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Mark Hartenbach |
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PLAYING RECORDS BACKWARD as we grow older, everything begins to dim sight, sounds, tastes yet our conceptualization & realization of ideas pulled from past sensory experience grows more concrete we can become set in our ways without seeing it or make no attempt to free ourselves from linear preconceptions that often have no relationship to who we are at the moment they're remnants of a past sometimes chaotic & frightening other times peaceful & beautiful we're resting on our past not necessarily our laurels but sometimes a thorny crown a gaudy rhinestone high hat a battered porkpie hat a sweat-stained ball cap with a broken rim or a skullcap of many colors we slip them back on not realizing how silly they look on us now what was once an accurate representation of who & what we were now is a stranger's headdress, at best a disguise at worst a pathetic attempt to recapture the past & wring every last drop from an empty bottle because we can no longer come up with anything comparable SATORI IN A LITTLE RED PILL (OR WAS IT THE BLUE ONE) is there a way to chemically gut the noggin & leave the goodies behind to float around in a muddy emancipation a transcendent nod which isn't at the mercy of memory or rote learning that doesn't freeze me in my footsteps or hound me into making the wrong decision but still coming out the other end soul intact i'm talking beyond what rimbaud referred to as 'a necessary disordering of the senses' i'm proposing a big sigh somewhere between the big sleep & a little healthy confusion an escape from the grand scheme as well as the small details a deliverance from unrelenting identity a holy corrupted state where all judgements are dismissed due to insufficient evidence where i can start all over & still pass for me AN ARTISTIC MANIFESTO an artist doesn't hide behind immaculate portions irrefutable color schemes or impeccable chops an artist doesn't conceal truth behind a sure thing no matter how tempting no matter how gorgeous an artist doesn't deceive with clever dialogue & wordplay an artist gives himself permission to be self indulgent if that's what it takes to hit any road he gets a hankering to travel to exhaust all possibilities an artist doesn't wrap it in cellophane or a cover that has nothing to do with the heart of the matter an artist honors his daddies by not picking at their bones & trying to sleep with their muse instead of finding his own an artist doesn't deal with the devil but he indulges his body & soul until he stumbles into heaven an artist doesn't climb on any high horse offered for his services he'd rather ride the donkey to his own demise |