My screen printed, stuffed pillows are now available at Mockingbird Handprints gallery at the Blue Star Arts Complex in San Antonio! The pillows feature some of my skull baby and skull bear characters, screened by hand and machine sewed. Each pillow is about 11″ tall.
As you can see by the background in the gallery photos, Mockingbird features an eclectic range of artisan crafts from a variety of local artists, including ceramics, paintings, clothing, sculptures, jewelry, and lots of textile work. I’ve been going to the gallery before I moved to SATX, and it’s one of my favorite places in town, so I’m very pleased to be included!
The Southern Winter 2022 issue of Otoliths was released today, being #66 and including the usually encyclopedic assortment of avant gardists and work in a variety of modes including text, visual, and hybrid. I’m pleased to be represented once again with a selection of ten works of asemic vispo composed of junk I accumulated over decades of collecting from the street and other random places. Also five poems from the most recent batch of pieces, which have been fermenting for a while. You can check out the vispo here and the text work here.
Music video for Totem Codes’ “Halo Child,” second track of a planned video album of new material. All analog electronics, using Arturia Matrix Brute and Drum Brute. Play loud with headphones for maximum bass response. Video created using analog tapes and long chain of analog and digital FX, re-amped from CRT TV using digital camera at HD setting. All video disintegration and pixilation intended!
Here’s the music video for Totem Codes’ “Merry Little Kingdom,” part of a planned video album. All analog electronics, using Arturia Matrix Brute and Drum Brute. Play loud with headphones for maximum bass response. Video created using analog tape and long chain of analog and digital FX, re-amped from CRT TV using digital camera at HD setting. All video disintegration and pixilation intended!
This is the second new Totem Codes music video, for the song “Rainy Day.” Once again, the music is all analog electronics, using Arturia Matrix Brute and Drum Brute. Play loud with headphones for maximum bass response. Video created using analog tape and long chain of analog and digital FX, re-amped from CRT TV using digital camera at HD setting. All video disintegration and pixilation intended!
Started making glitch videos again to go with some music I recorded a couple years ago. Here’s the first, for the song “Death House.” Putting it out there under my new project name Totem Codes. All analog electronics, using Arturia Matrix Brute and Drum Brute. Play loud with headphones for maximum bass response. Video created using analog tape and long chain of analog and digital FX, re-amped from CRT TV using digital camera at HD setting. All video disintegration and pixilation intended!
Otoliths issue #65, dated Southern Autumn 2022, was recently released. This issue marks the beginning of the seventeenth year of the journal’s existence! As usual, it contains a mix of — sometimes mixed — photographs, paintings, short stories, poetry, interviews, magazine columns, & manifestos from an international contributor list, reading like a who’s who of the literary avant garde. Check the contents link above to scan the full range of writers and artists in this issue.
I’m pleased to be represented in this issue with text and visual works. First, a poem entitled “Going Golden,” which continues a radical strain of my experiments with anticipating the dialog innovations of Artificial Intelligence transaction units. Second, a set of asemic vispo made with pieces of junk found on sidewalks and streets over many years. Check out the poem here, and the vispo here.
Var(2x) is an online literary magazine for “extreme experimentalism” that always lives up to its stated intent. Editors Daniel Harris and Irene Koronas seek to publish the “elite of the elite” in experimental writing; this journal doesn’t just define the cutting edge, the texts usually go way over that edge for a good close look at the abyss of text and visual poetry and other language related hybrids.
I’m very pleased to make a second appearance in the journal with a text poem (?) called “Maker Taker Quaker.” This piece came out of my explorations of speculative languages that could potentially be developed by AI units. The text proceeds by triads of imaginary and real words with similar rhyming constructions and sometimes alliterative qualities. Is it a love song, a transaction, a spell, a negotiation? Only the AIs of the future will know.
The video still illustrating the piece is also my work.
Online lit journal Mad Swirl has published a “best of” issue for the past five years; the volume for 2021 was just released and is now available in print on Amazon. I’m very pleased to be included with my poem “The Joys of Serf Culture,” which appeared in the journal last April.
Here’s the book hype direct from Mad Swirl editor Johnny Olson:
“2021 has been yet another extraordinarily challenging year. Thru it all, Mad Swirl was there, every one of the 365 days of this twisted year. We didn’t miss a beat. Those beats are what you’ll get when you dig into this year’s collection. Get your firsthand view of one helluva of a f*cking year. The Best of Mad Swirl : v2021 is a 107-page anthology featuring 52 poets, 12 short fiction writers, and four artists hailing from 5 continents (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, & North America); 15 countries (Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, England, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Montenegro, Nigeria, Romania, Singapore, Syria, & USA [20 States]). We editors reviewed the entire year’s output to ensure this collection is truly “the best” of MadSwirl.com! The works represent diverse voices and vantages which speak to all aspects of this crazy swirl we call ‘life on earth.’
“Mad Swirl is an arts and literature creative outlet. It is a platform, a showcase, and a stage for artistic expression in this mad, mad world of ours; a diverse collection of as many poets, artists, and writers we can gather from around the world; from Nepal to Ireland, from England to China, from California to New York City and all the places in between. Our Poetry Forum features works from over 170 contributing poets, our Short Story Library has over 40 participating writers and our Mad Gallery has over 50 resident artists.”
Contributors include: Artists: J Gregory Cisneros, Alan Murphy, Thomas Riesner, Bleak Teeth
Poets: Jeff Bagato, Tohm Bakelas, Jon Bennett, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Jean Biegun, Jean Bohuslav, Casey Bush, Laurie Byro, PW Covington, John Dorroh, J.K. Durick, Michael Estabrook Joseph Farley, Robert Fleming, Susie Gharib, Iulia Gherghei, KJ Hannah Greenberg, John Grey, Paul Hostovsky, Ojo Victoria Ilemobayo, Mike James, Ivan Jenson, Sally Jo, Ferris Jones, Carl Kavadlo, Vyarka Kozareva, Padmini Krishnan, Tyler Malone, Robert L. Martin, Tom Montag, Ian Mullins, Madelyn Olson, Johnny Olson, Brittany M. Ortega, Irena Pasvinter, Patty Dickson Pieczka, Timothy Pilgrim,, Randall Rogers, Madu Chibueze Romanus, Sreemani Sengupta, Beate Sigriddaughter, Susandale, David Susswein, Rp Verlaine, Isaiah Vianese, Agnes Vojta, Trier Ward, Richard Weaver, Stefan White, Stephen Jarrell Williams, Catherine Zickgraf, Milenko Županović
Fiction: Jim Bates, Glenn Bresciani, Mike Fiorito, Susie Gharib, Jeff Grimshaw, Prapti Gupta, Flora Jardine, James Lawless, Edward N. McConnell, Vivek Nath Mishra, Randall Rogers, Chuck Taylor
My friends David Craig and Willard Simmons produced an album of poetry and music, called Blame it on the Gamma Ray, which is now available on Bandcamp. There will be a tape version as well available from Unread Records of Omaha, NE. David wrote and read the poems, and Will performed the backing tracks. I have a guest appearance in the middle of the track “Wild Sudafed Head,” where I read my poem “Hot Dogs Can’t Sing.” Knowing these guys’ work as solo artists and in other musical projects (some of which I’ve been part of), I knew this would be a fun project, and hearing the whole thing confirms this. You can preview this track, and even listen to the whole album (or buy it!) here.
jeff bagato 