Sleep on it

The works & tumblrings of Nick Alan

[mrnickalan]

Isolation sent me. How is everyone?

[mrnickalan]

One of two gems discovered and later purchased from the @vampmusicnart stack at @rootsanbranches tonight. Very nice vibes all around. Might share more in the near future. Until then, goodnight! #soul #rnb #60s #records #jackieedwards #jamaica (at ELL San Francisco)

[mrnickalan]

Some recording happened. @gechologic #gecholoopsynth

[mrnickalan]

Street view #SanFrancisco. (The latest issue of @gagosian is pretty good, by the way.) (at San Francisco, California)

[mrnickalan]

Currently listening to and thanking God for Terry Callier. I can’t fathom the loss felt by his closest admirers at the time of his passing in 2012. He and his music were a rare gift. #WhatColorisLove #TerryCallier #soul and #jazz and other inexplicables permeate.

https://open.spotify.com/track/39Kw481vusfgsrx68s7g5k?si=viGSe9DEQPualnHO-iXUzg

[mrnickalan]

Planning to post more illustration work alongside the writing. Here are some entries from one of my sketchbooks. Featured are some of my designs for Jeeves, based on the famed Wodehouse character. I enjoy working in environments that demand quick turnover and a focus on gesture. See you soon. – Nick

[mrnickalan]

Created a playlist on Spotify. Jazz, outsider club sounds, and much more, in thirty tracks. Enjoy.

— Nick

(via https://open.spotify.com/user/mrnickalan/playlist/0QKcR2icuEx4vPV4GXT3SN?si=MQr1bMiwT3Stp78Pw8YIcQ)

[mrnickalan]

To whom it may concern

Hi there. 

So, I’m currently lying stomach-down on the floor of my room, writing something (this post, actually)—which is the kind of thing I normally do, except the words get texted out to a good friend of mine who has less time on his hands than I have; but I’ll cut to the chase. Some time ago, I started this tumblr with the idea that it may become useful one day. I believe that day—the day before my thirtieth birthday—has come.

At present I have two followers. To one of them: thank you for putting up with the silence. I will endeavor to be less silent from now on. To the other: I’ll try to text less and write/post/draw/whatever more and just make it public. I often talk about how unafraid I am about sharing my work, and it’s time I lived up to those words. Here’s to more and better things.

- Nick

PS: Here’s a snap from a recent notebook entry, part of a spate in which I’ve been working out a story that first came to me in fevered images during the early stages of flu. The flu is gone, the madness has not left me. Enjoy.

[mrnickalan]

Status. (From a notebook entry, page dated in February. I discovered it while flipping through to find space for a new thing I'm writing.) Goodnight, friends. Wobble on.

[mrnickalan]

I take photos sometimes.

[mrnickalan]

[Edited Feb. 15, 2018]

No Claude-Lorrain sky lights my path, save in the low rent rooms of my huddled and slowly-recovering memory, but that is plenty. A life is compressed there, flickering amid the unknowable gap of an endless field. From one session to the next, the memories change—their shape, their order, their feeling—but there is one that surfaces, like oil on water, to borrow a line from Cervantes, and it is changeless.

This room buzzes, brisk, with dappled halos of rose-petal fuzz, like the background of an old movie-star glamor shot. I am lying down and through dandelion seeds of light I see them: a pair of green-gray pearls that should belong only to dreams and the youthful distortions of love’s true nature. There is a voice, too—I know there is—but it is confused and fleeting, so that when I turn to identify the speaker, there is no one, only the numinous outline of a someone, and thoughts; they are hazy and inexplicably musical. A piece by Henry Purcell, I think…

…Z. 379 ‘If music be the food of love, sing on’.

And I half-expect the notes to materialize, but they don’t, and they don’t need to. I close my eyes. Closing is like opening them. The rosy room is gone. I have replaced it, maybe—or something has—with the field: a vast, grayish patch strewn with miles of bog cotton that’s been set alight.