Big Sur, CA
Penngrove, CA
Concord, NH
Nick Cave on Separating Art and the Artist
Dear Shelly and Carlos,
I don’t think we can separate the art from the artist, nor should we need to. I think we can look at a piece of art as the transformed or redeemed aspect of an artist, and marvel at the miraculous journey that the work of art has taken to arrive at the better part of the artist’s nature. Perhaps beauty can be measured by the distance it has travelled to come into being.
That bad people make good art is a cause for hope. To be human is to transgress, of that we can be sure, yet we all have the opportunity for redemption, to rise above the more lamentable parts of our nature, to do good in spite of ourselves, to make beauty from the unbeautiful, and to have the courage to present our better selves to the world.
The moon is high and yellow in the sky outside my window. It is a display of sublime beauty. It is also a cry for mercy — that this world is worth saving. Mostly, though, it is a defiant articulation of hope that, despite the state of the world, the moon continues to shine. Hope too resides in a gesture of kindness from one broken individual to another or, indeed, we can find it in a work of art that comes from the hand of a wrongdoer. These expressions of transcendence, of betterment, remind us that there is good in most things, rarely only evil. Once we awaken to this fact, we begin to see goodness everywhere, and this can go some way in setting right the current narrative that humans are shit and the world is fucked.
Love, Nick
Brooklin, ME
Concord, NH
The lead track on one of my favorite albums in a bit.
One of those rare electronic tracks whose evolution feels organic.
Concord, NH
George Callaghan, “Village in Winter”, 1951
David Berman, “Snow”
Walking through a field with my little brother Seth
I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.
He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.
Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.
Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.
I didn't know where I was going with this.
They were on his property, I said.
When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.
Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.
We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.
But why were they on his property, he asked.
Portsmouth, NH, December 2021
Concord, NH, December 2021
Not Christmas music, but, still, it is the best Christmas music.
A bit of Balearic folk blending perfectly with the warmer than expected autumn.
Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, c. 1610, ill. Matthäus Merian
A year later, this album’s still gaining momentum.
An improbably good cover of one of my all-time favorite songs.
Saul Leiter, Taxi, 1958
