print interview

Thor Wanzek 2001.

"We are werewolves entwined, in the bondage of time inquisitioned by them, who estrange and condemn"

1. In a time when Norman normal can with a smile on his lips present himself as open-minded enough to glance at the tits of the sterile pin-up models at the kiosk without flushing and prove his good education when aesthetics leave the narrow borders of the political (or in this case: sexual) correct so that he immediately refuses to think around the next corner but demonstrates his anger, Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio perform a bizarre dance on wire rope above the heads of mediocrity. Do you sometimes think about falling down?

I rarely question the dance we dance and I seldom consider the possibility of falling down as the rope is tight and our steps are both confident and secure.

I consistently seek to consider the tactfulness of everything we portray and how it could possibly effect ourselves and be perceived by anyone confronting the outcome of our operations and decisions, biased or opinionated, unprejudiced or objective.
So as far as one is resourceful enough to consider the consequences of one's actions beforehand, the consequences don't appear as frightening or alarming when they occur, and the opinions of the narrow-minded, even less trifling.

2. On your homepage you welcome the audience with a rather depressing perspective on what you call "the mass". But is this not only a construction of your own incapability to get deeper involved with people who obviously have another idea of "life"? What makes you for example less ignorant?

I do not claim to be "less" ignorant although I probably am.
I claim to employ my intellect and effectuate myself beyond average mediocrity.
I seek the develop myself, to expand myself wholly in all my potentialities. I seek to succeed in becoming fully what I feel myself to be. What I want is to become myself. Nothing that is should be suppressed. Nothing is superfluous.
That, according to my understanding of being, makes me less ignorant; that makes me alive; unlike the puppets staggering in their unlife.

I am most likely thoroughly ignorant in the eyes of numerous beholders who disregard my operations and the words I speak, but I am not especially concerned with their judgement; I know who I am and I know where I am heading; towards the stars - Homo Galactica.

3. How did your idea of the mass and your own distance towards it evolve? Do you also glorify your lovely teddy bear?

My understanding of the mass as an entity which spreads its intellectual and spiritual poison, as an entity of hereditary ignorance and with an inherent desire and requirement to comply, is a comprehension which started to materialize when I first realized I wasn't one of them, one of legion; I was me.

I came realize that my prosperity was not relative to the prosperity of the mass; that my desires, preferences and objectives rarely corresponded with the hopes, wishes, desires and needs of my surroundings; and in situations that my interests didn't correspond with theirs, there were no attempts of encouragement.

I thence successively started to experience myself as alienated by the majority of my surroundings from the doings of the society to which they sought to comply; but its difficult not to say impossible to alienate someone who doesn't wish, nor seek to be part of that which he is alienated from, so I continued to evolve in the direction I had already pursued, more insightful, perceptive and determined than ever before, to become the man who I am today, still evolving and advancing. That is the story of how I attained my impression of the mass.

4. Although you stress an image which many might consider as "arrogant" the obvious irony in portraits and lyrics prove a unique sense for humor. About which aspects of daily life can you laugh and forget about the distance to the " "puppets (who) stagger in their unlife"?

You can't take life too seriously, although every instant of our existence is absolutely significant; and as far as one is capable of looking the other way and laugh at the deeds and doings of them who we are involuntarily forced to share and endure our restricted lives with, we learn to live with the bomb which we carry inside just waiting to explode, and ultimately manage to endure.

5. You seem to deem intellect as important means not to take part in the "unlife". But who's closer to the poet - the philosopher or the child?

They are both intrinsically linked to the individual which is I; both are part of the same coin, different dimensions relative to the same essence completing the whole.

The question of which is closer to the poet is all relative to the variation of circumstance. They are both imperative and serves the other in times of need.

The philosopher reasons, conjectures and attains the implications which the child completes into the workings of Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio.

6. A propos child: what about yourself "having the guts to bring a child into this world of prevailing madness"? Aren't children the only hope?

There is absolutely no reason to question or disbelieve the certitude that everything we consider tangible will crumble and die. And believing anything else is merely ignorant and stupid.
All societies have crumbled before us and I see no reason to question the axiom that ours will as well. The question is and has never been if, rather when.
But as far as the children we spawn, successively ripen to become spiritually, emotionally, sexually and intellectually thriving individuals who think for themselves and utilize their intellect in order to reason; and their inherent impetuousness by which to live and be alive, I see no reason to disbelieve our continuing persistence for yet another selection of decays to come.
But in the situation that the contemporary status withstands and our children manifest the opposite traits; much like its contemporary ancestor Homo Neglectus, I see no reason to anticipate any contrary outcome but the continuing persistence of the ongoing apocalypse.

7. You state that the mass dwells in its emotional deficiency. Concerning sexual experience this might change when technology helps to stimulate parts of the brain to give people multiple orgasms without them even moving a single muscle on their own. How do you face this vision of so-called "clean" and "safe" sex?

"When Pornography is no longer enough" - Sutcliffe Jügend.

There are absolutely people throughout the world who experience great difficulty in achieving an orgasm, a sensation most of us take for granted, and for all them such an invention is naturally fantastic.
But in an age of diversified compulsions such as ours where people in need of spiritual, emotional and intellectual counsel and kindling, addict themselves to any sort of physical, mental and/or metaphysical stimuli in order to replenish the void of existence, I see no requirement of sanctioning yet another medication by which to compensate the deficiencies of modern day society and interfere with the natural customs of sexual intercourse and sexual interaction, between one, two or several individuals.

Society and the financial market to which the medical and sexual industry are linked, rarely if ever act out of mere conscience and avail, so unless their intentions have changed overnight and I am completely mistaken, the intentions are in fact selfish.

The world as we know it is already crowded with sexual addicts who roam the streets searching for sexual interaction and the possibility of experiencing the smallest remnant of sexual excitement, and I consequently question the intent and significance of such an instrument.
Either society has chosen to remain ignorant with regards to the impact and consequence of such a devise, or optionally intends to intentionally devise sexual captives from various fractions of its population.

There is naturally a variation of ways by which to implicate such a devise in terms of sexual interaction, which hypothetically could appear fascinating and enhancing, but what is truly the attraction of doing so when excitement and climax are no longer relative to the sexual interaction itself, but merely to the workings of an extrinsic devise?

Although great parts of the media propagate feelings of sexual freedom, statistics express that a lot of people don't find sexual satisfaction anymore. Is it in your opinion just a logical reason because we are "free" and sex looses its attraction because of the permanent presentation or are there other reasons like e.g. a lack of fantasy?

I believe there are several distinctive reasons for the sexual frustration which surges throughout society today, but the lack of fantasy is hardly one of them.

Sex has become a media commodity. Fabricated sexual imagery and sequences in the appearance of commercials and televised propaganda surrounds us every single day of our lives. Propaganda to which we are supposed to respond and react. But the effect they cause rather than bequeathing an intended impression of arousal and excitement is more willingly a subconscious demand and obligation to succeed in the exploration and conquest of any and all sexual boundaries; a consequence which successively effects and reduces the natural impulses and excitement of sex.

There is likewise the situation that we are consistently obligated to succeed on all sociological levels throughout society - personal, professional, sexual etc., etc., and which likewise render a situation of feeling inadequate and deficient. As who is indeed capable of adequately performing throughout every single aspect of life and ultimately perform in bed as the sexual athlete the media compels everyone to be? Not very many.

These situations are all connected and intimately linked; adding up to another consequence which has become the new and improved epidemic of modern day society - medicine.
Today's human beings are depressed and exhausted. The moments of success and feelings of being adequate and in every way capable are sparse if not entirely nonexistent. And in order to maintain the efficiency level of man as a producer and consumer and make mankind endure the battles of inadequacy that it is subjected to everyday, society has become forced to provide medication by which to make mankind endure.
These medications however, reduce the natural incentives of lust and sexual arousal, even to the extent of rendering difficulties to perform without additional medication, and so forth.
And I believe all these elements, individually and congregated, convene the foundation on which the contemporary feelings of sexual dissatisfaction and frustration rest.

8. What inspiring or even stimulating reactions did you get on the visual side of O.R.E.? What aspects are of importance for you when you open yourself to a certain degree to an audience that you attract with O.R.E.?

People rarely direct critical or stimulating comments, rarely communicating at all. All opinions which reach us are opinionated, either strictly positive or negative, but rarely stimulating.

When we open ourselves to an audience for any given reason, the prime directive is integrity and honesty. Anything that we consider, acknowledge and permit must be intrinsically akin to me and/or Rose-Marie, irrelative to eventual delicacy or provocation.

Your lyrics contain contrasts whatever topic you deal with - is this the ultimate balance expressed in "Ordo Equilibrio" that you can't break?

There is one story on each side of the coin, and in order to render an equitable and earnest impression which foretells more than a one dimensional conviction, there is the requirement of incarnating equilibrium of polarities and extremes.

Equilibrium is not an order which can't be violated, but it's a principle I seek to maintain in the process of writing lyrics in order to create and sustain, what I believe is a necessary diversity by which to maintain interesting.

9. I wonder in which mood you write a text like "Flowers and moonshine in my garden of Eden" - and I also wonder if you really need some absinthe to face such hopeless perspectives… how do close people react on a poem like this?

Absinthe is always a reliable refreshment to have at hand at any given time, whether the situation is hopeless or improving.

Each song derives as a consequence of incentive, rendered from one or several separate or congregated impressions - disappointment, love, understanding, sex, anger, frustration, joy, perplexity, disheartenment etc., etc.; impressions which successively convene to establish the aesthetic foundation from which the entire song starts to materialize.
And this is likewise how Flowers and Moonshine in My Garden of Eden emerged and materialized.

It is always difficult to account for the creation process of each particular song in retrospective without sounding stupid and/or even pretentious, so I hope this portrayal, in spite of eventual pretentiousness, serves a justified explanation of how everything befalls.

There seems to be a selection of lyrics which appeal to particular people more than others; The Perplexity of Hybris, I Glorify Myself - In the Grassy Fields where the World goes to Sleep, We kissed this World Goodbye and Flowers and Moonshine in My Garden of Eden to mention but a few. And although the impressions we are presented with are exclusively positive, I believe each lyric appeals individually for its own particular reasons to every individual, whether they consider the particular lyric beautiful, alarming or encouraging.

10. Besides from its attractive opposition of powerful words this song transports a worldview which could be summarized as hurting beautiful and breathtakingly frightening if one hadn't already lost one's optimism. How much optimism is left in you? What gives you nightmares, what gives you sunshine for your heart?

Hope is a peculiar yet interesting concept, as what does hope truly imply? Hope is synonymous with expectation, desire, confidence, belief and trust etc., etc. And although I truly desire and hope for change and improvement I hardly confide in change, or believe that any improvement will appear, so where does this leave me? Hoping perhaps.

So how much optimism do I still retain, not much I'm afraid.
Any eventual optimism surging through my body is relative to the variation of situations and circumstances affecting my life and its continuing persistence.

I sincerely loathe the contemporary sociopolitical situation of the world in which we live, and recognizing and accepting the prevailing situation of the world today, I see little or no reason for any overwhelming optimism.

People are naïve, not to say stupid. Nourishing from the bosom of politicians and bureaucrats, providing nourishment through fabricated contentment in order to pacify and stupefy.

People elect their leaders from their own ranks, and coequally blind they pledge deliverance from within the essence of fabrication; and overwhelmed by hereditary negligence and bigotry they pursue to direct the procession of unquestioning believers towards a fate of unwavering annihilation.

Mankind's procession is established on the sole motive of transient financial accumulation, intrinsically forsaking any and all eventual values, standards and morals for the sole accomplishment of this particular cause; money and more money.

Mankind exploits its surroundings of all its natural recourses, and consciously continues to neglect the axiom that its conducts will effect its continuing persistence; merely by reason of knowing that this deliberate negligence will benefit the motive of monetary accumulation.

Consequently reckoning and accepting the terrestrial situation of today and conjecturing the situation in fifty years, I see little reason for any overwhelming optimism.

Our contemporary procession is nothing but a theatre of blind escorting the blind towards an international ball of congregated annihilation. And why seek to apprehend what is evidently inevitable? All erstwhile societies have perished, why would ours be any different?

But there are naturally specks and spots of beauty and optimism which render occasional contentment and sunshine for the heart, such as unexpected occurrences of unforeseen merriment which lighten the moment and days to come, alongside my life together with Rose-Marie and my work with ORE, situations of prosperity and merriment to which I am personally liable. And although my optimism is seemingly sparse and exhausted, my nightmares are relatively scarce.