The Flooding of Nordstrand

As I live in Brooklyn, I was not unaffected by Hurricane Irene, though my preparations amounted to collecting tap water in jars and taping cardboard over my bedroom windows. My neighborhood didn't happen to lie in any of the three "danger zones," and the hurricane only appeared last night as a rather windy rainstorm sans thunder and lightning. No damage to my apartment, no power outages, etc., though other parts of the city experienced flooding and loss of electricity. I tend to be rather stoical in such situations, as I was with that brief earthquake aftershock I also experienced a few days ago: "Well, it didn't harm me or any of my belongings, nor did it disrupt my schedule. Right, then, I have other things to do."

I'm reminded, though, of the Burchardi flood in October of 1634 that enveloped and basically destroyed the island of Nordstrand, off the Jutland peninsula. One of the oldest branches of my family that I can definitively trace came from that island, a fact I discovered while doing genealogical research a year or two ago.

The area itself was already going through a fairly shitty time, recovering from a plague epidemic that had occurred some three decades before and getting their asses handed to them by Frederick III in the Thirty Years' War. This was also not the first flood to hit the area during that timespan: only the most destructive. All in all, not the best time to be a Nordstrander.

After the dikes burst on the night of 11 October: "The sea swallowed more than half of the island. A total of 6,123 people drowned, and 1,339 farms and houses were washed away, as were 28 windmills and 6 clock towers."

The flooding was so great that it permanently altered the entire geographical makeup of Nordstrand Island, creating a cluster of smaller islands in its wake, one of which was also called "Nordstrand." This being Europe in the 1600s, it was naturally perceived as evidence of God's wrath. (Perhaps some influential 17th-century Dutch pastor blamed it on all the sodomy.)

On a more personal level, my ancestor Volkje Jurians was a native of Nordstrand. Evacuated to the nearby mainland town of Husum in Schleswig-Holstein, she met a young sailor called Jan Fransse; the two ended up marrying about four and a half years later. (It would be nice to think they were a love match, though considering marriage at the time was largely a business transaction, it may well have been an arranged act of charity since Volkje had been orphaned by the flood and presumably whatever dowry she'd accumulated had sunk to the bottom of the sea. They did have nine kids over two decades, though, which might speak for itself.)

A short time later, they emigrated to a settlement that would later become Albany, NY, and went on to produce the family line that led to my dubious existence. So, you see, I'm not being facetious when I describe myself as "the residual byproduct of a 17th-century mass drowning"!

It's rather striking to think that, if this island had not been destroyed and thousands of people killed, I wouldn't be alive today.

Double D. Variation #2

"Double D. Variation #2," Mar '11. On p. 10 of Mass Culture Vol. 1.

Made to accompany "Patient X," a rather hallucinogenic piece loosely inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer.

Bonded

"Bonded," Feb '08. On p. 6 of Mass Culture Vol. 1.

Mass Culture Vol. 2 - Front Cover

Front cover of soon-to-be-released Mass Culture Vol. 2.

Image: "The Brightest of Futures for Our Promising Youth," May '08.

Bieber Rape Phenomenon

Bieber Rape Phenomenon by Madame Deficit

The second of two tracks I made to tie in with Mass Culture Vol. 1, which included a brief satirical piece called "Bieber Rape Story." You may recall, last February, Bieber made an incredibly ignorant comment about rape and abortion during a Rolling Stone interview . . . which wouldn't have been anywhere near as offensive if not for the fact that real adult politicians with actual legislative power held those very same views, and were exceptionally active during that month in attempting to pass US laws based on those views.

"Bieber Rape Phenomenon" is composed entirely of actual Justin Bieber samples that have been re-arranged, layered, and manipulated with various effects, in order to sound like the interior monologue of a deranged sexual predator.

NOW ALL I SEE IS YOU. I'M COMING FOR YOU.

Artist Bio

LC von Hessen is a multi-disciplinary artist, author, and critic. She grew up in the Midwestern suburbs on a steady diet of horror movies, Nickelodeon, and escapist reading materials. As a wee toddler, she “wrote” and illustrated her first story, “Ghosty and Me [sic] Go to the Store.” She did not play well with others.

Von Hessen went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts at SUNY Purchase, shooting and editing a narrative video as her senior thesis project (which was later shown at NY Eye & Ear Fest '09). Her comic strip, Scene Kids, appeared in the Purchase Independent from ‘04 to ‘06; she later wrote film reviews for the Independent in 2007. She also served as unofficial photographer for the Cheese Club.

Among von Hessen’s awards and accomplishments through the years: Fiction Prize Winner in Italics Mine literary journal, 1st Prize in the Violence Against Women Artist Showcase, 3rd Prize in the Experimental category of the PTV Video Awards, two Gold Keys in the Scholastic Art Awards (with one piece sent on to the national competition), two consecutive first-prize wins in an Optimist Club-sponsored annual high school poetry contest, several medals won in the Academic Decathlon from ’02 to ‘03, 1st Prize in an all-school spelling bee, and “Most Bizarre” in an elementary school pumpkin decorating contest. She has had work exhibited at the Arts Incubator in Kansas City and in the Family Picnic Show at SUNY Purchase’s Triangle Gallery.

After a decade of experience in spoken-word performance, von Hessen began performing as Madame Deficit in 2009, an experimental music and sound-art project which encompasses various industrial subgenres. She founded Propagandist Productions the following year, through which she released Sans, her first CD, and has since branched out to print as editor and primary contributor of Mass Culture, an arts-and-literature zine devoted to the broad subjects of “sex and death.”

LC von Hessen currently lives in the south of Brooklyn, writing film criticism for a startup under her legal name and unsuccessfully seeking steady employment.

Hysteria...?

He, Too, Was Learning to Hunt

He, Too, Was Learning to Hunt by Madame Deficit

A dark ambient track I made to accompany Mass Culture Vol. 1. The title is a line from a piece called "Patient X" inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer.

Fun fact: this track began life as a Justin Bieber sample.

Mass Culture Vol. 1 - Covers

Front and back covers of Mass Culture, Vol. 1. All art by LC von Hessen.

Front cover drawing: "Modern Romance," Jan '04.