8-8-88: Performance & Pendulum

Originally in the Berdella-Bugbee Soliloquy's 2024 Witches Sabbath zine I did. 

From a conversation between Shane Bugbee and I on instagram messages in 2023

Shane: I've seen it all, nice score.

Claudia: I thought it was an interesting performance. Not as harrowing as I heard it was.

Shane: It's funny how people become dangerous and just them doing something or meeting is something of shock. I should say ideas that people have become dangerous and then the people become almost, I don't know, monsters.

Claudia: I think what the problem is, is that people cannot tell the difference between performance and actuality.

Shane: That's a good take. I think there's more than one issue though, or problem. People don't give the internet enough credit for the destruction of things that should have been destroyed. And people interpret things pre internet in a bad way. I believe the pendulum is swinging the other way and people want to express themselves without fear of reprisal. And the ignorant want to, challenge the intellectual.

That's how we learn. 

Claudia: At this point, I hope the pendulum is swing 5 directions instead of two…

3 Zines

From Claudia fucking Berdella comes NEUROTIC NIHILISM, a visceral collision of free verse and cutting philosophy. Driven by the sensation of "Everlasting isolation on a never-ending desolation road," this text is a confession from a mind existing in "painful polar extremes." It is an exploration of a generation caught between Nietzschean ideals and a social contract, where "Function is a pessimistic game / To no real aim." A poetic journey into the void, where cultural echoes of "fast food occultism and woke fascism" haunt the edges of sanity.

Find it by clicking HERE!

  

Next up is Controlled Chaos: in this everything is Chaos. Citing figures from KMFDM to Aleister Crowley, the text argues that eternal, primal disorder is the engine of the universe and all human experience. It strips away comforting illusions, defining Hope as nothing more than "a strong white lie"—a defensive response to the relentless intake of Fear. A cynical and fatalistic exploration of human existence, concluding that the only promise ever kept is Death.

Find it by clicking HERE!

Up next is the tale of A Surreal Night At Columbine High School— this raw, confessional zine by Claudia Berdella begins with an unplanned night journey to Columbine High School, the site the author deems the "kick of setting the tone for the last near half century." Stoned and listening to Marilyn Manson at the mundane, late-night scene, the author reflects on how tragedy becomes a key cultural marker.

The narrative quickly shifts to a jarring personal account: the author's own experience in the 7th grade of being falsely accused of planning a school shooting. This zine is an intense meditation on the power of "HERD CONFORMITY,"the targeting of outsiders due to "CULTURE SHOCK," and the cynical realization that one must simply "EMBRACE IT" when unjustly labeled a threat. It’s a provocative exploration of the mundanity of tragedy and the culture of fear that creates the very "red flag that never was."

You can find it HERE!

Seymour Skinner and Ed Gein

 

There’s an Ed Gein reference in plain sight, Principle Skinner in the Simpsons. It’s in the damn name, SKINNER. Ed wore a literal skin suit, Seymour Skinner wears the skin of his name— he has such an Oedipus complex he went to a mother that wasn’t his and his Stockholm syndrome is apparent. Norman Bates galore. “Mother this, mother that” 

You get my brief point. 

That said there’s this cool new book from Shane Bugbee on Ed Gein and stealing his headstone, find it here: https://edgeinfanclub.com/?fbclid=PAVERFWANRzKBleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABpx4_4M8VtKMsj-6o4tpHPVnTjt93serElfBEkmFhqcFQeRqnj4NDx8lYA6Wn_aem_pKyz2-P2ZwVk4dv5nBPGFA