Have you ever had a person casually share one small thing with you that completely shifts your perspective and expands what you thought was possible? Paradigm-shift is a good term for it. It’s happened to me a few times on this platform—the first time was in 2016 shortly after I joined what was then Steemit and a few times since then. A few days ago it happened again.
Over the past few years I found myself in a massive creative slump. I guess creative slump isn't totally accurate, it’s been more like a sales slump. I’m still churning out poems, short stories, and articles like mad but what I’m writing just isn’t garnering the attention (and sales) it used to.
Here’s where “The Third Act” comes into play, and also the wondrous serendipity of it all. Shortly after I posted The Third Act on Hive a few days ago @zekepickleman left a comment that included a link to a song he created on an AI-platform called Suno based on the poem itself. Well, this caused another paradigm shift.
What a lot of people don’t know is I was a musician long before I was ever a writer. I played piano, violin, and clarinet in grade school. I even had a 4-track studio in my parent’s basement when I was a teen, writing and composing my own songs. All of which are lost to history, which probably isn’t altogether a bad thing.
In the last couple of days I’ve joined Suno and created a couple more songs from my poetry. Words can’t describe how much fun I’ve been having with it and it’s really changed the way I view many of the old poems I’ve written over the past few decades.
Here are two of the songs I’ve created.
The first is from a poem nearly twenty years old called, “The Edge”:
Listen on Suno The Edge is created in the Indie-Soul/Lo-Fi category.
The second is crafted from a piece of poetry written in 2007 entitled, “A World Away Are We”:
Listen on Suno A World Away Are We is more in the style of a pop/rock ballad.
Where will this all go? I’m not sure if this will end up being my Third Act but I do know that I’m having an immense amount of fun with it. Huge thanks to Zeke for introducing me to the AI music creation platform.
Only In Minnesota!
In other news...I decided to take a walk after posting The Third Act on Hive last Sunday. As I was rounding a corner on the nature trail behind our house this is what I saw:
Canadian geese on top of one of our neighbor's town homes. It's something I've never seen before in my life.
My very first thought was Only in Minnesota.
As I was writing this post it dawned on me that Zeke happens to be Canadian. Is it serendipity or coincidence? I lean towards the former. Call me superstitious but I've always tended to believe life's little happenstances, at times, unfold to help show us the way—if we're paying attention.
First Grilling Session of the Spring
Last night I brought the grill out of storage for the first grilling session of the spring. It was a heritage spatchcock chicken from a producer called Labelle Patrimoine
These chickens are a smaller, fattier, and far tastier variety than 99% of the chicken available in supermarkets. The brand is available at Whole Foods and if you ever have a chance to try one it will spoil you for most other brands.
Grilled on medium and smoked with cherrywood, it was one of the best I've ever tasted but I can't take credit. The Ninja Woodfire grill worked most of the magic and makes me feel like a pitmaster almost every time I use it. It was very quiet around our dinner table last night once we all plated up.
If you have a chance, I'd encourage you to try the Labelle Patrimoine brand before it's snapped up by a huge corporation and the quality begins to suffer.
All for now. Enjoy your weekend and thanks so much for reading.
