3three_questions_raze shadow le crowl 1one.what book are you reading? 2two. what is your latest creation? 3three. what label do those who know you place upon you? 031125 ... raze [i] right now, i'm reading anything i can find that has to do with nico. she was an interesting mess, & i seem to be drawn to interesting messes. for every appalling thing she did or had done to her [& there are endless examples], there's some strange little bit like the time she introduced a song onstage thusly: "i wrote this song...for richard nixon...on halloween. i'd like to dedicate it to ronald reagan." there was something almost pure about her emotional bankruptcy. then again, maybe i just have a predilection for the macabre. [ii] my latest creation is a sprawling collection of sound & words. it's still in progress, but i'm pushing to finish everything before the end of the year. the nearest point of reference i can think of is walking through a cavernous open field, alone, talking to yourself & screaming at the sky. but less cinematic, & more schizophrenic. like taking a bath & looking up at the ceiling, where paint has peeled to form the shape of a middle-aged woman cradling an infant. [iii] the label i seem to find myself affixed with most often is "reclusive genius", or some variant thereof. i find it ludicrous. i'm not socially inept so much as i just don't have many people in my life right now whose company i genuinely enjoy, & i create more out of necessity than anything else. if there exists a music video that consists of a continuous shot of a cat mouthing the song's words via computer assistance, i'd probably be the cat instead of the superimposed mouth. 031125 ... symbol junky 1) the man without qualities 2) pedro goo 3) something unique for every facet 031126 ... shadow le crowl i just read your recent post, nakedfervour. it's very cool, kind of read like a screenplay fo some film i would see in the cultural district of some major city anywhere. your couple could have even been walking home after a particularly late festival showing, but then it's you who know where they were, what they did prior that prepped them for this piquant discussion. what interested me most was the small, important details that suffused it with such life. namely the senses, and the appreciation of beauty, existenialism, waking dreams, timelessness... and i think it reveals who you are somewhat. please consider answering these three questions as they tug at your soul. 1one. so the dude has an apple in his pocket and uses it to spark a conversation. is this spontaneous or planned? how does spontaneity fit into life? how important is it to you? are we ever ready for anything? 2two. she says,"there's so much beauty in so many seemingly unspectacular things..." list a few. 3three. she says, "it's almost satisfying to say that i'm ignorant." what could one do to make the unspectacular more noticable and make it flourish? and if i could sneak this in... "i take it you like the aftertaste?" i loved this, what a clever finish. explain the metaphor. how does it sum up the entire flow of the moment? 040106 ... raze you flatter me. thank you for the questions & the feedback. i'll try to be less vague with my responses this time. that little vignette was just a spontaneous, stand-alone thing...i don't seem to be particularly good at writing lengthy narratives, & i haven't tried my hand at much of that kind of writing for quite a while now. by "that kind of writing" i mean something where i'm not necessarily involved. both of those people are me on some level, but not an exclusive one. so i like to channel bits of myself into them, in what tries to be an unobtrusive way, & then let them do as they wish. with that said, i think the apple was planned, but without much thought given to where it might lead. more of a spark [as you said] than anything else. i have what seems to be a cyclical relationship with spontaneity. at times i like order & try to maintain a good amount of it in my life, but i'm also prone to throwing it off a balcony & doing things that are reckless. one of the places i'm more spontaneous [on a more consistent level] is in conversation. i tend to say things that don't make much sense within the context of what's being discussed, or at least not to an overly linear mind. i like words. i like playing with them. i like sharing them. i like listening to what others do with them. how ready we are for any given thing is probably an individual experience. some people spend a good deal of their lives ready for something that never happens, maybe because they spend too much time preparing & not enough time living, regardless of how secure they are in their respective places. but on some level, i don't think it matters who you are; life can always throw you a curveball just when you think you've got everything mapped out. it could be embryonic, or it could be proverbial. i don't think there is any kind of healthy balance. life is messy. but i don't know shit about shit, & the only way i'm gonna learn anything is by trying to recognize the lessons as they're taught. [ii] a lot of beauty passes between people in small pockets, whether they're friends, lovers, family or nemeses. it's just not always easy to see it on the surface. i've been lucky enough to catch some of those moments & recognize them. some of the best conversations i've ever had have been with children. it's refreshing to come into contact with a mind that's devoid of any kind of prejudice, even if it can't last. one afternoon, a little less than a year ago, a young girl walked past me with her father. she couldn't have been any older than two. she just looked at me, & held eye-contact until i was no longer in her line of sight. it was a powerful feeling, to know that i was being seen as i really was, by eyes that were too young to judge. there's beauty in silly things. trivial things, to some. vacuuming the house. washing the dishes. getting a handwritten letter from someone. catching someone singing under their breath when they don't think anyone can hear. [iii] sometimes i feel like i almost need to be manipulated, just to feel something. even if the emotions tapped into aren't altogether genuine. but i don't think i want to get to the point where i'm so desensitized that i slink around in some kind of apathetic stupor, feigning the appropriate general emotion when necessary. as painful as it can be at times, it's better to try to soak everything up like a dehydrated sponge. i guess the "aftertaste" kind of alludes to that—relishing the bitter with the sweet. juggling the extremes without trying to find a co-called happy medium. to be at once awed by life & appalled by it. your reality, my reality, or the modified version. i'm not sure what can be done to bring more attention to the simple things that are often ignored. the only things that come to mind immediately are clichés. all i can offer is what the guy said: "just don't close your eyes". [guess i kind of answered those last two in a backward/lumped-in fashion...] 040106 ... shadow le crowl you're wrong when you say you don't know shit about shit. you know your shit. i like what you said. a lot. it makes sense to me, especially the bit about life being messy and recognizing lessons as they're taught. your writing is intelligent and insightful but it comes from a foundation that is humble. 1one. what have you done recently that you would consider reckless? do you think we have this built in meter that keeps us from pushing the envelope too far? i agree completely with you about the best conversations coming from speaking with children. i work at a children's ski school in western pennsylvania. 4-7 year-olds. i could tell you some amazing discussions we have had about a variety of subjects. 2two. what do you think we retain from childhood besides an awareness of beauty or a lack of prejudice? how do you think we can approach life as a child does? but what i loved most was, "it's better to try and soak everything up like a dehydrated sponge...to be at once awed by life and appalled by it." i read that to my daughter and we had a very stimulating talk about it. 3three. could you carry the metaphor a bit further? once the sponge is rehydrated and dripping...what then? 040107 ... raze i can't say i've been all that reckless recently. careless, maybe, in that i'm not overly concerned with the fact that i haven't had a steady job for a while. but i haven't dabbled into drugs for about a year now, partially for contrast purposes. when i drink, i tend to overdo it, but i have enough distaste for hangovers to keep myself from doing anything more than flirting with alcohol. i've cut a lot of people out of my life, but that's turned out to be for the best. if there's one thing drugs did for me, they made it clear that a lot of the people i considered my friends weren't my friends at all. i think we all have an instinctive, animalistic drive to survive, no matter how fond we are of debauchery. it's possible to dull it, though, or to attempt to bypass it. i tried. sometimes i think i succeeded. but there's a pretty thick line between "reckless" & "suicidal". there's something almost fascinating about the desire to totally annihilate oneself. or, i should say, i find it interesting to read my writings from when i was there. it's a walk-in closet, but the clothes are different every time you visit. [ii] a former friend of mine once outlined a theory that went something like this: "when you're a kid, you can walk up this hill & it seems like the coolest hill in the world. now, hills are boring, so you have to smoke a joint to bring that excitement back. then you can walk up this hill & have a good time!" we were in a park. it wasn't a very well-thought-out theory. but it touched on something that i think is relevant: the general wonder of childhood. when we're young, so many things seem exciting & ripe for exploration. we create elaborate games to amuse ourselves. every new experience is like a little sepia-toned short film. life is expansive, & endlessly fascinating. even boredom seems interesting. i think, on at least some level, we always retain some of that aura of openness [for lack of a better word]. often it seems that children are the ones who can tap into it & remind us of that glow. it doesn't have to die. that's not to say that cynicism should be beaten & thrown in a ditch to die, but if we just kept small parts of ourselves open, without feeling the need to define everything so clearly & categorize little slivers of life, i think we could hang onto some of that wide-eyed, taking-it-all-in stuff. & it's great how you can kill the potential validity of an open-ended thoughtpile with a little word like "stuff". ha! [iii] it's no accident that sponges are disposable. we absorb so much, whether we want to or not. even with an outlet that allows the excision of some of the more toxic thoughts & emotions, it's difficult not to implode. it's possible to filter our experiences & the responses they elicit in such a way that we can approach them from a place that's somewhat detached, but i don't know that that's the best way to go about dealing with sensory residue. i guess it boils down to this: we are all conduits, overflowing with the excesses of life. you made me smile. thank you for that. 040107 ... megan 1. how is it that when you write you speak directly to me? 2. what author do you most enjoy? 3. what do you do on a friday night to yourself? 040409 ... raze [i] i'm not sure...most of what i say here is vague to the point that i'd be surprised if it made sense to anyone who wasn't me. the slightly_rehearsed blathe is kind of an exception, though. i didn't see any point in trying to blur that. but, given the way things have been going, i doubt i'll have much more to add to it. [ii] i haven't been reading much lately, so it's difficult for me to say. i used to read obsessively, but it was frowned upon by people who were close to me. i'd spit out the name of some high-brow author, but chances are i haven't read anything by him or her. i'm not very well-read. i guess i'm more interested in the people who come into my life & what they have to say. [iii] lately, my friday nights are spent drinking alone. i sometimes run into people i know, but the emphasis is on allowing myself to feel a bit less through the aid of alcohol. some fridays are more pleasant than others. this one wasn't a very good time. i'm sorry. i wish i could offer you better answers, but i've had quite a bit to drink, & i feel like obliterating my face with a jackhammer. 040410 ... jinx Numbness-while it has advantages at times-is not always as nice as it seems. (i) What are drinking tonight? (ii) Why drink that? (iii) Why is it that those who can feel drink themselves to sleep, and those who are numb prick their fingertips with pins to see if they can feel it? 040410 ... raze [i] i wasn't drinking any set thing. rye & ginger, beer, yag, vodka & water. [ii] i don't think there's a particular drink that suits me, so i like to mix it up. i also usually end up buying drinks for whoever i run into, & sometimes they're drinking something i haven't tried that sounds interesting. i had a difficult time seeing the appeal of a chocolate martini last night, though. [iii] i've mostly been on the first side of that. there doesn't seem to be any kind of comfortable grey area between feeling too much & feeling too little. i tend to feel too much, but trying to dull it often backfires & only serves to intensify the feelings i'm trying to muffle. it isn't so much about not wanting to feel anything, but more a matter of wanting to feel less. at this point, i'm feeling kind of scraped out. where normally there would be pain & bitterness there's just disappointment & a vague sense of being told a series of jokes with increasingly lame punch lines. i suppose it's a bit of a cruel cycle; feel too much, shouldn't feel so much, force yourself to feel less through any means necessary, feel less, should feel more, force yourself to feel more through any means necessary, feel too much, shouldn't feel so much...always searching for a place where you can just exist without excess or restrictions, when feeling seems to evade moderation. any words i may have had are gone, along with any flickers of idiot eloquence there may have been. i no longer possess the desire or the energy to toggle back & forth between the extremes. i want so badly to be caustic & surly, but i can't even do that. all i can do is flick away fallen eyelashes & watch them disappear. that's not a very good answer, though, is it? 040410 ... jinx At least it's an answer of sorts. 040410 ... cocoon - why did you pick the name (raze) and does it mean anything to you - favourite band? at the moment or of all time - whats your favourite fruit 040605 ... raze [i] i first came across the word "raze" a few years ago, during a fairly unhappy time. i liked the fact that it meant "to destroy/tear down", but seemed to be the kind of word that would have a softer, more elegant definition. i chose to use it here as a means through which to relay some [mostly] loose, fragmented words. i found it appropriate, for some reason. [ii] that's a tough one. since "band" implies a group as opposed to a stand-alone artist, i'll stick to that category & make it a bit less difficult. my current favourite band might be helium. "the dirt of luck" & mary timony's first solo outing ["mountains"] in particular. i have no idea what my all-time favourite band would be. in most cases, there are specific albums that stand out for me, as opposed to an artists' entire body of work. i tend to like the more difficult, obscure things. [iii] though i haven't had one in years, i'd have to say raspberries. it seems like i basically forgot they existed for half of my life, & just remembered now, which is kind of funny. 040605 ... raze dig the inappropriately-placed apostrophe in the second answer. 040605 ... cocoon Heh, gotta love those inappropriately placed apostrophes eh? Am I allowed to ask more? 1. Does your real name mean anything and if so what, and does it (the name)have any significance within your family? 2. Have you travelled alot, if so what was your favourite place, if not where would you like to go? 3. What colour are the walls in your bedroom? 040606 ... raze sure, you're allowed to ask more. [i] my real name is something i'd rather not reveal here. i like being somewhat faceless & not too sharply-defined. it has several meanings, none of which are very flattering. within my family, it seems to be the lazy way to name someone. one potato: "whaddaya wanna call 'em?" two potato: "uh...give 'em that name we give 'em when we feel like coppin' out." [ii] i haven't done a lot of travelling. i think i travelled more before i was able to walk than i have in the years since. i don't know about a favourite place, but i'd like to visit someplace like europe, find a decrepit old building, do a bit of work on it & turn it into my reclusive headquarters. [iii] the walls in my bedroom are white. i think that's been the case with just about every bedroom i've ever had. kind of sterile & open-ended at the same time. 040606 ... raze not to call attention to myself or anything, but i feel i am now better equipped to answer jinx's question [iii]. a week ago, while writing some shit [that i later removed] in one of several composition books i have lying around, i scratched out the following: "while i was making a conscious decision to drink slower than usual, i realized that part of the appeal of friday nights [& booze in general] is how much easier it is for me to fall asleep when i'm not thinking about shit i can't have & playing out some pathetic [...] fantasy in my head." the removal of that place between consciousness & sleep, where one can attempt to steer their dreams in a specific direction, or just imagine any number of things before sleep arrives...that's a large part of the appeal of alcohol, at least for me. i hope that answers the question a bit better. 041113 ... crOwl i. what is your favourite smell? ii. say something with three words. iii. which childhood memory would you want to see made into a film? 041113 ... raze [i] that's a tough one, because i tend to take my sense of smell for granted. but, after giving it some thought, my favourite scent out of all those i've encountered thus far would probably be the one i would sometimes smell wafting toward me from the dryer vent of whatever house i happened to be playing outside of as a child. there was something about that sweet-smelling hot air that made things feel simultaneously safe & open-ended. it's difficult to describe. i guess it's one of those nostalgic things. [ii] he stopped caring. [iii] in the second grade, i was good friends with a girl who moved away & changed schools. her name was shannon. while preparing to go outside for afternoon recess on her last day at my school, i decided to swing on one of the metal hooks we used as coat hangers in a tarzan-like acrobatic feat. of course, the hook broke off of the wall the second i forced it to support my weight, & down i came. looking around, it didn't appear that anyone had seen what i'd done, but i brought the metal hook outside with me just to be safe. i walked with shannon during recess, as we often did. i don't remember what we talked about, but at one point she kissed me on the cheek. it wasn't something she'd ever done before. we walked while i held the broken coat hook behind my back, knowing that this was probably the last time we would walk together, & i knew that i loved her in my own confused way, even if i wasn't capable of articulating it. i don't think i've ever connected with anyone else in quite the same way. it was just this pure, unpretentious thing that we shared. we were happy just to be together. i saw her twice after that. the first time was a month or two later, when she came back for her birthday to visit with her friends. i remember sitting cross-legged on the carpet in class, wanting to talk to her, but i was fucking terrified & i had no idea why. i found an m&m on the floor & ate it. i think i loosened up at recess & managed to play with her, but it wasn't the same as it had been before. maybe because i knew that i would probably never see her again. i did, two years later [& for about ten seconds] at a wheels inn. we had time to say hello, & that was about it. i sometimes wonder about her still; where she is, what her life's like, if she even remembers me. i hope she's happy. 041116 ... crOwl what is the difference between the sprout and the bean? 041219 ... raze according to joanna, it's "a golden ring it is a twisted string and you can ask the counsellor; you can ask the king; and they'll say the same thing; and it's a funny thing" i couldn't say it any better than that. 041220 ... crOwl and i wouldn't expect anything less from you. well done. it was right on, right on. and we should shine a light on, light on. 041220 ... raze the thing i don't understand is how anyone can call her voice "shrill" or "irritating". i think it's beautifully unusual and childlike. but then, i've always been attracted to unique voices. i'm curious what her speaking voice sounds like. 041220 ... crOwl 1. how are you? 2. what have you been doing? 3. what is your current inspiration to go out and live? (good to have you back. drunken_nothing) 060422 ... raze i'm good. sometimes we need to regress for a few hours to realize just how much we've changed. i think i'll always be relatively cynical and profane [i wouldn't want me any other way], but i've managed to find something approaching my own twisted happiness. it's an ongoing process of stepping back, observing and then stubbing one of my toes and saying "fuck!" fifteen times. i've been alternating between being busy and being dormant in uneven amounts. for a long time my sleep was so completely out of whack that i wasn't good for much of anything, and at one point i was practically a vampire; all that was missing was the blood lust and the power to seduce. but a few weeks ago i buckled down and manage to restore my sleeping habits to something approaching relative normalcy, and now i get up and eat breakfast most days like a "normal" person. i'd almost forgotten what that was like. for the past few years, i've felt this odd, increasingly surreal sensation of time accelerating continuously. it's a bit unnerving sometimes. i remember my stepfather, who was never a very nice or intelligent man, once telling me that everything speeds up as you grow older, and it would appear that he was right. my response has been essentially the opposite of what i thought it would be. instead of feeling an urgency to become more serious about the game while i'm still young and vital, i feel compelled to move at my own pace and surround myself with people and things i enjoy. which means i spend most of my time alone, doing my own thing. as it should be. mainly i've been stockpiling ideas and bits of things while preparing to throw myself into the most ambitious project i've ever attempted. i don't think i've ever spent this long building toward something before—normally i would just jump into it even if i wasn't exactly sure what i was doing or what the game plan was. this feels like something more important, so i'm taking my time with it. i'm not sure if i can pull it off, but i'll probably spend the rest of the year intermittently finding out. i don't know if i'm back, exactly...i find that i don't have much of anything to say here anymore. most of my words want to channel themselves elsewhere these days. friday night was kind of an inebriated fluke. i didn't intend to share that with anyone, but something told me to put it out there anyway. i think it was the rye. i'll always read here, but i'm not sure i have much left to contribute. i have no idea where my inspiration comes for anymore. a lot of it used to bubble up from anger, or a need to purge myself of something. now i just seem to be inspired by anything and everything. doing the opposite of what most people would like me to do is something i find especially satisfying lately. maybe i'm destroying the house so i can rebuild it the way i'd prefer it to be. or maybe the debris is enough of a home and doesn't need to be reassembled. 060425 ... raze my fingers missed the d in "managed". fuckshit. 060425 ... crOwl what is the project you are preparing for? 060426 ... raze it's difficult to explain without giving too much away. one thing i can tell you is that i was thinking about attempting to film a pseudo-documentary to capture the creation of the thing, but then realized that it would be far too much work for just one person. and right now i don't feel like spending the $8K necessary to have it look and sound as good as i'd like it to. perhaps i'll save that idea for a future project... i can send you a copy of it when i'm finished if you like, though. it'll be an extra-crispy surprise. what's funny is that i was thinking about how ambitious it was going to be compared to anything i'd attempted before, and then i started to get ideas for what i was going to do next, which quickly became something about ten times more ambitious. i don't know why my brain can't just stay focused on a few hundred things at once. 060426 ... crOwl definately send me it...let me know when you're ready and i'll give you my address. what are some of the projects you've done in the past? 060427 ... raze i loved having this dialogue. it's so odd to read now, years later. i was trying to answer honestly, and at the same time i was putting a concerted effort into not giving too much away, because i wanted to remain somewhat anonymous. that must be why the conversation trailed off; i was a little skittish about taking off the mask i was wearing back then. i think it's safe to say that mask is now buried at the bottom of a junkyard somewhere, probably being pissed on by a friendly stray dog. hey, there are worse fates for old masks. i think you're the soul of this whole red place, kevin. when you've been absent for a while, everything has seemed kind of desolate and...wrong, somehow. but as long as you're around, i feel like, on some level, everything is going to be okay. i'm thinking of mary, my great grandmother on my father's side, who everyone just called "bubi". she was one of those magic czech bubis you think of later in life with awe. if ever a person could be made of magic, she was. and whatever was going on, wherever everyone was, she would always get the family together for the holidays, even if certain people weren't talking. everyone would end up eating and laughing under the same roof, in her tiny house with the plaster ceiling that looked to my young eyes like it was overrun with tiny white stalactites. she was the bedrock. she lived into her 90s, and then her daughter (my grandmother, who i have no memories of) died. in short order, she decided she wanted to join her, wherever she'd gone. she probably could have lived past 100 --- she was still completely self-sufficient at 90 and her mind was razor-sharp --- but she just stopped eating and shut down, making a very conscious decision to die. once she was gone, the family gatherings stopped. no one else had her resilience, or her ability to cut through the bullshit and bring everyone together. i think it's sad it happened that way, but we were lucky to have her for so long. just as us red 'skites are lucky to have you. thank you for being here, and for giving so much to all of us. 121213 ... PeeT oh wow! thanks. i really appreciate that. seriously. and much appreciation to the blather gods who created this red world and faithfully maintain it for us. blather existed before the influx of other social networks and unfortunately stole many of the 'skites who used to participate here. i miss them and wish they would return. those of us who are still here are fortunate because we use imagination only. Carl Sagan said, "Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." i think our journey here has taken us everywhere and we still have a lot of places to visit. i wear a multitude of masks here. costume parties are fun. and raze, your gifts of music have united us and have become the soundtrack to blather. thank you, as well, for all you have given. 121213 ... unhinged kevin is the blather bubi...hehe that just made my day 121213 ... PeeT well, my clown name is biddy. pretty close, don't you think? biddy/bubi? kids have called me bubby... 121215 what's it to you? who go blather from