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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis
@johnpauldavis.org
290 followers 280 following 880 posts
Poet, musician, web developer. Author of Climbing A Burning Rope, Pitt Poetry, 2024 & Crown Prince Of Rabbits, Great Weather for Media, 2017 | husband of @mahirakakkar.bsky.social http://www.johnpauldavis.org/links
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 20h
Where Prayers Go https://johnpauldavis.org/photography/where-prayers-go/# photography
Cirrocumulus clouds in a very blue sky
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 23h
New episode of my podcast# theuncomputable : Upgrade Blues https://johnpauldavis.org/podcast/upgrade-blues/# podcast# poetry
The Uncomputable: Poems by John Paul Davis
johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 1d
4 is my 4th choice (I'm doing 5, 3, 1, 4, 2) but I'm voting for you anyway.
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 1d
#morningcoffeelisten Geese’s 2025 album Getting Killed. Over fluid rhythms, idiosyncratic interplay of guitar & bass, & eclectic arrangments, tenderness & anger slurringly sung with vulnerability in a weightless warble. Wonderfully wierd. Listen: https://johnpauldavis.org/url/listen118# nowplaying
Album cover art for Geese's Getting Killed
johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 1d
The Moon and the Morning Star https://johnpauldavis.org/photography/the-moon-and-the-morning-star/# photography
A waxing crescent moon and Venus appear low in the eastern sky above Moshulu Ave in the Bronx
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 2d
#morningcoffeelisten Vicky Chow’s 2022 album Philip Glass: Piano Etudes, Book 1. The pianist brings the composer's studies in tempo & textures to vivid life with sensitivity, a sense of fun, grace, & matchless, breathtaking technique. Listen: https://johnpauldavis.org/url/listen117# nowplaying
Album cover art for Vicky Chow's Philip Glass: Piano Etudes, Book 1
johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 2d
So Much Depends On How You Frame Things https://johnpauldavis.org/photography/so-much-depends-on-how-you-frame-things/# photography
Morning glory growing on a wrought-iron fence along Moshulu Ave in The Bronx
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 3d
#morningcoffeelisten Lou Reed’s 1972 album Transformer. The Velvet Underground frontman finds his own footing on this stripped-back, weird & queer album, employing his silliness & wit to mischievous, delightful ends, resulting in a classic. Listen: https://johnpauldavis.org/url/listen116# nowplaying
Album cover art for Lou Reed's Transformer
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 3d
You outdid yourself with this one.
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 4d
Listening to U2's POP this evening on headphones. I've always loved it for the same reasons many critics did not - its weirdness, its rough edges, the way it grabs more than it can hold. It's easily U2's darkest, most haunted record, & thematically it feels like it was sent back in time from now.
johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 6d
Up To Their Usual Tricks https://johnpauldavis.org/photography/up-to-their-usual-tricks/# photography
Sunrise behind the treeline & cirrocumulus clouds in the sky on the Cross Country trail in Van Cortlandt Park
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 6d
... and Bruce Springsteen, Kendrick Lamar, Kerry Livgren, Solange Knowles, Isaac Brock, Anna Tivel, St. Vincent, Peter Mulvey, Ani Difranco, Mistki, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Tracy Chapman, Common, Anais Mitchell, Thom Yorke, Roland Orzabal, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle...
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 6d
I guess that person does not know she is alive at the same time as Bob Dylan, Bruce Cockburn, Sting, Bono, Joni Mitchell, Amy Ray, Emily Sailers, Jay-Z, Guy Garvey, Vance Gilbert, Nick Cave, Earl Sweatshirt, PJ Harvey, Sam Phillips, Daavid Byrne, Tom Waits, & this list is just off the top of my head
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 7d
#morningcoffeelisten Vince Staples's 2017 album Big Fish Theory. Set against a shifting sonic landscape of stuttering beats, spiky bass & pulsing snyths, Staples examines the contradictions of rapid fame & the cost of transcending one's origins. Listen: johnpauldavis.org/url/listen115 #nowplaying
Album cover art for Vince Staples's Big Fish Theory
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 7d
It Was A Stubbornness https://johnpauldavis.org/photography/it-was-a-stubbornness/# photography
A small plant gorwing the space left by a missing stone in a wall in Fort Tryon Park
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 7d
New episode of my podcast# theuncomputable : Toasts To David Byrne https://johnpauldavis.org/podcast/toasts-to-david-byrne/# podcast# poetry
The Uncomputable: Poems by John Paul Davis
johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 8d
#morningcoffeelisten Christopher Tignor’s 2016 album Along A Vanishing Plane. Recorded alone live with no overdubs, the meditative songs combine Tignor's intimate, haunting violin with percussion & electronics in a cinematic whole. Listen: https://johnpauldavis.org/url/listen114# nowplaying
Album cover art for Christopher Tignor's Along A Vanishing Plane
johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 8d
A Trail To Lead You Home https://johnpauldavis.org/photography/a-trail-to-lead-you-home/# photography
Red fallen beech leaves in a rain puddle on the Pelham Greenway in Van Cortlandt Park
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 9d
#morningcoffeelisten Snarky Puppy’s 2022 album Empire Central. The 20-piece band captures a live set of new material that highlights their groove-based, funky & explortatory improvisations, delightful interplay & top-notch musicianship. Listen: https://johnpauldavis.org/url/listen113# nowplaying
Album cover art for Snarky Puppy's Empire Central
johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 9d
The Collapsing Empire https://johnpauldavis.org/photography/the-collapsing-empire/# photography
A decaying iron bar on the pier by Tubby Hook in Inwood, New York
johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 10d
Or: like how I know may way around my own home in the dark. There is real knowledge there, but I'm just walking, I'm not thinking "the light switch is ten paces from the desk, about the same height from the floor as my bicep" - I just... feel I'm in the right place.
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 10d
I use "feel" in the sense a musician might? I expect it's layered decades of experience. Like how a guitar player just knows where to put her fingers next. But I experience it as an instinct. Like how I just know that the coffee is about to percolate, or its time to pull the biscuits from the oven.
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 10d
I can often make a choice in writing that's, at the time, just feel, and then later, I can articulate a theory about why I made the choice that makes sense, but the theory *always* comes after the fact. Which might be true of all theory.
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 10d
Line breaks are all about *feel* for me. Actually, 99% of my poetry writing practice is about feel, now that I think about it.
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johnpauldavis.org
John Paul Davis @johnpauldavis.org · 10d
So Sauron/The Ring thinks it's found the perfect disposable ring-bearer in Gollum, and for *centuries* it seems that's the case, but it's all the qualities that make Gollum useful to Sauron that *also* make Gollum Sauron's undoing. This is interesting to me b/c it seems to be a kind of theodicy.