THE POWER OF PLACE
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This is Darwin, California. You can learn more about it by visiting the Darwin community website.
There's no government, no police, no businesses, no churches, and no public services, except for the Post Office, which, like the Post Offices in many small towns, is being threatened with closure. I live here. You can learn about the recent history of Darwin in my new book, DARWOON DYREEZ. This work of fiction is based on real events, involving real people. All the names of individuals and places have been changed. Maybe 200 people out of the seven billion on our planet will be able to identify some of the characters in the book. For everyone else, it's just entertaining stories, related in a funny invented dialect. |
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I spend part of my time every year in New Mexico, in an off-grid community known as Tres Orejas, across the Rio Grande from Taos. Some of the poems and images on this website originated there.
From the front porch there's a view of Taos Mountain to the east. The Rio Grande Gorge creates a dark horizontal slash across the Mesa. The sky puts on some spectacular shows. |
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Before I moved to Darwin, I lived in San Francisco, where I coauthored, ghostwrote, and edited books on alternative medicine and other topics. Sometimes I got credit with little pay. Sometimes I got paid with little credit. Here are some of the books I helped to produce during those years.
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I also performed in a spoken-word band, High Strangeness. We rehearsed and recorded in various studios in Oakland, the last one being in the same building as the Greyhound bus station. |
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I wrote and published poetry and performed it to my original music, as well as playing with High Strangeness. I continued to write poetry when I moved to Darwin, but the opportunities for performing were seriously reduced.
A successor ensemble, Hostile Elders, continued to play and record in Darwin, whenever Michael, AKA Veri Severe, made the long trip to visit our town. |
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For many years, I have hosted the High Desert Music Camp in Darwin--a small gathering of musicians who improvise and play together. The music is recorded and published each year on a CD. Thanks to Steve McGreevy for all his technical and artistic help with these productions. Steve is a noted sound recordist who specializes in the music of the magnetosphere and space weather.
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Darwin has plenty of junk lying around that offers great opportunities for making environmental art. The art pieces help to clean up the environment. It's a win-win situation.
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The natural beauty and historic setting of Darwin are an endless source of inspiration for creative spirits. Read all about it in DARWOON DYREEZ!
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