The imminent release of Four Mages on 2 May 2024 draws every closer, dear readers, and I’m continuing to feature some of the pieces from that album here. Today’s piece, “The Blind Prophet,” is one I particularly enjoy for its playful experimentation with irregular time signatures and multimeter wackiness.
My friend Jeremy Miles passed away last year after a brief struggle with cancer. He was a gifted poet, with several self-published volumes before his passing. I highly recommend his poetic output.
Besides being a great poet and a great friend, Jeremy was a builder of community. It’s not what you’d expect from a Gen Xer clad entirely in black from head-to-toe, often with a trench coat, always with his signature black hat. Our mental image of such a figure is a misanthropic outsider, or a socially awkward anime fanboy.
He was neither—well, maybe he was a little misanthropic, but aren’t we all after a certain age? Regardless, he became an essential part of, and helped to build, a thriving open mic scene in the glorious Before Times, in the Long, Long Ago, before The Age of The Virus.
His longtime girlfriend/common-law-wife hosted a celebration of life/memorial service/birthday party in late January 2024 to celebrate Jeremy’s life and what would have been his birthday. She wanted it to be an open mic, and I’m sure Jeremy would have approved.
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Last Saturday I spent pretty much the entire day working on music. It started with an extensive composing session to write “Epistemology,” the title track of my next release, Epistemology, which hits on Friday, 1 March 2024 on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms, sans Spotify (by the way, my newest album, Firefly Dance, released yesterday, and is available now on Bandcamp and streaming platforms—you should get it!). After a long, late nap, I finished up artwork and the rest of the particulars necessary to get the files and metadata uploaded to CD Baby for digital distribution (I might need to write a post about that some day, but it’s not exactly a sexy topic).
I’d written the other nine tracks first, but was searching for some theme or album title. Then I saw poet Stacey C. Johnson‘s “On Knowing,” and that gave me the idea to write a composition based on the different philosophies of knowing, or asking, “how do we know what we know?” [For a good Christian introduction to the topic, check out W. Jay Wood‘s Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous on Amazon. —TPP] In this case, it was the title more than the poem’s content that inspired me (although it’s a great poem!), but two of Johnson’s other poems inspired me to write pieces for this album (“Updrafting” and “Waltz“). In a way, I owe Johnson and her writing a huge debt of gratitude for Epistemology, because her work inspired a good chunk of it.
So while my American History students took a quiz on Friday, I rapidly jotted down the basic ideas for “Epistemology.” I wanted to write a repeating theme—like Hector Berlioz‘s idée fixe from his Symphonie Fantastique—that would evolve throughout the different sections. That theme or motif represents Truth as filtered through the various epistemological philosophies, starting with skepticism and proceeding through empiricism, rationalism, idealism, and postmodernism, before finally arriving at God’s Truth. I wanted that last bit to be the seventh part, as seven is traditionally understood to be the number representing God; to do that, I had to shoehorn in “Observation” as the second section. I also specifically wanted the chaos and uncertainty of “The Postmodernist” to be sixth, representing man’s number and his fallen—and confused!—nature.
Epistemology will release on Friday, 1 March 2024 (if you want to know the minute it comes out, take a minute and follow my Bandcamp page). But for you—my adoring subscribers—you get to hear the title track today.
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After giving Ponty some love last week, I decided to do one more edition of Lazy Sunday highlighting the best-performing guest posts of 2023. This time around, it is our dear Audre Myers, author of the Myersvision series of posts, enjoying the limelight.
Again, the usual notes: these are not necessarily the best posts qualitatively—although they are quite excellent, as is all of Audre’s writing—but merely the Myersvision posts with the highest views. Note that all of Audre’s writing deserves more clicks and views, so get to it!
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
Longtime readers might remember the thoughtful, moving poetry of Son of Sonnet. In addition to being a skilled poet, Son is also a gifted orator, and his readings of poetry are always a special treat.
Now you can enjoy his poetry and recitations on his Substack page. He has a consistent schedule of regular posts, so you won’t be wondering when the next post will arrive.
A subscription is just $7 a month or $70 a year—well worth the price of admission. Son possesses an extensive theatrical background, which he uses to great effect in his recitations. He even takes requests, and will frequently write poems on themes that subscribers submit.
I bang this gong a lot, but as conservatives and/or Christians, we need to support our people. The Left gets most everything wrong, but they get this right—they support their creators. On the Right, we’re often too pragmatic, and dismiss art, culture, and literature as impractical playthings.
We couldn’t be more wrong. No one remembers early nineteenth-century German tax policy; everyone remembers Beethoven.
So, consider a subscription to Son of Sonnet’s Substack page. He is worthy of your support.
On my post about my new song “1001 Arabian Nights,” regular reader, contributor, commenter, and controversialist 39 Pontiac Dream/Always a Kid for Today—or “Ponty” around here—commented that he could not understand the appeal of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He even expressed disgust that such a sandwich exists.
It seems that the British Empire really has collapsed. But what can you expect from the English, the people whose greatest culinary triumph is boiled beef? No wonder they conquered the world—they needed to find better cuisine! Chewing on boiled shoe leather would motivate anyone to go out and subjugate a foreign land.
Having thrown the gauntlet, I threw my own, and challenged Audre Myers to write a pro-PB&J piece, and for Ponty to write one against. Ponty demurred—how very French of you, m’boy!—stating that he’d never eaten one, so he couldn’t comment. Sounds like a cowardly excuse to me!
All joking aside, Audre rose to the occasion, but instead of submitting a wild-eyed, pro-PB&J polemic, she wrote a stirring, poetic ode to America’s Lunch.
With that, here is Audre Myers’s “Ode to the PB&J”:
The following is a re-posting of this past Sunday’s edition of Sunday Doodles (Sunday Doodles CXCV), which is normally a perk for $5 and up subscribers to my SubscribeStar Page. The post serves as a preview, of sorts, to the kind of content that will make up (I hope!) my third book, tentatively entitled Offensive Poems: With Pictures. I thought I’d bring it to the masses—you, my beloved free subscribers and daily readers—to get feedback—and to let you in on this new project. —TPP
Typically, Sunday Doodles is reserved for the classy $5 and up subscribers, while $3 a month gets the first Sunday of the month to gawk at doodles. However, I’m opening this post up to all subscribers.
That’s because this weekend’s edition of Sunday Doodles features a preview of my current book project, Offensive Poems: With Pictures. This project started almost by accident—I was doodling at an open mic night on Tuesday, 18 July 2023, and started sketching people around me. Two nights later—Thursday, 20 July 2023—at another open mic, I drew “Cute But Offensive Extraterrestrial”; he prompted me to write the haiku “Learn to Code.”
That got me thinking: what if I wrote a red-pilled haiku for every doodle? I was already toying with the idea of writing poems to accompany each doodle, but I wasn’t thinking of making them a satirical commentary on the strange times in which we find ourselves. Now, I can’t stop coming up with pithy verses about the various sacred cows and empty bromides of our time. It’s remarkable how many Leftist slogans are seven-syllables, which works great for that second line of each haiku.
Why haiku? I like the challenge of stating a complex sets of ideas in seventeen syllables. The structure of a haiku—five syllables in the first and third lines, seven syllables in the second/middle line—means I have to be extremely efficient with words.
And, to be totally honest, I just find haiku easier to work with than other poetic forms. It offers enough flexibility in terms of rhythm, meter, etc., for a hedge-poet like myself to play around with. Once I have to worry about iambic pentameter, for example, and stressed and unstressed syllables, it’s a bit too much for yours portly.
That said, I wanted some form, as I find most free verse to be too loose. There is something to be said for structure, as it forces me to think intentionally about every word. Also, I find that much free verse quickly becomes indistinguishable from prose. Much of it seems like prose writing with random or mildly clever line breaks.
So! Enough rambling. Let’s get to the doodles!
To finish out this year’s Spring Break Short Story Recommendations I’m also reviving (albeit temporarily) an old feature, Supporting Friends Friday. I’m rounding out my short story selections with Stacey C. Johnson‘s “Survey of Poetry,” found at her excellent blog Breadcrumbs.
Earlier this week, my good friend Jeremy Miles passed away after a struggle with cancer. Long-time readers will know that Jeremy was a writer and poet, and released several volumes of his poetry over the past few years (somehow I missed his last release, Shadows in Suburbia; sadly, it will be the only volume of his poetry in my collection that will never host his autograph).
Jeremy’s influence in the tiny world of Florence County, South Carolina coffee shops was absolutely massive, to an extent and in a way that he in his self-deprecating humility would never acknowledge. His poetry captured the spirit of a golden age of open mic music, that glorious period in The Before Times, before The Age of The Virus, when musicians and poets promiscuously plied their creative wares in a supportive and encouraging environment. His first published collection of poetry, A Year of Thursday Nights: Everyday Poetry, conveys the energy and creative ferment of those halcyon days, all with his sly humor and playful wit.
He was also a good man—a great man. Always clad in black from head-to-toe, and always wishing it were Halloween, he always encouraged those around him with his gentle demeanor. He was that guy that looked cool, but was never intimidating or exclusive about his natural coolness. He was cool, yes, but warm—a warmth that derived from his sensitive and reflective nature. Anyone was welcome in Jeremy’s circle, and if you could quote Big Trouble in Little China, even better.
Jeremy was moved to hospice this past Sunday, and passed early on Tuesday, 10 January 2023. I was unable to visit him before his passing. While I regret that, his girlfriend pointed out to me that now I will always remember him as he was—joyful, funny, ebullient, full of life, a shining beacon of friendship and love, even in all-black.
I regret, too, not spending more time in conversation with him this past year. He was rallying and even played a few songs with his band, Jeremy and the Blissters, but the cancer—that terrible, wicked disease—won out in the end.
But cancer cannot destroy the culture that Jeremy created. Nor can it destroy his memory.
I will miss him deeply, as I know many others will.
Rest in peace, Jeremy Miles.
The Portly Politico 