Within the wondrous realm of well-appointed interior design, what is the foremost denominator connecting the words heirloom, handcrafted, quintessential, and timeless? What if I added to the mix, the words hallmark, artistry, and heritage, and then surrounded these words with adjectives like unparalleled, extraordinary, remarkable, and inimitable?

In Raven Vanguard’s eccentric universe, there are no doubt many incredible creators, craftspersons, and makers pervading this rarefied firmament, but for us, for today, and our singular vision ahead, there is but one design house at the forefront of it all, that being, George Smith Limited, headquartered in the northeast of England, in Cramlington, Northumberland.

This Raving is a reinvigorated Reprise of an excerpt from our Raving posted on August 27, 2018. Even though self-restraint is not my thing, I promised Brooke, Dakota, and Nicky that I would make this Raving short and sweet and bring it in at 2000 words, or less. So, ready, set, go!

Do you believe in the existence of God? I do. More on this in a moment. First, I need to provide context to this Raving.

You’re a designer about to embark on an exciting new project; what is it that first sparks or arouses your imagination? Is it intuition, inspiration, perception, conception, or conceptualization? What aesthetic, shape, form, texture, illumination, feel, and personality should this project take on? What is your process underlying your vision? How do you ensure your project’s genuine realization and that all goes according to your master plan?

There are always conventional, mainstream, clichéd, or textbook paths to follow, but what if you wish to chart your own course? What then? What if, like us, you truly desire to exemplify the pinnacle of your craft? What then? What if you find the easy way out quite unbeguiling? What then? What if what you truly seek is the authentic manifestation of perceptible perfection? What then? What if you favor an alternative artistic interpretation of beauty? What then? What if instead of seeking shelter in the sameness and safety of the middle, your’s is an unfathomable and contrarian view? What then?

A Peek Inside

We cover considerable ground in this Raving, much of it a holy and hallowed high ground, some of it downright hellish and duplicitous, a centrist and fair-minded middle ground brimming with conflicting desires, and, finally, we traverse a neutral ground over hill and dale that operates only as an embarkation point from which you must choose your own course.

Life moves quickly and does not make allowances for those who prefer to remain noncommittal and straddle the fence. Make a choice, take a position, speak your mind, do something (not necessarily “IT”), but surely do something. Hopefully, some of what you read here resonates deep within you and either provokes or inspires you to take some form of action that is decisive and worthwhile which tethers you to a higher purpose. Change itself is never easy and rarely comes at no cost at all. But know this, everlasting salvation can only be attained through acts of bloodless insurrection and non-violent tumult. Bloodshed is seldom the answer to anything. And if you genuinely wish to aid and offer comfort to the marginalized, the disenfranchised, or to those cast out, do so without adding more fuel to an already towering inferno.

Proclamation time – Well, perhaps not on the same spiritual level as a Papal allocution, today’s otherworldly revelation is more of an auspicious public unveiling of sorts; along with the posting of this Blogbook entry, Raven Vanguard finally unshrouds a long guarded mystery, its new pictorial mark for our company logo, one that we believe perfectly complements the uniqueness of our existing logotype, and one that we feel also offers valuable insights into who we are as people.

This Blogbook entry is long overdue. The reasons for this are many, varied, complicated, and mostly personal. Nevertheless, during this period of seemingly little activity, by intention, I have been toiling away in near obscurity completely reimagining and re-working our February 4th homage to David Lynch. Most of you will no longer recognize this piece because it has changed so drastically. What started out as a minor short story has now been rebirthed as a full-on novella of experimental fiction for your exploration, dissection, and analysis. Whether this new version provides the same level of absurdity, perversion, and menace as the original will be up to our readers to decide. Thus, whenever you have some spare time on your hands, and you will need plenty of it, please revisit our modest ode to Mr. Lynch and let us know what you think.

Our first Blogbook entry of 2018 is intended to be an admixture of both desultory and painstakingly precise ravings concerning life and expectations in the New Year. However, if you are joining us here this morning expecting to find a narrowly circumscribed list of perfunctory New Year’s resolutions, you have come to the wrong place. New Year’s resolutions just aren’t my thing. To me, coming into any New Year overly fixated on a set of somewhat dubious and mostly superficial goals is akin to attempting to set twelve inches of newly fallen snow on fire, in other words, not likely to happen. Instead, do what I do and listen carefully to, and be guided by your intuition as you transition into the New Year. If you trust in your intuition deeply enough, you should never feel as though you are swimming in unfamiliar waters. With these sentiments in mind, slide over bitches and buckle up because we expect 2018 to be one wild ride.

Music can be so many things at once; for instance, it can be alluring, otherworldly, challenging, unsettling, offbeat, uplifting, inspiring, melodious, and jarring. Thankfully, the music of my life has been extraordinarily inventive, filled with heady creativity, far-reaching, diverse, and jam-packed with spectacular surprises, and, to this day, all of it remains an undeniable soundtrack to my daily existence. There is much to be said about growing up as I did in a pre-Internet world having to work diligently to discover new music organically, as opposed to seeking instant gratification by being spoon-fed so-called original new music according to some streaming music service’s mainstream, programmed, and algorithmic vision of what constitutes good music.

This Blogbook entry stems, in part, from a few moments of downtime taken during a recent business trip to Toronto, Ontario, occurring inside one of my favorite record stores anywhere, Rotate This, located at 186 Ossington on the west side of Toronto. As the music curated within shifted from some vaguely reminiscent, but strange, amalgam of garage rock and freak-folk to the more recognizable danceable thump, almost motorik, Sturm und Drang of Not Waving’s (a/k/a Alessio Natalizia) October 2017 release titled Good Luck, my mind fondly reminisced about the brilliant and experimental music coming out of the Federal Republic of Germany during the later part of the 1960s and thereafter.