Michael profile picture

Michael

decoverite

About Me

To paraphrase and briefly modify a great opening paragraph (apologies to Saul Bellow)"I am an American, Cleveland born – Cleveland, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles."

My Interests

Writing. Storytelling. Rock-n-roll. Tension building. Creative collaboration. Myth-making. Map-making. Hiking. Day tripping. Camping. Roughing it. Showstopping. Performance. Photos. Dinner parties. The history of food and drink. Drinking and cooking in general. Good coffee. Dioramas. Experimental fashion shows. Bibliophilia. Secret societies. Old hotels. The hermetic tradition. Cosmology. Particle physics. The Typhonian tradition. Militant social and political movements. Rock n' roll. Blues. Legos. Japanese gardens. The Sea. Mariner tales. Voudon. Letter writing. Postcards. Trains. Old ports. Swingsets. Haunted beaches. Nomads. The Banquet Years in Paris. Urban planning and design. Ecology. Environmental activism. Odilon Redon. The Vienna Actionists. The Black Mountain School. Bucky Fuller. Sustainability. Museums. Cultivated libertinage. Stone age economics. New Orleans. Bank robbers. Bordertowns. Immigration politics. Pleasure activism. BDSM. The preservation of childhood. Non-irony. Polymorphous perversity. Murals. Masquerade. Bacchanalia. Field trips. Walking tours. Travel. Chronicles of peculiar exploration illustrated with woodcuts. Islamic heresies. Red wine. Short hair. Radical empiricism. Gender-bending provocations. Performance art. Guerilla street theater. Conceptual art. Swamps, wetlands and bogs. Anthropology. Fascinating nobles. Exploring my own fears with great trepidation. Debauched aristocrats. Iconoclasts. Obsolete encyclopedias. Giving high-fives in low-dives. Thomas Paine and the lost art of pamphleteering. Urban golf. Junk shops. Pataphysics. William Blake. Zero-Work movement. Shaking hands and making friends. Transglobal rock n' roll pandemonium!

I'd like to meet:

People from bordertowns. Writers. Musical chameleons. Clandestinos. Eccentric romantics. Tennis partners. Boxcar derby racers. Visionary Artists. Photojournalists. Street performers. Gnostics. Shit disturbers. Travellers. Globetrotting sexologists. Iconoclasts. Eloquent debauchees. Tricksters. Saboteurs. Socialists. Anarcho-socialists. Fashion mavericks. Sexual outlaws. Contrabanditos. French and Vietnamese chefs. Lunatic urbanists. Acrobats. Horror film buffs. Sufis. Liberation theologians. Rum-running alchemists. Punk rock parents. Mutton-chopped pamphleteers. Dimestore archaeologists. Sexy philanthropists. Guerilla ecologists. Harbingers of the new avant-garde. Delinquent hearts. Criminal minds.

Music:

THE GUN CLUB BRAINiaC RICHARD HELL () ANGELS OF ligHT+++ MURDER CITY DEVILSSSSSS--- DINOSAUR Jr. NICK CAVE and the Bad Seeds, MORPHINE, Turbonegro, The STOOGES COP SHOOT COP, Afghan Whigs, Catherine Wheel, The Cows, The Swans, Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, JESUS LIZARD, KARP, Astor Piazolla, P.J. Harvey, Tin Hat Trio, Erik Satie, NO MEANS NO, Butthole Surfers, Talking Heads, Secret Chiefs 3, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Idiot Flesh, Melvins, High On Fire, Scratch Acid, Big Black, Shellac, Clutch, Pulp, Death From Above 1979, Painkiller, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Yeah Yeah Yeahs,Clinic, Faith No More, Emmy Lou Harris, Steve Earle, Dave Alvin, M.I.A, Peaches, Billy Bragg, The McGarrigles, . .. .. ... .. .. .... .

Movies:

Brazil, Dreams (Kurosawa's), Cowards Bend the Knee, Shawn Of The Dead, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Straw Dogs, The Opening of Misty Beethoven, Spirited Away, Careful, Onibaba, Taxi Driver, The Secret Of Roan Inish, L'Atlante, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Manuscript Found In Saragossa, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Man Bites Dog, The Hit, The Last Seduction, After Hours, Near Dark, The Addiction, The Brood, Dead Ringers, Kafka, Barton Fink, A Bronx Tale, Picnic At Hanging Rock, Obscure Object Of Desire, Unforgiven, Big Night, Girl On The Bridge, Dead Alive, Kill Bill 2, Heavenly Creatures, Band Of Outsiders.

Television:

Eerie, Indiana, American Gothic, Brooklyn Bridge, Homicide: sadly, all deceased shows. . .

Books:

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki, Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec, The Conversions by Harry Matthews, The Adventures Of Augie March by Saul Bellow, Dr. Sax by J. Keroauc, The Rosy Crucifiction by Henry Miller, Blaise Cendrars (his works in general), Michel Tournier (especially GEMINI and THE OGRE), W.G. Sebald, Antonin Artaud, The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, The Royal Family by William T. Vollmann, Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar, The Piano Stories by Felisberto Hernandez, Manhood by Michel Leiris, Aurelia by Gerard DeNerval, E.M. Cioran, William James, Deleuze and Guattari, Kenneth Grant, Pat Califia, Carol Queen, John Fowles, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Gloria Anzaldua, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Ray Bradbury, A Pattern Language, Henri Lefebvre, The Revolution Of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem, John Zerzan, The Journal Of Albion Moonlight by Kenneth Patchen, Edward Gorey, Lisa Carver, RE/SEARCH Books (especially PRANKS! and ANGRY WOMEN), Georges Bataille, Annie Dillard, Samuel Beckett, Last Nights of Paris by Phillipe Soupault, William Carlos Williams, Robert Duncan, Audre Lorde, Charles Olson, Michael McClure, Henri Michaux, Arthur Machen, Knut Hamsun, Witold Gombowicz, Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetze, The Invisibles by Grant Morrison, The Voudon Gnostic Workbook by Michael Bertiaux, Rysard Kapuskinski, BITCH magazine, New Yorker, and a now defunct magazine called HERMENAUT.

Heroes:

Emma Goldman, Genesis P-Orridge. Iconoclasts and fearless ones.

My Blog

Peruvian Dust, Shattered Sidewalks and Night Dogs:Part One of an Apologetically Long Story

I made it to Buenos Aires without much sleep or any good maps. My legs are too long for those goddamn Continental Airline seats. They showed us a movie where Ice Cube plays a mishap-prone father. I tr...
Posted by Michael on Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:55:00 PST

see you all later

I finally got my passport after four months of waiting. I had to wait in a four hour line that didn't budge and which meandered down an entire city block.  People drove by cheering our plight. Co...
Posted by Michael on Sat, 28 Jul 2007 04:27:00 PST

May Update and Hello!

Hey everyone. I'm sure there's lots out there in friend land I haven't talked to in a while. In fact, I can count at least a half dozen people I need to call and reconnect with. I hope they understand...
Posted by Michael on Sat, 05 May 2007 05:54:00 PST

The Chinese New Year's Treasure Hunt!

Despite seasonal ailments. And being pregnant. And late trains. And low morale. Despite all these things the 4 member squad of gumshoes known colloquially as Hole Hoggin It (in an effort to riff on th...
Posted by Michael on Wed, 07 Mar 2007 07:30:00 PST

A Passing

I learned today, from my mom, that my dog of 14 years, Higgins was put to sleep this morning. She was the only pet I ever had. And the only pet my parents ever had as adults. I am very sad about this...
Posted by Michael on Thu, 08 Feb 2007 05:54:00 PST

A Good Night

A good night is typically a French night. Or a night inspired by the French. Insofar as the food and wine and conversation goes. And what else is there, but what often comes after, like sex and dreami...
Posted by Michael on Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:31:00 PST

Mitochondria and/or cheese puffs

(Inspired by seth's idea to spew on the virtual page). It's always funny when lawyers don't know how to make coffee. And then they ask you to show them how. There is so much going on in that transacti...
Posted by Michael on Thu, 25 Jan 2007 03:53:00 PST

Better Late Than Never: My New Year's Resolutions!

I suppose I should have done this a couple weeks ago, but between moving and working, entertaining grad school party boys on holiday (Seth, sadly, not included in this sordid line-up) and gingerl...
Posted by Michael on Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:05:00 PST

Baby's All Grows Up

Wow. I bought a brand new bed. A NICE bed. With xmas money topped off with work money. IT's a bed with a pillow top. I know: pillow top? But's that luxurious, Michael, and you're nothing but a derelic...
Posted by Michael on Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:02:00 PST

Cinematic Snippets: Part 1 of Year End Roundup

Don't worry. I'm not giving you my top ten movies of the year because I rarely go to movies.  Which is unfortunate. I aim to change that in 2007. More theater and film going! Less consumption of ...
Posted by Michael on Fri, 22 Dec 2006 05:35:00 PST