Please welcome to the world … Michael Carter The Practitioner (Infinity Land Press)

 

Michael Carter lives by himself in a caravan somewhere in Yorkshire. He is a professional carer, a pathological artist and a pornographer. Until just recently, his work has been completely unknown to the world.
—-Carter’s past is so ingrained within his psyche that it has formed a worldview of almost mythological proportions. Confronting his images for the first time, they give the impression that you are not just looking at a human being, but something extraterrestrial: an entity, bogeyman, something or someone that could incite urban legends or internet hoaxes. There is something so shockingly exceptional about this exposed, scarred, androgynous and emaciated body that we cannot turn away from it.
—-Carter’s work invokes the Freudian notion of a compulsion to repeat: how an experienced trauma perpetually keeps repeating itself without any visible sign of closure or relief. The working methods become more refined and the medium is improved, yet the same ingrained leitmotifs remain constant: the ambiguous relationship between parent and child, between comfort and abuse; the terror and fascination with being born and giving birth; to be swallowed, to disappear and then to reappear; the uncertainty between titillation and castration; the search for adequate gender identity, a composite persona which encompasses the desired subject and the originator himself; the oscillation between self-love and disgust, and between the victim and the executioner…
—-When Carter likens his work to the alchemical process, he is not concerned with spiritual gold, the Philosopher’s Stone or Jungian individuation. He remains firmly stuck in the mud of the initial, foul-smelling stage of the Opus and he has no intention of elevating himself above it. His mise-en-scène evokes crime scenes – the site of murders where the bodies are about to be dismembered before the final deposition – but most importantly, this is the Camera Obscura, the dark room, which leaves the artist suspended with his doubles, fears, obsessions and most disturbing desires.

Edited and annotated by Martin Bladh

Hardcover, 264 pages, 210x280mm
https://www.infinitylandpress.com/product-page/the-practitioner-by-michael-carter

 

 

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Extract from ‘An Attempt at a Portrait of Michael Carter’ by Martin Bladh

Michael insists that his work is deeply rooted in childhood memories, both real and imagined. After dwelling on the subject intensely throughout our correspondence, I have limited down the sources of his childhood obsessions to three key events that supposedly were decisive in shaping the pathology of the man himself as well as the aesthetics and compulsive content of his work.

1) The trauma of being born and the severe damage it caused to his mother. When Michael says I split her perineum it sounds like he was responsible for a sinister violation. Whether his mother suffered any long term physical problems he does not know, but she did constantly remind him of the traumatic pain of giving birth to him.

2) Being treated for being knock-kneed and having his legs fastened into leather braces in bed every night without the possibility of getting up and leaving it by himself. As Michael was literally trapped and tied down, he could not reach a toilet to get relief and had no other choice than to wet the bed; leaving him awake, sometimes for hours in the foul-smelling sheets. This slow procedure which lasted for two years had a devastating effect on Michael’s bladder control which regressed to such a degree that he would continue to wet his bed well into his teenage years, long after his legs had been straightened. He has vivid memories of having large scabs on his inner thighs caused by the urine and being taken to a doctor who seemed unable to help him; an incident which might have triggered Michael’s later mistrust of getting any kind of medical help for his future disorders and ailments.

3) An incident when young Michael was separated from his mother and a man with big gloves put his hand over his face. In hindsight Michael believes the man was a drunk who, from his point of view, just tried to help the lost boy. Nevertheless, this episode produced horribly disturbing nightmares of being abducted from his bed each night, which continued for a long period of time and gave rise to a lifelong interest in missing children and child abductions.

Q: In your childhood imagination, what was the purpose of this bogeyman’s abduction, what fate did he have in store for you?

A: I think retrospectively this may have been a desire to be sexually abused by my parents, to be taken care of.

 

 

To try to understand Michael and his work we must be aware of his ambiguous relationship with his parents. Michael has no recollection of feeling either physically or emotionally close to either his mother or father. He can not recall ever being held or cuddled. Then, he hesitates, and says that he might have chosen not to remember this intimacy. He was a source of irritation, both to his own body and his parents’ psyches, and might not in fact have deserved their affection. Michael strictly denies any history of either physical or sexual childhood abuse. He believes he generated his own punishments by interpreting his mother’s words. He was in fact, from an early age, convinced that he was worthless; a conviction he was somewhat proud of as he took considerable pride in being a disappointment to his parents. How and which of his mother’s words Michael chose to interpret is hard to understand as he states that there was no real logic behind his decision of self-imposed punishment, but from the point of an outside party it is tempting to link this disturbed communication to feelings of guilt and anger for being born. He remembers telling his mother on numerous occasions that he wished that he never had been born. Such a statement might not seem that unusual as most, if not all, children and teenagers feel this existential despair from time to time and the parents are the easiest and most obvious ‘guilty’ source to blame as the originators of that pain. In Michael’s case the statement becomes more pronounced and even more logical as he literally brought so much pain into the world: his own and that of his mother. Being worthless meant that he, and no one else, was the originating source of the irritation and the annoyance. Michael claims to have more loving memories of intimacy from his relationships with animals than he ever had with any member of his family. This again is strange to grasp from an outside perspective when Michael also insists that he had a good relationship with his parents, particularly his mother, and then goes on to say that he was in fact closest to her when she was in palliative care, dying of cancer: I seemed to view her in a detached, uninterested way, I think she appreciated that.

Being tied down to the bed during a period when most children are afraid of the dark and would rather sleep between their parents in the marital bed was indeed frightening and traumatic for Michael. This in combination with the discomfort of not being able to move his legs, the constant skin irritation and shame of having ‘made a mess,’ as well as being plagued by nightmares about suffocation and abduction must have brought terror just from the mere thought of going to bed each night. The traditional so-called ‘bogeyman’ is an imaginary evil spirit or being, used to frighten children. Scaring children into behaving is a long-held tradition and to many children these creatures are real and something to fear. While some bogeymen only play simple pranks, others are more foul in nature; they frighten the children with severe punishments, abduct them at night, and sometimes even mutilate and eat them. All of these creatures relate in the same way: they exist to teach children lessons. Bogeymen may target a specific act or just general misbehaviour, depending on what purpose needs serving, often based on a warning from an authority figure … In Michael’s case, this monstrous figure, even if it is a source of abject terror, seems to embody the role of the absent punitive parental figure, both violent and erotic. In other words, abusive tactile attention is better than no physical contact at all. This dualism is persistent throughout Michael’s life and work: the moment when love and cruelty merges, when pain and discomfort turn to pleasure and comfort: I liked it when the clothes dried, the material became stiff and the smell changed. The ever-present bogeymonster, the firm hold of the leather braces and the sticky sheets were equivalent with emotions of tenderness, a substitute for parental tactility and love: To use and to abuse, if abuse is constant then it could be said not to be abuse, merely constant attention, true love, without boundaries, like a slowly tightening noose.

 

 

Puberty was confusing, threatening, but foremost disgusting. The coital act: the penetration of the hymen, loathsome as it seemed, was a violation of the body, both the female and the male; it was synonymous with inflicting pain, with birth pangs and lacerated flesh. Procreation: to bring offspring into the world, for what purpose? – to be born from pain into more pain, fear and humiliation? The accusing words of the mother – real or imaginary – the terror his existence brought into the world rang clearer and seemed more pronounced than ever. Genitalia had become abject and synonymous with vermin.

Michael states that he did not fully understand his desires or motives, but he did not want to touch anyone or be touched by anyone else. Lacking interest in generic pornography and refusing the usual seduction games of the average teenager, he did find himself attracted to girls who were tall and thin with long slender legs, especially if they had some sort of physical deformity, like pigeon toes: I have always found deformities in others arousing, legs, eyes, most deformities I find extremely arousing, or at the very least interesting. As most parents want their offspring to excel and achieve more than they usually do, Michael took pride in his worthlessness and built his ideals on what the parental world would deem imperfect. Beauty was to be damaged and awkward: like symmetry slightly out of sync, a deliberately upset balance. But to have any intimacy with the desired object, e.g. a girl with pigeon toes or with a severe limp, Michael had to imagine himself as her, to literally dress up and sexualise himself as the girl.

What Michael found especially arousing was stealing underwear from his friends’ mothers and sisters every time he got the opportunity: I would wear said underwear under my clothes in their presence, this I found satisfying. Michael did also steal and wear his own mother’s and sister’s underwear, tights and girdles: I am pretty sure my mother and my sister knew I wore their underwear, nothing was said … I used to periodically get rid of all underwear I stole, then after a while, I would start again. This seemingly innocuous antisocial activity would turn into compulsion and finally develop into kleptomania.

Q: Do you utilise any ‘external’ pornographic sources such as magazines, books or films, before, during, or after your photo shoots?

A: I am stimulated by my transformation, my reflection. I became excited by photos and videos of myself, these were used as pornography. I did have a large collection of magazines such as Leg Show, but these feel separate somehow. I used them for ideas, poses etc. and recreated them, turned them into something else. E.g., me in tights and a bathing costume photographed in a copse, unconscious or dead.

Q: Does all the pornographic material you utilise involve yourself dressed in women’s clothing?

A: This is how it has evolved over time. I fantasised about being the image in the magazine, but this was not enough. I wanted to become the object of my desire and then to deny that desire by the destruction of the idealised version of my perception.

Q: How does the destruction of your idealised version of your perception play out in your mind? Are the staged death scenarios executions of the desired object?

A: Yes, I believe so, but these forms, idealised, return again and again, slightly more insightful, more real? Usurping, devouring, rejecting. Begin again.

 

 

Q: Is pain a sense of threat (fear?) or discomfort intimately linked to the experience that you want to achieve?

A: Pain and discomfort are just reflections of life, these can be a comfort.

Q: Would you classify yourself as a masochist or a sadomasochist, or do you believe these terms to be simplifying and reductive?

A: Masochism and Sadism are just convenient terms.

Q: Is the notion of being helpless and exposed arousing and exciting?

A: Being exposed and helpless is arousing, to be in a position where you are vulnerable and in control, or notions of control.

Michael started to restrict his waist during his early pubescent years. When out of curiosity he dressed up in his mother and grandmother’s girdles he found that the pressure the garment applied to his waist caused him to lose breath which put him in a heightened state of euphoria (which he compares to his later experience of being anorexic). This discovery would lead him to experiment with a variety of choking devices and ligatures as the sensation of being strangled turned out to be even more arousing: Self-strangulation is erotic, hanging, erection, ejaculation, death. He confesses to having gone through a short period where he was applying pressure to the throats of animals such as cats and dogs, which in turn inspired him to apply the ligatures on himself. Here I sense an early sadistic streak in Michael’s personality – as the old cliché goes: cruelty towards animals is gradually projected onto human victims – a claim which he does not deny but states that he believes himself to have been identifying with the actual animal, and after seeing its reaction, used himself exclusively for the same purpose. Michael’s preferred autoerotic practice involves a nylon noose around the neck that travels down his back around his genitals: Bound genitals become numb, insensitive but still aroused, this appeals, orgasm prolonged indefinitely… I feel powerful and vulnerable.

Michael claims to have no real interest in the psychological reasons behind this procedure, but insists that oxygen deprivation can be lethal and that it frequently has landed him in dangerous situations. Just prior to the start of our correspondence Michael accidentally passed out in front of the camera which was able to capture the moment. The following short confession proves to what length Michael has been willing to go to satisfy his urges: I have inserted hair brushes and other items inside myself, and kept them inside my rectum all day whilst restricting my waist wearing a girdle with a noose around my neck and genitals then gone out with this under my clothes. This caused damage to the anal passage and lack of blood to the genitals.
—-Delving further into Michael’s extreme corporeal desires and the fantasies accompanying them seem to be bordering on the impossible, even ludicrous: as I hang helpless, but in control, but all too easily I can lose control – and – idealised fantasies, to show me aroused by my hands would be to hasten the end. Cut off my hands, arms. Am I helpless? But as the correspondence unfolds, Michael turns out to be far from ignorant about psychological insight to his behaviour, as is expressed clearly in one single sentence: My devices for my own restriction could be regarded as substitutes for parental love. Again we are reminded of that slowly tightening noose.

 

 

Q: You use the term ‘catharsis,’ which seems to indicate that there might come a day when you would not have the need to express yourself the way you do. At the same time you state that I am working through obsessions and compulsions, never resolving: is there really a need for catharsis, do you really want to rid yourself of and to overcome your obsessions? Is your experience of catharsis in fact a method that you are constantly refining to reach new limit experiences of euphoric pleasure?

A: I do not want to overcome my obsessions. I want to be consumed by them. I like your term, constantly refining. Compulsions and Rituals, this is what interests me.

Q: Were you ever afraid or concerned that if you would seek medical help the doctors would label you with all sorts of diagnoses or syndromes that might undermine your personal rigour and ‘uniqueness’; that by keeping away from medical treatment you have been able to stay ‘pure’ to yourself, both as an artist and as a human being?

A: I avoided medical help because I did not wish to be either diagnosed nor cured. I would never accept the fact that I was ill. I was not, my thought processes were just different. Pure, I do not believe there is such a thing.

Q: During our correspondence you have frequently deleted all your previous Instagram posts. Why do you have this constant need to purge and deprive your ever-growing audience of your past work?

A: It feels good to create and equally good to purge, begin again.

I hold Michael’s work as a case against catharsis: catharsis, as therapeutic cleansing and transformation. The so-called notion of ‘abreaction’ – to put yourself at the centre of the trauma – does not resolve the tension, it merely increases the stakes, as the artist takes euphoric pleasure in reliving the original injury. The compulsion to repeat has become so much more than a phase that needs to be elaborated on, worked through, and finally resolved through therapeutic healing.
—-By destroying the artworks and deleting the staged photographs the eroticised persona is temporarily annihilated and the artist is metaphorically killed: I become the object of desire, then I destroy that image. In many ways, this process is reminiscent of browsing pornography; when the browser after the fit of orgasm, becomes slightly bored with the object or scene of arousal, and later tries to recapture it with a slightly different anatomy or through a not-too-dissimilar context. In this case, what is labelled ‘cathartic’ is reduced to a short, temporary release, an ejaculation… Then the wound is reinfected, and the urge to poke it reappears.

 

 

The first experiment with making masks goes way back to Michael’s earliest photo session in front of the mirror. There are no pictorial documentations of what these prototypes would have looked like, but Michael describes them as unsuccessful, or at least they appeared so at the time. These efforts also coincided with some early experimentation with face makeup, which the practitioner equally deemed as non-satisfying. Until just recently, Michael had always been hiding his face behind different kinds of disguises. He claims that polythene bags and layers of tape can evoke even more emotion than the facial masks, but I would like to make a clear distinction between the actual handmade masks and readymade face coverings such as nylon stockings, plastic sheets, bags, and tapes, which serve the instant necessity to blur the practitioner’s identity, or are directly linked to the practice of autoerotic asphyxiation.

The Masked Woman is the main vehicle for Michael’s impersonation play. She is often seen wearing a long black wig without a fringe, but she can also be donning a shorter bob cut piece, and at times she appears without any hair at all. She is usually dressed in a variety of garments including slips, lingerie, nylon stockings or full-body nylon suits, bras, girdles and knickers. Her penis can be discerned underneath the stockings and bodysuit as a reminder that she is also the Phallic Woman. She is posing and modelling: imitating poses which she might have observed in fetish publications like Leg Show or in a mainstream clothing catalogue or a fashion magazine. She is known to practise sexually explicit aerobics: her arms and legs spread-eagle. Like a Barbie doll, she is always ready to be dressed and undressed. She might appear lifeless: is she dead or is she just impersonating a corpse? She is a frequent practitioner of autoerotic asphyxiation games. She has been found curled up inside wardrobes with a cloth hanger around her neck, and on other occasions she is merely slumped on the floor or the corner of the room like a marionette with her strings cut. Her head can turn around 180 degrees, and it so happens that her face is taken off and put next to Michael’s headless ‘dead’ body on the floor. In some exceptionally rare instances Michael’s penis is inserted into the stump of her severed neck. Sighted or blind, she is constantly staring at her own reflection in the mirror.

 

 

Q: You often use broken or divided mirror surfaces in your portraits. Is this a symbolic wounding of the self-image or of the character being impersonated?

A: With the broken mirror series I explored, as you say, symbolic wounding. The objectification and reduction of my body into small pornographic landscapes by dividing it into segments. The use of bodily fluids on the mirror suggested intimacy and sexual frustration, but it also has a dreamlike quality.

Q: Now I have a particular set of images in my mind, they depict you lying or standing naked; your reflection blurred by what I guess must be semen mixed with some other substances which looks like it has been violently thrown at the mirror surface.

A: Those images were taken a while ago, but yes, the mirrors are stained with semen, blood, and traces of excrement. Knowing this however does not enhance the image. It was something I found compulsive at the time. These images tend in the long run not to be as effective. The individual looking at the image brings or projects their own conclusions.

Q: Do you find the concept of a double intriguing?

A: The concept of another, a doppelganger, yes initially this was intriguing, exciting. I suppose it still is, it’s just that my perspective has shifted. I am not looking for a refined or enhanced version of the other or myself. Some of the more successful images work because I am off guard. The image in the mirror, that reality is what I am striving for. Masks, hide and reveal. The idea of multiple identities, I find it very difficult to keep them separate.

Q: I am fascinated by the recurring, sometimes armless and legless homunculus that appear in several of the photographs. What can you tell me about this figure, what is its purpose?

A: The homunculus, I think, is a version or versions of myself. Golem, homunculus, born and created in a glass tube, buried, reborn. Interesting parallels.

Q: What is the significance of the doll? I am not referring to yourself dressed up as a doll or the Homunculus. It always seems to be part of the more sexually violent aspects of your work. You usually take on the submissive role of the victim, but here I sense the perpetrator coming through.

A: The doll is a version of me as a child. Me violating me. I can hurt the doll because the doll is me. Simplistic, but there is truth in it.

 

 

Michael’s theatre takes place within the confines of a domestic setting, a small patch of woodland, and in the illusion of a black void. A number of the scenarios are being staged in the artist’s ‘boudoir.’ In this variety of bedrooms he performs, alone or together with his subjects, on a bed or on a floor littered with duvets, mattresses, blankets and pillows. This uncanny, ever-changing maze, also includes wardrobes, cabinets, mirrored walls, and mysterious doors that lead straight into blackness, and through this blackness, into the next bedroom; it is not uncommon to see the practitioner – down on his hands and knees – crawl into a dark corner, only to reappear in another similar setting. The question arises: are we still in Michael’s caravan, in his father’s house, or in one of his clients’ apartments? There is no way to stabilise a certain floor map or any other architectural consistency; there are chairs, tables – a cabinet door or a vintage carpet might look familiar – but the whole setting soon changes as we enter through another wormhole into the next domestic space. Sometimes the bed, mattresses, duvets and sheets have been raised up or nailed to the wall, giving the impression of the padded walls of an isolation cell.
—-One of the open doors might lead into the white bathroom. Here the empty tub is the focal point of endless possibilities: it might serve as a catwalk, or as the stage for a pornographic execution (with the hose to the showerhead functioning as a hangman’s noose); it might be a crib for caring and nursing, or a substitute for the butcher’s killing floor; ultimately, it serves as the coffin where the performer seemingly awaits his last rites, repeatedly. The removable mirror over the sink is a distorted framed portrait within the greater composition of the room; the support handle and brass ring screwed unto the wall work to bolster the ligature around the practitioner’s neck.
—-In between these domestic environments, lies the dark limbo which is the setting for Michael’s most private headspace. This illusion of the void, created by black plastic, evokes crime scenes: the site of murders where the bodies are about to be dismembered before the final deposition; this is the alchemist’s crucible, the mystical space where the practitioner – obsessed with his object – revisits the idealised, black stage of the opus which holds the essential nucleus of his obsession. It is the Camera Obscura, the dark room, which leaves the artist forever suspended with his doubles, fears, obsessions and most disturbing desires. This void to which he perpetually returns is nothing less than a body bag: a nostalgic longing for the unborn’s womb.

 

 

BIO’s

Michael Carter’s work is about obsession, impulsive behaviors and how people express themselves. Experiences, true and false narratives are superimposed upon assumed identities. Carter portrays himself as victim, perpetrator, and is impassive, indifferent and passionate. He explores the body as object, depersonalised and yet highly personal. His work is repetitive, derivative, driven, thoughtless and only realised with the gift of hindsight, not necessarily from his own perspective.
https://www.tumblr.com/deliriatremens

Martin Bladh is a Swedish-born artist of multiple mediums and co-founder of Infinity Land Press. His work lays bare themes of violence, obsession, fantasy, domination, submission and narcissism. Bladh’s published work includes To Putrefaction, Qualis Artifex Pereo, The Hurtin’ Club, Darkleaks – The Ripper Genome, Marty Page, The Torture of the 100 Pieces, Braquemard: The Clavicle of Gilles de Rais and DES: The Theatre of Death. He lives and works in London.
https://www.martinbladh.com

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https://www.infinitylandpress.com/
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p.s. Hey. The venerable Infinity Land Press, deviser and producer of exquisite looking books with invaluable interiors, sends their newest down the blog’s red carpet today. My copy is on its way to me, but from everything I’ve seen and read, this is a truly unique and fascinating book, and I will suggest that if you give the post a serious gander, you’re very likely to agree with me. Please discover for yourselves if I’m right, thank you, and thank you big time to Martin and Karolina @ Infinity land for the privilege. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yeah, since I swore off writing non-fiction, I don’t even know how I managed to write all those articles and reviews without overly suffering. Well, the situation with the friend’s boyfriend was not un-dreamy, it was just a little, how shall we say, awkward. So love is not only murderous but suicidal too. I guess that’s why they call him love. Love holding a toy gun to my head and ordering me to work on my fiction for a minimum of, oh, let’s say four hours today, G. ** seb🦠, Hi. Oh, thank god. I was honesty worried over here, Phew. I have no Xmas leftovers, but I could live on reheated mashed potatoes for the rest of my life maybe if I did. Ah, you were a fire starter kid. I had one of those as a friend when I was wee. He literally could not function if he didn’t have a cigarette lighter in his hand. When he got a little older, he started smoking cigarettes, and that seemed to fix him. Obviously big congrats on the new laptop. Xmas gift (to yourself)? Zac’s feeling better. Btw, I said hi for you, and he said, ‘seb … with a green splotch, right?’ So he has spied you, And he says hi. I don’t know what godspeed implies, but that sounds good, I’ll take it, and boomerang said speed level back your way. ** Misanthrope, John Waters sends his Xmas card to thousands of people, but I am happy to be targeted nonetheless. I really don’t mind not getting anything for Xmas. Other than Zac, I didn’t give anyone anything either. Unless paying for the communal buche counts. Oh, then I suppose going to amusement parks is when I chill, although I’m kind of studying them for things I can use artistically even then. But yeah, that’s probably as chilling as I can get. I really need to start playing video games again. That would count too. Well, let’s just hope you never get to smell TC’s butthole and dick hole, because their stink would probably break your heart. ** Conrad, Hey there, Conrad! How great you see you. It has been ages, and I’ve been wondering how and whereabouts you were. Teacher. Teaching what and to whom? I think the Kelley talk is not going to be rescheduled, which I personally am very happy about, haha. I do like Tao Lin’s novels, yes. ‘Taipei’ is very good. I think ‘Richard Yates’ might be my favorite. But the earlier ones are very good too. Thank you about the film. I’m really hoping it’ll be finished before very long. The Bourse is actually committed to showing the film, but I’m not sure when that will be. Anyway, yeah, great to see you. Very happy to hear about anything going on with you whenever and as often as you see fit. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. I’m really sad about Pope.L. He was so great. A total role model, and at the peak of his powers. Really a big loss. There was an amazing show of his work at MoCA/Geffen some years ago, I don’t know if you saw it. Anyway, ugh. If you’re already set on someone you don’t know directing the film, that could be a good buffer in terms of your expectations and willingness to reach compromises. You could get a really fantastic director that brings fresh but wholly conducive things that you didn’t even imagine to the film version. That does happen. Good idea to keep a journal in any case, that’s for sure. Zac and I sometimes wistfully wish that we’d arranged for a behind-the-scenes documentary to be made about the making of our film because the utter hell we’ve gone through would make for a helluva thriller. ** Steve Erickson, Doesn’t sound too bad, all things considered. I’m not much of a David Fincher fan. I only liked ‘Seven’ and certain aspects of ‘The Game’. I don’t even like what he did with ‘Fight Club’. What would be done to mark Lonsdale’s birth is as yet undetermined, and I think trying to figure out what we could possibly do is most of our interest. The next big deadline is Cannes. As much of a long shot as that is, we do have some actual support there. We’ve booked a studio and technicians to do the final post-work starting in the second week of January. That happening is contingent on our producer raising the needed funds to pay for that in time, which have very little hope will happen, but that’s the current plan/hope. To submit to Cannes, the film would need to be completely finished in March, as I understand it. Thank you for asking. ** Darby 🫀🫀, It really can be, yeah. No, I did not know that statistic and that is very, very surprising and pretty shocking. Wow. Email, cool, I will await. I hope you got to sit down at a piano today. Nah, I never got very good at guitar. I could play rhythm guitar decently, but my attempts to solo were humiliating. Luckily the main band I was in were mostly into making feedback and terrible noise. That I could do. There is a pigeon couple living in this little vestibule under the roof near my window. Lately they’ve been there hanging out every day for hours. The vestibule is where pigeons often come to make their nests and birth babies, so maybe thats what they’re up to, although I haven’t seen the gathering sticks or anything. They just sit there and stare mostly. I like them. They’re cool. ** Right. You already know what’s up there, and hopefully by the time you’ve reached this spot you have given it its due. See you tomorrow.