Excellence and batshittery, done on purpose.
I’m Lazarus. I make art, music, poems, plays, and magic for the quiet, brilliant, broken ones. If that is you, welcome home. I adopt your kind.
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More about me here.
Please note that, with rare exceptions, any and all names mentioned in this blog are pseudonyms except our own. We want to be able to speak freely without doxxing anyone.
I did NOT know that people could grow bonsai from seeds or young trees, I thought they had to be purchased fully grown. I know almost nothing about them.
I learned a fair bit today and I would love to join our local bonsai club. It might be a problem, given that my body responds poorly to the sun, but apparently some bonsai can be grown indoors.
I’m so happy. I’ve been interested in growing one since I was a teenager.
-Allēna
We’re gonna come back later today for the bonsai show. I love bonsai and have wanted one since I was a teenager. I don’t think I will be able to buy one, but at least I will be able to see some!
-Allēna
He convinced me to leave the house and we ran errands while playing this weirdly Christian questions game designed for kids. It started with a question like “if you could design the tastiest sandwich ever made, what would that sandwich be” and by the time we’d gone through all of the questions, Emerson had had to skip around a dozen questions because of how damn preachy they all were. That game escalated quickly.
I don’t mind the occasional Jesus-related question. Hell, I’ll even discuss the Bible with Christians because I find a lively informed debate energizing and fun. But a bunch of questions along the lines of “if you could enter one Bible story, what would it be?”
Uhhhhhhhhhhhh……..
No.
I’ve been there, done that, got the T shirt from my time as a Mormon and all the soul searching I did afterwards. I’m good. I’m a fan of Jesus as he’s portrayed in the Bible, but his father and fandom have a lot to answer for before I’m going to be okay with most Christian shit.
More to the point, this is a game designed for kids. What is this, How To Indoctrinate Your Kids 101??
We did get some funny answers out of it. Like my answer to the question “what is something that you don’t need but your life is much better because you have it?” or however it was phrased was simply “BEANS” referring to the cats because we were parked close to our apartment at the time. I took a video of Emerson imitating me with additional dramatic flair and that is making the rounds all over social media now, as best I can tell.
I’m pretty tired, so I’m gonna wander off now.
G’night everyone!!
-Allēna (yes, the bitch is back)
I’ve begun experimenting with bolder colors and less strict realism. I’m very happy with the way these pieces turned out.
I’m calling this first piece The Lighthouse. I don’t exactly know what to make of it, I was running with an idea I had and I thought it looked cool.
Here’s a video of how I made it.
This next painting is called Silvertongue. The lines on the tongue came to me as I was falling asleep.
Here’s a video of the process for this one.
And this one was heavily inspired by Flower Face’s The Shark In Your Water album. I’m developing an obsession with silver foily glitter.
I hope y’all enjoyed these pieces.
-Painter Guy
I did revive Eight’s and Laz’s Death bit on Reels and TikTok though and watch more of the very interesting show The Three Body Problem.
-Sender unknown
My guts hurt and I feel like I was hit by a train, so I didn’t do much today besides sleep and watch TV.
-Allēna
I know that the people who know me will probably be like “what else is new” but I’ve honestly been so hung up on the fact that it’s been ten years since Xavier died this month that I forgot that all of the albums that I wrote and recorded in the wake of losing him will also be turning 10 as well until I saw a video of my Painter Guy headmate playing my arrangement of “Heroes” by David Bowie on a piano he found in the hospital we go to??? So that’s kinda fucking me up.
I honestly didn’t think I would live this long. I know a lot of people when I was 18-19 certainly didn’t think I would live this long (I was a hot fuckin mess and it took me years to get out of that tailspin) so while I’m none too happy about having to figure out how to promote a metric fuckton of albums on what is soon to be the ten year anniversary of their release, I am also trying to be compassionate toward tiny grieving past Lēna and keep in mind that I didn’t have a blessed clue that I would live to see 28-29, my depression was so goddamn bad and I was constantly trying to blot myself off the face of the Earth and writing albums instead of doing worse dumb shit. As badly as I want to go back and kick Past Lēna and to some extent, Past Eight in the ‘nads for writing and recording music like they were running out of time in 2016-17, they really didn’t know what the fuck else to do and had just lost Xavier. So I can’t really be all that angry. That being said, a bitch is fucking tired and I don’t have anything close to a promotion strategy for any of this shit. I don’t even have regular access to a piano anymore.
So yeah. There is all of that to contend with.
Wish me mother fucking luck.
-Allēna
Not only have I painted her and Emerson a variation of Judith Beheading Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi as a Valentine’s Day gift, but I DMed Electrical Audio, the studio where her and Eight’s tragic hero, Jason Molina, recorded their album Magnolia Electric Co before the late, great Steve Albini passed away, as well and asked if they wanted to work with us to promote the studio in some way.
She’s gonna be in for SEVERAL treats 😈
-Sender unknown
I painted this baby today, he is a juvenile rescue red tailed hawk I saw on our Facebook that people were going nuts over. His name is Chuck:
I also finished the painting I started last night of our headmate Australis:
Yeah, I know he looks like Hozier. Don’t @ me, he’s supposed to look like Hozier, I used a photo of Hozier as a reference among other things because that’s who Australis most closely resembles, lol.
Emerson and I also went to the Milwaukee art museum and saw a bunch of cool shit, like a massive painting that looked like it had busted free and was dancing around half the room called Carousel Merge II.
There was another piece that made me feel judged but I can’t remember exactly what it was called, something something Anxious Audience, and it was made with ceramic tiles and soap of all things.
Cool shit, indeed.
I saw this ad on Facebook for a midsummer festival up in Sheboygan and threw our hat in the ring to go play there, as well. So we’ll see how that goes…
Well, I’m gonna attempt sleep now. I’m fuckin beat. I did way too fucking much today.
Goodnight fuckers.
-Sender unknown
