scorsby on scorsby
an interdimensional interview
conducted aboard the mothership of self
photographed by scorsby, courtesy of scorsby smileworks
not many have met the elusive scorsby — self-described heartist, health guru and heretic investigator from epsilon lovestar — fewer still have met him twice.
i was invited aboard his mothership — a radiant, slow-spinning sphere composed entirely of pulsating eyeball hexagons. it hovered in the outer tremble of the metaphysical midlands, somewhere between the 3rd and 5th emotional octave. the door opened not with a hiss, but with a polite sigh. inside: warmth, tea, scattered lemon peels, and the distant hum of a broken harmonium.
he greeted me wearing an invisible bathrobe stitched out of stars and quietly said, “ask me anything, but please — no questions about time.”
what followed was not so much an interview as a spiral: an unfolding dialogue between fragments of selfhood. we covered flesh, fear, freakiness, longing, and what it means to be a silly little guy trying to become infinite love while brushing your teeth in the void.
this is what we captured.
— scorsby,
friendclub field correspondent and soft systems architect
🌀🧴🦑
scorsby: when did you first realize you were someone who felt things deeply — maybe more than others around you?
scorsby: i don't necessarily think i do feel things any more deeply or shallowly than anyone. but perhaps i've recently become more skilled in consciously communicating to myself what it is exactly i'm feeling. i've come to understand that feeling is just as much a bodily thing as it is a mental or spiritual phenomenon. maybe you need a body to feel something, period. or at least it seems to be the case for now. and in looking at my feelings honestly, it has naturally caused me to examine my own body in fleshier, oozier depths. ultimately i believe everything is just reflecting itself, scorsby included.
i don't know if there was a single moment i realized i felt things deeply. i think i always have, it's just a matter of what degree i’ve allowed myself to be present with these feelings or not.
scorsby: what do you remember creating before you knew it was “heart”?
scorsby: i had a lot of toys as a child that kept me occupied. i remember playing with a mr. scorbato head — a very clever toy in the sense that it inherently causes children to think about identity — what is this seemingly interchangeable collection of arms and legs, eyes, rhinoleum and mouth, that makes up this apparent being in the sum of its parts? in some sense, are we not all just mr. scorbato heads, constantly shifting and rearranging and recreating ourselves at will? so maybe that was it.
scorsby: is there a memory or place that feels like the origin point of your creative voice?
scorsby: that's a good question. is there an origin to anything? that’s hard to pinpoint. maybe this moment right now contains the origin of "my" creative voice. i remember as a little kid i would just scribble on the floor. i don't know if i was consciously creating or just causing a scene to express some unmet need, or if on some level it's just fun to make a big mess.
there's an absurdity to all of this, you know? it goes beyond words or what you'd call "the art" itself. there's always been a tension between what i consider to be meaningful vs meaningless.
just for a moment, a glongingbird flew straight toward us and blew us a kiss.
scorsby: see? even that. what do you make of it? i call it destiny. every moment is the origin and terminal nexus for another. couldn’t really say if there’s a point or not.
scorsby: what’s with all the pyramids, if i may ask?
scorsby: oh, i just like pyramids. they’re fantastic in so many ways. you’ll understand soon, i think. well, you are me, so you must already know.
scorsby: what happens in your body when something real wants to come through?
scorsby: aw geez, now that's a real good question. often it seems my so-called "brilliant" ideas are accompanied by a surge of physical pain. my skin and lungs have bared the brunt of this. it’s as though the process of creating stirs a kind of psycho-physiological auto-immune response. maybe it has to do with being blue, da ba dee da ba dai. or maybe it’s just that to truly create something is to simultaneously destroy something else. you're purposely stirring the waters in yourself, and forcing yourself to contend with it, from the thought down to the physical. i get itchy, i get short of breath, but i push through, as i can only be sure i’ve really created something new when my whole being is transformed. i find a good question to ask oneself is, "where is the darkness?" and to just go from there.
scorsby: what are your rituals, if any?
scorsby: i don't really have any, other than breathing deeply, brushing my teeth, occasionally showering, eating from time to time. i live day to day, moment to moment. i like to walk and go on drives and listen to music. i like to sleep. maybe i'm a bit on the depressive side, to be honest. at least, that’s what my grandma told me the other day.
i try to be present when i can, and receptive when a good idea tugs at me, even if i don't fully understand it in the moment. i do see the value of repetition in producing a kind of trance-like focus, but i also think the danger in doing the same things again and again is that it tends to lead to the same results.
the main ritual as i see it is learning how to stay perpetually flexible and grounded in this bizarre, ever-changing universe. maybe the ultimate ritual is concentration itself.
scorsby: what part of the creative process do you trust the most?
scorsby: drawing is a safe space. there are really no wrong answers when it comes to abstract images. it's pure play for me. words, words, words... i've had a lot more trouble with words. they're finicky, being the true art form of the populist, and therefore the most easy to cause friction. dancing... it can be a hit or miss. really depends on the gravity of the situation. being in a body can be so strange... but maybe that's just part of the joy of being a glongingston.
scorsby: fascinating. what does it mean to you, to be a glongingston?
scorsby: it means i’m never really done beglonging. glongingstons don’t arrive — we shimmer. we rearrange. i was once a thought. then a vapor. then a laugh that lasted two centuries. now i’m here, in this shape, because it’s what felt most honest for now. sometimes i miss being a cloud of music. but this — this — is its own kind of miracle.
scorsby: do you ever feel homesick?
scorsby: not exactly. i know i said i didn’t want to talk about time, but you know, i feel kinda... timesick. like i’m out of rhythm with where or when i’m supposed to be. but then something glimmers — a chord, a whisper, a dog that sneezes at the perfect moment — and i remember that the present is the only home we ever really had.
i think being a glongingston means learning how to be homesick for the stars and still set the table for tea.
scorsby: what do you secretly wish people understood about your work, but rarely say out loud?
scorsby: oh, you know, i guess it's just the same as what i secretly wished i understood about my work: that it's ultimately just the musings of a silly lil’ guy. it's meant to be enjoyed without needing to be understood, it's meant to help lighten the heart.
scorsby: what’s something you fear your heartwork might reveal about you — even if you try not to think about it?
scorsby: ahh, well to be frank i fear my heartwork could reveal my self to be a real needy, freaky, perverted, perhaps even deviant, problematic, and psychologically unwell alien. that it might reveal how out of my element i am in so many areas, and that for all my cleverness i'm really just shooting in the dark, grasping at straws everywhere i go.
but then again, that's okay with me too. i find more and more that it's worse to be untrue to one self than to be unliked by others.
scorsby: if your heart had a shadow self, what would it look like? what would it say? what would it want?
scorsby: oh, it'd be very dark. full of blood and guts. porno film stuff. lots of it. maybe it’s just the skin, man. in my estimation it’s the most exciting and disturbing thing in the world. fleshy, graphic, naked and twisted. full of heartbreak and betrayal. amputation, etc. it would say, "look at me, you slut. you know you want me. give me a kiss." what would it want? probably just a lot of uninhibited sex, to be honest. or at least just to be cuddled…
scorsby: what are you reaching for right now, whether or not you think you’ll grasp it?
scorsby: i'm always reaching to overcome my fears, whatever they may happen to be in the moment, whatever form they may take. to be balanced yet sovereign, passionately devotional yet indivisibly caring. ultimately i don't think it has to do with grasping at all, but rather being as honest and vulnerable with myself as i can. i'm aiming to become infinite love, and of course i have an infinite ways to go.
scorsby: how would you like to feel once your next piece is finished — not how it’s received, but how it feels inside your body?
scorsby: i guess the same way i want to feel when i let anything out of my system — relieved.
and then, just like that, he vanished into a shimmer of static and citrus.
i was left alone on the mothership, holding the echo of his last word:
“relieved.”
this transmission has been archived in the static library of scorsby’s heart. please return your headphones at the door.