Sacred Debris Instagram: Erik Sprague 1998 (Patreon)

More of y'all voted to include Instagram content than not, so I'm going to give this a go and see if I can keep up with it. I'll be adding the post here before IG, with more context, so hopefully that'll win over anyone who voted to keep the posts their own thing!

On October 1st, 1998, piercer/scarification artist Keith Alexander hosted an event at NYC's Webster Hall in celebration of Dee Snider's body art inspired horror film Strangeland called Night of 1000 Scars. 

While the movie itself - I think the best I can say about it is that it is what it is - introduced cinema audiences to body modification/play/ritual that they may have never seen before, the 1000 Scars event itself went on to have massive nodal significance that far outshadow it. 

Most notably, the creation of the spinning beam suspension (1), and the performance that would radically change the life of pHD student Erik Sprague:

"In a lot of ways, this event was a pivotal point in the current era of my life - it was after this event that I cemented my decision to leave my doctoral program and devote myself entirely to performing as both my career and way of life."

This photo was taken in Keith Alexander's Bay Ridge, Brooklyn apartment- either the day before the Scars event or the day after. At the time, Erik was still performing under the name Spidergod5 - he'd go on to use Amago (while touring with the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow) and the Lizardman.

Erik turns 50 today, so if you're connected via social media, don't forget to send him best wishes!

1. Interview with Sean (Xeon) McManus, Better Safe than Ari for Sacred Debris, February 14th 2018, conducted by Ari Pimsler:

Ari – What were your feelings on pushing the limits of suspension around that time?

Sean – Shit, everything we did with suspension was pushing the limits. Everything we did was new and different. The spinning beam was just a happy accident. We went out and did Night of 1000 Scars in New York, and it was like a big carousel type thing. We were going to have people walk us around. Well it kind of weeble-wobbled, right? Someone hit the ground and then pushed off of it, kicked off, and we went on that was cool! And of course, one side went back up so the other side went down and they were like oh, this is cool! So they kick off and so on and so on. It was very organic, we didn’t even say anything, and the poor guys holding the ropes were like trying to control it until they realized we need to run! That was the very first spinning beam. It was supposed to be very mellow, but in true TSD fashion it did not remain so.