For those 10,000 (2016: 100,000+ ) or so new readers who checked in since last June, we thought this reprint might help you get a better understanding of who Namazu is and what he is doing publishing within our pages.
THE NAMAZU INTERVIEW:
Editor Johnas Presbyter Asks the Questions Fans Requested
Namazu, Giant Catfish, Former Japanese Demigod , Rock Album Cover Model, and American Admiralty Books Coastal Environmental Analyst ,and lately Political Commentator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfL_vGX6YbE Link to the Namazu Lyrics Video never posted here before
PRESBYTER: Namazu, we were all surprised to see you on the cover of a 2008 rock album. Why is that you never mentioned a prior career in the music industry?
NAMAZU: Johnas, you never asked.
PRESBYTER: Fair enough, but you did leave us with the impression that when you took human form you looked like an elderly Japanese man resembling ancient pictures of your former nemesis
NAMAZU: If you noticed Johnas, I'm only partially in human form my head is a smaller version of its regular appearance, somewhat out of proportion for the human body. Remember in my resting natural state I'm a giant catfish roughly the size of Japan. Morphing isn't easy and human perception actually limits and directs what is possible for me in terms of morphing. I really can't do it every day or for very long periods that's why this interview is being conducted over the hydrophones. I also can't just morph into anything I want, human perception puts limits on this ability. It also sometimes makes surprising quantum leaps and imposes on me morphs involuntarily, but not often.
PRESBYTER: Uh....imposes involuntary morphs?
NAMAZU: Yes imposes involuntary morphs. It isn't often but it can be dramatic. The last time it happened was several thousand years ago. You see Johnas I actually started out life as a dragon. Then I was morphed into a giant earth shaking Japanese catfish demigod by the popular imagination of hundreds of thousands of human beings in the area. I really didn't have a choice. I'm a giant catfish now, not some Star Trek "shape shifter" , taking different forms at will. "Fish Boy" as you refer to my image on the album cover was a unique new experience.
PRESBYTER: So you morphed into "Fish Boy" just for MS Oh Land and her album cover?
NAMAZU: Not exactly, it's more like she conjured me up in that image and I couldn't help myself.
PRESBYTER: She's that hot ,uh?
NAMAZU: Presbyter, you are one lewd and crude old sailor. Fortunately for you, being about 3,000 years old, I am rather fond of old things. Nanna has a powerful imagination and I recognized that her vision was the start of a new morph, the likes of which I haven't experienced in a few thousand years. The Human imagination, starting with Nanna's, is changing me, but this time, in keeping with the democratic consciousness sweeping the world and the availability of global electronic communications, I actually get to participate in shaping this morph. One way that I do that is by writing for you lewd and crude old bipeds at AAB.
PRESBYTER: Uh....Nanna?
NAMAZU: Jeez Johnas don't you do any research before starting one of these interviews? "Oh Land" is a stage name that is basically an Anglicized pronunciation of Nanna's, what you WASP types would call, "middle name". Her real name is Nanna Oland Fabricius. In Danish the "Oland" part has a slash through the "O" and the rough pronunciation would be something like "Oh Laund". That's where the "Oh Land" stage name came from. She is the great great granddaughter of missionary, ethnographer, naturalist Otto Fabricus who published FAUNA GREENLAND in 1780. It isn't an accident that some of her music addresses forces of nature and that her first album was called "FAUNA".
PRESBYTER: Oh come on Namazu, you're making that up! That's just too handy!
NAMAZU: Bite my tail fin Presbyter you jaded old boatswain's mate. It's all real as a heart attack! Nanna is an up and coming young singer, composer, and producer who has been to the top five in the pop charts in her native Denmark, and sold well in America where she now lives in New York. She has appeared since 2008 on Jimmy Kimmel Live, David Letterman, and Craig Fergusion's shows. Her music in America is getting great critical reviews but currently runs below the top 40 pop list radar in many markets. Right now young artists in America with clear visions of who they are as an artist, and real professional performance experience, and their own original material have a bit of trouble pushing through the market clutter of all the new X Factor, American Idol, and The Voice new entrants each year with their obvious big media/ record label backing and promotion. But I'm confident that Nanna's music will speak for itself and that top 40 chart hits are just over the horizon. Regardless, she has millions of loyal fans in America and Europe. I suspect there is a serious following among English speaking Japanese as well. How about helping me return a favor and paste in some links to her music at about this point in the interview when you print it out?
PRESBYTER: Um....is Amazon one of her music outlets?
NANAMZU: Absolutely! Don't you read any of the daily advertising copy you approve numb skull.
PRESBYTER: Numb skull! In a journalistic career that is only weeks old you've insulted and demeaned the President of the United States, both Houses of Congress,both political parties , Al Gore, Rush Limbugh, and the Secretary General of the United Nations, now you insult your own editor. You have a problem with authority figures don't you?
NAAMZU: No, I'm a three thousand year old giant catfish the size of Japan, you pip squeak. I don't have a problem with "authority figures", compared to me they are all pip squeaks. I'm a product of the collective human imagination which "authorities" have never been able to chain and generally don't like. Since most of the authority figures of the human race down through history have been sorely lacking in imagination, I don't see them having anything to do with my apparent ongoing new morph. But I hear the cry against them coming out of the collective human imagination that is screaming "stop the misrule!". So if kings, emperors, presidents, and parliamentarians mean so little to me, where do you think an "authority figure" like an editor fits? So are you going to link to my imaginative friend's work products or do I slap you silly?
Presbyter: Like I really have a choice.... OK, we'll put some links in at this point in the transcript.
NAMAZU: That's a good boy but stop whining like I bullied you into anything. I doubled your readership practically overnight, increased the value of your advertising, and now I'm going to sell some records that you get commissioned on. You are well advised to take my advice.
Presbyter: Yes "master"!
NAMAZU: Don't be flippant, just do it.And then lets get back to the interview because I suspect that these last few issues weren't fan questions. I do respect my fans. They will play a big role in this on going morph, or can stop it in mid morph.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nldOhFVh8jY: YouTube link to a video of a performance of "Namazu " by Oh Land.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIG9w4wiKWU : "Heavy Eyes" single video on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AekZ_RZ6SE : Oh Land's "RAIN BOW" on YouTube
Oh Land
Presbyter: OK, the plug for your pal is out of the way. Now the real question that your fans keep asking is are you and this blond bombshell just friends? NAMAZU: Even "friends" might be stretching a point. I only met her once in 2008. I haven't taken that form again since and now she probably has some copy rights related to it, so I doubt that I'll ever take that form again for anyone but her. I was more a momentary figment of her imagination, than anything else to her. I have been a figment of imagination for millions of humans over the centuries, but Nanna did quite a bit more with it than other humans in recent times. But she is not the first to create images around me. Remember that I first came to your attention through a guest blog by Vic Socotra ( www.vicsocotra.com) which he illustrated with ancient Japanese wood cut paintings of my image. So artists and authors have been conjuring me up for thousands of years and helped shape my image. Nanna was simply the first song writer and musician to conjure me up in the age of electronically recorded and distributed music. That she is the best looking and sounding artist in all these thousands of years to contribute to my image is just a happy,yet powerful coincidence. If you follow the lyrics of "Namazu" she is really singing more about my past than my future. The album cover on which she is depicted hugging me signals the start of the change from malevolent and violent earth shaking demigod to personification of neutral, though sometimes destructive forces of nature. Where I'm trying to go is to spokesman for those forces reminding humankind that they will never be controlled, but once humans accept that truth, the negative consequences of the strongest manifestations of those forces can be strongly mitigated. In short ,we can share the planet. Thanks to my new contract with the AAB with its complete creative freedom the rest is now up to me. PRESBYTER: You sure make being a demigod sound like a drag. You are subjected to involuntary morphs of size, shape, and even species, and had to endure thousands of years of public animosity over public perceptions actually generated by ill informed public opinion. I have to wonder why anyone would want the job. NAMAZU: As I said in my posting defending my reemployment rights to the religious right; "demigod" is an unfortunate term and not one that any of us "personifications of forces of nature" personally sought out. As for wanting the job, none of us former "demigods" ever sought out actual employment until now. As personifications of nature the natural forces that compose us simply are and were. But the universe is connected. First one mind then another contemplates our component parts and begins to see a coherent whole, the personification process begins. Only the collective human consciousnesses can determine what shape we take and role we play. Nanna contemplated me in a new and novel way, wrote lyrics about it, put them to music, performed the music, recorded and distributed it. Hundreds of thousands have heard it, and seen the ground breaking album cover, the collective consciousness was stirred. Vic Scrota contemplated my component forces of nature and found my ancient image useful in personifying and explaining new truths. He wrote and published. As a result, later, you guys let me speak with my own voice in the first person, you thought for just one appearance. However too many bipeds wouldn't let me go, so here I am a fully contracted intelligent being emerged from the collective human personification process. I'm composed of very powerful natural forces but I'm given shape and voice by probably the most powerful natural force on the planet , the collective human intelligence. You think its never happened before? You ever heard of a guy called Santa Clause? http://www.vicsocotra.com/
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