NOOTHGRUSH II

This is the second of my manuscript drawings, and the second to focus Narrowly on the Californian sludge trio (now a quartet?!) Noothgrush. For more information about Noothgrushes, please refer to Dr. Seuss' "There's a Wocket in my Pocket".

I'm starting to understand more what manuscripts are all about, but this piece is still more heavily illuminated than any "true" Medieval manuscript would have been. The drawing focuses on Noothgrush's disdain for the human race, and the tendency of our species to upset the natural order and completely render anything we touch unlivable. Or dead. Noothgrush, as well as other bands around the mid nineties who played shows in the same scene, Grief, Man is the Bastard, Seized, expressed a misanthropic mindset, which sometime bordered onto actively promoting human extinction. This is an interesting concept when one realizes that the population of Europe did in fact almost face extinction during the time when these handmade books flourished, due to the spread of the bubonic plague. Noothgrush, however misanthropic you find them, do make salient points about the callousness of our species in regards to ecology, and especially our sense of entitlement and superiority, neither of which is founded on anything concrete. The text in this manuscript is from a 1997 interview, but it is informed by the same worldview which they held (and still do hold) while writing songs such as Stagnance and Useless.

I find the manuscript format quite appropriate when looking at these seemingly flippant, though very wise and well meaning words. Manuscripts were used to record knowledge, not just of canonical bible verses (and indeed the format of a handwritten bible is responsible for much of the look and format, and likely the errors too, in the modern bible) but also the teachings of various saints and lesser religious leaders. They were kept in monasteries and rewritten into other languages, after being borrowed, in whole or in piece, by other monks or scholars. I think that their is a great deal to be gained from looking at song lyrics, and interviews with bands from the grind/sludge/powerviolence, especially the cluster of great bands from the state of California.