From: notbobwiseman@gmail.com
To: doctorsamlarkin@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: masked and raccooned
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 15:30:09 -0500
I tried Doctor Sam Larkin (with no spaces but didn’t find any Myspace). I
tried other variations too but didn’t try samlarkinmusic. I’ll try that too
but I think it isn’t there.
The poetry section of your website is great. Excellent mixture of ideas and
poetry. For the interviews/ conversations I will start by talking about
that if that’s ok with you? I fly back to Toronto tonight. Have a mountain of things to do but
will be calling.
Bob
From: doctorsamlarkin@hotmail.com
To: notbobwiseman@gmail.com
Subject: RE: masked and raccooned
Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2006 22:10:02 -0800
Well, maybe that’s a good thing that I can’t be found in Myspace. I did put it there in the two versions, but really, the usefulness of Myspace seems to be for people who are serious into-the-fray artists like yourself if I may presume to describe one side of you that way.
As you’ve heard me say many times, if I was 17 and have what I have, I’d do it. or, even if I was Kyp’s age when Kyp made his first recording, and I had what I have, I’d do it. but these days there are other more achievable things to pursue, in my case.
I really do think it takes a few lifetimes, and when I was 17, i didn’t have the maturity that Dylan had when he was 8. I think I was borderline mentally/emotionally disturbed for at least the first third, if not half, of my life. And my social i.q., as they call it these days, has always been low without constant training and monitoring (in other words, it doesn’t come naturally to me to be a “nice guy” in the best sense of that phrase). I can do it if I work at it, but I’m lazy, sloppy, and sometimes as you know (see all the fascism in parts of the music scene) it almost seems you lose something by working at being a nice guy.
But Dylan could do all that stuff when he was 17, effortlessly. So I’m saying, maybe next lifetime I’ll be ready for my teddy. Or maybe the lifetime after that.
The poetry section is fun and comes very easily, so thanks, I’m glad you like it. I gotta do more. In fact, I could just sit down and write a book of poetry in a week or less. So long as I don’t think about whether it’s poetry or not.
Don’t sweat the “conversations” thing because I probably will want to pass on it.
Again, if I was 17 and together, or had Kyp’s looks at the time he first recorded, I’d do it.
But it is amazing the extent to which all social interaction (and art, particularly arts requiring a visual component) is ruled by body-looks. and this particular age is really really tough about it since, thanks to things like Myspace, for example, we have access to thousands of “looks” right there in our own settings without even going anywhere. So we’ve really become connoisseurs of body-looks, and given the huge avalanche of popular culture falling out windows all over the place, nobody has to look at any bodies except the kind they want to.
Also it really is true that being photo’d or, especially, filmed, steals your soul. I believe anybody shown on film or video is automatically exposed as a fool and a narcissist just for having agreed to do it. The medium really does make you change your message but of course you can never beat the medium and you end up exposing yourself for the fool you are even more than you would have if you’d just ignored trying to doctor your presentation.
I don’t think there are any exceptions to that.
The only place safe, really safe, is to make your entire identity an art form, as Dylan knew instinctively and immediately put into practice when he got to New York. He stillĀ says, often, things like, he doesn’t know who he is, what he thinks today is no indication of what he might think tomorrow, etc. So, yah, that would be a nice game — turn your whole identity into an ongoing creation, consciously — but not at this stage of my life.
Sam