the weekly once-over
Observations, Perceptions, Remembrances, and Premonitions – the Good, the Bad, and the Grotesque
Words According to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated December 20th, 2024
The working title of today's Once-Over is Reality is Often a Hard and Bitter Pill to Swallow. It is alternatively titled The Design Industry's Obsequious Subservience to Trends, Mass-Produced Goods, and the Instagram Algorithm.
Reading time: under five minutes.
In our professional and personal lives, we each bear a conjoined responsibility to prioritize the health of our planet. For Raven Vanguard, this means unequivocally rejecting wasteful trends and cheaply made mass-produced goods and committing to client well-being, sustainability, timelessness, and environmental stewardship in everything we do.
Since our humble beginnings, we have promoted using materials, practices, and processes that substantially reduce possible ecological impacts. At Raven Vanguard, timeless design is not just a philosophical touchstone but a matter of social responsibility.
Unfortunately, Raven Vanguard is an outlier in our industry. Our industry has unleashed an avalanche of undesirable and potentially catastrophic consequences on the natural world by promoting, popularizing, and prioritizing the transient nature of design trends and incorporating disposable and inferior mass-market materials and furnishings into interior design projects.
Moreover, planned obsolescence—the intentional design of products with limited lifespans to encourage frequent replacements—has been a pervasive and tight-lipped practice in the interior design industry since the early 1980s and shows no signs of slowing down. The interior design industry's complicity in promoting such wastefulness is undeniable. Trend-driven designs and cheaply made furnishings are marketed as "affordable," but at what cost? The environmental toll is immense, and the promise of affordability is an illusion when frequent replacements become inevitable. This disharmony is not just troubling—it is an urgent clarion call to take remedial measures. This rapidly escalating tsunami of waste is not merely a byproduct of consumer behavior; it is the direct result of an exploitative industry business model that thrives on planned obsolescence by selfishly manipulating consumer decision-making processes and behavioral economics.
For decades, the interior design industry has prioritized profitability over the longevity of future-proof design. Short-lived trends and cheaply made furnishings dominate the market, offering the illusion of accessibility and affordability while exacting a devastating environmental cost. At Raven Vanguard, we categorically reject this paradigm. Our philosophy is rooted in timelessness—designs that promote and nurture aesthetic value and material integrity and maximize product and service consumer value and experience.
Timelessness is not simply the absence of trends. It is a deliberate commitment to design principles that transcend and take exception to passing fads, dubious marketing practices, and cheaply made products destined for the landfill long before their first half-decade of use has passed. At Raven Vanguard, our philosophy and practice are anchored in the notion that authentic design should endure—in its aesthetic and artistic impact, functional longevity, and material integrity. To us, timelessness is a virtue that requires pure imagination, careful thought, a discerning eye, and a principled approach to material choice and construction.
In today's world, disposable culture and mass production reign supreme. Regrettably, design is seen as just another commodity all too often. We live in a time when homes and interiors are often conceived as transient canvases, where furniture and décor items are swapped out like seasonal outfits, and entire rooms are refashioned based on the latest social media craze. This phenomenon fuels a relentless cycle of overconsumption and waste, eroding the more profound meaning that well-crafted spaces can hold. True timelessness stands in direct opposition to this mentality. It encourages us to pause, consider what truly matters and endures, and create spaces that resonate with the human spirit across generations.
At Raven Vanguard, we believe timeless interiors come from a blend of inspiration: classical architecture, time-honored craftsmanship, forward-thinking processes, the layered stories of well-lived spaces, and the enduring allure of quality materials. Unlike the hype-driven trends that arise and fade each year, timeless design neither relies on nor responds to fleeting popular taste or the sinister marketing manipulations of the interior design industry. Timelessness explores the confluence of history, the present, and an openness to future possibilities. Timeless design results from an equilibrium achieved when aesthetic choices are guided by the depth of intention rather than the immediate pressure of what is "in" this season. Ultimately, timeless design is about creating and nurturing spaces that invite meaningful experiences. It is about allowing a home or an interior environment to become a personal refuge, reflecting and respecting the lives and values of those who inhabit it.
I receive over fifty design-related emails daily from industry participants, including major trade publications and manufacturers. Roughly seventy-five percent of these emails are pushing or marketing some form of uninspired and inferior trend that is certain to be short-lived. If the word trend appears in the email's subject line, this email is deleted without fail. If it becomes clear that the intended purpose of an opened email is to market a trend or a cheaply made mass-produced item, this email is immediately discarded without fail.
As we stand at the threshold of 2025, let's revisit some hard truths (please refer to my previous Once-Overs from November 8th and 12th of 2021). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to report mind-boggling statistics on waste generated from fast furniture and trend-driven interior design. In 2023 alone, furniture waste in the United States exceeded 14 million tons, with over 85% of this waste buried in landfills, less than 15% incinerated for energy, and a pitiful fraction—less than 1%—was recycled. These figures do not even account for the environmental toll of related goods such as carpets, rugs, and appliances. The EPA's reports underscore what we've long suspected: the disposable nature of trend-driven design not only fuels overconsumption but devastates our environment. And while these waste-generation numbers continue to grow, the design industry's promotion of and reliance on planned obsolescence remains steadfast.
Fast furniture, like fast fashion, epitomizes this destructive cycle. Fast furniture—a sector built on the principles of planned obsolescence and rapid turnover—is a significant contributor. Flatpack products, designed for quick assembly and short-term use, often rely on particleboard, plastics, toxic adhesives, and synthetic fabrics. These materials are cheap and nearly impossible to recycle or biodegrade, leaving behind a noxious legacy that will linger for generations. Modern-day, mass-produced furnishings and materials are cheaply made and intentionally designed with a disturbingly short lifecycle. Yet, manufacturers, designers, and trade publications continue to promote and perpetuate a profligate business model that values profit over environmental or consumer well-being. Constructed from synthetic, non-recyclable, and often toxic materials, most of these furnishings are doomed for landfills shortly after purchase. Globally, the picture is even bleaker, with furniture waste surpassing many tens of millions of tons annually—a figure that dwarfs almost every other waste category.
This is where Raven Vanguard takes its stand. Unlike much of our industry, we do not, and will never, incorporate trends into our design philosophy. Trends are fundamentally wasteful because they lack the staying power of timeless design. Their fleeting nature contributes to the rapid turnover of furnishings and fixtures, resulting in an unsustainable cycle of overproduction and environmentally unfriendly disposal practices.
Our ethos centers on heirloom-quality furnishings and goods—pieces meticulously crafted with intention, durability, sustainability, comfort, and artistry. By investing in such items, we honor superior craftsmanship and significantly reduce environmental impact. These are not disposable commodities, but beloved lifelong companions designed to age gracefully, gathering stories and character over generations.
It is vital to recognize the symbiotic relationship between timeless design and sustainability. Heirloom-quality pieces are inherently eco-friendly because they are built to endure and age gracefully. They eschew the need for constant replacement, curbing the relentless extraction of raw materials and reducing the burden on waste management systems.
Moreover, the value proposition of these treasured pieces extends beyond their longevity. They elevate the aesthetic and emotional resonance of a space. Each detail—be it the joinery of a handmade table or the patina of aged leather or velvet—tells a story, infusing the designed environment with authenticity, meaning, and environmental stewardship. By incorporating heritage-quality pieces into their clients' projects, designers foster a deeper connection between clients and the objects surrounding them. After all, heirloom-quality furnishings and fixtures are designed and manufactured to be cherished and passed down from generation to generation, easily repaired, reused, upcycled, or sold in the antique marketplace.
Critics often cite upfront cost as a barrier to specifying heirloom-quality furnishings. While it's true that these pieces demand a higher initial investment, their real-world value far outweighs their upfront expense. Heirloom furnishings are designed to last for several decades if not centuries. Their durability ends the need for frequent replacements, making them more cost-effective over time. The artistry and skill that go into creating heirloom pieces elevate them beyond mere utility. These are works of art, each unique and imbued with the spirit of its maker. Unlike mass-produced items that depreciate almost instantly, heirloom-quality goods often retain or even increase in value over time, honoring our clients' initial investment. They become sought-after collectibles, preserving both financial and sentimental worth. And by opting for furnishings that last, our clients reduce their environmental footprint significantly. The carbon emissions associated with production, transportation, and disposal are minimized, aligning with a commitment to sustainability.
The interior design industry must pivot away from trends and toward sustainability, but this shift requires a fundamental realignment of its business model. Architects, designers, and clients must collectively reject the manipulative economics of planned obsolescence. This requires a change in practice and perspective—a willingness to embrace timeless design as a virtue rather than an unaffordable luxury.
We advocate for a lifecycle approach to design. From sourcing responsibly harvested wood to integrating natural fibers and non-toxic finishes, every choice matters. For example, handmade furnishings crafted by artisans employing traditional techniques bypass the energy-intensive processes of mass production, offering a lower carbon footprint and unparalleled quality.
At Raven Vanguard, we see ourselves as stewards of this change. Our showroom and studio, Raven Vanguard House, is a testament to what can be achieved when design prioritizes beauty, functionality, longevity, artistry, the neuro arts, and environmental integrity. Every client project we undertake is a collaboration rooted in the belief that their designed spaces should respect architectural integrity, and ecological sustainability, reflect their present-day lifestyle, and inspire and sustain their financial and emotional well-being over time.
We invite you to join us in this vision. Challenge your designers and architects to think beyond trends. Seek out furnishings and materials that are as enduring as they are beautiful. And if you're ready for a candid, no-nonsense conversation about how to do this, we're here ready to walk the path with you. We encourage you to ask your designers and architects where their furnishings and materials come from. Inquire about the lifespan of their proposed designs. Ask them if they are looking for certifications from the likes of Forest Stewardship Council, Cradle to Grave Certified, or Greenguard. And if their answers fall short, reach out to us. As always, we are here to have the difficult conversations others avoid. Together, let's redefine what design can be—timeless, sustainable, functional, profoundly impactful, and fully conscious of promoting our client's return on investment, both emotionally and financially.
Words According to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated December 12th, 2024
The working title of today's Once-Over is Finding Majesty in the Shadows of Disgrace.
Reading time: under three minutes.
Assume for purposes of today's Once-Over that A Culinary Series of One Night Stands may or may not be philosophically, aesthetically, or spiritually aligned with the emotional upheaval that will come about from faithfully completing today's intellectual and metaphysical exercise.
Are you ever struck by the realization that life, in all its suffocating complexity, has consigned you to an endless waiting room, a magnificent labyrinthine chamber of thirty-two red doors painted black —a purgatory of perpetual solitary biding, suspended in the afterglow of an existential quagmire? Take a moment to sit with this notion and ruminate. Let it permeate the deepest recesses of your conscience, consuming the quiet spaces within you as a blaze of white light fills the air around you.
I urge you to contemplate this: what if the protagonist of this experiential entanglement is not some faceless, unfamiliar abstraction but you? What if every step you've taken along life's winding knife edge—the blade separating Majesty from disgrace—has been a deliberate and willful theater piece, a performance choreographed by your subconscious without any counsel, guidance, or warning from the heavens above or God Herself?
Are you ready to admit this? Or will you ill-advisedly succumb to the false safety and hollow comfort of withdrawal? Most will withdraw. Withdrawal is easy. Safe. It offers the duplicitous comfort of knowing you will not face the embarrassment of failure, the affliction of disgrace, or the agony of miscalculation. But it also denies you the preciousness and divine intoxication of possibility.
This Once-Over is starting to sound like an experiential equivalent to Adam and Eve’s betrayal of God Herself by consuming the forbidden fruit that dangled enticingly from the Tree of Knowledge. If you've been able to decipher the breadcrumbs I've been parsing out these past several months, you may also sense that I am indeed setting the stage for a future One Night Stand experience at Raven Vanguard House. Where, I wonder, is Lilywhite Lilith when I need her most?
Here, at this dinner table, basking in the soft glow of candlelight, dare to embrace the unbearable pleasures and exquisite agony of disgrace. Imagine a world where disgrace is not an end but a beginning. To be disgraced is to be undone, yes—but what is the creative act if not an intentional undoing, a gale of Schumpeterian destruction that precedes re-creation? The process of tearing apart and reassembling. The willingness to be dismantled so something more significant can emerge from the ashes. Disgrace, in this light, becomes a test of faith, a baptism by fire, a molten hearth where the limits of your imagination are tested, expanded, augmented, shaped, sometimes pulverized, and ultimately remade and reforged.
Consider this as you pass the bread: have you not grown weary of the tyranny of predictability and sameness? Safe design. Safe art. Safe conversations. Safe trends. Safe play. There is a reason creatives are seduced by the illicit, the risky, the dangerously unbound. These are the places where the spirit of actual creation thrives. Just as a knife finds its edge against the grindstone, the scope of our imagination is honed and enhanced by the intense and unrelenting scrutiny of disgrace. Without it, we are dull and lifeless instruments incapable of cutting through the monotony of convention.
Imagine you are the protagonist of tonight's conversation and every audacious risk you've ever taken. The awkward moments, missteps, and crushing failures that haunt you in the dead hours of the night are not liabilities. They are evidence. Proof that you dared to teeter on the edge, while gazing into the starless and bible-black void. And that you bravely plunged headlong into this abyss, knowingly straying from the apocryphal comfort of the middle, yet willing to risk it all tumbling into the wilderness of the unknown.
So, as the evening stretches and the absinthe loosens and dissolves the formalities of conversation, let us entertain this thought: What if disgrace is not a thing or specter to be avoided but a muse to be courted? What if we knowingly abandon the safe harbor of predictability and allow ourselves the freedom to sail into the shitstorm looming just beyond the horizon? After all, you can only capture lightning in a bottle in a violent, unyielding, and electrified storm. In other words, according to the One who showed her outstretched arms to the heavens and space revealing all the human race, a cross divided awakens gentle mass touching. Until next time.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated December 1st, 2024
The working title of today's Once-Over is The Essence of an Unrecognizable Codex of Indecipherable Words (or, is it?). Reading time is just over one minute.
In the world of interior design, I often hear designers say there is no such thing as an original idea anymore. Perhaps this belief drives many to mindlessly succumb to today's uninspired trends, forsaking the boundless potential of their imagination and ingenuity for the illusory safety of conventionality.
When conceptualizing a new artistic work, I refuse to acknowledge the existence of any boundaries or constraints. This does not mean I am blind or oblivious to the preexisting obstacles inherent in most projects. What it does mean is this: I will not allow any perceived obstructions to distort or diminish the purity of my creative process, especially in the nascent stages of liberating my imagination to roam the furthest reaches of possibility. As a creative person, one must give oneself the freedom to dream up the improbable.
To imagine without boundaries is to offer oneself the rarest gift—a form of creative emancipation that feels almost preternatural. It is not a denial of reality but a deliberate and reasoned act of defiance against the suffocating absolutism of preconception. Long ago, I learned that most boundaries are mere constructs—perceived limitations shaped by history, culture, practicality, or simply a lack of understanding. When we approach a new design project, choosing to ignore these constraints is not an act of ignorance but one of artistic rebellion, an unwavering commitment to honor the infinite expanse of possibility within our collective imagination.
Acknowledging obstacles does not mean bowing to them. It means confronting them with clarity, seeing them as they are—shadows at the edges of possibility, not immovable walls standing in the way of progress. The nascent stages of creativity demand an unshackled mind—a boundless realm where ideas can wander freely, unfettered by the weight of expediency or fear of failure. Within this liminal space, possibility thrives, and seemingly absurd ideas, unrestrained by reason or probability, ignite the sparks of brilliance capable of transcending convention.
Too often, the specter of constraint looms large before the first brushstroke is made, the first word is written, or the first note is played. We cannot permit ourselves to become architects of limitation, constructing barriers before laying the foundation of our vision. But what if we cultivated a habit of visionary boldness and groundbreaking expression instead? What if we embraced the sublime freedom of disbelief in those critical first moments, letting our imaginations roam where they please? This is the Raven Vanguard way.
We often uncover extraordinary potential in the unlikeliest places by granting ourselves this freedom. Practicality, after all, can always be invited back into the process later—as a disciplined editor to refine the vision or as a master craftsman to mold the idea into tangible form. But the initial act of creation must belong wholly to the unbounded wilderness of our imagination.
Interior design is not forged in the absence of challenge but in the refusal to be defined by it. Conceptualizing without boundaries is envisioning the world as it might be, not as it is. It is to chart a path through infinite possibility, choosing, again and again, to transform the improbable into the artistically undeniable.
We apply this creative thinking to our client's projects and our A Culinary Series of One Night Stands, which is taking place at Raven Vanguard House.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated November 24th, 2024
The working title of today's Once-Over is The Sacrilege of the Sacred Fig – Culinary Authenticity Versus Experimental Gastronomy. Reading time is just over three minutes.
After spending hundreds of hours consulting ancient epicurean scriptures in holy and black magick texts, including the venerable Sumerian Kish tablets (most days I cannot make heads or tails out of anything written in cuneiform; luckily, today is not most days because psilocybin is a beautiful thing), I bring you today's Once-Over, which offers benediction and salvation and evangelizes on the foundational precepts and the future direction of our A Culinary Series of One Night Stands events at Raven Vanguard House.
Our A Culinary Series of One Night Stands is the harbinger of a new and innovative multi-sensory culinary experience that expands the scope and application of the pleasure principles to experiential dining. Our radical multimodal approach will interrogate and disrupt all prior and archaic interpretations of every known sacred gastronomic rulebook. We are entering a period of great disruption and upheaval concerning the role of food in the aesthetic experience.
I have been previously accused of obscurantism in discussing the details of A Culinary Series of One Night Stands. But this is not that, I assure you. When discussing radical and sweeping change in any discipline, these matters must be managed delicately and with finesse. We all know that change must come. However, patience is the order of the day. All in good time.
Are you ready to cross over our threshold into an exclusive and kaleidoscopic world of pure imagination, creative experimentation, unbridled originality, polychromatic sensuality, and endless possibility? Are you prepared to finally unburden and detach yourself from the commonplace trappings surrounding and suffocating all of us? (Kamala, is that you?) If so, you have arrived at your ultimate destination, the universe of Raven Vanguard and the self-titled House we proudly call home.
Whether we describe it as mood, aura, vibe, atmosphere, ambience, or feeling, many places have a remarkable, vibrational, karmic, and spectral energetic quality that cannot be replicated elsewhere. Knowing how to tap into a place's metaphysical character is indispensable to creating once-in-a-lifetime experiences within that very space. Enter Raven Vanguard and Raven Vanguard House.
Architecturally and aesthetically speaking, Raven Vanguard House harmonizes the secular and supernatural in ways that encourage the past, present, and future to exist simultaneously, conjointly, and in unison. Presently, Raven Vanguard House is undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts in anticipation of the spring opening of the 2025 season of A Culinary Series of One Night Stands. More on this in future Once-Overs.
We have all heard it said before – not everything matters. To that, I say bullshit because, in my world, every little thing does matter. I am not suggesting that everything matters equally, but everything has its consequences, even the littlest things. Regrettably, this topic is too granular and nuanced to be expounded upon in one of our Once-Overs; perhaps, one day, I shall tackle this weighty subject matter in one of our longer format Ravings. Until then, rest assured that precisely like Raven Vanguard House, A Culinary Series of One Night Stands is about embracing and tending to the details, even those whose consequences might seem trifling to someone with a trained eye.
Before China and Fauci collaborated to irresponsibly unleash Covid on humanity, I had started to see structural cracks in the veneer of the fine dining experience everywhere throughout this country. Dining out had long ceased being wholly and altogether experiential in a good way. Sure, if I wanted great food, I could find it, but sadly, that is all I found. I often feel like a prophet trumpeting the coming of the end whenever I ask – when will those at the forefront of the hospitality industry finally realize that epicureans have been and are continuing to search the globe for singularly uncommon multi-sensory experiences when dining out? For us, food is more than sustenance and nourishment; it is also art, immersion, connection, conversation, and lingering. And the overall dining experience itself is more than food consumption; at least it should be, and it surely will be during our One Night Stands.
Do you see food as an opportunity for and a form of creative expression? I do. Food, in its outermost artistic execution, is also a means of conceptual, visual, textural, aromatic, gustatory, and relational expression. When food as art embraces culinary science, everything, and anything is possible. Do you see where I am going with this?
We conceived A Culinary Series of One Night Stands as a reboot and a wiping the slate clean for those searching tirelessly for experiential awakening and enlightenment and to categorically readjust their relationship with fine dining. Our Raven-styled pharmacological, botanical, and ethnobotanical research confirmed the curative and restorative properties present within the unfolding of those out-of-the-ordinary experiences we are naturally drawn to at Raven Vanguard House and A Culinary Series of One Night Stands will adopt that same approach but on steroids and other performance-enhancing substances. With our One Night Stands, we will delve into the complex relationship between humans, food, geography, and the sensate environments in which we partake of nourishment.
Years ago, when I initially suggested that chefs stop blindly chasing their tails to pursue this predominant preoccupation with and fetishization of cultural authenticity in food, everyone looked at me like I had several shrunken heads atop my shoulders. I believed, and still do, that ridged adherence to cultural culinary authenticity stifles creativity. Promoting cultural authenticity in food over a cultural and ethnic tapestry or mosaic is style over substance. Instead, we should encourage creating a tension between authenticity and utter experimentalism. I seek out chefs unafraid to subvert the everyday gastronomic rulebook and bravely cross over cultural lines when sourcing and preparing food. The chefs we look for are risk-takers who create and work without the succor of a safety net and who embrace occasional failure as an opportunity to push boundaries out even further the next time. In my never-ending search for unbounded creativity in the culinary arts, I am suggesting that cultural and ethnic singularity in the guise of authenticity is dangerous because it is too self-limiting, and the idea of a universal truth does not exist when it comes to food.
What I have in mind for A Culinary Series of One Night Stands is experimental and experiential gastronomy that blends creativity, artistry, science, culinary chemistry, and technology and focuses on cross-cultural and unconventional ingredients, flavors, textures, food preparation, and cutting-edge cooking techniques that are continuously evolving. Think engastration, spherification, fermentation, forest-floor foraging, sous-vide, edible botanicals, foams and gels, liquid nitrogen, seaweed harvesting, and digestible insects. Two things will never be part of our One Night Stands: lab-grown meats or any disingenuous attempt to make plant-based ingredients taste or look like meat. With our One Night Stands, we will creatively explore new culinary possibilities by challenging and, in many cases, obliterating commonplace culinary traditions and norms. And while our One Night Stands will indeed reflect an intertwining of culture, history, and ethnic identity, they will never myopically focus on these considerations.
I am not saying that culinary authenticity never matters. Being true to a food's or recipe's origins and its cultural, geographic, and historical touchstones will always be necessary in specific contexts. And since food is more than the sum of its ingredients and flavors, food preparation and cooking traditions, techniques, and methods also matter.
We must always strive to squeeze every last drop of enjoyment from the present moment while simultaneously laying the groundwork to improve upon future experiences yet staying fully conscious of and respectful of past traditions.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated November 17th, 2024
The working title of today's Once-Over is Unmistakably Raven Vanguard House, A Case Study in Architectural and Between-Worlds Divinity. Reading time is under four minutes.
Thankfully, now that the apocalyptic uncertainty surrounding the possibility of a Harris-Walz White House has vanished into the recesses of my rearview mirror, it's time to turn our discourse back to more thought-provoking and arcane topics of interest like atypical artistry and design, aliens among us, the origins of consciousness, and A Culinary Series of One Night Stands.
Many continue to probe and poke about our overarching vision for A Culinary Series of One Night Stands. While my answer may seem steeped in beatitude and the principles of esotericism, it is to exceed the constraints of the extraordinary, of course. Yes, even extraordinary things have built-in constraints of some manner and measure. Understanding this reality is what sets Raven Vanguard apart from its peers. So, conceptually speaking, we must unshackle our creative process from every perceived limitation if we have any hope of rising above that which is merely extraordinary.
What will be needed to transform the extraordinary into that which is eternally memorable and transcendent? Risk-taking and audacity, for sure. And a mindset of pure imagination that glorifies and promotes reaching for the stars' artistry over the mundaneness and limitations of the ordinary, everyday fine dining experience. This brings us to……
What is the creative process, and what guides it? Is it a mere spontaneous impulse or something radically antithetical, sweeping, stepwise, and accumulative? We've discussed this abstruse and often misunderstood topic before, but in this context, it bears repeating because everyone's creative process is as idiosyncratic as DNA, fingerprints, and snowflakes. When it comes to mine, I've previously described it as those steps that give form, fluency, facility, context, vocabulary, and scope to my imagination, vision, creativity, and concept. As is usually the case for me, my process and the steps that led to the conceptualization and activation of A Culinary Series of One Night Stands were never linear, most always iterative, moved in fits and starts, and occasionally backward, and have been and will continue to be ever-evolving. And even though analytical and divergent thinking and logic are always part of my creative process, I cannot say that my overall process flows logically and without fail from one step to the next in an orderly fashion, and it most assuredly has not with A Culinary Series of One Night Stands.
Being entirely candid, A Culinary Series of One Night Stands has challenged me to think differently and more comprehensively than I have ever thought previously. Beyond thinking innovatively, exploring new perspectives, and conjuring originality at every turn, I am under constant siege by the realities of commerce and the fickleness of human behavior moving in opposition to the conception of something so utterly niche, extravagant, and exclusive. More on this in the coming weeks.
Theoretically speaking, the ability to design without constraints may be the greatest gift anyone can give to a creative person. But is it, really? The contextual inquiry may be better said as being careful about what you wish for. While I am a proponent of free and out-of-the-box thinking, the elimination of rules and guardrails, and limitless possibility and options, the reality is that the utter lack of boundaries of any kind can artistically and intellectually paralyze most of us; it's akin to asking a 100-meter sprinter to start in quicksand wearing swim fins.
As much as I detest anything that has the potential to stifle my creativity, external constraints of some sort exist everywhere around us. I try not to see every constraint as an obstacle. Finding solutions to overcome actual constraints has always been part of my design process. In most instances, the key to overcoming constraints starts with igniting the imagination. When it comes to A Culinary Series of One Night Stands, I must acknowledge several practical constraints in these nascent stages of activation and development: geography (after all, Raven Vanguard House is located in Buffalo, not Paris, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Budapest, Istanbul, or Amsterdam), traversing the entirety of the globe to identify the most befitting quintessential experimental culinary artisans, and financial and budgetary realities, not to mention a desire to build our Brand by expanding the reach of Raven Vanguard House to other worldwide communities that wholeheartedly embrace artistic multi-sensory experiences. Which brings me to our ace in the hole.
A brick-and-mortar structure’s innate spirit, ambiance, vibe, and essential character are always X factors in whether an event unfolding within is absolutely and eternally memorable when measured against a lifetime of memories. Do you believe an inorganic architectural construct, a building, can have a divine nature? I most certainly do. And what about a soul? Is it possible for a building to have a soul, especially one constructed before The (Un-)Civil War? Of this, I have no doubt. A place’s soul is a foundational element, giving a place a more profound sense of meaning and a detectable life force. What is it that gives a corporeal space a spiritual sense of place? What transforms physical space into a soulful, emotional, poetic, dramatic, meaningful, and sentimental place of narrative coherence? A deeper understanding of a place or a vibe is derived from the confluence of architecture, design, ornamentation, decoration, atmosphere, and the history of emotional experiences that have occurred within.
The nocturnal otherworldliness of Raven Vanguard House is not just our enigmatical X-factor; it is the palpable yet mysteriously inexplicable secret sauce that will alchemically transfigure our A Culinary Series of One Night Stands from that which is merely extraordinary to that which is gloriously transcendent. The closest modern theoretical analogue I can offer is the bottling of lightning. While this claim may seem like a hyperbolic exaggeration to most, those who have already been captivated by the preternatural radiant energy, spectral candle-lit aura, and otherworldly ambiance and sensuality of Raven Vanguard House swathed in the velvet inky blackness of night genuinely know what I mean. The nocturnal mystery, grace, and numinous liminal spirit of Raven Vanguard House must be encountered in person to truly understand what I am failing miserably to describe with the strokes of my keyboard. Let’s try digging a little deeper……
Profound emotion, wonderment, spontaneity, present moment awareness, surrendering to the moment, enrapturing awe, and the revealing science of God Herself. I know, WTF. Do you believe that the potential for wonder exists amid the omnium-gatherum of human experience anytime throughout the day? If you do, A Culinary Series of One Night Stands and Raven Vanguard House may be the sea-changing experience you have actively sought.
For any experience to permeate your memory's hoard without end, the experience must be multi-dimensional and affect every single one of our senses. Suppose you are someone who only believes in the classic five senses. In that case, our A Culinary Series of One Night Stands may not move you in the same way as it will move someone like me who believes that our senses extend well beyond those that are merely visceral, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile. To these, I add the senses of thirst and hunger, thermoception (the ability to detect heat and cold), proprioception (the ability to sense your body parts and where they are in relation to each other), the sense of equilibrium vis-à-vis the laws of gravity, the sense of premonition (meaning a sense of anticipation, a desire to participate, and foreknowledge), an innate sense of the passage of time, the sense of aesthetic appreciation (a desire to be surrounded by beautiful things in art, nature, and design; to be an aesthete or a romanticist), and let us not forget what may be the most important sense of all, the sense of extrasensory perception, intuition, telepathic knowledge, spiritual awakening, instinctual awareness, second sight, an inner voice, and spectral reciprocity, among other names.
The anomalous ability of some to see, feel, and perceive the veridical may be scientifically inexplicable, but it can no longer be doubted. Seeing, feeling, or perceiving what others don't or cannot is an essential attribute of the everlasting impact of experience. Seeing, feeling, or perceiving what others cannot is intrinsic in some. Seeing, feeling, or perceiving what others cannot see, feel, or perceive can also come about via a catalyst such as prayer, meditation, trance-states, hypnagogia, or the ingestion of psychedelics. No matter how you arrive at this point of seeing, feeling, or perceiving what others cannot, an ability to experience the disembodied ecstasies of the Seventh Heavens will be your constant companion as you connect with our A Culinary Series of One Night Stands and the mysteries of Raven Vanguard House. Although I may have a tough time convincing some of you of this fact, before starting today's Once-Over, I had absolutely no contact whatsoever with our Stündenglass Modül and Gravity Infuser, nor have I been anywhere near our Storz & Bickel dry herb devices. J.B., are you sure you wish to better understand what goes on in the betwixt and between parts of my brain’s right and left hemispheres? Freud’s psychoanalytic theories have no application here. However, Jung, who explored the collective unconscious as expositions on religion, spirituality, mysticism, and the paranormal, and who found safe harbor in primordial images and archetypes as expressed in dreams, nightmares, waking fantasies, and chemically induced hallucinations, may have more relevance here.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated November 10th, 2024
The working title of today's Once-Over is The Coherence of Logic – An Observation. Reading time today is approximately two minutes.
Today is for picking at nits.
As Americans, regardless of party affiliation, since the advent of social media and Trump's emergence as a politician, we have suffered through the utter collapse and ruination of impartial, non-aligned, and nonpartisan objectivity, accountability, truth-seeking, and accuracy in journalism. Not only that but due to the tribalism and propaganda of mainstream media, we exist within factional and one-sided echo chambers.
The gravest mistake anyone can make these days is to accept as fact anything reported by mainstream media. Mainstream media long ago jettisoned nonpartisan objectivity, journalistic integrity, truth-seeking, neutrality, and a commitment to unbiased reporting. The degeneracy of our communications industry is now absolute and will never be undone. But, if I'm being entirely honest, the most significant embarrassment has been the discipleship of most media outlets in favor of the Democratic party this past election cycle, which brings me to my next point.
The absurdity and tone-deafness of the celebrity endorsement. Why on earth would anyone give a single fuck about what Bruce Springsteen, Lebron James, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Jimmy Fallon, Beyonce, Robert DeNiro, or Taylor Swift have to say on any subject that matters? Moreover, why would anyone of average intelligence waste one minute of their week tuning in to what that merry band of halfwits on The View have to say about anything? And the Morning Joe clown show? How is it that this fool still has an audience? Based on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, I hope the subterfuge of celebrity endorsement is a thing of the past. Many of the celebrities who endorsed Harris were Diddy-adjacent looking for a future get-out-of-jail-free card once the avalanche of shit starts flowing downhill. Thankfully, these nobodies can now face the music and rot in jail. Moving on.
Inter-party competition between Democrats and Republicans has always been a good thing. That is, until it wasn’t. Biden dishonestly campaigned as a centrist but governed as a destabilizing ultra-left nutjob. His warm and ignorant embrace of hubris led to the abject failure of his presidency. Because Harris lacked credentials, integrity, and bona fides and offered no substantive reasons whatsoever to distinguish herself from Biden, her campaign was destined to fail miserably. In the face of overwhelming defeat, the Democratic Party must now come to grips with the absurdity of the leftist agenda and pushback powerfully against that segment of their party that has held it hostage for the past eight years. A defeat of this magnitude presents opportunities for positive growth and development. However, for growth and development to be meaningful and long-lasting, this must also be a time of reasoned reflection and reinvention within the Democratic Party. I was raised in a JFK household and want to see a strong, well-centered Democratic Party because that is what's best for the Country. Unfortunately, the current Democratic Party has lost all touch with common sense and the will of the people. Suppose the Democrats can not move on from the likes of Harris, Walz, Biden, AOC, Pelosi, Schumer, Hochul, Newsom, and the likes of George Soros and Letitia James. In that case, regrettably, I will never vote for another Democrat in my lifetime.
I hope we have finally seen the end of the heavy hand of government censorship and the weaponization of the administrative state and criminal justice system against political foes or against people who simply have a different opinion or point of view. In this regard, I pray that one of Trump's first official acts as the 47th President is to direct the DOJ to discontinue all investigations and prosecutorial activity against Hunter Biden. Enough is enough. Pressing on.
For years, Democrats have labeled Trump as a Nazi and Hitler. These labels have always been fallacious, and Democrats never believed in what they were saying about Trump in this regard. If Trump were indeed the ideological embodiment of Hitler, there is no way the Democrats would actually concede power to him following this election, notwithstanding the results. Because that would be absolute insanity if they did, steadfastly believing him to be the modern-day experiential equivalent of Hitler. I mean, if you genuinely believe Trump is Hiter, handing him the keys to our nuclear arsenal, our stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, and unfettered access to our military-industrial complex is genocidal, homicidal, and suicidal. And because the Democrats have already started the transition process, we can rest assured that they never believed for one minute that Trump and Hitler were simpatico or like-minded. Leading to my most important observation of all.
There is no more extraordinary gift a person can give themselves than being fully informed. Unfortunately, many people today are unwilling or incapable of putting in the work necessary to determine the accuracy of what they read or hear. Sadly, blind allegiance to one's resident echo chamber will eventually turn lemming-styled followers into sheep who can no longer think for themselves. Allowing oneself to be led astray by others because you are lazy is the greatest sin of all. Stand up and be counted. Be knowledgeable and have an opinion, but make sure it is yours and that it is fully informed.
Let's end this Once-Over with a note of practicality. Let's start putting criminals in jail again, purging those who entered this country illegally and with bad intentions, treating retail theft as a crime once again, imposing bail, stopping the pretense that men can be women by simply putting on dresses, rejecting the fallacy of equity for equality and meritocracy, renouncing the rubric of identity politics, and by all means let's make speech free and accessible again. And while we are at it, let's blow up our system of healthcare in its entirety because it is irredeemable. Most people who voted for Trump are not crazy. We are conscientious Americans who want nothing more than to see our politicians exercising common sense as though their political careers depend on it.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated November 3rd, 2024
The working title of today's Once-Over is Bong Hits atop Candy Mountain – Sorry Charlie! Reading time today is approximately seven minutes.
Some have asked me why I title my Once-Overs, especially since the chosen title, in a literal sense, has seemingly nothing to do with the day's commentary. What's in a title? Titles should always mean something; at least, they should mean something intrinsically to the author. To me, by intention, my chosen titles reveal more connotatively or cryptically than they do in a literal sense. And the significance of my chosen title is sometimes more and sometimes wholly unrelated to what you might be thinking. It's a magical Liopleurodon Charlie. I know – WTF?
Today's Once-Over will necessarily touch upon politics because Tuesday is Election Day. But today's Once-Over will also touch upon philosophy, theology, writing, Oz, the nebulous Beyond, an irresolvable puzzlement, and Charlie the Unicorn. Consider today's Once-Over to be my version of the Weave. While there will be no predetermined or premeditated starting point, midpoint, or end to this Once-Over, it will be compositional by design rather than improvisational. And if you are proficient at reading between the lines, you may even discern another dropped breadcrumb about our A Culinary Series of One Night Stands events.
I was recently asked if Brooke and I have a "content strategy" for our Website, Ravings, or Once-Overs. We believed, and still do, that marketing stratagems are disingenuous in the overall context of clearly communicating our personal and business philosophies. Our overarching philosophy? To be genuine and forthright in all that we do. However, at times, my frankness comes with a price. Being honest about everything obliges me to always speak freely, even when that means saying things that go against popular opinion or the public orthodoxy, populist and woke ideologies, political correctness, or even when it ruffles feathers. That's just me. In today's Biden-Harris elitist world of woke, I am a dissenter. Shun the non-believers, says I.
On the other hand, Brooke is naturally non-controversial and non-confrontational because this is who she is at the core of her being. She is simultaneously the perfect union of complexity, faith, tolerance, and giving others the benefit of the doubt. She is virtuous without fail and, no matter the circumstances, comports herself under the influence of righteousness and grace. No doubt, Brooke is my better half.
Brooke is often my motivating force. The same goes for my Daughter, Chloe, who changed me for the better the moment she arrived into my life; the experience of being a father was revelatory. After many decades of struggling mightily to find maturity and balance in my life, for reasons that are primarily due to Brooke and Chloe, I have finally grown up, evolved, and woken up (but thankfully, I am not Woke). Because of Brooke and Chloe, I can now love unselfishly and absolutely without compromise and without any expectation whatsoever of having to be equally loved in return. My embrace of humility was a long time in coming.
Whether it is my newfound consciousness or something else entirely, I finally understand that it is high time for me to take unconditional responsibility for my belligerence, accountability for past transgressions, and above all, ownership of my shit. Besides this, I also came to the profound realization that I must hold myself personally accountable for fostering positive change in this world and transforming it into the consummate experience for Brooke and Chloe, my Family and Friends, and those future generations of people I will never get to know directly or even have the opportunity of meeting.
Political Trigger Warning: I recommend moving past this section if you are not open-minded. I also recommend moving past this section if you are a member of a political tribe and believe your tribe is omnipotent, infallible, and incorruptible. The points I make here today are designed to fuel further discourse between those of us who will never tolerate being told what to think or do and who still give a damn about these types of things.
I am not naïve. And naiveté is not a trait I presume to attribute to others. I'm willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to others in this regard until my experience through observation dictates a different conclusion.
Words matter. How we link and string words together to make sentences and construct paragraphs also matters. At least it does for me. Words have consciousness. The words I embrace are those with a certain inherent Anschauung. I often write with an old-school directness that makes the narrow-minded among us uncomfortable. My Once-Overs are not an aleatory or haphazard collage of meaningless words uttered without conscious choice or deliberation. I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. And unlike all living things, words have permanency. For these reasons, I choose my words wisely and with extreme purpose. This is not meant as a criticism of writers like William Burroughs, who, with his sliced-up text and prose, could creatively assay a point of contention by unlocking the mysterious and inscrutable potential of words conjoined together by others to articulate his point in ways grammatically and linguistically composed sentences could not.
Now, let's string together a few words.
Why do most politicians, primarily Democrats most recently, oppose all levelheaded and well-reasoned attempts to enhance the overall integrity of our electoral process? At times, our electoral process seems less orderly and dependable than the quasi-commercial dealings taking place in a Persian bāzār or souk during a half-off everything sale.
There is a reason most politicians refuse to revamp our electoral process. Voter fraud and election interference exist, and they know it, and most voters know it. Most politicians lack the moral compass of you and me. They are OK with this because cheating and politics go hand-in-hand and have existed since the birth of political theory and Plato's earliest musings on political discourse and debate. If you deny this, you are naïve. Voter fraud and election interference exist everywhere in this Country at the federal, state, and local levels. To deny this is foolhardy. Voter fraud has been a thing since the earliest elections in ancient Greece. And voter fraud was surely a thing dating back to the very first US presidential election in 1789 when only white male property owners could vote. Most assuredly, there was voter fraud in the 2016 and 2020 elections in favor of Clinton and Biden. Of these facts, I am absolutely sure. However, I was and remain uncertain whether this fraud was significant enough to alter the outcome of the 2020 election. Had I been absolutely certain of this, I would not have been sitting on my ass blindly at home when the 2020 election was certified on January 6th.
I have zero doubt that voter fraud will impact the 2024 election. To what extent? I don't think any of us can say with certainty. However, we have already witnessed several examples of unscrupulous election engineering in early voting (I see you United States v. Beals, No. 24-cv-1807 (Oct. 25, 2024); Ask yourself why Harris and the DOJ have sued the Commonwealth of Virginia to force 1600 noncitizens back onto Virginia's list of eligible voters.) If Trump were to lose this election, I suspect many millions of Americans will have serious doubts about the reliability of the results. If Trump loses this election, my gut instinct will tell me that the election was stolen from him because I cannot fathom how any voter who takes their due diligence obligation as a voter seriously could possibly vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. My Once-Over of October 27th, 2024 outlined my unassailable reasons for adopting this stance. Seriously, if Harris wins this election, do you genuinely think she will be running this Country from the White House? I surely do not. Her presidential authority will be abdicated to some shadowy group of non-elected Machiavellian puppeteers. A Commander in Chief, she is not.
Transitory interlude - Most people in my circle of friends are Democrats, and most of them agree with me in this one sense: the Democratic Party is no longer the Party of John F. Kennedy, Jr. Regrettably, JFK would no longer recognize his beloved Party. Today's Democratic Party is the Party of Hollywood, professional athletes, pop stars, Big Pharma, propagandists like CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, New York Times, Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, corrupt globalists like Bill Gates, Socialists like Harris, Walz, and AOC, and a merry cabal of elitists led by George Soros, the Clintons, and the Obamas. Barack Obama's recent attempts to reach out to Black male voters were so pathetically out of touch; Obama pretending to be one of the Bros was utterly laughable.
Politicians sow voter discontent and disenfranchisement by forsaking the opportunity to take adequate corrective or reformatory measures to ensure the absolute integrity of our electoral process. So, here we are again, four years removed from the electoral lessons of 2020, without any solutions to the concerns and grievances articulated by voters. For no less than fifty percent of this Country's total population, our right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness is being thwarted by the Biden-Harris regime and its unelected handlers.
Let us not forget "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." "[And] when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." For many of us, the Declaration of Independence is still a thing. Because of this, if Trump loses this election, I am afraid that the chaos and fallout following the 2020 election will seem like a mere inconsequential ripple in a sun-drenched tide pool compared to what's coming next. Seditious rebellion, anyone? And do not confuse seditious rebellion with treason because they are not the same thing. Think France in 1789 if you want an experiential equivalent to what I am talking about. One of my favorite songs is Led Zeppelin's No Quarter; please understand that subliminal messaging is not my thing.
So, I ask, are you naïve?
Moving on from politics to, you guessed it, religion and another trigger warning.
Religious Trigger Warning: So which Voodoo do you do? Mine is a more tolerant and nonjudgmental version of Catholicism. Thus, my frequent petitions to and imploration of God Herself. I do not espouse the notion of papal infallibility, nor do I believe in the infallibility of any religious institution. After all, we are human, and all of us make mistakes. I am not a theologian, nor am I an epistemologist. I have never conducted a thorough comparative study or attempted to theologically dissect the nearly ten thousand distinct religions practiced worldwide. From my perspective, faith and belief in a creator are at a nadir across the world. I think there are more non-believers today than adherents.
For me, prayer is a way of forging or deepening a connection with my idea of the Holy and the Sacred. I define prayer as a petition, address, incantation, or request conveyed in either word or thought to a god, an infinite being, nature, or a deity of some sort. So, back to my original question, which voodoo do you do? I believe the qualitative substance of prayer is what makes it possible to transform fear into faith, incapacity into courage, self-loathing into forgiveness, vulnerability into intimacy, acquiescence into perseverance, anguish into revelation, the unknowable into the attainable, idyllic beauty into modesty, and the secular into the spiritual. Does the very act of praying presume belief in God? I think it must, don't you? Yet…………
If you are a deist, do you pray? I know you believe in a creator, but since you do not believe in heavenly intercession, prayer would be incongruous, would it not?
So, this final question is for those betwixt and between us who do not believe at all. For the atheists and agnostics among us, for whom God is either nonexistent, quantifiably unknowable, or unknown, in denying the existence, possibility, or conceptual understanding of God, what do you think about the prayers of the faithful? I suspect you see prayer as nothing more than denominational trickery designed to obfuscate what you see as the truth surrounding the origins of organic life forms.
Changing topics……………………….and another trigger warning.
Trigger Warning, the Unnatural Paradox of Men Pretending to be Women: I suggest moving past this section if you believe in the fallacy that pharmaceutical companies are benign and well-intentioned or if you think that it is copacetic for men to pretend to be women, dress in women's clothing, and play women's sports. You may also wish to move past this section if you think that the next logical step should be chemical castration for prepubescent boys acting like and pretending to be girls.
Like the World Health Organization, HHS, FDA, CDC, and our entire political system, the DSM-5 and ICD-11 have been captured by the disease-mongering pharmaceutical industry. I will repeat it once more– the "health care" system in our Country is not wellness-based or cure-oriented, nor has it been at any time since 1910. Ours, by design, is a system of disease management, one where we are offered patented petrochemical pills with a multitude of side effects that promise incremental improvements only in our disease-ravaged bodies. Pharmaceutical companies are the secular equivalent of the antichrist. I have no use for them and am staunchly anti.
Pharmaceutical companies have the motivation, historical track record, means, and ability to unduly influence the classification systems of mental health and diseases found in the DSM-5 and ICD-11. To sell more psychotropic petrochemical poisons, pharmaceutical companies were the primary proponents of diagnostic hyperinflation incorporated throughout DSM-5 and ICD-11. What do I mean by diagnostic inflation? Diagnostic inflation is the phrase used to characterize the intentional and unjustifiable practice of broadening mental disorder definitions and over-pathologizing human behaviors. Meaning disease mongering. This leads to much less stringent diagnostic criteria, resulting in overdiagnosis, excessive medical intervention, overprescribing, and overmedicalization.
"Gender Identity Disorder" and "Gender Dysphoria" are not the only taxonomical criteria broadly overclassified due to diagnostic hyperinflation. To these, we can add ADHD, anxiety disorder, mood disorders, childhood bipolar disorder, autism, various eating disorders, prolonged grief disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, hypersexuality, and impulse control disorders. This list is endless.
Folks, it is time to think and advocate for yourself. Do not let others do your thinking for you. This means that you should stop letting those in presumed positions of authority, including the doctors you turn to, do your thinking for you. You are the person in the best position to know what is best for you. Educate yourself. Do your own investigation and research. And never stop questioning the hegemony of the medical establishment.
Changing topics again, but no trigger warning this time, unless you think The Wizard of Oz requires a trigger warning.
The otherworldly and musical style of The Wizard of Oz has been indelibly stamped into my subconsciousness since childhood, and today, it sustains without ebb persevering as a lifelong influence, both literary and creative. I often think of Brooke in the context of Oz. This is praise, not criticism. Brooke, in her search for the wizard's knowledge, is always three steps ahead of the witchy embodiment of Elvira Gulch while simultaneously steering clear of the corruption of the broomstick to become her best and most authentic self.
Brooke could literally find herself in the middle of a tumultuous swirling shitstorm but never see it that way. Instead, like Dorothy Gale, she will furiously start clicking together the chunky heels of her emerald and silver slippers (ruby slippers aren't Brooke's thing, nor were they ever Baum's) and imagine herself in a rapturously idyllic setting, say a Technicolor sunshine-drenched pastoral meadow, wherein lies the magical bridge of hope and wonder, reigned over by Glinda, the Witch of the North, surrounded by clovers, poppies, butterflies, and golden-yellow bricks, sans The Wicked Witch of the West and her dead as a doornail Sister Witch from the East, and those freak-me-out flying winged-monkeys. Not to mention that terrifying, humongous image of the undulating, billowing, bulbous evil godhead, and his incessant clamoring behind the curtain. What the fuck was that all about anyway?
For some among us, Gidget and the Giant Panda represent the holy grail (MJG, is that you?); for me, it's the music of Yes and the writings of L. Frank Baum. For the Baum purists among us, and for the young in heart, and to appease anyone who thinks I have become illiterate in a fortnight, I did not forget that the literary architect of Oz conceived of his masterwork as a panegyric to freethinking feminists the world over. After all, what right-minded male would refuse to subjugate himself to the supreme authority of the immortal Princess Ozma, the rightful ruler of Oz?
Moreover, I have not forgotten that the "Witch of the North" is merely Glinda's nom de guerre and that her Baum-given name is Glinda the Good (or Witch of the South). Glinda, who offered counsel to Ozma, was the protector of Oz and its inhabitants and also the arbiter between good and evil, locked in a never-ending struggle with the beguiling and leagued Witches to the South, the West, and East, not to mention the shrewish Northern she-devil Mombi. And I will never forget that the Land of Oz's precipitous fall from grace began at the precise moment Ms. Gale unceremoniously and unapologetically descended from the hinterlands of Kansas upon the Eastern Enchantress. Therein lies the problem; you see, once the exsanguine Eastern Sorceress was pronounced not only merely dead but most sincerely and assuredly, doubly dead on account of her atoms being thoroughly dashed all across Oz in an inexplicable Penrose-Hawking singularity kind of way, a cataclysmic chain of events was set off that would forever alter the history of Oz. But Brooke being Brooke, fearing that I might forget Baum's most important message of all, reminds me to always keep in mind that "a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others."
With that thought in mind, let us bring a hopeful conclusion to this Once-Over. And if you have not already done so, make sure you get out to vote. And if, like me, you can no longer tolerate the stench that has overtaken the District of Columbia and the histrionics of those leaning politically left of Pluto and the mainstream and legacy media, you will know what to do next. And if, like me, you cannot in good conscience abide by the utter foolishness of DEI advocacy that seeks to replace equality with the meritocracy-blind stupidity of equity or replace the duality of biological sex with the spectrum-led insanity of gender, you'll definitely know what to do next. If you long to make America healthy again, welcome aboard. And if, like me, you despise the suffocating COVID and post-COVID zeitgeist that threatens the annihilation of everything you hold dear, let us push the button together and work together to dismantle the dogmatic Kulturkampf of the Woke.
Postscript: While watching the Buffalo Bills play the Miami Dolphins today, I was subjected to several campaign infomercials for Kamala Harris. In one of these fabrications, she professes to be a "president for all Americans." Has she not been paying any attention? She may be the most politically tone-deaf and out-of-touch presidential candidate of all time. Lady, do you not realize that more than half this Country abhors you and what you stand for? You may, in fact, steal this election, but I will never support you. I have no doubts that should you defraud your way to 270 or more electoral votes, your time in office will end in failure and disgrace, or worse, once Ali Hosseini Khamenei or Putin chop their way through one of your feebleminded word salads as the world teeters towards extinction on a knife edge.
Postscript Part Deux: Kathy Hochul is the Governor of New York. She shares a similar trajectory to Harris in that she ascended into her position after a bloodless coup when Andrew Cuomo was ousted from office. And, like Harris, she is an utterly incompetent figurehead and pawn of the Democratic Party who does as she's told. After I posted my Once-Over yesterday, Hochul dropped this pearl of wisdom – "If you're voting for these Republicans in New York, you are voting for someone who supports Donald Trump, and you're anti-woman, you're anti-abortion, and basically you're anti-American because you have just trashed American values and what our country is about over and over, and you wear this on Election Day." Kathy, no ifs, ands, or buts, you are a moronic shill and a dumbass.
I am a registered Republican but do not vote by rote. I vote for ideals and policies regardless of party affiliation. I was a never-Trump Republican until this election cycle. However, four years of Biden-Harris and despotic Democratic rule have convinced me that this Country is turning into a smoldering shitpile with their stranglehold on the First Amendment, warmongering, subversive Bolshevik policies, social engineering experiments, disregard of bodily autonomy (I see you vaccine mandates), and steering the economy off of a cliff. And let's not forget about their incestuous relationships with Big Pharma and mainstream media. Perhaps most dangerous of all is the ongoing Democratic electioneering project whereby illegal migrants are being strategically relocated throughout the Country into swing states with a whole panoply of taxpayer-financed social welfare services and other perks and a promise of amnesty and citizenship.
As a direct consequence of this hellish experience, I voted Republican across the board in this cycle, and it is the first time I have ever voted in this fashion. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am pro-women and believe in a woman's right to choose in almost every circumstance as long as abortion is not consciously being used as a means of birth control. And as far as Hochul's anti-American assertion is concerned, I think Kathy has this one ass-backward because it has been the Democrats who have chosen to disregard individual freedoms for tyranny these past four years. However, since her IQ appears to hover in the low thirties, she may not actually comprehend the offensiveness of what she is saying. Kathy, while I appreciate your attempt to look out for me, you can go straight to hell, and fuck you very much for the hamfisted civics lesson.
Postscript Part Drei: Joe, this one's for you. I know that you must be feeling left out of all the current festivities; otherwise, you wouldn't be running your mouth saying stupid shit. Just know that if you even think of touching my ass, expect to have yours handed back to you on a silver platter. You were never the tough guy you always thought you were, so please take Jill and ride off into the sunset before you hurt yourself or say or do anything else that you’ll regret.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated October 27th, 2024
The working title of today's Once-Over is Never Ever Settle for Ordinary. Based on all my recent postings touting A Culinary Series of One Night Stands, you might think, "Here he goes again with all of his fantastical doublespeak." Although today's working title surely describes our grand intentions and overall vision for our One Night Stands events, this piece will not go in that direction because I'm feeling disjointed and aimless today. Chalk it up to pre-election consternation. Reading time today is just under four minutes.
Trigger Warning: Today's Once-Over finds its genesis in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution. The First Amendment provides the foundational construct upon which this Country was built, something the Merrick Garlands of this Country seem to casually ignore. I am a person of faith and a conservative, and I see things through the lens of open-minded pragmatism. However, being open-minded does not make me a potential target for outright bullshit and uber left-wing extremism – I see you "Proposal Number One, A Proposition" to add a measure of absolute absurdity to the New York State Constitution. (While I support a woman's right to an abortion under most circumstances, Proposal Number One is not the stand-alone abortion measure Democrats and mainstream media claim it to be; this Proposal also seeks, among other things, to protect men who like to play dress up in women's clothing and participate in women's sports which I strongly oppose. Please educate yourself on this Proposal by starting here - https://elections.ny.gov/2024-statewide-ballot-proposal ). Enough said? Not I, said me. Something else you should know about me, I speak my mind freely on every issue, and I couldn't care less or give a single fuck about what others who do not know me think of me. Now that I'm already veering wildly off-topic and brand, let me share where I stand on the presidential election.
As a former Never-Trump Republican, I fully understand the myriad reasons why someone might decide not to vote for him; I honestly do because that was me in 2020 when Tulsi Gabbard was my write-in candidate. Still, sometimes, things happen to change one's perspective. Four years of Biden and Harris convinced me to rethink the possibility of another go-round with Trump.
After witnessing and struggling through four years of Biden's and Harris' utter foolishness, an economy in freefall, conspiring with pharmaceutical evildoers, colluding with mainstream media and social media platforms to suppress speech, the weaponization of the Department of Justice for political purposes, opposing all levelheaded attempts to enhance election integrity, falsely claiming Covid to be a virus of zoonotic transmission, cancel culture fanaticism, Francis Collins and Fauci, anti-Israel riots on college campuses, interest rate insanity, identity politics, vaccine mandates, the demonization of ivermectin, defunding the police, the outright tolerance of looting and retail theft, leftist bail reforms, the politics of selective criminal prosecution, an overrun border, food priced as luxury items, censorship of free speech, men dressing as and pretending to be women, free sex change operations for trans prisoners and illegal immigrants, the cowardly and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the unimpeded flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs across our southern border, and DEI appointments like "Rachel" Levine and Sam Brinton, I'm now fully prepared to do something I swore I would never do, that being, vote for Trump. Watching Trump on Joe Rogan's Podcast should be required viewing for everyone considering voting for Harris because it will clearly show that Trump does not revolve in the same inglorious orbit as Hitler. That nonsensical talking point has shades of Russiagate all over it. To the extent that one's self-interest factors into the decision concerning which candidate to vote for, and I think it must, at least to a certain degree, my Family was much better off under Trump than Biden-Harris.
However, regarding Kamala Harris, the vibe and joy party candidate, I cannot fathom why anyone who has done their reasoned due diligence concerning her qualifications and background would even consider voting for her. In all candor, she is the most vacuous, ill-equipped, prevaricating, and inauthentic candidate I have seen in the last dozen elections. She is a hack. She is a cipher. I think most potted plants have more native intelligence than she does. I know hyperbole when I speak it, but this summation of Harris is not that. Someone, please explain to me, as if I were a fourth grader, how Harris went from the lowest approval rating as vice president in the history of this Country to the top of the ticket? Have people actually forgotten all the conversations that took place before Biden's disastrous debate performance to remove Harris from the ticket because she was perceived by the top of her party as an albatross and dead weight? We've all witnessed her nervous laughter, shrill cackle, defensive body language, deer-in-the-headlights bewilderment, odd hand gestures, word salads, sudden interest in building a border wall, allegations of plagiarizing, clueless veneration of Justin Trudeau, fictitious family members, an inability to manage her staff, and constant pandering to the woke mob, socialists, and radical progressives. Imagine her going up against the likes of Putin, Xi Jinping, Ali Khamenei, or Kim Jong-un in a game of globe-altering brinksmanship. Also, now imagine her in charge of our nuclear arsenal or making split-second, life-or-death decisions, or dealing with anything of vital importance for that matter. I see nothing but disaster ahead with her in charge.
Harris is the modern-day manifestation of a Manchurian Candidate, the consummate deep-state puppet. We know with certainty that someone is pulling her strings because she has never uttered an original thought in her lifetime. Did you watch her performance this past week on CNN? If so, what did you see? Did she tell us about her congressional priorities upon entering the White House? How about specific details for combatting illegal immigration and deporting the millions of criminals who illegally entered here under her less than watchful eyes? Did she explain how her approach to Israel and the Middle East is distinguishable from Trump's? What did you hear when she was asked to acknowledge a mistake she's made in the past four years? What did you hear when she was asked to recognize and highlight a personal shortcoming or weakness? All I heard from her to each of these questions was meandering babble, an unwillingness or inability to answer the question asked, and ad hominem attacks on Trump and those about to vote for him. Did she offer particulars on her "opportunity economy?" Of course, she didn't; she couldn't even begin to articulate economic theory if it bit her in the ass. About the only thing we know about her is that she's "from a middle-class family." And even that's a lie. The fact that she refused to acknowledge any personal fallibility whatsoever is not only a sign of insecurity and weakness but a warning sign that she is unqualified to be President. Harris is incapable of spontaneity or thinking on her feet. Why do you think she always insists on knowing interview questions in advance or, worse yet, that the interviewer only asks questions provided by Harris' handlers. And what about when she referred to herself as a "nerd?" Cringeworthy. Lady, you are not a nerd, but you are indeed a dumbass.
I've heard many people say that the only reason they are voting for Harris is that she's not Trump. Others describe it as she's the lesser of two evils. To that, I say Trump has already served four years as President, and his time in office, while less than perfect, did not devolve into dictatorship, fascism, or autocracy, so what makes anyone reasonably think this is a legitimate concern now? Should he retake office? And suppose these are your only reasons for voting for Harris. How do you factor into your decision the possibility that you may be entirely wrong about Trump and quite mistaken in your belief that Harris is benign? Maybe, just maybe, this election isn't precisely the Hobson's Choice you've been sold.
And Walz? Really? Another does as he's told effete marionette! Does anyone really think it makes sense to vote two absolute pawns into the White House, especially considering the current state of global affairs?
The Democratic Party is no longer the party of yore now that its transformation into the party of Hollywood, the cult of celebrity, professional athletes, the stench of George Soros, legacy media, and monied political elites is complete. Their subterfuge is blatantly plain to anyone willing to peek behind the shadowy curtain that conceals their puppet strings. The latest example of this hellish alliance was Harris' Houston campaign stop, where the event was promoted by CNN and NBC to include a "performance" by Beyonce to increase attendance. The promotion worked, and the event was well attended, but Beyonce did not perform as promised. Instead, she briefly took the stage to endorse Harris and quickly disappeared from the event. Beyonce's endorsement means zero to me because I don't give a shit about what she or any celebrity has to say on any subject that matters. Taylor Swift, this most certainly means you. Unfortunately, there are far too many dim-witted people in this Country who will blindly follow that celebrity endorsement as if that celebrity faces the same day-to-day struggles that they do. Wake up, people, before it's too late.
Please excuse me for momentarily going off the rails, but certain truths must be spoken aloud, and these are just some of them. I promise I will be back on track with next week's Once-Over.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated October 20, 2024
Today's Once-Over circumnavigates the mazelike circumstances and considerations leading to our advent of A Culinary Series of One Night Stands as a corrective and prophylactic measure to resurrect the lost art of the multi-sensory hospitality experience. There is an art and subtlety to stillness, lingering, introspection, contemplation, and connection that I hope to achieve and capture in our A Culinary Series of One Night Stands in anathema to the chaos of everyday life swirling all around us. A corollary to lingering and the like is the concept of savor or savoring. While the word savor is typically used in relation to food, so, too, can we savor the arc of an entire experience.
In Raven Vanguard's multifaceted universe, lingering and savoring are not unlike concepts. Instead, they are intertwining and intertwined. They are like conjoined interdependent twins but from different mothers. Lingering and savoring are all about recognizing, immersing into, amplifying, and prolonging pleasurable experiences to enhance our well-being and improve our quality of life. Mastering and being well-practiced in the art of savoring is the notion we introduce today.
The working title of today's post is "What does it mean to live exceptionally?" It was alternatively titled "The Death Knell of a Pandemic," before that, it was titled "The Reverent and Aesthetic Experience of the Stations of the Cross." Reading time today is just over seven minutes.
Trigger Warning: Today's Once-Over is not a political statement by any stretch, but some may take it that way, especially if they believe our government is trustworthy, benevolent, and infallible. Thankfully, I do not suffer from those delusions and am now staunchly anti. For me, this Country's response to Covid was unconscionable. As time passes, I am more angry, not less, at the oppressive tactics imposed by the federal, state, and local governments on individuals and small businesses, particularly those within the health and hospitality sectors. The reality of Covid is that it was caused by decades of bipartisan fuckery, corruption, greed, an ill fascination with gain of function research, and ineptitude of the highest order. Not to mention that the entirety of our government has been captured by the malevolence of the pharmaceutical industry. I blame both parties for the shitshow that was our response to Covid, and I also blame both parties for the miasma of duplicitous taint emanating from every pore of the District of Columbia, more precisely, Jenkins Hill and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Unfortunately, some measure of invective is necessary to appropriately set the stage for today's Once-Over. Truthfully, if you are close-minded to what follows, you may not enjoy the open-minded discourse that will surely be a main ingredient in our salon-styled One Night Stands.
In the nascent stages of the global pandemic, when elected and unelected tyrants forced us to remain sequestered away from family and friends while they conspired with makers of pharmaceutical poisons to lay siege upon the First and Fourteenth Amendments and engage in unchecked acts of abject profiteering on a scale never before seen, Raven Vanguard did not sit idly by. Instead, while the conspirators falsely sounded the trumpets of the Apocalypse, cast Fauci in the role of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and schemed to force their unsafe and ineffective makeshift poisons into the arms of humankind over and over again and again, Raven Vanguard decided to move counterclockwise to the mass psychosis and noise surrounding us by using the forced downtime to cultivate our artistic, technical, and philosophical knowledge and scholarship, refine our expertise and craft, challenge and test the limits of our imagination, and explore the mysterious blessings of the universe and God Herself. For me personally, the pandemic was a period of expanding consciousness and significant reflection.
Sometimes, good comes from evil. Many of you are asking yourself, "What the hell is he talking about now?" I'm talking about A Culinary Series of One Night Stands and wondering aloud whether I would have fully conceptualized this culinary and cultural extravaganza had it not been for the compulsory and protracted pause of Covid. Timing is everything, I guess. It was during this time I came to the realization that social gathering, building upon a theme, creating a menu, designing the tablescape, setting the atmosphere, curating the music, and unveiling the bounty of food and drink could be transformed through Raven Vanguard's creative lens and aesthetic oeuvre into a genuine means of artistic expression.
Have you ever dreamed of distant memories of future days long since passed? I have. And it was those dreams, not the ones of drug-addled fraternization with saintly women clothed in Benedictine Black, that ultimately led me to conceive A Culinary Series of One Night Stands. I've spent the last several Once-Overs shedding light on the origins and backstory of our concept, so now I'm prepared to act like Hansel in Lederhosen, dropping seasoned breadcrumbs in the Black Forest in the hopes of leading you one day to the threshold of Raven Vanguard House so that you too may partake in that which we are conjuring.
Is genuine culinary artistry in the guise of fine dining trapped in a perpetual fugue state, or, even worse, is it nearing the state of undisturbed and everlasting quietus? We first propounded this convoluted and nuanced question at the outset of Covid because we had already started to see obvious signs of decay in the hospitality experience before the lab-created virus made its abiding mark on humanity. We concluded that the watered-down fine dining experience is finished and played out unless drastic changes are made within the hospitality sector.
To be brutally frank, most restaurants today have become a study in aesthetic lifelessness, with their color palette of all white or beige everywhere, minimal decoration, adornment, and embellishment, uncomfortable hard-edged furnishings, sober, unromantic, and repressed artwork, lack of interplay between light and shadow, and zero attributes whatsoever of sensuality, intimacy, or sex appeal. Completely lost in today's restaurant aesthetic of the bland is any degree of risk-taking and the visceral and artistic spirit of creative and open-ended exploration.
So, philosophically speaking, we have finally arrived at the crux of today's Once-Over: what does it mean to live exceptionally? And, in the context of our One Night Stands, what is it that makes a culinary experience truly unforgettable? For me, fine dining does not start or stop at the food on the plate; food is only one small piece of the overall dining experience. In other words, food is merely a component of the concoction of the synergistic whole of the overall experience. A culinary experience, in fact, any genuine experience, is only memorable when it nourishes the mind, body, and soul in equal measure. This truth became my point zero for A Culinary Series of One Night Stands. I also concluded that a direct correlation exists between whether something is memorable and our desire to linger amid the experience and savor every moment. Have you ever had a meal with phenomenal food, but your overall experience was lacking, and you immediately asked for the check as soon as you finished eating? Does a delicious meal alone make for long-lasting memories? Rarely, if ever, says I. Regrettably, from my perspective, this had become my typical dining out experience. A Culinary Series of One Night Stands was conceived to be the antithesis of that. In stark contrast to what passes as fine dining today, we see our One Night Stands as art, not commerce. Perhaps that is where the actual difference lies.
All good things take time and cannot be rushed. This notion has been at the forefront of my mind since I first conceptualized A Culinary Series of One Night Stands at the start of the pandemic. Another question I continued to ask was: What would my role be in our Culinary Series of One Night Stands beyond my original creative impulse? After much contemplation, I see myself as conductor, choreographer, orchestrator, and docent. I also pondered whether there was a role to play for Raven Vanguard House. We conceived Raven Vanguard House as an artistic aesthetic sanctuary, a refuge from the tediousness of the commonplace, and a shelter from the banality and vanity of social media. So, yes, Raven Vanguard House will transcend its bricks-and-mortar existence as an atelier and transform itself into a sacred and holy place offering refuge, peace of mind, and sustenance to those seeking comfort, succor, and satiety inside the walls of the last safe place.
My vision for A Culinary Series of One Night Stands was also designed to be a countermeasure to the isolation wrought by the pandemic and the lack of intimacy and human connection arising from that portable handheld communication device that had become so ubiquitous in the restaurant experience causing diners to scroll through their feeds rather than converse with their dining companions and fellow diners. Not to mention the vainglorious and annoying intrusions of self-professed ego-driven social media influencers who'd rather take pictures of themselves and their food instead of immersing themselves fully in the experience.
Knowledge should be paramount to everyone; if you intend to speak your mind on any subject, you should not mistake information for knowledge. As my thoughts continued to spin around this new movement I had envisioned, I decided to dive more deeply into the burgeoning field of applied neuroaesthetics. Neuroaesthetics is the study of art and creativity's impacts on wellness and their ability to augment and heighten human potential and experience. If you consider yourself an aesthete, you owe it to yourself to explore the wealth of information and multidisciplinary research by The International Arts + Mind Lab of the Pedersen Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University. A Culinary Series of One Night Stands will integrate what I have learned studying applied neuroaesthetics into the subtleties of my lingering and savoring approach to our One Night Stands.
Moving on to the unfolding of an experience………………
I have a particular vision for how I see our One Night Stands unfolding and playing out throughout the evening. I am a Roman Catholic and was an altar boy throughout grade school and into high school. Many choose to see the Catholic Church only as the harbinger of some ancient form of apocalyptic dread, and while that may be partly true to an extent, that is not my perspective at all. In addition to the lifelong influence of my faith, my religion instilled an enduring reverence for antiquity, beauty, ritual, ceremony, devotion, procession, immersion, lingering, and the idea of flow and surrendering to the experience of the moment. These same aspects are paramount to my all-encompassing vision for our One Night Stands.
In my eyes, Good Friday's Stations of the Cross became the exemplar for the unfolding of our One Night Stands. The Stations of the Cross or Way of the Cross is a processional, prayerful, meditative, and sequential movement from Station to Station that is the symbolic manifestation of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, which traces Christ's journey of the cross from Gethsemane to his crucifixion upon the mount of Calvary, also known as Golgotha or the place of the skull. I always saw beauty and affirmation in the Stations of The Cross as an artistic dance of the senses wrapped up in the nature of procession, contemplation, reflection, and orchestrated successional movement. These elements, in combination, allowed for a deeper personal engagement with and immersion into the narrative arc of the Passion of Christ and his crucifixion upon the Calvary Cross. Through the ceremonial and communal aspects of the Stations of the Cross, I realized that lingering in contemplation of the divine and otherworldly offers a revealing glimpse into the profound and for deeper sense of community.
Since I am suggesting an experiential equivalence between the Stations of the Cross and A Culinary Series of One Night Stands, let me offer a secular translation for the unfolding of the experience I have in mind. From the moment you cross over the threshold into the ambient, polychromatic, and high-touch universe of Raven Vanguard House until the moment we bid you adieu after our One Night Stand has drawn to a climactic and glorious close in the sanctuary of our Music Room, including all moments of pure imagination and nonjudgmental discourse interspersed amidst the betwixt and between parts, we will reveal the secret language of lingering and savoring to you, such that you too may uncover the profound mystery inherent in the irreducibility of beauty, the extraordinariness of existence, and the experience of just being. And as you take your leave from us by stepping out into the night air, with your curiosity and senses fully awakened, you will enjoy yet another moment of pause wherein wonderment and awe are further revealed to you as guideposts into the expansiveness of your every tomorrow (Well, that is my hope anyway).
Since every visionary idea needs a mantle to transcend the theoretical to become attainable, an all-embracing and far-reaching foundational framework and public declaration of its intent and scope are desirable. In part, these Once-Overs serve this purpose. I'm not suggesting our concept is visionary, but many of you seem to think so because you've said so. And since your feedback and participation are and will continue to be instrumental in shaping the trajectory and longevity of our Culinary Series of One Night Stands, I am taking all of your comments and suggestions to heart as we continue to cultivate, plan, and unveil the mysteries surrounding the experience that awaits you. These events will be private, exclusive, and ticketed, so if you are interested in joining us for one or more of these soirees, please email me (tom@ravenvanguard.com) asking to be added to our expanding Guest List.
Because today's Once-Over is already too beastly in its prodigious length, I will leave you with two very brief music listening recommendations, both of which thematically tie into the Stations of the Cross, my metaphoric archetype for unfolding A Culinary Series of One Night Stands. First up is David Bowie's Station to Station, released in January 1976, with the Album title and title track of the same name being a direct reference to the Stations of the Cross and the processional practice of moving from Station to Station. Lyrically speaking, the song Station to Station also covers the Kabbalah or Qabalah and the practice of Jewish Mysticism. Depending on the day of the week I am asked to name my favorite Bowie album, Station to Station could be my response. Moving on to recommendation two, Richard Thompson is one of my favorite guitar players, and his song The Calvary Cross first appeared on his album I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, released in 1974. However, the version of the song that you should seek out is the nearly fourteen-minute-long live version on the album Guitar,Vocal, highlighting Thompson's mastery of the guitar in one of the most gut-wrenching and haunting guitar solos ever committed to tape. Until next time……..
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated October 13th, 2024
Today, I fly solo and untethered into the abundance of my imagination and memories' hoard without the benefit of J.B.'s editorial safety net and her sound judgment to reign in my wildest linguistic and grammatical impulses in my ever-expanding attempts to explore and parse the miraculous, my genuine love of food, the rhythms of life, and The Book of Forbidden Knowledge. I can imagine J.B. muttering to herself, "WTF is he even talking about" when she finally gets around to reading this.
Anyway, reading time today is approximately two hours and seventeen minutes. Only joking, but at just under seven minutes, today's Once-Over is not as lithe or concise as last week's attempt to explain the mid-pandemic origins of Raven Vanguard's A Culinary Series of One Night Stands. Like the previous week's Once-Over, I will try again to shed more light on why A Culinary Series of One Night Stands exists today as a hospitality standard-bearer in the reincarnated guise of authentic fine dining, meaningful social engagement, and unforgettable happenings.
The working title of today's Once-Over is The Conceptualization of the Whole in the After-Times. It is part jeremiad, part Covid-condemnation, and part foray into the horizon-expanding multi-sensory aesthetic and culinary voyage conceived by yours truly. The After-Times reference the apocalyptic landscape encircling the hospitality industry post-Covid. The Whole I speak of here today integrates the philosophy of holism and the idea of holistic in the adjectival sense, meaning in all aspects of one's well-being. A Culinary Series of One Night Stands is firmly anchored in both concepts and is committed to the belief that our all-inclusive approach to the fine dining experience purposefully interweaves many complementary aesthetic elements, creating one unforgettably immersive and kaleidoscopic sensory experience. In other words, we have embraced the reality that the dining experience is truly unforgettable only when it extends well beyond the nature of the ingredients on the plate.
Sadly, and regrettably, something about the fine dining experience changed profoundly for the worse following Covid (this does not mean that fine dining was not already on life support before the pandemic, because it certainly was). Lamentably, and more to the point, fine dining as an all-encompassing aesthetic hospitality experience is dying, if not dead already, very much like the Wicked Witch of the West and her cadaverous Sister Witch from the East.
We've spent years analyzing and deciphering the obstacles affecting the hospitality space and drawing our own conclusions. We may never know precisely whether Covid is entirely to blame or if it is some myriad combination of factors, such as post-Covid isolationism, the shifting economics of food procurement, the insanity of the global food supply's exploding costs, an inability to figure out a business model that fairly compensates staff, questionable labor practices, pervasive complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace, failing real estate markets, or conceptual design tunnel vision. But one thing is for sure, finding in one place both an unforgettable gastronomic feast and an otherworldly and captivating atmosphere is mostly dead on arrival today.
Enter Raven Vanguard, Raven Vanguard House, and A Culinary Series of One Night Stands to the rescue. So, what is it about a meal or fine dining experience that makes it genuinely memorable? What is the aesthetic experience of the culinary arts? When we speak of the culinary arts, we do not mean the unemotional, monotonous, and lifeless ascetic encounters that one is likely to have at most restaurants and so-called fine dining establishments today. Instead, we believe in the saving graces of an out-of-this-world, over-the-top experience where every detail is carefully considered and executed with pure imagination, emotion, vision, presence of mind, and purpose.
The culinary arts and the associated dining experience should be about the immersive interplay of intimacy and sensory seduction, which means the confluence of trailblazing cuisine and drink, unusual (even radical) ingredients that are healthy and not restricted by ethnic boundaries, infinite flavors and tastes, textures, and aromas, preparation, presentation, curation, comfort, atmosphere, sensual mystery and the seductiveness of the physical environment, the artistry and dramatic composition of the tabletop, personalized service, table talk, music, art, architecture, or, in other words, a multi-sensory feast that satiates the nearly evanescent pastime of lingering longer and sensory indulgence.
Throughout my lifetime, I have wholeheartedly embraced the role of dissenter, schismatic, and heretic. I much prefer the road less traveled or trekking upon paths previously thought to be unnavigable when searching for something radically different from the norms of the commonplace. Everyone's creative process is as distinct as fingerprints and snowflakes. When it comes to mine, I've previously described it as those steps that give form, fluency, facility, context, and vocabulary to my imagination, vision, and concept. As is usually the case for me, my process and the steps that led to the conceptualization and activation of A Culinary Series of One Night Stands were never linear, moved in fits and starts, and occasionally backward, and have been ever-evolving.
So, how did we actually beget A Culinary Series of One Night Stands? How did we overcome the rising crescendo of naysayers proclaiming that my idea for a culinary reverie would never come to fruition because it was too fantastical or impractical? I prefer to see my pushback against mainstream insipidness as visionary rather than a waste of time and creative resources. Long ago, I realized that eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant does not guarantee a great experience. At the same time, you would undoubtedly enjoy great food. However, you were still not guaranteed an extraordinary overall aesthetic experience because those coveted Michelin stars are awarded for food quality alone, not the entirety of the restaurant experience. According to the Michelin Guide, "Restaurants may receive zero to 3 stars for the quality of their food based on five criteria: quality of the ingredients used, mastery of flavor and cooking techniques, the personality of the chef in his cuisine, value for money and consistency between visits." By intention, Michelin inspectors do not consider interior design or decoration, table settings, ambiance, or the quality of the service when deciding whether to award stars.
Knowing this, our imperative became finding a better way forward. So, where did I start the creative process? Oddly enough, it began with television viewing – lots of it. Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover was first up, followed by Louis Malle's My Dinner with Andre (for reasons that should be obvious). Next up, for reasons not so obvious, Luis Buñuel's surrealist fantasia, The Exterminating Angel, which segued into Buñuel's 1972 classic, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and that led to rewatching Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. From here, I pivoted to the horror genre, which might seem like an odd choice, but, for me, it proved revelatory. First, I rewatched all thirty-nine episodes of Hannibal, followed by rewatching all twenty-seven episodes of the first incarnation of Penny Dreadful and its exploration of darkness and shadow in Victorian London. With my adoration of Eva Green at an apex, I needed a soft landing. So, I opted for sushi and rewatched the documentary on the life and culinary talents of Jiro Ono, Jiro Dreams of Sushi. There was but a single point of embarkation following Jiro Ono: revisiting Anthony Bourdain by way of No Reservations, followed by Parts Unknown. Now that my imagination was in gourmand overdrive, it was time to start the conceptualization process.
I consider myself an essentialist. This means, in part, that I actively seek knowledge of a thing's essence rather than simply acknowledge the thing's existence. As this pursuit relates to interior design, I pay homage to this knowledge by capturing or revealing the nature or essence of a thing, and that thing can be anything. Interior design is one of the most significant and impactful of all creative and artistic endeavors because of our canvas's scope, breadth, complexity, and sheer magnitude. I also believe that interior design, when done well, is the modern-day gateway to human reconnection and the art of ritual. For these reasons, Raven Vanguard House was conceived as a study of essence and the embodiment of multi-sensory awareness. By intention, Raven Vanguard House was designed as a haven to unveil the restorative powers of human experience, unwinding, partaking, joining in, immersion, social engagement, and connection. Thus, making Raven Vanguard House the perfect place to host A Culinary Series of One Night Stands.
Truth be told, I had something entirely bespoke in mind when conceptualizing, designing, and branding intimately-scaled epicurean adventures. The ideas came quickly: destination dining, Wakasa tiger fugu, culinary alchemy, Australian abalone, exclusivity, degustation and tasting menus and omakase, Sousa & Labourdette’s ethical goose foie gras, seasonal ingredients, foraging, farm-to-table and heritage cuisine, the magical world of Motobu Gyu and A5 Japanese Wagyu, style and substance as coequals, matsutake mushrooms, maniacal attention to even the smallest of details, Alba truffles, craft cocktails, Number 12 Rue Chabanais (look it up) and other 19th Century maisons of Paris, rituel gastronomique, reviving the art of conversation, beluga sturgeon caviar, a boundary-pushing ingredient-driven exploration of the senses, roasted salt-encrusted black Iberian pig, food and drink as a passion project, Densuke watermelon, an overriding desire to participate in transcendent experiences with other humans, caciocavallo Podolica, and to provide a place of comfort and refuge in a country riven by partisan politics and reeling from the perils of social media. My principal aspirational goal here has always been to give others an opportunity to genuinely indulge in the culinary and artistic adventure of a lifetime.
And to that very end, with visions of reindeer brain custard, mallard wing, and bear dumplings dancing in my head, I've got to get back to work on how to lure René Redzepi to take part in our Culinary Series of One Night Stands. So, for now, consider me out to lunch. Speaking of which…….
I will leave you with a music recommendation of the highest order, Eric Dolphy's masterwork, Out to Lunch, recorded in February 1964 for the Blue Note label but sadly released later that year shortly after Dolphy's untimely death at age 36. However, I did not discover Dolphy until 1974, when I started to explore the likes of Davis, Coltrane, Mingus, Ayler, Shepp, Sun Ra, and Coleman. And like my recent recommendations of Close to the Edge and Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Out to Lunch sounded like nothing I had heard before it, and to this day, this music still sounds lightyears ahead of its time. Out to Lunch is the only album Dolphy recorded as a leader for Blue Note. Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Richard Davis, and Tony Williams accompanied him on this record. From the opening notes of the first track, Hat and Beard, these five virtuosos' dizzying alien soundscapes were the day's order, and Dolphy's bass clarinet added to the utter foreignness of this recording. You will love this album if you enjoy adventurous and complex music that originates out of left field from a bunch of first-rate musicians that the mainstream press of the day pejoratively called "out to lunch." Bon appetite!
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated October 7th, 2024
The working title of Today's Once-Over is The Artistic Symphony of Aesthetic Life. In sincerity, outside of having something to do with artistic expression, I am not sure what this means exactly, but let us give it a go and see where we end up. Reading time is approximately six minutes.
Today's Once-Over continues to sketch out the conceptualization of a new artistic and creative culinary movement in an obliquely broad-stroke fashion. Today's entry is all about searching for the unseen treasures in Pandora's Box, no matter how nebulous that break in the clouds might appear. Today's missive is also about branding and marketing something as artistically indecipherable as Raven Vanguard and the aesthetic extremes of our oeuvre. Strangely enough, with marketing efforts entirely damned, in every conceivable way, being incomprehensible became our mysterious holy veil, our badge of honor.
As Raven Vanguard's Creative Director, I am tasked with articulating and communicating our aesthetic and creative vision to the outside world. From our start, I intended for Raven Vanguard to forever move counterclockwise to the prevailing direction of the commonplace. For Raven Vanguard, perhaps more notably, for me as its Creative Director, I wholeheartedly believed, and still do, that genuine creativity can only be realized when you create without the constraints and disadvantages of a safety net. Numbing away the fear of failure is counterproductive to reaching undeniable and unbounded artistry. One's artistic vision can only come about through the exercise of pure imagination untethered from the armaments of moderation, half-measures, and avoiding risk.
Unfortunately, as proud as we are of our website, it does not entirely convey our unique approach to experiencing creativity, aesthetics, design, art, culinary experimentation, curation, intimacy, social gathering, and spiritual entanglement.
Which brings us to……..
The holy place you seek is not hidden, lost, or unobtainable, yet it remains a mysteriously well-guarded secret for good reasons. What is this uncommon place of ecclesiastical refuge, hundreds, perhaps thousands, have asked? Is it Xanadu? Is it Alice's hookah-fueled Wonderland? Eve's sensually seductive Eden baptized in velvet, leather, and lace? Or Dorothy's sacramental emerald green world of poppies, aphrodisiacs, and unimaginable supernatural delights? In truth, it is all these things at once, yet none of them.
Legend portends that it is a mythical place of singular beauty and grandeur. Truth be told, it is a myth made quixotically real, and it has been christened Raven Vanguard House. It is a place that exalts art, design, music, liturgical indulgence, culinary craft, and gourmandizing to illustrate in boldly imaginative strokes and ways what words and linguistics in themselves cannot say. However, Raven Vanguard and the phantasmagorical House we call home must, outside of what is cautiously and with reticence revealed here today, persevere under the majestic sibylline shroud and sheltering sky that safeguards our new-world paradigms of nuance, distinction, and subtlety pervading within its sacred halls. As I ponder the implications of today's Once-Over, I suddenly crave the French delicacy Ortolan Bunting, accompanied by a glass of slightly chilled Chateau Lafite Rothschild Tres Vieille Reserve Cognac.
You see, Raven Vanguard's very essence is entirely experiential. The same goes for Raven Vanguard House, our European salon-style sanctuary and base of creative operations. I purposefully use the word experiential adjectivally, not in an Instagram or Pinterest sense. Meaning we are a three-dimensional experience, not two. By intention, we are a must-see-it-in-person artistic and cultural kaleidoscope for sensualists and epicureans of every ilk. Because our calling cards are nuance, subtlety, and refinement, our marketing efforts usually revolve around ways to lure you to linger inside the aesthetic netherworld and esotericism of Raven Vanguard House and its immersive and high-touch environment.
Word is now spreading in Heaven and being cautiously whispered about in the nine circles of Hell of our intention to finally move forward with our pre-pandemic conceptualization of an altogether unique and exclusive hospitality and dining experience we consecrated, "A Culinary Series of One Night Stands." Philosophically and spiritually speaking, I envisioned this concatenation of epicurean experiences as an opportunity to explore where the ordinary and uninspired ends and something else of a divine and curious nature begin and by doing so through a shared language of sustenance and unconventional, creative exploration. From its nascent beginnings, our mission for this momentous happening has been unmistakably clear, to take aesthetic trailblazers on an experiential and sensory adventure that bridges the imagination gap and the existential divide into uncharted territories of culinary ingenuity and artistic freedom unbound from the shackles of the harsh realities of commerce.
Not surprisingly, our decision to bring this idea to life is arousing voyeuristic interest and curiosity concerning our underlying concept. Well, in my head, the story goes something like this – God Herself expressly prohibited Eve and Adam from consuming the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Categorically, this fruit was made contraband, verboten, and off-limits. Well, we all know how that turned out. Not surprisingly, when God Herself queried the non-conforming duo about why they did what they were instructed not to do, Adam instinctively blamed God Herself and Eve for his transgression. Adam said, "the woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
Whether this event is apocryphal or fact does not change the commonly held belief that Eve's consumption of the apple is the etiological exemplum for the concept of original sin or ancestral sin, namely, the sin of disobedience. However, in my mind, the more urgent takeaway has always been Adam's arrogance and shameless refusal to accept responsibility for his actions.
Since food, particularly the forbidden fruit kind, has long been associated with the concept of original sin, my inceptive for "A Culinary Series of One Night Stands" was actually "An Evening of Original Sin," which I had planned to riff off the seven deadly sins. While Eve's act of disobedience was venial in nature because it was committed without reflection, Adam's transgression of pride and hubris is considered one of the seven deadly sins because in blaming God Herself for his voluntary act, he turned his back on Her sanctifying grace. However, in the context of planning a series of standalone culinary experiences, the seven deadly sins were, numerically speaking, too self-limiting for something I hoped would have a long existence.
Then, further deliberations and conversations took place surrounding a previously aborted attempt on my part to connect the occasion of a one-night stand to the deadly sins of lust and gluttony. Since, in practice, because a one-night stand has a beginning point, a midpoint, and a denouement, there is a complete and finite narrative arc. But it is something that is infinitely repeatable, should you so desire. So, there it began. In our case, the idea of a culinary one-night stand is interminably sustainable by simply swapping chefs, themes, collaborators, and gourmands.
Megan Hungerford, Joe Leta, Tamarie Novo, Jennifer Weintraub, Rick Braden, and an Angel of Darkness further inflamed the idea, which was all the encouragement I needed to conceptualize something so utterly over the top, otherworldly, and ritualistic around the concept of food, art, design, and music that would be beyond the realm of ordinary and momentously epic. And if all this is starting to sound like an evening of immoral self-indulgence, I assure you it will not be that. Ours will be a rapturous and handcrafted wonderland of artistic creativity and culinary ingenuity, noble and entirely dignified. Well, at least that is my hope.
With our concept in hand, fever-addled and debauched daydreams followed. My daytime pipe dreams unceremoniously turned into night terrors and phantasmagorical dreams of a different sort. Have you ever dreamed of consuming massive amounts of illicit narcotics while lustfully cavorting in the candlelit and shadowy recesses of a centuries-old Gothic cathedral with Nuns bewitchingly adorned in Benedictine black and wearing garters and back-seam silk stockings, all to the accompaniment of Sous le dôme épais from Léo Delibes's opera Lakmé? Yeah, me neither. But do not be surprised if this madness does not artistically reveal itself in one of our One Night Stands. Sean Combs, is that you?
Now that I have shed a scattering of light on the beginning of "A Culinary Series of One Night Stands," let us dive into my love of food and the culinary craft that surrounds it.
Unfortunately, extraordinary food alone does not guarantee a restaurant's longevity. For instance, Buffalo has had more than its fair share of restaurants close for economic reasons, even though their food was incredible. Off the top of my head – The Rue Franklin, Tabree (in its Elmwood Avenue incarnation, their move out to the suburbs never sat well with most people), Tsunami, Old World Cookery, Osaka, Torches, Enchanté Restaurant, Buffalo Rome, Koinonia Café, Bistro Europa, Victor Hugo's, Mike A's, Billy Ogden's, Brick Alley Bistro, Manny's (I miss my friend, Dick Gritzke), Lord Chumley's, Le Metro, La Tee Da, Cybele's Café, Just Pasta, Saki's, The Cloister, The Park Lane, Tempo, Black Sheep Restaurant, and Sea Bar (this list could go on forever).
However, when we marry exceptional cuisine to an exclusive, unforgettable, all-encompassing aesthetic and sensory experience, we now have something genuinely sustainable in perpetuity. At least, this is my premise. Which brings me to "A Culinary Series of One Night Stands."
In the late 1990s, I had the good fortune of stumbling across Camaje Bistro on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, operated by Chef Abigail Hitchcock. She had a flair for French-American cuisine, focusing on seasonal, local, and organic ingredients. Since business travel often brought me to Manhattan, I made Camaje a regular destination. And even though business travel to NYC has been less frequent the past few years, I have kept a watchful eye on the transformation of Camaje into Abigail's Kitchen and Abigail's embrace of the blackout or unseen dining experience, which she refers to as Dinners in the Dark. Since I had enjoyed prior darkened dining experiences in Chicago, I made a mental note to incorporate this someday into something revolving around art and interior design.
Outsiders are pleasantly surprised to learn that Western New York and its environs have a wealth of talent in the commercial kitchen. I have already made a mental note of several adventurous chefs who possess the daring and imagination and are capable of the out-of-the-box thinking necessary to take part in these experimental culinary extravaganzas. At first, my idea was to approach these chefs and ask each of them to put together a list of up to ten gourmands whom we would then invite to an exclusive and strangely wonderful dining rendezvous within the hallowed halls of Raven Vanguard House. I even had the temerity to think I could lure Andree and Joel Lippes out of retirement for a Raven-styled re-imagining and homage to the Rue Franklin under the banner "Rue Franklin, The Next Chapter."
However, as my concept has continued to evolve, as these things usually do, I am focusing my sights well beyond the confines of Buffalo and New York State to find culinary artists who similarly recognize the importance of a dining experience revolving around art, comfort, and the all-around aesthetic experience. I thank J.B. for her helpful and diplomatic editorial contributions to keeping this Once-Over on brand and on topic. Before anyone asks, this J.B. is not the same J.B. last seen cavorting with witches in the moonlight on Sunrise on the Sufferbus by Masters of Reality. More on this topic in future Once-Overs. Stay tuned.
Finally, let me move on to my music recommendation before closing out this Once-Over. As you know, I love complex music, which takes risks and is not derivative of music that came before. You also know that I have an intense aversion to what passes as popular music these days. As a young man, I was forever changed following my mind-expanding encounter with Yes' masterwork, Close to the Edge. Soon after, I was compelled by that experience and an otherworldly force (perhaps a demonic one) to listen to King Crimson's 1973 release, Larks' Tongues in Aspic. This incarnation of King Crimson revolved around contradiction – near-telepathic interplay and maniacally wanton improvisation, fleeting moments of tender-hearted beauty and nuance utterly annihilated by extremes of conceived decomposition and exquisite undoing. Whenever you have an uninterrupted hour of free time, I urge you to sit in a candlelit space and listen intently to this epic recording by Robert Fripp, John Wetton, Bill Bruford, Jamie Muir, and David Cross. It should be self-evident to the culinarily curious that this album's title foretells of a consequential and weighty epicurean one-night engagement at Raven Vanguard House. Until next time…….
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated September 30th, 2024
TRIGGER WARNING: Today's Once-Over is about beauty and possibility as though they are conjoined, coincident parts of some ancient and mysterious transcendent whole.
When Brooke and I conceived Raven Vanguard, we did so wholeheartedly, believing we had no responsibility whatsoever to appease the masses. After all, design is art, and we are artists, and radical art is not for everyone. So, yes, we are niche, and proudly so.
Does Beauty Still Matter?
I know it used to matter profoundly to most people, at least in centuries past. But does it matter now? In any form? Or to anyone? Well, that is to anyone other than Brooke, me, and our clients.
In part, the point of today's Once-Over is to encourage you to surround yourself with beauty in all its variant forms. We do and are bountiful because of it.
Do you believe in surrounding yourself with beauty and beautiful things? Do you immerse yourself fully into the aesthetic experience?
The visual otherworldly aesthetic language of Raven Vanguard is eternally shape-shifting. Our design vocabulary is encyclopedic in its breadth and depth. However, when dreaming up a space's visual and tactile aesthetic, we rarely consider or reference the work of any other designer or artist or architectural or historical design styles in particular. Let's take the current incarnation of our Music Room as an example. Our initial conception was not visually discernible in any absolute sense. In my head, I envisioned creatively and tastefully exploring the realm and art of ritual and intimacy and examining, in an existential sense, the cosmic predicament that revolves around theological belief and one's unwavering faith in the unknowable. Moving beyond these metaphysical guideposts, visual cues, aesthetic touchstones, and sacred symbolism were manifested to evoke our overarching aesthetic concept.
We found spiritual inspiration in the sexually suggestive spaces of Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus Pavilion from the 1939 World's Fair and in the many ecclesiastical treasures throughout Paris and the French countryside. Also, floating around my head during this period of inner-directed creativity were my romanticized notions of the ascendancy and influence of the French courtesan during the 17th and 18th Centuries (or, as Brooke likes to explain it, my Nun adorned in Benedictine black, as dominatrix obsession which originated during my years as an altar boy in the Catholic Church)(if you've marveled at the bordel sequences with Monica Bellucci in Christophe Gans' Brotherhood of the Wolf, aka Le Pacte des Loups, you will better understand our conceit).
With notions of beauty, ceremony, spiritual-mindedness, darkness, shadow, candlelight, eroticism, velvets, leather, and lace dancing around our heads, our Music Room was born anew. I've often described our "creative process" as the steps that give form, fluency, and fluidity to our intuition, imagination, and concept. For us, the creative process is rarely linear; indeed, it wasn't in the case of our Music Room. For us, rigid linearity inhibits creative exploration entirely. And with a concept as esoteric as the one that gave life to our Music Room, attempting to use the aesthetic palette and the English language to explain one's belief in otherworldly essence and the afterlife is like trying to describe or characterize the difference between zero and the infinitesimals.
Beauty of another sort.
A Seasoned Witch - Non-Quatrain Free-Form Prose of a Supernatural Sort
In April 1972, five extraordinarily gifted young men from Great Britain began creating and working earnestly in West London's District of Sheperd's Bush on the greatest and most transcendent singular achievement in modern music. Nearly five months later, on September 8th, 1972, Yes would reveal their tour de force, their masterwork, Close To The Edge. This particular version of the Band consisted of Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Bill Bruford, Steve Howe, and Rick Wakeman.
While the albums released by Yes before Close to the Edge expanded modern music's vocabulary, Close to the Edge was an unprecedented leap forward into abstractness and the creative unknown. Across the entire history of humankind, no other musical recording released before this one sounded anything quite like it. Apocalyptic urgency, a restless disquietude, abstract, visionary, yet ancient, rhythmic discord, yet uniquely harmonious, cacophonous, yet, at times, tranquil, complicated, terrifying, but utterly transcendent and beautiful, sometimes all at once. Did I hear the unveiling of scripture, the unwinding of cosmological forces, divine perfection, or the type of feverish creativity that is so often the consequence of a restlessly daydreaming mind?
Whatever it was, and no matter how many times I listened, and still listen to this record, the experience of listening is a striking reminder that beauty originates out of nothingness and that sometimes, lying deep within this beauty, there can be unexplainable and unfathomable moments of foreboding and dread. This album is heavenly, radiant, and even sinister at times; its sacredness subsumes the secularity of the human experience, resonating with the allure from the precipice that stares off into the uncertainty and emptiness of the eternal void.
After hearing this incredible piece of music for the very first time at the age of thirteen, I was awestruck, forever changed and profoundly so, and inspired to seek out beauty wherever it existed, including in obscure and unfamiliar places. This particular record began my lifelong odyssey to discover and connect with art in every conceivable form. There is a direct throughline from that fateful day in September 1972 when I was first mesmerized by this extraordinary and idiosyncratic recording to my decision to start Raven Vanguard with Brooke.
The first song on this album, the titular track Close to the Edge, also sparked my love of writing. Musically and lyrically speaking, this piece of music began like no song I had ever heard before. Opening with the tranquil sounds of delicate birdsong and running water in a stream, perhaps the one running through Witch's Coven nestled in the verdant ancient woodlands of Queen's Wood, before erupting into an extended instrumental section of chaos, dissonance, and bedlam. Then, the first verse begins as follows:
A seasoned witch could call you
From the depths of your disgrace
And rearrange your liver
To the solid mental grace
And achieve it all with music
That came quickly from afar
Then taste the fruit of man
Recorded losing all against the hour
And assessing points to nowhere
Leading every single one
A dewdrop can exalt us
Like the music of the sun
And take away the plain in which we move
And choose the course you're running
If you are unfamiliar with this record, you owe it to yourself to hear it at least once, and you be the judge of its magic. And, if you wish to listen to this record in all its complex and bewitching glory, schedule an appointment to visit our Music Room, or better yet, send me an email at tom@ravenvanguard.com and ask me to add your name to our invitation list for a future opportunity to join likeminded wayfaring music lovers in the hallowed halls of our Music Room to experience music in a way you've never done before.
I want to leave you with one of my favorite anecdotes concerning the importance of surrounding oneself with beauty in search of the inherent transformational escape beauty bestows upon us from the tribulations of the mundane. Jonas Salk is the researcher responsible for the polio vaccine.
By all accounts, Salk was a workaholic who tirelessly searched daily for a cure for this insidious disease. When Salk reached the point where he believed his efforts were utterly futile, he allowed himself to receive the deliverance that only comes about through experiences with beauty. Falk left his clinical confines in Pittsburgh and traveled to the 13th-century monastery Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. With his senses fully awakened, he conceived the ultimate means to end polio.
Years later, Salk said of his encounter with beauty: "The spirituality of the architecture there was so inspiring that I was able to do intuitive thinking far beyond any I had done in the past. Under the influence of that historic place, I intuitively designed the research that I felt would result in a vaccine for polio. I returned to my laboratory in Pittsburgh to validate my concepts and found that they were correct.”
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated September 26th, 2024
Shockingly, today's Once-Over is my second entry this week, so for today, I will refer to our Once-Over as Double-Talk Thursday. Speaking of double talk…………
These days, in terms of political party affiliation, I am agnostic. Our two-party system is irretrievably broken, and the Washington, DC, toilet needs to be flushed immediately. As this utter farce of an election season nears the finish line, as small business owners, we have come face-to-face with the downright mind-boggling impotence of Bidenomics, Biden's rapidly advancing senility, and the seeming ineptitude of our "Border Czar" Kamala Harris. So, as the world teeters on the brink of World War III, anyone with eyes wide open can see that Biden is non compos mentis and incapable of fulfilling the president's duties at this critical juncture. As for Harris, before Biden outed himself in his debate with Trump, Harris was not only a ghost, but she had the lowest approval rating of any vice president in the history of this Country, and high-ranking democrats were not-so-secretly plotting to remove her from the ticket as dead weight. However, following Biden's disastrous debate performance, Harris' unprecedented ascendance to the top of the Democratic ticket in a coup-like fashion has been nothing short of miraculous. Suddenly and inexplicably, she has become the greatest thing since sliced bread. Only in America. This does not mean that I am advocating for the invocation of the 25th Amendment because Harris makes this a Hobson's Choice of the highest order. Yet, mainstream media and politicians of every ilk tell me daily that Trump, the victim of two recent assassination attempts, is the one and only lone threat to democracy that this Country is facing. The absurdity and sophistry of it all. I say give me Tulsi Gabbard and let's call it a day, but unfortunately, that wish must wait till 2028.
Forgive my digression, and let me return to the world of Raven Vanguard and the challenges we face as business owners due to the unpredictability of commerce, the economic uncertainty of the present day, inflation and interest rates run amok, and the fickleness of aesthetic taste.
No ifs. No ands. No buts. No doubts. No second-guessing. Raven Vanguard is an extraordinary labor of love. Brooke's labor of love. And, most assuredly, mine.
At first glance, Raven Vanguard might appear like most other interior design businesses. That is until you realize we artistically subvert every preconceived notion within interior design's most conventional rulebooks. Truthfully, one of the absolute preconditions to the formation of Raven Vanguard was our unwavering determination to obliterate those fucking rulebooks entirely. This brings us to the question of whether being so utterly uncompromising and unique works to our disadvantage in the economics of the interior design marketplace.
Regrettably, since the importance of subtlety, nuance, fine detail, shading, and refinement appears to be forever waning from society's collective consciousness, I admit to some measure of consternation over Raven Vanguard's somewhat precarious place in the world of commerce currently. Here, I must confess to having feelings of immense frustration, but not worry, never worry.
You see, Raven Vanguard celebrated its seventh anniversary on May 22, 2024. Considering that most small businesses never survive long enough to experience the commemoration of their third year, Brooke and I have plenty to rejoice over, and we are certainly not without thanks. But damn if we aren't occasionally disheartened by what passes as luxury design in most projects we see coming to fruition in the world around us. So, like Einstein himself once asked, are we the crazy ones? Interestingly enough, I have always believed that Brooke and I share an otherworldly peculiarity of mind, so perhaps we are the crazy ones.
To ensure the permanence of Raven Vanguard's ascendance and consequence in the worldwide creative community, in the winter of 2024 and spring of 2025, changes are coming to the House that Raven Vanguard christened as its place of origin.
What can you expect when you find us (or when we find you)? And will the experience we have conjured for you be worth your while? For starters, you will discover Raven Vanguard House refined and refreshed. What we have conceived transcends the realm of the ordinary in every way imaginable. With a nexus to no one else and an aesthetic and visual language known only to us, we will explore relationships between the avant-garde, tradition, religion, craft, eroticism, culinary delights, circular design and sustainability, and the interrelationship between the heavens and the unknown. In doing so, we will create something that morphs outwardly incompatible aesthetic vocabularies and transform them by art, craft, and alchemy into something utterly mysterious and sensual. Raven Vanguard House aims to establish new benchmarks for beauty, comfort, intimacy, and lingering.
2025 will also see the unveiling of A Culinary Series of One Night Stands that will take place within the sanctified domain of Raven Vanguard House and its hallowed grounds. More on this exclusive series in the coming months.
There is something singularly uncommon about how we will be curating Raven Vanguard House moving forward that feels altogether original, bygone, modern, and transformative. It is as if the DNA of centuries of art, architecture, and design have been re-coded in a single, special place by a design duo that the world is only beginning to grasp and fathom, much less comprehend or understand. In our mind, to create positive change and to be of absolute and permanent consequence, making contradictory things coalesce creatively will forever be our Raven Vanguard calling card. Because Raven Vanguard House is such a kaleidoscopically visceral experience, it demands that you give of yourself entirely, in person, by actively immersing your entire being into the beauty that permeates and saturates every corner of our one-of-a-kind showcase. Isn't it about time that you scheduled a visit? After all, some say you only live once.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated September 25th, 2024
For quite some time, I've wanted to discuss redefining beauty and the art of designing the Raven Vanguard way. So, what does this even mean? Today's Once-Over begins a multi-part series of posts that will eventually give clarity to this grandiose proposition.
Why do individuals and businesses hire interior designers? Let me modify that question in one crucial aspect: why do individuals and businesses hire Raven Vanguard? Our clients hire us for our originality, creative vision, pure imagination, ingenuity, artistic expression, holistic approach, attention to the smallest of details, and aesthetic judgment. Our clients engage Raven Vanguard because they know we treat every new project as a special occasion, an opportunity to create something utterly singular, unique, immersive, and functional that aligns with each client's taste, needs, and budget. Of equal importance, our clients retain our services because they know we incorporate and prioritize design practices focusing on environmental sustainability and circularity, meaning the utilization of products that are reusable, repairable, resaleable, and recyclable. But perhaps the most important reason is that our clients know we will deliver a finished design anchored in comfort, beauty, artistry, craft, timelessness, and peace of mind.
Now that you better understand why someone who desires a unique space precisely tailored to their individual sense of style seeks out Raven Vanguard, I can move on to the highlight of today's Once-Over – my abject hatred of trends and my open hostility towards trend pushers and followers.
Raven Vanguard's artistic and design work is never anchored or tethered to a trend or the whims of popular culture. Why? Trends and artifacts of popular culture are economically and environmentally wasteful because they are always fleeting and temporary and contribute to the devastation of our planet's natural resources. Trends deaden the artistic soul because they undermine individuality and innate creativity. Trends are nothing more than short-lived marketing gimmicks to sell you something that will not improve your quality of life in any meaningful way. They are the means to an insidious end – the end being planned obsolescence, the overconsumption of cheaply-made, mass-produced goods, the overutilization of unimaginative, lazy, and uninspired design professionals, and the urgent preoccupation to constantly incorporate the latest emerging trends into the aesthetics of interior spaces. They are a merchandising and advertising strategy calculated to pick the pockets of unwitting consumers. Following trends suffocates an artist's or designer's originality and creativity. In the 21st Century, trends have become the shady currency of the influencer; they are the pernicious tool of social media and cultural influencers in their attempts to mine and monetize followers, views, and likes.
Sadly, trends prioritize commercial considerations over artistic or creative ones. Any designer incorporating trends into a client's design project compromises individuality, uniqueness, and character of place. Instead of giving their client what they are paying for – original ideas, otherworldly atmosphere, and art and design innovations that are everlasting, immersive, emotionally impactful, and personally affecting – they mimic trends that align with mass appeal and the commonplace. To Brooke and me, nothing is worse or more disingenuous or creatively suffocating than embracing trends in our art and design. To us, trends are meaningless, empty-headed contrivances of illegitimacy, mediocrity, and waste.
Brooke and I receive several dozen industry-related emails of a marketing nature each day. Most small business owners will tell you the same thing. The surest way to lose me as a member of your target audience is to include the word trend in the subject matter line of your communication. Moreover, if I open your email only to find some inane discussion of some trend you are promoting, your email will never be read by me because it is headed straight to my trash bin.
Similarly, whenever a client or prospective client asks me what I think about this trend or that trend, I use the opportunity as a teaching moment to make clear that Raven Vanguard does not and will not follow or incorporate any trend into our original works; in other words, fuck all trends! Trends are the mere province of imitators and those entirely void of authentic and original creative impulse. Are you a trailblazer or a trend follower? We'd welcome the opportunity to work with you if you are the former. If you fall into the latter camp but are willing to be educated on the irresponsibility of trend following, let's talk because there may still be hope for you.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated September 17th, 2024
An Open Letter to anyone willing to listen:
It is hard to believe it has been over two years since my last confession. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned – hard stop! Please forgive one of the last vestiges of my Catholic school upbringing. What I meant to say is I can’t believe it’s been more than two years since our previous Weekly Once-Over. This fact is proof that time not only flies, but sometimes it seems as though significant passages of time are literally sucked without mercy into the event horizon of a supermassive black hole.
Today, I wish to focus our collective attention on Raven Vanguard House.
The transformation has begun………..
Owning a private residence in a state or federally designated historic district is a monumental undertaking and lifelong commitment. It is the multi-faceted responsibility of conservatorship. It is a study in perseverance and, perhaps, even lunacy. As the owners of Raven Vanguard House, Brooke and I are the proud stewards and caretakers of this magnificent, magical, and mysterious place.
Raven Vanguard House was constructed in 1850 and is one of the oldest intact private residences still standing in Buffalo, New York. Built in the architectural style of the French Second Empire, it is crowned with a slate mansard roof with six round-top dormers and one pedimented dormer.
When I purchased this property, I knew the time would eventually come when the slate roof would finally give up its ghost and need replacement. Whether Brooke and I were ever genuinely ready for this day is no longer a consideration because that day is nigh and upon us. After one hundred seventy-four years, the transformation has begun in earnest.
The Cambridge Dictionary now has a definition for the phrase “money pit.” Cambridge Dictionary defines a money pit as “something on which you keep having to spend a lot of money, especially when it may be a waste of money.” I can assure you that the first clause in that definition applies to Raven Vanguard House. It has been a continuous drain on limited resources. But, never once have we considered the money spent to be wasteful. The intertwining responsibilities of conservatorship, neighborhood, and community eclipsed our modest expectations of financial stability and security long ago.
Like any project of this magnitude, there are collaborators and co-conspirators; we will introduce you to some of them as we move forward.
Over the next several weeks (hopefully not months), I will be writing about our project - I will share stories about our process, challenges and hurdles, and progress.
Stay tuned.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated February 4th, 2022
An Open Letter to anyone willing to listen:
Forewarning: today's dispatch finds its genesis born out of utter frustration and unmitigated monotony begot by more of the "same old thing" again and again, day after day, not to mention the exhausting daily battle to overcome the banality of this country's prevailing DIY mentality.
No artistic person desires to toil away in obscurity, fashioning only mundane things. As creatives, Brooke, Dakota, and I wish to leave our everlasting mark on the world of visionary and cutting-edge design by conjuring and orchestrating novelty. For us, more than anything, Raven Vanguard gives us a true sense of purpose. Although we are undoubtedly a for-profit business, for us, Raven Vanguard is not about collecting a paycheck or monetary rewards, nor is it simply a means to an economic end. Instead, we long for projects that will test and call upon us to search out the outermost limits of our imagination and creative expression.
Raven Vanguard is a passion project conceived and built upon our collective need and all-eclipsing ambition to dream up, create, render, decipher, disentangle, and reawaken beauty in every conceivable form. After all, design should genuinely be about wonder, experimentation, mysteriousness, and possibility rather than some arbitrary set of numbers on an accountant's calculator.
Unfortunately, creativity, artistry, craft, and beauty are under attack in this world of ours.
Short-term thinking and lack of foresight and imagination on the part of project owners limits, if not destroys entirely, the artistic creativity of the outre and more unorthodox members of the global design community, like Raven Vanguard. What do I mean by this? Cost, and cost alone, has become the overriding criteria in almost every design project we encounter. When I say cost, I mean minimizing cost by all means available regardless of the aesthetic consequences to the designer's creative vision and artistic concepts. Sadly, penny-pinching and value engineering principles overshadow and take precedence over creativity, elegance, imaginativeness, matters of good taste, and delayed but longer-term and sustainable revenue generation.
Artistry cannot be measured by dollars and cents alone. Unfortunately, way too many project owners, developers, business owners, and homeowners repeatedly exercise this type of uninspired and short-sighted thinking. Decision-making that uses project cost as the sole deciding parameter ensures the cheapening, merchandising, and mass production of art and interior design while at the same time disincentivizing artistry and the skills of those in the artisan crafts and construction trades. This conventional thinking also succumbs to tentative half-measures and wasteful trends, overvalues the ordinary, conforms to the mundane, and surrenders to this problematic notion that less is somehow more. It also completely ignores the guaranteed long-term intrinsic value of incorporating a timeless interior design. Worse yet, cost-driven design choices result in the use of inferior products and materials that are not responsibly procured from environmentally sustainable sources.
In reality, and ultimately, value engineering decisions negatively affect the interior designer's reputation more than any other design team member. Invariably, every value engineering decision on a project deviates further and further from the interior designer's original aesthetic concepts, thus devaluing the designer's professional reputation. When the end result and finished product fall far short of the designer's intention, the designer is denied both the inherent satisfaction that comes with the act of creation and a highly valued portfolio piece that they can take immense pride in having created. Instead, all that we are left with is just another paycheck.
In addition to this matter of cost-driven thinking, we must also find ways to overcome a seeming absence of taste, a mind-numbing allegiance to that which is ordinary or minimal, and a debilitating fear of both refinement and nuance.
Why do so many people harbor an innate aversion to surrounding themselves with beauty and beautiful things? Regrettably, one's reluctance to embrace beauty is utterly endemic in this country, especially compared to Europe and most parts of Asia. But yet oddly enough, we all know intuitively that the spaces we occupy each day shape and influence our everyday experiences and enjoyment within our designed and built environment. From how a room is lit to the materials, furnishings, one-of-kind objects, and artwork within, and the paint colors on the walls – no one can argue that the aesthetic design of a space does not significantly impact our mood, pleasure, how we think, or how we behave. Therefore, I will never understand wanting to be unexceptional or to inhabit an unmemorable space barren of beauty.
We find it shocking that so many people are willing to tolerate mediocrity within their designed environment, harbor such a singular preoccupation with "run-of-the-mill," and desire mainstream acceptance in the middle of the ordinary. Since when did typical and monotonous become perfectly acceptable? My observation applies equally to those among us who can very well afford to develop their spatial environment in any way they desire.
Over the past six years, I have studied most of the available research on empirical aesthetics and that which is currently being published in the emerging field of neuroaesthetics. Although I do not claim to be a neuroscientist, I am encouraged that the developing research in these areas supports and is consistent with my long-held belief that our brains respond naturally and positively to beauty in art, architecture, music, and interior design. And that interior spaces prioritizing aesthetic creativity, beauty, well-appointed design, and decoration over functionality and minimalism reveal, once and for all, the full measure of what is possible in our otherworldly experience of being human.
America's fundamental antipathy of beauty is akin to giving solidity to the very air I breathe. In response, I shout, someone, please let Raven Vanguard design something entirely uncommon that aspires to the sensuality of an 18th Century Parisienne bordello but with the exaggerated grandeur of a 17th Century holy place. Someone, please step bravely forward; we know that you're out there somewhere, just waiting to discover us.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated December 8th, 2021
Today's post is not the promised Part III to my entry of November 12th. However, I will return with Part III before the end of the month.
Instead, today, we seek to provide answers to that age-old question – what is it that makes something beautiful? And we ask each of you the correlative question – do you believe in surrounding yourself with beauty and beautiful things?
The answer to the first question and how it impacts the second question is fundamental to human existence in that beauty's intrinsic nature is utterly transformative.
Aesthetics revolves around the study, philosophy, perception, and appreciation of beauty. Our senses spark our aesthetic emotions. The interplay of our senses of sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell is the ultimate arbiter of whether something is perceived to be beautiful.
As an interior design studio, Brooke, Dakota, and I use our creativity and artistry to make beauty a neverending part of our client's aesthetic experience. For us, beauty is sacred, and it can be perceptible in something as simple as the patina of age on a velvet-upholstered furnishing. Yet, we can also reveal it in the imaginative intermingling of the intricate details and finishing touches that complete the designed environment. Beauty is a multifaceted achievement arising from imagination unbound by the strictures of rigid practicality and tunnel vision.
So, back to our initial question – what is it that makes something beautiful? From our perspective, beauty is utterly amorphous right up until the very moment it is transfigured into something tangible, timeless, and enticing to the senses. Beauty is the seductive awakening of the imperceptible made utterly perceptible. Beauty itself subsists as a coexistent duality. Meaning that it exists simultaneously together but in two different planes of actuality; it exists within the eye of the beholder as a genuinely subjective truth, but also, and synchronously within the essence of the object or thing itself, quite objectively.
In actuality, beauty is our gateway to the sublime, the transcendent, and the divine. Culturally, beauty's impacts are of such consequence to human existence that its genuine value is utterly incalculable. In interior design, beauty is the amalgamation of shape, proportion, texture, pattern, tactile materials, color, lighting, sound, and atmosphere, coalescing into an experience of intimacy and eroticism.
In our world, artistry begets beauty. So, therefore, what is artistry? In simple measure, artistry is the mysterious act of creating incomparable beauty; it is the visionary or interpretive achievement of making something extraordinary out of nothingness via creative impulse. And it is the confluence of beauty and artistry that empowers Raven Vanguard to conjure the authentic nature of the aesthetic experience for our clientele.
Why, then, is creativity, artistry, and beauty under attack in our industry? Stay tuned, and I'll address this conundrum in an upcoming Once-Over.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated November 19th, 2021
Today's Once-Over is titled "The Grand Fallacy and Subterfuge Underlying Instagrammable Moments." In all candor, I find social media nauseating. I feel even more strongly about mainstream media, but that is a subject for another day.
Regrettably, we now live in a nightmarish world governed by influencers (many of whom are downright charlatans), followers (including fake followers, bots, and follower farms), likes, dislikes, favorites, sponsored content, inauthentic content, vanity metrics, algorithms, and engagement rates. What may have started as a fascinating way to disseminate original and innovative ideas and artistry many years ago has long since evaporated as an empty promise into the ethers.
By informed choice, I do not have the Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, or LinkedIn apps on my smartphone; in fact, I purposely don't have a single social media app on my device. Also, by choice, I am not a member of today's instant-share society because I place far greater value on my privacy and firsthand interpersonal engagement. I feel strongly that the risks associated with sharing personal and private information in an online environment far surpass any potential benefits. Here's the thing: 21st Century-connectivity has turned genuine intimacy into nothing more than a handful of windblown and scattered ashes.
Nevertheless, with all of that said, I refuse to believe that we live in a world where everything is positively and inescapably fucked. Thanks to Julian of Norwich, you see, I am now blindly devoted to the imperative – the imperative being discovering proof of the existence of God Herself and the incorruptibility of the feminine aspect of the divine, but I digress.
When did being Insta-worthy become more important than the essence of the experience itself and the opportunity for social engagement by building personal relationships through face-to-face communications and purposeful interactions? Instagram and the like have seemingly infiltrated every aspect of our existence. Because, as we all now know, if it doesn't show up in a social media feed, then it never really happened — such utter bullshit. I lived a fantastic and meaningful existence before the development of the Internet. Fast forward to today, when it comes to the vagaries of social media, it seems like I am single-handedly waging a war without end against the infinite and intractable perils of hyper-connectivity.
Sadly, it isn't clear to everyone that Instagram is spoiling how society now experiences creativity in art and design. Is it fair to judge the work of a creator in the context of thoughtlessly random and vanity-driven selfies? Moreover, is it fair to judge the quality of someone's creative impulse based on whether an influencer has disingenuously given or unjustly withheld her or his stamp of approval? From my vantage point, social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter make us more likely to dismiss the artist's labors because those platforms discourage the observer from engaging in independent lingering exploration and analysis.
At its best, in the commercial context, social media is a necessary evil. At its worst, in the personal sphere, it makes us indiscriminately hateful, desperately jealous, dangerously divisive, and horribly depressed. Spend five minutes on Twitter, and you'll see plenty of evidence of the utter madness that I am referencing.
For those of you who have the Instagram app on your phone, how often do you mindlessly check your feed? I am willing to wager that most people check their phone every ten minutes, even throughout the workday when their employer pays them to work, not daydream while imagining they are living someone else's fairytale existence. Distractability is undeniably one of the many curses of social media.
I have heard many social media proponents claim that these new platforms have helped bring us closer by reducing the global communications gap among all people. Theoretically speaking, this may be true, but I can soundly make the argument that, in practice, social media makes us less human by taking away the authentically experiential part of what it takes to be truly human. In effect, we have traded the lifeblood of human endeavor, adventure, and intimate interaction for triviality, banality, imaginary connections, and make-believe encounters.
Is there a solution or countermeasure to the absolute insanity of living life in the online bubble? There is, and we invite you to delve into our world – a world of esotericism, ritual, and sacred mystery – a world dripping with unbound creativity and imagination – a world where darkness is born of light.
You are Cordially Invited……….
Raven Vanguard is about to gradually lift the velvet curtain to unveil a boldly unique approach to experiencing creativity, aesthetics, curation, intimacy, social gathering, and engagement, one that is immersive, high-touch, and requiring your undivided attention and mindful presence, the resourcefulness of your imagination, and your active involvement, and spirited conversation. And one that decidedly encourages you to disengage from your device long enough to reawaken your sense of adolescent curiosity and wonderment. Our mission – the reincarnation of the intimacy of the centuries-old Salon. Take a moment to read about our Salon-styled extravaganzas here - https://www.ravenvanguard.com/raven-vanguard-house
We have meaningfully set out to bring together a diverse community of human and otherworldly beings to encounter one another, exchange ideas and opinions, and connect through open, face-to-face conversations over art, design, music, the mysteries of life, food, drink, arcane viewpoints, and entertainment.
In the months and years ahead, Raven Vanguard will assemble creatives, visionaries, harbingers, revolutionaries, clairvoyants, forerunners, explorers, schismatics, trailblazers, heretics, scholars, philosophers, and messengers from all walks of life to help us encourage and perfect the art of mindfulness, conversation, collaboration, and cultural transformation.
Since our series of Salon gatherings will be by invitation only, providing us with your contact information is the best way to give us the privilege and opportunity to extend an invitation to you. If you are interested in joining us, start the conversation by reaching out to me at tom@ravenvanguard.com
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated November 12th, 2021
Today's post is the promised Part II to my November 8th entry.
In our business and personal lives, each of us must find ways to prioritize the health of our planet by choosing sustainability over and above exploitation and waste.
As Creative Director of Raven Vanguard, one of my responsibilities is to educate our clients on the relationship of superior craftsmanship and the use of eco-friendly materials to the sustainability of the environment. Likewise, I inform them of the destructive ecological impacts and consequences of rapid turnover and the avoidably premature transformation of furnishings and goods into landfill waste.
Globally speaking, we must increase real-world value in the production of all things and across all manufacturing disciplines. But, unfortunately, consumers and end-users are already all too familiar with the severe shortcomings of planned or programmed obsolescence in designing goods, products, and commodities, even in so-called durable goods like automobiles. When I talk about planned obsolescence, I mean the intended and deliberate shortening of a product's useful life by the manufacturer, both in the engineering and making of the product, to effectively increase the buyer's repeated consumption of the product over time. This practice is entirely wasteful, and its detrimental impacts are twofold. First, this practice is economically damaging to the consumer, and the consequent increase in waste materials is devastating to the environment.
Most people would not expect to see this deceptive practice in play in any service industry. But it exists as a well-guarded big little lie in the interior design industry. In fact, since the early 1980s, this practice has become so purposefully entrenched within the business and economic model of interior design that today it proliferates almost the entire industry and that of their bedfellows in the furnishings and home and hospitality goods industries. Interior designers practice planned obsolescence by promoting short-lived trends and the use of cheaply made, mass-produced goods. The designers and manufacturers who ask consumers, again and again, to follow trends are utterly manipulative, creating immediate profitability for themselves rather than long-term satisfaction for their clients or the protection of the environment.
Raven Vanguard rejects this planned obsolescence practice entirely, and it will never be part of our design philosophy. Instead, for us, conceptually, the design itself must be timeless and everlasting. And, of equal importance, the design elements must be composed of heirloom quality furnishings, fixtures, and materials, to guarantee that the aesthetic experience of the finished design is enduring and satisfies our client's expectations, and promotes and supports their wellbeing over a lifetime.
So then, why does this globally-destructive practice of planned obsolescence and irresponsible overconsumption continue unchecked within the interior design industry? More to the point, why do interior designers promote and facilitate this thoughtless way of doing things? Because the economic business model upon which the industry thrives and revolves around is markedly underhanded. The interiors industry feeds itself perpetually by incorporating planned obsolescence into project design, which means that obsolescence and premature aging are assured when the designer promotes and insists upon including trends and poorly made disposable furnishings and materials in the project's design.
Regrettably, most interior design in this country is grounded in this idea of obsolescence. As a result, short-lived design concepts incorporating poorly made furnishings and materials with a very short lifecycle have become standard practice. In the United States, designer intention and manufacturer intent ignore the environmental impacts of trends, non-eco-friendly materials, overconsumption, mass-produced and shoddy furnishings, fixtures, and goods, and the unchecked depletion of natural resources. In other words, durability and staying power are not ordinarily part of the design equation. Unfortunately, most designers have brainwashed Americans to believe that discarding short-lived furnishings and trend-based designs is acceptable. When, in fact, trend-based designs are the archetype of wastefulness.
We encourage everyone to have a heart-to-heart conversation with their interior designer and architect when planning their next design project. Either that or reach out to us directly for a whole lot of straight-talk and no bullshit.
Here at Raven Vanguard, we believe that there is a place in this world for an environmentally-minded company that is utterly committed to championing artistic integrity, uncompromising comfort, exclusivity in design, impeccable attention to detail, traditional craftsmanship, and global awareness.
Part III is upcoming and will get into examples of real-world value, ecolabels, and the lifecycle of handmade, heirloom-quality furnishings and goods.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated November 8, 2021
We presently face a global environmental catastrophe because of the interior design industry's ongoing failure to implement and prioritize sustainability principles. Of course, I am not suggesting that interior designers are the only guilty party here. Still, our industry is a much more significant culprit than most of us within it are willing to acknowledge.
Responsively, ever since Raven Vanguard opened its doors in May 2017, we've offered a value proposition to our clientele that stems from our ability to design for a project's longevity and sustainability, with the least amount of environmental impact possible. Unfortunately, however, and regrettably, most interior design in this country is grounded in the idea of built-in or planned obsolescence; meaning, short-lived and "trendy" design concepts incorporating poorly made furnishings and materials with a very short lifecycle. We will return to this contradiction in our next Once-Over. But, for now, let's turn back to the original subject of this post.
Undeniable fact one – climate change is real.
Undeniable fact two – the unrelenting consumption of substandard and cheaply made mass-produced goods made of inorganic, synthetic, non-recyclable, or short-lived materials is destroying the environment and precipitating climate change.
By now, almost everyone is familiar with the phrase fast fashion. And most of us readily acknowledge that the fast fashion industry has a carbon footprint that compares with many other insidious forms of industrial production and profiteering. However, notwithstanding the interior design industry's thoughtless promotion of the fast furniture industry, one that it is undoubtedly in bed with, some consumers are finally starting to realize that fast furniture making is also based on an exploitative business model.
Most furnishings, fixtures, and materials sold worldwide are mass-produced, of inferior quality, and constructed of environment-damaging materials (e.g., plastics and toxic chemicals). Moreover, so much furniture produced nowadays is of the disposable flatpack variety. Manufacturers intentionally design these products such that the product's lifecycle moves from point-of-sale to prematurely gone and of no further use in a heartbeat, with gone in this case meaning headed straight to the landfill because the materials used are not entirely recyclable or biodegradable.
Over the past decade, fast furniture has become one of the fastest-growing categories of landfill waste across the globe. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in the United States, fast furniture is indeed the most rapidly growing landfill category. The EPA tracks the amount of furniture and furnishings disposed of in landfills. According to its data, furniture waste generated in this country in 2018 totaled more than 12.1 million tons, with more than 80% being buried in a landfill, less than 20% being combusted for energy, and less than 1% being recycled. And to make matters significantly worse, the EPA does not include large and small appliances or carpet and rugs in these numbers. Statistics for these categories of municipal waste are tracked separately.
Now imagine what those numbers might look like when calculated across the globe? Everyone should read this data - https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/durable-goods-product-specific-data#FurnitureandFurnishings. And be sure to ask your interior designer, architect, and contractor about this information; I guess that many of them are entirely unaware. And if they are unaware but perpetuate the underlying practice, perhaps you can now educate them.
Part II is upcoming.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated November 2, 2021
Today, we discuss the anatomy of a well-made and designed upholstered furnishing. Upholstered furnishings are central to nearly every successful design project, whether residential, hotel, or restaurant. For us, the holy grail of interior design involves using beautifully designed, hand-built, heirloom-quality furnishings capable of lasting several lifetimes created and produced by environmentally-minded artisans and makers. Here at Raven Vanguard, we receive countless emails asking how to go about selecting upholstered furnishings.
For starters, you should never purchase upholstered furnishings without first asking questions, lots of them. I cannot overstate the importance of this recommendation. And this recommendation stands whether you are buying your furnishings in person, online, or through an interior designer or architect.
What then are the enduring hallmarks of well-designed, exceptionally made, handcrafted upholstered furnishings? First, these furnishings will be handmade by environmentally-predisposed artisans and producers. So always ask about the manufacturers' ecological and sustainability initiatives and certifications and their commitment to using materials having minimal impacts on the environment.
Please think twice (make that ten times) before buying that cheaply-made, poorly designed, mass-produced piece of furniture constructed of particleboard or fiberboard, plastics, synthetic materials, and covered in chemical toxins and emitting formaldehyde. The antithesis of heirloom quality involves using trendy and cheaply-made, second-rate, short-lived mass-produced goods predestined for the landfill.
This is why you must ask questions about all of the materials used in constructing the piece of furniture that has caught your eye. First, ensure that all raw materials come from natural and renewable sources and that all hardwoods come from forests harvested sustainably. Look for nature-made solid woods like beech and birch, jute vegetable fibers, and innards like cotton, feathers, boar bristle, and horsehair. If any of the innards are treated, make sure they are treated with natural latex instead of human-made chemicals. If you are looking for a plant-based alternative to boar bristle, horsehair, or feathers, ask about coir or coconut fiber. Finally, make absolutely sure formaldehyde was not used in any of the materials utilized in constructing the furniture. (If the product contains any engineered, composite, or laminated wood, formaldehyde was probably used in the manufacturing process, so ask to see the product's CARB2 compliance certification).
When it comes to the construction techniques used, handmade always trumps machine-made. One significant concession to this rule is the limited use of CNC machines (Computer Numerical Control). So, if any machine making was involved, make sure it was a CNC machine only. Make certain the frame's construction is of solid kiln-dried hardwoods, hand-jointed and triple doweled to precise tolerances, and glued with natural adhesives.
Ask questions about the product's internal components and assembly. Look for the use of heavy, double cone steel springs that have been hand-tied into place for weight distribution and comfort rather than zigzag or lightweight spiral springs or an even cheaper alternative. Make sure the frame is augmented with broad bands of jute webbing rather than synthetic materials. Finally, ask if the frame's construction uses reinforcing or supporting linear support rails, corner blocks, or cleats.
Ask about all of the finishing details. Ask about the coverings used under the finishing fabric. Look for the inclusion of boar bristle or horsehair, feathers, cotton stuffing, and natural hessian, calico, felt, and muslin cloths. Make sure the finishing fabric is a durable natural fabric over a synthetic one. Ask about the durability and color-fastness of all surface materials. When asking about the fabric's durability, ask about its Martindale or Wyzenbeek abrasion ratings. Make sure your finishing fabric is precisely pattern matched before it is hand-sewn into place. If the furnishing includes finishing details like deep buttoning, pleats, tufts, ruching, gathering, piping, tape trim, and exposed nailheads or tacks, make sure that all of these details are done by hand, not a machine.
And by all means, ask about the product warranty, especially the duration of its frame guarantee. Also, try to get as much information about the product as you can in writing. At a minimum, you should obtain written confirmation of all warranty terms and any potential exclusions.
Lastly, make every effort to avoid furnishings covered in polyester fabrics or filled with polyester or other synthetic materials. Don't let anyone tell you that polyester-based materials are natural or environmentally-minded. This is nonsense. Polyester is a human-made, synthetic petroleum-based fiber, which means it comes from a non-renewable carbon-intensive resource and is made using toxic chemicals containing carcinogens.
Well then, when all is said and done, where does that leave you if you followed our advice? First, suppose the furnishing in question was chosen well and comes with a ten or more years warranty. In that case, you'll likely find yourself in possession of heirloom-quality furnishing that can be passed down from generation to generation as long as it is appropriately cared for and maintained. After all, consumption should be about responsibly choosing those things that truly matter to you, the production of which does not irreversibly harm the planet.
Raven Vanguard specializes in the selection and specification of heirloom-quality upholstered furnishings, and we have filled our showrooms at Raven Vanguard House with many of the finest examples. So, if you want to learn more about the art of upholstery, please get in touch with us to set up an appointment to discuss your options. Tom@ravenvanguard.com
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated October 31, 2021
The experience of one's home should be singular, meaning that it should be uniquely yours. Moreover, amidst this ongoing pandemic, we have come to a point in human history where the concept and the experience of home are more important now than ever before to ward off loneliness and foster a sense of togetherness.
When it comes to the artistic craft of residential interior design, what matters most to Raven Vanguard? Intimately connecting our clients to their space in ways they never imagined or thought possible.
Interior design should, first and foremost, tap into, ignite, and connect with the client's passions. After all, it is their living space, not ours. Interior design should never be the designer's vanity project at the expense of their client's individuality and needs. As designers, we believe that ours is a responsibility of dream fulfillment. Domicile is more than a roof over one's head; we conceive it as a place of unfolding discovery, a haven for the enjoyment of comfort and nuance, a refuge from the daily grind, and a wellspring of lasting memories.
Our clientele hires us because they see something in us that resonates with them. Yet, more often than not, our clients do not precisely know how to translate their imagination into reality. And, sometimes, our clients have absolutely no idea how to transform their living environment into their sanctuary. Consequently, we see ourselves in the role of creative and aesthetic guide, mentor, pathfinder, and confidante. The relationship between Raven Vanguard and our client is inviolable in every sense of the word. Unfortunately, when designers are unable or unwilling to reach a point of consanguinity with their clients, the final design inevitably fails.
Egos, we all have them. Accordingly, one of our Ten Raven Vanguard Commandments requires us to check our egos at your door because designers should never disregard their client's intent, objectives, or well-being.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated October 20, 2021
Today’s altogether unpremeditated reflection is inspired by an email I received from our good friends at House of Hackney (www.houseofhackney.com ) in the UK.
I am not a minimalist. That spartan-like aesthetic has never worked for me. So, what is it about today’s pervasiveness of minimalism that I find so offputting? Lifelessness and austerity, for starters.
For me, being in a minimalistic space is utterly and excruciatingly soul-deadening. Rooms awash entirely in white, gray, beige, or any other similar neutral shade can most kindly be described as anodyne or innocuous. So, without fail, my first inclination when entering such a space is to do an immediate about-face and leave. And in leaving, I feel no sense of regret whatsoever, only a certainty that I am escaping an uninteresting and monotonous sensorial experience.
I design interior spaces guided by my notions of beauty, emotion, comfort, ever-present detail, singularity, sustainability, and the concept of lingering, all infused with an overarching sense of intimacy. So, yes, I am a romanticist at heart.
By contrast, the minimalist aesthetic results either from a lack of creativity (perhaps even borne out of the designer’s lack of confidence) or the exercise of unbridled restraint run amok; no matter the cause, the outcome is entirely barren, devoid of humanity and imagination. What else can I say? Minimalism is not my cup of tea.
Words according to Thomas, Co-Founder and Creative and Visual Director of Raven Vanguard
Entry dated August 16th, 2019
Today Happens to Be One of Those Opinionated Days
So, ready, set, duck!
We recently spent some fruitful time in Montreal, Quebec, introducing Raven Vanguard's eccentricities to the art and design communities of this oft-misunderstood Province. Montreal is always a wise choice for creatives who want to hide away from the mainstream, half-assed imitators, and the flat-out absurdity of mankind in general (gender descriptor intended).
And so it began, our darkly indulgent and bizarre foray into the unspoiled polychromatic work of others who were creating left-of-center in highly ambient domains but at the pinnacle of passion and imagination. The Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal, the Thierry Mugler Courturissime exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and the work of artist Cynthia Dinan-Mitchell are prime proofs of this extraordinary but dying concept.
From its beginnings, Raven Vanguard has freely embraced being misunderstood; in some sense, the notion of being shadowy and incomprehensible suits us as creators. Perhaps, by intention, we have even sought to be misunderstood, much like the mysteriousness surrounding religion and the church.
The current incarnation of the Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal was designed and constructed in the Gothic Revival architectural style over nearly forty years and finished in the early 1860s. Standing inside this otherworldly and sacred place emphatically reveals one of life's great mysteries regarding holy places and their conception; they are not conceived in mere mortals' minds; conceptually, they can only be the product of divine inspiration, guidance, and providence.
Immersing myself in beautiful spaces always brings me great comfort, peace, and unburdened inspiration. A mind-expanding sense of spiritual wonderment overcame me while witnessing the Aura illumination experience inside the Basilica on Saturday evening and again the following morning while attending Mass. Unfortunately, with it came the stark realization that in today's modern architectural landscape, budget restrictions notwithstanding, this Basilica could never be envisioned. Copied? Maybe. But conceived of as an original work of art? Never! Perhaps it has to do with the reality that what was once holy has been transformed into something not only mundane but utterly profane because we choose to dwell in an era where we are entirely consumed by a multitude of sins. More to the point, for the most part, today's design community suffers from absolute disillusionment brought about by the utter loss of unfettered imagination and artistic creativity. Moving on.
How does one begin to describe the work of designer Thierry Mugler? For me, in a word, it has always been Macbeth. Fittingly, the Mugler Courturissime starts with his costume design for Festival d'Avignon's Macbeth in the early 1980s. Mugler's costume designs for Macbeth were, if not colorful, boldly fetishistic, eroticized, and darkly theatrical. In witnessing Mugler's creations firsthand, I can argue that Mugler begets Alexander McQueen, who, in turn, would later beget Gareth Pugh. And let's not forget Mugler's influence on Jeremy Scott.
And, as for the work of Cynthia Dinan-Mitchell, I will remain intentionally cryptic. But I will say this - if you wish to learn more, make an appointment to tour our Studio later this month.