Poet and Artist in Seattle
I very much enjoyed a recent performance with the Jim O’Halloran Trio (specifically Jim on flute, Osama Afifi on bass, and D’Vonne Lewis on drums). The call and response format was new for me. Here is a low res recording (thanks GoPro!) that at least captures the gist of it.
I continue to find gaming central in my life. I have for the third year in the row tracked the diversity and representation in the games I play. I have written internal reviews for many of the games I play. I have also started posting reviews on Steam. These are minor things that supplement the gaming experience and mindfully get me beyond the “achievement” and “escapist” qualities of gaming. Still, games are more complex and
For the first time in my life, I’ve started tracking the films I watch not only on IMDB, but also locally. I’m not sure what I’ll do with this information, but I hope that the “best” films I’ve rated will inform how I continue my journey through explorations of film, a growing part of my life. I find it fascinating that despite not bingeing films or going to more than a single festival, I still
As I have done every year for years, here are a list of the books I read in 2021. A prolific year indeed at 134 books with the majority being lauded! I keep track of all my reads on Goodreads, should you want to find me there. As with previous years, I am using the handy five-star scale to present these books, rather than chronological or otherwise. Conveniently, the top book was also my most
As has been tradition since 2016, the following is a post documenting the music I’ve listened to in 2021. These are quite literally all of the albums (1,025 in total!) I’ve listened to since 1/1/21. I’ve created three sections: 1) the top albums that resonated with me, 2) the rest of the new listens for 2021, and 3) the albums I revisited after marking them as “top” last year. These are not, of course, only
While it was written in 2021, it’s time to ring in the new year with new reviews of new(ish) books of poems. This first one for me for 2022 is a collection by Joey Yearous-Algozin, A Feeling Called Heaven. You can find the review at North of Oxford.
I am pleased to announce that my recent performance poem, “The Fiend of Leschi,” posted in its recorded form here, has been included in a new form in North of Oxford’s Pandemic of Violence Anthology. Note that in the poem, Leschi refers to the neighborhood (in Seattle), and not the Nisqually chief.
After twisting and turning my way through Coil’s discography, I decided I had to pay homage with a couple music videos. One is for “Going Up” and it’s full of footage from a trip to the Olympics this past summer. After working on “Going Up,” I decided to make use of the large bodies of footage of water from the past year that have found miscellaneous digital dust collecting on them. Altogether they helped form
Excited to post my last performance of poetry alongside Jim O’Halloran and friends, at Kezira Cafe in Columbia City, Seattle. While the poem has nothing to do with its predecessor, Return to Rain, it is the spiritual successor. Note the details in the video’s description: The Fiend of Leschi, a poem performed by Greg Bem with the Jim O’Halloran Trio. Recorded at Kezira Restaurant in Columbia City, Seattle, on 11/19/21. Device used: Galaxy S21+. Edited
Six GIFs from my recent stay at the San Juan Island Friday Harbor Labs’s Whiteley Center. Originally shot on a GoPro Hero 9, edited in Resolve, and processed into GIFs via ScreenToGIF. If these don’t load quickly for you, I recommend a brief meditation before returning to the page and the loaded GIFs. Regarding the export process, I noticed that ScreenToGIF radically mutes the images’ contrast. This is something that I wasn’t expecting, as the
Who knows how this’ll look. If you have a fast internet connection, it might work out . . . fast. San Juan Island Timelapse GIF 1 San Juan Island Timelapse GIF 1 BW More forthcoming!
I have reviewed Sarah Mangold’s newest book, Her Wilderness Will Be Her Manners, over at North of Oxford. Take a read, explore this new book!
Excited to announce a new poetry project is up on this site. Memory Forms: Ruin was rejected from a recent Shanti Arts call for submissions, solidifying it as an even “further ruin” that paired well with a situational recording of rainfall and other ambient sounds at Friday Harbor, in Seattle, Washington. The poems were written after visits to Sequim, Washington, and Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado. You can find the poems and the soundtrack for reading
