maxbenign (@maxbenign) · DIRTY

maxbenign

@maxbenign

I like disco, death metal, and wildflowers, for starters. He/they. MKE.

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maxbenign@maxbenign· 23d

At the Sculpture Garden, everything is sculpture Future Ruin

A "wave" style bike rack with peeling black paint, nearly overgrown by wildflowers.

maxbenign@maxbenign· 23d

At the Sculpture Garden, everything is sculpture Treefalls

Deadfall blocks a mowed grass path under an April blue sky and clouds. A few tall spruce and bare trees in the background. The fallen tree's trunk, branches, and shadows form a shape like a shattered star.

Fallen live spruce tree, with the trunk in the foreground, and an arc of branches forming a spidery half wheel beyond.

maxbenign@maxbenign· 23d

At the Sculpture Garden, everything is sculpture Beech (after Dali)

Photograph of American Beech tree. The trunk has a face formed by a bark "eye" and a small hollow from a fallen limb that looks like an open mouth. Two large limbs grow to the left as if horns. A large, spreading limb growing to the right has been propped by two wooden posts with cradles on their tops, evoking Salvador Dali's SLEEP.

maxbenign@maxbenign· Jul 11

Played Today (Yesterday): BOC BÖC BOC BÖC BIPPP TALK TALK TALK BOC #cdfriday

Stacked CD playlist resting at an angle against the screen of an open window. Blue spruce, steep shingled roof, and orange-gray summer twilight out the window.

In order played, bottom to top:

Pauline Anna-Strom TRANS-MILLENIA MUSIC
Boards of Canada THE CAMPFIRE HEADPHASE
Blue Öyster Cult THE REVÖLUTION BY NIGHT
Boards of Canada GEOGADDI
Blue Öyster Cult FIRE OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN
Various BIPPP (FRENCH SYNTH WAVE 1979-1985)
Talking Heads REMAIN IN LIGHT
Talk Talk IT'S MY LIFE
Boards of Canada TOMORROW'S HARVEST

maxbenign@maxbenign· Jul 3

disappointing but also opportunity knocks imo

screen clip of search result on metal website Encyclopaedia Metallum - The Metal Archives:

SEARCH RESULTS FOR "PUTRID SLAUGHTER"
Searching bands by name
Showing 0 to 0 of 0 entries

maxbenign@maxbenign· Jul 3

sorry (not sorry)

It's the title of Matt's book "My Gifts Are Hungry" but I made it in a Seinfeld font generator

maxbenign@maxbenign· Jul 3

right on time, they just finished working on my posts

Photo through a car windshield of a tanker truck emblazoned with "QUALITY REMOVAL" (The light *just* turned green, I'm not taking pictures in a moving vehicle)

maxbenign@maxbenign· Jun 21

Quiet! The sun has entered the house.

Shadows and a patch of sunlight on a white painted wall. The light shines on a double switch and brown wall plate with a raised framing edge. The sun highlights the gloss and texture of the painted wall. At the rightmost edge of the photo, just the back and leg of a wooden chair can be seen in blue shadow.

Patch of sunlight shadowed with cedar branch tips illuminates the corner of a bronze painted wall in the foreground, glinting on the gloss and texture of the paint. The same light shines, partly blocked by the wall's shadow, on a painting of flowers in the left background.

Starry white patch of sunlight reflected on the empty curve of a vaulted white ceiling.

maxbenign@maxbenign· Jun 20

Played Today (Yesterday, and This Morning): Abdullah Ibrahim, 1934–2026 #cdfriday

maxbenign@maxbenign· Jun 13

A logo, emblem, or title (with its original font) that remains as perfect today as when it was new.

The Black Mountain College seal. Designed by Josef Albers (?) 1934-5.

A heavy white circle with a black center, on a black ground, surrounded by white text in a sharp serif font. Text reads
BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE
BLACK MOUNTAIN N.C.

maxbenign@maxbenign· Jun 12

Played Today (Monday): "Teh Biennial Report / Kansas State" and other city pop classics #cdfriday

Stacked CD playlist on patio wall. June morning sunlight, green lawn, green leaves, pale purple petunia and indigo blooms.

In order played, bottom to top:

John Surman SALTASH BELLS
Lea Bertucci with Norbert Rodenkirchen THE DAYS PASS QUICKLY IN THE SHADOW OF IMMORTALITY
John Surman CORUSCATING
Henry Threadgill Zooid THIS BRINGS US TO VOLUME 1
Bobby Hutcherson CIRRUS
Ratau Mike Makhalemele THABANG
Mai Yamane TA SO GA RE
Spirit Adrift INFINITE ILLUMINATION (misspelled on spine as "Illmanation")
Reeking Aura ON THE PREMISE OF THE MOON

CD jewel case with white tray resting on garden brick. Cover is black, with a dark-haired women on tiptoes in a long white flowing dress and white socks, hugging herself. White text reads T̲A̲ ̲ ̲S̲O̲ ̲ ̲G̲A̲ ̲ ̲R̲E̲ across the top and Mai Yamane in the lower right corner. There is a Half Price BOOKS sticker in the upper right corner with a price of 7.99 and description "Teh Biennieal Report / Kansas State"

maxbenign@maxbenign· Jun 6

Played Today (This Week): Monday: 3x3M3+2x1M et al Wednesday: RumbaPadanoJavaBandaSanza Friday: The flesh carries the day #cdfriday

Stacked CD playlist sitting on a garden brick resting on brick patio wall. Screen door, brick pillar, green tree in background. Dark purple blossom deadheaded from a petunia sits on the stack.

In order played, bottom to top:
Robbie Basho SNOW BENEATH THE BELLY OF A WHITE SWAN (Disc 4, in sleeve)
3 Mustaphas 3 FRIENDS, FIENDS & FRONDS
3 Mustaphas 3 SOUP OF THE CENTURY
Oregon MUSIC OF ANOTHER PRESENT ERA
Prahlad Brahmachari SOUL OF THE BAULS
Sunda Africa NO RISK NO FUN
Sabah Habas Mustapha & The Jugala All Stars SO LA LI
Goat WORLD MUSIC
3 Mustaphas 3 HEART OF UNCLE

Stacked CD playlist sitting on brick patio wall. Pot with dahlia, brick house, kitchen window, green tree in background.

In order played, bottom to top:

Radio Tarifa RUMBA ARGELINA
Guano Padano S/T
Denécheau Jâse Musette AMOUR JAVA
Mahala Raï Banda S/T
Various NOISE & CHILL OUT ("Chill Out")
Various NOISE & CHILL OUT ("Noise")
Gigi GOLD & WAX
Francis Bebey PSYCHEDELIC SANZA 1982-1984

Stacked CD playlist sitting on garden brick. Pot with dahlia, green tree in background.

In order played, bottom to top:

Erik Wøllo GUITAR NOVA
Tatunane TANZANIAN BEAT
Inner Ear Brigade PERKUNAS
ASIA CLASSICS 2: Shoukichi Kina
Kepa Junkera BILBAO 0:00H
THE ART OF Kim Sinh
Philip Lewin AM I REALLY HERE ALL ALONE?
Kip Hanrahan ALL ROADS ARE MADE OF THE FLESH
Henry Threadgill CARRY THE DAY

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 30

Played Today: Somewhere Right Now in the Future #cdfriday

Stacked CD playlist on stone patio pillar next to a black planter. Three rusty washers lean upright against the stack and the planer. In unfocused background, row of Eastern red cedar, green lawns, backyards.

In order played, bottom to top:

Zakir Hussain MAKING MUSIC
Robbie Basho SNOW BENEATH THE BELLY OF A WHITE SWAN (Disc 2, in sleeve)
DJ Cheb i Sabbah SHRI DURGA
Boards Of Canada INFERNO
Andrew Heath THE SILENT CARTOGRAPHER
Tenors of Kalma ELECTRIC WILLOW
Robbie Basho SNOW BENEATH THE BELLY OF A WHITE SWAN (Disc 4, in sleeve)

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 29

yeah yeah, I'm getting to it...preview

Photo of sent from address on USPS label showing WARP RECORDS.

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 26

The Labyrinth at the Dekoven Center, Racine WI.

Seven circuit medieval labyrinth outlined with brick in grass lawn, surrounded by evergreens, half in sun and half in shade. A large stone with a dedication plate is to the left of the flagstone paving leading to the labyrinth, to the right a bicycle leans on a bench.

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 26

Seen on the way to the labyrinth: Castles of Racine

Two story Cream city brick Gothic Revival building with square corner tower, featuring "crenellated parapet, pointed-arched windows, corbeled cornice,...arched entrance", gothic drip window accents, and a crenellated corner spire. Formerly a Pabst Brewing Company Saloon.

https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/WI-01-RA17

Two story Cream city brick building in Romanesque Revival style. "CORBELLED AND CRENELLATED CORNICE. STONE LINTELS. ROUND 3 STORY TOWER ON [CORNER]. LARGE ROUND ARCHED ENTRY" The bricks are mostly sandy colored, darkened with age, with red brick accents along the parapet and tower corbels and red rusticated stonework at the base of the tower. Formerly a fire station, Junction Engine House No. 1, Racine.

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/record/property/HI11269/redirect

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 26

Seen on the way to the labyrinth and back: Home Of The SUB/What the fuck dude?

Roof and blade sign sign on a one story building with greige siding. Sign has a red cabinet and retainers, flat off-white faces, and a reader board. Sign reads, top two bottom:

Rectangular roof sign:
(Surrounded by red and yellow emblem of playing card style king wearing chef's hat, with tag line on scroll)
Lee's Deli
Fit For A King
Upper face of blade sign:
Catering
for all
Occasions
Inset reader board marquee letters:
THANKS FOR
VOTING US
BEST OF
RACINE
Lower third of blade sign face, right justified to fit with radius corner on the lower outside of sign:
Home Of The
SUB

Blade sign on building with pink and brown tiled faced.
The Sign has a flat face, mostly a white background with a bright band of red across the bottom. Neon OPEN section in black below. The lettering on the sign face is navy at the top, and white in the red section. Most of the face is devoted to a drawing of a kewpie doll in the center of a light clue circle, pointy curls and all, arms outstretched in what can only be called a Christ-like pose. The sign reads

KEWPEE
HAMBURGERS

No but seriously, what the fuck.

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 26

Seen on the way to the labyrinth and back: Color blocks; Frank Lloyd Wright; Rivendell-ass tree-lined street.

Painted squares of color in a vertical grid outlined in thick black lines - rows of four squares, pink alternating with red, orange with pale blue, pale blue with lime green, purple with white, orange with pale blue, pink with red. Painted on the cement columns of the West 6th Street Bridge over the Root River, Racine.

Corner where a cement bridge abutment meets a stone block retaining wall. The abutment is painted with squares of color in a vertical grid outlined in thick black lines, pale orange and pale blue, lime green, pink, red, purple, white. The stone blocks are a pale brown sandy color. West 6th Street Bridge over the Root River, Racine.

A skyscraper with rounded corners with red brick spandrels and multistory glass windows. The roof has a round brick wall surrounding the building's central core and elevator machine room (?). To the right is a lower art moderne style building with curved and circular shapes, also in red brick. Seen from beyond a tall brick wall. It's goddamn Frank Lloyd Wright's S.C. Johnson Administrative Complex and Research Tower and it's incredible.

Wide street lined with curved and twisting locust trees in early leaf. A sunny day, with a slight pall of mist just blowing in from the lake. Wisconsin Avenue, Racine.

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 16

Deadly usage of the phrase "As a matter of fact."

Photograph of printed text from R. Murray Schafer's THE TUNING OF THE WORLD.

Partial transcription:

'THE MIRACULOUS LAND "What is the sound of a tree falling in the woods with no one there to hear it?" asks a student who has studied philosophy. It would be unimaginative to reply that it sounds merely like a tree falling in the woods, or even that it makes no sound at all. As a matter of fact, when a tree crashes in a forest and knows that it is alone, it sounds like anything it wishes—a hurricane, a cuckoo, a wolf, the voice of Immanuel Kant or Charles Kingsley, the overture to Don Giovanni or a delicate air blown on a Maori nose-flute. Anything it wishes, from past or distant future. It is even free to produce those secret sounds which man will never hear because they belong to other worlds. . . .'

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 16

Picked up a $2 copy of R Murray Schafer's THE TUNING OF THE WORLD last weekend, incredible book.

Photograph of printed text from R. Murray Schafer's THE TUNING OF THE WORLD.

Partial transcription:

"....The idea of North, at once austere, spacious and lonely, could easily throw fear into the heart (had not Dante refrigerated the center of his Hell?) but it could evoke intense awe, for it was pure, temptationless and silent. The technocrats of progress do not realize that by cracking into the North with their machinery, they are chopping up the integrity of their own minds, blacking the awe-inspiring mysteries with gas stations and reducing their legends to plastic dolls. As silence is chased from the world, powerful myths depart...."

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 16

Played Today: >15000 birds/km/night #cdfriday

CD playlist standing spine up on wooden shelf. Green and brown vines, dappled afternoon sun and shadow.

In order played, bottom to top:

Bill Laswell/Pete Namlook PSYCHONAVIGATION
Arto Lindsay MUNDO CIVILIZADO
David Friesen DEPARTURES
Abdullah Ibrahim AFRICAN SYMPHONY
Bruno Coulais with Bulgarka Junior Quartet, Robert Wyatt, Nick Cave WINGED MIGRATION OST
John Cale FRAGMENTS OF A RAINY SEASON
Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya THE MOUNTAIN
THE VERY BIG Carla Bley BAND

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 16

Played Today (Yesterday): Have You Seen? #cdfriday

Stacked CD playlist in dappled afternoon sunlight, resting on glass candle jars amid purple and green vines. Bay windows full of green branches and blue sky beyond.

In order played, bottom to top:
Various SUBLIMINAL SKULL PALACE, VOL. 4 (in sleeve)
Michael Yonkers Band MICROMINIATURE LOVE
Reeking Aura ON THE PROMISE OF THE MOON
Flöjter PARIS BLOW
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. GLORIFY ASTROLOGICAL MARTYRDOM
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. HAVE YOU SEEN THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SKY?
The Jesus and Mary Chain PSYCHOCANDY
Seefeel QUIQUE

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 12

"uncounterfeitngly" is magnificent

Photo of text fragment in an open book.

Partial transcription, with ellipses marking parts of the text that are out of frame and emphasis added:

... Writing about other places and times usually
... -terfeit descriptions. To take and obvious instance, when
... describes Niagara Falls as making "a terrible squash" we
... visited the place; but when Chateaubriand tells us that in
... roar of Niagara eight to ten lies awya, he provides us
... about the ambient sound level, against which that
... be measured. When a writer writes UNCOUNTERFEITINGLY

From R Murray Schafer THE TUNING OF THE WORLD

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 9

Wildflowers of May: Crab Apple (05.05.26, 05.09.26)

Crabapple tree. A flower with white petals and long cream-colored, pink-tipped stamens, amidst deep pink buds and saw-toothed green leaves. To the right in the unfocused midground slants a branch with more pinkish white blooms. Mostly bare spring branches against a sky of sun-chased clouds in the deep background.

Crabapple blossoms. Sun lit cluster of flowers with white, pink-edged petals and long cream-colored, pink-tipped stamens, green leaves.

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 9

They've been dying for a few seasons now, and a month of heavy rains has accelerated the collapse of the bluff where they grew. The bank swallows in the cliff sands are wonderful to watch though.

Grainy digital zoom of a sandy cliff above Lake Michigan, with scattered grass and small trees growing. Just beneath the cliff edge the sand is pocked with dozens of small holes where swallows nest. A couple of swallows are silhouetted in flight against the blue water.

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 9

My favorite stand of ash trees isn't long for the world I think.

A small cluster of small, scruffy, leafless ash trees on a green lakeside bluff. Clouds and blue sky behind bare branches. A footpath leads through them, but it's blocked by yellow caution tape.

One of the ash trees on a grassy cliffside, dead, with yellow caution tape tied to it. A sign at the edge of a crumbling sandy cliff reads
! WARNING
Keep Out!
Unstable Cliff.

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 9

Played Today (Thursday, Friday): Double Bach Chiac Wonder Eddie It's always #cdfriday somewhere.

Stacked CD playlist on wooden stair step, indirect afternoon sunlight.

In order played, bottom to top:

Sufjan Stevens MICHIGAN
Electric Light Orchestra NO ANSWER
JS Bach (The English Concert, Trevor Pinnock) BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS 4, 5, 6
JS Bach (The English Concert, Trevor Pinnock) BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS 1, 2, 3
Stevie Wonder ORIGINAL MUSIQUARIUM VOLUMES I & II
Paul Winter COMMON GROUND
Kishi Bashi 151A
Various 60'S GIRL GROUPS
Lisa LeBlanc CHIAC DISCO

Stacked CD playlist on wooden stair step, indirect afternoon sunlight.

In order played, bottom to top:

Lisa LeBlanc CHIAC DISCO
David Byrne LOOK INTO THE EYEBALL
Eddie Palmieri PACHANGA TO JAZZ
Eddie Palmieri ARETE
Caetano Veloso CÊ
Cesaria Evora MAR AZUL
John McGuire DOUBLE STRING TRIOS
Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe KEDU AMERICA
Petr Kotik THE PLAINS AT GORDIUM
Wabotaï CIRCLE SONGS

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 2

mfw a new tetrapod drops

Scientific illustration from the linked article, depicting the open jaw of Tanyka amnicola, a front view with a stylized head, eyes and nostrils, with a detailed drawing of the bony lower jaw. It looks like it's giving a big goofy grin.

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 2

Played Today (Yesterday): I've Seen That Face Before #cdfriday

Stacked CD playlist in on round, tweedy ottoman in afternoon sun. Beyond, a pillow with a face formed from orange and green stripes and staring blue eyes rests on the mantle a patch of sun.

In order played, bottom to top:

Poi Dog Pondering S/T
Poi Dog Pondering WISHING LIKE A MOUNTAIN AND THINKING LIKE THE SEA
The Meters LOOK-KA PY PY
The House of Love BABE RAINBOW
Level 42 WORLD MACHINE
Grace Jones NIGHTCLUBBING
M83 SATURDAYS=YOUTH
Daft Punk HOMEWORK

maxbenign@maxbenign· May 1

Oh word???

Black and white photograph of jazz musician Sun Ra, wearing a beaded headdress. He has a quizzical look on his face.