Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Death is My Joy

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes etc.

I've been rather busy recently. In fact, I should try and keep this short. I find working an experience something like being submerged under water. I cannot stay in the environment for very long without feeling a need to come up for air. It doesn't seem to be my element at all.

Anyway, at times like this, I tend to think a great deal about the release that comes with death. I suppose I have had this disposition for a long time. I remember, as a teenager, 'singing' to myself (or rather croaking) the lines of the Celtic Frost song Inner Sanctum, until they almost became unconscious habit. I can't find the song on YouTube, but here are the lyrics:

Inner Sanctum

Sleep brings no joy to me
Remembrance never dies
My soul is given to misery
And lives in sighs ...
The shadows of the dead,
My waken eyes may never see,
Surround my bed
That from which they sprung - eternity

Beneath the turf
The silent dead

Sleep brings no wish to knit
My harrassed heart beneath
My only wish is to forget
In the sleep of death
Death is my joy
I long to be at rest
I wish the damp earth covered
This desolate brest

Beneath the mould
The silent dead

But the glad eyes around us
Must weep as we have done
And we must see the same gloom
Eclipse their morning sun

Oh not for them - Should we despair
The grave is drear - But they're not there
Their dust is mingled - With the sod
Their pale souls - Are gone, to god

Well, may they live in ecstasy
Their long eternity of joy
At least I wouldn't bring them down
With me to weep, to groan
And what's the future
A sea beneath the cloudless sun
A mighty, glorious, dazzling sea
Stretching into infinity

My inner sanctum
R.I.P

And here's a sample of the band's music (after an interview in German):



So, the music to which I am currently leaping around the kitchen is Celtic Frost's Into the Pandemonium, and particularly Inner Sanctum.

One more time:

"Death is my joy. I long to be at rest. I wish the damp earth covered this desolate breast."

Some people are puzzled that I enjoy this music, but to me, Celtic Frost were always obvious artistic originals. Tom G. Warrior's guitar sound is possibly the best guitar sound I have ever heard. And his vocals sound like some kind of Lovecraftian language more cthonic than aural. With the songs for which I don't have the lyrics, I listen to them as sort of Rorscharch songs, making up my own words out of the inhuman croaking.

Talking of Lovecraft, the Old One are coming: