Atlanta, Georgia was a town racist and segregated and extremely unhappy when I showed up in 1932. Prohibition repealed, the Great Depression in full swing, rampant starvation slowly killing the nation, and Americans still managed to find the strength to make war over skin tone, fighting like children over certain color crayons. Atlanta proved no exception. It was a town on the move, and rising urban metropolis, divied up, disproportionately of course, with certain areas for people with white skin and other areas for people with black skin. The scene was ridiculous, ludicrous and vaudvillian, of course, and vaguely reminiscent of the Dark Ages a thousand years prior; or, further, of the cave-dwelling days of the Stone Age. Indeed. All things considered, sadly enough, humans still kept one foot in the water-cut caves in the days of rocks and bones. Silly humans. But they were working at it, though -- taking baby steps, stumbling, then trying again. Seperatism would be one of those stumbling blocks. Stumble, stagger, fall, crawl, crawl, roll. . . and so on. Humans needed a helping hand with sepratism, so I awakened Martin Luther King, Jr. He would bring down those barriers like the great walls of Jericho, with nothing other than his rightousness. Certainly, humans could use fewer walls between them. Walls restrict the flow of information, which ultimately hinder the evolution of the species, hence lowering their potentiality for ultimately learning light. But they continue trying anyway, albeit with slow progress, because they don't give up, which is good. Perserverance always pays off. It's a favorite bet in the horse race of life and immortality, without a doubt. And I found the man who would ultimately redefine perserverance sitting on his mamma's knee, bouncing up and down and giggling light-heartedly on the porch of their modest home in Atlanta. His father was a working man of God, as it were, which paid the bills, provided food and shelter. Everything was stable and loving and full of life. And the timing was perfect, as usual. The only thing seemingly out of place at the time, was I, Pi, strolling along through the 'black' part of the city, whistling softly, ignoring the stares of the curious denizens, drawing wrath from those who loathed seeing a white man in their grotto. This hatred merely added fuel to an already raging fire, of course. Racism, a conspiracy? No, just ignorance and fear. Feigning ambivilance to all this, I strolled down the street, to the front porch of the King residence, set a few feet back off the sidewalk. Mother and child ceased their playing, stopped to look at the tall, white-haired, oddly-dressed man stand before them. I smiled, said "Good-evening." "Good evening," said his mother, returning a smile sublime, a wary look. Martin just gazed at me with big, brown child's eyes. He hopped down of his mother's knee and toddled to the front steps of the porch. "Stay here, Martin," she said. "What a fine lad you'll grow up to be," I said, kneeling to the boy, "how old are you now?" He held up three fingers. "That old, eh? Well, say now, you're really getting up there. Almost a man," I said, looking up to Mrs King, winking. She maintained the wary smile, rocking slowly on the porch swing. I took a penny from the pouch around my waist. "I am Pi," I said, addressing both of them. "I wander America looking for good little boys and girls to give them this," and I handed the penny to Martin. He took the penny from my hand, became omniscient by and by. "Stand up, Dr. King.! Arise and be recognized! With ardorous breath blow the brilliant white light of innocence throughout the dark labyrinth schizims of racism and purify the Dream. This Dream now rising between us. Man's Dream. The Mayan Dream. This dearly dilapidated daydream otherwise known as daily living. Purify their ignorance with patience and perserverance. Show them how dreams manifest if dreamed properly, with vigor and zeal and unyeilding commitment. Unify all men unto this vision, dreaming images of God ushering mortals along the path to eternal living in the One Dream, mine, yours and ours. Strengthen the weak and the weary, those crushed underfoot and under thumb to stand up and call foul, citing fear, ignorance and racial intolerance. Remind them that skin color is entirely, ultimately irrelavant to the evolution of the species. Skin tone remains a remnant of genetic necessity from whence man lived under the open sun, now shaded in the sheltering ages of industry, science, technology and information. This is the Dream, Mr King, Choose to accept it. Before you spans the finest path to rightousness, spans a multi-fold one-way road to immortality. Walk it, and show them what it means to truly be a Man. Speak with the voice of God, and remind them what they came here for, which is this: "To dream the impossible dream realized in the evolution of Man, realized through the gift given humans eons afore the Birth of Time, the gift of whispering molecules revealing the essence of God and the nature of Existence. Tell them, Martin. Remind them of brotherly love and of the brilliant white light of unwaivering rightousness. "Give them this Dream pristine, my dear brother King, and receive eternal life, " I said telepathically to Martin there on the porch, while he stood there staring at the penny. He was on his way. Nodding to Mrs. King, entirely unware of the event, I bid her good evening and made my way on down the road again, moving west again towards the middle west. There would be no train hopping this time. Moving on foot towards the edge of Atlanta I walked, whistling the blues, became immaterial by and by. Just like that. _ _ _ Man first discovered rhythm, I recall, by striking sticks on rocks. He discovered the Blues not long thereafter, when the stick first struck his leg in lieu of the rock. This was the birth of the Blues. No other being touches the fecund lichens of mortal mud angst quite like a soul who sings the blues. It's music from from the source of suffering: the human heart, figuratively speaking. The 1930's saw the Blues rise from muddy waters and ascend like a lone wolf to a craggy peak, to begin howling and baying by the light of a fully-waxed moon, seeking nothing short of release. This was the Blues in puberty, in perhaps its finest form. Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker: these were the spirits who sold their souls, as the story goes, so that the world might come to know the fultility of suffering, the celebration of release and the divine beauty of the road that runs beyond. In short, it's the story of Christ and the devil told over and over in many different forms. Humans really relate to Jesus, because he feared and suffered. People love to fear and suffer, no matter what they might tell you. That's what makes the Blues so popular -- this suffering, and letting the fear drain away. Surrendering in to stronger forces. Surrendering, then escaping, to a better world beyond. That's the Blues for you. Yet if you combine the despondence and disenchantment of the Blues with the fervor of a funky bass and a solid backbeat you get something altogether different. You get something like Elvis. Elvis would bring the blues to life, literally speaking, with nothing more than a stout pelvic thrust and straight forward, twelve-bar rockin' Rhythm and Blues backbeat, no apologies, no quarter asked nor quarter taken. He would set the music world on fire, breathing life unto dying embers of those struggling for survival. His music would do to the entertainment industry what Einstein's Theory of Relativity was in the process of doing to the world of physics, what Ghandi's message was doing to the British in India, what Dali's paintings were doing to the world of art, which was this: opening eyes, speaking the truth and tearing down the Great Walls of fear and ignorance armed with nothing more than words and songs and pictures. Words, songs and pictures, which create various resonations, these certain resonating elements that, when combined in the proper fashion, bring about epiphanies, shamanic experiences, enlightenment, and so on. The trick, of course, is honing in on the proper combination of resonations -- the perfect words, brush strokes, tones, movements or expressions. Or, in this case, the perfect pelvic thrust and rockabilly rhythm. The world moved systematically towards stagnation with the angry, staid Intellectuals cooking up the stew and the Victorians all the while poisoning the concoction, and things were going to go from bad to worse, would require a little spice and alot of stirring from a particular performer with zeal, alot of loving tenderness from a singer with great fire in his belly. That belly would reside in Elvis, of course, and the fire he would show the world would burn forever, like the Burning Bush of Zion, or the Torch of Olympus. A great big hunk-a-chunk of burning love, that would be Elvis, belting out the blues like the Saviour, undulating like the Pagan god Pan. Now there's a wake up call. _ _ _
In the shadowed corridors of creativity, where the flicker of neon meets the hum of circuitry, Kevin M. Cowan weaves his tapestry—a symphony of words and wires, echoing through the digital abyss. His stories, like whispered secrets, unravel in the moonlit haze, each sentence a note in a haunting melody that lingers long after the final chord fades. As a technologist, he dances with the ghosts of innovation, crafting realms where the mechanical heart beats in time with the human soul. In this noir-lit zine of existence, Cowan's work is a haunting reflection, a mirror held up to the darkened alleyways of the mind, where art and technology converge in an eternal, enigmatic embrace.
Kevin M. Cowan is a writer, technologist, and artist whose work spans novels, AI development, drumming, and filmmaking. From his fiction roots in Nebraska to experimental media projects and cutting-edge AI, Kevin blends storytelling, sound, and code into one creative continuum. Explore his world — one story, rhythm, and idea at a time.
Music. Video. Visuals arts. All composed or curated by Kevin.
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