Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I haven't had the best time recently, and when I've been doing better I've been focused on things other than this website. Technically one of those things is related to this website, you just
don't see progress on it. I've been working on expanding my John Zorn shrine into a bit of a wiki that's more like a "sister site" rather than an integrated part of my personal site. But it's going to take a while to fill it with enough information and
content that it feels worthy of hosting publically, especially when Masada World and the Masada World Wiki already exist. My ambition for the "Zorn Zone" is something like Masada World
but including all of the other Zorn projects such as Naked City, PainKiller, Moonchild, Dreamers, Simulacrum, Chaos Magick, etc. It probably won't be able to go as in-depth into each of these as Masada World does, and so I'll definitely link to it promimently
as the superior resource on all things Masada.
Anyways, other than feeling a bit depressed generally I've also become a bit anxious about this site. This is the titular "identity crisis." I mean anxious in the proper sense of a paralysis and dread in the face of possibility. I looked at some older "prototype" versions
of this website that were a bit more bare without any CSS and a much more blunt style and appearance, and to be honest I kind of liked those more than what I have here and wished I could go back and do that. What's funny is that this is almost opposite to my thoughts from
my entry on the twenty-fifth of June, when I wanted to make the website a bit more homely. One way or another I think this burgundy background has to go.
What am I looking for with the homely website? Something that feels decorated and "my own" to some extent. A website that feels nice to rest in, and that projects a bit of my character through it. The problem with this is that I don't trust myself to convey myself properly.
Whatever decorative touch seems fitting to me at a certain point might quickly become ugly and undesirable. It's hard to make something that feels enduringly "myself."
What am I looking for with a purely brutalist website? There's something raw and authentic about it. Something a bit mysterious as well. It's a way of letting the actual content of the website stand unadorned. When the contents of a page are presented on the most default canvas without
any frame, it makes each word a bit more important, as the words are all you have. There's something compelling in the simplicity, in the sense that because no character is revealed through the character of the page itself, the exact character of the person behind the pages is left
a bit ambiguous, even if the words on the page make that character a bit clearer.
The current stylings of this site I think are a pretty sorry middle-ground. This burgundy and yellow color scheme communicates something but it feels a bit rancid to me now, for whatever reason. I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I think a core philosophical difference
in approaches is: is this personal website my space or is it a space for my things? The first suggests ornamentation, the second suggests simplicity. Honestly, I'm currently leaning towards the latter. If I ever made a website that was my space, it wouldn't
really look and act like this.
This conclusion suggests stripping things back here a bit. I am a bit concerned that if I just do away with all CSS here the site will become intolerably ugly, and that the aesthetic of my old prototype websites will be appreciated only by myself and maybe not even that. There is a chance
I'm just romanticizing some specific memory I have of the site looking and feeling a certain way that doesn't reflect any actual quality or merit. I do tend to do such things. The site just feels a bit too personal right now, maybe. I'm just throwing things out at this point because
I can't really articulate my feelings about this, even to myself. Of course the website is personal, it's a personal website! But I suppose I wish it was a bit more systematic. That's something the older versions achieved. Which itself is funny because philosophically I'm quite skeptical of
systems, as I think they tend to paint over and obscure messy ambiguous personal truth. But I suppose I want to dive into systemization like a womb, and in fact cover up my messy reality. Maybe.
I've been feeling the strong nostalgic urge to do everything over again recently. I guess this is one manifestation of that. I never know quite how I would do things over, but I certainly would. Anyways, look forward to a website overhaul that might be of some character or other,
or maybe not.
I've always had a tendency to, especially in my writing, become an amalgam of the last few things I've read/watched/played/etc. When I was reading The Book of Disquiet everything I wrote echoed Pessoa to some extent; when I was obsessed with Disco Elysium a lot of what I wrote sounded like narration or the "inner dialogue" from the game; when I was reading The Count of Monte Cristo all my journal entries had this whimsical old-fashioned prose style; when I read À rebours, well... I didn't have anywhere near the vocabulary to write like Huysmans but I was still influenced thematically. Recently I've noticed this with Heidegger. I'm getting through Being of Time a lot more seriously recently, and I've noticed I've picked up a little habit from that. Heidegger will often take an everyday expression of some action and use it to explain and exemplify some more abstract concept. For example [Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Harper Perennial Modern Thought), 204.]:
Such Being-with-one-another is discursive as assenting or refusing, as demanding or warning, as pronouncing, consulting, or interceding, as 'making assertions', and as talking in the way of 'giving a talk'.
Something about this method of explication with the little quotation marks around the common expression just really appeals to me for some reason. I've started to use it to exemplify more abstract things in my personal writings to myself and also
in my little attempts at more genuinely philosophical writing, to the extent that sometimes I'm definitely just doing it to do it and not because it's actually effective. I've long been an over-user of quotations marks to add a bit of "ambiguity" or
"referentiality" to words or ideas, and this might be a bad habit. That and my very long sentences. I love a sentence that you have to chart out and dissect and really "reckon with" (here's the habit), but most other people don't.
I have some instinctual dislike of the idea that academic writing should be "simple and clear." Let philosophy be difficult and confusing and literary! But I realize that's a more self-indulgant idea for me than anything else.
What I will protest against is the idea that philosophy is written in a difficult or unwieldy way as a way of gate-keeping or "closing off" philosophy to the layperson. That's not true! Sometimes presenting something in a difficulty and unwieldy way is
genuinely the best and most effective way of presenting the idea, if you want the spirit of the idea to live and thrive! A "simple" explanation and an "unwieldy" explanation ultimately present different phenomena, and that difference can matter! Basically:
get gud looooollllllll.
Also, I should say, in terms of the whole "literary skinwalking" idea this entry was supposed to be about, translation plays a big role. To a large extent when I'm influenced, I'm as influenced by the translator as I am by the original writer. I might be
more skinwalking Zenith than Pessoa; more Buss than Dumas; more Baldick than Huysmans; and more Macquarrie and Robinson than Heidegger; and that all deserves note, notice, and consideration.
But all of this has been a big unfocused rant. I apologize for taking your time with this. On one final, unrelated note, E|STRAY|S by Kapadie from the LISA: The Pointless soundtrack is
really good. Really good for LISA music. Take a listen!
I want to write more seriously about this topic overall at some point but I'm lazy and am still having a pretty hard time bringing myself to do anything so I'll write a smaller self-indulgent unpolished messy rant
thing here for now.
I recently had the misfortune to get slightly acquainted with some controversy on Twitter concerning a podcast called "Queer Collective." I don't use Twitter anymore (thank God)
but I do still use YouTube (unfortunately) and I couldn't pass up on a video covering this. From what I understand the more /tttt/-aligned people on Twitter are mad at the podcast because the
podcasters are annoying theyfabs. While this is definitely something I would've been very invested in as little as a year or two ago, I'm thankfully at a point where I can roll my eyes and move on
with my day.
However, it did get me thinking about the idea of "queerness" in general and brought to mind a certain dislike I have for the whole phenomenon. "Queer culture," as much as there is such a thing—a
culture that is largely online, though, much like other online subcultures like "incels," one that is crawling out more and more into "real-world" spaces—is, to my mind, hugely obsessed with labels,
validity, and a sense of unearned rebelliousness that, increasingly, I can't stand.
[EDIT (2026-07-07): I want to specify something I don't think I made very clear when I first wrote this. When I say "queer culture," I don't refer to cultural phenomena that arise from communities of
people labeled "queer" and then get retrospectively assimilated into an idea of "queer culture;" What I refer to is culture that is based around "being queer." The former is a type of culture that springs up
naturally through groups of people living together who happen to have a common experience of sexuality. The second is a culture which begins and ends in the idea of the sexuality itself. The former is much
older, the latter is newer and has mostly been online. I'm not necessarily denouncing drag or leather or whatever other subculture has arisen amongst "queer" people, but I am against reducing those cultural elements
to simply "queer culture," because that really is the culture of a particular group of people in a particular time period with a particular attitude, not some expression of "queerness" or sexuality broadly.]
The domain of human sexuality is a very fascinating one that I enjoy exploring. The way our unique sexual interests develop and sprout and explode outwards in our behavior and presentation is very interesting.
But "queerness" is a mockery of the whole thing. The constant desire to label yourself and flatten yourself into whatever specific sexual/gender identity is "you" is not any kind of liberation of sexuality, but
instead a new prison for it. True liberation is to be who you want to be and act how you want to act without having a label, because you know that no one identity can encompass the totality and potential of who
you are and could be.
And so when you obsess about creating this vulgar public taxonomy of some of the most personal instincts and desires you have, you inevitably get into these moronic conflicts where lesbians hate
bisexual women, trans women hate theyfabs, and every single post on any kind of queer forum is "can I still be an x if I do y?????? Am I valid??? Am I valid?????" The constancy and ubiquity of such
posts and concerns is a serious indicator that this is becoming too much of an obsession for people. You should not care about being validated for your sexual identity! It's your sexuality! Do whatever you want
with it! And don't talk and think about it so much!!! For all the time people spend worrying if they're valid as sapphics, MLMs (the gay ones, not the Marxist-Leninist-Maoists or Multi-Level Marketers), or whatever
else, they could and should be spending that time having actual sex with women, men, or whoever else they want!
I know that to some extent young people will always look for some identity to latch onto and validate themselves through, and of course I've been plenty guilty of this myself. But at the very least people used to
define themselves through their hobbies. I'm by no means the first person to point this out, but it's not even like this is coming from sexual expression being a genuine "hobby" (aside from maybe fashion, and if
you're interested in fashion just be interested in fashion, without all this sexual identity stuff tacked onto it), because young people aren't even having very much sex nowadays, and are increasingly puritanical!
So you have all these people obsessing about all the people they'd hypothetically be having sex with while being dispositionally against sex!
And my last point is about the whole air of "rebellion" attached to such cultures. To some extent, it is still "rebellious" to be queer. And to some extent, "taking hold" of a queer identity is a real act of will against
oppressive social forces. This is a very unfortunate state of events! The fact that being queer *has* to be an act of rebellion is an indictment of our current world, and I worry
that some parts of "queer culture" perpetuate the idea that this "rebellion" will be an indefinite one, and not a temporary and unfortunate measure done in the quest for liberation. Social disharmony should, ideally, not be
perpetuated, and sectioning yourself off as *queer* in the original sense and sexually *other* is a disharmonic disposition to society. It's a disposition that can be taken on in some practical way when you are *already* othered
and oppressed for the basic state of your sexual instincts and being, but it is not an end-goal or something to "sink into" and "become comfortable within." To have to be "queer" shouldn't be a cause for celebration (much in the
same way being "trans" in the sense of being highly dysphoric is an incredibly unfortunate condition and not some "gift," but this is a thought for another time)! After we throw off the chains of oppression, we have to throw off the
chains of the oppression and othering we've put onto ourselves. In a truly sexually liberated future, nobody is "queer" and we do not need pride parades! People can just be who they are, and carve out who they are not by
consulting some sexual taxonomy and deciding what category to fit themselves into, but just by experiencing organic sexual desire and having sex and living! And so I believe the instinct to categorize and forcibly label and become obsessed
with the identity of being queer and the "permanent revolution" of queerness is not a liberating one.
Ultimately, throughout this long, ranting, probably incoherent diatribe, I think I'm getting a pretty basic insight: do not cling to identity or concrete elements of the self, because such a concrete self does not exist. The Buddha figured this out 2500 years ago and we're still all catching up.
And stop being annoying on Twitter!!!
A random thought: I was relistening to parts of Apostrophe (') (1974) by Frank Zappa—an album I absolutely love and really enjoy listening to over and over and singing along to—and the thought struck me that always strikes me when I listen to the closing track "Stink-Foot." The second half of this song centers on a dog retelling a rather bizarre exchange it had with a man who asks about its "conceptual continuity," to which it replies the titular "apostrophe." The man can't believe this and vigorously denies it. The last lines of this verse are:
"He told me 'No no no!'Then the song ends with a lovely repeating chorus. Now this song is fantastic and I love it, but this chorus is where my problem begins. I always assumed the chorus was repeating "the poodle bites / the poodle chooses" which I thought was a wonderfully touching reflection of this dog's philosophy. The "crux of the biscuit" is the apostrophe, which "bites" parts of words and brings them together to allow one to speak more freely, and so the poodle goes around exploring the world by taking chunks out of it and living in its own way. What a great ending to this fantastic, silly album.
I told him 'Yes yes yes!'
I said: 'I do it all the time;
Ain't this boogie a mess!'"
The poodle bitesIt chews it!!! Not chooses!!! This is approximately ten times (one whole order of magnitude!!!) less cool of a lyric and upset me greatly when I first read it. But whatever. It can still be "chooses" in my head and that's certainly what I'll be singing, in protest of missed opportunity and as a free expression of my hermeneutical power of interpretation.
The poodle chews it
I don't have a huge amount to report but thought it would be nice to say something here. I've been doing okay. Some days are better than others. As a general rule mornings are a bit difficult; it's hard to get the day started.
I've been rereading old journals from 2023–2025 (probably not the best use of time) and it's been striking how much and how little has changed. I'm still kind of a neurotic very self-critical nervous wreck, but at least I think
I have a bit of a better perspective on myself now. And I think I'm spending my days better as a general rule, at least.
I've been reading and learning about Buddhism and trying to make meditating a regular thing, which has been helpful, I think. Some of the Buddhist perspectives have helped me in specific thought-patterns and have helped slightly
disarm some of the huge irrational self-hatred I have. A persistent sort-of-issue remains that I feel continuously and very much outside of my life. It's an impression that's hard to get across, but it's like the feeling that
everyone and everything around me is kind of fake, and that I'm viewing them from some window either after the real things have already passed, or waiting for them to arise. It's connected to a lot of persistent nostalgia and
daydreaming and rumination and occasionally it will get to a point where nothing can really make me feel anything. Regardless, I'm not too bad today and I will be trying to do more stuff more often to stave all this off.
Look forward to: maybe a website overhaul??? I'm not sure. I browsed the website saint-images this morning and was very touched by its presentation, and suddenly felt a bit of shame
about how bare this site is aesthetically. On one hand I wanted a sort of "brutalist" webpage but on the other hand it would feel nice to have this place be comfortable and homely. I also want to standardize/automate some stuff so
I'm not just writing all the html by hand (which I don't necessarily have a problem with, but y'know).
I also set up a little reading schedule for the summer to get me off my ass. By the end of the summer I will have hopefully finished Being and Time, Experience and Nature, and Art as Experience, so hold me to that!
Also, I relistened to Horrified by Repulsion today. What a fantastic album. Thank you J!
I am nowhere near perfect nor even well, but I feel quite a bit better today than I have for the past few days. A few things have helped this: firstly, gritting my teeth and getting the most pressing
responsibilities of the day done with as early as possible, so as to allow myself a bit of lenience and less-guilty lethargy the rest of the day—I find this helps a lot and is much better than
the horribly draining process of dreading a task for the entire day before either doing it in horrible mental pain or abandoning it entirely; secondly, I have begun reading Henry David Thoreau's Walden
and am enjoying and being inspired by it greatly—Thoreau reminds me of Ralph Waldo Emerson (only naturally as they were both American Transcendentalists), but I personally find Thoreau a bit more personable and likeable from the
relatively little I've read of both of them; thirdly, the company and companionship of loved ones and friends near and far is of course always good and grounding and soothing—thank you L., thank you W., and thank you drummyfish,
who I haven't interacted much with directly but whose page "Cope" on his wiki was genuinely helpful, and whose compassion I admire greatly; lastly, there is of course music, which doesn't quite heal but is as
singular and indispensable of a companion as one could ask for—for as much as I might dislike elements of modern technology I am extremely grateful to live in a time where I can hear the sounds of Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane on a whim.
Take care!
I have been of turbulent mind the past few months or so but this past week I have become truly depressed. Oops!
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR ME:
I'm still trying to figure out how I want to display site updates on the main page and I'm heavily considering putting together some shell scripts that compile such updates and mark on pages when they
were last updated and so on and so forth. But right now I'm laaazy so here are some of the things I've done since uploading the site:
Deoster.net is live!!! After working on the html for a few months (and scrapping it and starting over about four times) I have something really on the internet! This is incredibly exciting. Most of the "content" is here already in terms of the art/music/games/etc. and will be updated gradually as I make more stuff. The immediate priority now that it's online is some technical/style stuff, like a "recent updates" section to the front page, some CSS tweaks (not a huge fan of how this font looks in all browsers, I'm only now realizing), and maybe something like a guestbook. Then it'll be work on the shrines, because those are very underdeveloped. With all that being said, it just feels very good to have an online space available to visit that's completely my own. Anyone reading this, thank you for visiting!