Perverted Psychedelia

I think every artist needs to understand what their work is about, to have it irrationally expounded, labeled, and pigeonholed. It offers a sense of completeness and purpose. That’s why we have critics and connoisseurs.

Finally, I have been blessed: Perverted Psychedelia.

Last night I was curious about my presence on the internet. I googled my given name, Michael Myshack, and found that I had something at books.google.com. Interesting. In 1984 I gave a test run to some of my poems and drawings by going to a quick print. It was awful, a total failure, complete with typos, poor copies of the drawings (I couldn’t afford halftone screens), paper that quickly decomposed from the acid in it, and bad binding. Earlier this year I resurrected the thing in digital form by scanning the printer spreads and compiling it in InDesign as an interactive PDF with navigation links and readings of all the poems that could be heard by clicking a button on each page. I posted a link to this on my other blog, Poetry and Other Sounds, to document my experiments with digital publishing.

I’m curious how it ended up on books.google.com. I wrote a review just to explain how to find a copy for download. But I also pointed out that it’s crap so don’t waste your time.

More interesting and a bit more fun was searching my online name, Swampmessiah.

I’ve made a few odd connections in the past couple years, having my recordings turn up in UK radio shows, whether podcasts or broadcasts, and Serbian DJ sets of a dark or death techno nature. That was flattering. And amusing, to think that no one in town knows my work but someone on the other side of the planet does.

But on something like the ninth page of links I found the cyrillic alphabet, with the roman alphabet spelling my name in the middle of it. I’ve been noted in Russia? Most of the international links had turned out to be duds—Spanish language sites offering free Mp3 recordings and ringtones by Swampmessiah, but nothing of mine was actually there.

This was a link to a site called bazurka.net and it was far from being a dud. (Put swampmessiah into the search window for a direct route. Also, a word of warning: almost all the art posted on this site is of a sexual or violent nature, or both. My work is sexually explicit and might not be to your taste.)

After a lot of scrolling, there were two of my drawings under a block of Russian commentary.

It took me awhile to figure out that there was a “translate” button at the top of the page (I’m exceptionally slow at finding these things). That’s when I was told the truth: Perverted Psychedelia.

I will quote the whole passage: “Perverted psychedelia. The author of works – swampmessiah. Psychedelic images, filled with members, tits, old age and despair. What else needs to be said that there is a modern psychedelic? Absolutely sick pictures. Although you may have a different opinion. So, psychedelic. Take a look:”

This was followed by two of my drawings. And if you clicked on a drawing it would open up a link to all the drawings I had posted on an art website, including a few still lifes, now appropriated by bazurka.net.

I think they were being complimentary.

I found the comments more incomprehensible than offensive. There seems to be an archaic value system thriving in Eastern Europe, very Christian at its roots with a Communist overlay, and now an archaic reaction by many who feel stifled by it. It’s like reading Baudelaire, the flaunting of traditional values and groveling in sin as a form of pleasurable self-loathing. In the West we’ve had Nietzsche, Tantric Buddhism, and the Counter Culture since then. Even though I was brought to church for a few years I really wasn’t raised in a Christian household. To me that morality and reaction game is very tiresome. But, then, so many people are raised in traditional households that “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” is still a mantra of liberation.

Perhaps even more incomprehensible is their obsession with psychedelia (it has its own section that you can find in the categories drop down menu). Almost all the art featured on the site is sexual or violent in nature, or combining the two. I don’t think they are intellectually capable of understanding any kind of art or philosophy that puts sex in a constructive or even quasi-mystical place. Likewise irrationality. American and Western European art have been exploring all these themes for well over a century. We’ve learned a lot about the psyche and how to use the subliminal, chaotic,  less conscious aspects of our minds for creative and constructive purposes. We’ve learned to interweave the conscious and subconscious as a way of life. I don’t think they really understand psychedelia the way we do. It was a fad for most of us and has become little more than a fashion statement. These guys incorporate Dada, Surrealism, Expressionism, Pop art and cheap juxtapositions of images into their labeling of psychedelia. I think I should say that they understand psychedelia the way only a few extremists did: as an escape from the drudgery of common sense. I think they’re putting a burden on the term that it cannot truly support.

Actually, I still have no idea what my art is about. I’ve been trying to understand it for decades. The assessment at bazurka.net was not informative. They are several steps, and centuries, behind me and elements within my culture in a process that is working its way from traditional morality and identity toward a more harmonious understanding of the human experience.