Marseille

I’m here in France on vacation for a few days, slowly en route to Italy where I will be helping to harvest and mash grapes and olives on a farm in exchange for food and shelter. At the moment, I’m streaming college football, drinking a glass of Rosé from Provence, and enjoying the surprisingly familiar sounds of urban hustle and bustle outside the window of my Airbnb. Like New York, Marseille is a diverse, noisy, and messy city. It feels like home, in all the good and bad ways that come with the concept for me.

I’ve (tried to) come to appreciate that one of the occupations of an artist is to provide oneself with time to think and reflect in new spaces. Not as an escape, of course. And I think it would be wrong to characterize it as creative “fuel.” It seems to be not simply a propulsive force, moving us forward by an immediate expenditure of energy. Rather, I’m thinking of it like a novel element in a circuit. Something which gathers energy that has already flowed there, and then creates new outcomes. A resistor that decreases the voltage of a circuit to allow the current to flow where it wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Like the laptop charger I just plugged in to finish this.

I’ve brought a microphone, cables, and a small audio interface with me as well. I’m hoping to finish some last bits of recording for my newest songs while I’m here. Let’s see if the energy flows there.