{"id":6977,"date":"2018-07-27T06:45:14","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T10:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tellest.com\/?p=6977"},"modified":"2018-07-31T08:17:48","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T12:17:48","slug":"interview-zarknon-embarassed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/interview-zarknon-embarassed\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Zarqnon the Embarassed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome everyone to our interview with the curiously-named Zarqnon the Embarrassed.\u00a0 He is the author of the newly released Of Zots and Xoodles:\u00a0Theodil Creates a Universe, <\/em>an allegorical look at the creation of our universe.\u00a0 <\/em>Grab a seat and hold on tight.\u00a0 This is bound to be an interesting conversation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tellest<\/strong>: First off: thank you for joining us, Zarqnon.\u00a0 Considering all the things you muse and all the things you do, I definitely appreciate your time.\u00a0 You\u2019re definitely not our typical author, so I\u2019ll try and frame things a little differently than we do with some of our other interviews.<\/p>\n

I guess the question scratching my brain is this: what made you decide to write Of Zots and Xoodles<\/em>?<\/em><\/p>\n

Zarqnon the Embarrassed<\/strong>: Multiple things, really.\u00a0 I am autistic, and my brain absorbs everything.\u00a0 On top of that, like many individuals on the spectrum, I see things on a matrix\u2014verses linearly.\u00a0 For example: if a non-autistic person is talking about math, they will typically think along the line of math and math topics.\u00a0 If someone like me is talking about math, I can be thinking and including in the conversation everything from Metallica, Kierkegaard, Monchichis, HR PufnStuf, the shape of different types of spoons, etc.\u00a0 There are no parameters separating concepts.<\/p>\n

One of the topics I have been tinkering with recently has been: what came before the universe, and what the parameters of it would have to be.\u00a0 Recently, there is a new Vice Provost for where I work (and my boss, one level removed) who is a physics professor, so I would beat back and forth many of the ideas I had \u2013 entropy, light, gravity, other variables and constants.<\/p>\n

My next dilemma was how to construct my theories into a book.\u00a0 Writing a technical book is hard for anyone, and being very non-linear in my personal paradigm makes it nearly implausible.\u00a0 So I thought about how I would like it.\u00a0 I just learned I was autistic a few years ago, and it has encouraged me to allow my brain to \u201corganize\u201d and \u201cdevelop\u201d things that I know would be unique.<\/p>\n

I know that a lot of individuals have eschewed \u201cintelligent design\u201d, but, being a theist, I have no problem with including \u201csomeone intelligent behind the construct\u201d.\u00a0 I like William Paley\u2019s notion of natural theism, where God functions through the laws that govern the universe (verses the wham bam pow) to construct things.\u00a0 If God created it, I have a hard time thinking that an intellectual being took the \u201ccheap and easy\u201d way to do it.\u00a0 This \u201cfunctions through the laws\u201d allows the inclusion of logic and intentional process and progress, but not simply the \u201chow would I do it\u201d\u2014if it looked too simply\/oakum\u2019s, then there is something amiss\u2014we cauterize our own logic system with our personal bias and our needs to simplify and make process and data fit into our personal flow.\u00a0 But if we layer on very basic notions of science over the quantum realm, we can produce some really interesting parameters (like gravity occurring because of an imbalance of matter and the whole osmosis\/wanting to press through a membrane to produce an equilibrium).<\/p>\n

So I thought \u201cwhat if I have someone in front of a committee (I left my PhD as ABD due to my inability to come to an agreement with my committee) build a universe step by step?\u201d\u00a0 Then I could embrace all the philosophical, love for absurdism (Dr Seuss to HHGTTG), Sci-Fi, abstractness, and other wonkiness that makes up my thought process into it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: How difficult was it to keep this book in a form that made sense to you?\u00a0 It seems like at any moment, it could have unraveled and made your head explode!<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: As I mentioned, my head functions on a matrix: there are multiple amalgamated layers of thought typically going on at any given time, and yet those layers are not autonomous\u2014the concepts from the layers are constantly bleeding into others.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: Does this end up causing you to have to take an incredible amount of notes, or is it all locked in your brain, ready to tap into whenever you want it?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: I have some scribbles.\u00a0 But most of it is in my head.\u00a0 A lot of what I am writing is me trying to explain what I see inside my head: I SEE all this in my head \u2013 as mentioned previously, a big matrix with data swarming all around.\u00a0 The issue I have is describing it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: Well, I think you\u2019ve done a great job with Zots and Xoodles.\u00a0 It\u2019s definitely tricky material to write about, but it\u2019s presented in a way that is very accessible.\u00a0 Did you kind of audition it to people who you thought might have had a hard time with it?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: Not really\u2026 unfortunately trying to \u201ccater to or ask advice from people who might have a hard time with it\u201d can cause discouragement and can cause one to \u201cover simplify\u201d.\u00a0 I just wanted to write, and design it in such a way that someone without any technical knowledge could still pull something out of it, even if it was simply enjoying the absurdity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: You\u2019ve got plenty of other interests and backgrounds to speak of\u2014a world of lives lived, it seems.\u00a0 What makes Zarqnon the Embarrassed tick?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: I want to do a good job.\u00a0 It sounds simple, but I want to use what I have been given, and I want to use it well.\u00a0 We all have things that make us unique, and to not embrace them and use them is disrespecting our creator and robbing from those who may find peace and solace through our individual distinctions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: Alright, back to Zots and Xoodles.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got characters that exist within the abstract world you created here, including Theodil and the inquisitive child.\u00a0 What do they represent, in your mind?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: The \u201ccut-rate\u201d answer would simply say it\u2019s \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cJesus\u201d or some prophet\/philosopher.\u00a0 But really, I wanted to anthropomorphize the process.\u00a0 There was no direct religious intent.\u00a0 That way I could embrace the logic and design.\u00a0 Simply saying \u201cthe strings\/pre-universal fibers hit, and then they unraveled and left fragments that melded together to form\u2026\u201d just sounded too \u201cacademic\u201d.\u00a0 Yuck.\u00a0 Theodil embraces the logic and process, the child embraces the scientific phenomenon and philosophical inquiry, the \u201cwhat and why did this happen\u201d.\u00a0 The committee, as well, are part of the inquiry, as well as our nature to want conventional explanations.\u00a0 The child and the committee embrace the multi-faceted pond where Cynic, Skeptic, and honest exploration of the data fuse and repel.<\/p>\n

One little facet I don\u2019t think is as obvious, but tickles my philosophical view is the announcer coming along after elaborate stints and \u201csumming up\u201d\/simplifying everything done.\u00a0 For example: the processes Theodil creates manifest multiple time frames, each with their own parameters.\u00a0 After all said and done, the announcer just says \u201cTheodil has created Time.\u201d\u00a0 I find it amusing how people simply view a religious text where it says \u201cGod took dust and created humans\u201d, and completely disregard the fact that the \u201ccreating\u201d includes designing a complex being with Golgi apparatus, mitochondria, gazillion miles of capillaries, and has symbiotic relationships with billions of microbes.\u00a0 As I mentioned, I think there is process to everything, and the \u201cwham bam pow\u201d is a cheap and intellectually dishonest way to embrace something so amazingly delicate and intricate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: It takes a smarter man than me to put all these thoughts together.\u00a0 Have you received your fair share of praise by bringing this abstract story to life?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: I have gotten a little bit of feedback.\u00a0 I will say I am a horrible interpreter of feedback.\u00a0 A \u201ccurse\u201d of being on the spectrum is a reduced (or in my case, complete absence) of the ability to interpret peoples\u2019 responses.\u00a0 Funny story: when we first met, my wife hated me for years, and everyone knew it but me\u2026 I had no clue -completely oblivious.\u00a0 Good thing, because she is the best thing that has ever happened to me.\u00a0 She is very structured, and it has enabled me to function far above what I would have ever been able to do without her. \u00a0I do know that the book does confuse some people, and people who are not used to absurdism or abstract language (Lewis Carroll, Dr Seuss, etc) are thrown by it.\u00a0 And I know that people who are expecting \u201cproper\u201d, \u201cprofessional\u201d or \u201ctechnical\u201d language may find it annoying, because I have lost the motivation for fitting my writing into any given models for acceptable writ.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: I think the advent of the Amazon Kindle marketplace definitely changes that up a little bit though.\u00a0 It opens up the opportunity to write stories like this that wouldn\u2019t be considered mainstream.\u00a0 If you couldn\u2019t have released it as a book, how do you think you would have presented it?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: One man play doing interpretive dancing\u2026with lasers\u2026and a smoke machine.\u00a0 Just kidding.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what I would have done.\u00a0\u00a0 I probably would have done some kind of home grown book and just handed it out or made a home grown website and given it out.\u00a0 Right now, I am trying to convince some schools to take a look at it as a text book type thing, because it has literary, science, philosophical, and artistic elements to it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: You learned when you were close to 40 years old that you were on the autism spectrum.\u00a0 How did this help you understand the person that you were, and what questions did it leave you wondering about yourself?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: I learned that I was on the spectrum, like many adults who discover they are on the spectrum, because a child or someone related is diagnosed. And through the uncovering process of what denoted that individual as \u201con the spectrum\u201d, lights go off: it\u2019s like \u201chey, that explains a WHOLE lot\u201d.\u00a0 People like me KNOW we are different (it has been referred to as \u201cWrong Planet Syndrome\u201d)\u2014we grow up knowing it, that we don\u2019t fit in, that the world around us does not make sense at all, that what other people are enjoying is just plain foreign.\u00a0 I, like many other undiagnosed adults on the spectrum, typically attributed it to something that may have happened in the past: I have hydrocephalus, so I just attributed it to post traumatic stress caused by MANY childhood head surgeries. \u00a0People like Susan Boyle attributed it to being dropped as a child. But the person who was diagnosed and was related to me did not have those surgeries, and they behaved exactly like me.<\/p>\n

In short, to me, it meant I wasn\u2019t broken: there is a process in the design. It opened up the door for me to understand my personal thought paradigm, which the filters work differently, not \u201cbrokenly\u201d<\/p>\n

People like me typically don\u2019t get diagnosed: 1) it is difficult to get a diagnosis for adults, because most of us don\u2019t always remember the childhood behaviors that are typically used for a diagnosis, 2) we have developed coping mechanisms that mask most of the behaviors, and 3) most importantly, the only reason people are typically is because there is an issue that a proper diagnosis could aid.\u00a0 An official diagnosis is of no use to me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: The illustrations are another interesting point to bring up.\u00a0 The artist made everything seem very sci-fi Dr. Seuss, which seemed like it was the goal.\u00a0 How did you manage to make that happen, and how did you figure out that fit in the story you were telling?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: If you study Frank Louis Allen (http:\/\/franklouisallen.tumblr.com\/<\/a>) you will see that he typically draws exactly what you see\u2014sci-fi Dr. Seuss Salvador Dali type stuff.\u00a0 That is why I asked him to illustrate it: his art expressed exactly how I saw things.\u00a0 Other illustrators I experimented with were very \u201clinear\u201d in their design\u2014they would simply draw a person in front of a committee, etc.\u00a0 Frank\u2019s processor works a lot like mine: open and unrestrained by normal paradigms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: And this is because Allen is also on the autism spectrum, isn\u2019t he?\u00a0 Did you two end up meeting because of the book, or because you were studying more about autism, or was it just something that synced up at the right time?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: We met up on facebook somehow.\u00a0 It could have either been a spectrum oriented group or an artist type thing\u2026I don\u2019t really remember.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: You do a bit more than just write.\u00a0 You\u2019re also into music, and you have a decent selection of experimental and abstract songs.\u00a0 How long have you been toying around with that?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: I\u2019ve been writing music for decades.\u00a0 I started out in my youth writing more lounge\/bar\/folk on piano, being that I listened to people like Elton John, Billy Joel and Keith Green.\u00a0 In high school, I started playing in bands \u2013 the early ones like rush and pink Floyd, and the later ones started sounding more Metallica\/ Queensryche\/Iron Maiden.\u00a0 After leaving that, I started experimenting with electronic music.\u00a0 I wrote stuff along the lines of Depeche mode, moving heavier and with random notes.\u00a0 Then, one day, while arranging some hymns my wife had recorded, I thought \u201cwhy don\u2019t I make these into completely chaotic arrangements\u201d, and I started cutting, pasting, distorting, etc.\u00a0 the album is called \u201cWorm as I\u201d and is by the pseudonym \u201cPhloide\u201d.\u00a0 From there, it just went downhill.\u00a0 I did some classical oriented stuff, including strange variations of Canon in D and writing my own fugues, which I called BWV 0, Mistakes on a Theme.\u00a0 I was calling myself Bach Spurious, but some of the outlets (Spotify, iTunes) got mad at me for it.\u00a0 I write what comes to me: easy listening to gothic acapella to chaos.\u00a0 No country or rap.\u00a0 And I am very bad a pop\u2026 and my problem with techno is that I get very bored with it, so I start ripping it apart and distorting it and stuff\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: If there was a specific album or song (or two) that you were really proud of, where would you point readers to?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: I have no idea where to even start on that one\u2026 none.\u00a0 I would point to my pseudonyms: Phloide (electronic music), Asperger Beeblebrox (gothy vocal experiments), Zarqnon the Embarrassed (chaos)\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/strong>: You\u2019ve also made mention that Of Zots and Xoodles is a charitable cause.\u00a0 All the proceeds that are earned from this book go to local schools to assist children who might need assistance.\u00a0 Is that right?<\/p>\n

ZtE<\/strong>: Yes.\u00a0 I donate a lot of my hobby money to local schools, including paying off lunch debts and buying supplies for students.\u00a0 I won\u2019t go into exactly what I do, because 90% of what I do, I do anonymously.\u00a0 I want to do a good job.\u00a0 That is what makes me tick 😊<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’d like to thank Zarqnon for joining us for this interview.\u00a0 It was eye-opening and very entertaining.\u00a0 Don’t forget,\u00a0Of Zots and Xoodles: Theodil Creates a Universe<\/em> is ready for you on Amazon<\/a>.\u00a0 Pick it up and have a fantastic time with it!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome everyone to our interview with the curiously-named Zarqnon the Embarrassed.\u00a0 He is the author of the newly released Of Zots and Xoodles:\u00a0Theodil Creates a Universe, an allegorical look at the creation of our universe.\u00a0 Grab a seat and hold on tight.\u00a0 This is bound to be an interesting conversation.   Tellest: First off: thank […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[463,145,350,462],"tags":[303,1739,379,1740,1748],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Featured-Tellest-Zots.png","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1UVey-1Ox","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6977"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6988,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions\/6988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}