Interview with the TrypCat, Part II

The cut-up ruptures of William Burroughs and his rapturous routines on the algebra of Need. The madcap transcendence of Jack Kerouac, booze-battered and truly beat in the end. Lord Buckley’s hep jive take on high-brow tomfoolery. Ken Nordine’s silky, spasmolytic jazz baritone. Tom Robbins’ sprawling epic tales and cosmic cast of characters. Tom Waits and all the brawling, bawling bastards he’s brought forth unto the earth. Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo lambast on the vicious American system of democracy and excess. The jagged exaggerated shadows of German Expressionism. The chiaroscuro of Film Noir pulp cinema. Jump-cut hand-held Nouvelle Vague realism. Low-brow Vaudeville antics. Bill Laswell’s bass groove and ambient world-meshing deep space explorations. The sonic chaos and simple sweet sounds of the Velvet Underground. The fretboard afire gypsy-jazz chromatics of Django Reinhardt . Leon Redbone’s old-timey croon and six-string finger strums. Louis Armstrong (need I say more?), Syd Barrett’s and Skip Spence’s last ditch attempts at maintaining sanity in an insane world. The infinite musical genius and jester that was Frank Zappa. Captain Beefheart’s guttural avant-garde blues. The psychoactive space and time meanderings of Daevid Allen’s Gong. The Teutonic Kraut jams of Amon Duul II. Bill Monroe’s blistering bluegrass mandolin runs. The melancholy woe of Edgar Allan Poe. The clean, repeating lines and curves of Art Deco. The wispy, willowy lines and curves of Art Nouveau. The impish and delicious pen and ink renderings of Arthur Rackham. Lotte Reiniger’s remarkably beautiful shadow shows. Old-school cel animation of any sort. Jiri Trinka’s poetic puppet-mastery. Jan Svankmajer’s superb surreal animations and storytelling. Bourbon, top-shelf to gut-rot. The right herbs and spices, and any and all moments we have ever experienced.