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Explorations into art, humanity, and personal development, by musician, ideasmith, creative adventurer, and social entrepreneur, Adam Farouk.

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Watershed 2020

12/31/2020

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I’m going to keep this brief as, to many of us, this year has indeed been a bear, and I would be the first to cheer on and endorse time away from devices, social media, and even the internet—if possible, as 2020 draws to a close and its successor winds up to bat.

I think my primary takeaway from this year has been the annoyingly not-obvious observation that the future and the past, despite looking as though they are on a linear spectrum with one another, are very much not, and that the present moment can be used as a tool, at any point, to alter the trajectory of what comes next by making changes, even infinitessimal ones, to what is happening now. And I say this as someone who is by no means an optimist. But there were many realities at the beginning of this year that defined my life. A borderline episode landed me briefly hospitalized, and my intrusive thoughts (OCD) were putting me on a constant state of high-alert (I was registering them at 4-5 out of 5 every day), meaning I was spending most of my days with my eyes closed, at least when I didn’t have to have them opened. I had no idea how I was going to live through these symptoms for another year. 

We get to the end of this year, and my life couldn’t be more different. In many ways I don’t understand how it happened. How, somewhere along the way, did I start being able to keep my eyes open during the days. How is it that now I see life with a sense of calm, that when I read journal entries written by me from years passed, trying to make sense of all the pain and suffering that was going on inside every minute of every day, I don’t recognize that person, let alone identify with him. Yet I know I was him, that I am him. And that moment of recognition is always a little tricky, because if I am that person, then those feelings, the ones that overrun and sweep me away, the ones that make cooperative dialogue difficult and relationships impossible, the ones that think, every afternoon quite casually, that I would be better off dead than alive, are still inside me.

I try not to dance down this road too much. The prettier (or, in this case, more dramatic) the flower, the farther from the path. I have a good set of therapists now (as opposed to the one from Mclean who refused services to me because she was convinced having just met me that I wasn’t being serious enough about my recovery. Someone out there might call her a b****, but I know three female dogs personally, and, they are some of the nicest people I've met. So, she’s a dickhead. There you go.) In any case, I have a good set of therapists now, one of whom often reminds me not to look for silver bullets. And, despite my predilections towards doing so, I agree with him. We’ve discussed how progress is often a thousand tiny steps, or nudges, or anything, small and seemingly fleeting, the culmination of which can steer that steamship out of the way of that iceberg. Tiny, tiny steps. And thousands of them. I suppose, for me, the key was to develop a practice. To keep going, no matter how stupid I felt the work was, how little it helped me at the beginning, even days when I didn’t have faith, to bear down and do what little I could to forge a different reality, a different life.
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The other thing I take from this year is a sense of gratitude. I use that word a lot (thankfully, I think it does mean what I think it means).This is the counterweight to the above idea. The ability to look at everyday and just feel a sense of fulfilled contentment about the work done for the day. And the ability to lose that sense of goal-orientedness, to be able to laugh and smile and be in love with the journey you’ve taken, today, thinking nothing of how far away you still might be from your ultimate goal, letting go of grasping to things that will inevitably be swallowed by the forces of time: dark-colored hair, optical and aural acuity, effortless joint strength, a vociferous appetite, relationships, people, places, and things; these are all what I mean by gratitude. It doesn’t involve incantations or prayers or any kind of gobbledegook that ritualizes a process that is so deep and inscrutable that the experience of it really goes beyond expression. When I look into my darling dog Mia’s eyes and she looks right back into mine, I have no words for that moment, but I know it’s special.

So. Have an excellent start to 2021. I generally don’t like telling people what to do, but I might go so far as to share something I’m doing for myself this new year’s, which is: stop saying how 2021 will be “better” than 2020. I mean, seriously, folks. Why would you do it? WHY would you DO IT?! :) But seriously, for anyone who’s read this, thanks for sharing in some random musings of a random muso. I look forward to seeing you at some point next year, which I now graciously accept, free of expectation. 

Salut!

-AF

Wishing you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR 2021 :) 

Title Inspiration: Watershed (Saliers), Indigo Girls
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Please Release Me

12/24/2020

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Greetings. It is I.

Here is the year-end summary of 2020 #BlueDorian publications and releases. If you didn't get to check them out the first time, here's a list of all of them, in one place:

Commercial Releases

The following products are now available for sale at the bluedorian online store.
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  • Faerworld Daughters of Time, Season One, Episode One
  • Faerworld Daughters of Time, Season One, Episode Two
  • Faerworld Daughters of Time, Season One, Episode Three
  • Faerworld Daughters of Time, Season One, Episode Four
  • Faerworld Daughters of Time, Season One, Episode Five

Demos

The following music tracks are available to stream, either on their respective BlueDorian project page, or (coming soon) on Soundcloud.com.
  • ​Breathe My Air Today (feat. Renée Dupuis) - Continuity
  • We Can Have It All (feat. Renée Dupuis) - Ray of Sunshine
  • Make My Day (a cappella) - Vox Globale
  • Gwen's Theme - Daughters of Time
  • Vagabond (a cappella) - Vox Globale
  • Four Seasons Theme - Daughters of Time

Visual Art

The following illustrations and designs are available, to view, as follows:
Gwen (Daughters of Time, character design) - Daughters of Time
Cameron (Daughters of Time, character design) - Daughters of Time
Roya (Daughters of Time, character design) - Daughters of Time
Anneka - (Daughters of Time, character design) - Daughters of Time

Wishing you all a happy holiday season :) from all of us at BlueDorian.
All material is © BYIP Creative Media 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Title Inspiration: Please Release Me (Eddie Miller, Bobby Dean Yount, and Dub Williams), Engelbert Humperdinck
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In Other Words...

12/21/2020

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A busy year has been had by all at BlueDorian Media Entertainment:
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Though the COVID threat has kept us all bound to our homes for the better part of our days, mastering the art of remote communication has proven very much within the organization’s grasp, allowing an effective collaborative environment to be assembled from the ashes of our previous, in-person-dependent superstructure. As a result, with a little bit of front-end effort, this has been our most productive year to date.

New faces

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We have the privilege of once again being able to list Andrew Goldin among the volunteer members of our general creative team. Andrew brings with him decades of experience in the fields of operations and human resources, in addition to an unflinching love for and dedication to the creative arts. A talented artist in his own right, Andrew has already made his mark earlier this year at BlueDorian, as a member of the creative team for Faerworld: Daughters of Time.
Valerie Larsen, a seasoned vocalist and longtime BlueDorian creative partner, has taken on the additional role of associate musical director for this year's In-Concert performance of States of Matter (she is also performing in it, playing the role of "Music"). Valerie is an adept and natural leader, and brings intelligence as well as poise and confidence, not to mention proficiency with music, to her role as AMD. Over the summer months, she took SOM cast through its paces, all to great effect.
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Vocalists Anthony Rodriguez and Michael Spaziani brought both passion and competence at their craft to the task of bringing to life the parts of “Heart” and “Rhythm” respectively in States of Matter. We look forward to future opportunities to work with them and the aptitude and wherewithal they bring to the roles they play.
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And finally, last but by no means least, the project Ray of Sunshine brought with it two new vocalists to the BlueDorian roster. Michael Kassatly, a longtime collaborator with Adam Farouk, playing the role of “Dredd,” and Derek Dupuis, a fierce multi-instrumentalist in his own right, playing the role of “Ray.”
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The AFO - 2020

The AFO continues to be the main driving engine for BlueDorian’s live music curriculum, though this year we've traded in our typical late-year event for a series of "at-home"-style filmed performances. It has been once again a privilege and a pleasure to have on board such honorable and talented individuals as:

  • Tim Reppert (bass guitar, sound engineering)
  • Elizabeth Lorrey (guitars, keyboards, vocals, sound engineering)
  • Renée Dupuis (keyboards, vocals)
  • Dave Lieb (guitars, vocals)
  • Andrew Jones (drums, percussion)
  • Jenga (mascot)
Do check out their stuff—I’ve linked their names to their various respective web presences, and if you are involved in music or putting together a team for some creative project or other, I could not recommend them more (or, for that matter, any of the newer names on this list). They’re all awesome musicians and fantastic folks, doing great work at a time when the life of the creative artist is rife with more than its fair share of curveballs.

In addition to all these wonderful people, working on these projects brought us back in touch with a couple of familiar behind-the-scenes faces: i) Tim Bongiovanni, the wunderkind behind Northgate Studio, and ii) Ray Tarantola, music copyist to the stars and for good reason. It's always sheer creative goodness to work with people such as these who embody true professionalism, and we look forward to more opportunities to work together.

Recording Projects

We were back in the studio again after an eight-year hiatus. It's been a thrill to work with Anthony J. Resta and Karyadi Sutedja at Studio Bopnique again. I'm super excited to announce right here and now, in my trademark low-key way, that we'll be releasing, in the new year, five new tracks, a collaboration between our two studios: a studio release of "Seasons Come and Go," a new #AdamFaroukMusic single; and four live tracks from the AFO Performance "AFO 2016: Undivided - Live at the Lilypad": i) These Games We Play, ii) Light Up These Eyes, iii) Never Look Down, and iv) Passing Moments. Look out for more info on these releases in early 2021.
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As part of the process of putting these releases together, we've been lucky to work with some fantastic designers to put together collateral and cover and release artwork: Jay Nungesser, Daniel O'Rourke (Blue Fox Studios), Mark Field. Please check out their work, and give them a ring with your design needs!

Story Projects

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The Faerworld Universe continues to grow; Daughters of Time in particular has been cantering along, with five "episodes" available at the BlueDorian Store, and more soon to come in the early new year. We've also started a companion series to Daughters of Time and all other Faerworld titles, called the Apochrypha Enigmatis. I've been told to be sparing with what information I share(!), but suffice it to say, a compendium of articles, stories, and other miscellany, the Apocrypha is intended to enhance the reader's experience by providing backstory, context, and other vantage points from which to view the principal story.

In sum, despite (or perhaps due to) what the universe handed us in the form of a singularly absurd year, including a relentless pandemic medical crisis (I, like you I'm sure, still remember where I was when news broke that my state would be going into lockdown), global and multiple humanitarian crises, collective crises of faith, in leadership, in our own ability to see through prolonged periods of emotional darkness, 2020 ended up, somehow, as a year for the books.

Go figure. I suppose 2019 was a nasty year for me with a capital N, so maybe I'm just out of sync by a year. In any case, what I take home from this most of all is a real sense of gratitude. Being able to to stick to the itinerary that we set up for ourselves, in this year's early January, when no one could have possibly predicted how this year was going to turn out, took guts, and grit, and gumption, daresay it - a little greatness? - from everyone who showed up and made things happen, even when, any day, they could have quit or stopped walking or done anything other than participate, and no one would have blamed them.

I am humbled by their efforts, and filled with pride that I might call them colleagues.

Travel safe, and talk soon.

​-AF

Title Inspiration: Fly Me to the Moon (Bart Howard), Astrud Gilberto
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    at a glance

    Adam Farouk (born April 6, 1978) is a Malaysian musician, producer, writer, and entrepreneur, currently based in the United States. He is known for his integrative approach to the creative arts, and frequently infuses his works with unlikely combinations of style, influence, and genre.

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