Archive — Originally posted June 2026, removed by moderators shortly after (very unfairly)
A Deleted Comment, Preserved
Left under Abram Lewis's profile of Gabriel Williams. (Now Deleted) I feel only it's right to preserve it here.
By Zephyrine Kline · June 2026 · [restored blog comment effort post]
Summary: Shortly after Abram Lewis's profile of Gabriel Williams went up, a commenter calling herself Zephyrine Kline left several hundred words underneath it arguing the piece had gone soft on its subject — on his faith, his patrons, the word "Albion," and the performance around all of it. The comment was removed by moderators within the hour after a heated argument in the replies, and later restored before very nearly lost for good when Lewis's blog changed hosts not long after. It resurfaces here, fully intact and lovingly preserved at the request of the subject himself, who apparently wanted it kept somewhere safer than the original thread ever was.
ok I need to say something because this comment section is being way too nice about this piece.
I met Lewis at the critic garden party and he was there with Gabriel like these two guys are friends and this is just two guy bigging each other up and the mythology is so jester it hurts.
This is my last one so stop replying because I wont reply again.
the music's fine, whatever, Tryst is nice, he can write, not the point. the point is this guy is doing SO much and everyone's just letting him.
"I'm what people call a Roman Catholic, though I don't love the label… Really, we're just Christian." Oh my guy… and he says this in an "almost performatively pretentious tone" with air quotes and the writer just… quotes it? straight faced? like that's not the whole bit? my guy invented a joke and the journalist ordered it off the menu. These converts are so obnoxious.
and the sincerity thing is so obviously a pose, like he needs you to know his faith isn't like Max Davies's faith, that was "ironic," "too smart," ugh, whatever, his is the REAL kind. ok. sure. nothing says real faith like explaining at length to a reporter how real your faith is compared to everyone else's.
also @danielbarenboimsghost stop replying to me and learn to spell,
funding is "nearly all private, people who share our values and want to express them with money" which, bruhh like what???, is one of the most obviously loaded sentences I've ever read and nobody asking who "we" is. fifty people in some guy's chapel is not underdog energy, that's just rich people doing rich people things and calling it a resistance movement because there's incense involved. These whites boys wish they had motion so bad.
then Albion. he names the piece Codex Albion, no joke, and when his chum asks if the word's whole online ethno-nationalist baggage gives him pause he just says "not at all." not at all! that's it! Oh ok then lets move on I guess. No follow up like "obviously I'm aware but," nothing. and then he's got a NAME for it too, "futurist medievalism," dropped "reluctantly," which come on, nothing about that man is reluctant, and then "but totally different" immediately after. Oh so its like the thing reactionaries have been dping for 200 years but this time totally different but I cant tell you.
OMG the Nick Land thing too. Xenosystems just sitting there on the shelf and when asked he waves his hand, "bunch of garbage," THEN WHY DO YOU OWN IT????? he wants credit for having read it and hating but for real these guys almost never actually read.
and don't even get me started on "I'm well-spoken" guy insisting that's not the same as being moneyed while ALSO telling us he grew up in a secretive money-gated cult with a boarding school abuse scandal, and somehow we're just gonna let that slide, not him not the interviewer, connects that to the thing he's built now which is also, checks notes, invite-only and patron-funded and organized around who gets let in. bro escaped a cult and immediately built his own one but this time it's cool and nicer with better lighting and new classical music that apparently doesn't suck this time.
Also the sneek disses, collier and davies…
Like I keep thinking about how "sincerity-tm" has just become a whole personal brand for some of these guys the way irony was for the last batch, like it's just the current costume, idk.
none of this needed inventing is my actual issue. english music has ALWAYS done the medieval liturgical thing without needing a shrine or somebody's chapel, Vaughan Williams managed it fine. His music's fine but the self promo cap is off the charts
— comment by Zephyrine Kline, removed by moderators, and then restored. Almost lost when Lewis' blog moved home but thanfully now fully preserved here by request of the subject himself.
