Xmas Bash 3000! - Noiseless Chatter

Mr. Reed,

You probably wouldn’t remember me, even if you were here to do so, and yet for some reason I feel compelled to retain my anonymity whilst writing this message to you (or perhaps it is to myself only), which is likely a silly step to take – after all, we didn’t know each other socially, and as far as I can remember, only briefly corresponded a few times (although I was one of the contributors to your ALF DVD fund). I’m honestly not even sure why I’m writing this. I certainly have more productive things I could, and should, be doing.

Despite all of this, I nonetheless feel compelled to scribe this letter which you’ll never read. Perhaps that’s my fault, or everyone’s, or yours, or no one at all, but the result is that this missive will be another bit of correspondence consigned to the Internet’s equivalent of a dead letter office – communiqués with all the intention of being delivered and read, but without the ability to accomplish that feat. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to leave it with you, wherever that may be, but as I previously stated, we only briefly corresponded, so I feel it is most appropriate to leave it here: where you left everyone else.

I’m not even entirely sure what I should say with this letter since, as I noted, we only briefly corresponded, but memory is a funny thing, and I was reminded of you yesterday (or more appropriately, your work). I tend to run long-winded, dialogue-laden YouTube videos in the background while working, and one such video I played on Sunday morning was from a very small YouTube creator who was discussing the “Worlds of Power” series of books. Of course, your unofficial follow-up to that series came to mind, and for the first time in ages, I was compelled to look you up.

As I write these words, I can’t help but wonder how long it had been since I went to Noiseless Chatter. Trawling through your archives, it seems my last comment was in 2014, though I feel like I must have visited at least a few times afterward. I seem to recall arriving to see that you were busy reviewing things which were, frankly, outside of my scope of interest – maybe it was Inherent Vice, or maybe it was Better Call Saul…who really remembers at this point (memory is a funny thing, you know?). It certainly would’ve been before August 5th, 2022.

Memory is a funny thing, but I’d like to think I would have remembered a post like that. I certainly remembered the ALF reviews. I remembered asking you about the Larry Vales series, and whether you had any plans of revisiting them and keeping them running on modern systems. I remembered when you released the e-book version of “The Lost Worlds of Power”, which I remember downloading but not reading at the time (I seem to remember that I was holding out for a print edition, which seems to have never happened). I didn’t, however, remember that August 5th post.

In spite of not remembering that post, I’ve thought an awful lot about it since I read it…since I discovered that you died. You could say that I’ve even ruminated upon it, which I again find odd since we only briefly corresponded. Perhaps some of this wasn’t a result of your actions at all: I received a text from an old friend of mine about a week and a half ago regarding an old friend of his. My friend discovered that his friend Bill had died a week prior, and while he wasn’t certain of the circumstances, he told me that “the only two theories are heart attack or suicide. [I’m] hoping it’s the former.” I found that odd, and still do: why would one *hope* that a person would die by ‘natural’ means versus an ‘unnatural’ one? Isn’t that losing sight of what is truly important here: regardless of how a person leaves, it’s predetermined that all of us will leave in one way or another, and the important factor is not *how* a person departs, but that they do? The loss itself is the most important matter, right? Do people really lull themselves to sleep with thoughts like “man, it’s such a shame that Tom died, but at least it was by having his flesh flayed from his body in a horrific industrial paper mill accident versus, y’know, one of those horrible suicides…THAT would have been truly awful!”?

Learning about your death has caused me to intermittently take breaks from my own work (frankly, my current project has been consuming my life every day for the past six-and-a-half years with no end in sight, so I don’t think losing an hour here or there is going to be the end of the world) while going through works of yours that I had missed. The “Battletoads” novella (which I honestly found quite disturbing, and not in a good way), the piece about your friend Mike (which I found to be a bit myopic, considering your current disposition), and other assorted works have found their way across my monitor. I’ve also read a piece or two that other writers have written about you…and personally, especially within your own works, I’ve found things that didn’t agree with me. Perhaps that’s also part of the reason why I drifted away from Noiseless Chatter, and from your work, back when I did, but don’t take any of my criticisms as a condemnation. If I may use the term, the “artist” has no responsibility toward fulfilling an audience’s expectations: the “artist” is only ultimately responsible for being true to their muse, their métier being representing that divine force in as ‘true’ of a fashion as possible. Of course, the “audience” is also not required to follow an “artist” wherever their inspiration takes them, which speaks of both the blessing and curse of being an “artist”: having the ability or, nay, the necessity to bring heretofore works into the world, but lacking the ability to control how they’re actually received (if at all) once they emerge.

Regardless of the “why”, the fact is that we’ve both arrived at this point, albeit at different times: you’re dead, and I’m writing you a dead letter for reasons I still fail to comprehend. I will admit that I hoped getting further into this text would’ve granted me some elucidation, but it has instead muddled my mind even more. Again, I have no rational explanation for any of this, though I suppose admitting as much does underscore the limitations of rationale: we humans have a tendency to want to explain the unexplainable, and to understand the inscrutable, as if doing so really provides anything beyond a passing panacea. Is it really meaningful to seek such transience in the face of permanence? Maybe not, but that’s also what we humans do: all of our works, whether the most significant skyscrapers or the paltriest poems, eventually crumble into nothingness, and yet we keep making them in spite of this. In spite of knowing that everything dies, humans continue working because they inherently know that they need to do so, whether it is building that significant skyscraper to house countless individuals or penning that paltry poem to assuage one’s soul.

Maybe, in that sense, I’ve finally figured out exactly why I’m penning this despite the seeming meaningless in doing so. Perhaps you would have agreed or disagreed, or maybe you wouldn’t have even spent any time reading the text. I guess we’ll never know.

In closing, as selfish as this sounds, what I do think about is my own work(s). Perhaps my work falls more on the side of paltry poetry than significant skyscrapers (which is probably true for most of us, if not all of us at various points), but I nevertheless would’ve liked telling you about my current project once it is complete (since I have a superstition about discussing works-in-progress beyond merely saying that a given work is “in progress”). I would have liked discussing Larry Vales with you again, because despite being quite divergent in many ways, I can’t help thinking of things like Larry Vales and the example set of a single person taking on a task of such magnitude as setting an example I have followed and am continuing to follow. I would have liked discussing your ALF reviews with you, because even while I try to err away from writing critiques of others’ works, I can’t help thinking that they reflected the sort of irreverence that more people should adopt yet almost none do: a realization that, despite how absurd or even worthless someone’s work might seem, it still signifies a sacrifice of their time, effort, and money, thus eliciting some base-level reverence even when the end result is somehow lacking. I further would’ve liked discussing the ALF reviews because, I’ll admit, I was unaware of just how meaningful those reviews were to you on a personal level at that time, as well as failing to realize that the monetary gifts a few of us gave so you could purchase the DVD set were as impactful as they were, while perhaps also discussing how the reviews came across my radar during a not-so-swell time and how I remember laughing to the point of tears at them. I think I would’ve even liked discussing your “Battletoads” novella with you, despite my own feelings toward it (or perhaps because of them).

Unfortunately, this dead letter will have to suffice…and unfortunately, while I’ll raise my glass to you, you’ll never know that I did so.

Rest in peace.

5 thoughts on “Xmas Bash 3000!”

zane says:

December 30, 2024 at 1:30 am

glad this is still running :)

nina says:

March 31, 2025 at 2:30 am

Hi Casey. I had a close online friend way back in 1997 (who I kept sporadic contact with until ’07) named Philip J. Reed that I’m about 95% sure was the same person. I would greatly appreciate if you could email me so I can confirm with some details. Thank you in advance.

1. nina says:
  
  April 21, 2025 at 11:14 am
  
  Just wanted to post a follow-up: I’ve since been able to confirm with 100% certainty that yes, this was the same Phil who was a dear friend to me long ago. I’m heartbroken. He was a brilliant, kind, and extremely funny person, who helped me immensely in my formative teen years with his wisdom and insight. Countless long chats over ICQ/AIM, from joking about dumb stuff, exchanging artwork (Guitarman forever), to deep conversations about our personal lives. He introduced me to so many shows and songs I’ll forever associate him with. We were supposed to meet in Florida at one point — I wish we could’ve made it work. The world is truly lesser for having lost him. My heart goes out to his family and friends.
  
Email: TRANSFER 1,293302 BTC. Continue >>> https://graph.org/Ticket--58146-05-02?hs=14fe3d05d61c0f60a70bc553154a89d6& says:

May 2, 2025 at 9:58 am

g3oubl

Innominate says:

May 20, 2025 at 8:00 pm

Mr. Reed,

You probably wouldn’t remember me, even if you were here to do so, and yet for some reason I feel compelled to retain my anonymity whilst writing this message to you (or perhaps it is to myself only), which is likely a silly step to take – after all, we didn’t know each other socially, and as far as I can remember, only briefly corresponded a few times (although I was one of the contributors to your ALF DVD fund). I’m honestly not even sure why I’m writing this. I certainly have more productive things I could, and should, be doing.

Despite all of this, I nonetheless feel compelled to scribe this letter which you’ll never read. Perhaps that’s my fault, or everyone’s, or yours, or no one at all, but the result is that this missive will be another bit of correspondence consigned to the Internet’s equivalent of a dead letter office – communiqués with all the intention of being delivered and read, but without the ability to accomplish that feat. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to leave it with you, wherever that may be, but as I previously stated, we only briefly corresponded, so I feel it is most appropriate to leave it here: where you left everyone else.

I’m not even entirely sure what I should say with this letter since, as I noted, we only briefly corresponded, but memory is a funny thing, and I was reminded of you yesterday (or more appropriately, your work). I tend to run long-winded, dialogue-laden YouTube videos in the background while working, and one such video I played on Sunday morning was from a very small YouTube creator who was discussing the “Worlds of Power” series of books. Of course, your unofficial follow-up to that series came to mind, and for the first time in ages, I was compelled to look you up.

As I write these words, I can’t help but wonder how long it had been since I went to Noiseless Chatter. Trawling through your archives, it seems my last comment was in 2014, though I feel like I must have visited at least a few times afterward. I seem to recall arriving to see that you were busy reviewing things which were, frankly, outside of my scope of interest – maybe it was Inherent Vice, or maybe it was Better Call Saul…who really remembers at this point (memory is a funny thing, you know?). It certainly would’ve been before August 5th, 2022.

Memory is a funny thing, but I’d like to think I would have remembered a post like that. I certainly remembered the ALF reviews. I remembered asking you about the Larry Vales series, and whether you had any plans of revisiting them and keeping them running on modern systems. I remembered when you released the e-book version of “The Lost Worlds of Power”, which I remember downloading but not reading at the time (I seem to remember that I was holding out for a print edition, which seems to have never happened). I didn’t, however, remember that August 5th post.

In spite of not remembering that post, I’ve thought an awful lot about it since I read it…since I discovered that you died. You could say that I’ve even ruminated upon it, which I again find odd since we only briefly corresponded. Perhaps some of this wasn’t a result of your actions at all: I received a text from an old friend of mine about a week and a half ago regarding an old friend of his. My friend discovered that his friend Bill had died a week prior, and while he wasn’t certain of the circumstances, he told me that “the only two theories are heart attack or suicide. [I’m] hoping it’s the former.” I found that odd, and still do: why would one *hope* that a person would die by ‘natural’ means versus an ‘unnatural’ one? Isn’t that losing sight of what is truly important here: regardless of how a person leaves, it’s predetermined that all of us will leave in one way or another, and the important factor is not *how* a person departs, but that they do? The loss itself is the most important matter, right? Do people really lull themselves to sleep with thoughts like “man, it’s such a shame that Tom died, but at least it was by having his flesh flayed from his body in a horrific industrial paper mill accident versus, y’know, one of those horrible suicides…THAT would have been truly awful!”?

Learning about your death has caused me to intermittently take breaks from my own work (frankly, my current project has been consuming my life every day for the past six-and-a-half years with no end in sight, so I don’t think losing an hour here or there is going to be the end of the world) while going through works of yours that I had missed. The “Battletoads” novella (which I honestly found quite disturbing, and not in a good way), the piece about your friend Mike (which I found to be a bit myopic, considering your current disposition), and other assorted works have found their way across my monitor. I’ve also read a piece or two that other writers have written about you…and personally, especially within your own works, I’ve found things that didn’t agree with me. Perhaps that’s also part of the reason why I drifted away from Noiseless Chatter, and from your work, back when I did, but don’t take any of my criticisms as a condemnation. If I may use the term, the “artist” has no responsibility toward fulfilling an audience’s expectations: the “artist” is only ultimately responsible for being true to their muse, their métier being representing that divine force in as ‘true’ of a fashion as possible. Of course, the “audience” is also not required to follow an “artist” wherever their inspiration takes them, which speaks of both the blessing and curse of being an “artist”: having the ability or, nay, the necessity to bring heretofore works into the world, but lacking the ability to control how they’re actually received (if at all) once they emerge.

Regardless of the “why”, the fact is that we’ve both arrived at this point, albeit at different times: you’re dead, and I’m writing you a dead letter for reasons I still fail to comprehend. I will admit that I hoped getting further into this text would’ve granted me some elucidation, but it has instead muddled my mind even more. Again, I have no rational explanation for any of this, though I suppose admitting as much does underscore the limitations of rationale: we humans have a tendency to want to explain the unexplainable, and to understand the inscrutable, as if doing so really provides anything beyond a passing panacea. Is it really meaningful to seek such transience in the face of permanence? Maybe not, but that’s also what we humans do: all of our works, whether the most significant skyscrapers or the paltriest poems, eventually crumble into nothingness, and yet we keep making them in spite of this. In spite of knowing that everything dies, humans continue working because they inherently know that they need to do so, whether it is building that significant skyscraper to house countless individuals or penning that paltry poem to assuage one’s soul.

Maybe, in that sense, I’ve finally figured out exactly why I’m penning this despite the seeming meaningless in doing so. Perhaps you would have agreed or disagreed, or maybe you wouldn’t have even spent any time reading the text. I guess we’ll never know.

In closing, as selfish as this sounds, what I do think about is my own work(s). Perhaps my work falls more on the side of paltry poetry than significant skyscrapers (which is probably true for most of us, if not all of us at various points), but I nevertheless would’ve liked telling you about my current project once it is complete (since I have a superstition about discussing works-in-progress beyond merely saying that a given work is “in progress”). I would have liked discussing Larry Vales with you again, because despite being quite divergent in many ways, I can’t help thinking of things like Larry Vales and the example set of a single person taking on a task of such magnitude as setting an example I have followed and am continuing to follow. I would have liked discussing your ALF reviews with you, because even while I try to err away from writing critiques of others’ works, I can’t help thinking that they reflected the sort of irreverence that more people should adopt yet almost none do: a realization that, despite how absurd or even worthless someone’s work might seem, it still signifies a sacrifice of their time, effort, and money, thus eliciting some base-level reverence even when the end result is somehow lacking. I further would’ve liked discussing the ALF reviews because, I’ll admit, I was unaware of just how meaningful those reviews were to you on a personal level at that time, as well as failing to realize that the monetary gifts a few of us gave so you could purchase the DVD set were as impactful as they were, while perhaps also discussing how the reviews came across my radar during a not-so-swell time and how I remember laughing to the point of tears at them. I think I would’ve even liked discussing your “Battletoads” novella with you, despite my own feelings toward it (or perhaps because of them).

Unfortunately, this dead letter will have to suffice…and unfortunately, while I’ll raise my glass to you, you’ll never know that I did so.

Rest in peace.

5 thoughts on “Xmas Bash 3000!”

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