A creative laboratory where C. B. Murphy, as Rogue Anthropologist, comments on the human condition via creative projects in writing, graphic arts, and objects with a surreal perspective and post-ironic voice.

Functioning in the mode of Renaissance man or Coenesque postmodern, C. B. Murphy thinks original thoughts, writes edgy stuff, and makes wildly eclectic paintings and objects. He inspires us to join him in the adventure of creativity.

C.B. Murphy makes things—all kinds of things. He writes novels. He comments on movies. He makes faux Day of the Dead masks. He pretty much does any damn thing he wants to do. He’s inspired by David Lynch, David Byrne, and Leonardo Da Vinci, not to mention the wacky farmer down the road who’s building a model of the space palace he visited on a flying saucer. To be truly human, Murphy maintains, is to function on all cylinders of creativity. In this virtual Creative Lab, Murphy shows us what he’s working on—essays, fiction, artwork, movie reviews—whatever. It could be a painting, a cartoon of a horrible job he once had, or perhaps a mind-map analysis of fedora-wearing men. His eclectic oeuvre embodies a mythopoetic view of a world where you don’t hesitate, you don’t self-consciously structure yourself according to how you think the world sees you. You don’t market your soul. You don’t wait to be famous. You be. You do. To be is to create. I create, therefore I am.
Don Draper and Sitting Bull: what they have in common
By   |    |  Movie TV ReviewsNo Comments
Mad Men is losing me. I grew up on the cusp of the 50s moving into the 60s. I was 13 in 1963, a couple of years older than Don Draper’s daughter. My high school (catholic, all boys) was a bit socially retarded, so I spent all four years living out a slightly darker version of Happy Days including binge drinking on golf courses and pool-hopping (jumping into peoples’ pools when they were home.) I don’t have any great claim to juvenile delinquency but by the time I hit college (University of Michigan, 1968) the counter-culture was in full bloom and I wanted in. Without nostalgia. What fascinates me now about the 1950s culture is how short-lived this cocky, confident world was. It brings to mind the (much longer) reign of the classic Plains Indian culture that grew from Spanish horses into the iconic Sioux we came to know in 90% of the “cowboy movies.” Culturally speaking, the Plains Indian culture lasted a short time, approximately two hundred years from first horses to defeat of Sitting Bull. Why the comparison? Why the comparison?
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SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE… right here!
By   |    |  Personal ReflectionsNo Comments
I’m not a lifestyle guru but if I was I’d ask me (anyone): Why do you think you deserve a website? I mean, there’s Facebook, etc. For real. To have a website means you think you have something to “offer” the world. Something for sale perhaps. Something to give, even better. A website should be more than a lonely cry in the wildnerness (“is anyone out there?”). But since I’m not a lifestyle guru you can take it ironically (or any way you like) when I say I have found the SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE. I am totally sincere (and also laughing out loud) when I say this. Is that too surrealist? OK, let me go all Chakpa Preedo on you for a minute. [Chakpa Preedo is my alter ego, or one of my ‘multiples’ who actually thinks he is a lifestyle guru. Don’t shatter his illusions.]  
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