In Conversation with My TL Stars: Boni

Ask Robert Zimmerman how he turned Dylan… Bob loves the song and the song turned Bob Dylan. Under a new name, singing of things he may not have lived, does it make his songs inauthentic? Only a fool would say so. Then why would one ever accept being constricted by the form widely regarded as the “correct” way to create beautiful things? With Boni, we talked about many things, the one which struck me most was “freedom”, in the sense of being joyfully unconstricted and leaping into creation. Or in Boni’s own words “You should lean into your delusion” Take heed, there is a difference between what Boni means by delusion and the kind of behaviour usually associated with the term. I’ve been an appreciator of Boni since they first started publishing on an app I made some time ago. Their visual creations stood above almost everyone else’s, the kind of feeling you get when you know the person on the other end has deep love in their heart, deep love for the art. Aesthetic choices, references accompanied by music, everything just expresses immaculate taste. To hear from Boni, open the journal and see what they’ve written about the songs which have struck their core as of late.

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PART ONE: THE DELULU Back to this Delulu affair, what Boni speaks of is inspiration, following a feeling as it guides you through the wonderland. If you're a willing participant on this tour, you’ll see sights and shapes, new skies and details you’ve never imagined before. And you can bring those treasures back to us in the form of your art. As such, you are the first spectator and the creator all at once. You see, it doesn’t have much to do with “you” since you’re a passenger on this tour after all. And how easy it is to be a passenger. But most people believe in being at the wheel. You were chosen to go on this creative journey, one way or another, it’s impossible to come back with something inauthentic, so fret not. Yet the tour we’ve been sold by popular opinion is such that you must be at the wheel of your creation and be on a road which is “authentic”. By authentic, people tend to mean when we compare the facts in your art and your life, it should match. The surface should reflect like a mirror, the finger prints should match as if it were some kind of forensic process. More than that, they say your road must be full of obstacles and you yourself must suffer to bring us these treasures. That could be interesting, but it sure does put you at the wheel. Now you’re the one giving the tour instead of being a visitor in the wonderland. Now that you’re giving the tour, maybe you’ll never go anywhere interesting or anywhere you haven’t already been. Your art and expression will look authentic, pained and smart, some will clap and cry because they don’t know any better, but believe it, we won’t feel anything from what you made. You’ll leave our hearts sterile and it’s a feeling we can’t cover in praise and good appearances. Just as we can’t hide from feeling good in the presence of something great. Oftentimes, the form of beauty is surprising to both the artist and the audience. The nighttime silhouette of a man drawn by Takehiko Inoue or the growl of Otis, the art of Boni and maybe your own art. We’ll find ourselves understood and struck in the most surprising forms but never in the art of someone too afraid to ever go beyond themselves and follow the tour guide in that adventureland of inspiration. You either love the music or you love looking like someone who loves the music. One is the Zimmerman who lets the delulu turn him Dylan, the other is either nameless and forgotten or on a glitzy podium somewhere. You can still eat by being fake, scared and egocentric, don’t worry. This is not a “Procès d’intention”, I’m sure you’re well meaning and it's a whole ordeal to free oneself from the shackles of the learned form instead of the true form prescribed by the art itself. I understand we’re conceited, and it can be tough to not think about oneself. Taking the first steps outside your own walls might need the little extra help of “Embracing the Delusion”. It's a good shield against a world which wants to grind you down to an insignificant participant. A world which seems to refuse you at every turn. But beware of their delulu versus Boni’s delulu. You might just become a servant to a whole other ego machine. It’ll be about what you can do, what you can become, how you can manipulate the universe for your own selfish bidding. But it still won’t be about the song you see… Boni’s delusion is all about the song, the adventure it takes you on using your life as the vessel, a conduit. That freedom to dream is joyful, liberating, fun and all the superlatives you can throw at it. The other is a crutch one day and a shackle the next.

PART TWO: THE CONDITION One way or another you may find yourself being admired one day… People will try to command you about how they want to admire you and how you should connect with them. “Please, come sit on this couch, tell us the process so we can revel in your intellect and break down the magic in your art.” This is one more form which on the surface seems to serve love but actually feeds separation. They want to revere you yet be your peer, you should be relatable as a human yet unreachable and an untouchable pillar of morality. They want, They want, They want! This is our way of being connected with people we love and respect, right? They deserve the Dylan sunglass special.

Because after all, the pageantry is all good and well, but what does it have to do with the songs? The pageant does not serve to connect our hearts at all, it just pollutes every mind with what Bob thought the song was supposed to mean. Every word Bob says will give people an opportunity to disagree, to separate, to change the image in their minds, to feel him less. Much less than when they just listen to the songs. And even when you feel him, when you love him because you think alike, it’s one more opportunity to aggrandize yourself through him, to bring him down and raise yourself up to his level. None of this has anything to do with our hearts, our love or bringing beauty in the world. Listen to the songs, come to the show, see this fit. In that unspoken, we’ll actually connect, feeling to feeling, not brain to brain. You wonder so much about how we can be together, using only your brains for analysis, when you just need to play the song. You work harder than any scientist, pondering what makes humans happy and the kind of creatures we are, when you just need to be with friends at the Dylan show during sunset, and without an explanation from anyone, your visceral intelligence will be given all the answers it ever needed, and for a moment, life is worth living again. So, Dylan must protect that sunset for your own sake by evading your surgical intentions and Boni must lean into the delulu for the sake of creating something we’ll actually feel. Everything else is a seed for separation and a distraction from the pure creations. See, songs and other creations are full, they contain everything, let them teach us and let us allow ourselves to be led by them.

PART 3: THE SEPARATION Must we really sit and have an explicit conversation about your beliefs and mine as if that were the only way to understand each other, or can we be Japanese about it? Who here has never heard one thing on the surface yet understood what a person actually meant underneath the words? This seeming cat and mouse game has nothing to do with avoidance or dishonesty but everything to do with protecting each other, our hearts and our harmony because we love each other and the intellectual exercise of trying to decrypt another through explicit words would only mire us in wrongness. As we saw above, Dylan won’t explain the song for you, come to the show and your body will receive all the truths the universe has to offer. After all, who hasn’t felt the soft touch of a person who loves us, the care in the meal prepared for us, a loved one’s presence, gentleness and adorable awkwardness. The way our friends dress on given days, can’t we tell how they feel and who they are? Can’t you see the changes in your friends, the new glow on their faces? Are you really paying attention? Watching and listening, are you really here? Those things contain more truth than what any “deep” discussion could ever achieve, you feel it. Dylan doesn’t owe his friends or relatives any explanation either, he just showed up to the birthday party for some cake just like everyone. But you’ll believe he’s holding out and rejecting them, when of all the places he could be in the world, he is just right here. But are you? They want to talk about this and that instead of holding hands and sharing in a joke. It’s all so injurious.

PART FOUR: ASCENSION We must reject all these forms which on the surface are paved with good intentions and look like truth seeking and heart mending methods but in reality only injure and separate. So no, Dylan will never break down his self or his songs for you. It’s all already clear to see if you looked and listened. Boni will never be constrained by the factoids of their life but always embrace the true adventure creation requires, as delusional as it may seem. And no, we will never sit down and have a conversation the way you imagine. I love us too much for that. Why would I hurt us in an exercise so few can actually do? And were we to succeed in that deep discussion, all we’d ever find was that the truth is beyond words anyway and it was always there. Asking me if I’m venturing into fashion, don’t you see this coat?

The action of trying to free yourself from your clothes by stretching them out due to the immense heat has led it to loose its shape , unbuttoned shirt, loose tied tie , loose collar muslin tank top, loose lace. Just a look inspo for Spring/Summer