Hey!
Poem
Red Light…
you insist on
returning
but how many more times
with your
skinned up knees
and bloodthirsty rhymes
will you take
one more fragrant step
away from
a greenlight sonata?
Sealey Challenge and Fundraiser For Gaza
The Sealey Challenge is to read one collection of poems every day in August.
Thank you to everyone who has donated or committed to donating at the end of the challenge!!! We have raised over $300 - I’ll update with the final amount next week!
There is still time to help, see below!
Preface To A Twenty Volume Suicide Note by Le Roi Jones (Amiri Baraka)
Pretty Soon by Aaron Fagan
Wabi-Sabi by Beth Howard
There Must Be A Reason A People Come Here by Brian Foley
Book of Days by Angela Kirby
Notes On Inheritance by Taylor Sheridan Wallau
The Rose by Ariana Reines
of port & hues by dylan rice-leary
Koniec (End) by David Wojciechowski
A Handbook To Town Crying by Scott Tienken
The Naomi Poems : Corpse and Beans by Saint Geraud
The Naomi Poems : Corpse and Beans by Bill Knott
I’m also making a commitment to raising funds for The Sameer Project to provide urgently needed support for Palestinians in Gaza. If you are unfamiliar with The Sameer Project, they are a donations-based initiative led by Palestinians in the diaspora working to supply aid to displaced families in Gaza. They have lost multiple team members and many more extended family members to the genocide, and are now facing great difficulty purchasing food, medicine, infant formula, and tents due to the ongoing blockade. I’m hoping to raise as much funds as I can and to encourage everyone I know to do the same so The Sameer Project can continue to carry out their urgent efforts. Here’s how to support me in this reading challenge + fundraising endeavor:
● Fill out this form. At the end of the month, you’ll receive an email letting you know I’ve completed the challenge and inviting you to complete your contribution.
OR
● Make your contribution in advance through this page. Be sure to include a note at check-out to say who you’re sponsoring. And please let me know if you pledge on my behalf! Thanks so much for your encouragement and for your support!
KalloHumina
Jerksome Irkin’ is the first single off of “Self Portrait In Asia Minor” by KalloHumina (Yksin).
Newt Moonch Illegal Rags is the b-side.
“Self Portrait…” will be released digitally and on Cassette backed with “Mouthfuls of Sound - Live” in conjunction with Skullcrushing Hummingbird - The Zine Issue Seven.
Yksin = Solo.
Interview With Chris Phillips aka Squim
Chris is the newest live member of KalloHumina. Before his live appearance we recorded an improvised set as a duo. This was released as SkullHum recordings 010 … “KalloSquimina - Evening Raga.”
1. Where did you grow up and how long have you lived in Portland? I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah. I moved to Portland in 1997. 2. Do you have a strong early musical memory? Falling asleep to ‘Gold Dust Woman’ in my dads brown Oldsmobile. 3. What was the first instrument that you played? Was it of your own choosing and if not what was the first thing you chose to play? I took clarinet lessons in elementary school but I didn’t practice and didn’t enjoy it much. The first instrument I chose was probably playing beat up guitars with my friends in high school. 4. Please tell me a little about your history with recording. I lived with my stepbrother Isaac in Quail Valley California for a couple of high school years and were very isolated, we did drugs and ran around the hills. All our friends and our school was in Riverside. He had a really great electronic music set up and a four track and we recorded every chance we got. Sometimes together sometimes not. Back in Salt Lake, I got my own four-track when I was 16 and I did a lot of recordings with Casios and out of tune guitars. In the 90s I had a short lived tape label called Circle X. I did some trading tapes through the mail. Around 95 or 96 I went on a road trip down to Austin, Texas and I spent some time with one of the guys who I’d traded with. His approach to recording and playing was so loose and experiential. We did an exquisite corpse recording and it blew my mind. I fell in love with the idea of giving up control and letting things happen within a structure. Allowing space for happy accidents. I had an Akai reel to reel that I would do experiments with such as Long tape loops and sound on sound. In the early 2000s I used Audio Mulch software to record and manipulate sound then I would edit tracks in Acid. This is what I used for my only vinyl release Zephyrus. Now I use a Tascam Model 12. I dunno if I’m giving the most interesting answers. Not sure how much to go into the details or the experience. But I feel like recording and messing with sound is kind of my “instrument” of choice nowadays. 5. And your history of playing live… In Salt Lake City I was in a recording project called “Exploding French” and we wanted to take that into a live interpretation… In our first show almost none of the original members played. My friend Jason played guitar, I played CDs that I’d intentionally made skip by writing on them with sharpies, and another woman who we barely knew played a 5 gallon bucket. Another show at a punk house I just fast forwarded reel to reel tapes while a couple people improvised. I think my friend Jeff played guitar and Scott played a drum kit with a marching band drum for the bass kick. It was kind of a disaster and people did not like it but I kept forming bands of random friends under the umbrella of Exploding French. It kind of left my focus after that, other members sort of took over and renamed the band “Hassle Power Ride” I would still play with them but I would get on and off the stage during sets. In portland I played bass in a band called Gomi Giri which was a pretty interesting line up. Bass, drums, accordion, and banjo. I was in a band with some of the members of Hochenkeit called The Cherry Blossoms that was a lot of fun. That was the beginning of me using a computer for music (I built my own laptop inside of a briefcase). After my solo release I started getting invitations to play solo shows as Squim. Played at the Debacle fest in Seattle a few times. Did a short west coast tour with Garek Druss and Jeremy Long from Tecumseh and Pussygut. More recently I played a noise show with my son as “Lazer Shrub” and then of course one show so far with “KalloHumina”! 6. Often in life we are forced at gunpoint to relocate to a desert island that has a killer stereo with a 5 disc changer. Typically your captives will allow you to choose 5 albums from their unfathomably complete library to fill it with. What discs would you choose? Talking Heads - Remain in light Sun Ra - Angels and Demons at Play Can - Tago Mago Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy Cluster and Eno This will likely change if you ask me next week. 7. Please geek out and tell me about some of the live set-ups you’ve brought to KalloHumina shows and/or any of your other favorite combos you like to noodle with. For the last show I brought three tape recorders, one of which I discovered had dead batteries when I arrived. I had a Bastl Kastle which is kind of a micro modular synth oscillator. I also had a Norns Shield which is a Raspberry PI shield with community made software for all sorts of different uses. I ran the oscillator through the recorders then into the Norns. This was all being pumped out through my studio monitors. When we all started playing I couldn’t hear what I was playing and had less control than I would have liked but things sounded interesting in the recording. For the next show I’ll bring a similar set up but maybe swap the Norns for an Organelle which is similar in principle but has a keyboard. 8. Finally, I’d love to share any other projects you’d like to promote with the Skullcrushing Hummingbird readers. I have a Bandcamp I started with my son, his mom, and her partner called 123bricks. The releases are not thematically consistent but there are a few great albums on there depending on what you’re in the mood for. 123bricks.bandcamp.com
Previous KalloHumina Q & As
Visual Noise
Kafka Blackout
Kafka Redacted 7
Some came
Slowly, wedged in
Confusedly under
Her skirt.
Falling rain
Feverishly horrified
His holidays.
I know the air
In my clothing.
Typewriter Hauntology #4
Live Author
Really inspiring appearance by novelist Jeff Vandermeer in conversation with musician Patricia Wolf at Lost Avenue Books
Submit To Skullcrushing Hummingbird - The Zine Issue 7
Skullcrushing Hummingbird - The International Arts and Lit Zine is opening up submissions for Issue 7.
The theme for this issue is “Self Portrait.” As always, this is open to your interpretation.
Send me your Self Portraits in poetry, prose, photographs, paintings, drawings etc.
Details : The zine is black and white with standard 5.5” x 8.5” pages.
Send submissions to larstonovich at gmail.com
Submissions are due on September 22, 2025.
Space is limited and I try to balance text and visual art.
The issue will be published before the end of Fall, 2025.
Contributors will get a deluxe copy on heavy paper.
Spread the good word!
Long live the Hummingbird!
Life In Dystopia
Dear future anthropologists, Those of us in 2025 who are familiar with the basics of Christianity (13 years of Catholic School over here), and basic critical thought (surprisingly also learned in Catholic School) can not help being utterly perplexed by so-called Christianity in America. The kind that loves guns and is obsessed with hating trans people (and gay people and women and non-white people etc etc) and has no problem with genocide. How the hell can they possibly account for this? I figured it out… although I do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, I thought some things attributed to a guy by that name were pretty cool. For instance: Bible, King James Version (the ur-text mangled hypocrites) Matt.22 Verses 34 to 40 [34] But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. [35] Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, [36] Master, which is the great commandment in the law? [37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. [38] This is the first and great commandment. [39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. [40] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. But fucking A! I think this is the loophole all of these so-called Christians are using! Their god is power and money and they love that god with their whole hearts, souls and minds. And as far as “loving thy neighbor as thyself…” They thoroughly loathe themselves!!! Jesus, my man, you really tried. I guess we have to be super specific.
See ya next week.