Congratufabulations to Nicholas and his mad and merry crew of crackpot visionaries! After an improbable amount of work, and slightly too many years, his video game, Dungeons of Dredmor, has finally launched!
Tag: nicholas
The word “lethologica” describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
When Nicholas popped up on my messenger yesterday, “I’m in town.” I had no idea of the strange place he would end up taking me. He and Ben, a musician friend of ours, were over from the Island to pick up a keyboard of some sort, a synthesizer with a vowel littered name that sounded futuristic to the seventies, like Aurora or Beacon, the details of which I missed completely. They were very excited about it. To me, the synth had keys, it had buttons, I’m sure it splutters and hums and does shiny, strange things with music and sound, but it, however, was not the fascinating bit of our miniature trip. Oh no, the mesmerizing detail was the studio – a tiny, triangle attic, thirty feet by eight, nailed to the ceiling above a car detailing shop, walled with mad science.
To find it, we were led through a shabby looking suite of empty offices, white paint turned cream by time, the desks a papery brown faux-wood laminate with peeling chrome legs, to a vast, creaking warehouse space full of sports car knock-off’s and chintzy seventies boats painted lime green and touched up with tiny flame decals under every window. A clothesline hung on one wall, dripping with soggy car mats, under a row of incredibly expensive looking lights. Next to this, past one of the two open doors bigger than the square footage of my apartment, we walked up a thin set of stairs which led up to what looked like a sports commentary booth at a home-ground baseball game.
Opening the door was a step back thirty, fourty years. The smell hit me like a hoisted rag. It was deep, rich, and musty, a carpet of blazing old dusty rock and roll that’s been left to ferment under a layer of antique audio equipment, tubes burning orange, dramatic knobs, row on row.
The left wall, where the sloping roof connected downward, was entirely lined with faded LPs, more records than could be counted in a week, and boxes of small disks, a haven of trapped sounds, chords past understanding, enough samples and songs to listen longer than a year. The right wall was equipment, soft green lights, wires in spaghetti tangles in sockets labeled SUNSHINE HUM, INPUT, SOCKET WRENCH, LEFT OUT, FLANGE, rows of it, stacked in racks, screwed into brackets, higher than I could reach, above thirty years of synthesizers, framed in retro-golden, tinny metals, and deep black plastic. Between these two overwhelming walls of sound was an upside down forest of thin cords and microphones hanging from the ceiling, presumably attached somehow to the veritable museum collection of fuzztastic furniture.
Somehow in the overwhelming sea of burned tinfoil brown, Nicholas and Ben were able to immediately pick out their purchase, an unassuming, almost modern keyboard, not even old enough to weight a ton. The owner of the place, a friendly man with short hair and a boring t-shirt, who arrived on a motorcycle that looked slightly too big for him, offered us the record collection as a lot as he counted his money. We said yes, of course, who wouldn’t, and left, content, the smell of the room lingering on our clothes as we packed hurriedly into the bench of Ben’s WWII Swiss army bus, worried about catching the last ferry back home.
good news is on the way
Graham‘s got a friend, Christie McRae, who has an Art Show Opening called ALTERNATE REALITIES tomorrow night at the Bump ‘N Grind Cafe at 916 Commercial Drive. He says be certain to be there, because there’s going to be a DJ and free shots of espresso. He really leaned on mentioning the espresso, so it must be tasty.
Also, Graham and I are hosting Sunday Tea tm this Sunday, so come visit, bitches. I have been cocooned, I need to see your scrubbed faces to remember you exist.
This week’s been full of music and strange adventure. Jon Bartlett lent me Mervyn Peake’s first book, for one, Lung and I went to a porn theater, (which was a far more unpleasant experience than we’d supposed), my mother sang with the Now Orchestra for the improv Metropolis soundtrack for Eye of Newt’s Silent In The Park series, I’ve installed an angel in my house, and begun a drawer of personal goods at Oliver’s. There’s more, but trying to remember everything is like trying to read text in a photograph damaged by salt.
So last we heard, our girl Friday is sitting outside a backpackers hostel, waiting for Esme to come rescue her from the appalling chance that one of her exes, who is now filthy homeless junkie upon the streets of Victoria, may come upon her and attempt to molest her person. American Brand Fear. She’s sitting with her book, appalled at how much she’s read already, and beginning to worry about her phonecall. She only had a moment, did she convey everything needed?
Olbermann’s Special Commentary Towards Bush.
Esme was only late because parking was hard to find. The cafe was nice, (though it’s the only place anyone’s tried to pick me up by telling me that they’re an astrologer), the music not terrible, (Nicholas was playing in a corner that was pretending to be a stage with two friendly middle-aged men), and the drink Esme bought me was delicious, a mixture of hot chocolate and chai I rather liked. It was a fund-raiser of some sort, likely for a cat. A good welcome easy to slide away from.
After we went to a velvety restaurant that floated Goldfrapp softly over a crowd of beautiful people, but it was too late in pretty little Victoria for food, all they had left was small plates of unsatisfying tapas, so we ended up in a second-rate late night chinese restaurant with comfortingly unidentifiable lumps of strange coloured food, the same you’d find in any Canadian town with a population over 1000. I don’t think we got home until two in the morning, full of grease and weak yellow tea.
OK GO doing the impressive treadmill dance live at the VMAS.
Nicholas’ house is a wonder. His “Mad Uncle” renovated it something like six times. Camouflaged to look like any other pebble and glass fronted house, it pretends to be middle-class and rather unassuming. Inside is another story entirely. Nicholas lives in the basement, a 1960’s style wood-paneled German porno bunker complete with secret passages. The walls glows with a shiny oppressive veneer that inspires me to start collecting vintage Playboy covers for us to varnish onto his ceiling and the only way to get upstairs without leaving the house is to go into the washroom and climb inside what, from the side, looks like a medicine cabinet. It actually opens into a tiny carpeted passageway lined with moldering vintage board games that lets out into the floor of the upstairs front hall closet. Upstairs looks fairly normal again, until you take into account the stripper pole in the bathroom and the occasional mad scientist electrical box. (Apparently they make scary ticking noises and, in the past, have genuinely blown up in proper mad scientist style even.)
once you’ve found your way back
Tonight a whole bunch of us will be performing at Catfish and other Delicacies, Beth Brown‘s musical brainchild. (Nicholas is coming from Victoria to play).
Johnny Depp to play Sweeny Todd.
Have you ever met someone who tasted like wind? Their hands feel pleasingly tarnished, as if at one point they were molten. One day, walking, you may find yourself an inch above the ground. They will not notice and you will not tell them. They open their clear water eyes and the earth slips away, tumbling away like rainclouds. It rushes away with the sound of quick violin.
Treading on shadow, voice like the vectors of a moths wing, he is skin tattooed with opiates. Installed into his world, I feel the fortune-teller again, like my body is becoming a messy chapbook of small beautiful prophecies. My kiss becoming inexplicable, knowledge pooling in the crevices of my joints, ready to spill out and stain my lips with black twists of old-fashioned ink. His name becoming something other in my mouth, a brocade curtain illuminated as a religious manuscript, each letter exhaled as stars, reclaimed into treble clefs, sharps, bright notes of terrifying purity.
He has built a thousand ships so that I may capsize within them, day by day, every time I step toward him. My eyes are cameras that will never be good enough. Our plans coalesce from whims, they thicken and grow from thin candles to blazing soprano ravens. This is a man who grew up in homes, celebrating roots and history and form. He speaks of security as a casual thing, the waxing of the moon, as I watch and feel as a mouse might, worried about being trod underfoot. It is as foreign a concept as a rainbow in a catacomb.
Mexico’s Partial Vote Recount Confirms Massive and Systematic Election Fraud.
For those who are interested, I have been informed that the zombiewalk will probably be covered on Canada Now at 6PM PST tonight.
CBC TV as well as CBC Radio both spent the last 45 mins interviewing Andrew and getting some of his photos of the event, including the car photos, (license plate & driver). They’re possibly interviewing a couple of high school kids as well and the whole thing will apparently be on sometime in the 6 o clock news hour.
Apparently the driver of the car has only received a traffic ticket at this time. The police are getting in touch with Andrew tomorrow, so expect further details then.
Bush Now Says What He Wouldn’t Say Before War: Iraq Had ‘Nothing’ To Do With 9/11.
new icons when I wrote my newest resume
I barely know me. I stand in doorways, unblinking, standing and speaking words of conflict. I collapse on the sidewalk in heavy rain and half an hour goes missing. I hold him warmly close to me with a smile in my mind. I put my head to the side and try not to cry. Inside of me, things are changing. I remember compromise. You say this wasn’t your intention, I say that’s okay. You say and I say then they stood up and had too many words to say. Remember, this is what a little bit of love looks like.
I don’t like that I carry this so she won’t have to.
Every part disparate. I’m still unbalanced, so much is broken. I’m tidying now, brushing the pieces into a pile for later sorting. Which loss caused this jagged edge, which loss caused that. This year was many. I could make t-shirts. Arrested, Fired, He Lied, They Died. My humour’s the right sort. On the back would be a list like tour dates.
Which reminds me: support my Jesus Monkey Pants. I have this one. It makes me sexy like Snakes on a Plane would, which is something I meant to mention weeks ago. I have an excuse, I’ve been eating multitudes of candy bars. They’re not very healthy, really, and they’re making my thoughts shake. They popped into existence to fill the space left by the cessation of hallowe’en proceedings and they’re cadbury tasty, which is to say, not as good as pumpkin pie. I miss my pies. I didn’t carve a pumpkin this year, so I didn’t bake. Ah well, the Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible. (Also an ancient thing, I know, but it fit. You want something new, go find out about the underground city in Briton that’s now up for sale. Then buy it for me. I will send you nekkid pictures. Lolz. Now bugger off.)
I really should be in bed by now, but I’m waiting for dye to set in my hair. My hands are flecked with purple, a nice reminder of what the bathroom will look like in about twenty minutes. I’m being patient, though I don’t feel like it right now. The bed’s empty, it’s all cold tumbled gold pillows and scarlet bands of silk and I feel like the faster I fall into it, the quicker I can pretend it’s morning. Red shift myself into a different day, one where I might be sleeping next to someone. Alone is not terrific for me now, but I can deal with it. Alone without promise of company, however, is bad.
Nicholas will be here tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it. He and Esme are coming in from Victoria for a concert and dinner at Andrew‘s with me and Ray. He asked for Chris too, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. I deked out of rehearsal today before I could ask. There were issues with my roommate James that needed sorting, and tonight was really the best time to get it done with.
p.s. world, send new Explosions In The Sky, Porcupine Tree and Bethurum. thank you.
I should like tigers, not ponies.
A group of Social Elite out for a rousing spot of entertainment at The Banshee, Cedar Estates, Smegma-Upon-The-Rise, England
(L, Red) Sir Geoffrey Dupont-Beevers, OBE: A part-time druid and ex-Dundee callboy, Sir Dupont-Beevers received his OBE from Her Majesty in 1995 after successfully buggering a sasquatch. Now has plans to go in search of the Loch Ness monster with a specially outfitted rowboat. Much loved by the Welsh People.
(L, in Gray) Amorus Pye: American born and bred; educated at Eton, expelled for an unfortunate misunderstanding about the concept of ‘fagging.’ Now runs a highly successful chain of bordellos in Prague. Goes through fifteen polo ponies a month as a result of his rampant taste for virgin horseflesh. Thankfully Single.
(L, Back, Hiding) Adm. Gregory Japiro (retd): Achieved high honours in Her Majesty’s Navy of Sodomy; has retired from public service due to painful canker sores and burn marks on scrotum. Now spends his days hiding in bathing houses at Bexhill-Upon-Sea and groping eighty year old pensioners in striped bathing suits.
(Center, blonde hair, holding Mallet) Lord Ffredricton Ghastly-Finch: The only person in this group who is listed in DeBrett’s Peerage, Lord Ghastly-Finch is the current owner of the Banshee, Cedar Estates, and is the only person in the history of the United Kingdom to be expelled from a seating of the House of Lords for performing Unseemly Acts while the House was in session. Currently married to Lady Ghastly-Finch (nee Twatillary), Lord Ghastly-Finch has also been linked romantically with everybody else in the picture.
Lord Ghastly-Finch is seen here with his famous mallet, Gooley-Swatter. Normally kept under glass in Bath, the mallet is not in fact used for playing croquet, but rather is designed for Impacting against the Butler’s Testicles.
(Center, back, hiding, wearing spectacles) Lord Ghastly-Finch’s manservant, Armadillo. Amongst the many, various and depraved services that he performs for his lordship, Armadillo is charged with breaking up the pustules on his lordship’s buttocks with a small hammer every evening after dinner.
(right, black hat) Lady Ghastly-Finch: prior to marriage to his Lordship, Lady Ghastly-Finch was primarily known for eating an Australian opera singer. When interviewed by the press, she said that she found him fatty and unpleasant, and that in any case she didn’t think that she could finish a full one again. Her current project is said to involve hunting down, killing, and then smoking, Mick Jagger.
(right, red hair, fan): Ms. Serpentia Hackorypunk: in close competition with J. K. Rowling as Britain’s best-selling author after her debut novel, “Buttocks In Flames”, won ninety-five literary awards, sold over 5.9 million copies, and was heralded by The Guardian as “… a sick, degraded, wretched horror of a novel, and besides which, most of the things the people do in this book are impossible anyway.”
Likes ponies. Really likes ponies. Recently broke up with Seamus O’Seamus, her lover of five years and the man voted as Ireland’s least eligible bachelor, after he complained to the press that she had broken his anal sphincter into at least three pieces.
(far right, dreadlocks): Clarisse (nee Claude) Dubois, Britain’s best loved transsexual singer. Following a successful gender reassignment surgery, Clarisse launched a multi-platinum record career after achieving media fame for ripping out Victoria Beckham’s uterus and forcing her to eat her now disused genitals at a nightclub in Soho. In this picture, Ms. Dubois is wearing a pair of stockings dating back to at least 1440, and reportedly ejaculated into by a pubescent Charles II during the reign of James I. Reportedly dating Boy George.
(bottom) Sir Tyler Reginald-Mountsworthy: tonight’s entertainment. But he doesn’t know it yet.
— excerpt from “Who’s Who in Amoral Perversion”, 2005 Edition
copyright Nicholas mad_and_crazy
There is a saint created in lonely iron.
I undid the top buttons of my shirt to let him press his hand against my heartbeat. The heat of him held me down, we were like statues in the midst of madness, the only still people on Heroin Row. Crackton’s the one place in town that I won’t take my shoes off. We were an island, addiction beating as waves, as sound around us. Singing and screaming, people yelling and scanning the sidewalk for dropped rock or cigarette butts. There’s no darkness to hide in that doesn’t already have its own slurred speech. It comes at you from all directions, the pleading of the needy.
I used to live there, right behind the Carnegie, in a strange space in the basement of what used to be a vintage bank, all grand ceilings and open floor. The shambling creatures that used to be humans are familiar, the hounds that chase them nothing new. Once I woke up there and opened my eyes to daylight and the sight through a crack between the curtains of a prostitute shooting a syringe into the base of a mans penis that she was firmly working in her mouth. He screamed, but I suspect he liked it.
Nocholas is coming to town today, an impromptu plan. Plans for today are somewhat fuzzy, but I don’t think we need any. He’s going to call when he gets into town. If anyone’s interested in meeting up, give me a call as well. He’s got some phone numbers but not many.
Which reminds me, Andrew‘s lent me a hand held PDA thing to keep phone numbers and writing in. I’m trying to get rid of my phone avoidance and actually call people. Part of this will be having phone numbers on me rather than in a single, mostly old, list on my computer. Part of my problem is that when I meet people, I tend to collect their numbers on little scraps of paper which soon get lost or on my hands which end up being washed before I write the digits down. This PDA idea, I am finding it exceedingly useful.