Welcome
Hi, there. I’m Peter Brunette. Welcome to the space where I share the fruits of my labour in three fields of expression I’ve rambled into, following a fickle muse.
I hope these humble creations—some for the eye, some for the ear, and some for the mind—may tickle your fancy. If they do, and you’d like a heads-up when fresh stuff gets posted, please drop me a line via the link at the bottom of the page.
Working in the folk tradition, I compose songs that celebrate the joys and follies of everyday life, revel in the glory of the expanding universe, and stick it to the powers that be. Very occasionally, I work up the nerve to perform them in public—a big ask, since my singing voice is nothing to write home about and I’ve been a beginning guitarist for about sixty years. My one professionally produced album, Meadowlark, graced by the accompaniment of many fine musicians and backup singers, was released in 2015. I’m currently working on a songbook which will include the words and music for forty-seven of my original compositions and which I hope to complete by the summer of 2025. As a preview, the first nineteen songs in the book are posted here.
As a prose writer, my chief mentors have been Aristotle, Hegel, and Marx. My essays in history and philosophy deal with topics ranging from public works in the Inca Empire to certain arguments for and against the existence of God. In addition, there’s a book-length study, currently in progress, entitled The Artful Animal: Human Nature in Retrospect and Prospect. This is a madly ambitious endeavour that, if I live to complete it, will encompass not only philosophical anthropology but ontology and cosmology to boot. The aim is to counter the prevalent ruling-class ideology—and hence, indirectly, the crimes against humanity and nature which that ideology tends alternately to justify and to disguise—through a fairly comprehensive exposition of Dialectical Naturalism, a mode of thought as old as the hills and as fresh as a budding rose. The 50-page Prologue, posted here, offers a preview of the work.
While I still take on the occasional paid gig—a portrait session, concert, smallish wedding, or what have you—photography is and always has been more an avocation of mine than a profession. In her infinite wisdom, the Creator gave me the sort of mind that functions almost exclusively in words rather than images, so I’ve used my camera to memorialize visual experiences I’d otherwise be unable to recapture. My main subjects have been the natural splendours I’ve witnessed on this achingly beautiful planet and the good times I’ve shared with friends and loved ones—above all, our many happy adventures in the great outdoors. I’ve included a small selection of the former in my Nature Gallery and a much larger selection of the latter in the Anniversary Slideshow (which, admittedly, is more likely to interest my family and friends than the general public).
Tags: Peter Brunette, songs, songwriter, songwriting, photos, photographs, photographer, photography, essays, essayist, writer, author, historian, history, philosopher, philosophy, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada