Cine⚡️File

If you’re ever in the area, visit Birch Lodge on Trout Lake in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It is elegant and nostalgic, yet luxe; furnished with the casual, chic confidence of hospitality professionals with practiced eyes. Every detail of both comfort and ambience is considered. Well worth a visit.

Thankfully, the storied history of the lodge will never completely fade into the ether. It was opened in 1912 as the Birch Lodge Hospital and Summer Resort Sanitarium, a peaceful place where many patients convalesced during the tuberculosis years, and while decades have passed, the property still possesses a certain restful, if not melancholy spirit …

I was thrilled to pair this footage with music by my friend and talented composer, Neil [aka Bearfeathers] whose simple, evocative layers create a wonderfully timeless aura.

A music video for the final track on my debut EP, but more importantly, a musical catharsis and letter of love to one of my dearest friends, whose departure changed me forever. There is no avoiding grief. But at least we have music.

One day, my friend, Sandra and I went to Playa del Carmen to pick up an industrial grade coffee grinder for the café. We stopped to watch a troupe of Voladores sky-walking next to the sea and the footage made it into this vid for the third track on my EP (as well as influenced its title). Because they were literally flying. FLYING!

Youth is fleeting, thank goodness. Eventually, we all return to the beginning. Don’t be hunted by that sad fearfulness. Afraid of something as pure and natural as aging, as inescapable as death. Take your life in hand. No one will save you from an inability to love yourself; to revel in the wholeness of You, still as uniquely flawed and wonderful as the day you were born. That epiphany is your greatest task. We arrive alone and depart alone by design, and it is utterly beautiful. A privilege and a gift.

Someday, Forgetfulness is the fourth track on my EP.

Life is an endless parade of teachers. The first lesson is that nothing is permanent. We control nothing, we own nothing, and we are owed nothing. To live fully is to let go.

This is the second track on Inoro, my solo EP.

This first track from my solo EP was a joy to write. Maybe it’s about freedom? Most likely, acceptance. I have so much gratitude for my friends. Friends who see me, and understand what it is to love from a distance. Who share fully in my happinesses and sit silent, but near in my sorrows. Theirs is a rare and winged solidarity.

On the way to catch a flight, we stopped off at Mirador los Chiapa, the highest viewpoint in the Sumidero Canyon and site of the Battle of Tepetchia, where in 1526, indigenous Tzotzil natives jumped to their deaths rather than be enslaved by the Spaniards. 🇲🇽 ✊🏾

In the summer of 2022, Tor’s dad, Don had a cataclysmic health failure. No one, not even the doctors, could explain exactly what happened. Family called and told us he was waning. We rushed to Colorado and helped move him to hospice. After he had settled into his room, to pass the time, we asked him about his life. He talked about his education, and also explained very clearly how he was feeling in regards to his current experience.

Ten months on, and after many struggles, he has gradually improved and is now in a rehab facility. ✨

I shot this ages ago, when we lived in Mexico. It’s really just a compilation of Mexicans dancing, set to one of my favorite songs, but there are dozens of tiny, fibrous stories there, too. If you look hard enough.

He came. He sat. He did not conquer. But we refurbished him with love. Scrubbed his interiors for three full days. Painstakingly reclaimed his wood interiors from beneath layers of fugly, ‘90’s wallpaper. Added custom maps to the walls. Installed solar, an auxiliary battery system, and on-demand hot water. And then, we sold him to the perfect family who has since taken him on many wonderful adventures. Utter satisfaction. ✨

A love letter to a deceased friend …

The summer of 2020, at the height of Covid yuck, I flew to Ireland to work on an album with my British bandmate. We hunkered down on a farm in the countryside, drank cider, watched Leonard Bernstein and Adam Neely music theory videos, developed a weirdly productive creative process, and then argued about said creative process. But we managed to crank out some killer ideas. Eventually, lockdown lifted just enough for us to take a roadtrip west so that we might remain sane. And stay friends.

Essentially another lockdown diary entry, a nature nonsense video featuring plaintive strings recorded in a tiny beach cabin, paired with an old field recording of my writing partner, Aidan playing random chords on a piano in an empty church we stumbled across outside Reykjavik in 2015. The point is, even with limitations, creators create, not because whatever comes out is any good, but because they must.

Spring had sprung but the world had been at a standstill for a while.

“Send me proof of life,” a friend said. “One of your weird art films.”

I attempted to.

But as the lyrics of the song go,

“And I try to keep the balance right, and I try, but it feels like wasted time…”

Even ensconced at the top of a beautiful mountain, there were days of depression during the cold, harsh winter of Covid. So, I tasked myself with writing ten songs in ten days. A family of deer helped. This was song number three.