Hello!

I am M. T. Karthik, tapping these letters out individually on my phone, with both thumbs and allowing it to correct spelling as I go. It occasionally misreads my fat thumbs and autocorrects to some nonsense I walk back to correct – dumbass AI.

I began blogging on WordPress 15 years ago and created several blogs for different purposes. I started this blog as a journal and archive – to store projects and art and writing and to date stamp it as evidenced.

As I left journalism or reporting as an occupation, I wanted a place to report on places or comment on things. I never really spent any energy shopping any of this stuff,  just wanted to express it.

I am a consistent and voluminous documentarian.

As that happened, this blog became, on occasion, a place to rage against what has been going on all around me. The flat, superficial, corporate-controlled pseudo-culture of every platform. The manipulation. Deeeeeeepfake.

This became more BLOG-like as the rest of you moved on to Social Media. You agreed to restrict yourselves and to just give everything away … to Musk, to Zuckerberg. And to be slammed by data-thieving ad-robots. I couldn’t do it.

I NEVER posted to FB. My experience on Twitter was for exactly ten years: April 4, 2011 to April 4, 2021 – stopped before Musk bought it. But it is there as a document. (I have recently joined BlueSky for the same reasons).

You have all sped shit up to near blindness, I surf you. I mean, I’m not going to not use your conveniences.

I have used WordPress and YouTube the most – to store HUGE amounts of video, stills, writings and images d’art for 15 years. It seems appropriate to wrap it up this year.

But now, I want to produce every day, or at least, as much as possible over the next 230 days.

This will include continuing to add material from the 20th century, back-dated and evidenced on the blog. I have lots of video, photos and writings stored on MD, .dat, hard drives, thumb drives, 35 mm slide and film footage that I can post here for archival purposes.

I will NOT be doing the same with the material I inherited from my father. His 35mm slides, letters and notes are under much greater scrutiny, and for release posthumously to a broader audience – for publication.

I will also be producing new material including LIVE BROADCASTS over the next few months. It’s a good way to go out – creating regular content for a broad audience.

Over the last 5 years of long voyages, I have met new readers in Amsterdam, India, Bangkok, Bali, Buenos Aires and Uruguay.

And, since I feel I have sufficiently copyrighted and trademarked my 1997 use of “writist” as coinage through the publication of “The Writist,” in the Sunset, a new group of readers in SF may have popped in, as well.

You know what a writer is. You know what an artist is.

Now you know The Writist.

mtk.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Karthik