Video Recording of New Poem: Perhaps I Am a Program Watching a Film Starring Androids, Humans & Beautiful Facsimiles / June 13, 2021 by Tim Lane

I don’t read out very often anymore, but I do enjoy making these recordings. I hope you enjoy this recording of my new poem, “Perhaps I Am a Program Watching a Film Starring Androids, Humans & Beautiful Facsimiles.” Written after watching Blade Runner 2049 for the fourth or fifth time.

I have watched Blade Runner many times. A time will come when I can say that I have watched Blade Runner 2049 many times. In both films, I always find myself empathizing for the replicants. Think about that for a second. Empathizing for machines. How? Why? I’m fine with it. I am rooting for them.

We are capable of mistreating anything and everybody. The mistreatment of machines (AI) is going to be the end of us someday, or at least radically change human existence. We’re radically changing human existence, as it is. Some of it for the worst; some of it for the best. The best is perhaps always driven by the worst. What would happen if we stopped mistreating people, animals, things, the planet, ourselves? Would we flourish? Are we afraid to find out?

#BladeRunner2049 #BladeRunner #ryangosling #contemporaryart #contemporarypoetry #poetry #lovelansing #GenX #cyberpunk #philipkdick #doandroidsdreamofelectricsheep #thebladerunnerpoems

One Day I Became Who I Was / June 12, 2021 by Tim Lane

I think it is pretty appropriate that on Loving Day, I have sold two paintings that explore my Ojibwe identity. Thank you for the love and support.

Both paintings are from the Double-Universe Topology series. In this series, I was thinking about what it is like to present, and be perceived, one way while identifying another. Living with an identity duality or multiplicity that creates tension within the history of our flawed society. The suppression of family heritage for whatever reason. Or opting out of embracing an identity as an injurious, subconscious coping mechanism for avoiding offending family.

One Day I Became Who I Was #quantamstories (Double-Universe Topology) 2018.JPG

Double-Universe Topology

A series of colorful, painterly, expressionistic paintings focused on depictions of space, deer, feathers, portals, parallel universes and the multiple facets of identity.

Blade Runner, Androids, Ryan Gosling, Ripe Tomato: New Poem by Tim Lane / June 10, 2021 by Tim Lane

Perhaps I Am a Program Watching a Film Starring Androids, Humans & Beautiful Facsimiles

—on watching Blade Runner 2049 for the 4th or 5th time

I will not reveal which scene

sent me to the kitchen, why I found myself

staring from the window above

the sink,

& turning slightly to my right,

with the quirks of a well-trained

actor, or an actual glitching android,

selected the ripe tomato on the

cutting board,

held it up—calculating

weight—felt its texture—guessing what the

skin holds inside.

I inhaled its grassy scent.

Suppose for a moment

media is already more real than the physical data

our senses collect—I mean why else baptize each night

with such religiosity? Repetition. Blue light. Ones

& zeroes.

What would it be to slice the tomato

three hundred sixty times in less than twenty

seconds without cutting yourself? Carve the luscious

fruit into a hyper-

realistic miniature St. Bernard in less

than the twitch of a nervous tick—

an eye bearing the serial number

of your make & model,

your maker.

I wonder if acting techniques are relevant any

longer—Classical, Stanislavski, Method—& where

Ryan Gosling fits into these molds.

Is it acting?

In the kitchen,

I imagined a deleted scene from

Blade Runner 2049. Created separation.

A buffer between the irony & disappointment

intertwined like DNA in the scene which

I will not name.

Imagined a scene

where I become Ryan Gosling slicing a

tomato—

sync with Ryan Gosling

like a pair of headphones

or a wireless speaker.

These android films,

if they’re any good,

are always about the irony.

I painstakingly slice the tomato.

Add it to a boring salad. I realize

this kitchen could be

a simulation.

The idea is as tantalizing as all the cyber punk films,

an off world planet pushing language & boundaries, a futuristic

willingness to look hard or away at what it might mean

to be as decent—more human than human—as

some of these androids.

#BladeRunner2049 #BladeRunner #ryangosling #contemporaryart #contemporarypoetry #poetry #lovelansing #GenX #cyberpunk #philipkdick #doandroidsdreamofelectricsheep #thebladerunnerpoems

*Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling in BLADE RUNNER 2049 (Sony)*

Trace Mono Print / June 7, 2021 by Tim Lane

I recently spent some time at the Broad Art Lab in East Lansing, learning a new technique while taking advantage of the lab’s cool studio features, such as the press. The best thing that came out of this session was a negative, or ghost print, of a trace mono print that didn’t come out as well as I had hoped. The negative came out super though; I was happy. This print is 12”x8.75” I am including an image of the print below.

I Was Once in the Same Room as Ed Sanders / June 6, 2021 by Tim Lane

It has been a long minute since I have written any poetry. After a five or six year hiatus, this is the second poem I have written in as many weeks. It really does feel good to be exercising my poetry chops once again. Yesterday, I finished a painting and made a print and started a poem. It was an ideal Saturday. Studio life works well for me.

The return to poetry writing is no doubt a direct result of discovering a very talented poet, immersing myself in the reading and discovery of poetry once again, and going for walks. My mind thinks poetically while I walk. I develop lines, ideas, themes. I discard clutter. And I can’t write poetry when I am not reading it. There’s a synergism there.

Of course, the talented poet I am referring to is Jen Sperry Steinorth. Check out her book, A Wake with Nine Shades. I’ve read it twice, now. Great stuff in there. I’ve also read the Kindle version of her forthcoming graphic poem, Her Read. There is no doubt in my mind that this book will be short-listed in 2021 as a fav by many poetry lovers, thinkers and critics.

(Back to my poem.) This new poem feels right. It’s a look back. Writer’s look back as much as we look forward. We cannot help it.

Enjoy.

I Was Once in the Same Room as Ed Sanders

Twice, actually There was the awards ceremony

& the after party After announcing

the winners……….you read from one of your

histories I was not familiar with it

Doesn’t matter

When you called my name you changed

my life I had no intentions of being a poet

no idea what that meant Turns out it

means different things for different

people……….

At the after party my friend who was

a fiction writer drank one too many beers

& called you out……….I thought his story was

good I probably would have selected

it over mine

That’s not true His abrasive remarks awkwardly

chiseled a gem……….but you handled

it well I was impressed

Everyone laughed I’m still……….laughing Everyone

gazed in amazement as you raised it

toward the light That was twenty-

five years ago

I went on to read your book Tales of

Beatnik Glory It made me insanely jealous

I listened to recordings of the Fugs they made

me mildly jealous Years later

I wrote to you You did not write back

I am used to that I sometimes wonder

how my life might have been cut if you had not

selected my poem

or my story & I had not been at

Diane’s house to witness a wiry-headed poet

deflecting……….the anger of an adoring public

Terror in Time, 2021 / June 5, 2021 by Tim Lane

Terror in Time is a new addition to The Sublime series. Another piece on 300lb. Stonehenge Aqua paper. This paper is perfect for wet or dry media.

I continue to think about the irony of living in a wondrous and horrendous time. I continue to think about what the future will depend upon more—an inward or outward exploration of reality and the universe?

I was also thinking about the visuals in the sci fi film, Annihilation, while making this painting.

The Sublime

A series of colorful, painterly, expressionistic paintings focused on depictions of space, space travel, portals, parallel universes, first contact and futurism.

Double-Universe Topology

A series of colorful, painterly, expressionistic paintings focused on depictions of space, deer, feathers, portals, parallel universes and the multiple facets of identity.

BLM

A series of colorful, painterly, expressionistic paintings focused on positive depictions of young people of color from the Millennial generation.

Your Silent Face

By Lane, Tim

Buy on Amazon

Your Silent Face Available Now

Your Silent Face is a poignant and humorous coming-of-age novel set in Flint, Michigan, in the mid 80s.

Your Silent Face: The Playlist

This playlist is a companion to my 80s coming-of-age novel, Your Silent Face. Stuart Page is a protagonist obsessed with 80s New Wave and Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Divison. All of the tunes and bands in the playlist get a mention in the novel. The novel is available on Amazon.

Gen X Is Here; Kate Winslet Is Faboo; Kraft Singles Are Not Fine Cheese; Space Age Love Song / June 4, 2021 by Tim Lane

You know your generation is calling some of the shots when the bar scenes and commercials and sound bytes are songs from your formative years. Not necessarily controlling the wealth yet, but at least responsible for a lot of the creative content we are inundated with on a daily and nightly basis as we recline in front of our blue screens, bathed in light, trying to forget what a shitty day we had.

I love that in Mare of Easttown, season 1, episode 3, A Flock of Seagulls is playing in the bar scene. It was beautiful and weird. For a minute, I was listening to MTV; I was at the Hot Rock Cafe, or Rubes, or that one basement bar that changed names several times.

I also love Kate Winslet. Although she is a young GenXer, she is one of us. She’s a pretty fab actor person. And she continues to prove this in Mare of Easttown—although obviously she doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone.

And just what about A Flock of Seagulls? Those dudes were so far ahead of their time. They had a vision of the future. Hearing them reminds me of this girl from Swartz Creek that I met at a dance. She had an internship at AC, over on my East Side, so there was the potential of possibly getting to know her. We danced to A Flock of Seagulls and one or two other New Wave hits one night. She was attracted to an acquaintance of mine, but I had the impression that he wasn’t that interested. She dressed and styled her hair like she was right out of the video for “I Ran.” I was smitten. We talked on the phone a few times. One time about cheese. She was a cheese connoisseur. I was into Kraft Singles. She corrected my ass.

But nothing happened. We didn’t date. We didn’t find ourselves at another dance. She talked about stopping by after work, but never did. It was probably because of my uncouth love of bad cheese. It’s amazing. I can still see her in my mind. She had these beautiful braces. I was a fool.

But it all worked out.

A Wake with Nine Shades & The Long 1980s / June 2, 2021 by Tim Lane

Jen Sperry's A Wake with Nine Shades arrived in my mailbox this morning. The Long 1980s: Constellations of Art, Politics and Identities, A Collection of Microhistories did, too. I am, as of this moment, suppressing the exclamation points. But I want to be using a lot of exclamation points!

More to come after I delve into Jen Sperry’s poems and these microhistories of the 80s.

This description of A Wake with Nine Shades is copied straight from Jen’s Amazon page…

A Wake with Nine Shades is an exploration of grief and culpability, a Dantean descent through contemporary midlife crisis. Populated by ghosts and children, lovers and amputations, bodies of water, insomnia, debt and domestic violence, Steinorth measures what is broken against the white space of the page, paying homage to the Great Lakes and snowscapes her poems inhabit and the vacancies, denials, and drains they circle. Formally inventive and musically obsessive, the book’s unconventional formal construction and lyric wit contribute what Eleanor Wilner deems the essential “Lightness” described by Italo Calvino, noting Steinorth’s “ability to treat weighty subjects with a mastery of style . . . a liveliness of imagination and intelligence that lightens, without denial, what would otherwise be unbearable. . . .”