“Hello 2018—let’s find the starfish in our brains.” So begins Bolinas artist, musician and woodworker Charlie Callahan’s new publication, “See Life,” and for the next several thousand words, readers are brought into the author’s swirling manifesto. Locals may know him as a drummer in various bands or through his exhibit at the Bolinas Museum in 2015, which featured glowing blue sea urchins emerging from the wall and scavenged items he used to express dark ideas about ecological turmoil. He’s also an avid surfer and splits his time between sea and land. “See Life” both warns of a imperiled planet and serves as a catalog of his artwork. His abstract and tangential prose explores topics ranging from how human beings have destroyed the earth in just a couple of centuries to his social observations from a vantage point between real and metaphysical worlds. “I’ve never been diagnosed with attention deficient disorder, but my thoughts skip from one to another without filling in the blanks. I’ll write in the same way; another balloon lights up and I go there,” Mr. Callahan said. Three local editor friends—Ashley Eva Brock, Katie Eberle and Nicole Lavelle—cast an eye on his 9,000-word essay before it went to print. “I love Charlie’s brain, and in the editing process I was trying not to curb or tame it down,” Ms. Brock said. “I tried to make it more cohesive for people so they wouldn’t get lost and put it down.” Religious iconography and references appear throughout the publication (the cover depicts a starfish crucified to a cross). For Mr. Callahan, who grew up near the Bible Belt in Ohio, the way humans are destroying the earth is comparable to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. “I was thinking back to my childhood and how I was being obedient to a religious doctrine,” he mused. “Coming from a quote-un-quote Red State, there are really strong opinions on both sides. I was trying to challenge all of that from a more philosophical point of view. And people get more fired up about things when you use religious icons.” Ms. Brock, a clothing designer who shares her studio with Mr. Callahan, said “See Life” also can be interpreted as commentary on sea star wasting disease, which has ravaged populations of starfish and is linked to rising ocean temperatures. “They’re dying for our sins,” she said. Copies of “See Life” are available through Mr. Callahan, who can be reached at
[email protected].