time. I like that. I’ll put that in my notes for later.

In my friend’s most recent letter, she told me about her panic attacks. I related immediately, having had a bout of my own recently. Panic attacks are fascinating. They rule you. You can’t reason your way out of them. The chemicals take over, and even though you know there’s no real danger, your body is convinced it’s dying. All you can do is let it burn through itself until the chaos subsides. Time is the cure.

Well, the cure is probably deeper than time. What was it that trained your nervous system to perceive this innocuous thing as such a threat? Is it what they call emotional trauma? Is it stuck somewhere in the body? Can this stuff of trauma actually get stuck in the body—like, physically? What’s going on in there?

I’d love to know, but I’d love even more to write a worthy song, so I returned to the task, her letter and my thoughts about nervous system upset still floating around the room, which, of course, had everything to do with the song finding a new story, thank goodness.

Though I didn’t send a letter in return, I shared with her the song and thanked her for saving it. She replied with a voice memo saying she “pulled over in a sunbeam” to listen to it. What a great line, I thought, and a perfect image. She also offered a little more insight on how she navigates her panic attacks: “It’s not happening to me. It’s happening in me.” Fantastic.

The song was too short, so I borrowed her words for an outro. They paint a scene: someone pulled off to the side of the road, panic attack in full swing, drenched in sunlight, repeating a mantra. You know it’s happened. Everything has. And it’s all been said. So let’s keep saying it.

Thanks for stopping by. Full song below.

Onto the next and into the mine.

-XORG

P.S. If you’re stuck in the process, especially with lyricism, and want some prompts, here’s a couple. I’ll do the homework too and report back. Godspeed.

1. Go for a walk and write down all the words you see: Graffiti, posters, flyers, signage etc. Bring it all home. Mix it up. Rearrange. See what happens.

2. Write someone a handwritten letter. It can be to yourself.

“Oh No” :

LYRICS:

“Oh no there I go once again

No boats, no plane, no train

Just me and my chemicals

Hold my hand tighter than you ever did

Before I sail away

Love, love, love

Love is fun

But love, love, love, love

It’s not enough

To keep me from running so hot

Oh no it’s bad

No joke, no notes, no diagnosis, no clothes

Just me and my panic

Hold my face tighter than you held my hand

Before I break my jaw

Drugs, drugs, drugs

Drugs are fun, so damn fun

But drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs

They’re not enough

To keep me from running so damn hot

Way down, way below, underneath

There must be some calm

There must be a way, must be a staircase which leads

To my daddy and my mom

Hold my heart softer than they ever could

Before the poor thing goes pop

Pulled over in sunbeam

It’s not happening to me

It’s happening in me

Pulled over in sunbeam

It’s not happening to me

It’s happening through me

Oh no there I go once again”

I’m a big fan of found sounds. I’m a big found of fan sounds. I’m a big sound of found fans. Pardon the aside, but this is a blog about creativity; the way creative springboards generously lie before us. And when they do, we ought to leap. If there’s an opening, burst through. A door, kick it in. Or open it gently. Knock, at least. Up to you, but participation is key—if something is to be made.

From that little exercise in wordplay, I resonate most with “I’m a big sound”, and will happily add that to my notes app under LYRICS / IDEAS. The last thing I put in there was “happy childhood universe and the demon of progress”. I don’t remember where that came from, and had forgotten about it, but seeing it now, I like it.

Back to found sounds: wind, rain, trains, people, power tools, creaky doors etc. The music of the world. Not music, per se, but totally musical, wouldn’t you say? Like kindling being split:

I like the process of scavenging for soundbites as much as I like what they offer the music. It’s nice to get out of the house, and out of your head, and collaborate with the elements. Paired with a photowalk, I’m truly in my happy place. It stays with me too. I’ve spent a lot of time in studios, and I’m fortunate to say so, but I don’t remember much of it in detail. It’s a blur of microphones, isolation booths, consoles, amps and wires. Whereas, I’ll never forget stopping to record birdsong along a river in Zurich.

Earlier this month, while skulking around downtown Vancouver, I stopped to record a street preacher, which turned into a conversation. Listening back, I was taken by the rhythm of our exchange, so I transcribed it, paired it with a few photos from a church in Barcelona, and posted the result here on Substack. Why not. Whenever things like this happen, I’m struck by how much they enrich the day and, in turn, my life. If an actual creative work comes from it, that’s a bonus, as is any reception or career momentum. The priority is the process. All else follows.

Further proof that unexpected things happen when you stop to knock at the door of ideation came in Mumbai a few months ago. I was on a photowalk when I heard music overhead: singing and drums. I pulled out my phone, held it up, and paced around looking for the best sonic position. A street vendor noticed me and asked if I’d like to see the music. Yes, of course.

He led me into a building, up an elevator, and into a large open banquet hall a few floors up. When I walked in, hundreds of heads turned toward me. Most belonged to women in traditional Indian dress. In front of them was a stage, separated by a six-foot gap.

On the stage sat roughly twenty five men and women. One of the men crossed over to greet me, then led me to the gap and had me sit directly facing the women, my back to the stage. No words were exchanged, as if they had been expecting me. Under hundreds of curious eyes, I sat there, entirely outside myself, as the ceremony commenced. After the music, people were called to the stage, draped in shawls, and given flowers in some kind of blessing, while everyone clapped. And then it was my turn. My turn?

As I received my blessing, applause rang out, along with playful laughter for the unlikely foreigner clearly out of his element. I thought about moving to a less conspicuous spot, but as I drifted toward the side of the room, the same man who had fetched me called out, firmly indicating that I return to my special seat. I did as instructed, cheeks burning. Then it was time for speeches.

One by one, ten to fifteen people were called to the stage to deliver short impassioned speeches, amplified through a PA. It was all in Hindi, so not understanding what was being said, my mind began to wander. I thought about why I get so nervous or shy, or feel out of place, unable to relax and properly be in the moment, especially this moment, which was a special moment. I thought about my permanent furrow and how I’ve been furrowing since I was a child, slowly carving this indelible wedge into my head over the decades. I thought about the time I told an ex that if I didn’t know her but saw her on the street, I’d think she was pretty. She ran the same thought experiment and told me she’d think I was angry.

Then I wondered: do I look angry now? Do my hosts think I’m not having a good time, or that I’m ungrateful for this amazing experience? I tried to relax my face and look happy, placid. Then I worried I looked weird. The spell of rumination suddenly broke as all eyes returned to me, the mic extended in my direction. It was my turn to speak. Good god.

It was all very out-of-body, but I said something to the effect of, “Namaste, I’m Ryan, a musician from Canada, performing at Lollapalooza, here in India for the first time, thank you very much for welcoming me into your ceremony.” Again came the clapping and much sweet laughter at my expense, which I happily joined in on. The evening concluded with chai, samosas, and socializing.

I hadn’t listened back to the voice memo from the street until just recently, but I delighted in opening a portal back to that wonderful, uncomfortable evening. As mentioned, the found-sound method is great for summoning nostalgia. The audio was mostly unusable, but there was a brief moment that I chopped up, pitched, and reworked into a lo-fi glitch loop. In certain cases, it’s important to me that these sound bites become something entirely new and original—a warped echo—rather than a literal capture, closer to the art form of sampling.

The key and tempo were dictated by the contents of the loop—another thing I like about starting a song this way: certain parameters are imposed, not chosen, which adds to the feeling of collaboration. I did, in fact, learn what the ceremony was called—Haldi Kumkum—and what it signified (below) so I used that to steer myself lyrically.

The result is much less a song than an idea. It took a few tries and many hours down several wrong production paths before I landed on something that felt right, by which point I was burnt out on it. I may never return to finish it, but I enjoyed the exercise, and it felt meaningful to honour this unique experience with a creative effort.

Onto the next, and into the mine.

XORG

“Scary” :

LYRICS:

Who am I to marry

Who am I to carry

And by whom will I be carried

Who am I to show the ogre to

All the evil and the greedy in me, in me

Holy shit, Shiva, that’s scary

Who am I, who am I, who am I

Who am I, who am I, who am I

To marry

I’m choosing to do so partly to hold myself accountable and put my money where my mouth is (I sometimes wonder if I wax eloquent about the creative life more than I truly embody it). I also wish to offer a nudge to anyone who knows, with a burning knowingness, that there are gifts within them they’re not fully tending to, that they must unearth, yet something unnamed is in the way. How to handle that, as far as I can tell, is simply in the doing. The plain, un‑cinematic doing.

Recently, that “doing” has looked like sitting with big questions. The who‑am‑I and what‑is‑my‑purpose type of questions. The unoriginal, self‑absorbed, yet somehow essential questions. I find them to be oppressive, and I personify them as bullies. This notion felt like a starting place for a song.

I know that songs, or the answers to my big important questions, don’t reside in numbing out or passive entertainment, so I’m trying to read more, stay off my phone etc. I brought A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry to India, fittingly, and am enjoying it. It’s a tender, sad book. In it, I learned of The Towers of Silence: a circular, roofless stone structure used in Parsi funeral rites, where the dead are laid out on stone terraces for vultures and sun to return them to the elements. The idea is that earth and fire should not be polluted by the body, so the work of letting go is handed over to the sky and its scavengers. It’s a cool string of words, The Towers of Silence, and could make for a good song title, or lyric, I thought.

I began by writing a lean and unremarkable poem:

“I brought my questions

To the Towers of Silence

And watched the vultures

Devour the answers”

A friend of mine likes to say: There are so many answers I don’t have the questions for. I love this line. There is something very sensible inside of its nonsense. Reminds me of E.E. Cummings:

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question”

I used my friend’s quip as a springboard for my Morning Pages, which are simply three pages of stream‑of‑consciousness writing without letting your pen stop. Sometimes, and not so much in this case, treasures emerge:

“There are so many answers

I don’t have the questions for

Like I am who

Do what next

Not why now

Oh god oh why oh how

Did I become so sick of myself”

I’ll spare you the rest.

After this exercise, I picked up my guitar and something came without too much fuss. Although I didn’t use anything from the Morning Pages, they were part of a series of exercises that opens the channel and awakens creativity. Each gesture is a bridge to the next bridge (and I don’t mean the bridge of a song, although that can certainly happen). As we cross these creative bridges, works — both great and pitiful — appear, and they, in turn, are just more bridges. It makes me think of the stellar tune “Bridge to Nowhere” by Sam Roberts. Check it out if you don’t mind the sting of hearing something you wish you wrote.

I should mention, before any of this, I listened to a Taoist story upon waking, about a man tormented by his own big questions. He goes to a monk by a river who is watching lotus flowers drift past. The monk points to one that is closed tight upon itself. The man asks when it will open. The monk says he doesn’t know, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe never, if something within it isn’t ready.

I wrote this song in a Mumbai hotel room, looking out the window at the ocean. Writing in front of a window is optimal, and if there’s water out there, all the better.

XORG

“Questions (Tower of Silence)” :

LYRICS:

Questions

Questions

I woke up to questions dancing on my nose

I woke up to questions acting like they know me

But I won’t tell those fuckers anything

They can flog and waterboard me

They can splay and flay and quarter me, yeah

I woke up to questions yapping like a little dog

I woke up to questions oppressing like an oligarchy

But I won’t pry open the lotus

Something within it needs more time

Why would I sound off a siren

Inside of this tower of silence

For I am a tower of silence

The vultures devour the answers

Inside of this tower of silence

(Now, I do have qualms with this song. I think I should be more creative than “fuckers”. Maybe “goonsquad” or “henchmen”. “Squad” will create a near rhyme with “flog” and “wa-ter”, so I’d probably start there. Or “monsters” could work. The ending, after the lotus part, feels a little meandering, like it’s a different song. And I wonder if I’m forcing the “Tower of Silence” bit, just because I think the words are cool. Like, is it getting too poetic and not lyrical enough? All stuff to beat to death later. The important thing is, it’s born, it’s documented, and I love it — well, most of it. On to the next, and into the mine.)

Hotel Window, Mumbai

“Bridge To Nowhere - Sam Roberts

The Towers Of Silence - Mumbai (Photo: Internet)

This Young Man - E.E. Cummings

Morning Pages