A Masterpiece Interview of Diana 1996

1. Do you have any familiars or fairie friends?
   D: Do you mean spirits, or my Uncle Nubis? The house that I moved out of recently was filled with things. I couldn't speak for their friendly intentions or their origins though.
   
2. What or who are the influences on your work? What is your one inspiration in life, in general?
   D: Sometimes the characters that I use or the pictures that I draw have such strong presence, despite their flaws, that I feel certain that they have come from somewhere else. Sometimes I will catch a glimpse of hundreds of intertwined plots or ideas or pictures, and I despair of writing them down before they fade, as dreams do, into something soft-edged and indecipherable. Everything that I do is related somehow. In the best things that I do there is a spirit, a presence, that has been invoked .I feel that I am mapping out something that I won't understand until I am done. I don't think that it is just me. I believe that there is a group consciousness moving towards another aesthetic with the fin de siecle, and I am fascinated.
   
3. If you could do one benefit, what issue would you choose?
   D: I am doing a benefit CD for suicidal adolescent girls and young women This is a problem that is only beginning to be understood, let alone dealt with. Teachers, parents and psychologists are perplexed and frightened by it, because there is no parallel in their own experience. I have not been able to find any support groups dealing with this specific cause, which is worrisome in itself. Some of the bands contributing to the CD are the Changelings, Swoon 19, Faith & Disease, Ninth Circle and Mourning Cloak. People who are interested should feel free to get in touch with me.
   
4. Has your newfound celebrity status changed you or your life in any way?
   D: I would hope that celebrity would help generate interest in the benefit CD.
   
5. Does it bother you that often people think you are your sister or vise versa?
   D: No... we look very much alike, and our work revolves around many of the same themes. She seems more like a part of myself than another person. We used to impersonate each other with such success that we tired of it.
   
6. What are your future projects?
   D: Please see the Nyx Obscura web page for specifics. Generally, though, after NO #3 and PG #5 are out, the Court of Hel done and the web page revised and updated (I am planning a section of Melanthea's writing and of my drawings, and fairy tales of mine and A.D. Ian's, as well as revisions of the Index and Codex Obscura) I want to concentrate on performance and video. I'm also planning to release a dramatic audio version of some of the fairy tales from Nyx and Euronymous. Some of the video will be filmed in Europe this spring if circumstances permit.
   
7. One wish in life, what would it be?
   D: I can't say.
   
8. What or who is your creature self? i.e nature. Any pet peeves?
   D: It's very hard to define yourself, don't you think? My creature self probably has a good bit of feline and some nervous herbivorous mammal. It is curious, ecstatic and not cautious enough. When it is desolate or disappointed it succumbs to black humors, and does best to avoid everyone. It is easily hurt and easily delighted.
   
9. We hear rumor that you are working on musical projects. What are they?
   D: There are a few songs that seem to have spontaneously generated in my head and beg to be recorded. They are rather simple, floaty, slightly mediaeval; they may end up as sound to a video. There is a possible collaboration with the apocalyptic folk group Stone Breath in the future. More currently, Theresa Panagou and I are working on the soundtrack to several short performance pieces-the Greek creation myth and another creation myth, a Babylonian one. This one deals with the goddess Euronyome, later demonized into the Prince of Death, and Bearer if the Cross of the Fly, Euronymous, who was the namesake of my first magazine. I think that the hierarchies of hell are fascinating. Some day I will finish the Court of Hel-Persephone, which is an illustrated online chapbook of poetry .Don't shudder. It's very, very good poetry by various people.
   
10. Do you remember your dreams?
    D: I only forget them when I'm depressed. Last night I was climbing up the stairs in an old house where I used to live; the house was built after the revolutionary war. There was a girl with me; she had long pale hair and a white linen nightdress; her face was round, and pale as her clothes. She was very solemn; she was with me for a reason that I can't remember. I was carrying a limp cloth doll that looked just like her. When I stood on the stairs I realized that the polished boards were split and gaping loose; that the whole staircase was suspended in midair, held only by a few nails. What happened later is rather indecent and doesn't bear repeating.
    
11. Were you born with pain? Do you consider yourself gothic?
    D: The worst pain that I've ever suffered has had to do with other people.That's the risk of human company, though.You can't shun people for fear of being hurt; there are risks, and there are rewards.
    
12. What does Nyx Obscura mean?
    D: Nyx is the Greek goddess of Night, counterpart to the Roman Nox.She's usually pictured as a dark-winged woman. She's a chthonic deity, possibly even a remnant of goddess culture mythology. Obscura is a sobriequet that I added to distinguish my Nyx.I like where it occurs in the Scribner Bantam paperback dictionary- right between obscurantism (purposefully incomprehensible writing) and obsequies (funeral rites). Rather amusing.
    
13. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
    D: I have the feeling that there is something unbearably important that I have to know or do. I wish that I knew what it was, and who it is important to besides me.

Cheers