tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31790698637894164832023-11-15T22:35:54.179-08:00a few years in the Absolute ElsewhereAn hour later, with ten more miles and the visit to the World's Biggest Drugstore safely behind us, we were back at home, and I had returned to that reassuring but profoundly unsatisfactory state known as "being in one's right mind."Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.comBlogger397125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-86127354487747544852020-07-20T16:04:00.001-07:002020-07-20T16:08:00.692-07:00Prose Poems. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi36bFghZcoWw6YzTZequGM1Q5Oj7HJXAMe_u98eRiY3LIrekv4n6EHJesYo2bzQ4IUKVgd57Pxax5i1dRVy7tvF0qnrGNfFaEY6wIXmdItJU2a6f-SiiA2V885MiUQaVbUXNuAjqsDN60Z/s1600/1024px-Fernand_Khnopff_-_I_lock_my_door_upon_myself.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="1024" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi36bFghZcoWw6YzTZequGM1Q5Oj7HJXAMe_u98eRiY3LIrekv4n6EHJesYo2bzQ4IUKVgd57Pxax5i1dRVy7tvF0qnrGNfFaEY6wIXmdItJU2a6f-SiiA2V885MiUQaVbUXNuAjqsDN60Z/s640/1024px-Fernand_Khnopff_-_I_lock_my_door_upon_myself.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
A new blog collecting prose poetry <a href="https://chanceexcursions.blogspot.com/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
1.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> We
pass through </span></span>innumerable fleeting and unreal places in
the course of a lifetime of dreaming. I am haunted by a handful of
these locations. Their particular impression, and the longing for
them, returns to me from time to time. In the daylight hours, I
think of the impossibility of ever seeing them again. In rare
moments of lucid dreaming, I wonder if they have been preserved
intact, so that I might revisit them, but I don't believe that I have
ever done so successfully.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The
attraction of these places is difficult to convey. In the context of
the dreams themselves, they are unexpected discoveries, because they
are adjacent to real places to which I am extremely familiar. I will
be walking in the countryside near the house where I grew up, or in
the small town where I went to school, and suddenly discover a place
whose existence I had no prior inkling of. That was, I supose, the
primary source of their fascination: that the small and well-trodden
everyday world should reveal an unseen aspect of itself, an
impossible hidden dimension. Beyond that, the places themselves were
entirely undistinguished and ordinary; but the unlikelihood of their
existence, and the novelty of their discovery, infuses them with an
air of revelatory beauty, and fills me with a rare and indefinable
sense of contentment.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Then, of
course, I wake up, and the mystery of the anomalous location
evaporates. By day, the world is fixed and intransient, like the
unwinding of an implacable destiny; in dreams, it becomes playful and
miraculous, like a fleeting respite. A handful of those evanescent,
imaginary places have remained with me, retaining their melancholic
spell over the course of many years. The details have dimmed over
time, but the impression retains its haunting efficacy, its firm
placement on a map of interior geography. At once opaque and
crystalline, as maddeningly indefinite and undeniable as all our truest
apprehensions of the world, those places which never existed
sometimes show the greatest tenacity in refusing to pass away.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
2.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Closely
related to the nostalgic longing for places which never existed is
that for places which once existed, but now are gone. These, too,
are often meagre and unremarkable in themselves, but have acquired an
ineffable glamour owing to their presence in our childhood. Time,
like the spatial world, assumes a fixed form wherein the way forward
is increasingly paved with the hard gravel of paths already travelled;
but the way back is barred by an insurmountable barrier. So the
places which remain on the other side assume all the poignancy of the
loss of our pristine and unjaded childhood senses.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I
remember a little shop on the main street whose window was pressed
with the packaging of various cheap toys and trinkets. I stood many
times with my mother, gazing at the toys, and imagining the interior
of the store as a dark, almost solemn place, presided over by a quiet
but kindly old woman who moved only at the behest of pointing
children's fingers. I also recall with peculiar fascination an
arcade on that street. It was an airless and foreboding concrete
corridor with no adorments to indicate its function. Stepping into
it felt like going underground, and even then, out of time. I
remember its barbers, where I sat with my father and my brother. We
listened to the radio, and watched the men working and chatting
tersely with tired, distant faces. My eyes always drifted over to a
painting on the wall - Emile Renouf's picture of a little girl rowing
a boat with an old fisherman - and instantly I felt the salt-water in
my nostrils, the icy chill of sea wind, and the kindly, wordless
warmth of the fisherman. Next to the barbers, there was a bookshop,
and the only the thing that stirred my imagination in the arcade –
a little table in the centre of the store where brittle, faded old
comic books were laid out like drying flotsam.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The loss
of places has a peculiar poignancy, which sometimes pierces our
hearts in a way that the loss of people does not. People become so
familiar to us, so ingrained in our minds in all their complexity,
that it sometimes feels as though we never really lose them. They
are gone, and yet they are there, composed of the same insubstantial material by
which we carry the sense of ourselves from one day to the next. But
certain places that we remember, old meadows and woodlands buried
under concrete, shops enveloped with the musk of vanished days, they
are gone forever. All that remain are their impressions, their
precious haunted outlines.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
3.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In their
youth, people exist primarily in the present moment, and if their
minds should wander, it is always to the future that their thoughts
hurtle. As they get older, the present loses its intensity, the
future becomes an object of uncertainty and dread, and it is to the
past that their daydreams increasingly tend. The past becomes imbued
with the magical embellishments of art and the hypnotic cadence of
music; it acquires the sweet, irresistible frustration of
contemplating an unattainable, impossible beauty. There is,
however, a different kind of nostalgia which can afflict people at
any age. This is perhaps not nostalgia properly speaking at all; it
is the feeling of never being quite native to the soil of one's own
time, of being an exile from some familiar clime irrevocably lost to
memory's raccous swells and slowly receding tide.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For this
type of person, the present has a kind of indistinctness, a lack of
elegance and form, even a fundamental emptiness, in comparison to
some prior era. For many of these temporal exiles, there is a
specific period which they have adopted as their distant and
longed-for homeland. For others, all past times alike exercize a
narcotic thrall over their imaginations; there is nothing so diminished
and colourless as the present instant, and nothing so lustrous and
abundant as the irretrievable totality of a past time, evanescent and
eternally vanquished.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Some
particular periods, just as some individuals, are subject to this
foolish and perverse proclivity for wallowing in the past, and ours is
such a time. We wander in our dreams through places that once were,
and now are gone, and places that never were, seeking some sense of
ourselves which cannot be found in our febrile, insubstantial and eternally
vanishing present.<br />
<br />
</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-83295196476441081692020-04-19T14:38:00.000-07:002020-04-19T14:38:12.653-07:00Things that Will Shatter Your Imagination: The Accidental Genius of Lucio Fulci 1979/1982.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaAwGIkm8EnGSIuieRU4HSSdLd7v-oPkTip6e4BOfdqrm5J4t5wROXGPNKULjzX_xKitFYZKzbzy3TbjjAHitiBzbyFG3d9GOHZC7q0XGRBGSRm9nnieYcPhxyrSfHBLEzQHhSBhn4LPGs/s1600/unnamedss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="512" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaAwGIkm8EnGSIuieRU4HSSdLd7v-oPkTip6e4BOfdqrm5J4t5wROXGPNKULjzX_xKitFYZKzbzy3TbjjAHitiBzbyFG3d9GOHZC7q0XGRBGSRm9nnieYcPhxyrSfHBLEzQHhSBhn4LPGs/s640/unnamedss.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Supernatural disgust! No one approaches without revealing to me,
despite himself, the stage of his putrefaction, the livid destiny
which awaits him. Every sensation is sepulchral, every delight a
dirge.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
E.M. Cioran, The Temptation to Exist. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
5 September, Rome: - We saw Zombi 2 – science fiction horror film.
Ghastly, repulsive trash.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Andrei Tarkovsky, from his diary.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the golden age of Italian film-making, there were three distinct
tiers of directors. At the apex, at least in terms of cultural
prominence, art house giants like Fellini and Antonioni commanded
international respect and considerable artistic freedom. Next, genre
auteurs and specialists like Sergio Leone and Dario Argento carved
out niches in specific popular genres. Critical respect would come
more slowly to these directors, but they enjoyed a kind of prominence
and budgetary license within the Italian film industry. Finally, at
the lowest rung in terms in budgets and critical appreciation, great
journeyman directors like Sergio Martino and Umberto Lenzi produced
movies, quickly and cheaply, in whatever genre producers happened to
be churning out at the time. Only more recently have these directors
come to be appreciated as auteurs in their own right. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0sOgcDeqNTv4h84gYcT8k_xJf_vcB_kHXsjrGVkKGA1BHA3yBfjaakM9O8BYzL_y7HpXweFpBpQ1uNPHC1Ef0JO5b5LWutPa3AwU5uVG-35V8B8uoanhaotZf7XzV5fD5Ucv8zoXhzsXA/s1600/lizard01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="750" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0sOgcDeqNTv4h84gYcT8k_xJf_vcB_kHXsjrGVkKGA1BHA3yBfjaakM9O8BYzL_y7HpXweFpBpQ1uNPHC1Ef0JO5b5LWutPa3AwU5uVG-35V8B8uoanhaotZf7XzV5fD5Ucv8zoXhzsXA/s400/lizard01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b>A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (Fulci, 1971).</b></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If you don't count Mario Bava in this category, Lucio Fulci was
perhaps the greatest of these journeyman directors. It is a peculiarity of Fulci's legacy that the bulk of his cult notoriety
rests on a sequence of ultra-gory and increasingly surreal horrors
which he directed between 1979 and 1982. The iconography of these
movies – gouged eyeballs, spewing entrails, deliquescent faces –
defines Fulci as an auteur and icon of horror cinema. Yet Fulci had
been making movies for decades in 1979, and only really stumbled into
the horror genre because he was broke, and the success of George
Romero's <i>Dawn of the Dead </i>(1978)<i> </i>put zombies firmly on
the radar of Italy's magpie-like producers. The artistic peak of
Fulci's career was in the early to mid-70s, when he produced the
historical masterpiece <i>Beatrice Cenci, </i>and three of the
greatest of all the giallos in <i>A Lizard in a Woman's Skin</i>,
<i>Don't Torture a Duckling </i>and <i>The Psychic</i>.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yet Fulci's output in '79 to '82, if not his highest achievement, is
nevertheless a unhinged treasure trove of cult/midnight movie
madness. The peculiar appeal of these movies has to be understood in
the context of how they were made. Champions of Fulci's gore movies
often present them as highly deliberate, authorial works of
surrealism and pure cinema. This is at least partially true, but it
ignores the difficulty of untangling intention and accident in the
strange aesthetics of movies like <i>The Beyond</i> and <i>House by
the Cemetery</i>. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSIw_Ohr7HCASmezZR5PclwiJJwwkVsR-uuGr83Ss_sygf3IdgmUnL47d7K5DetQhOxpPwskry95pvoQ8yfeUz5WGuwiVuU9srGYGLg39a1KFVFTdPXQEyIYzmmQI6wDR68dpDNTxYeb-w/s1600/inferno-movie-dario-argento-eight-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="641" data-original-width="1177" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSIw_Ohr7HCASmezZR5PclwiJJwwkVsR-uuGr83Ss_sygf3IdgmUnL47d7K5DetQhOxpPwskry95pvoQ8yfeUz5WGuwiVuU9srGYGLg39a1KFVFTdPXQEyIYzmmQI6wDR68dpDNTxYeb-w/s400/inferno-movie-dario-argento-eight-1.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b> Inferno (Argento, 1980).</b></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading"></a>
<span style="font-style: normal;"> These films were made subject to
breakneck schedules, fluctuating budgets and frequent production
interference. Fulci himself described </span><i>The Beyond </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(as
well as Argento's </span><i>Inferno) </i><span style="font-style: normal;">as
examples of “absolute film”: “a film of images, which must be
received without any reflection.” </span><i>Inferno</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
provided a template for the kind of irrational, almost non-narrative
horror that Fulci would pursue in the 80s, yet it was itself
partially a product of accidental circumstances. Suitably enough for
such a fever dream of a movie, </span><i>Inferno </i><span style="font-style: normal;">was
plagued by illnesses. Argento himself was laid up with hepatitis,
and frequently had to direct lying down or via notes from his
hospital bed. Star Irene Miracle had recently recovered from a
fever, and her hair began falling out, prompting Argento to kill her
off early in the film, effectively re-writing the story on the hoof.
While there is no doubt that Argento was more preoccupied by dream
logic and cinematic formalism than narrative clarity to begin with,
</span><i>Inferno </i><span style="font-style: normal;">was a picture
that became more abstract and non-linear in the telling. Similarly,
screen-writer </span><span lang="en">Dardano Sacchetti claimed that
</span><span lang="en"><i>The Beyond</i></span><span lang="en">
acquired it's “non-grammatical” nature by virtue of the depletion
of its budget. </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"> This
is not to detract from Fulci's achievement in these movies, but only
to suggest that it could only have occurred within the constraints of
a particular production milieu. Italian popular cinema had always
been highly derivative of what was happening in the international
market. Nevertheless, in the 1960s and 70s, the Italians developed
versions of US genres – the spaghetti western and the giallo –
which were uniquely Italian enough to constitute original indigenous
inventions. By the 1980s, the great creative energy of the post-war
art-house boom was waning, and the Italian popular film industry
embraced the ethos of rip-off cinema with an increasingly blatant
abandon, creating a near infinite number of low-budget hybrids of </span><span lang="en"><i>Mad
Max</i></span><span lang="en">, </span><span lang="en"><i>Escape from
New York </i></span><span lang="en">and </span><span lang="en"><i>The
Warriors. </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">Filtered
through the feverish Italian cinematic imagination, however, these
movies were largely failures as copies, but frequently come to life
as cinematic Frankenstein's monsters, lumbering undead
creatures made up of other movies incongruously stitched together.</span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y_8mCJB7GSU/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y_8mCJB7GSU?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><i> </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">Although
only </span></span><span lang="en"><i>House by the Cemetery </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
</span></span><span lang="en"><i>Manhattan Baby</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
fully conform to this idea of Italian rip-off cinema</span></span><span lang="en"><i>,
</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">Fulci's
80s gore period has to be understood properly in the context of this
wonky, off-kilter production milieu. Rather than seeing them as the
work of an artist in full control of his medium, Fulci's 80s horror
is perhaps best envisioned as the work of a great cinematic crafsman
set adrift in a declining film industry, whose imagination
paradoxically rises to an almost fatalistic pitch of morbid
creativity in the hothouse atmosphere of these chaotic and rushed
productions. </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtn81J6jM8CcYSqETA48rDEAGNn6-nD5QWoy812LWXp_GSdp0Cyuq8_jzQg-ln8u9iWnrJI7Ck-KVk2Byx2lXXx1vVzmKSUPM85eWWbBJC1MNQWiAjm-UP0B1tnApmHPF9UBpZNdqXFzeM/s1600/EV2JDUFWAAEyOx7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="1440" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtn81J6jM8CcYSqETA48rDEAGNn6-nD5QWoy812LWXp_GSdp0Cyuq8_jzQg-ln8u9iWnrJI7Ck-KVk2Byx2lXXx1vVzmKSUPM85eWWbBJC1MNQWiAjm-UP0B1tnApmHPF9UBpZNdqXFzeM/s400/EV2JDUFWAAEyOx7.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Whereas
Bava and Argento had always tended to aestheticize and eroticize horror,
Fulci went straight for the uncensored amygdala of the genre,
becoming a poet of charnal house decay and putrescence. In Fulci's
horror cinema, bodies and buildings are always subject to decay and
dissolution; the extreme vulnerability of the physical frame, exemplified by the eye, is constantly imperilled by abrupt, nightmarish
assault; the frailty and gory plasticity of the corporeal hangs over
these films like a stench. Lacking the opulent colours and architectures of Bava and Argento, beauty appears in Fulci only in
eerie and unnerving forms; in, for example, the sudden appearance of
blind seeress Emily and her guide-dog in the middle of an empty
stretch of road in </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The Beyond, </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">or
the emergence of Bob from a kind of birth canal into a world of
listless ghosts at the end of </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The
House by the Cemetery.</i></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading1"></a>
<span lang="en"><i> </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">To
achieve these effects, Fulci was fortunate in the amount of highly
gifted collaborators which he worked with throughout this period,
most notably the cinematographer Sergio Salvati and composer Fabio
Frizzi. Frizzi's work is particularly crucial in establishing the
aesthetic of these Fulci movies. Typically for Italian horror scores
of the time, Frizzi's prog-influenced cues are alternatively hypnotic
and bombastic, possessing a kind of wild and unapologetic incongruity
which makes the movies oddly mesmerising. His typical zombie theme
begins with a low, sepulchral intro, perfect for the slow rise of the
zombie, but then segues into a bizarrely anthemic and up-beat chorus.
His beautiful main theme for </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The
Beyond</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
suggests a slowly unfolding religious epiphany: </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/81Ro7vt_U8g/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/81Ro7vt_U8g?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Zombi (Zombie Flesh Eaters), 1979. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2GYGUMsIRVlOsnPOQE_X7jiAj01vX8EDdbvh8S4-iZ0zf7fJVYaefZbaNdajGseqmS-LMdM3YKttcosL5W1cFCwXMISYerh9EBmKjWY4XS53l520SaJ5y88YYsyRUI3f14303aG5tjDqf/s1600/zombie_2_1978.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="161" data-original-width="538" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2GYGUMsIRVlOsnPOQE_X7jiAj01vX8EDdbvh8S4-iZ0zf7fJVYaefZbaNdajGseqmS-LMdM3YKttcosL5W1cFCwXMISYerh9EBmKjWY4XS53l520SaJ5y88YYsyRUI3f14303aG5tjDqf/s640/zombie_2_1978.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading2"></a>
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Though it was sold
in many territories as a sequel to </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Dawn
of the Dead, Zombie Flesh Eaters </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">has
nothing in common with Romero's film, aside from the basic premise of
the ravenous and perambulatory dead. Eschewing the Swiftian
satirical undercurrents of Romero, Fulci sought to return the zombie
to its roots in the voodoo lore and exoticism of Jacques Tourneur's </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">I
Walked with a Zombie. Zombie Flesh Eaters, </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">then,
is a pure pulp film with no subtext, and not a great deal of
subtlety; nevertheless, it is executed with considerable gusto, energy
and skill. If you wanted a pure pizza and beer movie which still has
some claim to artistic merit, this fits the bill perfectly – it's
probably the best non-Romero entry into the modern zombie movie
cycle. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"> Trashy
and all as it is, Fulci builds the pace slowly, and develops an
over-powering mood of decay and hopelessness. Whereas Romero's
zombies were always comically quotidian, Fulci's are nightmarishly
rancid creations, infested with wriggling worms and mottled with
bloody sores. Viewed today, </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Zombie
Flesh Eaters</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
is a masterclass in make-up and practical effects, and feels like a
paean to the glories of pre-CGI cinema. In the climatic sequence,
squibs explode, real flames engulf the set, living and undead bodies
are assaulted with dizzyingly inventive abandon. The dare-devil
ingenuity and remarkable craftsmanship of the practical effects work in
this film is really something to behold. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Zombie
Flesh Eaters </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">has
also gained considerable notoriety for a underwater sequence in which
a zombie fights </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">an
actual shark. </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">It
is, to say the least, a somewhat jaw-dropping scene, whose enjoyment
is leveraged to some degree on the obvious legal and moral issues
raised by filming such a thing. This speaks to my main point about
the accidental qualities of these movies, however; the sequence had
nothing to do with Fulci, who neither wanted it in the film nor
directed it. You can read the full story in this <a href="https://lwlies.com/articles/zombi-2-shark-fight-scene-lucio-fulci/">piece</a> on Little
White Lies. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading3"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading4"></a>
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"> </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Zombie
Flesh Eaters</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
stars the Scottish actor Ian McCulloch, who also appears in another
unalloyed joy of Italian rip-off cinema, Luigi Cozzi's
Aliens/Invasion of the Body Snatchers/James Bond mash-up
</span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Contamination</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
He gives a pretty good performance, despite a fairly palpable sense
of contempt for the material. I always get a huge laugh out of the
cosmically dishevelled state of of his comb over at the end of the
picture. It feels like a metaphor for the humiliation of his serious
thespian ambitions.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
City of the Living Dead (1980). </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9n3-exvvh_8XVHa1Bb2bfQvz62BYPMwnWRbh0ZE4fmeZMibrSfnWoHewyZFOhHdtFtUW5Mb5xdNuZdRlOQzb5y6Ug4nbvWPZc0YJekprJrqNcpVEUm1pEUKSSMlDxRKeUhmVxDzqsOUiH/s1600/EUdTm9MXYAEOTNu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="748" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9n3-exvvh_8XVHa1Bb2bfQvz62BYPMwnWRbh0ZE4fmeZMibrSfnWoHewyZFOhHdtFtUW5Mb5xdNuZdRlOQzb5y6Ug4nbvWPZc0YJekprJrqNcpVEUm1pEUKSSMlDxRKeUhmVxDzqsOUiH/s400/EUdTm9MXYAEOTNu.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"> Fulci
really began to develop his own style of horror movie with </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">City
of the Living Dead. </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">It
is the first in what would later be categorized as the “Gates of
Hell Trilogy.” It is worth noting that these films were not
originally intended as a trilogy, and that the third entry in the
cycle (</span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">The
House by the Cemetery</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">)
doesn't actually feature a gateway to hell. (There is a better case
to be made, I think, for </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Manhattan
Baby </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">as
a thematic follow-up to </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">City</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
and </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">The
Beyond.) City </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">and
</span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">The
Beyond </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">are
difficult films to categorize. They both feature zombies, but
neither can really be described as zombie movies. After completing
</span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Zombi,
</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Fulci
apparently devoured the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and these movies are
in a sense low-budget Lovecraftian apocalypses. However, whereas
Lovecraft remained a supreme rationalist, even while consigning human
reason to insignificance in a vast indifferent cosmos, Fulci's appropriation of Lovecraft veers in the direction of the irrational.
Whether by accident or design, Fulci arrived at a type of horror
which lacks a conventional centre of gravity, and expresses itself as
a series of increasingly inexplicable and terrifying events,
“things”, in the words of the medium in </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">City
of the Living Dead, “</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">that
will shatter your imagination.” On a narrative level, these
nightmare tableaus are held together by the loose convention of
opening a gateway to hell. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"> In
the fictional, quasi-Lovecraftian town of Dunwich, a priest (about
whom we learn virtually nothing), commits suicide, thus opening a
gateway to hell (in a manner never actually elucidated). On this
simple premise, Fulci develops a plot which rarely makes a lick of
sense on a literal level, but it doesn't matter. </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">City</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
moves and flows seamlessly in the sheer, all-enveloping mood conjured
up by Fulci and Salvati's images of eerie, dust-blown streets and putrescent viscera, and their arrangement to Frizzi's mesmerizing
score. Like </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Phantasm</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
(1979), the most Italian of American horror pictures, </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">City
</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">is
a dream obsessively haunted by the spectre of mortality, by
mortuaries, corpses and cemeteries. It is a nonsensical Gothic
whose aesthetic falls somewhere between EC Comics and Francis Bacon.
The iconic gore sequences in </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">City</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
have been amply discussed, but perhaps not enough attention is paid
to the early section in which Mary (Catriona MacColl) wakes up in a
coffin, and is rescued (albeit while being almost axed in the head in
the process) by Christopher George. This set-piece (later homaged by
Tarantino in </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">Kill
Bill</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">)
is a stunning piece of pure cinema worthy of Hitchcock, and a
standout in Fulci's entire filmography. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
The Black Cat (1981). </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisRZcq0-b6SXqcWZNtGr_oWIuTNWN5Ceg9893sS9hM1gNofeHAkNaIqCG8TazjDYe5neNO0LNr6qRkm8bLf4hGQ65mRISqX_ojsjhW11umSjQ9Zn66PdCDvBmNIkQP64Ttndr2nvXvE0dc/s1600/farmer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="900" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisRZcq0-b6SXqcWZNtGr_oWIuTNWN5Ceg9893sS9hM1gNofeHAkNaIqCG8TazjDYe5neNO0LNr6qRkm8bLf4hGQ65mRISqX_ojsjhW11umSjQ9Zn66PdCDvBmNIkQP64Ttndr2nvXvE0dc/s400/farmer.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
Between the sustained insanities of <i>City</i> and <i>The Beyond</i>,
Fulci took a left-field detour to the cosiness of the British
countryside for this (somewhat) loose Edgar Allan Poe adaptation. An
American photographer (Mimsy Farmer) and Scotland yard detective
(David Warbeck) become involved in a series of murders and mysterious
goings on in a quiet English village, all of which seem to involve a
black cat belonging to the rheumy-eyed local magus (Patrick Magee).
Though beautifully shot (again by Salvati) and stylishly executed, I
think <i>The Black Cat</i> is the weakest in this cycle of films.
Fulci apparently wasn't particularly interested in making it, and this
translates into a feeling of lethargy pervading the project. Lacing
the feverish intensity of his other films of this period, the plot
iself fails to provide much in the way of dramatic impetuous.
Nevertheless, with diminished expectations, <i>The Black Cat</i> is
not without considerable bucolic and soporific charms of its own.
Farmer, somewhat of a cult cinema icon, hasn't much to do with her
character, but remains a striking and watchable presence. Magee is
fantastic fun as the loathsome but hypnotic antagonist, and David
Warbeck exhibits the unfussy charm which made him the most fondly
remembered Fulci lead. The effect of <i>The Black Cat </i>is akin to
watching an old episode of <i>Midsomer Murder</i> or <i>Bergerac</i>
while under the influence of a potent, time-dilating sedative.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
The Beyond (1981). </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVNnA3FWdH3MJjFcuzXs4ZqyA-Phz5YwvOvjwk4aILWCOsZoHi6Sb5Gjos17s9nCVuSiZndg7h1VJdYg_3DBFzXD2TzTQzek1ux5ehyzs2a3-PXSR2m-1mg9gLkCtvCxzrIF3RfR7PbwT/s1600/salavatti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="1200" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrVNnA3FWdH3MJjFcuzXs4ZqyA-Phz5YwvOvjwk4aILWCOsZoHi6Sb5Gjos17s9nCVuSiZndg7h1VJdYg_3DBFzXD2TzTQzek1ux5ehyzs2a3-PXSR2m-1mg9gLkCtvCxzrIF3RfR7PbwT/s400/salavatti.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"> Our
setting moves to the Seven Doors Hotel in Louisiana, where once again
the gate of hell is opened, this time by the crucifixion of
aesthete and warlock </span></span></span>Schweick in 1927 – or by
the unweary excavations of Joe the Plumber in the film's contemporary
setting - I'm not exactly sure which. <i>The Beyond </i><span style="font-style: normal;">is
regarded almost universally as Fulci's horror masterpiece, and while
I've developed a considerable fondness for this crazy picture over
the years, I still feel like it's perhaps too erratic and uneven to
be quite a masterpiece. It is certainly a midnight movie
barnstormer, and a grand compendium of everything that is both
sublime and ridiculous about Italian horror as it was moving into the
decline of its golden period. In terms of the ridiculous, </span><i>The
Beyond</i><span style="font-style: normal;">'s eccentric goofs are
legendary:</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> -
The fact that the plumber is called “Joe the Plumber.” In fairness, the comedic value here isn't entirely Fulci's fault, but it
doesn't help that the “Joe the Plumber” sign on his van looks
like it was pasted on immediately before the cameras rolled. </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
- The
“Do Not Entry” sign on the door of the morgue.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;">
- The English dialogue track. Typically, the Italian dialogue track
is far better acted and more atmospheric, but the English language
track contains probably all of the best unintentionally funny lines
in the entire Italian horror cannon. Most of them belong to Catriona
MacColl's Liza: “I said you had <i>carte blanche, </i>not a blank
cheque.” “I've lived in New York all my life, and if there's one
thing I've learned not to believe in – it's ghosts.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"> -
The Death by Flesh-Eating Tarantulas in the Library Sequence. Even
within the demented purview of </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">The
Beyond, </span></i></span><span style="font-style: normal;">Michele
Mirabella's death is utterly random and bizarre, and it's main
function I suspect was to allow Fulci to emulate the similarly random
death by rats (and possessed fast food vendor) scene in Argento's
</span><i>Inferno</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. However,
while Fulci's execution of the death by unexpected betrayal of
guide-dog scene is arguably technically better than Argento's in
</span><i>Suspiria, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">here the
grand ambition of the spider sequence is not well served by its
execution. Sadly, neither the pipe cleaner-like spiders or the mould
of Mirabella's face are particularly convincing, and the whole thing
resembles a rather alarming contribution to an arts and crafts class
at times. Still, the sound design is spectacular, and the sequence
is nothing if not memorable.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OMO_4B1L9LTOC6ODjAL5hov77aWroUqcS0QA5lT1J2rZj8yEP8OR-M0GK5NnM-dS4nDrIibqPrqv2FfpLGn3sLdf2v6oZ-gtu04LMixta7syv2lFmFno-xViiGLJBeWhHjuUoTBmRvGp/s1600/beyond.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OMO_4B1L9LTOC6ODjAL5hov77aWroUqcS0QA5lT1J2rZj8yEP8OR-M0GK5NnM-dS4nDrIibqPrqv2FfpLGn3sLdf2v6oZ-gtu04LMixta7syv2lFmFno-xViiGLJBeWhHjuUoTBmRvGp/s640/beyond.webp" width="640" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> On
the side of sublimity, </span><i>The Beyond</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
is another stunning collaboration between Fulci, Salvati and Frizzi.
The Seven Doors Hotel, with its dusty and dilapidated rooms and
cavernous, terrifying basement, is a painterly triumph of production
design and lighting. Cinzia Monreale's Emily is probably the most
iconic minor character in horror film history, and in its best
passages, </span><i>The Beyond </i><span style="font-style: normal;">captures
the morbid, decadent and dreamlike poetry which makes Italian horror
so distinctive. If not quite a masterpiece, the discordance between
its portentous metaphysics and campy and careless eccentricities
certainly makes it unique.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">The
House by the Cemetery (1981). </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTZVGtUAi1PaFTZCUsmbupzo508tNtQCnr_OWiX3YagiiT3hjoijhyphenhyphenJgp-cFaAJWrwUliND8aiWundPFmASBcUDZ_6byndQrwN7Nk0LadT_rqK7s7V2MTBMV1F4zwiWiEmdwTyfvl0Dkd/s1600/EVwBcD3X0AMTpa_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="992" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRTZVGtUAi1PaFTZCUsmbupzo508tNtQCnr_OWiX3YagiiT3hjoijhyphenhyphenJgp-cFaAJWrwUliND8aiWundPFmASBcUDZ_6byndQrwN7Nk0LadT_rqK7s7V2MTBMV1F4zwiWiEmdwTyfvl0Dkd/s400/EVwBcD3X0AMTpa_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> It
is apt that </span><i>House </i><span style="font-style: normal;">invokes
the Frankenstein myth, since this outing finds Fulci and co. firmly
in Italian rip-off cinema territory. </span><i>House by the Cemetery
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">takes elements of </span><i>The
Shining</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><i>Rosemary's
Baby</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><i>The Amityville
Horror, The Turning of the Screw, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">even
a dash of </span><i>The Evil Dead, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">throws
them all in a blender, and then dips its fingers in the ensuing
chaotic stew to deliver the chief's kiss. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi66epnkpdBpR3T8txA-7EgFikJ23Uy6ixoRt8EtD937mSBEsFqX90qJTkw2YLhj9tQQGTKgkKjcvfITvuiyR9ZxB99D7bFGB18kY99bPw5Qt0_N7XVsaEbGLPEjzNSgkvgsW2qv8ARgBki/s1600/house-by-the-cemetery-kid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="451" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi66epnkpdBpR3T8txA-7EgFikJ23Uy6ixoRt8EtD937mSBEsFqX90qJTkw2YLhj9tQQGTKgkKjcvfITvuiyR9ZxB99D7bFGB18kY99bPw5Qt0_N7XVsaEbGLPEjzNSgkvgsW2qv8ARgBki/s400/house-by-the-cemetery-kid.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading5"></a>
<span style="font-style: normal;"> One issue needs to be addressed
right out of the gate, and that is the performance of child actor
</span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">Giovanni
Frezza as Bob Doyle. Frezza was a kind of grotesquely cute child
Klaus Kinski, and his Bob Doyle has frequently been labeled the most
annoying child performance in the history of horror film, or indeed
of film in its entirety. I would like to partially rehabilitate
Frezza here. The primary problem with the performance lies in the
fact that, on the English dub, Frezza is voiced by what appears to be
a high-pitched woman in her forties. Watched in Italian, about 80%
of the annoyance of Bob vanishes, and the film is improved immeasurably overall. </span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading6"></a>
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The
House by the Cemetery</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is the real sleeper and slow-burner in the Gates Trilogy. I wasn't a
fan originally, but it gets better every time I watch it. The stark,
wintery meloncholy of the New England location is magnificently
evoked by Salvati, and feels like the central character of the film.
Various sub-plots and suggestions are established in the script, and
left completely hanging. While I assume that this is an
unintentional by-product of a rushed production, these structural
definincies only add to the movie's mysterious and dreamlike tone.
The ending is particularly striking. Having exercised a degree of
restraint throughout, Fulci finally unleashes perhaps his most
complete and almost unbearable evocation of nightmare in the
Fruedstein basement. Basements have always maintained a peculiar
significance in all of these movies, going back to Irene Miracle's
dive into the flooded basement in </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Inferno</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
In Jungian psychology, such motifs would represent a descent into,
and confrontation with, the unconscious. Bob finally escapes from
the nightmare of Freudstein's basement by crawling through a narrow
crack in the ceiling, a image which clearly evokes a birth trauma.
In Jungian terms, Bob should now be a full, individuated adult,
having endured the cathartic ordeal of encounter with the unconscious,
and been reborn. However, in the movie, he emerges into a dead world
in which he will be a child for eternity, swallowed up by the
timeless and brooding New England landscape. This refers perhaps to
the gloomy metaphysics screen-writer Dardano Sacchetti had developed
for </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The Beyond, </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
sense of “being born condemned to die....of being born to be
erased.”</span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">Manhattan
Baby (1982). </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfednOqJnshAucRiw9urJbgNLo8iq-969G_KWpMeene1ji4taqmsfkE5WUnwGY_v_GMSqeammFfuEQwXKE2GzJR02Vnj5tYeI1wkxF_eXuasiINI_R-ETOgrdTYYwyZgYDJBdnxeMrMIhk/s1600/ESW1pUJWkAIEkHw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="1360" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfednOqJnshAucRiw9urJbgNLo8iq-969G_KWpMeene1ji4taqmsfkE5WUnwGY_v_GMSqeammFfuEQwXKE2GzJR02Vnj5tYeI1wkxF_eXuasiINI_R-ETOgrdTYYwyZgYDJBdnxeMrMIhk/s400/ESW1pUJWkAIEkHw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">I've
lost all critical perspective.”</span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Dr
Fruedstein, </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The House by the
Cemetery</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
</span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading7"></a>
<span lang="en"><i> Manhattan Baby </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">marks
the end of the era covered in this essay, essentially the
relationship between Fulci and producer Fabrizio De Angelis which
began with </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Zombi 2 </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">in
'79. The movie has been disowned by its screen-writer, Fulci
himself, and a great many people who have seen it. I would have to
go against the grain and say it's a wild masterpiece, and possibly my
favourite picture in the sequence. The chasm between what it was
clearly intended to be, and what it actually ends up as, is part of
what makes </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Manhattan Baby</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
so fascinating. Once again in crazy quilt rip-off territory, the
intention of </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Manhattan Baby </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">was</span></span><span lang="en"><i>
</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">to
embrace the new optical effect/family friendly horror style of
</span></span><span lang="en"><i>Poltergeist, </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
marry it with elements of </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The
Exorcist, Indiana Jones, </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
the Egyptomania of the Bram Stoker novel </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The
Jewel of the Seven Stars </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">(filmed
brilliantly by Hammer as </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Blood from
the Mummy's Tomb</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
in 1971, and blandly as </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The
Awakening</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
in 1980 with Charlton Heston.) The conception of the film is so
muddled that nobody really knows why it's actually called </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Manhattan
Baby, </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
most plausible suggestion being an attempt to evoke memories of
</span></span><span lang="en"><i>Rosemary's Baby</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> However
diffuse the concept, the film was clearly intended to be the most commercial endeavour the partnership had produced to date; yet Fulci
winds up directing something far more surreal and non-linear than </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The
Beyond</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
and far more experimental in its compositions and mosaic-like
editing. Virtually every scene is a hypnotic play of facial and eye
close-ups, shifting focus and aural weirdness, yielding a truly
bizarre dreamscape which feels far more like David Lynch and Kenneth
Anger than the Tobe Hooper neutered by Steven Spielberg vibe the
production seemed to have intended. It is in some respect the
culmination of what I have been discussing throughout this essay: a
masterpiece emerging alchemically, and accidentally, from the
brilliance of Fulci and the comic disarray of his production milieu.
</span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-decoration: none;">
</span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></span>
</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-14283386107845482352020-04-03T05:43:00.000-07:002020-04-03T06:08:00.117-07:00Intermundia Airport. (Chapter 8)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG1WX58by_hKeTKy-X7Nl8B1VDQKIkp21vjoz-UAs1V3xsQMSTr3GKDSn5x398VpCcA220wz7LsMraK91U02uhw5YkkfcN4RNjyx501JLBXD4Gq9jPfquCSVDEi8D3qAOAPxXMXZdHoSnn/s1600/intermundia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="645" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG1WX58by_hKeTKy-X7Nl8B1VDQKIkp21vjoz-UAs1V3xsQMSTr3GKDSn5x398VpCcA220wz7LsMraK91U02uhw5YkkfcN4RNjyx501JLBXD4Gq9jPfquCSVDEi8D3qAOAPxXMXZdHoSnn/s400/intermundia.jpg" width="395" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Chapter 8.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They emerged into a long, dim and musty hotel corridor. The look of
relief on Freddie's face reassured Mark that they were still in the
Overnight, and had not been transported to its adjoining hostelry in
some unfathomable elsewhere. The corridor was instantly familiar to
Mark, but he was uncertain whether to account this as tentative
recollection of a previous stay, or the stirring of some primordial
collective memory. It felt like the maddening, purgatorial corridor
that everyone had wandered hopelessly though at some point, lost in
the eternities of a bad dream brought about by winter fever or some
catastrophic sleeping posture. The wallpaper was an undeviating
pattern of horizontal bars, blue and gold, with a slender white line
traversing the centre of each. The numbered doors were plain dark
timber with handles that resembled pouting, puzzled faces, and the
lights that receded into the distance encased everything in a
brownish half-light, which might have served to fossilze insects for
long aeons beyond the extinction of their kind. The drabness and age
of the furnishings embodied the precise meaning of the term <i>seedy,
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">their bare funtionality and
aparent disdain for aesthetic comfort suggesting a place to whom its
occupants were an objectified and anonymous afterthought.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After every five rooms, the corridor terminated and branched out at
either side into identical iterations of itself. A song was playing
in the dimness, seemingly piped into the corridors from the ceiling.
The volume of the music wafted in and out with such subtle
insinuation that Mark found it impossible to catch the precise
instants where it faded out and back again. Rather, there was a
haunted air of music moth-eaten with silence, and silence pregnant
with the ghost of subliminal melodies. The song was a quaint
romantic ballad, a synonym, it seemed to Mark, for memory and the
past:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We'll meet again</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Don't know where</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Don't know when</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But I know we'll met again</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Some sunny day</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Perhaps it was merely the discussion he had just had with Freddie in
the elevator, but the song made Mark think about the War – or, not
the War itself precisely, but a great war as subsequent generations
might have experienced it, as something almost cheap or kitsch in
comparison to the actual experience. It occurred to him that this
was the nature of all his memories – not of things themselves, with
all their immediacy and intensity, but rather in their lingering
after-effects, wherein they had been reduced to cliché and comedy,
to the distant lightness and mustiness of old sitcoms endlessly
replayed on television. In contrast, a borrowed memory, Freddie's
recollection of the idylic hayday of Sheldrake's Summer Camp, rose
unbidden and lucid in his mind as though it were his own. His
thoughts drifted back to the woman in the photograph, her hair
unkempt in the sea breeze. He pictured himself following her through
the endless corridors of the Overnight, inacting the unrequited
desire which is the undoing of every idyll.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Keep smiling through</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
just like you always do</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Far away</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Freddie took a left turn, and they started down a fresh corridor.
'Freddie', Mark asked, 'have I ever stayed here before? Do you
remember me?' Freddie was looking with harried concentration at the
door numbers as they passed. 'Well, sir, all due respect, that would
be for you to know and me to ponder. There's so many what passes
through 'ere, day in day out, that you could 'ave been 'ere only
yesterday, and I wouldn't know you from Adam's sleeve.' They paused
at an alcove in the corriodor, marked at either side by tall plants
whose sharp, brittle leaves gleamed like leather lapels in the brown
light. The alcove had a low table with a couple of chairs, and in
the small, curving space between the table and jutting leaves, an
elderly couple danced slowly to the alterations of music and silence
that ebbed through the corridors.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So will you please say hello</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To the folks that I know</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Tell them I won't be long</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> They
were both, Mark guessed, in their mid-70s or older, if age had any
meaning in Intermundia. The man was slender and tall, the woman
small and stout. Their eyes were shut tightly and their expressions
serene, as though each clung to a soft dream that would remain secure
so long as their arms were entwined, and their mutual mood in total
surrender to the slow sway of the song. The scene affected Mark in a
peculiar way which he could not initially pin down. Then it struck
him: the couple must have been flying out in the morning. As such,
they were not old, but young, immeasurably young. They would soon
cast off their bodies of reified memory, and with their bodies all
the dense and delicate threads of memory from which their identities
were woven, and somehow, those threads would then rejoin the vast
network of their prior incarnations, and the slumbering and
infinitesimal conglomerate would return to the world of matter and
life, summoned by human passions and blind molecular necessities to
form a zygote and then an embryo, travelling from the dance of their
frail and spent bodies in the corridor of the Overnight back once
again into the maelstrom of pure being and beginning. In precisely
the same way that the familiar world was haunted by the proximity of
death, Intermudia was haunted by birth. The airplanes would soon
begin their ascents, their gleaming flight paths related in some
obscure fashion to encounters between living people, to innumerable
moments of frenzy and boredom and love and violence, the points of
intersection between the world of living finitude and the </span></span>etiolated
eternity<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
of Intermundia's runways and terminals. </span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A cigarette smouldered in an ashtray on the table, and its curling
plumes gathered thickly in the light of the alcove. Freddie
shrugged. 'More bleedin' action that I'll see tonight.' They
contined down the corridor.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They'll be happy to know</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That as you saw me go</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I was singing this song</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Freddie paused in the middle of the corridor, at the door of room
36. Mark thought at first that it must be his room, but Freddie had
a peculiar expression on his face, like a startled animal listening
for predators. He motioned Mark to be quiet by touching his lip, and
then leaned close to the door, pressing his ear to listen. Mark
followed suit, and the two men faced one-another, Mark's eyes
widening in puzzlement and Freddie's narrowing in concentration.
They maintained this absurd posture for some time, and Mark perceived
a scratching sound behind the door. Freddie looked through the
keyhole, and then cocked his head to indicate that they should
continue on.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What was that about?' Mark whispered. Freddie flashed him a cagey,
sombre look. 'There's somefing not quite right about that room.
Unoccupied, sir, or so they say. Never been a sinner in it as long
as I've been here. So I asked Digsby how come we never let Room 36,
and 'e looked right peculiar and put out to be discussing it. He
told me a fishy yarn, sir, to the effect that guests were never 'appy
in Room 36 – that there was somefing about that particular room
that lead them to 'ave what you might call troubles in the mental
faculty. And this one visitor, 'e said, was so perturbed by Room 36
that he set himself on fire, if you can credit it. Well, enough is
enough, Digsby said, and shut up the room for good, or so 'e says.
But Teddy Bilk 'as been in the Overnight from day one, and 'e reckons
that Room 36 'as always been empty, and that old Digsby spins a
different gruesome yarn every time anybody asks about it. If you
were to ask me, I'd say that Room 36 is most definitely occupied, by
somebody who prefers to remain <i>cogito ergo sum, </i>as the French
say.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We'll meet again</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Don't know where</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Don't know when</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But I know we'll meet again</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Some sunny day</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They had been walking for some time, and Mark was becoming
increasingly disorientated by the sprawling scope of the corridors.
'Do you know where we're going?' he asked. 'I do indeed sir. We are
heading for the front of the house.' He held up the key and shook
it. 'Which means that you have snagged for yourself one of the most
desirable rooms in our modest little hotel. You will have, sir,
adjacent to your bedroom, a coveted balcony with stunning views of
the terminal and runways. Well, perhaps not the most breath-taking
vista admittedly' – his voice lowered – 'but the other rooms are
all so pokey I wouldn't put a knacker's sick nag in them, being
honest with you, sir.' They turned a corner, and arrived in an
atrium which faced a single wall of rooms. 'Here we are,' Freddie
said, gesturing to room 17. He unlocked the door and they went
inside.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Freddie turned on the light, and Mark took stock of the room. It
resembled an indigents bed-sit more than a hotel room. On the wall
to the right, a single bed and a locker had been wedged into an
alcove. On the left, immediately inside the door there was a
bathroom and a small cooking area which consisted of a microwave oven
and a box-shaped electical grill, both filmed with grease. Mark sat
on the bed. The sheets looked filthy, and carried the smell of old
flesh and disinfectant characteristic of hospitals and rest homes.
'Have these been cleaned?' he asked. Freddie looked sheepish.
'Yes, sir, cleaned every day. But they're so bleedin' old, it
doesn't make much odds, know what I mean?'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, what about replacing them? Getting some fresh ones?'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'I recommend you take that up with old Digsby, sir. I just run
around and get shouted at, begging your pardon.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The waiter stood awkwardly for a moment, and then looked around the
room with a mournful and sympathetic expression. “I wouldn't
fancy it myself, sir, but it's only a temporary situation. In no time whatsoever, you will be leaving this madhouse, sir. Going up <i>there.”
</i>He raised his arm and pointed skywards. Then he nodded, and
darted out of the room, leaving Mark suddenly and poignantly alone,
as he had felt previously when Eddie and Giacomo left him to his
meeting with Renton. His mind quite lucid and wakeful, he decided to
take a careful itinerary of the room and its contents.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Positioned on the counter, there was a cookery book called THE NEW
MAGIC OF MICROWAVE by Cyril Smythe. The book's subhead read:
“Television's Famed “Confirmed Bachelor” Cyril Smythe
Demystifies the Microwave Miracle!” Smythe is pictured standing by
a microwave oven and small selection of unappealing dishes. He is a
tall, portly man in middle-age, well dressed in a grey suit, with
thick, carefully combed locks, sad, frightened green eyes and an
expression of catatonic depression. Incongruously, he wears a Mexican
sombrero. He is also pictured on the back cover, now seated at the
dinner table. He has lost the sombrero, but a multi-coloured party
horn hangs limply from the side of his mouth, as though positioned
there without his cognisance. His dinning companion is an
unconvincing inflatable similacra of a young woman. The text,
bearing an only incidental relation to the subject of microwave
cooking, reads: “The ultimate nature of life is the anguish of a
goal which can neither be attained nor repudiated. The mythiopoetic
iconography of hell as eternally frustrated satiation is merely this
essential realization abstracted to a notional after-life. <i>Includes
Pictures, Party-Icebreakers, and Cyril's Patented Dry Anecdotes and
Howlers Overhead on Public Transport</i>.” Despite it's obvious
utility, Mark found the book rather dispiriting overall.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> There
was a bulky tube television in the right hand corner of the room, and
in a tray beneath it a selection of television listing magazines,
puzzle digests and tattered war comics. For each day of his stay,
the contents of the tray would morph into a new selection of
periodicals, responding to the shifting demographics and memory
complexes of each round of new arrivals: pamphlets advocating the
extension of equal rights to inanimate objects, or sinisterly avowing
the innate superiority of one or other of the root vegetables;
almanacs haunted by sullen and inscrutable vegetation deities and zodiacal processions of gibbering monstrosities; pornographic dioramas
that depicted anatomically impossible conjoinings and the worship of
abstract and elusive fetish objects; lifestyle magazines show-casing
an aspirational leisure society in which suburban residents were transformed into coolly distant potted plants, watered by automatons,
and lulled into </span></span>quiescence by a daily television
broadcast in which guided meditations are whispered over atomic
weapons testing footage; in time he grew bored with the fecund
imagination of Intermundia's garbled memory circuits, as he did with
the daily alterations in the patterns of his bed-sheets and curtains.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The
balcony, as Freddie had promised, was at least more agreeable than
the squalid bedroom. He stumbled about in the darkness at first,
until he found a lamp. The little conservatory was sparsely but
pleasantly furnished, with a table and two wicker chairs in the
centre, and a writing desk to the right. The desk had a typewriter
and some fresh sheets of paper, and in the drawers beneath the
folding board, he found pages which he took to be the discarded
memories of previous occupations. One of them begins -
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>- I
hide under the table in my grandmothers house, watching the legs of
my grandmother, my uncle and my father moving about on the dark,
muddy stone of the kitchen floor – I can smell the earth from the
floor – a neighbours dog comes into the kitchen and approaches me
cautiously under the table, the sad, imploring saintly eyes of dogs –
at night the three of us sleep by an open fire, and the shadows of
the ornaments dance against the wall in the fire light – a
porcelain dog, a Russian doll, a smooth glass paper weight –
dancing in the fire light while we talk ourselves along the dimming
path to our dreams - </i>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Above
the desk, he regarded the painting which he first noticed hours
earlier from the terminal below. From a distance, it resembled an
abstract geometrical mosaic, but closer inspection reveals that it
depicts a block of elegant red-brick terraced apartments. The
apartments are lit by a kind of magical blue evening twilight,
suggesting an antique, sun-baked Eastern city of the painter's
imagination. A winding stairwell runs between the terraces, and
the apartments are small and cosy, with balconies decorated by tall,
slender and carefully trimmed plants. On one of the balconies, a
young woman stands between the plants, apparently waiting for
something. There is an expression of ecstatic expectation in her
searching eyes and parted lips. Three terraces below, we see a young
man ascending the stairwell, his gait suggesting keen and fleet
determination. It is for this questing youth, we imagine, that the
maiden on the balcony waits, and to her he goes with such ardour.
However, the painting tells us that he will never reach her, for two
terraces above the balcony where the maiden waits, the youth begins
his ascent again, and three terraces above that, waits the maiden
once more, a reoccurring pattern which we must assume persists beyond
the margin and the frame of the painting. In the stairwell along the
border of the painting, it is the maiden who ascends, and we must
assume that, were the image to continue beyong the border, it would
be the youth who waited on the balcony, with searching eyes and
parted lips, in eternally frustrated expectation of the maiden's
arrival. </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The painting struck an indelible cord with him. He know instantly
that he had seen it many times before, with a far greater certainty
than any of the other shadowy forms and dull chimings that resided
in the fog of his memory. It was in fact, more than a memory. He
felt that the painting was in some sense his personal possession or
creation. Intermundia, Renton had told him, was constructed from the
memories of the people that passed through it. He wondered if, in
the midst of that communal composite, here and there, there might be
objects that belonged to the memory of a single individual, like the
face of a conqueror or a vanquished saint, carved into heedless
mottled stone.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> Mark
took a seat at the low table, and looked out at the terminal below.
It was still night, and Intermundia's moonless and starless sky shrouded everything in its undiluted void. The runways, however,
were paths of gleaming light that drew to one-another until they met
at the illuminated yet barely perceptible line of the horizon.
Airplanes were being fuelled for the day's first flights, and tiny,
skittish figures moved about them, while their engines, dimmed by
distance, howled in the wide, frozen expanses below. </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> Beneath
his resting palm on the table, there lay a book. Inspecting it, he
found it to be a book for children, with beautiful illustrations and elaborate dioramas. It was called </span><i>The Adventures of a Boy
and a Girl, Along the Old Winding Road</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Like the painting, it seemed to hold a vivid and poignant place in
his otherwise dormant memory. He turned to the first page, and
started to read. During the full course of his stay in Intermundia,
he would read a few pages of the book every night before he went to
sleep; but, because he was always drowsy when he started, he could
never be certain how much of what he remembered the next day was
actually contained in the book itself, and how much his waning
attention and the stirring errancy of his imagination had
interpolated into its contents. Everybody has two minds, that which
is burdened by the chains of the day, and that adrift in the freedoms
of the night. The book would become a palimpsest of his two contrary
selves, with no clear borderline where the one left off, and the
other began. </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Adventures of a Boy and Girl, Along the Old Winding Road.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMO0ZZil6kJ7QkOFR-uxvA7UvA8CrcBXgtnO5LPm28-7-FWqU8X9VMjDFEwQqsDfiLzQcnviOFlFpC8ihHAV2DMjKswhT7ogud3-YcFp1t_VfRStZKP6M14pr-UZXFVFU0LpYRs1xOE349/s1600/peacockofplenty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="555" data-original-width="554" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMO0ZZil6kJ7QkOFR-uxvA7UvA8CrcBXgtnO5LPm28-7-FWqU8X9VMjDFEwQqsDfiLzQcnviOFlFpC8ihHAV2DMjKswhT7ogud3-YcFp1t_VfRStZKP6M14pr-UZXFVFU0LpYRs1xOE349/s400/peacockofplenty.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Chapter 1.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This is a story of the very old times, when the land was different
from how it is today. This is a story of when there were no cities,
or even large towns. Much of the countryside was covered by deep
woodland, and people lived in little cottages, keeping poultry and livestock, and gathering wood to heat their modest little homes.
None of them, however, would venture far into those woods, for they
were fearful places that had their own ancient orders, and their own
powers and principalities. It was a simple, hard and satisfying
life, in which one had simply to feed oneself, warm oneself, and then
watch the twilight gather around the dense canopy of the woods, and
dream a little of the mysteries that stirred each night to thread
anew its primordial and untrodden paths.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Outside of the woodland in the centre of the country, there were
great plains and valleys of verdant meadows and squat hills and tall
mountains that loomed grey and brown in the sunlight. And the people
who lived there were farmers and traders and tradespeople, and they
lived in little villages and hamlets, and regarded the woodlanders as
wild, unsophisticated and eerie creatures. Now those peoples were
not the first who had ever lived in that land. Another tribe had
lived there long, long ago, but nobody really knew a thing about
them, because they had left no records or relics after them, but for
one thing. That thing was a long, winding road, which the people,
either for clarity of expression or lack of imagination, called the
Old Winding Road.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Now that great stone-paved Road made its way through the whole of
the land, and nobody knew where it began, or where it ended. One
story says that the builders built their Road all the way to the
ocean, and then continued building it, until such time as they were
submerged beneath the water, whereupon they drowned with paving
stones in hand, and that was why they were never seen in the land
today. Such stories are amusing but cannot be credited.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> A
change was slowly coming to the land in the time this story was told,
as always it must. Men were beginning to dream once again of
progress and ease, and at night their sleep saw visions which they
barely understood, of vast, bustling cities, and great storehouses of
food that had not to be hunted, tended or slaughtered. The King was
dreaming of roads that might link all of his kingdom, and taxes and
tributes that could be collected thereupon. But </span><i>Hush! </i><span style="font-style: normal;">we
are still in the olden times yet.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> Now
in the woods in those times there lived a very fearsome old witch.
She was in fact the last of the true witches, and thus she had great
power, and thus she was as old as the oldest, most gnarled oak tree.
And the people who lived in the forest feared her greatly, and with
just cause, for people had been cursed by that witch for no greater
injury than merely chancing upon her in the woods, and those people
lost their hair, and the colour in their cheeks, and their appetites,
and the power of speech, and eventually they would crawl off into a
lake or an old tarn, and become a kind of muddy algae which was
sometimes heard to cry at night. Such was the power of the witches
curse, and such was the severity of her pique and caprice.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As the end of an age was coming upon the land, however, the witch
had grown very old indeed, and her malefic powers were waning. All
of the old powers of the land were waning, and all them knew dimly
that soon they would be only tales such as this one, told when storms
whistle in the hearth. Nothing, however, was so determined as that
horrible old hag, and while the other creatures of the forest would
wind their way mournfully yet ungrudgingly into the mist of tales and
legends, she had a plan to prolong her existence and the vitality of
her powers. She knew of a ritual – the most abominable of all
forbidden spells – by which her powers might be renewed, and extend
their reign into the coming age.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One night, the wife of a woodcutter sat by the fireside, cradling
her newborn daughter in her arms, and cooing little lullabys while
her lips brushed the infants forehead, and never in all the world was
there such love, peace and felicity. The witch observed this scene
from the window, and her face, like a leaden sky split asunder by lightning, was racked with bitter envy, for great power compels all
things, except love. And the witch put a glamour on that young
mother, such that she fell into a kind of trance, and when she
emerged from that slumber, all she cradled in her arms was a bunch of
old twigs and roots.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In another house not far from the woodcutters, a farmer and his wife
lay upon a soft rug on the floor of their cottage, sporting and
playing with their new-born son, and never in all the world was their
such giddy and innocent joy. But the witch put a glamour on that
young couple, and when they awoke from their trance, they played and
sported with a little goat with a piebald coat.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And so the witch wound her way back into the deep woods, with the
boy and the girl cradled in the folds of her immemorial rags, and as
the sound of keening grief erupted through the clearing she had just
departed, the witch threw back her head and cackled with joy, for
there was none on earth that took measured pride in their goodness,
as that witch reveled ecstatically in her undiluted evil. With great
haste and fell purpose did she stride through those ancient groves,
and the woods, which feared her waning powers still, drew themselves
aside to make her path more easy: branches twisted away and wrapped
about their trunks, like people hugging their shoulders; mosses
rallied their strengh, and raised and rolled stones and boulders out
of the way; clumps of nettles withdrew their sting, and proffered
timid and soothing balsams instead; in such manner did all the
varigated woodland show deference to that horrible creature, while
inwardly mourning and weeping the fate of the poor babes she carried
in her rags.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In no time at all, the witch arrives back to her cottage, whose
aspect is just as fearful and disturbing as that of its occupant.
Imagine a large two-storey cottage with a porch in a woodland scene,
and no doubt you picture something quaint and homely. But now
imagine that the structure is built upon a fairy mound, and that
every plank of timber is painted pitch black; now, conjure turrets,
the largest over the front door, which are as black, as sharply
pointed and malefic in appearance as the hat which popular superstition falsely ascribes to the witch; picture further that the
other turrets are adorned with evil-looking weather vanes, the right
surmounted by the figurine of a grotesque and bilious fish, the left
by that grim reaper whose harvest never falls fallow; now for your
homely porch, envision that it is illuminated by tapers that burn
in the concavity of two human skulls; and in those dancing flames,
add the grim spectre of a forest of wind-chimes, the bones of various
animals, that hang like stalactites, and whistle a mournful and foreboding tune in the night-time breeze. Now you have pictured the domicile of that hateful creature.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> The
witch laid her stolen babes upon the porch, and regarded their
tearful and frightened little faces with indifference. “These two
will be a handful,” she thought, “until they have come of age.”
And she made a great cry which was neither human nor bestial,
neither divine nor demonic, but an unhallowed mixture of all things
which can make utterance; and to that cry came three creatures of the
forest: the raven, the fox and the owl. The witch regarded the three
animals, crestfallen to have come under her spell, and thus she
spake: “These two brutes will make ample slaves when they have
grown up out of imbecility, but I fear a long time will they remain
thus incapacitated and cretinous, and needful of care and attention.
Such care they will not receive from me, for I am no mother, but the
very chill spite of barrenness itself! I charge you three to feed and
nurture these whelps, until such time as they can make amends for
themselves. Then, and only then, you will be free to go about your
business, and pray you do not hear my summons again!” </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfu2JEnUjfss_PD3OqLqZsylkbHr180ox0-qVYkg0Wh3dhWvi2eK-P0gzqWpi3HtE8ge3g3ryb7DfhAVzzBJvNksnvBGWfAs_q6l1xmF644RIpO1a8W0-V5Nt31TUZ-8lEBrunlMjuRtp3/s1600/26239942_10102618327727300_5080052443310316395_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="734" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfu2JEnUjfss_PD3OqLqZsylkbHr180ox0-qVYkg0Wh3dhWvi2eK-P0gzqWpi3HtE8ge3g3ryb7DfhAVzzBJvNksnvBGWfAs_q6l1xmF644RIpO1a8W0-V5Nt31TUZ-8lEBrunlMjuRtp3/s640/26239942_10102618327727300_5080052443310316395_n.jpg" width="488" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Thus it was that the boy and the girl were nurtured in their infancy
by the raven, the fox and the owl, and this is how it was done. The
raven went about the woods gathering food, and perched on the
shoulder of the infants, he would drop it into their mouths. Milk he
stole from the goat, who was never clever enough to fathom his
sleights and diversions, and the magpie watched the raven closely at
this activity, and this is how the magpie became a thief. The fox
played with the children, so that they learned the power of their
limbs and the joy of the world, but the fox was a proud creature, and
much was it to his chagrin to be a minder of human children, and this
is why the fox is red. Nevertheless, the fox developed a great
fondness for the boy and girl despite himself, and this is why the
fox approaches the world of humans both with fear and a longing for
kinship. Finally, the owl lulled the children to sleep with the
sonorous echo of his strange twilight calls, and the hypnotic
intensity of his ancient and wise gaze. This is why the eyes of
babies today sometimes assume the wisdom and serenity of all the ages
when they are nodding off, because the owl once sang them to sleep.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So in time the boy and girl grew to be robust little children, and
the raven, the fox and the owl returned to the forest and their
erstwhile ways. The witch took full possession of her stolen charges,
and set them to work on all the menial tasks in the upkeep of the
cottage: milking the goats, tending to the chickens, gathering
firewood and various fauna for her spells, cooking, cleaning, and
otherwise attending to her whims and the assaults of her evil temper.
The witch was thus free to begin her preparations for the abominable
ritual by which she hoped to renew her powers. And those poor
children, from the instant that their minds had gained lucidity, knew
of no other life but that of constant, grinding toil. Of love and
kindness, they had no inkling, save for that which they showed each
other; for long vanished into the mists of memory were their parents
and the warm cottages from which they had been stolen, and gone too,
into the inchoate realm of dreams and half-reflections, went those
days when the raven had fed them, when they had sported with the
giddy fox, and when they had drifted into sleep's warm embrace under
the watchful gaze of the owl.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And so the boy and girl developed the closest bond betwixt
one-another that ever was in all the world; and ever fearful of the
witch's ungovernable temper, they developed a wordless way of
speaking, a whole world of opposition to that world in which they
found themselves, which they conveyed with their eyes and their
expressions alone; and it chanced occasionally, that either the boy
or the girl were about some chore outside the cottage, and they might
see the raven alight upon the tallest branch, or catch for an instant
the fleet and wily fox gambolling between the tree-trucks; or
sometimes at night, when the cottage shook with the witch's baleful,
wheezing snore, the two of them might hear the owl's call echo
through the woods like the world's first riddle, and then their eyes
would share the knowledge, certain though utterly inarticulate, of
something truer and sweeter than that with which they had to contend.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Morning had come to Intermundia while Mark read. The first planes
were beginning their ascents into a sky slowly shedding its twilight
textures and assuming the petroleum haze and electric blue of busy
day. The vast, endless dance of gleaming fuselages was renewing
itself out into the limits of visibility. One again, the litany of
birth and death was translated into this aspirational languge of
speed and motion, this old dream of flight and freedom. New arrivals
were emerging from the terminal with stricken faces, gazing across at
the Intermundia Overnight, and into the impossible sky. Mark closed
the book, and closed his eyes. His mind ranged for a time over the
course of the day he had just experienced, which, in a sense, was the
whole of his existence. Those thoughts were like the last fitful
flickerings of a candle, and they went out in an instant,
surrendering to a sudden exhalation of the air. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
End of Book 1. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> </i></div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-44295258473060349722019-08-22T16:40:00.000-07:002019-09-02T15:43:20.011-07:00A Thousand Feet High: Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019). <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjFeL8PdC_7s9pMJ1bEXUuVwCFP3uNcYgASFd4MWyIicXuwEk17UlbvPdHPhiPIee-2DE4bmjMT2OGaLhuRdYNYDggvFh0yXyZbYb2Cgc5cszYYQXpJ5wdi21-slXEwfprKqNV30YKAkK-/s1600/once1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="840" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjFeL8PdC_7s9pMJ1bEXUuVwCFP3uNcYgASFd4MWyIicXuwEk17UlbvPdHPhiPIee-2DE4bmjMT2OGaLhuRdYNYDggvFh0yXyZbYb2Cgc5cszYYQXpJ5wdi21-slXEwfprKqNV30YKAkK-/s640/once1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> In
</span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Citizen
Kane, </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Charles
Foster Kane famously mutters 'Rosebud' on his deathbed. Only the
audience is given the solution to the mystery: it refers to a sled
which Kane played with as a child, long before he would lose himself in
the Xanadu of personal wealth, power and ego. In later interviews,
Orson Welles often downplayed the significance of </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Kane's
</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">central
riddle, labelling it a cheap gimmick and a bad joke. Gimmick or no,
Rosebud taps into something universal about life: the older you get,
the more the details of your childhood assume a lustrous, irretrievable magic.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> In
his 9</span></span></span><sup><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">th</span></span></span></sup><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
picture </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time...in Hollywood, </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Quentin
Tarantino returns to the era of his childhood, to the year of 1969
when the director would have been 6 years old. It is the end of a
decade, and in a wider sense, the end of the whole period of
bounteous energy, optimism and self-belief which characterised
America in the post-war period. The next decade would usher in
economic slow-down and the political scandals of the Church Committee
and Watergate, and America's image of itself would never be quite the
same again. The texture and appearance of 35mm film in Hollywood
movies changed notably between the two decades. Up until about the
mid-60s, it still had something of the lustre and artifice of the Technicolour era; the movie world looked brighter and prettier than
the everyday one. In the 70s, movies adopted a more muted palette,
with a softer, hazier visual texture, accentuated by natural light
and deepening shadows. Location filming became the norm; the studio
backlot became the street.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh72ykvFM0q4_M5KMUyO-hjddhetbh47AHVdTCzWnllTmd8mRwrgNi73-N_3fk1fMH6nIDYTmuRtPDuEKdmWzUZ6CFchNiuKPXml5npTM2FlrwV3j4F38MS_QLzZf4Q8jdixT3-fbQYjUXA/s1600/once5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh72ykvFM0q4_M5KMUyO-hjddhetbh47AHVdTCzWnllTmd8mRwrgNi73-N_3fk1fMH6nIDYTmuRtPDuEKdmWzUZ6CFchNiuKPXml5npTM2FlrwV3j4F38MS_QLzZf4Q8jdixT3-fbQYjUXA/s320/once5.png" width="319" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> This
loss of innocence, eulogized in </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time, </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">was
a necessary and perhaps inevitable coming to the terms with the dark
forces and contradictions that underpinned the American Dream at its
apogee. Nevertheless, even if the innocence itself was built on
illusionary foundations, there is no denying the considerable beauty
and energy of American culture in its golden age of Pop: the
curvaceous, untethered exuberance of Space Age architecture and
automobiles, dusk and night-time skies tattooed with a giddy,
psychedelic chorus of neon signs, crackling radios tuned to the
hormonal teen symphonies of Phil Spector, the Beach Boys and the Shangri-Las. </span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/W0O6tabbjjk/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W0O6tabbjjk?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">seeks
to bask in the energy and ambience of this era of American pop
culture, right at the point where the clock had finally run out on
it. America had already lost its innocence by '69; after a series of
traumatic assassinations and demonstrations, the country found iself
more bitterly divided than it is even today. The Manson Family
murders, however, became a symbolical culmination of that loss; they
were the harbingers of a bleaker era to come, where optimism gave way
to the cold grip of paranoid uncertainty. Tarantino's movie alters
the facts of history to create an alternative timeline where that
death knell never occurs. Of course, in the real world, had the
Manson murders never happened, an appalling tragedy would have been
averted , but history in general would progress in largely the same
way. In the self-contained fairytale of the movie, however, the
magic LA of Tarantino's childhood persists forever. Rosebud again. </span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> In
this sense, </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">goes
against the grain of historical revisionism as it tends to be
practised in movies today. Most contemporary revisionist movies seek
to undermine the mythic image of a by-gone era by illustrating its
dark undercurrents and contradictions. </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">does
the opposite: it revises the historical facts in order to restore the
mythic image of the period. In many period movies, the period is
merely the setting for the story. In </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time, </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">creating
a meticulously detailed yet ultimately dreamlike simulacra of LA in
the late 60s is the central aesthetic purpose of the movie. </span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> One
the things I loved about the first (better) half of </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Death
Proof </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">was
its unabashed celebration of American popular culture: jukeboxes,
pretty girls, pop records and muscle cars. In </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
Tarantino becomes a fully fledged poet and rhapsodist of Americana in
the tradition of Chuck Berry and Brian Wilson. The movie is infused
with an obsessive, infectious love for the culture and ambience of
its period. Television and radio samples are integral components of
the mise en scène and soundtrack, and of the historical dream state
that the film induces. A remarkable collaboration between director,
cinematographer Robert Richardson and production designer Barbara
Ling, its dream LA feels as boundless as a Grand Theft Auto game.
Sequences where characters drive at night are transportingly
beautiful.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJU6UKUJlxh82c3ZYEi7dufdrXCnvz6d-MpAK1WNVeObu8BCC60cmbryCXXtFhcn4KYD2N9LL-M9fuwlA3PYPyHJdX-k8vpbCrbHV77CvybKobpwC6u6N5lYUuZdd09TaKGtwLwDJvfULe/s1600/once2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJU6UKUJlxh82c3ZYEi7dufdrXCnvz6d-MpAK1WNVeObu8BCC60cmbryCXXtFhcn4KYD2N9LL-M9fuwlA3PYPyHJdX-k8vpbCrbHV77CvybKobpwC6u6N5lYUuZdd09TaKGtwLwDJvfULe/s400/once2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">feels
like a departure for Tarantino, and the emergence of a more mature
vision. With the exception perhaps of the first half of </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Kill
Bill, </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">the
primary focus and energy of his movies has always been with the speech
of his characters. Cinematic technique has tended to be subservient
to the dialogue, and he has often been carried away by the enjoyment
of his own voice. In </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
he has pared back his verbal exuberance, making the dialogue less
showy and more specific to the characters. He has learned the value
of silence, of simply watching characters behaving and being, whether
it be Pitt's serene Cliff Booth climbing the roof to fix a television antennae, or Margot Robbie's Tate surreptitiously enjoying an audience's
enjoyment of her performance in </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
Wrecking Crew. </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">There
are long stretches of </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">which
are the closest the director has come to making an actual </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">drama.
</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">As
an artist, Tarantino seems in no danger of becoming a has-been; but
the melancholy of ageing has brought something of hum-drum reality
into his incorrigibly escapist cinematic world. To my taste, any
rate, it might be his best film.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL2oRJkAX9t6pO88xhqe8rxO1a7tcFqw7XS3nSXiKz0M7AFMmTi0eBYiLnHWScNFb6_L7eUyUX9nWgcROsmmOJkw28ez-5ISTiLaBzmEagVskogcKqFJTR2cHVTbtlI1bHZNY1T4m2n68z/s1600/once4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL2oRJkAX9t6pO88xhqe8rxO1a7tcFqw7XS3nSXiKz0M7AFMmTi0eBYiLnHWScNFb6_L7eUyUX9nWgcROsmmOJkw28ez-5ISTiLaBzmEagVskogcKqFJTR2cHVTbtlI1bHZNY1T4m2n68z/s400/once4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> In
the devastating conclusion of Lynch and Frost's </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Twin
Peaks: The Return, </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Dale
Cooper travels back in time to prevent the TP world's defining
tragedy from occurring. Lynch's vision is extremely dark and tragic:
you can't eradicate the trauma of the past; change one thing, and the
tragedy will simply re-emerge, perhaps in an even worse form,
elsewhere in the karmic ledger. Tarantino has always been a comic
rather than a tragic artist, and in </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time, </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">history
is re-written and redeemed: Sharon Tate survives, and all of the
darkness is expunged from the Manson story. Yet Tarantino maintains
an awareness throughout of the impossibility of this scenario; it is
a fairytale and a magic trick, sustainable only by the illusionary
magic of cinema. Rick Dalton plays cowboy heroes and
(latterly)heavies, but in reality he is a comic, shambolic figure.
The irony is that it is his stuntman, who belongs in the anonymous
class of movie performer whose face or name will never be known by
the public, who embodies the reality which Rick merely plays on the
screen. He is the stoic, indomitable, self-contained archetype of
American cinema, embodied on screen by McQueen, Redford and countless
others. Carrying Rick's load once more, he is the one who saves
everybody from the Mansonoid intruders, leaving Rick to enjoy a
hero's welcome in a Cielo Dr residence unscathed by blood and sorrow. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Postscript: <b>Hippies</b>. Does Tarantino hate hippies? Maybe. Certainly there
are enough gratuitous hippie beatdowns in </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Once
Upon a Time </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">to
make Joe Friday, Vincent Bugliosi and Bigfoot Bjornsen salivate with
joy. Or maybe he's just playing up Rick Dalton's peculiar antipathy
for the hippie for comic effect – either way, it is admittedly </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">hilarious</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">.
</span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Iconic
Hippie Haters: </span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_Twre6ItGEI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Twre6ItGEI?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1PP5faEv5ws/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1PP5faEv5ws?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span>
</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-83574492630562761452019-08-20T08:42:00.000-07:002019-11-28T13:19:16.219-08:00Intermundia Airport (Chapter 7).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBL8XmthoNLktWr3AkS0hXfgoAjD2srXK7gPGHgobJ0ZOgUGA3QRQT70yxHg1kGiKamEP2Zm78s_Waqn_xz3GEJlMLfQqrJXusH_oDkpAWxvKxbpCWn43E80W9DJq8nqf87G4eeo-fZ3oV/s1600/intermundia2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="797" data-original-width="1200" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBL8XmthoNLktWr3AkS0hXfgoAjD2srXK7gPGHgobJ0ZOgUGA3QRQT70yxHg1kGiKamEP2Zm78s_Waqn_xz3GEJlMLfQqrJXusH_oDkpAWxvKxbpCWn43E80W9DJq8nqf87G4eeo-fZ3oV/s640/intermundia2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The foyer of the Overnight, a long, broad corridor that terminated
in a pair of elevators and stairwells, was a medley of faded and
mismatched patterns. The wallpaper featured a hexagonal motif in
pale yellow, white and green; the patterns of the carpet, tan brown
and beige, had been rendered indistinct over time. It conveyed an
atmosphere which was becoming familiar to Mark in Intermundia: a
sense of a past never quite lived in but only dimly and ruefully
recalled; a past that lived in the periphery of childhood memory, and
was glimpsed occasionally in old magazines and paperback books; the sadness of an impoverished,
unsophisticated era whose diminished horizons were embodied in its
dreams of leisure and escape.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The reception, located in the centre of the foyer, was studded with
brown vinyl. To either side of the counter there was postcard rack,
and in the centre a visitor's book and rounded silver service bell.
Behind the counter, a tall middle-aged man stood stock still and a
woman was seated, smoking a cigarette and reading a paperback novel.
Neither showed the slightest awareness of his arrival. Standing at
the far side of the counter, a small, broadly built waiter in a red
blazer grinned at Mark. The couple behind the counter conveyed a
subtle atmosphere of discontent and simmering violence which Mark
found difficult to rationalize, but which was palpable enough to make
him reluctant to approach them. The waiter's body language suggested
a worker standing at a safe distance from a piece of machinery which
experience had taught him to regard as capricious and combustable.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnoxJrkvgUciqyQ9yXGGqDjsWWSDWo48B8woWUZ1MFqpJFqYwKUBHnJzRzJI14eVdVrVYMsGir3GJfuBvxOdK6FI_sOlkGJoFzolvboG50XtHdjKc3-J9NoYajEI-9So4-oZOQipAN-x_u/s1600/butlins3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1227" data-original-width="1224" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnoxJrkvgUciqyQ9yXGGqDjsWWSDWo48B8woWUZ1MFqpJFqYwKUBHnJzRzJI14eVdVrVYMsGir3GJfuBvxOdK6FI_sOlkGJoFzolvboG50XtHdjKc3-J9NoYajEI-9So4-oZOQipAN-x_u/s400/butlins3.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To postpone checking in, Mark examined a display panel on the wall
inside the door. A banner at the top of the panel read HAPPY DAY,
FELLOW FROLICKER! REMEMBERING SHELDRAKE'S SUMMER CAMPS.
Sheldrake's, he gathered, was a chain of seaside holiday resorts
which specialized in cheerful family entertainment on a modest
budget, and its ambience was conveyed in a series of black and white
photographs, fliers and assorted paraphanalia. One large photograph
depicted a phalanx of Sheldrake's staff advancing towards the camera
on a beach. Arms interlinked, they grinned broadly and indulged in
such gambolling and capers as the tight formation allowed. With the
exception of a couple at the centre, each wore the same red blazer as
the waiter, which Mark now noted was emblazed with a heraldic S on
the breast pocket. Looking closely at the image, he noted with a
start the three figures at the counter among the frolickers, to the
left of the central couple. They looked so unabashedly happy – the
man and woman gazing at one another like a newly married couple, the
young waiter participating unselfishly in their joy - that the image
formed a stark contrast to their present incarnation, with its pall
of unspoken resentment and dark, seething energy. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The couple in the centre of the group was an elderly business man in
a top hat and suit – Mark took this to be Sheldrake himself – and
a beautiful, statuesque blonde. Sheldrake was in his sixties, and
everything about him was round and squat. His plump, small face was
tanned and pock-mocked, and beneath a thin grey moustache his teeth
flashed in a rodent-like smirk. The blonde woman wore a sparkling sequinned jacket, tuxedo top and black tights which amply demonstrated
the smooth, supple grace of her legs. Small and indistinct as it
was, Mark became mesmerised by the image of the woman, by the
overweening perfection of her figure, the gleam of her lipstick and
the cold, insuperable distance of her smile. It stirred his first
full recollection of lust in Intermundia, perhaps because the image
appeared irretrievable in time. Another thought occurred as he stared
at the photograph: <i>was there an ocean in Intermundia? </i>With
that thought, he heard the swell and ebb of the sea, the timeless
respiration of the earth, the call of gulls across the sibilance of
wind and water, and the image of the woman became larger in his mind,
frozen still but always on the verge of motion and renewed vitality,
hair poised to dance in the breeze. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Started
from this brief reverie, Mark scanned some of the other images on the
display. In a poster, a disgruntled child sits weeping on his
hunches, head in hand. The unhappy boy is accosted by a group of
merry children and a large </span></span>anthropomorphic white rabbit.
CHEER UP OR CLEAR OUT! the poster says. A photograph depicts a
comedian on stage, a rotund man in a chequered blazer and bow-tie,
curly brylcreemed hair and moustache, an expression both jolly and
set-upon. <i>Teddy Bilk</i>, the photo reads, <i>Something Olde,
Something New, Something Borrowed and Something BLUE! </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Another
photo shows a figure suited up as the Sheldrake Bunny ambling down a
deserted lane between rows of chalets. Behind him, an indistinct
figure peers around the corner of one of the chalets. Alarmingly, it
appears to be a second Sheldrake Bunny, this one pitch black in
colour. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The longer he gazed at the display, Mark found that it produced
unnerving auditory effects which he could only account for as a freak
of his own imaginative suggestibility. Looking at the beach photo,
he heard the ocean. At Teddy Bilk, he heard laughter, clanking of
glasses, a ghostly intimation of Teddy's own voice, almost smelt
perspiration and perfume, sawdust and seaweed, the dulled charge of a
drunken tryst. At the picture of the Sheldrake Bunny, he heard a
terrifying sound like a machine that bore into the synapses and
caused perception to brake into waves of static. It seemed that he,
who could remember nothing of his own life, had a peculiar
susceptibility to fugitive memories that belonged only to objects and
images. He wandered away in the direction of the reception desk. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The scene there had scarcely changed since he entered the Overnight.
The woman had long fair hair, parted in the middle and flecked here
and there with grey strands. She had large blue eyes that seemed
turned inward and focused on her own thoughts, in way that made the
novel almost a prop. Her expression was patient if a little
condescending. Her skin was deeply tanned, and she wore her make-up
in the excessive fashion of an attractive woman over-compensating the
loss of her prime. She wore a light, figure-hugging summer dress
that depicted a peacock fanning its plumage against a dark blue
backdrop. She smoked her cigarette through an opera length holder.
The novel she read was called PHYSICIAN, a purportedly frank
exploration of the life-style of a cynical, ambitious and sexually
voracious young doctor. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The man, whom Mark assumed to be the manager Digsby, maintained his
peculiar pose of nervous immobility. He had wispy, thinning brown
hair combed to the side, tiny brown eyes under a pinched brow,
clean-shaven pale skin and a crookedness about the mouth that
suggested the cumulative effects of depression and cynicism.
Overall, his features evoked a foraging creature peering reluctantly
out of its den in the daylight, starving but fearful of enemies. He
wore a cream white shirt rolled up at the sleeves and a green paisley
cravat. His trousers, a peculiarly dispiriting shade of brown, were
at least a size to large for him at the waist, an exigency he had
countered by crudely extending the perforations on his belt with a
knife.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Digsby's eyes were fixed blankly on Mark, and his mouth frozen in a
toothy and joyless smile. The woman regarded Mark with a warm
expression before returning her attention to PHYSICIAN. The waiter
tilted his head towards the desk, nudging Mark to initiate the exchange.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Excuse me,' he said finally.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Yes?' Digsby barked.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'My name is Mark Smith.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Digsby looked at him quizzically: 'Is it?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'I – I have a reservation, I believe.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Really? Where?'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The woman glared at Digsby: 'Alan!'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, <i>here</i> of course.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Digsby leaned forward, sniffing the air around Mark and glancing
suspiciously in the direction of the revolving door.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Do you have a tart waiting out there for the all-clear? Some
little check-out girl who couldn't keep her knickers up in a home for
the geriatrics?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mark gaped at the peculiarly belligerent hotelier. The woman
attempted to placate him:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'You're very welcome to the Intermundia Overnight. My name is
Janice. Don't mind my husband Alan – he eat something that didn't
agree with him when he was a toddler and hasn't really been himself
since. Probably his mother's milk. Did you just arrive today? You
must be very tired. Would you like us to do you up a nice
ploughman's or a corned beef?'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'We're not doing anybody a nice ploughman's – he's not some kind
of labourer, fresh from the fields and God's honest toil! He's
coming in at all hours, stinking of a brewery! He probably has a
tart out there, waiting for the all-clear.' Janice scowled. 'Alan,
for God's sake, he's a visitor, they never have tarts. They might as
well be monks, for all the interest they have.' She turned to Mark.
'I'll get you your key, love, what was the name again?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Mark Smith.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> Janice
turned to reach for the key but Didsby barred her, and faced Mark
with an expression of </span>unpersuasive <span style="font-style: normal;">regret.
</span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'No checking in after midnight, I'm afraid.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Janice cast her eyes to heaven. 'Not this again.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Where am I supposed to go?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, it's unfortunate, but didn't you see the sign?' He pointed
upward to a sign over the counter that read: <b>STRICTLY NO check-ins
after midnight by ORDER OF MANAGEMENT. </b>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b> </b><span style="font-weight: normal;">Janice addressed the
waiter, who had shrugged and smirked at Mark throughout the exchange.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Freddie, didn't I tell you to take down that stupid sign?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'I did take it down, love, then 'e told me to put it back up. Then
you told me to take it down, then 'e told me to put it back up again.
I'm not gonna be up and down like a bleedin jack in the box because
the left 'and don't know what the right is doing round 'ere. I don't
even like 'eights at the best of times.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Alan, just give him his key. How could he have seen the bloody
sign until he'd already walked in the door? No point showing him the
sign now, he's already here.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'I know he's here! Where else would he be? But we need rules!'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The continued to bicker, their faces edging closer together,
Digsby's eyes becoming pinpricks of febrile hatred. Freddie winked
at Mark. In a sudden motion, dazzlingly brisk and graceful, he leapt
in behind Digbsy and Janice, snatched the key and resumed his
position at Mark's side. 'Let's go', he said, smiling like a clever
cocker spaniel. They walked in the direction of the stairwell.
Looking back, Mark noted that the hotelier and his wife had already
resumed their original stances, she reading her novel and he gazing
into the far distance with his rigid and unhappy grin.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Would you prefer to take the elevator or the stairs, sir?' Freddie
asked.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, which would you recommend?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Normally, sir, I'd recommend the stairs, because the elevator 'as
certain moods and quirks that are best avoided. Only, I've been up
and down the stairs so many times today, I'm afraid I'm likely to get
the bellicose veins, like me old dad. Me old dad used to say “Don't
send me up dem stairs again, love – you won't like me when I'm
bellicose - ”'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, how about the elevator then?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'An excellent choice, me old mucker! I can see that we will be
quite <i>simpatico</i>, as the French say.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As soon as they entered the elevator, and the door shut behind them,
Freddie leaned in close and began to speak to Mark in a low,
conspiratorial tone.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Old Digsby and Janice don't mean badly, sir, but there are a lot of
<i>problems</i> there, if you catch my meaning.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Really?'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Yes sir. I don't think I would be speaking out of turn if I were
to say that their problems, the problems of Old Digsby and Janice,
are of a conjugal, or, how should I put it, a <i>sexual</i>
nature...'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Mark, unsure how to respond at this point, simply nodded.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> 'You see, the problem is that
whenever Janice reaches out to Old Digsby in the bedroom for 'em to
to do his duty, to tune up the old piano, so to speak, he gets his
war anxiety. Poor Digsby gets his war anxiety, and he leaps up and
jumps in under the bed, cowering, sir, as though the bleedin 'un were
about to burst in with their jerry guns blazing! 'E couldn't satisfy
a query in that frame of mind, I can assure you. I feel sorry for
Janice. She's still an attractive women, only just a tip-toe this
side of her prime. And Old Didsby can't get it up without 'earin his
drill sargent blow his whistle!' </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> The
surface facing them was a large, grimy mirror, and those at the sides
were papered with a puzzling heraldic pattern of scowling lions and
griffins. The air was close, and with the exception of a low humming
noise, there was little indication that the elevator was moving at
all. Mark studied Freddie in the mirror. His thick black hair
covered his ears and much of his brow like a helmet. He had small,
well-made features, large brown eyes and brows so perfectly rounded
that they looked like horizontal </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">parentheses.
It was difficult to determine his age as his features were boyish
but his expression appeared perennially divested of all of life's
illusions and vanities. He was the type of person who might either
startle you with a display of sentimental loyalty, or casually lift
the wallet from your mortal remains. A thought occurred to Mark as
he studied him. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6_nkqHpIUGjxhrrBa2LEXuVIiXT2yLfqCtlAEyqa1CrxOIBdLqK9sTOMQVI58nZI-F32z_XSk_qDq70W25h_kTQeo9q5_uMquuEFonA7l9IVoXpftEkqMc_S-HQ_PHR8Skl_98I7eOu6_/s1600/butlins1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="968" data-original-width="962" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6_nkqHpIUGjxhrrBa2LEXuVIiXT2yLfqCtlAEyqa1CrxOIBdLqK9sTOMQVI58nZI-F32z_XSk_qDq70W25h_kTQeo9q5_uMquuEFonA7l9IVoXpftEkqMc_S-HQ_PHR8Skl_98I7eOu6_/s400/butlins1.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span>'Was there a war in Intermundia?'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Was there a war? Only the bleedin Great One.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Was it long ago? Did you serve in it?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Nah, not me, sir, it was before my time. When I was a kid, I used
to listen to the War every Sunday on the radio. It was exciting for
a child, know what I mean? The 'un advancing this way, our boys
advancing that, airplane skirmishes, bombs, secret codes...it all
seems like an adventure when you're a nipper. But one day, I'm glued
to the War on the radio as usual, and me old grandad is sitting at
the table 'aving his bovril and reading the paper, when they start
listing out all the places where last night's bombs fell. All of a
sudden my ears prick up 'cause they say the name of our street, and
the very number of our bleedin building! I gets such a shock I leap
up, put me arms around the old geezer, and say: “Grandad, grandad
we're as dead as bleedin kippers!” And 'e gets a fit of laughing
and coughing as nearly does 'im in, and then he sits me down and
says: “The War ended years ago, you pillock! They just keep
playing it on the radio because it's cheaper than a variety show or a
disc jockey. Keeps people 'appy, too, son, cause people was 'appier
in the War. Gave em something to fink about and do with their time!”
So I didn't see none of the War, only what I heard on the radio.
After the Great War, sir, they 'ad what was called a Cold War, but
that wasn't really a War at all, more like two groups of lads in a
pub, looking across at each other aggro like and whispering amongst
themelves, but never actually striking a single blow. Everybody was
in a tizzy back then about Comrade infiltration. They way they 'ad
it in the news-reels, any bleedin person you meet could be a Comrade
in disguise. So I ordered a COMRADE DETECTOR KIT from the back page
of one of me comics, all excited about 'ow I was gonna smoke out
every single Comi rat on the street. But all it was was this
picture, sir, that showed some irate chap with a beard shaking his
fists, and a magnifying glass and some invisible ink. So that was as
close as I ever came to active duty. And the Cold War ended, sir,
and there ain't been nothing much as 'appened since. The planes come
and go, you people come and go, same thing every bleedin' day. I
sometimes think about what me grandad said that day, about people
being 'appier during the War cause they 'ad something to do with
their time. We was happier, sir, all of us 'ere, back when we was at
Sheldrake's. They were better times.' </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYTPyoBqNPKCeXVxx6Xfpwf70t3i4_Z73F7FVbisnVDzdHPGObzX9p4cijCigN26b14wewS6pFvRneiEQZiUxY0F2feGGSFW7MhZgLiyGDLO2l-sXsfCHngWlCWdonuq7eKrmrRSFZ95VK/s1600/butlins6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1189" data-original-width="1600" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYTPyoBqNPKCeXVxx6Xfpwf70t3i4_Z73F7FVbisnVDzdHPGObzX9p4cijCigN26b14wewS6pFvRneiEQZiUxY0F2feGGSFW7MhZgLiyGDLO2l-sXsfCHngWlCWdonuq7eKrmrRSFZ95VK/s400/butlins6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What happened? Why did you leave?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Freddie's face clouded over, as though trying to retrieve an
indistinct memory.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, I don't know, sir, fings change, I suppose. Sheldrake's
wasn't quite the draw it used to be. I remember we used to have bus loads of families, but towards the end it was only dribs and
drabs. We was trippin' over ourselves with nuffing to do. Then the sightings started, sir.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Sightings?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Sightings of the Black Bunny, sir. The thing was, we 'ad a mascot,
which was a great big jolly white rabbit, what was called, for lack
of imagination more than anything else, the Sheldrake Bunny. It was
old Digsby, if you can believe it, in a bunny suit, which Danny
Crenshaw 'ad made em do out of spite. The look on his face when that
mask came off was priceless – all sweaty, comb-over 'alf way across
the channel, blind, murderous rage in his eyes – and Crenshaw and
Teddy Bilk rolling around laughing! Anyway, people started to see a
kind of sinister twin to the jolly white rabbit lurking around the
chalets and in back of the pavilions. Identical, sir, except pure
pitch black from 'ead to foot, and also jolly, albeit in a weird and
frightening manner. All nonsense, sir, if you ask me, like moving
statues and flying spanners. Power of suggestion – mind playing
tricks on itself.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Anyway, then Sheldrake 'imself disappeared off the face of the
mundia. You see, to be a successful man in this world, you 'ave to
crack a few eggs, know what I mean? And old Sheldrake had cracked
more than his fair share to get where 'e was, and somebody, sir,
didn't like the flavour of the omelette. So Sheldrake was 'oled up
in his bunghole, some right dodgy sorts was sniffing round the
campsite for his blood, half the bleedin' chalets was empty, and
there was more and more sightings of the Black Bunny. And that was
the last summer we 'ad at Sheldrake's. Now, Teddy always says that
Sheldrake will come back one of these fine days, and re-open the
camp, and everything will be just like it was. But I dunno, sir, I
think that's just wishful thinking, if you was to ask me. Just
wishful thinking is all.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> A
lull fell over the conversation, and Freddie's expression became
</span>quiescent<span style="font-weight: normal;">. His eyelids
flickered and his head began to droop downward. Mark became aware
again of the low hum of the elevator, and the feeling of being
completely stationary. Struggling with a peculiar apprehension of
being rude or impolitic, he decided to broach the subject with the
dozing waiter.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Freddie, doesn't it seem to you as though we've been in this
elevator for rather a long time?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, yes, sir, but I did warn you that the elevator has certain
peculiar quirks, didn't I? It works like normal most of the time,
but every so often....well, nobody really understands these elevator
shafts, being entirely honest with you sir. There are certain things
about this entire building, the truth be told, which are very
perplexing. A feeling one gets, from time to time, like a lot of
things went on in this hotel before we all arrived, and left, how
shall I say it, a kind of residue in the place, like the remnants of
an old cup of tea, sir, that won't be scrubbed from the bottom of the
cup.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Freddie's eyes assumed a sober look, and his voice lowered:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Teddy Bilk told me that one morning 'e was getting the elevator
from the top floor. And when the door opened, a figure burst out in
great haste. 'E was all dishevelled and dirty and looked like he'd
been sleeping in a gutter somewhere. Well, Teddy was a little taken
aback, and he makes a beeline into the elevator instead of
confronting 'em. Only, when the door is closing, the dishevelled
chap looks back, and Teddy nearly 'as a bleeding heart attack,
because it's himself that's looking back at him! His identical twin,
if you can believe it. <i>Like looking at myself in a filthy mirror</i>,
Teddy says. Anyway, the door closes, and poor Teddy is in a right
panic – he feels like he's lost every single one of his marbles. A
minute later, the door opens and Teddy steps out into the foyer –
except it ain't the bleeding foyer of the Overnight. It was a hotel,
Teddy says, but not one he'd ever clapped eyes on before in his life.
And there was something <i>different </i><span style="font-style: normal;">about
the whole scene which Teddy couldn't quite put his finger on. Just a
certain </span><i>something </i><span style="font-style: normal;">that
was off about everything – the clothes people was wearing, the
décor of the foyer, the way people was acting.'</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> 'So Teddy is in a right panic at
this point</span><i>, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and 'e
just bolts right out the door of this hotel. And fings only get
worse from there, sir. Outside, 'e finds himself in this most
peculiar place where there ain't a single terminal as far as the eye
can see. And stranger still, not a single airplane to be seen in the
sky – not one! Only a handful of those critters, what do you call
them, what have evolved to imitate the airplanes - '</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Birds?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> 'That's
right, sir, birds. Anyway, it was a really peculiar place, which 'ad
everything you'd find in an airport – shops, restaurants, bars –
only not a single runway or airplane in sight. Like somebody had put
everything in, only forgetting the bleedin </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">m</span></i><i>aison
d'être, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">as the French say.
Teddy was in a right pickle, cause 'e couldn't speak the lingo
either. Then it occurred to him that maybe if he went back and used
the same elevator in the hotel, it might just bring him back to the
Intermundia Overnight. But by that time, sir, he'd rambled quite a
distance from the hotel, and couldn't for the life of him find it
again.'</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> 'So
that was the beginning of a right 'ard time for old Teddy. 'E was
there for weeks, living rough on the streets, sir. It was port city,
he said, with lots of canals. The buildings was made of stone –
tall, narrow buildings, lots of bright colours, looked like they been
all squished together. And it seemed to be a place of pleasure, sir,
if you catch my meaning. The people there was transients, only
passing through to indulge themselves. A little bit like the
Greenbelt, if you credit such tales. Teddy said there was streets
where sumptuous tarts lounged in windows, waving and winking and
showing their all their inducements to the passers by, as openly,
sir, as though they was missionaries out to convert the heathen.'</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'All poor Teddy could think about was his belly. 'E had to live by
his wits – to beg, borrow and steal just to stay alive. And every
day, he wandered the streets of that strange city, looking for the
hotel, still clinging to the 'ope that the elevator might bring him
back to Intermundia. Every so often, he'd hear a familiar sound,
look up, and there it was – a single airplane, streaking across the
sky – and that made him 'omesick. It made him think that maybe
there was some connection between the two worlds – that there must
be a way back.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'In time, he encountered other castaways who'd washed up there just
like himself. One gentleman 'ad stepped into a regular telephone box,
and when he picked up the receiver, he 'eard a fearful cackle on the
other end of the line. Soon as he stepped out again, 'e had been
transported to the city of the gaily coloured stone buildings. One,
sir, 'ad been on a pier in a disreputable seaside resort, and stepped
into a booth which purported to exhibit a certain unnatural act,
ingeniously imitated by automata. He stepped out again and – bang
– 'e was far away from home. They'd all come via different routes
– mysterious booths, elevators, stairwells, dumbwaiters, strange
side-streets and alleyways what weren't normally there – and all of
em was desperately trying to get back to the part of the city where
they'd first arrived, just like Teddy. They drew maps and pictures,
sir, what was like the obessesive scrawlings of madmen, to aid their
memories, and show to passers-by in the 'ope that they might know the
way.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Now this put great fear into poor Teddy's heart, 'cause of some of
them castaways was old enough to 'ave one foot on the other side of
death's door. And there they was everyday, still looking for the way
home, still believing they might find deliverance from the squalid
and dirty lives they lead, when they should long ago 'ave excepted
that life had run its course for them, and they wasn't going anywhere
except the wooden box. Teddy despaired. 'E started to doubt that
Intermundia had ever existed in the first place. The whole idea –
that 'e had a missus, a nice cosy 'ouse, a job serving bitters and
tellin' a few yarns – maybe it was just a fantasy he'd made up to
make life more bearable. Maybe everybody who'd gone the wrong
direction in this life - every tramp lying in a gutter, every villain
rotting in a prison cell, every drunk waking up to the horrors –
maybe they all fashioned a story just like his, and maybe they all
had maps and diagrams, little works of fiction what was designed to
lead them to the point where they'd gone wrong, and through the magic
portal back to the place where they was supposed to be all along.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, sir, strange as it is to tell, it was precisely at that point
– when old Teddy had abandoned all hope of return, and was just on
the verge of resolving to do himself an eradicable mischief – just
at that very moment, 'e turns a corner, and lo and behold, a thrill
of recognition, a presentiment of deja vu: <i>he is in the vicinity
of the hotel!</i> Heart pounding til it feels like it's coming out
his gob, he turns down a side street between a wine-bar and a
florist, passes through a square where dead leaves and old newspapers
gather at the foot of a dry fountain, and onward he goes, every sight
chiming out like a deep, resonant bell through the dormant hall of
his memory, like a man possessed, he finally finds the hotel in a
narrow street where old people sit and watch from the windows of
second story apartments, and small group of stooped children trace an
image in chalk on the pavement. And 'e dashes into the hotel and
makes a beeline for the elevator, with the manager and couple of
burly waiters chasing on his heels. 'E presses the button, jumps
inside, and the door closes just as the irate mob are about to close
in on 'em. Then he presses the button for the top floor, and waits.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Finally, the doors open, and 'e lungs out, nearly colliding with
somebody on the way in. 'E looks back just as the doors are closing,
and realizes, sir, that it was himself he'd nearly banged into. He
'ad arrived back in the Intermundia Overnight, if you can fathom it,
at precisely the same moment that he'd left it in the first place.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After completing his narrative, Freddie fell silent. He glanced at
Mark, and then at his own reflection in the mirrored door.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Do you think it's true?' Mark asked him eventually.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, I don't know, sir. 'E was awful sincere and serious when he
told me, and that's not normally Teddy's way. Mind you, Teddy is the
kind of fellow who can pull your leg and make you think 'e's fixing
your tie. So who knows? But I will tell you one thing. He has
never, under any circumstance, used the elevator since. And he told me,
sir, on another occasion, that he'd brought something back from the
city of the gaily coloured stone buildings. A little trinket which
he had placed in his pocket to assure himself in the years to come
that it 'ad been a real place. But he wouldn't tell me what it was.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A sharp bell rang out, muffled female voices announced the second,
third and top floors in a jumble, and the elevator gave a little
lurch. Mark and Freddie eyed one-another nervously as the doors
began to slide open. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Continued shortly. Images from <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/gallery/seaside-holiday-snaps-bygone-age-10170690">here,</a> <a href="https://colepowered.com/shadows-of-doubt-devblog-9-inspiration-diary/">here,</a> and <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3253483/No-Instagram-good-time-Vintage-pictures-Butlins-holiday-camps-1950s-hark-time-British-breaks-simple-heartwarming-home-grown-fun.html">here</a>. </div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-68870905195417776192019-08-05T15:11:00.000-07:002019-08-06T02:57:14.593-07:00 Every Kind of Dionysian Thrill: Revisiting the Charles Manson Saga. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkNnt2gbsLWUrik7FzOnXjGAemPwxp5Y-AXACbDoPUw59FlslfpjNqGHNcdcaJJ6Csa4cAt1PGE6R9lbsg8L5ymTzdjE-X6arbLDLuUbl_ODj835SdkwTRFK54ZXsQrD3SmUbtUxAvGcX1/s1600/mansonbanner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="1600" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkNnt2gbsLWUrik7FzOnXjGAemPwxp5Y-AXACbDoPUw59FlslfpjNqGHNcdcaJJ6Csa4cAt1PGE6R9lbsg8L5ymTzdjE-X6arbLDLuUbl_ODj835SdkwTRFK54ZXsQrD3SmUbtUxAvGcX1/s640/mansonbanner.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
(Previous writings about Manson <a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2013/01/tomorrow-never-knows-coming-of_17.html">here</a>, <a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2013/01/tomorrow-never-knows-coming-of.html">here</a>, <a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2013/01/tomorrow-never-knows-coming-of_30.html">here</a>,<a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2013/02/tomorrow-never-knows-coming-of.html"> here</a>, and<a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2013/02/tomorrow-never-knows-coming-of_19.html"> here.)</a><br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Many
hippies are socially almost dead inside. Some require massive
emotions to feel any thing at all. They need bizarre, intensive acts
to feel alive – sexual acts, acts of violence, nudity, every kind
of Dionysian thrill.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>The
Hippie Trip</i>, Dr Lewis Yablonsky (cited in <i>Chaos: Charles
Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties</i>, by Tom
O'Neill and Dan Piepenbring.)
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He, the god who appeared among men with his ripe intoxicating drink,
was the same as the frenzied one whose spirit drove the women to
madness in the loneliness of the mountains.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Dionysus: Myth and Cult</i>, by Walter F. Otto.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<ol>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Infinite Rapture and Infinite Terror.</div>
</li>
</ol>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the past, it was always a tiny minority of adventurous
individuals who sought out the undiscovered corners of the world.
Many of them died and many others returned ravaged by extremity and
solitude, never quite themselves again. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> The
great tumult of the 1960s is a cultural phenomenon without any
parallel in modern history, and yet it had innumerable precedents.
Its lineage can be traced back to the Romantics, rebels against
industrial and scientific modernity who dabbled in mind-altering
drugs (Coleridge and de Quincey) and free love cults (Blake). The
decadent/symbolist movements of the </span><i><i>fin de siècle</i></i><span style="font-style: normal;">
pre-empted the 60s with their occult obsessions and proto-psychedelic
flights of intricately weird fantasy, as did the occult revivalists
of the 19</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;">th</span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">
century.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRhuW_XFYHcBFT4hH1pxHwqjX7vdf9ceSmbtoSKlw5Fb4DjTLo4OGvzTWzyTMSzW7lSpP7JjHR-m2OVFqT7XCKsBtAgBkHBOE0kEGoPKWvL6jATVIRRFYz0x3KF5EUDMqP1_UpPcqQCayr/s1600/acid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="460" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRhuW_XFYHcBFT4hH1pxHwqjX7vdf9ceSmbtoSKlw5Fb4DjTLo4OGvzTWzyTMSzW7lSpP7JjHR-m2OVFqT7XCKsBtAgBkHBOE0kEGoPKWvL6jATVIRRFYz0x3KF5EUDMqP1_UpPcqQCayr/s400/acid.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
None of these movements, however, adequately adumbrated the scale
and intensity of cultural and ontological upheaval which was
compressed into the latter half of the 60s. This qantitive and
qualitive difference was facilated by advances in pharmacology and
communication technology. Enovid, the first contraceptive pill, was
approved for use by the FDA on June 23, 1960. Meanwhile, the Swiss
company Sandoz had introduced a new psychoactive chemical called
Delysid to the research market in 1947. It was LSD, of course, and
it had been slowly creeping its way into post-war America via the
unlikely route of Project MKUltra, a top secret CIA mind control
programme which has been shrouded in infamy, mystery and speculative
mythology ever since. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
By the middle of the 60s, telephones, radios and televisions had
collapsed the distance between spaces and people, creating a mass
culture in which social change happened at larger and much more
rapid scales. Either by accident or design (depending on who you
want to believe), LSD seeped into this mass culture, and a great
chunk of the population went in search of the undiscovered corners of
human pyschology and experience. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0OAaSCJZPeIxSW9n722e30RI5uKTTnNx9jCc_WeSsG7Cvio504CPsAjGNYi18suJv6R23tuZLbJi8eAJeqLx60lreE2mANgXbm7JOYvEbv066biGFeZhS67-5YUJL3Px6MMdieYh-X6-F/s1600/mcqueentatepolanski.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="576" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0OAaSCJZPeIxSW9n722e30RI5uKTTnNx9jCc_WeSsG7Cvio504CPsAjGNYi18suJv6R23tuZLbJi8eAJeqLx60lreE2mANgXbm7JOYvEbv066biGFeZhS67-5YUJL3Px6MMdieYh-X6-F/s400/mcqueentatepolanski.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Any adventure in transgression, risk-taking and unfettered
self-exploration carries with it the underlying fear that, like a
policeman, priest or grandiose hangover, some dire consequence looms
on the horizon, waiting to pounce. In the aftermath of the events of
the night of the 8<sup>th</sup> of August, 1969 at 10050 Cielo Drive,
that fear burst out like a thunderclap through the elite enclaves of
the movie and music industries. The mood of biblical panic that
engulfed LA's hippie royalty probably had two primary sources. One
was just a general superstitious sense that all the freaky hedonism
and druggy abandon had gone too far, somehow summoning Manson and his
acolytes like demons to turn the Aquarian pool-sides red with blood.
Another was perhaps more pointed: the full degree to which the Family
had infiltrated the upper echelons of Hollywood babylon remains
shrouded in mystery. Researching the article that would eventually
blossom into <i>Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History
of the Sixties, </i>Tom O'Neill found that virtually none of the
surviving Hollywood heavyweights would speak to him about Manson:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0.6cm; margin-right: 0.6cm; page-break-before: auto;">
I'd been in touch with Diane Ladd's manager, having heard that Ladd,
who'd been married to Bruce Dern at the time of the murders, ran in
some of the same circles as Tate and Polanksi. Her manager promised
to set up the interview. The next day she called back, saying that
Ladd had had an “emotionally visceral reaction.” The manager
said, “I don't know what happened with Diane back in the sixties,
but she adamantly refused to have anything to do with the piece. She
even told me that if her name was in it, she was going to contact her
attorney.” (<i>Chaos</i>.)</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0.6cm; margin-right: 0.6cm; page-break-before: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For conservatives, the horrors of Cielo Drive have alway been
codified as an inevitable outgrowth of the 60s counter-culture. This
was never entirely convincing: although the saga of the Family could
not have occured at any other time, Manson himself was a product of
the US penal system and a dysfunctional upbringing in the 30s and
40s. Nevertheless, it may not be entirely wrong to suggest a certain
inevitability in the fact that some very dark things slipped through
the many doors thrown open in the latter years of the 60s. The term
“Dionysian” has been applied so frequently to the decade of the
60s (and the subject of rock music in general) as to border on
meaningless cliche. Yet the evocation remains apt, and as we shall
see, often unnervingly so in relation to Manson and his followers. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dionysus is the most fascinating and puzzling of the Greek gods.
His nature is characterised by insoluble paradox and contradiction.
He is, on the one hand, the great liberator who awakens all the
repressed energies and creative potentialities of the community which
has fallen into the cowardice of habit and convention, the stasis of
excessive order and control. As such, he is also the conduit of all
untrammelled physical joy in being, all ecstatic transport and
epiphany. Yet the doors opened by the Dionysian revel are primordial
and ungovernable: through them comes all the grandeur of life, but
also all its madness and horror. In <i>Dionysus: Myth and Cult,
</i>Walter F. Otto evokes the apocalyptic upheaval engendered by the
outsider “God who Comes”:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0.6cm; margin-right: 0.6cm;">
The world man knows, the world in which he has settled himself so
securely and snugly – that world is no more. The turbulance which
accompanied the arrival of Dionysus has swept it away. Everything
has been transformed. But it has not been transformed into a
charming fairy story or into an ingenuous child's paradise. The
primeval world has stepped into the foreground, the depths of reality
have been opened, the elemental forms of everything that is creative,
everything that is destructive, have arisen, bringing with them
infinite rapture and infinite terror. The innocent picture of a
well-ordered routine world has been shattered by their coming, and
they bring with them no illusions or fantasies but truth – a truth
that brings on madness. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0.6cm; margin-right: 0.6cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The ambiguous character of Dionysus is echoed in the drug which fuelled the heightened and fraying ambience of the late 60s. The LSD
experience engendered total transformations of reality whose only
predictable quality was their intensity: enchanted paradises and
looping corridors of madness and dissociation formed a new mental
topography which seemed to have emerged overnight around the familiar
social mores of the pre-Space Age world:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0.6cm; margin-right: 0.6cm;">
In the myth and in the experience of those who have been affected by
this event, the appearance of Dionysus brings with it nourishing
intoxicating waters that bubble up from the earth. Rocks split open,
and streams of water gush forth. Everything that has been locked up
is released. The alien and the hostile unite in miraculous harmony.
Age-old laws have suddenly lost their power, and even the dimensions
of time and space are no longer valid.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0.6cm; margin-right: 0.6cm;">
(<i>Dionysus: Myth and Cult.)</i>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The utopian glow of the 60s had already passed its high-water mark
by the beginning of '69. Emerging from their secluded revels in the
desert, Manson and his frenzied maenads embodied with an eerie
perfection the dark side of the Dionysian myth.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
2. Murder and Obsession: The Ecstatic Elusiveness of Truth. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVX7GicT09Ql6uPacNV8geBhtPPIEGpEERLkMkAeGnkzsf9Lc8CbuS31iLaPyMWwFL-UeC08G982blHO1Znu6FPDazZLA2gEH7UkSZz3oqacK6D-j2Nco0uF2E97VUqFfzktPr_p87q8Em/s1600/zodiac1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="1511" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVX7GicT09Ql6uPacNV8geBhtPPIEGpEERLkMkAeGnkzsf9Lc8CbuS31iLaPyMWwFL-UeC08G982blHO1Znu6FPDazZLA2gEH7UkSZz3oqacK6D-j2Nco0uF2E97VUqFfzktPr_p87q8Em/s640/zodiac1.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>“One’s
file, you know, is never quite complete, a case is never really
closed, even after a century, when all of the participants are dead.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>The
Third Man</i>, Graham Greene, cited in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/movies/charles-manson-family-hollywood-tarantino.html?fbclid=IwAR0xe9qgKxsh9-LBStaVbN5aNHoZZVNozxfmpisxwy10rksHeJVA3O74Yz4#commentsContainer"><i>Why Popular Culture Still Can't Get Enough of Charles Manson</i></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">,</a> by Ed Sanders.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">
David Fincher's best movie </span><i>Zodiac </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2007)
deals with how unsolved murder can become an all-encompassing
obsession. The movie traces an obsession with solving the Zodiac
murders as it plays itself out through three separate characters:
journalist Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.), detective Dave Toschi
(Mark Ruffalo) and cartoonist and later true crime author Robert
Graysmith (</span>Jake Gyllenhaal). Crime holds a peculiar obsessive
power over the imagination. As much as it has been derided as
exploitative trash, the true crime genre has probably never been as
vital.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What
accounts for the enduring popularity of sifting through the often
labyrinthine minutiae of traumatic and appalling events from the
past? Morbidity only accounts for a part of the phenomenon. There
is a perennial appeal to the mind of attempting to solve dense,
seemingly intractable problems. Mystery captures the mind with an
almost erotic ardour, an obsessive passion which is at its height when
in a state of irresolution, where the apparent proximity of the
solution and the ultimate, ecstatic elusiveness of finality and
resolution are equidistant to one another. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This
perhaps accounts for the appeal of the cold case. Sufficiently
distant in the past, an old case can rarely be definitively solved –
but that those not deter us from chasing after some kind of ambiguous
resolution, or provisional certainty that the truth can yet be
wrestled from the hazy fog of time's passage. The past, like the
truth, plays a game with our obsessive imaginations, appearing one
moment within our reach, and the next utterly irretrievable. The
investigation of a cold case, whether in fiction or true crime,
dramatizes our peculiar relationship with the past. It is at once
divorced from the present by cleavage greater than that of the
farthest star in the sky, and yet innumerable threads and links
remain: a detail in a file nobody noticed before, a witness nobody
thought to interview, a memory, a physical trace etched into a wall
somewhere – something to restore the past by decoding its
unfinished business. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZMfULOsSyuxO4JUPs76ABX1w6W3z05vMC8SLXggkuY-s653D21nWkSOV7r9_gl57wLyFVpLTxLAU7GH-lTlXEiPjyjarjfSEbrlLnlKgaBm8uBcYOqJGCPF_rWDeX2_ZFFpFtGE_sPb56/s1600/mansonoid6.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="394" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZMfULOsSyuxO4JUPs76ABX1w6W3z05vMC8SLXggkuY-s653D21nWkSOV7r9_gl57wLyFVpLTxLAU7GH-lTlXEiPjyjarjfSEbrlLnlKgaBm8uBcYOqJGCPF_rWDeX2_ZFFpFtGE_sPb56/s400/mansonoid6.webp" width="340" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Of all
the twentieth century crimes that have taken hold of excitable and
obsessive imaginations, none have enjoyed the same pre-eminence as
those which bookend the 60s: the assassination of Kennedy in '63, and
the Manson Family murders of August '69. Both had the air of ominous
ritual: in the first the slaying of a virile (or, in less flattering
language, priapic) chieftan, and in the latter the slaugther of a
beautiful and pregnant young woman. In the insuing years, America
had careened into a giddy, creative, apocalyptically violent tumult,
and latterly walked on the moon, having in the meantime engaged in so
much labyrinthine conspiratorial sorcery that a not inconsiderable
section of the population would never believe that it really
happened. The lasting legacy of the 60s, of brains rewired by drugs,
technology and subliminal state coercion, was that nothing would
ever be how it seemed any more.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The
Kennedy and Manson murders take their researchers into a strange,
often scarcely credible world which is more like fiction than reality
– more outre than fiction itself, in fact. This is because they
occur not in the everyday world, but in worlds characterised by
different types of <i>power</i>. To attempt to unravel Kennedy's
murder, one enters the complex, compartmentalized and occult (in the
sense of “hidden”, and maybe some others) machinations of the
national security state, a largely unseen world where real power is
exercised through the merging of corporate, military, intelligence
and organized crime networks. The Manson saga takes us into a
different kind of power – the great power over the imagination exercised by movies and popular music, and by the sybaritic
lifestyles of the icons and celebrities who make them – and finally
to the power exercised by Manson himself, the power of the mesmerist,
the hypnotist and cult leader, the psychopath who we despise, but
from whom we cannot withhold our enduring fascination. These are
worlds buzzing, almost mystically, with coincidences, connections and
secrets.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
3. A
Story that has Never Been Told in Its Entirety. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0DKAuKj7EUJhXP33TNxMt3ovsKtHzHerO8IMnlxy_rEflZrZMDzDl5zTnwWFwsx5m-tHeIh5dz-y_N4RVzQuhsbn4M0i1VWvCRwQ_-famzDPzz0X-BTn_cSKOE8tTLNHvEEAVK6qvqsNg/s1600/story.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="992" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0DKAuKj7EUJhXP33TNxMt3ovsKtHzHerO8IMnlxy_rEflZrZMDzDl5zTnwWFwsx5m-tHeIh5dz-y_N4RVzQuhsbn4M0i1VWvCRwQ_-famzDPzz0X-BTn_cSKOE8tTLNHvEEAVK6qvqsNg/s640/story.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading"></a>
The Manson Family murders are solved, insofar as nobody really
debates who actually did the killing. Yet there has always been a
sense that the Manson saga is a story that has never been told in its
entirety. Going all the way back to Ed Sanders' <i>The Family </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(the
first book on the subject published in 1971), dark rumours and
conspiranoid theories have always swirled around the core story.
Sanders discussed persistent tales of decadence having run amok in
the house on Cielo Drive prior to the grizzly events of August 8/9,
and his book positions the Family within a wider matrix of satanic
biker gangs, organized crime both petty and more professionally
ambitious, and a burgeoning sub-culture of gnostic mind control
control cults (including Scientology and the Process Church of the
Final Judgement) that makes Panos Cosmatos' movie </span><i>Mandy
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">feel like the Barry Manilow
track of the same name. Pioneering conspiracy maven <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=32&v=fdjk9e1H_to">Mae Brussell</a>
argued that the killings were a false flag operation against the
counter-culture, and posited Manson as a </span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">COINTELPRO
patsy. (Whatever the ultimate validy of this theory, her research
did highlight a persistent, baffling and disturbing leniency shown to
Manson and his followers by law enforcement authorities.)</span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjICnwVVznglLZCWE4HV-1oXyNy9m8XgfbqPM8lqmNc2hmmi3KkVsMsyXXcauuQg8Wjpu5Vf1A2JP99k5TjhqkwgcdJpsGzD-aNPsIFWfPthDQakjWpJWu6-yXSlvTUJ-Cua1yH2l36P1sc/s1600/bug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="786" data-original-width="1200" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjICnwVVznglLZCWE4HV-1oXyNy9m8XgfbqPM8lqmNc2hmmi3KkVsMsyXXcauuQg8Wjpu5Vf1A2JP99k5TjhqkwgcdJpsGzD-aNPsIFWfPthDQakjWpJWu6-yXSlvTUJ-Cua1yH2l36P1sc/s400/bug.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> In
1974, however, vainglorious DA Vincent Bugliosi published his account
of the trial in </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Helter Skelter, </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
this book enshrined forever the official Manson narrative, with its
</span></span><span lang="en"><i>White Album</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
inspired race war apocalypse as the scarcely credible, but rarely
thereafter questioned, motive for the brutal killings. Sanders' book
was dismissed as poorly sourced sensationalism, and the weirder
backwaters of the case were largely relegated to underground works
like Peter Levanda's epic melange of true crime, occult history and
conspiranoia </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Sinister Forces</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> What
is striking about Tom O'Neill's book </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Chaos
</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">(released fortuitously on the eve of Tarantino's </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Once
Upon a Time in Hollywood</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">)
is that it is, to the best of my knowledge, the first mainstream book
to really wade into the dark, long repressed undercurrents of the
Manson story. This was by no means O'Neill's intention. The whole
thing began – it's hard to avoid the movie-like structure of the
book – as a routine freelance assignment for </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Premier</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
magazine, a Manson anniversary piece with a Hollywood angle.
Stonewalled by the luminaries, however, O'Neill found himself
drifting slowly into the obsessive realm charted out in Fincher's
</span></span><span lang="en"><i>Zodiac. </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">At
an early point in his investigations, the recently departed
activist/journalist Paul Krassner warned O'Neill “This will take
over your life if you let it.” So it came to pass: the </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Premier</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
piece, its deadline endlessly deferred, became a 20 year obsession. </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> There
may not be much in </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Chaos</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
which is completely new to seasoned Mansonoids, but O'Neill has done
a heroic amount of investigative legwork, and in many cases provided
substantiation for much that has previously hovered in the ambiguous
realm of rumour and innuendo. </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Chaos</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
relentlessly exposes the Manson Family prosecution as riddled with so
many improprieties and irregularities that it could have been struck
out of court many times over. He mounts a very convincing assault on
the legitimacy of the putative Helter Skelter motive, pointing out
that Bugliosi stated on two separate occasions that he didn't think
Manson himself believed in the coming race war/underground getaway
mythos; this is an extremely telling admission, because if Manson
didn't believe in Helter Skelter, </span></span><span lang="en"><i>and
</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">ordered
the killings, then the race war angle </span></span><span lang="en"><i>couldn't</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
have been the actual motive, only at best what Watson, Atkins and the
other Mansonoids had been told it was. </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> O'Neill
then makes the case, based on circumstantial but undeniably suggestive
evidence, that Manson might have been an asset of some or other of
the deeply immoral underground programs the US government had become
embroiled in in the 60s (COINTELPRO, MKUltra, etc.) This is by no
means implausible. As a COINTELPRO asset, Manson would have been
win-win, in the sense that his activities would both inflame tensions
with black militant groups like the Panthers and present the 60s
counter-culture in general in the most negative light possible. In
relation to MKUltra, many have observed that Manson's activities
dovetailed precisely with those of the shadowy program, ie the use of hallucinogenic drugs and ritualized psychotherapies and sexuality to
create re-programmed and obedient subjects. </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> To
make the case for MKUltra involvement, O'Neill focuses on Manson's
period in Haight-Ashbury, during which the life-long prison inmate
very rapidly adopted the newfangled role of acid guru, and
particularly on the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic (HAFMC).
O'Neill isolates no less than three figures associated with the
Clinic who had academic/experimental interests which eerily prefigure
Manson's activities with the Family. Federal officer Roger Smith had
studied how drug use precipitates violent behaviour among gangs,
often using immersive, observer-participant methods to gather data.
Meanwhile, David E Smith, the founder of the HAFMC, had also been
studying the link between drug use and violent behaviour in groups,
this time amongst rodent populations. The first of the two, Roger,
was Manson's parole officer, and his relationship with his charge was unorthodox, to say the very least, and characterised by the kind of
bizarre leniency which would reoccur in various departments
throughout the ensuing saga. </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjen6YZdnWG4n_dBGecTEIc_cQnCdz6efvgR6-JbS_yNyGZ-yVz4sJgKAPDkwSQTTTEduJ-gv6SHGd9VPdHaifRFT0SQIP8cErb-PnmeexqKzD_Q8EZii4Ejr5sZ5xggQM2OlJ0cllH_YyO/s1600/wakeathon.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjen6YZdnWG4n_dBGecTEIc_cQnCdz6efvgR6-JbS_yNyGZ-yVz4sJgKAPDkwSQTTTEduJ-gv6SHGd9VPdHaifRFT0SQIP8cErb-PnmeexqKzD_Q8EZii4Ejr5sZ5xggQM2OlJ0cllH_YyO/s400/wakeathon.webp" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading1"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading2"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="firstHeading3"></a>
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Another occasional
visitor to the HAFMC was Louis Jolyon “Jolly” West, a
</span></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">psychiatrist
and life-long friend of Charlton Heston who once accidentally killed an
elephant by injecting it with LSD and antipsychotics. “Jolly”
West was also one of the many medical practitioners sub-contracted
under the MKUltra program, and O'Neill discovered his direct
correspondence with its leader Sidney Gottlieb, known in his lifetime
as the Black Sorcerer and the Dirty Trickster. West is one of those
figures who constantly shows up in peculiar places. In 1959, he persuaded DJ Peter Tripp to stage the notorious </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">wakeathon</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
in which the radio personality broadcasted his show from a glass
booth in Times Square for 200 hours straight without sleep. In 1964,
West privately examined Jack Ruby, declaring him to be “obviously
psychotic.” (Incidentally, Ruby claimed to have been taking
Preludin at the time of killing Oswald. Preludin was marketed as an
appetite suppressant, but it was in fact an amphetamine substitute
which the Beatles had taken during their Hamburg days, bringing us
back to the subject of amphetamines and violence.) In West we find a
link – however tenuous – between the MKUltra program, the JFK
assassination, and the decaying Haight-Ashbury hippie milieu that
Charles Manson moved in in '68, demonstrating once again the strange
dark tapestry and nexus of coincidence underlying America's cultural
and political tumults of the 60s. </span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Whether
or not Manson was an informant, asset or unwitting guinea pig of some government program, one persistent and plausible theory of the
Tate-LaBianca murders places them in the more banal realm of dope
dealing and petty crime gone awry. The theory posits the murders as
the end-product of a sequence of messy, confused episodes which began
with Manson shooting (and thinking he had killed) drug dealer Bernard
Crowe, and basically having less to do with mind control sorcery, and
more to do with small time crime spiralling out of control owing to
its participants being thoroughly pickled by isolation and excessive
psychedelic drug use. (Read this <a href="https://time.com/5633973/last-manson-interview/">interview</a> with James Buddy Day for
a succinct breakdown of this theory.) This is certainly one way of
interpreting the Manson saga – that because of Manson's peculiar
charisma, because he had been swept along in the collapsing historical
wave of the 60s, because the Cielo Drive victims had been beautiful,
famous and well-connected, an otherwise squalid and banal sequence of
events became seared forever into our historical subconscious.
Bugliosi aided this process by covering up the extent to which
Hollywood elites had become embroiled in this small time criminal
world, and by crafting the narrative of a master manipulator which
put the final nail in the coffin of the revolutionary 60s.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Nevertheless,
the Manson story continues to fascinate, because we still have a
sense that crucial parts of it remain elusive and deliberately hidden
from view. The pointed silence of Hollywood's hip set (in his 1993
autobiography </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">What's
It All About</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
Michael Caine describes encountering a “scruffy little man” - you
know who – at a party also attended by Jay Sebring and Sharon
Tate), the extraordinary, recurring leniency shown to both Manson and
Susan Akins by the authorities (both should have been busted back
inside many times over before the killings), the eerie dovetailing
of David E Smith and “Jolly” West's research interests with the
emerging dynamics of the Manson Family cult – all of these things
point to a definite, dark </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">something
</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">that
remains elusive about the case. </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Chaos
</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">manages
to weave a compulsively readable narrative out of O'Neill's dense,
diligent, Ahab-like quest</span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">to
finally bring that </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">something</span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
into the light of day. In the end, the book is perhaps inevitably
anti-climatic – after all the obsessive excitement, the smoking gun
remains elusive, O'Neill refuses to enter the realm of speculation,
and the reader is left, like Oedipa Mass at the end of Thomas
Pynchon's prescient conspiranoid classic </span></span></span><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
Crying of Lot 49, </span></i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">on
the threshold of a revelation. O'Neill's investigation ends, more by
virtue of time and necessity than anything else, its threads still
multiplying, and and the Manson case returns to the indecisiveness of
history, to the realm of ambiguity and myth, and the fiction of the
Tarantino film. </span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Continued shortly.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4ytX3IaFHGk/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4ytX3IaFHGk?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span>
</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-82859261722292297422019-06-03T12:40:00.002-07:002019-06-03T16:28:11.818-07:00Intermundia Airport (Chapter 6).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEVn1GibUc30SREYjM3KJt8C314Txw51R66W14nmsVOybhokfFu8GttCjhRw51EbYEcJSGQAyMYhPjXdK8iUiMTR4RHcReRrgE84wMReo4obIWuMQ_QbXnO5QrfvgTnTQYxGtJws5VM4e/s1600/9e06c7312df56797dc2957394a0c0e21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="803" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEVn1GibUc30SREYjM3KJt8C314Txw51R66W14nmsVOybhokfFu8GttCjhRw51EbYEcJSGQAyMYhPjXdK8iUiMTR4RHcReRrgE84wMReo4obIWuMQ_QbXnO5QrfvgTnTQYxGtJws5VM4e/s640/9e06c7312df56797dc2957394a0c0e21.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2017/02/intermundia-airport-chapter-1.html">Chapter 1</a> , <a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2017/03/intermundia-airport-chapter-2.html">Chapter 2</a> , <a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2017/06/intermundia-airport-chapter-3.html">Chapter 3</a> ,<a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2018/04/intermundia-airport-chapter-4.html"> Chapter 4</a> , <a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2018/05/intermundia-airport-chapter-5.html">Chapter 5</a><br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Renton placed a leaflet in Mark's hand. 'This should give you the
gist, if you want to consult it tomorrow,' he said, a tinge of
impatience touching the edges of his smile. The leaflet was headed:
“<b>DON'T PANIC – ENJOY THE INTERIM!</b>” It depicted the
typical experience of a New Arrival in a series of tersely captioned
illustrations. The style of the artwork was crudely functional,
suggesting airplane emergency instructions or a road safety pamphlet
for children. The first image showed the Arrival, a nondescript Caucasian with fair hair and innocuous features, seated in the
terminal with a stricken expression:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>ARRIVAL IN INTERMUNDIA CAN BE DISORIENTATING AND EVEN UNPLEASANT
– CHIN UP, HELP IS ON THE WAY! </b>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b> </b><span style="font-weight: normal;">Now the Arrival, more
relaxed, is lead through a busy underground train station by a
comedic duo of mismatched security guards. The Arrival, in the
centre, laughs while the guards bicker and scowl at one another:</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><b>YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE MAD
TO WORK IN INTERMUNDIA SECURITY – BUT IT HELPS!</b><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the next image, apparently a non-sequitur, the Arrival has joined
forces with a group of plucky young adults and a dog to foil some
kind of criminal scheme, mastermined by a villian who wears purple
robes and a turban with a Uraeus. The gang laugh while the
humiliated villian is lead away by the temporarily non-bumbling
security guards:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><b>MANY ADVENTURES TO BE
ENJOYED ON ROUTE TO CENTRAL COMMAND!</b></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b> </b><span style="font-weight: normal;">The Arrival is next seated
in genial conversation with his Case Officer. The figure of Marlene
is represented by a coarse caricature: her breasts spill out over
her top, and swimming eyes suggest an alcoholic stupor. An
anatomist's skeleton hangs in the far corner of the office: </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><b>NOW ALL YOUR QUESTIONS
ARE ANSWERED, IT'S TIME TO RELAX – JUST THINK OF THE INTERIM AS A
HOLIDAY WHERE YOU NEVER LEAVE THE AIRPORT!</b><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The next image is the most expansive in the narrative, and depicts
the Arrival remembering his last incarnation. His is seated,
assumably in the restaurant of the Intermundia Overnight, flanked by
a waiter with his head respectfully bowed. The Arrival's hands,
palms upturned, lie at either side of the plate. His eyes look
aloft, and the open-mouthed, awestruck expression evinces an air of
profound epiphany which is peculiarly haunting in the context of the
leaflet's drab colours and perfunctionary draughtsmanship. The
scenes of his life appear in the form of compressed cliches in a
series of smaller bubbles that surround this image. Beaming parents
cradle a new-born infant; scenes of a flawlessly happy childhood; the
line of trees that mark the edge of the lawn, beyond which a vast
world and an endless surfeit of time looms like an extension of the
womb; in the afternoon, children's voices soar up from a near-by
school, and in the evening the sun sets over hilly meadows and
haunted trees; games and high jinks on a muddy field, tears and a
grazed knee in a concrete schoolyard; adolescence: a group of boys in
an alleyway watch a group of girls walk by, the girls' heads high and
aloof, the boy's eyes imploring their receding forms like winsome
dogs begging for scraps; college: parents, proud and bittersweet,
wave to the young man seated in a train carriage, embarking on the
adventure of adulthood; first love, disappointments, challenges;
marriage, children, money, time speeding up and space narrowing; now
the man sees his own children off to college; aging, struggling with
an addiction, hospitals, test results; the autumn of life: a return
to the hilly meadows and haunted trees, children's voices rising up
from a near-by school, memories and dreams stirring strange echoes,
realer than the fading days that surround them; death: his body laid
to rest, frail wife and grown-up children by his side; in the final
bubble, he has re-awoken in the Intermundia terminal, stark fear and
disorientation, forgetfulness once again. These images wheel around
the scene in the Intermundia Overnight, the awestruck Arrival and the
solemn waiter who is perhaps merely solicitous of a tip:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>NOW, HAVING REMEMBERED ALL THE BITTERSWEET GRANDEUR OF LIFE –
IT'S TIME TO BOOK YOUR FLIGHT AND BECOME A NEW YOU!</b></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b> </b>The final panel is a double image: the Arrival and his Case
Officer embrace in the terminal; an airplane ascends into the blue
sky:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>YOUR PLANE HAS SET ITS COURSE FOR THE OVUM – A NEW LIFE AND A
NEW ADVENTURE BEGINS! </b>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, thanks, that's a great help', Mark said sourly, stuffing the
leaflet into his pocket alongside his passport. Marlene turned
briskly from her typewriter, her upper lip curving into an
inquisitive pout. Then she lit another cigarette and resumed the
trance of her work. Renton gave a final kindly nod, and the door
between them closed. Back in the stairwell, the outside world
reasserted itself. The boisterous clatter of the bantering guards
had risen to a steady hum, beneath which the fountains maintained
their placid and timeless falling and refilling. He went gingerly
down the stairs, grinning broadly. After all the stresses of the
day, the release of the alcohol had turned his mood to that of a
carefree, childlike stupor. A woman appeared, mounting the stairs at
a reluctant pace. Her body was immobile, like a sack that she lifted
from step to step, with the only sign of vitality a spasmodic
twitching of her facial muscles. Unable to look her in the eyes,
Mark patted her gently on the shoulder as he passed. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8U1g1yQS_WKTbxFacdn7VaKM5VKcowTf1x5s4JI1pvh_XYPNmNBYzlNfVzBecCMn8ZGPHohdT6ra_6uyA0zmIxxfCxjY__PEItlQBsz9r7gxLHZuh7r15nFsXcafuwfJPL1sB4lpLmtKy/s1600/unknown2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8U1g1yQS_WKTbxFacdn7VaKM5VKcowTf1x5s4JI1pvh_XYPNmNBYzlNfVzBecCMn8ZGPHohdT6ra_6uyA0zmIxxfCxjY__PEItlQBsz9r7gxLHZuh7r15nFsXcafuwfJPL1sB4lpLmtKy/s400/unknown2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Outside on the concourse, the night sky had grown pitch black, and
the primary illumination of the street came from the slowly
diminishing droves of airplanes that passed overhead. Unruly stars,
they painted the fountains and revellers in an undulating flow of
flashing oranges and reds that made the world feel unstable and
intoxicated. The strange and indolent loafers remained seated at the
terraces. They were now drinking coffees and liqueurs. They watched
the scene from the disaffected vantage of some immeasurable distance,
and their manners had become so dilatory as to suggest that they were
images projected from an entirely separate time-stream. Mark
wandered into the crowd, looking for Eddie and Giacomo. He went from
fountain to fountain for what seemed like an age. The faces of the
security guards were terrifying in their explosive gaiety, and he
experienced an unexpectedly poignant longing to see his old
companions, to find again those faces which alone had become familiar
to him in this strange landscape.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Finally, the duo accosted him. In their tipsiness, Eddie and
Giacomo were utterly transformed, to the point that they appeared to
have exchanged personalities. Eddie was now the more overbearing and
assertive of the two, speaking with a brusque, booming voice.
Giacomo, in contrast, had lost all his surly and arrogant demeanour.
He smiled placidly, and seemed to follow Eddie like a shy, happy
child.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie put two bottles of beer in Mark's pockets. 'We better get a
move on,' he said, 'we have to get you to the Overnight.' So the
they started the journey back the way they had came, swigging from a
bottle as they careened into the dark and chilly woodland, among the
last stragglers of the day's Arrivals. The journey back was infused
with a new kind of strangeness, for Mark observed the terrain in a
piecemeal and impressionistic character, from the elevated and
temporary vantage of alcoholic sagehood. Stripped of its frightening
and bewildering intensity, Intermundia presented itself as a series
of ineffable dream paintings, a nighttime gallery where all the walls
and frames had vanished, leaving the artworks to press together into
an indivisible sequence of wonders and oddities.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
At the newsagents, the journalists were emerging from their hammocks,
wiping their eyelids and yawning, preparing themselves for another
night of wakefulness in which they would wander about, gathering
their trove of fugitive images and impressions to scatter in an
altered guise in the news headlines of the next day. The homes of
the technocrats were now illuminated by soft, warm lamps and dancing
gas fires that gave the surrounding trees a reddish glow. Some of
the technocrats reclined in studies, drinking wine from goblets and
turning the pages of books while their eyes scanned the far distance.
Couples were seated in living rooms, and Mark felt as though they
spoke to one-another, but their lips didn't move, and the impression
of conversation was conveyed by the intensity of their eye-contact.
Others had retired to the up-stairs bedrooms and were sleeping.
Above the their beds, flatscreen TV panels played hypnotic sequences
of intricate and iridescent gemetric patterns that ebbed and flowed
into one-another in slow, musical rhythms. Their colours were unlike
any that Mark could associate with any earthly thing, and the casual
ingenuity and complexity of their evanescent designs beggared belief.
'Those are the dreams of the Technocrats,' Eddie whispered, 'what
strange minds they must have.' 'I had a dream like that once, '
Giacomo said, and Eddie flashed him a quick, troubled look.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As they went deeper into the woods, all the planes had ceased their
courses, and the sky was starless and moonless. 'How do you know the
way?' Mark asked Eddie. 'I've done it so many times, it's like the
back of my hand,' Eddie replied, before colliding with a tree. The
still, blank deep darkness of the sky troubled Mark. He realized for
the first time how accustomed he'd grown the distant roaring of the
airplane engines. 'Here we are, ' Eddie announced, and he crouched
down and began to lift the steel covering of the manhole. He
motioned Giacomo to be go first, and then it was Mark's turn.
Finally the three of them were scurrying down the pitch darkness of
the shaft with miraculous alacrity. Back in the strange abandoned
work-station, their mood became pensive and subdued. Eddie spoke in
a whisper: 'Sometimes I think I can figure everything out – that
this world is something I can understand. I get very caught up in
that feeling for awhile – the feeling like there is a story
underlying all these places, a <i>pattern </i>that I can trace out.
But every time the excitement eventually fizzles out, and I go back
to thinking about what I'm going to have for dinner when I get home.
I often wonder what this place was. It seems like everybody left all
of a sudden, in a terrible hurry.'<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo, regarding Eddie intensely , replied: 'I grew up a long way
away from here. When I was younger, I hated the airport, and I
wanted to get away from it. So one night in the bar I was drinking
by myself, and I heard these two old pilots talking about the
Greenbelt. My ears pricked up, and it was like a hidden world had
finally been revealed to me. So after that, I was always listening,
always looking for scraps of information about the Greenbelt. And it
was like a secret that I knew, and a place both real and unreal at
the same time, and I used to dream about it. And whenever I
encountered older fellers, who looked like they'd seen a lot of
Intermundia, I always asked them when they had wine glowing in their
eyes if they'd ever been as far as the 'Belt. And some of them
laughed, and some of them looked at me like I was a criminal. But
early one morning, I was drinking with one of the vendors, an
ancient, wiry fella who always had a weird, faraway expression, like
half of his mind was at a dance with the faeries, and I asked him,
and he smiled, and his big, deep smile came from that same faraway
place, and I knew I finally had an answer in the affirmative. And I
put my hand on his shoulder, and whispered <i>How do you get there</i>?
And he raised his long, thin arm, and pointed to the west, and said:
<i>Keep going straight in that direction and you'll get to the
Greenbelt. You can't veer off course, cause the Belt is vast, so if
you keep going that way, you can't fail to wander into the middle of
it. But the thing is that it's far, far away. Further away than you
can imagine. </i>I looked at him, and around the bar, and I looked
out at the runways, at the planes departing and arriving, departing
and arriving. And I finished my drink, and I started walking in the
direction he'd pointed, and I could hear his laugher behind me.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix6wm3Ql83X4Rq00qcUqqKW4KJ5GAGZyZpChC9v9nyObSFwVX0DoC4OQMcUy47PAGy2SP1aAjQlYgX6uCRhwTOTFLSk57gTdgTkogatChz0czPmd-mOd2cZLHebztJ60lyB_PYITiHtkTE/s1600/36861996_597831650617825_3920270968957698048_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="546" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix6wm3Ql83X4Rq00qcUqqKW4KJ5GAGZyZpChC9v9nyObSFwVX0DoC4OQMcUy47PAGy2SP1aAjQlYgX6uCRhwTOTFLSk57gTdgTkogatChz0czPmd-mOd2cZLHebztJ60lyB_PYITiHtkTE/s400/36861996_597831650617825_3920270968957698048_n.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> </i> 'Well, that was the beginning of my quest to find the
Greenbelt. I lived as a vagrant, scrounging around for money and
places to sleep, always on the move. At first I used to sleep in the
parking lots, in back of a truck or sometimes inside a car if the
door had been left unlocked. Other times I'd go to an Overnight and
try to pass myself off as an Arrival. You'd get away with it in
some, and in others catch all kinds of hell from the manager. And I
kept moving onwards all the time, going straight in the direction
that the wiry old vendor had pointed, counting the terminals that I
passed each day, and it was always exactly the same thing, again and
again: the terminals, the Overnights, the parking lots, the old
estates like the ones that we grew up in, the same thing over and
over again. Everybody knows that Intermundia is the same thing
everywhere, but I don't think you really believe it unless you spend
a long time travelling in a straight line. It does things to your
mind, that's for sure. And the more the endless monotony drove me to
distraction, the more I dreamed about the Greenbelt – the richer,
greener, wilder and <i>realer </i>it became in my imagination. The
only thing I really looked forward to was sleep, because every night,
without fail, I went straight to the Greenbelt, straight to freedom,
straight to a place where you could luxuriate in the unpredictable
and the unruly, a place without schedules and repetition, a place
where being lost was the normal condition because there was no
starting point to find your way back to, where all there was to do
was wander about in a wondrous daze, a haunted surrender from one
adventure and one inexplicable prodigy to the next.'<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'And sometimes I thought maybe that's all the Greenbelt was – the
dreams you had while you were trying to get there. But I didn't lose
faith and I kept moving – moving all the time. And I often fell
into the company of Malingerers, because they were the most
sympathetic to a vagrant like myself. They'd give me money or food,
or let me have a few drinks on them. The Malingerers had all kinds
of strange ideas about Intermundia, and I think part of the reason
why they bought me drinks was because they wanted to grill me about
what really goes on here. And I always told them that I was as wise
as they were, and that only the Technocrats and the Case Officers
really knew what Intermundia was all about, and maybe even they
didn't know. And then they'd ask me about the pilots, and maybe they
knew, and I said no, the pilots don't know anything. I'd grilled the
pilots myself about what happens up the air, and they told me that
they just fly up and up until they get to the Ovum, and the Ovum is
like a blinding ball of pure light, and when they get nearer to the
Ovum they start to go into a trance, and the next thing they know
they're flying back and the plane is empty except for the
stewardesses. And I grilled the Malingerers about the Greenbelt, and
a lot of them had fascinating information about it, and one of them
told me that Malingerers who stay long enough in Intermundia always
go the Greenbelt, and that it was Malingerers who founded the city in
the 'Belt in the first place. But to this day, the wiry vendor was
the only person I've ever met who said he'd actually been there.'<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'And on and on I kept going, passing through the same thing again
and again. Every once in a very long stretch, you'd come upon the
enclaves where the pilots lived – amazing tree-lined estates with
beautiful big houses not like anything you'd ever imagine. And they
had swimming pools and beautiful wives and servants, and your eyes
would get drunk just looking at the lives they lead – the air felt
different there, somehow. But then you were back into the grid –
back in the endless succession of terminals and overpasses and
Overnights – and it almost felt like the same people, and you'd
get the fear that you might run into yourself eventually. It got to
the point where I could predict which Overnight managers wouldn't ask
questions, and which ones would be loony cases like old Digsby – it
was like the different personalities were also laid out in a
mathematical grid, like we were the same as the buildings and the
lots and the Overnights, the same thing again and again. I don't
know how long I was searching for the Greenbelt – three years
anyway, maybe four or five. Eventually, I stopped dreaming about the
'Belt, and then my nights were the same as my days, the same grind
and repetition. And one day, just as suddenly as I'd started off, I
stopped right at our terminal, and the next day they put me working
with you.'<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The pair fell silent after Giacomo's long speech, and they emerged
into the train station in the vast cavern beneath the brooding and
inscrutable limestone face.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What's the Greenbelt?' Mark asked.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie, beginning to sober up, was gruff and dismissive: 'It's
supposed be a huge area of parks and woodland, and there is a city in
the interior where there are no rules, and every possible pleasure
and indulgence and vice is freely indulged. It's a made up place, a
tale people have been whispering to themselves all these many years.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo seemed unconvinced, and he lifted his arm slowly, and
pointed it to the west, into the darkness where the train track
receded from visibility.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They sobered up on the train, and Mark watched their reflections in
the mirror as each returned to his habitual disposition: Eddie to his
harried but cheerful obsequiousness, Giacomo to his sleepy arrogance,
and Mark to his own suspicious detachment. His introspective mood
was interrupted by the appearance of an old man wheeling a tea trolley
through the carriage. The man had a lean, lank frame and a thin,
wrinkled face whose expression suggested a choleric and senile
disposition. It occurred to Mark that he would like a cup of tea,
but as soon as the old man registered their presence, his eyes became
livid and a torrent of words issued from his mouth like steam from a
boiling kettle: 'I WOULDN'T SPIT ON THEM! I WOULDN'T SPIT ON THEM!
TELL ME TO PACK UP MY STUFF AND GO HOME, AFTER I'D ALREADY GREASED ME
OXTERS AND PUT ON MY OVERALLS! I WOULDN'T SPIT ON THEM!
DISRESPECTED BILLY WHEN THEY HADN'T EVEN PUT HIM IN THE GROUND YET,
SAID THE CHILD DIDN'T COME FROM BILLY, THAT IT WAS FROM ONE OF THE
CARNY MEN WHO RAN THE WHIRLIGIG OR THE CLAW MACHINE! I WOULDN'T SPIT
ON THEM!
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He continued past their table, the wheels of the trolley whining and
his own limbs creaking as he went, turning back occasionally to glare
at them and reiterate his total renunciation of whatever party had
been the subject of his vituperative outburst. Eddie smirked dryly:
'Ernie's been on the trolley too long.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Emerging from the underground station, it seemed at first as though
the terminal was completely empty. Their footsteps echoed in the
looming silence of its red corridors and vast atriums. A petroleum
cathedral of the restless modern spirit, the airport had an eerie
beauty in its empty and torpid hours. The windows that overlooked
the runways were pitch back, projecting a reflection of the
observation decks and their rows of empty seating into the night, and
creating the ambience of a structure suspended intact in a great
void, its purpose elusive and forgotten. Out on the main floor of
the terminal, however, they encountered groups of night workers who
had finished their shift. They smoked cigarettes and chatted in
little groups, conveying the palpable air of contentment which
attends the daily cessation of long toils. The morning staff were
also arriving, blear-eyed and withdrawn, embodying the contrary mood
of grey lethargy and depression which commences the cycle.<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Outside, the motorway was all but silent, and the rooftop lettering
of the Intermundia Overnight shone bright red against the blackness
of the sky. A handful of the conservatories still had their lights
on, and figures sat in the wicker chairs or paced the narrow space
back and forth. Mark and his companions reached the front steps of
the Overnight, and paused at its revolving door. Eddie looked at
Mark with a mournful expression. 'Well,' he finally spoke, 'this is
where we leave you. It's not the nicest place on earth. The food
is very fresh, though – you can be sure the tin was opened that
day! Old Digsby has his moods, but he means well. But anyway, no
need to worry – you'll be leaving us in no time, going up there, '
his hand pointed up 'faraway from this place. Its been a real
pleasure, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay.' They shook
hands. Giacomo shrugged and yawned. For a couple of seconds, it
appeared as though Eddie was reluctant to go and wanted to say
something else, but then he turned awkwardly and the pair sauntered
away across the motorway in the direction of the terminal. Mark
watched them until they were no longer visible, and then, with little
other options, he entered the Intermundia Overnight.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Continued Shortly (Art by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tooker">George Tooker</a> and<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedios_Varo"> Remedios Varo</a>.)</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-54403379163014408642018-05-12T12:46:00.000-07:002018-07-23T03:15:23.585-07:00Intermundia Airport. (Chapter 5). <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnf-MCTHDbaZCbrKtG7-7RpPTgSuaJWg8GdcoDvT56krZ2stYrGCzFA3IwDI9NKEg016nYNBfVR0dHgHGSv1IH6jp_q3lNVh-9OuREq9xtKYlHUx5cL5Ynm3rSKG6IBswD5RIwMUS4q8kU/s1600/charon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="942" data-original-width="1280" height="465" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnf-MCTHDbaZCbrKtG7-7RpPTgSuaJWg8GdcoDvT56krZ2stYrGCzFA3IwDI9NKEg016nYNBfVR0dHgHGSv1IH6jp_q3lNVh-9OuREq9xtKYlHUx5cL5Ynm3rSKG6IBswD5RIwMUS4q8kU/s640/charon.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
The office was compact and spare, with white walls, green carpet and
a faint, yellowish light which was more apt to bedside reading than
clerical work. Renton had a modest desk with a green deco-style
lamp, some papers and an ancient looking rotary telephone. A
secretary was seated at a smaller desk at the far side of the door,
typing and smoking. She had sleek black hair, pale, almost
translucent skin, green eyes and full lips whose redness startled the
nameless man. She had the strange quality of eroticism and inertia
which he found characteristic of the technocrats. He glanced at her
as Renton ushered him into the office, but her attention remained
fixed and distant, exhaling a plume of smoke that shrouded her face
in the dim light.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Renton, in contrast, exuded concern and conviviality. He saw the
nameless man to his seat and sat down opposite, studying him with a
physician's earnest and helpful gaze. The nameless man's first
impulse was to lean over the desk and attempt to throttle him, but
Renton's air of suave civility was disarming. They sat regarding one
another for a moment, the only sound in the office the steady clack
of the typewriter and a distant hum of machinery. Finally, Renton
spoke in a gentle, mellifluous accent:
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, you don't seem too bad, all things considered. It's a
difficult process, but you seem to be bearing up to it. Do you
remember anything?'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Nothing.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Nothing at all? Even your name?'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Nothing.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Renton looked down at the nameless man's breast pocket. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Did you check your passport?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
The nameless man reached into his pocket and found, to his
astonishment, a passport. He opened the document and studied it.
The picture was of the stranger whom he'd discovered in the terminal
to be himself: the same timid features, pale blue eyes and sandy
hair. Though much of the passport was written in a language
unfamiliar to him, there was a name beneath the photograph: MARK
WILLIAM SMITH.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'So my name is Mark Smith?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Yes', Renton beamed.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'It sounds made up.'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, aren't all names?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Mark turned to glance briefly at the secretary, who continued typing
impassively, then back to Renton.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'What's she writing?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, it has nothing to do with our
situation. Her presence here is largely theatrical. She is here
because you expect her to be here. The environment, you see, is
responsive to archetypal patterns of memory, and she corresponds to a
wider complex of expectations. But she is working, of course, we're
not wasteful. As to what she is working on, well, suppose that
somebody, somewhere, is subject to an idea or an impression which
seems to emerge out of the thin air – a strange, fugitive notion
which doesn't derive from their own experiences or thought processes.
Where do these notions come from? Well, it might be that such
things are simply a mystery, or it might be that whenever a person
experiences such an idea or impression, in some other place a
secretary like Marlene there is dutifully typing up the crux of the
matter, and her typewriter is in a sense a transmitting device.'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Mark turned back to regard Marlene again. She didn't show the
slightest awareness that they were discussing her, and continued to
work as though she were alone in the room. She typed with an
extraordinary rapidity and lack of apparent mental exertion, as
though a text were being dictated to her. She exhaled her cigarette,
and her features were lost again in the slowly curling plume of
smoke. Mark swung back to face Renton.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'What is this place? You have to tell me what's going on here.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Oh, of course, that's what I'm here for. But I can assure you that
you just won't believe me at first. That's why I want you to promise
that you won't actively resist what I'm about to tell you – you
will, at least for awhile, indulge me, and entertain what I'm telling
you. The process is difficult, but it will run more smoothly if you
do just that much.'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'You want me to believe whatever you tell me?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'No, I didn't say that. I'm not saying that you must <i>accept </i>what
I'm telling you – only that you should <i>entertain</i> it. How
else does one come to believe things, anyway? It seems to me that,
when approached without preconceptions, all things must be equally
fantastical and difficult to credit. The everyday is really only
those fantastical things which impinge upon our attention with the
more boorish persistence. So we acquire our beliefs by entertaining
more or less queer notions, until such a time as their reality
becomes undeniable. This is what will happen to you in Intermundia
Airport.'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, go ahead then.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Renton opened a drawer in his desk and produced a bottle of whiskey
and two glasses. He poured two measures and gently pushed a glass in
Mark's direction.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, there's good news and bad news, Mark. Let's start with the
bad news. You are recently deceased.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'I'm what?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Renton's face and the timbre of his voice sank in an actorly
modulation to condolence.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'You recently died. I'm very sorry.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
His face brightened almost instantaneously, and he stretched out his
arms in an expansive gesture:
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'But take cheer, Mark, the good news should be rather obvious by
now: the rumours of death's finality have clearly been grossly
exaggerated!'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Mark gaped at the strange bureaucrat, then took the glass and gulped
back its contents. The whiskey burned his throat and he felt an
intense wave of nausea grip his body. When this passed, he felt an
involuntary, light-headed calmness.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'So my is name is Mark Smith and I'm dead?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, more or less, but not quite. Do you have any memory of the
concept of reincarnation or transmigration?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'The words are familiar but I don't know what they mean.'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, they mean basically that a person leads many different lives.
When they die, it's really not the end but only a new beginning.
Night falls, and they must go to sleep, but the sun will rise again
in the morning, and they also to a new life, a new round of pleasures
and pains and all the strange business and exigencies of life, with
only a fleeting awareness here and there that they have done it all
before, many, many times. So you are Mark Smith, but you are also
that unitary principle – let's call it a soul for convenience –
which has persisted through all these myriad prior incarnations. But
Mark Smith is dead, and will linger on only for a short while in this
intermediate condition, until such time as you let him go, and go
back to do it all again in a new identity.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Do you really expect me to believe any of this?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, I told you already you wouldn't at first. But, Mark, you
have to be honest with yourself – you've surely had some suspicion
or intimation about what was going on here all along. What other
explanation, really, is tenable, for all the things you have seen
today?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Okay, lets say I go along with you, for argument's sake. Where is
this place?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Renton sighed, and poured another glass of whiskey for Mark.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, that's rather a difficult question. This is no place,
really. We are currently <i>occupying</i> – if you'll permit the
rather loose use of the term – a realm outside of space and time.
What you might have called a void or a vacuum, if those words ring
any bells.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'So there is no time or space here?'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Right!'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'And yet we're sitting on chairs, talking. And there is a clock on
the wall.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, yes, it is a little difficult to wrap one's head around at
first. Logic, you see, is a formalized property of time and space.
Once one steps outside those parameters, such niceties as the law of
non-contradiction are no longer applicable. Let me try to sketch out
the territory to make things a little clearer for you. Time and
space is the natural element of the human soul. When one incarnation
ends and the physical body dies, the soul is extracted from its
natural medium, rather like a fish taken out of water. And this
process is very traumatic, very perilous, to the soul. There is a
danger that the soul will lose its integrity and continuity – that
its sense of self-identity will be obliterated in the immensity of
the void. The fish, after all, dies in the upper world, just as the
human drowns in the depths of the ocean. Luckily, however, the soul
has evolved a fail-safe mechanism to maintain its integrity. That
mechanism resides in the persistence of habit and memory. The soul
continues to do in the void precisely what it did in the physical
world, albeit with only its memories to replace the world itself.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Meaning what, exactly?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Are you aware of the concept of the phantom limb?'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Mark shook his head.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'It is a curious medical phenomenon. Say that a person loses a limb
– an arm or a leg – in some catastrophe. After the amputation,
perhaps continuing for a period of years, the person is haunted by
the sensory conviction that the absent limb is still extant. Now
logically, of course, they know that this is not the case, but
experientially, the sensation is exactly as though an arm or leg were
present. So what is happening? Well, we must assume that the brain,
following its habitual interactions with the nervous system, is
projecting the absent member's continuity over the void which has
replaced it. Though indistinguishable from the <i>sensation</i> of
real flesh and blood, it is but a memory of neurons and
nerve-endings, a maudlin artifice of mechanistic biology.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, that's very interesting, but what's the relevance to me?'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, the relevance, Mark, is that your physical body is dead and
faraway from here. The body that you currently inhabit is an eidolon
composed entirely of <i>memory. </i>There is no flesh, no
corpuscles, not a single material atom in your entire frame – only
a memory of the last body your soul inhabited, maintained by habit
and projected onto the emptiness of the void.'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Mark took the glass and swallowed the second measure of whiskey.
After another wave of nausea and elation, he patted his knees lightly
and pressed his palms together.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, it all feels very – solid and tangible to me.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Yes, it is absolutely the same – on an experiential level – as
having a physical body. But it is made of your thoughts, simply
clumped together into a localized and continuous form by force of
habit. The entire reality of Intermundia – your own body, and
everything which you can see and touch around you – is of a mental
rather than physical constitution. Like a dream, in a sense. It is
a rather disorientating thing to get your head around at first, but
really I wouldn't dwell on it too much – it's business as usual, to
all intents and purposes.'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Mark had a strong sense that he should have been arguing with
Renton, expressing his disbelief vociferously, and demanding that the
bureaucrat spare him further nonsense, and come to the truth of the
matter. However, he was exhausted and becoming more than a little
drunk, and he had to concede that he'd been troubled throughout the
day by an intimation that Intermundia was some kind of non-ordinary
reality, or, more precisely, a hyperreality which carried with it
disquieting associations with universality and death. Though he was
not quite persuaded by Renton, he found himself hypnotized by the
bureaucrat's peculiar mixture of dry civility and erudite madness.
He found, in short, that he was playing along.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'So all this place is made up of my memories?'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'No, not <i>your</i> memories. Your own body, that is a product is
of your individual memory. The environment, on the other hand, is a
product of <i>collective </i>memory. It is generated by all the
souls that pass through here. Let's say that the soul in this place
is in transition between two distinct states of being. Now the soul
simply can't process that experience in its raw state. The whole
thing is just too unfamiliar, too alien and jarring. So the soul
does what it habitually does when faced with the unknown and
unknowable – it translates them into something familiar and
comprehensible. Now the soul, in each particular epoch, has an
iconic or archetypal image which encapsulates the idea of transition
from one state to another. In the epoch prior to yours, it was a
boatman ferrying the traveller across a gloomy subterranean river.
For people who lived and died in your era, the over-lit and
mechanized airport is the perfect communal image to encapsulate the
idea of transition. So this world in which we find ourselves is
partially true and partially imaginary. It is a concretized communal
memory and a <i>metaphor. </i>How does it feel to ramble around in a
metaphor?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Mark pored himself a third drink.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'The trains are better in fables.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Renton issued a loud boom of laughter.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Yes, well, in some respects it really is remarkable how detailed
and consistent this world is, considering that it is at bottom a
shared hallucination. But it has its...little quirks and foibles, as
you have no doubt noticed.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'What exactly am I supposed to do here, anyway?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'That's more of the good news. You don't really have to do
anything. Just rest up. Recuperate. Take stock. Get ready for
another go at it. Your memories will come back to you very shortly.
Generally, they come all in one instant. Well, for some people, the
process is slower and more piecemeal. But generally speaking, it's
all in a flash. And you have to prepare yourself for that. It is a
very emotionally overwhelming experience. You'll need a little time,
after that, a little rest. And then, well, you're ready to book
yourself a flight. Ready to be born again. We've booked you into
the Intermundia Overnight for your Interim. It's not ideal.....but
perfectly adequate.'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'But, who are you, exactly?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, I'm Renton, your case officer.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'I mean, what are you? Who do you represent?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Lets just say that we are dutiful functionaries – we are here to
insure that the process runs along smoothly. We are here to help.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'And that's all you are prepared to say about it?'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Yes.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, are you a person?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Renton's face became momentarily blank and expressionless.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'No.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Mark's head began to swim, and it was though as the world were a
signal subject to electromagnetic static, with Renton's immobile face
a still centre around which everything else buzzed and shimmered out
of focus. The bureaucrat's features brightened again.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'I am personable though!'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
He rose from his seat.
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Well, I think that's more than enough for our first session
together. Who knows, perhaps it will be our last? The guards will
escort you back to the terminal you arrived at, and you can get
yourself settled into the Overnight. Show the fish a wide berth!
Take everything nice and easy, and I promise you will be on your way
back to the world of the living in no time!'
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Renton shook Mark's hand, and began to guide him gently towards the
door, but Mark paused and eyed him suspiciously.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'You said when I came in that we'd met many times before.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'Yes, I'm your case officer, Mark.'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'But you also said that there was no time here. So how could we
have met many times <i>before</i>?'</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
Renton smiled indulgently.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
'You really shouldn't concern yourself overmuch with the physics –
or rather mentalics – of Intermundia. However, you are correct in
a sense. From your perspective, we <i>have</i> met many times
before. From mine, it would be more accurate to say that we <i>are
</i>meeting many times. Elsewhere in Intermundia, I am currently
meeting all of your past selves, and all of those to come. So you
see that we really are very old friends, Mark.'</span></div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-81656330191783475002018-04-09T15:42:00.000-07:002018-04-10T01:25:57.355-07:00Intermundia Airport (Chapter 4).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIRwn2DoskwujSX6W-mBBJnsilnQ4R7u2m19l4RRIHpPLewDgPliDKwscTHQnSIU-3YxC0D-6ZxICfKFoGKws29IM6hR9VaY4-_cdusTpfauIF3jZHmj9J0tugNqnCOywL7M0OWZi6VwUW/s1600/editorial_tooker-jumbo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="1024" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIRwn2DoskwujSX6W-mBBJnsilnQ4R7u2m19l4RRIHpPLewDgPliDKwscTHQnSIU-3YxC0D-6ZxICfKFoGKws29IM6hR9VaY4-_cdusTpfauIF3jZHmj9J0tugNqnCOywL7M0OWZi6VwUW/s400/editorial_tooker-jumbo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> They
walked unhurried through the woods in silence, the nameless man at
the centre and the quarrelsome security guards at either side. The
faces of Eddie and Giacomo were fixed on the path ahead, while that
of the nameless man swivelled this way and that, as though his eyes,
like darting, skittish squirrels, were eager to consume every morsel
of the woodland scene. The peculiarly archetypal quality of his
memories reached a new pitch of intensity, and walking through the
rooted, restive languor of the trees, it was though he remembered all
silence, all peace, every sustained mystic caesura in the ordeal of
life's intensity, every loll between every crashing tide, every
moment where the child's apprehension of a bounteous, enchanted world
returned unbidden and eerie, a flash of memory that stirs a thousand
scintillations in a darkened pool. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i> There
is an old book you saw when you were a child</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">,
he thought, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>that told
the story of your life</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">.
</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>The book is about two
orphans, a boy and girl, who flee the witch's cave where they have
been imprisoned, and embark on a journey on the Long and Winding
Road. Along the Road, the boy and girl have many adventures,
encountering strange characters like the Peacock of Plenty and the
Sneaky Serpent. The Peacock tells them that if they follow the Road
to it's termination, they will find a place called the Pasture of
Plenty; there boys and girls lay down their heads in peace, and dream
enchanted dreams. (The Serpent whispers sibilantly that the Pasture
is nothing but a garden of stones.) Before they reach the Pasture,
the witch catches up with the boy and girl, and puts them under an
enchantment which separates them. The spell also causes them to
forget forever their adventures on the Long and Winding Road, and
their quest for the Pasture of Plenty. So when the boy and girl grow
to adulthood, they meet by chance, and the girl remembers but the boy
does not. And once more, now in old age, they meet again, and this
time the boy remembers but the girl does not.....</i></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i> </i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal;">As
they drew nearer to Central Command, the great solitude of the wood
slowly yielded its intimations of timeless quietude back to the
frenetic activity of Intermundia Airport. Eddie nudged him, and
pointed to their left: some distance away, another New Arrival was
emerging out of a man-hole, accompanied by security guards. The
further they went, the more this scene was repeated all around them.
Once again, it was an exact facsimile of his own prior experience:
the New Arrivals emerged from the darkness of the shaft and looked
with awe at the scene around them, while the grinning security guards
wiped their gleaming brows after the arduous climb. In Intermundia,
it was as though a single sequence of events were infinitely
repeated, and arranged spatially so that it kept encountering itself
at different junctures of the sequence. </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> The sun had fallen now in the
sky, giving the trees and the people emerging from the underground a
luminescence and vividness of presence that made the whole scene feel
realer than reality, like a super-imposition of dreaming and
wakefulness that annulled and transcended both states, a perceptual
clarity out of time and equidistant to life and death. New Arrivals
and guards approached them, on route back from Central Command. The
guards smiled and nodded casually to Eddie and Giacomo; the New
Arrivals, haunted by whatever they had learned from their case
officers, avoided eye contact. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> The woodland began to thin out
into clearings, and they entered the world of the technocrats. He
noticed their houses first, built seamlessly into the rolling terrain
of the wood. In this context, they were peculiarly spartan and
geometrical. Square and rectangular walls of glass in shells of
rough concrete, they revealed the whole of their multi-level domestic
spaces to passers by, making them more like art installations than
homes. The interior of the houses had refined the contrivances of
living to an abstract functionality which nevertheless betrayed a
kind of alien sensibility, as though the proportions and precise
angles of their cold, grey furnishings were designed to appeal to a
sensibility only tangentially related to that of the human. Their
aesthetic adornments were peculiar and unsettling: the living room of
one featured a large flat screen television, on which a fire blazed
silently. Faces appeared intermittently in the fire, their
expressions wide-eyed and apprehensive.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Most of the technocrats were at
work, and in their absence maids and butlers were busy maintaining
the homes in a kind of pristine order that gave them their air of
idealized and abstracted sculpture. Here and there, however, he saw
technocrats relaxing in their homes. Seated in white robes, their
features as flawless and blank as the furnishings, they too seemed to
have abstracted their existence into an idealized absence, so were
they lost in a kind of mineral contemplation, like a species of
middle-management mystic. In one house, however, a male technocrat
was having intercourse with his maid. The maid, a pale, slender
brunette, stood with her hands pinned against the glass while the
technocrat thrust against her from behind in staccato bursts. The
girl's eyes were wide and her cheeks ruddy and flushed, but the
expression of the technocrat remained distant and disengaged, as
though contemplating a mathematical problem. Regarding the scene as
he passed, Eddie reddened and giggled like a school boy. Giacomo
looked away with a sullen expression. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Having passed through the
residential section of the wood, they now entered a commercial
district where the technocrats gathered in groups and took their
lunches. The walls of the luncheon booths were cunningly embroidered
with moss and hanging verdure, giving them the appearance of sylvan
bowers from some quaint woodland romance. The waiters belonged to
the same plebeian class as the security guards and servants. They
served coffees whose rich aromas were infused with subtle,
unaccountable spices, and mouth-watering, glazed savouries in vivid,
variegated hues that ranged from fleshy, strawberry reds to cerulean
and ultramarine blues. Seating had been arranged for the technocrats
on the branches of nearby trees. With leaden trays balanced adroitly
in their free hands, the waiters climbed up thick ropes which had
been woven into the trunk of the trees, passing the beverages and
delicacies across to the technocrats seated placidly on the boughs. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Removed from their homes, where
they had exhibited a peculiar, almost comatose languor, the
technocrats were now more animated in the company of their
colleagues. They spoke contently to one another, and the mingling of
their sonorous, melodic voices was like a chorus of birds heralding
the dawn in a bureaucratic effusion of measured joy. Despite their
greater ease, all the technocrats wore that distant, inscrutable
smile which he had noted on their colleagues back on the train. They
instilled in him an intense mixture of emotions: an attraction
towards their flawless and unattainable beauty, and a visceral
resentment of their innate, impervious sense of superiority. The
beauty and physical grace of each technocrat seemed more luminous and
ravishing to the eye than the last, and yet there was something
galling and even repulsive about the way in which they barely seemed
to register the steady traffic of waiters, guards and New Arrivals
that moved about them in a steady stream. It was as though every
other class of human were like a species of semi-domesticated
wild-life, which familiarity and a lack of perceived threat had long
inured them to. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> When they had finished their
lunches, some of the technocrats wandered over to a nearby newsagent
to acquaint themselves with the latest stories. This, however, was a
most unusual purveyor of current events. It appeared that the
technocrats were too important a class to lower themselves to peruse
mere ink and paper documents, and thus a group of about thirty
journalists were dispatched to perform the “news” live. Hammocks
had been hoisted between bushes and trees, and the recumbent,
semi-conscious journalists whispered the contents of their errant,
ranging imaginations, while a species of stenographer, patient and
resilient of limb, held microphones to their mouths so that the
technocrats didn't have to crane their necks to hear the latest
events. It was a strange thing to witness as they passed: the deep,
low voices of the journalists, collating in a random yet seemingly
significant manner the ineffable images and inchoate or
untranslatable yearnings of their chasm-separated dream-worlds, while
the technocrats, for once divested of their sly grins, exchanged
grave, meaningful looks, as though the hushed mental somnambulisms
issuing through the microphones did indeed portend to public events
that would soon subsume the world. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> After this disquieting scene,
they entered a more densely wooded area, and began to climb a
steepening slope. Almost imperceptibly, they had become a huge,
silent throng, he and the other New Arrivals, with their accompanying
security guards. He had a presentiment, almost like a specific
memory for the first time, that they had reached the last leg of
their journey. The sun had fallen behind them now, and the darkening
woodland slope was divested of all its crisp, spring enchantment. In
its insinuating shadow and abrupt chill, it had become wintry, poised
and watchful, a nature not of sporting young, but of looming,
predatory threat. The New Arrivals exchanged brief, intense glances
to one another, expressions of composed kinship in an agony of
uncertainty. He felt as though there was a sound, a low guttural
chanting, that rose steadily as they neared Central Command. Then
they reached the summit of the cliff, and its immense, sombre
structure lay before them. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcsG5M120xitX2kcak2p_JKQqrPwOKKaISg7vB-44Fj3J_Ism7LMlAKBfSj-oduO0LAgHWB-3HdE_8IQ1yuO2jMzhrIlyYtFz8DZoWuKQkzmaFal9Gh7J3he9MYGXDajrVwHBGVJ87f2Gw/s1600/scale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="839" data-original-width="1024" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcsG5M120xitX2kcak2p_JKQqrPwOKKaISg7vB-44Fj3J_Ism7LMlAKBfSj-oduO0LAgHWB-3HdE_8IQ1yuO2jMzhrIlyYtFz8DZoWuKQkzmaFal9Gh7J3he9MYGXDajrVwHBGVJ87f2Gw/s400/scale.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> <span style="font-size: large;">Central Command was composed of
a dizzying array of concrete blocks, slate grey in colour but mottled
here and there with sickly blotches of black and rusty copper brown.
Cyclopean in scale, the blocks all took rigidly geometric forms, but
were arranged in such a dizzyingly asymmetrical jumble as to give
the whole structure the appearance of a constantly morphing,
improvisatory puzzle, whose every new permutation only made its
ultimate solution ever more intractable. A paradoxical kind of
stability was attained only by falling water that came down in
streams from various points at the apex of the building, mingling
together in a concrete moat that surrounded the base. Central
Command instilled a feeling of awe and almost cosmic disquiet in the
nameless man for two reasons. The first lay in its immemorial air.
Though clearly a product of abstract mathematical reasoning, it felt
in some irrational but undeniable sense to predate all the
surrounding landscape. It was older than the trees, older than the
soil and the grass. It was as though the woodland<i> </i>had been
fashioned upon its stark primordial base, a riotous plunge into the
freedom or decadence of the organic and sentient. It was a uniquely
frightening presentiment, he thought, to discover the hidden seat of
an antediluvian bureaucracy. </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> The
second reason for his unease was the conviction that he had been
here, and felt all these precise intimations, before. Having finally
grown accustomed to his amnesiac condition, to the distant and
impersonal nature of his memories, to suddenly encounter a
recollection of something specific to his own prior experience was as
uncanny and disorientating as the most profound </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>déjà
vu </i><span style="font-style: normal;">met by a normal constitution.
As they drew down the hill, into the looming shadow of Central
Command, he felt like a twig swept along in a stream, like a hapless
dreamer unable to stir his distant, rigid body to motion. The vast,
ageless building worked itself with renewed violence on his mental
state. The inhuman chanting increased in its volume and duration; he
felt as though it were a vibration emitted by the particular
structure of the building, to which his nervous system operated as a
tuning fork. He became nauseous and feint as they drew nearer, the
sound conjuring to his imagination a vast being, ponderous, inimical
and unmoored from all the frailties and compassion of time and space.
Finally, they reached the moat's narrow bridge, and he found the
clamour and sickness instantly annulled by contemplating the steady
serenity of the stream. He leaned over the edge of the bridge,
allowing his fraught nerves to merge with the unhurried whisper of
the water. </span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large; font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">After he had been thus collecting himself for some time, Eddie
nudged him gently, and they continued across the bridge. The central
facade of Command was a large rectangular pane of tinted glass,
through which the hillside and surrounding woodland were reflected.
At the base of the pane there were four evenly spaced revolving
doors. People streamed into the building through the two doors to
the left, and back out through those at the right. As they neared
their point of entry, he noted the expressions of the New Arrivals as
they exited Central Command. Most were befuddled, nonplussed,
haunted; some exhibited a kind of mordant fatalism, as though they
had just been initiated into the punchline of an infinite cosmic
farce. One chubby, sunburnt Caucasian, bearing all the appearances
of an intoxicated tourist, emerged from the revolving door
swivel-headed and goggle-eyed, laughing hysterically. Eddie and
Giacomo then ushered the nameless man into the turning wing of the
door, and they went within. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In a sharp contrast to its austere and bureaucratic exterior, he
found himself in a vast, high-ceilinged vestibule which was far more
redolent of an antique mosque or temple. The walls were divided
along their full length by horseshoe arches, the floors and walls
decorated with a series of intricately beautiful mosaics. These
mosaic patterns, like the equations of some ecstatic physicist, felt
as though they embodied the ultimate abstract simplicity underlying
all the world's variegated appearances. The colours of the lower
sections were airy blues and yellows, gradually deepening to
otherworldly twilight hues as the structure ascended to a domed
ceiling, whose prismatic, honeycombed pattern resembled the visionary
transports of the opium or hashish eater at the apex of his debauch. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Though the vestibule itself embodied an atmosphere of pious
tranquillity, the scene within was an unstinting babble and bustle of
bodies going this direction and that. Those who had presently
arrived formed queues at a series of arched alcoves on the wall
adjacent to the entrance. The security guards were then greeted by
technocratic secretaries seated at their desks in the alcoves. The
secretaries administered tickets to them, and the guards escorted
their Arrivals to specific alcoves along the left wall, wherein they
disappeared through little doors and stairwells. This continuous
traffic of people going into the alcoves progressed on the left side
of the vestibule, whilst on the right the same volume were emerging
from beneath the arches and making their way towards the exit doors.
Betwixt all this ceaseless motion, a large pool of water lay serene
and motionless, reflecting the prismatic honeycomb of the ceiling.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">When they arrived at the desk, Eddie rooted around in his pockets,
finally producing, after much scowling from Giacomo, a perfect golden
orb which was about the size of a marble. The sight of the golden
ball produced in the nameless man a sharp start, like an electrical
shock. Eddie passed the golden orb to a secretary who promptly
deposited it on a small weighing scale which stood atop a narrow,
green-tinted ticket machine. The orb made a delicate chiming sound
as it struck the pan, and the scale tilted very slightly. A ticket
issued instantly from the machine, which the secretary passed to
Eddie. An attendant took the orb from the pan and disappeared down a
stairwell to the rear of the alcove. Eddie looked at the ticket and
grinned. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgla9r5RUtFT_Yy1HCIUJ8osIsFfXRQpmVMcH2CkyOGu0NXR98ObMJR_xp50La9SrRfzRnYgActvY0Lhu2rdOH0Lwjmmll_A1fdSSMQvuHA84UwT5TWepmN34t-OkF5cmFUu-4HDdE2YING/s1600/22046609_815042515322525_2870522666569082786_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="907" data-original-width="664" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgla9r5RUtFT_Yy1HCIUJ8osIsFfXRQpmVMcH2CkyOGu0NXR98ObMJR_xp50La9SrRfzRnYgActvY0Lhu2rdOH0Lwjmmll_A1fdSSMQvuHA84UwT5TWepmN34t-OkF5cmFUu-4HDdE2YING/s400/22046609_815042515322525_2870522666569082786_n.jpg" width="292" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">'You've got Renton', he said, 'he's a wonderful case officer, a very
conscientious man.'
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">They made their way to the left wall, and crouched into a tiny
alcove. Within the alcove, there was a smaller arch, obscured by a
curtain. To the right of the curtain, a slender, feeble-looking old
man with taut, dessicated brown skin sat in attendance. The old man
smoked a cigarette and gazed listlessly at a cruciform board game
arranged on a mat at his feet. Eddie handed him the ticket, and the
old man placed it in his mouth, swirling it around his toothless jaws
as though apprehensive of swallowing. Finally, the ticket passed
down his gullet with a clicking sound, and he stood up and lifted the
curtain for them, revealing the entrance to a spiral staircase.
'Show us your tongue, Jobim,' Giacomo said with a cruel grin as they
passed through. The old man opened his mouth, and a pitch black
tongue protruded from it. He leered at the nameless man with the
callow spitefulness of a school girl. His face then re-composed
itself, and he resumed his seat, cigarette and board game with a kind
of mournful dignity. 'Jobim's diet is just the ticket!' Eddie said,
causing the two guards to explode with laughter as the curtain fell
back behind them. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">As they began their descent of the staircase, the nameless man noted
that the walls were decorated with posters. In contrast to the
abstract and often inscrutable images and slogans that adorned the
terminal, these posters were more straight-forward and consistent in
their message. Each one showed New Arrivals consulting with their
case officers. The officers were invariably depicted as kindly,
capable figures, and the whole scene suggested a reassuring visit to
the village GP. The Arrivals, he divined from the posters, were
grappling with a personal state of affairs referred to as their
“Interim.” <i>YOUR CASE OFFICERS ARE HERE</i>, announced one, <i>TO
HELP YOU MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR INTERIM! </i></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> YOUR INTERIM SHOULD BE A RELAXING TIME, </i>said another, <i>LET
YOUR CASE OFFICER PUT YOUR MIND AT EASE! </i></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> </i>Others had a slightly more insistent tone: <i>CO-OPERATE WITH
YOUR CASE OFFICER, AND YOU'LL BE ON YOUR WAY IN NO TIME! </i></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> THE INTERIM IS SHORT – DON'T WASTE YOUR CASE OFFICER'S TIME –
OR YOUR OWN! </i></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">At every circuit of the staircase, they passed another curtained
entrance where more guards were emerging with their charges. He
paused, leaning over the bannister to look down. The staircase wound
its way in layers down to a darkened central point, and evenly spaced
groups moved down the spiral like the hands of a fractured clock.
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">'Do we have far to go to get to Renton?' he asked.
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">'It's a ways yet,' Eddie said with a kindly expression. They
continued their descent. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxHsc-krQsSQIU6_YpQ8dGLXPoiUlJUvfbKsVD5NMLIOAoInXKhuljrIM1tg8Xgz6xYRK0kMDM5D-dsFODDoILJ8eiMGzRb5FxksZQ3j8zaNwY3iI2pQx52q6-PV90OnOmSgj4O_eWa6T/s1600/george-tooker-landscape-with-figures-1966.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="849" data-original-width="1000" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxHsc-krQsSQIU6_YpQ8dGLXPoiUlJUvfbKsVD5NMLIOAoInXKhuljrIM1tg8Xgz6xYRK0kMDM5D-dsFODDoILJ8eiMGzRb5FxksZQ3j8zaNwY3iI2pQx52q6-PV90OnOmSgj4O_eWa6T/s400/george-tooker-landscape-with-figures-1966.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">At the bottom, they passed swifty through a circular chamber, and
entered a vast cavern which they traversed along an elevated
footbridge. The first thing that captured the nameless man's
attention in the cavern was an eerie and ambient wash of sounds. The
predominant texture was a thrilling, melodious rush of tones, a
steady rise and fall of glissandos, as though from a great forest of
chime trees, glockenspiel and timpani. He became lost in that sound
for a time; it stirred in him a sequence of intense, contrary
emotions which were so absorbing that he first forgot where he was,
and after that each proceeding emotional totality which the sequence
moved through. He felt, by turns, the deep placidity of a warm,
drowsy infant, the ravenous, instinctive appetite of a beast, the
intellectual transports of a scholar and the wordless ecstasies of a
sage, the loneliness of old age and abandonment, the omniscience of a
god and the blank, mindless patience of a spider, and on and on,
until he came to again. Now he noted that the chiming sounds were
underscored by hissing, crackling waves of electromagnetic static.
This background white noise was punctuated by fragments of old big
band music: ballads, waltzes and foxtrots that must once had
accompanied great swellings of the heart and the loins, and great
sinkings of the soul into jealous rancour and self-pity, and great
forgettings of all things but single moments cleaved out of time's
passage and life's care, moments in the bloom of youth that might be
recalled later in the ineluctable return of time's passage and life's
care, steady and stately itself as a dance; but now the music
recalled only a general idea of memory and the past; like old skin,
shed, anonymous and unwanted, it faded in and out, dust stirred and
dispersed in the poised, unremembering air.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">'Where are those sounds coming from?' he asked Eddie. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">'This is where the traffic controllers work', Eddie replied giddily,
'have a look for yourself.' The nameless man leaned over the
railings and looked down. It was a significant drop, and the lateral
extent of the cavern was difficult to fathom. The scene below was
the most staggering example he had yet encountered of Intermundia's
perpetual industriousness. The offices of the traffic controllers
formed a vast geometric maze, broken into cubes and traversed by
pathways. There was about twenty four individual cubical desks in
each cube. A plinth was raised at the four corners of every cube,
and on each plinth stood a large weighting scale, decorated with
heraldic symbols. Controllers worked at their desks and walked to
and fro along the pathways with poised, stringent expressions and
motions. </span><br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Every controller had at their desks an antiquated television and
radio set. Each row of desks had a wax cylinder phonograph, and the
mournful fragments of ballroom music issued periodically from those
machines. The controllers monitored the flickering, jittery
monochrome images on the television screens, occasionally adjusting
the tuning and volume. At intervals, the images on the screens faded
into static, then blackness, and finally a crystal clear image of a
face, frozen and vulnerable, emerged. The controller regarded the
solemn, anxious face on the screen for a moment, before switching off
the set. Next, they reached over to a bureau drawer behind the set,
and extracted a little golden orb, identical to the one Eddie had
presented to the secretary. The controller rose and deposited the
golden orb in the pan of one or other of the scales, before resuming
their desk and commencing to study a fresh series of transmissions on
the television. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">At other times, responding to a particularly harsh burst of static
from the radios, the controller went to the scales to retrieve an
orb from the pan, which they then returned to its drawer in the
bureau. This activity went on at such a dizzying pace that at all
times, and at every individual balance, there was always one orb
being deposited and another extracted, such that a kind of
equilibrium was maintained in both the volume of orbs and the angle
of the lever; and the nameless man noted with a deep start that the
chiming, melodious sound which had so ravished and befuddled his
senses derived solely from the constant activity and slight
perturbation of the weighting scales, which most have been almost
innumerable, and the meticulously choreographed motions of the
controllers who maintained them. Just as the constant sound of the
orbs striking the scales created a kind of music, so the movements of
the controllers through the maze of their cubicles suggested the
unconscious geometries of ant and honey bee colonies. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The nameless man turned to Eddie and Giacomo.
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">'What is this place?' he asked.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Eddie looked slightly abashed. 'Central Command is where they
control all the traffic going in and out of Intermundia Airport. But
I don't really know what it's about, or how it works. Wherever I get
somebody to explain it, my brain goes soft, and start to remember old
nursery rhymes my mother used to sing to me.' Having thus spoken,
his eyes became vacant and dazed, and he turned away. 'They don't
pay us enough to care,' Giacomo added, and they continued along the
footbridge. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The rest of the journey to Renton's office was uneventful. After
exiting the cavern, they climbed another stairwell, and emerged onto
a large, open-air concourse which resembled a pedestrianized city
street. The central walkway was lined by trees and broken up by a
succession of fountains. At either side, the offices of the case
officers were stacked one atop the other in imposing blocks of
concrete, with stairwells positioned at the side of each block to
provide access from the street. New Arrivals were ascending and
descending the stairwells, but the windows of the offices were
shuttered, with only vague silhouetted motions to suggest the
activity within. Above the mottled concrete walls, airplanes swam in
dizzying multitude across a narrow strip of darkening sky like
drunken constellations.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Down below, the cool night air and soft, persistent rushing sound of
the fountains engendered a peculiar air of languor and gaiety.
Bistros and bars operated from the ground level of the office blocks,
and the nameless man studied the patrons seated at their terraces as
they passed. They were Arrivals, he thought, but certainly not new
to Intermundia. All the characteristic terror and disorientation was
absent from their bearing, and they appeared instead as creatures of
an almost mystical sloth and detachment. A species of jaded flaneur
to this strange, busy world, they sat like infants swaddled in the
sleepy warmth of an unimaginable surfeit of time, unhurriedly raising
soup spoons or cigarettes to carelessly open mouths as they watched
the traffic of the street flow by. Groups of security guards,
temporarily divested of their charges, gathered around the fountains
to drink glasses of beer and engage in boisterous tomfoolery. The
fountains themselves stirred in the nameless man another swoon of
recollection, a sense not quite of memory but something that would be
repeated endlessly: a vow, a loss, a forgetting, and a quest. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">When he came to again, Eddie and Giacomo had stopped in their
tracks, and both regarded him with an almost paternal expression of
sorrow. 'Well, here we are,' Giacomo said softly, and he pointed to
an office block. 'The fifth floor,' Eddie added, patting his
shoulders, 'we'll be over there at the fountain when you get out.'
The security guards gave him a final look of encouragement, and then
they trotted off in the direction of a bar. He was alone for the
first time since they had accosted him back in the terminal. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">His was unable to move at first, so he closed his eyes and listened
to the sounds: the waters gathering and swirling around their basins,
the raucous laugher of the guards, footfalls going back and forth,
the engines of the planes high above in the night sky. He tried to
remember what his face looked like. When nothing came, he felt a
surge of courage, detachment and pristine immediacy. He made his way
to the stairwell, and climbed to the fifth floor. Nobody met him on
the way down. Renton stood at his office door awaiting the nameless
man. He was a tall, slender man in his middle years, with the
appearance of an educated and humane British civil servant. He wore
a dark navy two-piece suit and thick horn-rimmed reading glasses.
His hair, receding slightly at the temples, was straight, longish,
silver grey and combed back in an elegant manner. His features were
handsome and tinged with an urbane, ironical humour. He took the
nameless man's hand and shook it vigorously. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">'It's very good to see you again,' he said.
</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">'We've met before?'</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The ironic mirth of Renton's smile deepened.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">'Oh yes, many, many times.' </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Continued shortly. (Artwork by George Tooker and Remedios Varo). </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-92121799055912159792017-06-13T16:14:00.001-07:002017-06-13T16:14:19.103-07:00Intermundia Airport (Chapter 3). <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju301cwiFgZkcadLcI-AAH3YTkinTsDd1084hDhS2pw88j5eYcJRxcdnz5TzlLD9f-UguKb_fu0dDOxWgdQNj-fBfcDBImJZi3Izg6sekja6dZonNzBf7n94p7aAcC2lmDfGYY5NhFoeOo/s1600/futurism_meccanica_pannaggi_speeding_train.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="850" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju301cwiFgZkcadLcI-AAH3YTkinTsDd1084hDhS2pw88j5eYcJRxcdnz5TzlLD9f-UguKb_fu0dDOxWgdQNj-fBfcDBImJZi3Izg6sekja6dZonNzBf7n94p7aAcC2lmDfGYY5NhFoeOo/s400/futurism_meccanica_pannaggi_speeding_train.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Chapters <a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.ie/2017/02/intermundia-airport-chapter-1.html">1</a> and <a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.ie/2017/03/intermundia-airport-chapter-2.html">2</a>.<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They were sitting on a bench in a large plaza adjacent to the
platforms.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Did you work out the route last night?' Giacomo asked Eddie. Eddie
looked sheepish. 'I thought it was your turn.' Giacomo growled.
'Every time, every single time!' They took out notepads and started
scribbling furiously, their eyes darting from the platform sign to
the route display. He looked at the platform sign and noticed
something peculiar: the number seemed to be changing at a regular
interval.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What's going on?' he asked.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie looked up from his notepad. 'The system is....a little
complicated. The number of the platform changes every twenty
seconds. So, platform 1 changes to platform 2, and so on, and the
whole system of stops moves like a wave, back and forth throughout
the day. Now, the problem is that the number of the trains also
change, every thirty seconds. So the train you get on will be a
completely different train, with different stops, by the time you get
to your destination.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'And your destination will have a completely different name by the
time you get there,' Giacomo interjected.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'So you have to run two different sets of calculations, to insure
that the train you get on will stop at the platform that your
destination has become by the time you get there.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They returned to their scribbling and bickering.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Platform 4b will be platform 2b at 4.15p.m., right?' Eddie was
saying. 'If we take the 25C train at 4.15, we should get to Central
Command at 6.30. So at 6.30, the 25C will be the 48A, and Central
Command will be Terminal 123B, right? Does the 48A stop at 123B?' </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Who could have composed such a tortuously bewildering and
perverse method of organising rail schedules</i>? <i> </i>And to what
end? It made him nauseous just to look at the security guards with
their furrowed brows, poring over endlessly revised diagrams that
floated in a sea of scribbled computation. Was this how Intermundia
Airport controlled its workers? By insulating them from the rest of
world, and brow-beating them with a system of absurdities that made
the simplest thing an ordeal? Did they really pass their entire
existences here, in this hub of ceaseless motion, still points fixed
in a sea of transience? He felt almost sorry for them, if that were
the case. They seemed like rodents, or some other poor beasts, that
eked out their living on the interstices of a teeming motorway. No
scavenging rat or fox could comprehend the meaning of cars and
trucks, or fathom who had built them and what function they served.
Yet the system of the motorway enclosed their entire being,
imprinting itself in the seat of their instincts and reflexes. They
lived off the scraps of this system, which never ceased its motion,
and was as inscrutable to them as nature is to us. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'We've got it!' Eddie said with a bright smile. 'And a few minutes
to spare as well. Are you hungry?' He went off to a little kiosk to
buy coffee, pastries and a newspaper. The Moroccan in the kiosk
seemed to know him well. They made jokes about their wives, and the
general dissatisfactions of existence. 'Yesterday it finally
happened,' the Moroccan said, 'I am fatter than my wife. That was
the only thing I ever had over her!' Giocomo passed the time by
glancing at women with a lazy, non-committal gleam of lust. He had
trained his facial muscles to hover on the periphery of a smile that
never quite appeared, a sly apparition haunting his eyes and the edge
of his mouth. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie came back with breakfast. He refused a pastry but excepted a
Styrofoam cup of coffee. The cup was branded with an image of two
crudely anthropomorphized coffee beans, a male and female. The male,
with large, bulging eyeballs, was accosting the female: “I'VE GOT A
CRUSH ON YOU”, he was saying. 'We better get moving,' Giacomo
announced, and they took off briskly through the plaza, weaving
around its maze of stalls, kiosks and terraces. The people who
staffed the kiosks were from all over the world: Europeans, Asians,
Africans, South Americans. The majority, he noted, carried out their
work with quiet, disengaged patience, and seemed to glance at
intervals to the left of their peripheral vision, as though something
hidden were progressing behind the ordinariness of their lives, and
the routinised bustle of the station. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2M5C3o8arRvdy4rYGFbJYND7sFXA_pvKlM5vcaYAQZy-58rUGfuiYv9b1WXDaPLnR3BuUoY826YLtPWLh_cPMTPqr3aqwjnxa0mopvYFqYkFS1djGl1ehVtJhr-8noT1z9TCwySTHp90s/s1600/train+born+out+of+the+sun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="474" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2M5C3o8arRvdy4rYGFbJYND7sFXA_pvKlM5vcaYAQZy-58rUGfuiYv9b1WXDaPLnR3BuUoY826YLtPWLh_cPMTPqr3aqwjnxa0mopvYFqYkFS1djGl1ehVtJhr-8noT1z9TCwySTHp90s/s400/train+born+out+of+the+sun.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As they got closer to the platforms, the roar of the trains drowned
out every other sound, and the whole scene assumed a distant quality,
as though it were underwater. The vendors and their costumers
communicated adroitly with hand signals. He had gulped back his
coffee greedily, and the caffeine and sugar hit him in a sudden,
ecstatic rush. For the briefest instant, he felt rapturously happy
and alive. In that moment, the lack of a past was a blessing that
rooted him firmly in the present instant like a virgin seed.
Similarly, the absurdity of his situation felt like a kind of
liberation: in a world without reason, he was free to exist fully in
each instant, without hopes or expectations of any kind, only the
neutral purity of his sensations. The world was alive with the
power, the speed and the sound of the trains, hurtling off in
unimaginable directions.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That wondrous sensation evaporated in a flash, leaving him only with
a image: he saw himself, lead by Eddie and Giacomo through the crowd,
suddenly become incandescent, as though some ray of the sun had
pierced through the vast fortress of steel and concrete overhead, and
turned his body into a brief avatar of the stellar heavens. Then he
was returned to the jittery awareness of a living nightmare. Eddie
motioned towards a train. Sleek, gunmetal grey, the design of its
front carriage resembled the snout of a bloodhound or shark, some
metallic predator that strained against the brief stasis imposed by
the stop. They embarked, and the doors snapped after them as though
to nip at their heels.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They took their seats at a table. In contrast to the train's
gleaming and vigorous outer shell, the interior reminded him of the
mournful decrepitude of the Intermundia Overnight. The materials of
the seating, the fabric and designs of the carpet and cushions all
shared that sad quality of a thing which had never been new, a place
prematurely soiled by cigarette smoke and the intestinal anxiety of
endless bad dinners and portentous appointments. It had the ambience
of a hospital cafeteria, of the blanched aesthetics of a failed
bureaucratic regime whose utopian dreams lingered on only as an
ancestral spirit that whispered hollowly in the bite of the wind. He
was lost for a moment in a reverie of such a world: a wintry city of
concrete geometry and faded furniture, where the people had, over
generations of perpetual paranoid vigilance, evolved into silent,
industrious and inscrutable masks, working and eating and bearing
their children like automatons. Inside each of them there must have
been fugitive dreams and fantasies, imaginative worlds vast and
discontinuous as their public lives were solid and circumscribed,
luxurious desires that far outstripped the cold formalism of their
marriages, heresies, hymns and obscenities sung beneath the
affectless composure of their visible lives. And yet none could ever
know for sure if they alone possessed these riotous inner kingdoms,
and all others were precisely as they appeared on the outside, such
were they all subject to the perpetual fear of a vigilant bureaucracy
which might, for all they knew, have ceased to exist many generations
ago, for there was no outwardly discernible difference between the
total success of the regime, and its complete absence.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie looked relived. 'Well, we're on the right train anyway, look
- ' he said, pointing in the direction of a table towards the rear of
the carriage. The table seated four individuals – two men and two
women – who were clearly distinguishable from the rest of the crowd
by virtue of their dress and bearing. The women and one of the men
were Caucasian, with the fourth having an African appearance. They
were all tall and lean, with beautifully symmetrical features and a
kind of coltish quality that suggested superior breeding. They wore
sober, finely tailored business clothes, the women with blouses of a
lustrous, delicate silk, and the men with crisp suits that looked
fresh from the rack. The group weren't speaking, and the two that
faced him had lazy, slight grins fixed on their faces, as though
savouring a private joke.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There was something unnerving about this group which was difficult
to pin-point. As he watched, it occurred to him that they didn't
seem to make the slightest movement – they were as still as a
photograph against the rushing terrain of the window. It was as
though they had fallen asleep with their eyes open and alert. Their
detached, patrician bearing suggested beings who inhabited their
bodies with the evanescent casualness of tourists.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'They're technocrats,' Eddie explained, 'on their way to Central, no
doubt.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Are they case officers?' he asked.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'No, the case officers tend to be a little older. I would imagine
that they are traffic controllers, or some lower functionaries of the
technocrat class.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He was thinking again that it was surely all a dream. It didn't
<i>feel</i> like a dream, but was that not after all the nature of
dreams? It was supremely comforting to entertain the fantasy that he
would soon be waking up in his own bed, luxuriating in that keen
sense of relief that often comes in the wake of a disagreeable dream.
Would he be married? Rich or poor? Happy or miserable? Perhaps in
his real life he knew Eddie and Giacomo, or some or other of the
technocrats, in an altered guise. It was almost blissful, for a
moment, to imagine the whole situation vanish abruptly like a swollen
soap bubble, and become no more than a fragmentary riddle he would
carry around for a day or so.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The train passed through a monotonous expanse of concrete tunnel
illuminated by large yellow and orange sodium lamps. Occasionally,
they passed an embankment where crews of workers toiled on
construction sites, welding large iron girders and wheeling concrete
blocks about. After longer intervals, they arrived at various stops,
and the personnel of the carriage morphed rapidly, with the exception
of the technocrats, who remained poised in their seats with their
strange half-smiles. Each of the stops had its own distinct
architectural style, as though belonging to a different country or
temporal period. The passage of time and distance became difficult
to gauge. He felt that they were going deeper underground.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'How long have you guys been working together?' he asked, to break
the silence.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well,' Eddie replied, 'that's a difficult one to answer. How long
is a piece of string?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This seemed to set Giacomo off again.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'I hate that one!,' he growled.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What one?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'That expression “How long is a piece of string.”'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What's wrong with it?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, show me the piece of string!'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Show me the piece of string, and I'll tell you how long it is.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'That's not the point. There is no piece of string.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Then why ask how long it is?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'It's a figure of speech. It's not a specific piece of string, it's
a notional piece of string. It's <i>any</i> piece of string. How
long is any piece of string? Who knows?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They were both getting red-faced.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'There is no such thing as <i>any</i> piece of string, there are
only <i>specific</i> pieces of string. And if there is a specific
piece of string, it <i>can</i> be measured. It's the easiest thing
in the world to measure.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie looked away from Giacomo with resignation:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'You want to know how long we've been working together? An
eternity. That's how long we've been working together. <i>An</i>
e<i>ternity!</i>'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo shrugged. Eddie, perhaps aware that he was becoming weary
of their endless bickering, passed him the newspaper. 'You can read
this if you like,' he said, 'to pass the time. It's always good to
stay informed.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvPojIUUAZYKHJRMbCQZTgzXtYZ8QgFR5zKoJye0K1nGRSbyd6wsxPHdSkpBZYVPREfsQX7LXrnpj5iPoJNy275tXi6Vaen7BDnTnCS_vtH0zMiFQnwImSMkq2y-gGohYWy3HVH-b7Im9H/s1600/17990860_1374958435916785_6769118985202327901_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="382" data-original-width="480" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvPojIUUAZYKHJRMbCQZTgzXtYZ8QgFR5zKoJye0K1nGRSbyd6wsxPHdSkpBZYVPREfsQX7LXrnpj5iPoJNy275tXi6Vaen7BDnTnCS_vtH0zMiFQnwImSMkq2y-gGohYWy3HVH-b7Im9H/s400/17990860_1374958435916785_6769118985202327901_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The paper was called the <i>Intermundia Chronicle</i>. The masthead
featured an image of an airplane ascending diagonally in a circle,
and the slogan: “BEASTS ASK FOR MERE FOOD AND SHELTER; MEN ASK
“WHAT NEWS?” In lieu of a date, the paper was simply designated
<i>TODAY'S EDITION. </i>He read the lead article:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Mankind's Moment of Triumph Turns to Eerie Tragedy: Returning
Astronauts Replaced by Lifeless Mannequins. </b>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><i>Drake Space Centre, Cape Canaveral, Florida</i> – We all
watched in awe and suspense as the American astronauts Mike Summers
and Budd 'Slingshot' McGinty became the first men to walk on the
surface of the moon. On the day that the world was due to welcome
back the heroic Mithras 5 crew – Summers, McGinty and Command
Module pilot Frank Logan – the assembled world press discovered
only grief, confusion and macabre horror. We knew that 3 days ago
(July 23) the command module <i>Mercury</i> splashed down near the
Utirik Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, where it was met by the recovery
vessel <i>USS Philadelphia. </i></b>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Then came the silence – and the rumours. For two successive
days, the press men who had gathered on Florida's <i>Space Coast </i>were
kept in the dark about the circumstances of the <i>Mercury</i>'s
re-entry and splashdown. During today's sombre press conference,
chaired by USAF General Tyrone McClinton and Mithras 5 CAPCOM Duke
Toynbee, the world finally learned the truth. </b>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>As journalists assembled in the Drake auditorium, audible gasps
were heard. The seats reserved for the heroic astronauts were
occupied by an eerie trio of store-front mannequins. General
McClinton explained that Mission Control had lost radio contact with
the <i>Mercury</i> Module some 14 minutes before the scheduled
splashdown. “We weren't too alarmed, and felt that things would go
according to plan without further communication at that point,”
Toynbee added. However, when divers from the <i>Philadelphia
</i>investigated the floating capsule in the early hours of July
23<sup>rd</sup>, they noted that Summers, McGinty and Logan had been
replaced by the mannequins present at the conference. According to
McClinton: “The men who made this grim discovery are still in a
distraught condition. Whether or not they will return to active
duty, it is unlikely that they will ever be able to pass a department
store without experiencing extreme distress.”</b></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Next, Florida state pathologist and noted ethnomusicologist Lonnie
Vargas spoke briefly about his examination of the mannequins carried
out with the assistance of a Sears and Roebuck window dresser. “The
figurines themselves are quite unremarkable. They are constructed of
a terrestrial wax and plaster composite which is standard for the
industry. As you can see, no attempt has been made to mimic the
actual appearances of Summers, McGinty and Logan. Rather, they have
the unnerving, doll-like quality common to the mannequin – I would
call it the suggestion of a distant, anaesthetized happiness. In
lieu of genitals, they have the smooth, rounded protuberance common
to the dummy.” </b>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Investigation of the phenomenon is advancing on two principal
lines of enquiry: scientific explanation, or possible sabotage by the
Russian Comrades. Toynbee explained: “At the present time, we know
of no conceivable naturalistic mechanism as to how the flight to the
moon and subsequent re-entry might cause the transformation of living
human tissue into plaster-based lifeless simulacra.<i>” </i>General
McClinton suggested that the uncanny mystery bore the imprimatur of
the Kremlin: “This is precisely the kind of transformation the
Comrades would gladly enforce on the entire planet – turning free
men into standardized dummies!” He added, however, that there was
at present no plausible scenario for how the Comrades could have made
the switch in the available timeline. </b>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>The mannequins were dressed in checkered wool flannel shirts and
half wool cashmere slacks, a sneak preview of the Sears and Roebuck
autumn catalogue. Pipes had been provided to complete the rugged,
rustic look. Despite the intensely sombre and portentous nature of
the occasion, all agreed that the ensembles were quite becoming.
General McClinton praised the versatility of the new line, noting
that “everybody would feel comfortable in these, from college
Johnny to retiree Joe!”</b></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b> </b><span style="font-weight: normal;">Puzzled by how such a
blatant flight of fancy could be presented as an item of factual
journalism, he scanned some of the other headlines: </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>Department of Health Warning: Physical Acts of Intimacy May Be
Catalyst for Invasion of Little People – Home Office: “First they
take Your Identity – Eventually they will Bury You” -
Conservative MP: “The Little People are Inculcating the Ethos of
the Welfare State in Every Home.” </b>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'But this is nonsense,' he finally blurted, pushing the newspaper
away.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo sneered. 'Sorry, Einstein.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie seemed upset. 'The <i>Chronicle</i> has a superb reputation,
I can assure you.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'This paper has a <i>reputation</i> - '</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Yes, yes, the <i>Chronicle</i> is really above reproach. Their
diligence is outstanding.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Their diligence - '</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'I wouldn't mislead you, sir. They have excellent fact checkers,
really tireless.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Fact checkers?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Absolutely. If they discover that any factual content has crept
into a story, sir, they immediately issue a retraction. That happens
very, very rarely – but whenever it does, I can assure you, the
offending content is retracted immediately.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'But – newspapers are <i>supposed</i> to be factual!'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie and Giacomo regarded him as though he were drunk.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Where did you get that idea from?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well – I don't know – I can't remember – you mean that
they're pure fantasy?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What else would they be?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'But – don't people want to know what's happening - what's going
on around them?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie look at him incredulously, and then sighed: 'Well, why would
they want to? Nothing happens here, nothing at all really. People
arrive, and then they go away' – he moved his hand from side to
side – '<i>arrive</i>, then <i>away</i>. What kind of news would
that be? It would be the same paper, every single edition:
“<b>Yesterday, Some People Arrived in Intermundia Airport, and Some
Others Departed from It</b>.” Not very simulating news, is it?
Not very edifying work, either for the journalist or the reader. But
delusions and flights of fantasy – well, sir, they need not be so
static and predictable.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A look of mournful longing came over Eddie's face as he continued:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Well, for most people, I suppose they would. They say, sir, that
the average chimpanzee who is taken from the wilderness to the zoo
soon forgets the forest, and dreams only of the bars of his cage.
And that's the way it is for most of us. But the journalist is an
exceptional creature – he has somehow cultivated the temperature of
his imagination, so that it is a hothouse where strange, luxuriant
things blossom.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo nodded at Eddie with a look of sardonic cruelty:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'He wanted to be a journalist when he was younger!'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'I did – I still do. But – oh, it's too late now. Too late. I
wouldn't even get a job as a stenographer in one of the papers now.
But what a life – what a wonderful life! The journalist doesn't
sleep much at night. What does he do? Well, I imagine he wanders
about, talking to the people who work the night-shift, looking at the
planes in the night sky, having adventures in a world that the rest
of us don't see. The journalist, you see, must be awake and active
while most of us are dreaming. This allows him to dream while while
the rest of us toil away in the workaday world. The busy news office
is a work environment like no other. It is make up of rows of
hammocks, which serve as the journalists' desks. And when the
reporter clocks in to work in the morning, he lays himself out on his
hammock. It is considered professional to wear pyjamas or perhaps a
dressing gown, but the occasional maverick arrives to work fully
clothed. There are hookahs positioned by the hammocks, and some of
the journalists consume narcotics to insure a greater accuracy in
their work. Imagine it! Everywhere else, there is noise and bustle
and busyness. But in the newspaper office, a blissful silence, a
languor, a porous, dreamy atmosphere, plumes of smoke swirling into
evanescent patterns above the recumbent workers, the Sandman lulling
softly to sleep those strenuous, invisible weavers who knit our
thoughts together into rational and coherent sentences. The
journalist, you see, in order to file his stories, must drift into a
trance-like state, neither fully conscious or asleep. A place
<i>between</i> the two states – an airport, if you like, which is
not really one country or another, where the point of departure and
the destination are blurred together. And when he becomes thus
inspired, the journalist begins to speak in a low whisper. Crouched
at a little desk beneath the hammock, his head aslant so that his ear
is close to the whispering mouth, the stenographer records each
journalist's dream, editing factual and biographical material out as
he goes. What a strange place – a gaggle of hushed voices, distant
and unfamiliar, and keys clacking to catch them in ink before they
vanish forever – the place where the daily news is made!'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie had an awestruck, faraway expression as he contemplated the
life of the journalist. Giacomo continued to goad him:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'But you tried, didn't you? You tried to be a journalist - '</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Oh, shut up Giacomo - '</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'But when you lay down on the hammock, and drifted off into your
trance - '</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'SHUT UP!'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'The only news stories you could come up were events from your own
life - '</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In low voice: 'Only the bars of my cage...'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Trivial little episodes – broken hearts and roast dinners - '</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Only the bars.....'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
' - that the stenographers instantly edited away into nothing.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The pair fell silent, Giacomo apparently satisfied at having
humiliated Eddie. Nothing happened for a long time, and he felt an
unbearable tension, as though one of them would soon have to become
hysterical or violent. Then Eddie's face brightened.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'I think we're here at long last!' he said.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The train was stopping. Eddie and Giacomo got up briskly from their
seats and headed in the direction of the doors. He followed then
reluctantly, becoming aware that his nerves were mounting again now
that the journey was completed. Stepping out on the platform was the
most awesome shock he had yet experienced in Intermundia Airport.
The station was a vast cyclopean enclosure, more redolent of an
ancient temple or mausoleum than a train stop. The structure's
brooding air of antiquity and scale, so incongruently juxtaposed with
the poised, illuminated train, took his breathe away. He had that
quiet, eerie perturbation of soul that a person experiences when they
cast a rock into a dim abyss, and only a prolonged silence follows.
The technocrats glided away, the clack of the women's heels echoing
through the vast space like tumbling pebbles. Then the train took
off again, departing into a tunnel so small and dim that it seemed to
simply pass through the stone wall. Its sound died away slowly and a
profound silence filled the cavern, like a vigilant animal resuming
its habitual watchfulness having just swallowed the last morsel of a
meal. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie and Giacomo remained immobile, leaving him a moment to take in
his surroundings. The outer walls were constructed with huge,
misshapen limestone boulders, fitted together in a haphazard fashion
which made him recall – for some obscure reason – Eddie's earlier
discussion of a putative asymmetry in the human mouth which implied
senility or malice on the part of the creator. Nearer the tracks, a
series of pillars, terminating in cornices at the roof of the cavern,
suggested a later, more sophisticated addition. The pillars were
carved with abstract decorative figures of a sensibility so obscure
that it felt almost impious to contemplate them in the harsh light of
the orange sodium lamps.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Finally, Eddie nudged him gently.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Your case officer is over there.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He turned and followed Eddie's pointing finger. High up above the
tunnels where the train had just departed, a massive, brooding face
was carved into the limestone where the wall met the roof of the
cavern. Indistinct in terms both of race and sex, the features were
austere and expressionless with the exception of the eyes, which were
fixed with fierce concentration on the platform floor. It was, he
thought, the perfect epitome of a primitive ruler of infinite power
and eternal, implacable judgement, a ruler whose silence and
immobility contained the clap and the rent of thunder. He became
conscious of Eddie and Giacomo's bodies shaking behind him. Turning,
he found that they were laughing silently.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Sorry,' Eddie said, red-faced, 'sorry – I can never resist that
one. Parts of this underground are very old. Who knows who that
fella is up yonder? He wouldn't make much of a case officer though.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo was sniggering. 'We're going this way,' Eddie said, having
composed himself, and they made off away from the platform. As they
neared the far wall, he noticed that there was a single kiosk in the
gloom. The kiosk sold pretzels, pastries, coffee and newspapers. A
wizened, heavily made-up woman with a sullen expression sat inside
smoking a cigarette. A good half of the cigarette was untipped ash
that seemed always on the point of falling away. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Busy today Maria?' Eddie enquired as they passed. The woman in the
kiosk extracted the cigarette from the side of her mouth in a
distasteful manner, as though it were a thermometer. She grunted,
rolled her eyes slightly, and returned the cigarette. Her bulging
eyes and rhythmic inhalations reminded him of a fish in a tank.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'She's one of those women who can smoke an entire cigarette without
tipping it once,' Eddie said, 'it's a skill that the older generation
have. I used to watch my grandmother doing it.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'I had an uncle,' Giacomo interjected, 'who could smoke an entire
cigarette without exhaling any smoke! I was fascinated by this as a
child, and I asked my father where the smoke went. He told me that
my uncle farted all the smoke out of his asshole like a chimney
before he went to bed. To this day, I still want to know where all
that smoke went!'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They reached the far wall. The lichen-mottled stone had been
excavated, and a modern structure built into the wall. Eddie opened
the glass door, and they entered what appeared to be an abandoned
work station of some kind. It was a dingy complex that branched off
into offices, store-rooms and a canteen where a fluorescent lamp
flickered and buzzed. Tools, hard-hats, Styrofoam cups and old
newspapers were scattered on the floor, and a thick smell of kerosene
and disinfectant hung in the hair. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'This place,' Giacomo said sourly. They walked through dimly lit
corridors for what seemed like an age. Occasionally, they
encountered other security guards escorting New Arrivals back through
the complex from Central Command. The New Arrivals had haunted,
perplexed expressions, and appeared dissociated from their
surroundings. He was troubled by the awareness that this situation
would be reversed in a short time – he would be returning, and
encountering others on-route. Finally, they arrived in the main
electrical distribution room, and Eddie typed a code into a steel
door behind a row of switchboards. He was smiling. 'I hope you're
ready for some exercise.' The three men entered a narrow, dark
metallic shaft. Giacomo shone a pen-sized torch, revealing a steel
ladder fixed to the wall. 'We have to climb,' Eddie said, 'I'll go
first, and you can go in the middle. That way, if you fall,
Giacomo's thick skull should cushion you.' Giacomo grunted.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He looked up, but it was impossible to determine the extent of the
shaft in the darkness. 'Is it high?' he whispered. 'It's not too
bad', Eddie said, 'just take it one step at a time.' Eddie started
climbing, and when his feet were a few rungs above his head, Giacomo
nudged him to begin. He felt strangely powerless and fixed his hands
on the railing. Soon all three were ascending the ladder at a
deliberate pace. The darkness of the shaft became nearly complete,
and he orientated himself by means of Eddie's heavy panting above,
and the sound of Giacomo's feet below. His arms became fatigued, but
whenever his pace slackened, Giacomo's head butted brusquely against
his feet. His hands were slick with perspiration. He wanted to tell
them to stop, to turn back, but his mouth was dry, and he seemed to
have lost all volition in the arduousness of the climb. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'We should sing a song,' Eddie said above, 'Giacomo, would you like
to sing a few bars of something?' Giacomo grunted. 'Well, I suppose
I better sing one.' They continued climbing. Eddie started to sing
a lullaby in a strange, affected lilt which was completely unlike his
speaking voice:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Train whistle blowin',</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Makes a sleepy noise,
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Underneath their blankets</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Go all the girls and boys.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rockin', rollin', ridin',</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Out along the bay,
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All bound for Morningtown</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Many miles away.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie paused, and his breaths came in thick, wheezing gasps. 'Come
on gang, join in', he said finally, and continued:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Driver at the engine,
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Fireman rings a bell,
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sandman swings the lantern</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To show that all is well.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo joined in the second chorus, and the combination of their
discordant and poorly synchronized voices was eerie and terrifying:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Rockin', rollin', ridin',</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Out along the bay,
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All bound for Morningtown,</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Many miles away.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He was getting more exhausted and faint-headed, and his mind
entertained grimly elaborate conceits. Perhaps the stern stone
visage had really been his case officer after all. Perhaps it had,
in that instant, judged him for sins that he would never remember,
and consigned him to this punishment: to climb the darkened shaft for
all eternity, trapped between two madmen, perpetually on the brink of
total exhaustion. Above, Eddie continued to sing:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Somewhere there is sunshine,
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Somewhere there is day,
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Somewhere there is Morningtown,
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Many miles away.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
After another bout of choked spluttering, Eddie stopped climbing.
'Slow down a bit there!', he shouted. He struggled for a moment with
a latch, then lifted himself up. There was a heavy clang, and then
white daylight coursed through the shaft, like water through a
sluice. With the light came brisk, revivifying fresh air, and a
gentle sound that stirred something in his memories. Eddie had
clambered out of the shaft, and he followed with a sudden burst of
energy, lifting himself over the edge of a steel trap-door, and
rolling over soft ground to lie on his back. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He was looking up at the blue sky through a dense canopy of coiling
branches and fluttering leaves. They were in a forest. His senses
were ravished by this first encounter with nature since arriving in
Intermundia. He inhaled deeply the scent of soil, grass and bark.
He knew them so intimately that they were like a childhood memory, or
the memory of childhood itself, come back to him. He stood up, and
his eyes delighted in the colours and forms of the forest, so vivid
and alive after his journey through the steel and concrete landscape
of the terminals, runways and underground.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo was emerging nonchalantly from the shaft. Eddie sat against
a tree stump, wiping sweat from his brow and smiling boyishly. 'It's
easier going back down,' he said. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/M-RkC6MYT2E/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M-RkC6MYT2E?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
"Morningtown Ride", lyrics by Malvina Reynolds. Continued shortly.</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-7006735833100232402017-03-16T11:43:00.002-07:002017-03-17T09:27:43.751-07:00Intermundia Airport (Chapter 2).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjy0TX5EC2g-WAn3reCLGP5Gd-70KgoDBx7gs-pG5VSiLLHswQmQk8Unq3ijnBROPORck4Dk6eg7nFMILoxuhqKE4NEAbPSTj1JwT5rGGyKjdwcW6jk-ZHhkB5D88jZOXBs4wsW0N5jANm/s1600/airport+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjy0TX5EC2g-WAn3reCLGP5Gd-70KgoDBx7gs-pG5VSiLLHswQmQk8Unq3ijnBROPORck4Dk6eg7nFMILoxuhqKE4NEAbPSTj1JwT5rGGyKjdwcW6jk-ZHhkB5D88jZOXBs4wsW0N5jANm/s400/airport+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Chapter 1 <a href="http://2012diaries.blogspot.ie/2017/02/intermundia-airport-chapter-1.html">here</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Back inside the terminal, he knew his next move would have to be to
find a bathroom and take a proper look at his features. He lacked a
mental image of his face, and this blank space where his thoughts
were lodged unnerved him so much that he was reluctant even to touch
it. But he had to look – if anything at all could jog his memory,
it was surely his face.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Nothing, it turned out, was easily found in the peculiar geometry of
the terminal. The persistent curvature of its design made him feel
like an infant orbiting a new kind of womb which had been designed by
mathematicians and sculptors. All its lines were curvilinear, and
all its structures nestled neatly into the whole in a manner which
suggested an aesthetic abstraction of the beehive or wasp's nest.
Here and there, long corridors branched off from the main building.
Their carpets were a rich, fleshy red, and the smooth, white arch of
the ceilings gave the whole the appearance of a whale or shark's
famished gullet, through which the people moved like snacks fleeing
the digestive track.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Finally, in the atrium of one of these corridors, he found a
bathroom. The bathroom was long and narrow, and smelled of a citrus
disinfectant. The people at the basins all seemed to pause in their
ablutions, and regard their reflections with a melancholy warmth, as
though the images in the mirror were people to whom they were bidding a fond
farewell, after long, tumultuous shared adventures. A jaunty,
repetitious melody was piped into the bathroom, but he found that
there was a peculiar sense of irresolution or absence in the
culmination of the figure, such that the melody created in his
mind the looping image of a beautiful face slowly brighten to a wide
smile, only at the last to reveal a toothless and cankerous mouth.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Having paused for some time at the cubicles, he edged nervously to
one of the wash-hand basins, and regarded his appearance in the
mirror. He was, he guessed, about thirty-five. He had brown curly
hair, short and untidy, and large blue eyes which he thought were the
colour of a declining evening sky, reflected in cold water. Besides
the slightly piercing quality of the eyes, his appearance struck him
as unremarkable. He was pale and slender, with the look of one of
those introverts who strike most people as passive and emotionally
neutral, an impression owing not to a lack of passion but rather a
certain waxen, inexpressive quality about the physicality. He knew
that type of person vaguely in his own memories: the type who smiled
detachedly and kept their own counsel, having seemingly resolved that
life was a boisterous party at which they knew nobody.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It was not mere disappointment in his looks, however, which troubled
him so sorely. It was that his reflection stirred neither the
slightest memory, nor inspired in him any discernible emotion
whatever. He knew that the reflection in the mirror was his own,
that the appearance which returned his searching looks was in some
vital sense <i>himself, </i>only by a logical necessity of spatial
correlation. Beyond that, his physical body was a stranger to him,
and looking at his face elicited no greater connection than that of a
passer-by on a busy street. Had his reflection abruptly turned its
back, and proceeded towards the door of the bathroom, it would have
had engendered no great shock of dissociation.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This estrangement from his body filled him with a sorrow which felt
unprecedented to his dim recollections. They had taken everything
from him – his entire past, and any connection to his physical
selfhood, was utterly lost. All that he had to hold onto were his
present stream of thoughts, knotted as they were in the unravelling
of a pervasive nightmare logic. In the mirror, his body was
convulsing slightly, and tears streamed down its face. An elderly
Japanese man, dressed in a funereal suit, patted his shoulder gently
– that gesture again. He turned and glared at him.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTtLonhF0fJXN5Pb-PjaKGzgOcv_Wl1c3nzImxLqwHHSXO1ME78mldywowo7arqHyAoSWr4zhmBSlAClQIVeDImeaumEqWTVSdmGvQtdo3vgUAlSSXSv8xxmgKAGMM8OzdvxDaxkE9KP0Y/s1600/airport3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTtLonhF0fJXN5Pb-PjaKGzgOcv_Wl1c3nzImxLqwHHSXO1ME78mldywowo7arqHyAoSWr4zhmBSlAClQIVeDImeaumEqWTVSdmGvQtdo3vgUAlSSXSv8xxmgKAGMM8OzdvxDaxkE9KP0Y/s400/airport3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He made his way up to to one of the elevated footbridges that
spanned the perimeter of the terminal. Observing the scene from this
particular vantage point, it was clear that the crowd broke down into
two separate groups. There was a smaller minority of people like
himself whom he called “New Arrivals.” The New Arrivals all
exhibited varying symptoms of extreme disorientation and anxiety. He
had to assume that they were all in the same position – that their
memories had been wiped and they had no idea where they were. The
second group he called the “Departees” and the “Comforters.”
The Departees had come to be at peace with the circumstances of their
abduction and were now leaving Intermundia Airport – back to their
old lives? They all had that peculiar, almost mystic placidity which
they tried to impart on the New Arrivals, by way of reassuring
glances and that insufferable petting.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Clearly, there was some kind of process at work whereby frightened
New Arrivals were gradually transformed into contented Departees.
Their minds were first wiped clean, and then remade so as to
completely acquiesce to the process whereby their identities had been
stolen, and remoulded as self-effacing model citizens. Perhaps
Intermundia Airport was a kind of re-education camp were everyday
people were indoctrinated, and then sent back into the world as the
hidden operatives of an ideology or agenda so vast and esoteric that
their activities went everywhere unnoticed. Whatever the case, he
had now at least acquired a goal and a purpose: to resist this
process with every fibre of his being. They had made him forget
everything, and that fact alone he would <i>not</i> forget. To have
found a goal and a provisional plan, even one composed entirely of
rage and opposition, brought on a mild cessation of his churning
nerves. A fire which had blazed in his nervous system cooled to to a
more patient simmer.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He then felt yet another pat on his shoulder, this time with a
considerably less friendly import. Turning from the railing, he
found that he was accosted by two security guards. The guards were
an odd couple indeed. One was middle-aged, small and paunchy; the
other youthful, tall and lean. The middle-aged guard was balding,
with grey, wet-looking hair. The sides had been scrupulously combed
back, and the remainder on top formed a near perfect rectangular peak
at the dead-centre of his forehead. His face, closely-shaven and
filmed with perspiration, was plump, boyish, frog-like and endearing.
He had the air of a perpetually harried yet good-humoured uncle.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The younger man had a shaved head, tanned complexion and handsome
Latin features. He looked sleepy and arrogant. They stood facing
him for a moment, the older shifting nervously, the younger man's
body immobile, his eyelids flickering as though he was falling
asleep.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Hello, sir', the older one finally began, 'if you'll excuse me,
sir. My name is Eddie. This is my colleague Giacomo. Your case
officer, sir, would like to see you now, and it is our privilege to
accompany you to his office.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What if I don't want to go?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo edged closer to him, his manner more languorous than
insistent.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'You'll see your case officer,' he said, 'one way or another. Don't
want to go now is fine with us. We get to take an hour off. You
wanna make life difficult for yourself, and easier for us, you're
welcome to.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie cast a reproachful glance at Giacomo.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'What my colleague means to say is that you can see your case
officer any time you please! There's no obligation, none whatever.
It's up to you! The thing is, though, it's really better – better
for <i>you</i> – if you see him sooner rather than later. It's
like – like the dentist! Nobody really wants to go to the dentist.
They put if off! And the rotten tooth, the pain, you see, it just
gets worse. So eventually they have to go. And then – just a
little prick, a bit of yank, and all the pain is gone! And then
they're kicking themselves, saying “I should have to the dentist
ages ago!”'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'I don't have a toothache.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo seemed to approve of this remark. He looked at Eddie with
a smirk.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'You see? He doesn't have a toothache. Why would he want to go to
a dentist?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'That's not the point. I didn't say he should go to a dentist, I
was simply drawing an analogy - '</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'You and your analogies, you're just confusing the issue! The man
is disorientated, he needs to get his bearings, and you're telling
him he has a rotten tooth, he needs to go to the dentist - '</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie turned away from Giacomo, and looked at him imploringly.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'You see what he's trying to do? He doesn't want you to go! He
just wants to take an hour off. I'm only trying to give you good
advice! I have your feelings at heart. He just wants to have a
drink.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie and Giacomo continued to bicker in this farcical manner,
eventually wearing his patience to the point where he submitted to
attend the interview. Eddie beamed. Giacomo shrugged and gave a
little yawn. They sauntered off briskly and he followed them down
the steps. They seemed to forget about him instantly, becoming
absorbed in their own conversation.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Did you know,' Eddie was saying, 'that dentists have the highest
rate of suicide among all the professions?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo shrugged.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'They do. Its a very strange thing, if you think about about it. I
mean, it's a respectable middle-class profession, well-paid, secure,
steady. Not as respected as the doctor, but less pressure! The
dentist never has to tell anybody they've got a month to live, or
that they'll never walk again. So why do they do it?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie glared at him.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Do what?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Kill themselves!'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'All the bad breath seeps into their brains?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'You make a joke out of everything, but it's an interesting
conundrum. I have a theory about the whole thing. There is
something, I suspect, in the mouth, that only dentists see. Think
about it, how often do you actually look into the inside of your
mouth? Nobody does! It's like this undiscovered country, you know,
that we carry around inside our faces, this landscape of pink flesh
and naked bone and rotting chunks of grizzle and the calcified
residuum of an endless stream of words, a lifetime of words that flow
profusely out like bile but never really <i>say </i>anything at all.
And nobody looks into this world for any sustained length of time,
nobody except the dentist. But he looks! Day in and day out, he
wrestles with the ungovernable tongue and probes the private parts of
a thousand faces, until humanity becomes in his dreams a single
gaping mouth! What does he see in there?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They were passing the bench where he had woken up. The old woman
was awake now, sitting up and shaking with a piteous expression of
terror on her face. Two other New Arrivals, a man and woman, sat
either side. The woman cradled the older woman in her arms like a
child, and whispered close to her ear. The man looked like he had
suppressed his fear in deference to the older woman's worse plight,
but his eyes, wide and bird-like, darted frantically. Both looked at
him suspiciously as he passed with Eddie and Giacomo. It occurred to
him that he must already look more acclimatized to Intermundia
Airport, a change in his appearance perhaps brought about by his
first concession to the security guards.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo regarded Eddie with a look half indulgent and half
exasperated.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Do you say this shit to your wife?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'No, no, of course not. She's a wise woman in her own way, but not
intellectual. She likes her creature comforts, and no noise or
stress. That's wiser than most women, I can tell you. But this
stuff would be far too deep for her. I only share this stuff with
you, Giacomo, because I sense that there are deep, deep currents
hidden beneath your boorish veneer.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Nope, no currents here. Please don't.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They turned into one of the corridors that branched off from the
main terminal. The corridor was empty, and its peculiar acoustics
seemed to amplify the absurd conversation of the security guards.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'There are currents, yes, I can tell. You are a thoughtful man.
Now – where was I? Yes, what is it that the dentists see? It
seems to me that there could be something in the mouth – some
hideous asymmetry – that points to a greater truth about the human
condition. Perhaps the mark – the scrawled initials – of a cruel
or senile creator. And the dentist, by virtue of the nature of his
profession, is forced to face this mortally dispiriting truth every
day of his professional life, along with a rouge's gallery of
misshapen and rotten molars, swimming in a dank miasma of the
halitosis. It drives him to despair, you see. He begins to question
the whole premise of his profession – that one should fix that
which was designed, after all, only to give pain and yield to decay.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo snorted.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Your brain is a hideous asymmetry.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Did I ever tell you my theory about why plumbers and pipe-layers
tend to be extremely fertile?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Please don't.'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
They paused at a stairwell. Eddie turned to him. “We're going
out to the Central Command Complex, so we have to get a train.”
They proceeded down the first of several stairwells. A crowd started
to mill around them again, like a tumbling stream. He glanced at the
posters on the wall while they descended. They were advertisements
composed of a mishmash of religious, historical and commercial
iconography. A jolly, rotund Oriental sage demonstrated the virtues
of a water-resistant wrist watch. A benevolent, bearded youth
enjoyed a carbonated beverage after he had been scourged by a group
of soldiers. A collapsing tower emphasized the importance of
comprehensive life insurance. Others suggested political and
militaristic themes: mobilization of war efforts and nationalistic
projects, fomentation of xenophobic panics, evocations of the
transcendent power of vast crowds, or a single, abstracted fist
clenched in the manic idolatry of an idea. Some of the posters were
more abstract or elusive in intention. “TODAY IS TOMORROW'S
YESTERDAY” announced one, over an image of a family of skeletons
enjoying a summer picnic.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Finally, they arrived at the concourse of a vast underground rail
network. As they descended a stately granite staircase, his senses
were once again overwhelmed by the scope and bustle of Intermundia
Airport. There were five separate train tracks, linked by a system
of overpasses. People ascended to the footbridges on escalators, and
were then carried smoothly across on mobile walkways, giving the
overpasses the appearance of relentless conveyor belts. The tracks
moved to a similarly breakneck pace: it seemed as though there was
always a train either departing or arriving at each track, producing
a vertiginous feeling of panic like that of the old variety show
gimmick of spinning plates. He noticed with a kind of sickening jolt
that a huge percentage of the crowd was made up of New Arrivals
accompanied by one or two security guards. They were hundreds,
perhaps thousands of these groups in the underground.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He was momentarily stunned. 'Are all those...?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Eddie nodded, grinning with fond awe. 'Yes, all new-comers, just
like yourself. It never stops. The turn-over is amazing.'
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Giacomo regarded him smugly.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Not so special now, eh?' </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Continued shortly. </div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-83727777629630622292017-02-26T15:47:00.000-08:002017-02-26T15:47:11.969-08:00The Weird, Haunting Art of Graszka Paulska.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV2a9-ByYB2rB_rNkdNJNvLpQx5rWj2NhbraHAc_Z67cVRppURt1fi9YhdLDN-A9Kc9636O3yfMoZporFA5FpiP6mSusGVgfd7edLMi5Nh5Q1_WJj8B5xtuQRPWGO259nGLyTuCUHz-1ZB/s1600/Graska-Paulska+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV2a9-ByYB2rB_rNkdNJNvLpQx5rWj2NhbraHAc_Z67cVRppURt1fi9YhdLDN-A9Kc9636O3yfMoZporFA5FpiP6mSusGVgfd7edLMi5Nh5Q1_WJj8B5xtuQRPWGO259nGLyTuCUHz-1ZB/s640/Graska-Paulska+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="http://grazapp.deviantart.com/">Graszka Paulska</a> is a Polish artist based in Warsaw. Her work is very striking and brilliantly executed:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgacgCFwN_zVd_FsHhZ8zyGncWWRzvrmlx1ar9QcrbzIW9iggoXNLkw2jNplAbOd9GOm9SuNfo458XCHhp8giWdvJcfZClWwrREleS3NXkWeWQsFaxgdqKtPfSL0tFlXD9zRjnqlAoXqXDR/s1600/Graska-Paulska+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgacgCFwN_zVd_FsHhZ8zyGncWWRzvrmlx1ar9QcrbzIW9iggoXNLkw2jNplAbOd9GOm9SuNfo458XCHhp8giWdvJcfZClWwrREleS3NXkWeWQsFaxgdqKtPfSL0tFlXD9zRjnqlAoXqXDR/s640/Graska-Paulska+2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJT5hCTnKmeg7q5rx1PCxwjsyg8nXesEd8DV8m92Bx-HdPn5DzXkM3sxlovjnUfaL0B5isFUr_3hT_d_ADxt1umM7LN2J7IYcREEQ_pDQogavHrRfRew9ZYuosWO49UP8Vn5TqWTkWMtNS/s1600/Graska-Paulska+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="528" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJT5hCTnKmeg7q5rx1PCxwjsyg8nXesEd8DV8m92Bx-HdPn5DzXkM3sxlovjnUfaL0B5isFUr_3hT_d_ADxt1umM7LN2J7IYcREEQ_pDQogavHrRfRew9ZYuosWO49UP8Vn5TqWTkWMtNS/s640/Graska-Paulska+3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL_W_pNEgLhCGSiN-Iw82MaT4Xb9Yyp85rwb9-49MnAB_E5i-Ui7VqzamorCxNL20Ujw4qrNrDdHB6NuCnpwvnBplJqzThZOl9ezSl_AAVRJiCMZw3dVHGng0zcaLPJ3FA_HToOs4B3DeB/s1600/Graska-Paulska+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL_W_pNEgLhCGSiN-Iw82MaT4Xb9Yyp85rwb9-49MnAB_E5i-Ui7VqzamorCxNL20Ujw4qrNrDdHB6NuCnpwvnBplJqzThZOl9ezSl_AAVRJiCMZw3dVHGng0zcaLPJ3FA_HToOs4B3DeB/s640/Graska-Paulska+4.jpg" width="534" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh5vXVJUAMgB489tKd5vakH0Mk9zvA_GdkT1lT5IHm7k2b5cEuutL_IZz4eW57Zc9iLJalAyjVrSXK-CCTUaNM1cRF7o2EvH2TioDcEXC0SSLEEtW8WxyymlMpA8TU9q-uKbw5jvZ0K_JD/s1600/Graska-Paulska+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh5vXVJUAMgB489tKd5vakH0Mk9zvA_GdkT1lT5IHm7k2b5cEuutL_IZz4eW57Zc9iLJalAyjVrSXK-CCTUaNM1cRF7o2EvH2TioDcEXC0SSLEEtW8WxyymlMpA8TU9q-uKbw5jvZ0K_JD/s640/Graska-Paulska+5.jpg" width="452" /></a></div>
<br />
More at<a href="http://www.emptykingdom.com/featured/graszka-paulska/"> EMPTY KINGDOM</a>. Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-31511329251564305902017-02-09T15:40:00.000-08:002017-03-16T11:32:57.195-07:00Intermundia Airport (Chapter 1).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4kFMS8K2eKbyVLmKdD3Xc0633u1ZpRgs7acHX1kaB3tHDHUcZg49qRVXEBNoaHGMx2vMZUhiCcGx3gF5HHLfu2e_LKhOZzeIXSBYWjwEV6OZ9N6KavG8r7KxFJ6D-4-HkeQDnong1Giv2/s1600/airport+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4kFMS8K2eKbyVLmKdD3Xc0633u1ZpRgs7acHX1kaB3tHDHUcZg49qRVXEBNoaHGMx2vMZUhiCcGx3gF5HHLfu2e_LKhOZzeIXSBYWjwEV6OZ9N6KavG8r7KxFJ6D-4-HkeQDnong1Giv2/s400/airport+3.jpg" width="395" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
By a
route obscure and lonely,
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Haunted by ill angels
only,
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Where an Eidolon, named
NIGHT,
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
On a black throne
reigns upright,
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I have reached these
lands but newly</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
From an ultimate Dim
Thule-</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
From a wild weird clime
that lieth, sublime,
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Out of SPACE –
Out of TIME.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Edgar
Allen Poe, <i>Dream-Land</i>.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Chapter
1.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He woke
up and found himself huddled on a bench in a busy airport terminal.
If he hadn't been so drowsy he would probably have been alarmed, for
he had no memories of anything prior to the intense disorientation of
his dreams. He couldn't remember his name, or anything that had ever
happened to him, before waking up in that airport terminal.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Holding
his nerves at bay, he attempted to get his bearings. He sat up on
the bench, and looked around. The terminal was a vast, ovoid-shaped
structure, with its latticed ceiling curving high above the activity
on the floor. Every surface was white, gleaming and reflective, and
through the curving lattice work of the ceiling, and glass walls
broken into cubes by white frames, he saw a pure, pulsating blue sky.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In
contrast to the sharp clarity of the terminal's appearance, its sound
was distant and diffuse, like the low, steady hum of a hidden
machinery. Feet clacked on the tiled floor, the walkers becoming
upturned shadows that arced across its polished sheen. Their voices
coalesced into a happy, bee-like static that ebbed and swelled in
waves across the terminal. Behind this sound, a woman's voice rose
intermittently to make announcements on a tinny intercom. Her
language and accent were so unfamiliar to him, and the effect of her
voice so mysterious, that he could only picture her hidden behind a
musty black veil, fingering the beads of some forgotten heresy as she
made her muffled announcements.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He
marvelled at the hive-like bustle of the terminal, its suggestion of
a factory that produced steady, minute permutations in the global
pattern of human dispersal, and in the private, intangible allotment
of human destinies. People moved this way and that, across the busy
floor, up escalators and away out of view on mobile walkways. They
were all charged with the mingled anxiety and giddy excitement of
imminent departure. Here and there, he saw other individuals who
appeared, like himself, blear-eyed and disorientated, as though they
had just awoken in an unfamiliar skin. He was struck abruptly by an
oddity in the whole scene: nobody was carrying luggage of any kind.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Taking
all this in, it occurred to him that he had a perfectly adequate
memory of the most generalized things. He know what airports were.
He knew what airplanes, taxies and buses were. In the broadest
strokes, he know what the world was, and how one functioned in it.
What he lacked completely was a memory of particular things. This
extended beyond his own identity. He tried to remember what year it
was, and found he was uncertain which decade. When he tried to
remember who was the president of America, no particular president
emerged, only a kind of composite image: an energetic, middle-aged
man in a suit with a gleaming smile. This happened, again and again,
with popular music, fashion and technology. His mind seemed to
possess only rough templates, or an awareness of the precursors of
things, rather than their present, living instances.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgimxGwIT8RJ9BJpO7XIgRpzz6lTpAEa9Y5YtLkrs-PclT9YkUN55NF-rVhI-_j46C8btrwLs0GTHWOrk-NEtDnFiJLgUvt9Kh_XvU1sX3HF8ZctWpmvxmIR36ysiGniQrpf5E2NOCyIF/s1600/airport.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgimxGwIT8RJ9BJpO7XIgRpzz6lTpAEa9Y5YtLkrs-PclT9YkUN55NF-rVhI-_j46C8btrwLs0GTHWOrk-NEtDnFiJLgUvt9Kh_XvU1sX3HF8ZctWpmvxmIR36ysiGniQrpf5E2NOCyIF/s400/airport.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Growing
more troubled, he turned his attention back to the terminal. The
benches were arranged in rows that faced the terminal's massive
electronic display, a black rectangle affixed to the downward
curvature of the ceiling. Some of the destinations were immediately
familiar to him, evoking second-hand memories of famous landmarks and
national stereotypes. Others, he was certain, he had never
encountered before, and their names affected him like pieces of music
or passages of recondite poetry.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
At the
bottom centre of the display, a smaller screen was tuned to what he
assumed was a news channel. This news channel, however, was subject
to an instantly notable and deeply alienating peculiarly: there were
no people in it. It alternated between long, static shots of a
studio in which two empty chairs regarded the viewer portentously,
and wide, rapidly cutting shots of urban locations equally devoid of
human presence. When the news programme broke for commercials, he
was initially relived to find that these, at least, contained people.
However, just as the news reportage lacked its crucial human
element, the advertisements were rendered stark by the absence of the
objects which were their chief subject. The beaming actors mimed the
various pleasures and utilities of absent, notional consumer
products, producing an effect which he found almost as forlorn as the
empty spaces of the news programme.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Turning
back to the people milling about beneath the display, he began to
notice other things. There were, as far as he could see, no children
in the terminal. He estimated that the average age was somewhere
between forty and sixty. He saw one teenager, and some who were in
their twenties, but they were outliers. Their clothing had the same
indefinite quality which characterized his memories. Most of it was
impossible to pin down to any specific decade. Where the clothing
did evoke a particular period, it did so in an unconvincing fashion,
like a much later recreation for a television show or magazine
spread. Finding nothing in the scene to place the terminal in either
time or space, he resolved that he had to speak to somebody.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Standing
up, he found himself initially dizzy and nauseous. The use of his
body felt peculiar, as though his mind floated in a jittery, pliant
suit of rubber. After a few steps, however, his body gradually
regained its sense of solidity and continuity. The queues to the
check-in desks were far too long, so he decided to accost the first
person that crossed his path. This turned out to be a women whom he
guessed to be in her mid-forties. She had the general appearance of
an academic or solicitor: a small, stoutish figure, short brown hair
and a kindly bespectacled face.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Excuse
me,' he said, 'please, pardon me, do you speak English?' She paused.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Yes,
yes I do.' A French accent, he thought.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'This
will seem like a really strange question. Could you tell me the name
of this airport?' She smiled indulgently: 'This is the
Intermundia Airport. Or one of them, at any rate.' She was
beginning to move away again.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'But,
I'm sorry, I really don't know where I am. That name doesn't mean
anything to me. What country are we in?' She touched his shoulder
gently.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'We
aren't in any country, really. Look. I can tell that you are new.
All this is very....disorientating and overwhelming at first. But
it's okay, you will get used to it. You need to relax, take a deep
breath. I assume that you haven't seen your case officer yet?'</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'My
<i>what</i>?', he enquired, becoming impatient despite himself.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
'Your
case officer. Have you had a session with your case officer yet?'
He could only shake his head. 'Well, you'll be called very soon, to
have a meeting with them. They will explain everything to you.
Really, it's okay, they'll explain everything.' Her owlish face was
beginning to drift back into the crowd. He looked at her
imploringly. She patted his shoulder again. 'I can't help you now.
<span style="font-style: normal;">But</span><i> don't worry</i>. Just
wait for the meeting. Things will be clearer.' She turned, and
walked away.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It was
becoming increasingly difficult to stave off his mounting anxiety.
He was troubled now by two things. First of all, he was suffering
from extreme amnesia. Perhaps worse still, however, his memory was
still sufficient to emphasize that his current situation was utterly
bizarre and even sinister. <i>Was he dreaming?</i> Though the most
desirable solution, he ruled this out almost instantly. He had no
doubt that his perceptions were veridical – had he been dreaming,
his awareness of the wrongness of everything would have nudged him to
wakefulness long ago. <i>Was he going mad?</i> Again, though this
might have been an almost reassuring explanation, it seemed
untenable. His reasoning felt completely lucid and clear-sighted.
What troubled him more than any temporary foible or malfunction of
his brain was the conviction that everything around him was real.
His amnesia, and the unnerving oddities of the airport terminal, were
a related phenomenon.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Was
he a political prisoner of some kind? </i><span style="font-style: normal;">The
woman's reference to a case officer suggested that he had fallen
under the jurisdiction of some bureaucracy or other. He couldn't
persuade himself, however, that the situation was merely political.
The airport's unnerving air of insularity and timelessness suggested
an order that existed aloof from politics, operating in a place
untouched by the world's fluctuating values and fortunes. His
suspicion was that something had been done to his mind to render it
as neutral and indistinct as the airport itself.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He turned to make his way back to the bench and discovered that the
precise location where he had been sleeping was now occupied by an
elderly woman. She too was curled up asleep, her face obscured by
wan, diaphanous hands clenched as though in prayer. He had to get
out of the terminal, and far away and fast. To the right of the
benches, through the milling crowds, he saw a row of automatic exit
doors bathed in sunlight gleam. He ambled towards them, trying not
to let his pace betray his urgency.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Outside in the glare, he found only a vaster sense of confinement.
The airport was marooned in an aesthetically spartan landscape of
transport hubs, served by a wide, teaming motorway. People were
disembarking from taxies and busies at a ramp, and again he noted
that none of them carried luggage. Squinting airport staff wheeled
empty luggage trolleys along the concourse, imparting a peculiar
sense of theatre or ritual. Across the motorway, accessible by an
overpass, there was a long, five-story concrete structure, composed
of a lattice of narrow conservatory balconies. Elevated above the
roof, large unlit neon letters identified the building as the “I N
T E R M U N D I A O V E R N I G H T.” The conservatory rooms
contained identical furnishing: a two-seater couch and wicker-table
facing the glass, and a bureau with a seat facing the wall. A
painting hung over the bureaus. Although he couldn't make out the
details, it was clearly the same study in each room.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Even from that distance, through the gasoline haze of the motorway,
everything in the little conservatories seemed faded, decrepit and
somehow mortally dispiriting. Though he had no precise memory of any
other, he felt certain that the Intermundia Overnight was among the
least welcoming of all hostelries. Many of the conservatories were
occupied. The distribution of those who sat facing the glass, and
those with their backs turned at the bureaus, formed an eerie binary
code. He felt as though the people seated at the wicker-tables
watched him with a kind of unwavering intensity, like individuals who
have been brutalized by a regime of boredom to the point of
cultivating cerebral, highly specialized homicidal tendencies.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Beyond the Overnight, there was a vast parking lot, and after that
what appeared to be an exact facsimile of the terminal he had just
existed. The harsh concrete terrain of motorway, overpasses and
expansive parking lots stretched as far as his eyes could register.
Trying to escape on foot was pointless.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Up to that point, a kind of premonitory anxiety had kept his
attention focused on the surrounding buildings. Now he looked fully
into the blue sky, and his brain reeled. The pulsating quality he
had earlier noted was a result of the exhaust fumes of a staggering
volume of airplanes. The sky was full of them: the nearer ones like
flocks of birds, and those further off like swarms of locusts. Their
flight paths seemed to extend indefinitely into the horizon, becoming
at the limits of visibility like tiny evening stars. It was a
beautiful and terrifying spectacle, a dance of metal fuselages
becoming liquid and molten in the sunlight, rising like scattered
motes against the crisp, boundless blue.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Continued shortly. </div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-77872578063795876612017-01-18T14:19:00.000-08:002017-01-18T14:19:02.898-08:00Chelou - Halfway to Nowhere. This video is pretty cool:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BgP9tzt9_Z8/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BgP9tzt9_Z8?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-66355165880672657332016-03-20T18:21:00.000-07:002016-04-07T20:45:58.554-07:00A House is a Machine for Living In: A Warm-up for Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise (Part 2).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPtw7vEVadzi3dFspJLbh1C7QLeKLVDQ1gPZZxqiYzgeh73HG_2NDSTBZGmkR100LZkXtuBWduRewADurfe3L_qQb6QcDzS65qcGXft61rFfBN0Ovl7TUGRF9hNsgiXiaef9XOgqs-OEFO/s1600/highrise+poster+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPtw7vEVadzi3dFspJLbh1C7QLeKLVDQ1gPZZxqiYzgeh73HG_2NDSTBZGmkR100LZkXtuBWduRewADurfe3L_qQb6QcDzS65qcGXft61rFfBN0Ovl7TUGRF9hNsgiXiaef9XOgqs-OEFO/s400/highrise+poster+2.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
2.
Civilisation and its Discontents.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Something in all men
profoundly rejoices at seeing a car burn.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Jean Baudrillard.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When considering this
possibility, we come up against a contention that is so astonishing
that we will dwell on it for awhile. It is contended that much of
the blame for our misery lies with what we call our civilisation, and
that we should be far happier if we were to abandon it and revert to
primitive conditions.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Sigmund Freud,
<i>Civilisation and its Discontents</i>.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the previous part of
this essay, we looked at how influential modernist architects like Le
Corbusier believed that a radical new architecture and urban design
could produce a stable, happy community of people whose behaviour
ultimately emulates the harmonious mathematical order of the
buildings in which they live. In <i>Shivers </i>and <i>High-Rise,
</i>however, we find the opposite happening. The residents of
Starliner apartments (in Cronenberg's film) and Anthony Royal's
high-rise (in Ballard novel) do not replicate the mathematical
balance of their environments; rather they surrender to the inherent
disorder and chaos of their deepest instincts and most primal
impulses. There is a double irony at work here: we observe not only
anarchy breaking out in a built environment of idealized mathematical
simplicity, but also a kind of atavistic reversion taking place in an
architecture which was designed to embody the <i>modern</i>, and act
as the incubator of the individual and community of the utopian
future. Here is the ultimate riposte to the modernist utopia:
instead of going boldly into the idealized tomorrow, the residents of
the high-rise are regressing back, to the infantile stages of human
identity and civilisation. With a vengeance.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We also argued in the
previous section that modernity signalled a radical new juncture in
how we perceive time. Previous epochs were often enthralled by the
myth of the Golden Age – the belief that the past was infinitely
better – nobler, more elevated in manner and wisdom – than the
present. The present, in this view, was a failing away or
degeneration from a prior, more exalted civilisation, destined either
to be lost forever or to come back again according to some grand
historical cycle. The return of the past is thus something to be
welcomed. In the modern era, all this was reversed. Once we
conceive of the present as the pinnacle of civilisation, and the
future as the potential Golden Age, the return of the past becomes a
danger, a creeping menace. We begin to conceive of modern
civilisation as a grand albeit precarious achievement, constantly
imperilled by the threat of some kind of reversion back to its
well-springs in the primitive and barbaric. This attitude developed
from a variety of sources: not only the modernist utopianism which we
discussed in the previous chapter, but also from a climate of fierce
chauvinism and belief in the superiority of western civilisation
which flourished in the Victorian period.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Victorian period in
particular was characterised by a widespread anxiety regarding the
stability and permanence of civilisation and the hard-won fruits of
progress – a fear of the ‘resurgent atavism’ in cultural terms.
In biology, an atavism is a throwback, an ancestral trait or
characteristic which returns in individual cases after it has been
lost for several generations by the species. It is the anomalous
return of some characteristic of a prior stage of evolution and form
of existence. The concept of the atavism has enjoyed a rich life in
the cultural sphere as a metaphor for the sudden resurgence of
primitive forms of thought and behaviour in the context of modern
civilisation. In its inception, this concept was often aligned with
ideologies of social Darwinism and racism; in time though, it has
also come to express ambiguous attitudes towards the value and
validity of rationalistic modern civilisation. In <i>Shivers</i> and
<i>High-Rise</i>, we find a breakout of resurgent primitivism in the
modern apartment complex: in <i>Shivers</i>, a return to a greedy,
unbounded infantile sexuality, and in <i>High-Rise</i> to both the
prior infantile forms of the individual and of human society in
general. To contextualise both works, we will look at the theories
of Sigmund Freud, a considerable influence on both artists, and in
particular his 1929 essay <i>Civilisation and its Discontents</i>. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSwdSKgrsPKuJJXir4XsonJDAad6R7X1T638rebETZglvag7jDFhCNdeQCRt5nE59vBU4HhH5eHfBHGiVnURiYEOyuwLxYQ4TXW_rSQE-lWkPjJQw0hJULw6iWgyO2CLC4WO-l6cfQqOft/s1600/the+drowned+world.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSwdSKgrsPKuJJXir4XsonJDAad6R7X1T638rebETZglvag7jDFhCNdeQCRt5nE59vBU4HhH5eHfBHGiVnURiYEOyuwLxYQ4TXW_rSQE-lWkPjJQw0hJULw6iWgyO2CLC4WO-l6cfQqOft/s400/the+drowned+world.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Das Unbehagen in Der
Kultur</i> (“The Uneasiness in Civilisation”) was written in the
aftermath of World War I, which had been to many a profound blow to
the notion of human progress and rational civilisation. What is
interesting about the particular unease with civilisation which Freud
posits in this essay is that it was not – as in the case of
traditional fears of the resurgent atavism – something extrinsic to
civilisation. It was not something which civilisation had progressed
beyond, something external and alien which might still be observed in
the customs of the “less developed” cultures. Rather, Freud
argued that a conflict between the primitive and the civilised might
be an intrinsic part of the very relationship between the individual
and civilisation itself. For Freud, civilisation offered the
individual something like a Faustian bargain in reverse. The
traditional Faustian bargain offers its recipient the capacity to
indulge themselves to the maximal degree – to have no limits placed
on their capacity for self-indulgence and self-expression.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Civilisation, on the
other hand, offers the following bargain. You will enjoy ever
greater levels of security, comfort, hygiene and health. The bounty
of intellectual and aesthetic “high” culture – art, philosophy,
the sciences – will be yours to enjoy. Your home will be warm and
the provision of your food require no foraging, hunting, or sowing.
For the greater part of your life, you will be shielded from physical
privation, violence and mortal threats. These are the fruits of
civilisation. However, in order to maintain them, we have to give
something in return: a great measure of our freedom and individuality
must be sacrificed. Most crucially for Freud, our instinctual being
– our naturally unbounded desires for the gratification of our
sexuality and our individual will – must be repressed:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm;">
“Thirdly – and this seems the most important point – it is
impossible to overlook the extent to which civilisation is built up
on renunciation, how much it presupposes the non-satisfaction of
powerful drives – ‘cultural frustration’ dominates the large
sphere of inter-personal relations; as we already know, it is the
cause of the hostility that all civilisations have to contend with.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
To understand Freud’s
view of this tension between the individual and his society, we need
to briefly sketch out his well-known structural model of the psyche.
Freud saw the outward social individual as the mediation between two
conflicting forces: the Id and the superego. In this instance, the
<i>Id </i>is the atavism: it is the throwback to our infantile stage
as an individual, and pre-civilized state as a species. A confluence
of our instinctual desires and urges, the Id desires only instant
pleasure and gratification, and recognises no law, no limit, no
reason or compromise:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm;">
“It is the dark, inaccessible part of your personality, what
little we know of it we have learned from our study of Dreamwork and
of course the construction of neurotic symptoms, and most of that is
of a negative character and can be described only as a contrast to
the ego. We approach the id with analogies: we call it a chaos, a
cauldron full of seething excitations…It is filled with energy
reaching it from the instincts, but has no organization, produces no
collective will, but only a striving to bring about the satisfaction
of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure
principal.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack1"></a> The
id is held in check by the superego which is the voice of conscience,
the authority of the father, the police force of the individual
psyche. Out of some kind of compromise between the clamour of our
instinctual desires, and the authoritarian stop-brake of our
superego, our public, social persona, or <i>ego</i>, emerges.
However, as Freud saw it, this compromise, particularly under the
demands of advanced civilisation, is rarely satisfactory for the
individual. Inside every humble, self-effacing bourgeois lies a
violent, priapic barbarian waiting to claw its way out. Inside each
of us, like a buried archaeological stratum of private and
evolutionary history, resides an infant and a primitive, a creature
of unfettered appetite that swells and seethes with every compromise
and accommodation to the adult, civilized world.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In
this regard, we can see that there is a neat parallelism between
Freud's conception of the individual psyche and civilisation as
whole. In terms of mass civilisation, the superego corresponds to
the coercive forces by which a society maintains its ideological
equilibrium and order – not only the physical force represented by
military and police, but also the more crucial invisible forms of
psychological coercion and conformism which lead individuals to
police their own behaviour. The ego corresponds to the outward
appearance of society as a smoothly functioning, cohesive whole whose
various parts are content with their societal roles and the overall
moral structure of their society. Under the surface, however, there
remains the society's id – the seething cauldron of individual
discontent, of repressed but unvanquished instinctual drives, which
constantly threatens the stability of the society from within.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgynhr3ElpawX6xsIR71FJDXXOVAXExK7uPxD5sl9QjUZuTx0zWMbwtSVPpFfNWVmhjMs3Ad_dsEUQyik0jXsuuL_KdXGsUYReo4lv-1T-gJs6KBzwsmadLAfwpF_TbhDeJOLY1UUzWcU9l/s1600/haeckel+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgynhr3ElpawX6xsIR71FJDXXOVAXExK7uPxD5sl9QjUZuTx0zWMbwtSVPpFfNWVmhjMs3Ad_dsEUQyik0jXsuuL_KdXGsUYReo4lv-1T-gJs6KBzwsmadLAfwpF_TbhDeJOLY1UUzWcU9l/s400/haeckel+1.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghX0te2TJbv2Kux2Web8oIwAUXwTJss8gftA-ns-cN6RH5CoYfPRB4ievCxT5a7-BQiJZgTcSD1CBDfG-dUsKSyVBf2LQvK8hyphenhyphenr4-1XuewQ2xY8RVx8BiBBp9JZNROLclrK6GRaMivXOlF/s1600/haeckel+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghX0te2TJbv2Kux2Web8oIwAUXwTJss8gftA-ns-cN6RH5CoYfPRB4ievCxT5a7-BQiJZgTcSD1CBDfG-dUsKSyVBf2LQvK8hyphenhyphenr4-1XuewQ2xY8RVx8BiBBp9JZNROLclrK6GRaMivXOlF/s400/haeckel+2.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiIWhKXBfI9H7wKgP0hEiEHDjiVKIzkQkdQ5vohKiI64ikeCE7MpniO2nRqZcEbZfH4IDNoxsPSTcG43G7AlNf4vhsfQsufaJmeus7qhn2l3SzvHmgr8rowSAG25CGPoHG68SFCkjK1soV/s1600/haeckel+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiIWhKXBfI9H7wKgP0hEiEHDjiVKIzkQkdQ5vohKiI64ikeCE7MpniO2nRqZcEbZfH4IDNoxsPSTcG43G7AlNf4vhsfQsufaJmeus7qhn2l3SzvHmgr8rowSAG25CGPoHG68SFCkjK1soV/s400/haeckel+3.jpg" width="283" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The marvelous lithographic illustrations for Ernst Haeckel's <i><b>Kunstformen der Natur </b></i>(<i>Artforms in Nature</i>) - via <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunstformen_der_Natur">Wikipedia</a>.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Freud's
ideas in this regard were influenced by the <i>recapitulation theory</i>
of the German biologist and polymath Ernst Haeckel. This theory,
roughly stated, holds that the embryonic development of the
individual contains within it and repeats in its individual growth
the various evolutionary developmental stages of the species –
<i>ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny</i>, ontogeny referring the
development of the individual, and phylogeny the collective evolution
of the species. In <i>Civilisation and its Discontents</i>, Freud
argues for a similar conception of the psyche, using the metaphor of
an imaginary Rome whose entire history remains permanently present in
its current form:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm;">
“Now let us make the fantastic assumption that Rome is not a place
where people live, but a psychical entity with a similarly long, rich
past, in which nothing that ever took shape has passed away, and in
which all previous phases of development exist alongside the most
recent.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Though
discredited as biology, the recapitulation theory has as a certain
elegant, resonant quality: the individual organisation becomes a
fractal of the species as a whole, and a living museum of its own
vast evolutionary history. The idea clearly fascinated Ballard; in
<i>The Drowned World </i>he utilized as a “literary device” the
notion of the spinal column as a vessel containing “the details of
the entire evolutionary development of the human race”:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm;">
“I tell how human beings likewise regress into the past. In a
certain sense, they climb down their own spinal column. They
traverse down the thoracic vertebrae, from the point at which they
are air-breathing mammals, to the lumbar region, to the point at
which they are they are amphibious reptiles. Finally they reach the
absolute past, which on one hand represents the birth of life itself
in the hot womb of the primeval jungle, and which in another sense
represents their own origins and birthplace in the mother's womb.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrzrm2BQRpiFpEjUpyW9yRuzLkPvJknTeov6fiXXlWsNa0eZhcUXGRiJEa4V1J0I8z7ahWc1Oe3h_obzKFbnpOnGir8ZCbSbWB8yIVwnOAAzU6SkN9VXKaCvi0ApzX_hFgCXvgyMUV422u/s1600/Shivers+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrzrm2BQRpiFpEjUpyW9yRuzLkPvJknTeov6fiXXlWsNa0eZhcUXGRiJEa4V1J0I8z7ahWc1Oe3h_obzKFbnpOnGir8ZCbSbWB8yIVwnOAAzU6SkN9VXKaCvi0ApzX_hFgCXvgyMUV422u/s400/Shivers+2.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Whether
strictly accurate or no, Freud's conjoined notion of the psyche and
society as a placid veneer or facade, perpetually threatened by
atavistic impulses and instincts that remain perfectly preserved
below the surface, was perhaps the most enduring and influential of
his ideas throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. It is
certainly this central idea informs the narratives of both<i> Shivers</i>
and <i>High Rise. </i>Partially funded by the Canadian Film Board
and apparently shot in just 15 days, <i>Shivers </i>remains the most
extreme, forceful – and “Cronenbergian” - of all Cronenberg
flicks. Its first five minutes, in fact, are so gruellingly warped
and unsettling that it was almost as though the auteur was trying to
instantly jettison any viewers who weren't in it for keeps. The rest
of the film is a sustained assault on every orifice the film's bodies
and the viewer's mind has to offer – it isn't every film that
features a faecal-phallic parasite as its antagonist – perhaps for
the best.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Cronenberg's
early films have a unique atmosphere which derive partially from the
imperfections and artefacts of their production milieu. Shot cheaply
with actors of variable ability, and shot through with a chilly,
insular Canadian quality, they have a kind of sinister sterility
which is increased rather than off-set by soundtracks of gentle,
lullaby-like library music. They feel like mutant public information
films. It is interesting that Cronenberg's early cinema often
focuses on medical scientists whose well-intentioned experiments
produce horrifying consequences. In the 50s and 60s, the
well-intentioned monster D. Ewen Cameron carried out a series of
appalling experiments in psychological conditioning (under the
auspices of the CIA's MK-ULTRA programme) in Montreal's Allen
Memorial Institute. Some years before, an estimated 20,000 orphaned
children (the Duplessis Orphans) had been falsely certified as
mentally ill as part of a scheme in Quebec and confined to
psychiatric units. Whether a conscious influence or otherwise, these
events make Canada an apt location for the emergence of a chilly,
medical variety of horror.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The
first of Cronenberg's messianic dabblers is Dr Emil Hobbes in
<i>Shivers</i>. Like Freud, Hobbes believes that civilisation
creates a fundamental cleavage between humans and their natural and
instinctual being; he describes man as “an animal who thinks too
much” and “an over-rational animal that's lost touch with its
body and its instincts.” However, whereas Freud believed that the
repression of the instinctual drives was a worthwhile and necessary
sacrifice to make in order to maintain civilisation, Hobbes is a
libidinal anarchist who believes that western civilisation is itself
a mass neurosis that must be cured at all costs. To this end, he
develops an artificial parasite which is a combination of aphrodisiac
and venereal disease. This parasite, he hopes, will unleash the
libidinal id on a mass scale, and transform the world into “one
beautiful mindless orgy.” In this sense, Hobbes follows in a
strain of sexual anarchism which developed out of conventional
Freudian theory. The first of these outlaws was the equal parts
brilliant and demented Wilhelm Reich, whose championing of orgiastic
potency as a cure for neurosis lead to him being labelled the
“prophet of the better orgasm” and the “founder of a genital
utopia.” </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFoZKtGxEfdEjwgXHvtNz1-Hjn0Yw2VmkwLSeL_LH74mKhhDKj7ibozyiS5JqarDxJk6fws4mBRZA3HwqQP8CksppDShbjTX792AikFDGe1XAVQ7nHeRFTFEYfla90jBu-UFtEnKkzX9oI/s1600/Orgone+Accumulator.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFoZKtGxEfdEjwgXHvtNz1-Hjn0Yw2VmkwLSeL_LH74mKhhDKj7ibozyiS5JqarDxJk6fws4mBRZA3HwqQP8CksppDShbjTX792AikFDGe1XAVQ7nHeRFTFEYfla90jBu-UFtEnKkzX9oI/s400/Orgone+Accumulator.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Since
Cronenberg is making a horror film, Hobbes' plan to initiate a
genital utopia goes <i>Horribly Wrong</i> – as plans which involve
the creation of artificial venereal parasites are wont to. On the
surface, it might appear that Cronenberg's film expresses an
essentially conservative viewpoint: unleash the id, and you open a
Pandora's Box of uncontrollable violence and chaos. This was how
Robin Wood, a trenchant early critic of Cronenberg, interpreted the
film when he saw it at the Edinburgh film festival: “It's
derivation is from <i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i> via <i>Night
of the Living Dead, </i>but the source of its intensity is quite
distinct: all the horror is based on extreme sexual disgust.” To
take such a view, however, is to misread the very ambiguous nature of
Cronenberg's sexual apocalypse in <i>Shivers</i>. The director has
often said that he identifies more with the characters <i>after</i>
they have been infected – which is to say that a world of sexual
anarchy, violence and wanton destruction is somehow preferable to the
dull, routinised existence of the middle-class professional. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIhNGwvekIxsbFyvm5RQBA96E5mMUKdTfNnU1If-Q8qP7kGDCAJoN_R7b3HGIPwftQjEIcX8At1IV_xwau3bpSX1tQZbAGsm3dKLOJYIJgNK-3ZtqG3xPH_sOPAh-a3Lyvm0k8Ai3lAPr_/s1600/shivers+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIhNGwvekIxsbFyvm5RQBA96E5mMUKdTfNnU1If-Q8qP7kGDCAJoN_R7b3HGIPwftQjEIcX8At1IV_xwau3bpSX1tQZbAGsm3dKLOJYIJgNK-3ZtqG3xPH_sOPAh-a3Lyvm0k8Ai3lAPr_/s640/shivers+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Although
our modern connotative sense of the word <i>apocalypse </i>is a
negative image of total destruction, the literal meaning of the word
is a disclosure, an unveiling; a revelation of the true nature of the
world. “<i>Something in all men</i>,” Jean Baudrillard wrote,
“<i>profoundly rejoices at seeing a car burn</i>.” Cronenberg is
by intellectual temperament very much a modernist, but he rejoices in
seeing the orderly and antiseptic world of the urban bourgeois thorn
asunder. For him, the parasite simply unveils the true animal nature
of the high-rise dwellers; like the car crash in Ballard's fictions,
it reconnects them to their bodies, to the rich, precarious corporeal
existence from which they have become disengaged. In <i>Crash</i>
and <i>Shivers</i>, disgust in an intrinsic part of the body and
sexuality. This idea is expressed in <i>Shivers</i> by Nurse
Forsythe (played by ethereal exploitation movie queen Lynn Lowry):
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm;">
Roger, I had a very disturbing dream last night. In this dream I
found myself making love to a strange man. Only I'm having trouble
you see, because he's old... and dying... and he smells bad, and I
find him repulsive. But then he tells me that everything is erotic,
that everything is sexual. You know what I mean? He tells me that
even old flesh is erotic flesh. That disease is the love of two alien
kinds of creatures for each other. That even dying is an act of
eroticism. That talking is sexual. That breathing is sexual. That
even to physically exist is sexual. And I believe him, and we make
love beautifully.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Continued shortly.</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-64111243795090927952016-02-29T11:37:00.000-08:002016-02-29T11:37:40.106-08:00A House is a Machine for Living In: A Warm-up for Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise (Part 1). <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsNV5nZW1zC89WxQLVCypQNG5N5XG3LBob465eB6VJYP03EzOjZXYDaJC3ggpo3gGtMsImvT-AybquZL-_-dI3IfgwFmxmxyOWaF5xzcd55ZdW-E8bAvg_geiwUP5aar9f82apcXU8XHJq/s1600/high+rise+poster+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsNV5nZW1zC89WxQLVCypQNG5N5XG3LBob465eB6VJYP03EzOjZXYDaJC3ggpo3gGtMsImvT-AybquZL-_-dI3IfgwFmxmxyOWaF5xzcd55ZdW-E8bAvg_geiwUP5aar9f82apcXU8XHJq/s640/high+rise+poster+1.jpg" width="432" /></a></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b>1. Architecture or
Revolution?</b></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the new beginning
that dates from Le Corbusier’s <i>Vers une architecture</i>, the
machine occupied a central place: its austerity, its economy, its
geometric cleanness was claimed almost the sole virtue of the new
architecture. Thus the kitchen became a laboratory, and the bathroom
took on the characteristics of a surgical operating room; while the
other parts of the house, for a decade or so, achieved excellence
almost to the degree that they, too, were white, cleanable, empty of
human content.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Lewis Mumford, <i>The
Case Against “Modern Architecture”</i>, 1962.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The spectacular view
always made Laing aware of his ambivalent feelings for this concrete
landscape. Part of its appeal lay all too clearly in the fact that
this was an environment built, not for man, but for man’s absence.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
J.G. Ballard, <i>High-Rise</i>,
1975.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The high-rise apartment
or office tower is a perennial icon and symbol of the modern world.
It embodies the primary characteristics of high modernist
architecture: the rejection of ornamentation in favour of cool,
minimalist function, and organic complexity in favour of an austere
rectilinear geometry; the omnipresence of glass facades and curtain
walling, which prompted Lewis Mumford to pithily observe that glass
was the only material modern architects were unable to see through.
In its clean, uniform character, it evokes the age of the machine and
of mass production; in its scale and elevation, the dream of
conquering gravity which presided over the twentieth century in a
myriad forms. Most of all, the high rise represents the dream of a
fully rational, mathematically simple and predictable landscape in
which the wilder vagaries of the natural world, and human nature,
have been ousted. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi73ouLyBhRuGQAF8TYjkld8lGQDCjlWkGds-p2412pSBb5BidIRl5kFfF7MvU1BtzlbolZUxZjE257XCNFF4RVfRqDcyuFnGqejCDijlmILF5NY2o56ZNVVUW01tFMO8W1JtlgQ-4BT5Ok/s1600/high+rise+images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi73ouLyBhRuGQAF8TYjkld8lGQDCjlWkGds-p2412pSBb5BidIRl5kFfF7MvU1BtzlbolZUxZjE257XCNFF4RVfRqDcyuFnGqejCDijlmILF5NY2o56ZNVVUW01tFMO8W1JtlgQ-4BT5Ok/s640/high+rise+images.jpg" width="472" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcoDhxjU14FI46Y9RoMNtXnj682lhtyVaoc9ZJjFOEXGj_VczBtZYS4LWcqctLlU4DoJ50OvRXdf8XXIXfnfmWBAhhppDlaDKRvGRA2f4TK_TXuPoe1Q0w6A-fnIFLnsfCoGOGaZBXPQxT/s1600/werner+manx.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcoDhxjU14FI46Y9RoMNtXnj682lhtyVaoc9ZJjFOEXGj_VczBtZYS4LWcqctLlU4DoJ50OvRXdf8XXIXfnfmWBAhhppDlaDKRvGRA2f4TK_TXuPoe1Q0w6A-fnIFLnsfCoGOGaZBXPQxT/s400/werner+manx.jpg" width="232" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A vertical village in
which nobody knows anybody else, the high-rise embodies many of the
contradictions of urban life: the close physical proximity and
emotional distance of its inhabitants, the merging of their public
and private space in its tiers of balconies, corridors and
stairwells, allows the high-rise to serve as a model for the city's
peculiar conjunction of populousness and alienation. As a symbol of
modernity and urbanism, the high-rise carries a variety of different
meanings and resonances, and provokes antithetical responses of
considerable emotional intensity. An ambiguous entity, it embodies
both the utopian and dystopian characteristics of modern life. On
the one hand, the high-rise tower block makes us think of the
disastrous structures that urban councils built to house (and
segregate) the urban poor in the 60s and 70s, with all the morass of
crime, deprivation, and hopelessness that resulted. On the other, we
think of the luxury high-rise blocks favoured by middle and upper
middle-class dwellers as the embodiment of a certain kind of sleek
urban elegance - a living space somewhere between home and hotel,
safely cloistered in the upper air from the clamour of the streets
below.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKibyuriXVKs81kxgygCA2HjSJpDehIVkAWnsgUjdUHOj0FY_87DGlYZeEZEHB2QKcbxcb7cL8BLPG5PmY5SpU-80CZJY4pO1lNtuUxMT8m2t9nL5lAK7JHXBzM0hSbA-HRtQNwIFLi0jM/s1600/tumblr_mf3rtdCqjT1qzglyyo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKibyuriXVKs81kxgygCA2HjSJpDehIVkAWnsgUjdUHOj0FY_87DGlYZeEZEHB2QKcbxcb7cL8BLPG5PmY5SpU-80CZJY4pO1lNtuUxMT8m2t9nL5lAK7JHXBzM0hSbA-HRtQNwIFLi0jM/s640/tumblr_mf3rtdCqjT1qzglyyo1_1280.jpg" width="482" /></a></div>
<b>Apartment Building, Ramat Gran, Israel, 1960-65, (Alfred Neumann, Zvi Hecker and Eldar Sharon) </b><a href="http://fuckyeahbrutalism.tumblr.com/">Fuck Yeah Brutalism</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKYnpe6aJ0KfNSyjwAABeW5LzhcAOr9PYAcg9J-0pyqwVXwTHIPSCi0CVRqWISz5kezJPCJRO-76rfcYKiovyLyzQqXPwi0IUGx_xcgv929hUB3Hc81C_HWhQrS2Zyla3Qb8yl28-Rn4Rn/s1600/tumblr_n7cf1nej5C1qzglyyo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKYnpe6aJ0KfNSyjwAABeW5LzhcAOr9PYAcg9J-0pyqwVXwTHIPSCi0CVRqWISz5kezJPCJRO-76rfcYKiovyLyzQqXPwi0IUGx_xcgv929hUB3Hc81C_HWhQrS2Zyla3Qb8yl28-Rn4Rn/s640/tumblr_n7cf1nej5C1qzglyyo1_1280.jpg" width="416" /></a></div>
<b>Hiliard Center, Chicago, 1964, (Bertrand Goldberg)</b> <a href="http://fuckyeahbrutalism.tumblr.com/">Fuck Yeah Brutalism</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ1SxxdzJNl7MD5-C09tfHI38FsaVC2gCdlhqB7vSVQBG2_EEuFbcq9FMA3NWSCYli0HMaGkMn5RD7dMhhyphenhyphenU2qColIrQlGYH6OD0HeT-4RK-thE54ex7yc1iMMZ6Qj05euVf2jfR8vgco-/s1600/tumblr_njb2h8Kbig1qzglyyo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ1SxxdzJNl7MD5-C09tfHI38FsaVC2gCdlhqB7vSVQBG2_EEuFbcq9FMA3NWSCYli0HMaGkMn5RD7dMhhyphenhyphenU2qColIrQlGYH6OD0HeT-4RK-thE54ex7yc1iMMZ6Qj05euVf2jfR8vgco-/s640/tumblr_njb2h8Kbig1qzglyyo1_1280.jpg" width="432" /></a></div>
<b>Orange County Government Center, Goshen, New York, 1971, (Paul Rudolph)</b> <a href="http://fuckyeahbrutalism.tumblr.com/">Fuck Yeah Brutalism</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjs5DNadRhabvsKOZJ0C8GMrlL2kSvMx05sgD98_8BvLBIj6qI6DSGZZPnVI-7t-n1ooeKJSG_kSoJszVXjrw4mpEbeS_1L4Kt5_Qv5L01riexJKB995UcQM4hqQaLGcBa5kL3uI05Xu91/s1600/tumblr_ngwhum7dYA1qzglyyo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjs5DNadRhabvsKOZJ0C8GMrlL2kSvMx05sgD98_8BvLBIj6qI6DSGZZPnVI-7t-n1ooeKJSG_kSoJszVXjrw4mpEbeS_1L4Kt5_Qv5L01riexJKB995UcQM4hqQaLGcBa5kL3uI05Xu91/s640/tumblr_ngwhum7dYA1qzglyyo1_1280.jpg" width="449" /></a></div>
<b>Parish Church for the Resurrection of Christ, Melaten, Germany, 1964-70 (Gottfried Bohm)</b> <a href="http://fuckyeahbrutalism.tumblr.com/">Fuck Yeah Brutalism.</a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Modernist architecture
has always been hugely divisive. For some, it has embodied all the
failings, aesthetic, intellectual, or spiritual, of modernity itself.
A common idea (or ideology) underlying modernity was that it
represented a point of total historical novelty in which a new
awareness or mode of consciousness was born, wholly unconnected to
and unencumbered by the past. This is the essence of modernity
conceived as a utopian project: a Manichean conflict between the
past, envisioned in a wholly negative light, and the salvation
offered by the novelty of the present moment, which contains in utero
a future of continual improvement and progress. Modernist
architecture was keenly informed by this sense of a radical break
with the past, and as such its towers and monuments arose with a
brash disregard for their predecessors in time and surroundings in
space, serving for some as the harbingers of a new aesthetic order,
and others as a crude effacement of the historical continuity of the
urban landscape, the city in time which is a living record of its own
history.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGEPZsMwCl80ucdxGnNvYRj-Cansk7ByOjVND9ecM3prW63Yfr74nyw9If7U6-z3jq4ug6dXNefRSV5GDNFXvsNe4yFXpzcy7a5reOvybAQn-5-_4qH8PU1xeWzPsYhsH9AgHe4GT_txnl/s1600/highrise77_250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGEPZsMwCl80ucdxGnNvYRj-Cansk7ByOjVND9ecM3prW63Yfr74nyw9If7U6-z3jq4ug6dXNefRSV5GDNFXvsNe4yFXpzcy7a5reOvybAQn-5-_4qH8PU1xeWzPsYhsH9AgHe4GT_txnl/s400/highrise77_250.jpg" width="253" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the late 1960s and
70s, modernist architecture and urban planning were undergoing a
particularly sustained backlash. This perhaps provides a partial
explanation for the striking coincidence of two works of art which
appeared in 1975: JG Ballard's novel <i>High-Rise</i> and David
Cronenberg's feature debut <i>Shivers (They Came from Within.)
High-Rise</i> and <i>Shivers </i>are so similar in theme and basic
outline that I'd always assumed one must have influenced the other,
until I realized that they came out in the same year. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeXnHOeQvQmDVWLCDto47Ej0WoR9J4K1UKBKmodI_sfbQXgzlw26mGjroQcDozYd7l78W5BM5BYDBEdTENZjJUzSRwOfmVb1xPQ3ZBgl-Uy3ig6pSWyWQZdFAuvDC8-kvz16WEyWGOHuxO/s1600/they-came-from-within-us-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeXnHOeQvQmDVWLCDto47Ej0WoR9J4K1UKBKmodI_sfbQXgzlw26mGjroQcDozYd7l78W5BM5BYDBEdTENZjJUzSRwOfmVb1xPQ3ZBgl-Uy3ig6pSWyWQZdFAuvDC8-kvz16WEyWGOHuxO/s400/they-came-from-within-us-poster.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Both are apocalypses of
the middle-class in which the denizens of luxury modernist high rise
towers cumulatively descend (or perhaps ascend) into total anarchy
and violence. In Ballard's version, a series of small, petty
acrimonies gradually escalate into sectarian violence, tribalism, and
eventually a total reversion to nomadic primitivism. In Cronenberg's
more explicitly psychosexual vision of the high-rise apocalypse, our
location is Starliner Towers, a self-contained high-modernist
Montreal community where “day to day living becomes a luxury
cruise.” Starliner's placid middle-class seclusion is shattered by
the spread of an invasive parasite, however, which turns its
residents into polymorphously perverse zombies.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>
Ballard's novel concerns class-warfare and the effective collapse of
society, while Cronenberg's movie presents the sexual revolution in
fast-forward as a claustrophobic George Romero freak-out. Both works
hinge on the same basic set of ironic contrasts: between the
sterility of the environment and the eventual anarchy of its
inhabitants, between the<i> geometry</i> of modern urban architecture
and the <i>disorder</i> which both artists present as seething under
the surface of its human residents, or, more succinctly, between the
utopian aspirations of modernist urban planning, and the apocalypses
which Ballard and Cronenberg stage, both with a distinct gusto,
within the confines of its iconic signifier, the high-rise. In this
essay, I’m going to look at <i>Shivers</i> and <i>High Rise</i> as
critiques of Modernist utopianism which both express Freudian ideas
regarding the fragility of civilisation in the form of ambiguous,
darkly comic middle-class apocalypses.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; page-break-before: auto; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
In a broad historical sense, the word <i>modern </i><span style="font-style: normal;">denotes
the whole panoply of changes which engulfed society, culture and
human identity between the 17</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;">th</span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">
and 20</span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;">th</span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;">
centuries: the rapid development of the physical sciences,
industrialisation, mechanisation, increasing urbanisation, the
questioning of traditional values and sources of authority, the
emergence of state bureaucracies, and so on. In his study of
modernity </span><i>All That is Solid Melts into Air, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Marshall
Berman quotes (and derives his title from) Karl Marx's poetic
evocation of the profound sense of upheaval engendered by modernity: </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and
venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed
ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid
melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and men at last are
forced to face....the real conditions of their lives and their
relations with their fellow men.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
In a climate of such accelerated change and radical uncertainty, new
faiths and foundations were required to replace the old, and a faith
in the idea of modernity itself would become increasingly powerful by
the twentieth century. This was the belief that all human problems
were best served, and could indeed potentially be solved, by the
application of scientific, rationalistic, and technocratic means.
The world was no longer a conflict between good and evil so much as
one between the Utopian promise of the modern present and the dank,
superstitious follies of the past.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
Lewis Mumford argued that a belief in mechanical progress was the
central underlying assumption of modern architecture: “Concealed
within this notion was the assumption that human improvement would
come about more rapidly, indeed almost automatically, through
devoting all our energies to the expansion of scientific knowledge
and to technological inventions; that traditional knowledge and
experience, traditional forms and values, acted as a brake upon such
expansion and invention, and that since the order embodied by the
machine was the highest type of order, no brakes of any kind were
desirable.” In a similar vein, James C. Scott, writing in <i>Seeing
Like a State, </i>describes the high-modernist faith as “a strong
(one might even say muscle-bound) version of the beliefs in
scientific and technical progress that were associated with
industrialisation in Western Europe and in North America from roughly
1830 until World War I. At its centre was a supreme self-confidence
about continued linear progress, the development of scientific and
technical knowledge, the expansion of production, the rational design
of social order, the growing satisfaction of human needs, and not
least, an increasing control over nature (including human nature)
commensurate with scientific understanding of natural laws.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH9MrnjxQRqV8-JDn9dWtEmlPUQ9SFjbyqkp25XRwrQckCdVPzRc0qEzmSMFVtVkrzMa48fT7ewJ8Z32q2tFyWLlxe7OfVR2vR3fkQa7PXyBRpJsRYs6zHP_n5VlSmzQ-6hc8YwuCysLcS/s1600/Casa_Sant%2527Elia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH9MrnjxQRqV8-JDn9dWtEmlPUQ9SFjbyqkp25XRwrQckCdVPzRc0qEzmSMFVtVkrzMa48fT7ewJ8Z32q2tFyWLlxe7OfVR2vR3fkQa7PXyBRpJsRYs6zHP_n5VlSmzQ-6hc8YwuCysLcS/s640/Casa_Sant%2527Elia.jpg" width="627" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn1ojfqB9gt1qUCBgaw7vPfcGtpjaYA4uVj9gjyDoS09Hhl-poexPzKH2NKdOZx7lzFAgg2kX6UkVRb0qJ7gymLdJb1fpQKbY6lbJ8BOtDyS2jw4hBRJfpdDdbfoMc2Sm1k3q2SoIF5V1k/s1600/futurist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn1ojfqB9gt1qUCBgaw7vPfcGtpjaYA4uVj9gjyDoS09Hhl-poexPzKH2NKdOZx7lzFAgg2kX6UkVRb0qJ7gymLdJb1fpQKbY6lbJ8BOtDyS2jw4hBRJfpdDdbfoMc2Sm1k3q2SoIF5V1k/s1600/futurist.jpg" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<b> Futurist architecture by Antonio Casa Sant'Elia</b> (via<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism"> wikipedia</a> and <a href="https://rustnconcrete.wordpress.com/tag/italian-futurism/">rust' n' concrete</a>) </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij6pcTQijiuhPf8aYl3tWlTwis7TwNAa4TgBxSRcLyLngGrh0fkGGgdRrcn96EwE54LW1Ek9ERfKEFJNr7qtGok4QheihUTA3cdCNWZCcaOxLfcDnhjnV0GlrAhDNhgLnPkLq6f7JK5frH/s1600/tumblr_mzju5hBFz61rxgoj1o1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij6pcTQijiuhPf8aYl3tWlTwis7TwNAa4TgBxSRcLyLngGrh0fkGGgdRrcn96EwE54LW1Ek9ERfKEFJNr7qtGok4QheihUTA3cdCNWZCcaOxLfcDnhjnV0GlrAhDNhgLnPkLq6f7JK5frH/s640/tumblr_mzju5hBFz61rxgoj1o1_1280.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGR0ooZMkA0nI-hd7iXnkhMBH6lVRXbl3Dp_urxMhgjxgNFJA4DMfA8_qyuZZyMRNKVXA6P2nV-Z0XKwzF8SbevtMn7SrgT2lnRCN7Vei6W-fIH8kua2_lYAmsrHFNd5C4QFKRnS7LsHKC/s1600/large_crali_einschneisen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="542" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGR0ooZMkA0nI-hd7iXnkhMBH6lVRXbl3Dp_urxMhgjxgNFJA4DMfA8_qyuZZyMRNKVXA6P2nV-Z0XKwzF8SbevtMn7SrgT2lnRCN7Vei6W-fIH8kua2_lYAmsrHFNd5C4QFKRnS7LsHKC/s640/large_crali_einschneisen.jpg" width="640" /></a><b> Futurist art by Tullio Crali</b>.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>Among
the most extreme of the modernist utopians were the Italian
Futurists, an avant-garde movement of the early twentieth century
whose work expressed an unqualified rejection of the past, and an
altogether rhapsodic mania for the powers unleashed by the industrial
age: “Comrades, we tell you now that that the triumphant progress
of science makes changes in humanity inevitable, changes that are
hacking an abyss between those docile slaves of tradition and us free
moderns who are confident in the radiant splendour of our future.”
(<i>Manifesto of the Futurist Painters</i>, <i>1910</i>, F.T.
Marinetti.) Everybody was excited to some degree or another by the
sweeping march of the modern world; the Futurists were stone drunk on
it. Their intoxication focussed on images and themes which would
become uniquely expressive of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and the
youth culture which began to flourish after the wars: the automobile,
the airplane, the industrial city, youth, speed and violence. (These
same signifiers become hugely prominent in J.G. Ballard’s fiction,
albeit viewed from a far more ambiguous perspective.)</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
The
first great modernist Utopian in the architectural sphere was
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Grist, an extraordinary man of
Swiss-French extraction whom the world came to know by the pseudonym
<i>le Corbusier</i>. An indefatigable architect, painter, author,
urban planner and visionary, the range of le Corbusier’s talents
was amply matched by the hubristic scale of his ambitions. Like the
Futurists, le Corbusier had been intoxicated by the sense of immense
power embodied in the technological world. In <i>L’Urbanisme</i>
(<i>The City of Tomorrow, </i>1924), le Corbusier describes a kind of
“conversion” experience to the faith of modernism. The author is
taking an evening stroll on the Champs Elysées, and begins his
narrative in a mood of stereotypical alienation from the sound and
fury of the modern city. Intimidated by the speeding cars, he broods
over the loss of the era of the pedestrian, a quieter, idealized
world which moved to a statelier tempo.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
An
abrupt and total change of heart overtakes him, however; he begins to
conceive of the modern world as a tidal wave of energy which the
individual can participate in, experiencing almost a theophany of
technological animism:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
“On the 1<sup>st</sup> of October, 1924, I was assisting in the
titanic rebirth of a new phenomenon….traffic. Cars, cars, fast,
fast! One is seized, filled with enthusiasm, with joy…the joy of
power. The simple and naïve pleasure of being in the midst of
power, of strength. One participates in it. One takes part in this
society that is just dawning. One has confidence in this new
society: it will find a magnificent expression of its power. One
believes in it (cited in <i>All That is Solid Melts into Air</i>). ”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 1cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
Le
Corbusier sought to create the architecture of this bold new society,
and his project is suffused with all the galvanizing energy, as well
as the unsettling autocratic undertones, of the above passage. He
becomes the theorist, prophet and practitioner of a new Machine Age
design aesthetic, with his hugely influential 1923 manifesto <i>Towards
a New Architecture</i> providing the iconic slogan “<i>A House is a
Machine for Living In</i>.” His dreams are grandiose in scale,
requiring the construction of whole cities from scratch. The <i>Ville
Contemoraine</i>, an unrealized project from 1920, encapsulates many
of Le Corbusier’s ideas about urbanism, and is a quintessential
example of the Utopian mega-city of the future which would become the
dystopian backdrop of science fiction like <i>Judge Dredd</i> and
<i>Blade Runner</i>. Designed to house three million inhabitants,
the focal-point of the Ville was its 24 imposing, glass
curtain-walled cruciform apartment/office blocks, “towers in a
park” which formed the commercial district, separated by
rectangular green-belts from the residential and industrial areas.
The plan shows Le Corbusier’s extreme commitment to functionalism
in urban design: a network of buses, trains, high-ways, and even
roof-top airports makes the intervening spaces almost redundant. The
city is divided very strictly into residential and work spaces, with
the traditional city’s tendency to produce bricolages of mixed
function and purpose eliminated by wide open spaces, traversed by the
modern miracle of rapid transportation.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAECdhsqRe2VGYmypCmfijWCnDziJUQMf628Gi6Mkgh47piZiWfemJ1NsGXmvcxWciS9oD25wUa_824wGfVTHkOpHfiqoWTjDqtReEg0j3DI3EEZL6pabvQLZ7LVCh0M5768L1bSpN8rnC/s1600/ville+contemporaine+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAECdhsqRe2VGYmypCmfijWCnDziJUQMf628Gi6Mkgh47piZiWfemJ1NsGXmvcxWciS9oD25wUa_824wGfVTHkOpHfiqoWTjDqtReEg0j3DI3EEZL6pabvQLZ7LVCh0M5768L1bSpN8rnC/s640/ville+contemporaine+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0RKzQyPiPyz5_YYOnc2wwhiOAQE90rQNU1NScI_CU7eS9AaDOkT77e3UBxBMFEYcNxLxuTbgkyRNyc4Kvz2ELzZcoGoDsJuXsVokp0voNcVcmLoNcaEcKgADbFNdy9nrDtuXfk_AcApeC/s1600/ville+contemporaine+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="432" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0RKzQyPiPyz5_YYOnc2wwhiOAQE90rQNU1NScI_CU7eS9AaDOkT77e3UBxBMFEYcNxLxuTbgkyRNyc4Kvz2ELzZcoGoDsJuXsVokp0voNcVcmLoNcaEcKgADbFNdy9nrDtuXfk_AcApeC/s640/ville+contemporaine+3.jpg" width="640" /></a> </div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixCFtWvxVgLwTf0UbthuihsRdpbxnBKX8i1XyQE_4C4KKtq26_eD4X8R01x0BNzmbcvS83mOZPFDvKv3Y8iEmhDBh0RUCnXLEBa3wEsHA83xJr5GRTUs73kZ6qlA138OAPZMPGFj1815HR/s1600/ville+contemporaine+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixCFtWvxVgLwTf0UbthuihsRdpbxnBKX8i1XyQE_4C4KKtq26_eD4X8R01x0BNzmbcvS83mOZPFDvKv3Y8iEmhDBh0RUCnXLEBa3wEsHA83xJr5GRTUs73kZ6qlA138OAPZMPGFj1815HR/s640/ville+contemporaine+4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<b>Sketches for the <i>Ville Contemporaine</i>, via</b><a href="http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/morpheus.aspx?sysId=13&IrisObjectId=6426&sysLanguage=en-en&itemPos=214&itemSort=en-en_sort_string1%20&itemCount=216&sysParentName=&sysParentId=65"> FONDATION LE CORBUSIER</a>.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
In
1925, Le Corbusier proposed demolishing two square miles of the north
bank of the Seine in order to facilitate a smaller version of the
ideas embodied in the Ville Contemoraine. His description of the
proposed development (<i>Plan Voisin</i>) is typically lyrical and
rhapsodic, transforming the office towers into weightless, almost
spiritual entities:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
“I
shall ask my readers to imagine they are walking in this new city,
and have begun to acclimatize themselves to its untraditional
advantages. You are under the shade of trees, vast lawns spread all
round you. The air is clear and pure; there is hardly any noise.
What, you cannot see where the buildings are ? Look through the
charmingly diapered arabesques of branches out into the sky towards
those widely-spaced crystal towers which soar higher than any
pinnacle on earth. These translucent prisms that seem to float in the
air without anchorage to the ground - flashing in summer sunshine,
softly gleaming under grey winter skies, magically glittering at
nightfall - are huge blocks of offices.”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XRBeZGYisLg/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XRBeZGYisLg?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
Most
of Le Corbusier's grander schemes remained unrealized (the closest he
got to working on such a vast scale were his contributions to the
planned city of Chandigrarh in the north of India.) On more modest
terms, however, we find his ideas realized in the Unit<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">é</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">
d'habitation residential block in Marseille which is often called the
Cit</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">é</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">
radieuse (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Radiant
City</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">). Built in </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i>b</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i>é</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i>ton
brut </i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">(rough-cast
concrete) because of post-war steel frame shortages, the Cit</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">é</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
radieuse formed the inspiration for the confrontational Brutalist
school of architecture which Wheatley and his designers seem to have
adopted for Anthony Royal's buildings in the </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i>High-Rise</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
movie. Suspended on large </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i>piloti
</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">containing
237 apartments over 12 floors, it is a fascinating, ugly/beautiful
monolith of a building. Also incorporating shops, restaurants,
medical and sporting facilities, even a hotel open to the public, the
Unit</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">é</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
d'habitation provides us the classic model of the self-contained,
utopian “city in the sky” which we find satirised in </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Shivers
</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i>High-Rise</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOY2zDWkTDRE1URkj1My-zAAEsJZxzo6PfRGN-tf_3HTFz0RwXhtPi8dd-fFmuOikM_RHQb-fHrLr2KM5EvLXUOoBxhsw-9jelfTflIeIE62mq8A5rzFGBAR1Cc-Kd1OF0qKlv6wIq4FkD/s1600/radiant+city+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOY2zDWkTDRE1URkj1My-zAAEsJZxzo6PfRGN-tf_3HTFz0RwXhtPi8dd-fFmuOikM_RHQb-fHrLr2KM5EvLXUOoBxhsw-9jelfTflIeIE62mq8A5rzFGBAR1Cc-Kd1OF0qKlv6wIq4FkD/s400/radiant+city+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuhbbPe8x_gVT3fste2sKj0yRD273D5IeEa5blvfaKY71M7N4DWsORKQNsMsyEnoq09kSf1IUIT1zlgUalOUg12Wu5ztqDf5fz50_uNue4b7O34G3q32cp900ixyeY4G_12b5Y-mzE7oY_/s1600/radiant+city+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuhbbPe8x_gVT3fste2sKj0yRD273D5IeEa5blvfaKY71M7N4DWsORKQNsMsyEnoq09kSf1IUIT1zlgUalOUg12Wu5ztqDf5fz50_uNue4b7O34G3q32cp900ixyeY4G_12b5Y-mzE7oY_/s400/radiant+city+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRGWAMWevTX0sH34-cvwBoCQeWZPL9nupBMzGDL8ALJ-d0FC-U05wPC0OyUf_SElwybC0AD5JC2RqoQVRkJfBt7Obua6COY-3q8TXRFfLHAioQ3NggNhMqXU87MVxWq4TKBLAb5KEySna/s1600/radiant+city+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiRGWAMWevTX0sH34-cvwBoCQeWZPL9nupBMzGDL8ALJ-d0FC-U05wPC0OyUf_SElwybC0AD5JC2RqoQVRkJfBt7Obua6COY-3q8TXRFfLHAioQ3NggNhMqXU87MVxWq4TKBLAb5KEySna/s400/radiant+city+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9RW1Ds75_VigDMp-CgHpNI76zyYQMYv0wxMgiywBslKLOVxBfHSpA6rA28hpd5WPx5-l6Ptp7tLDR8oW-wHu6TQIQ1ndrOKovQvsPbZYlr0QyvTNpLlGWN1ksIS1Brom6yB-n1vaaZa8M/s1600/radiant+city+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9RW1Ds75_VigDMp-CgHpNI76zyYQMYv0wxMgiywBslKLOVxBfHSpA6rA28hpd5WPx5-l6Ptp7tLDR8oW-wHu6TQIQ1ndrOKovQvsPbZYlr0QyvTNpLlGWN1ksIS1Brom6yB-n1vaaZa8M/s400/radiant+city+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<b> Photos by Paul Koslowski, via</b> <a href="http://www.fondationlecorbusier.fr/corbuweb/morpheus.aspx?sysId=13&IrisObjectId=5234&sysLanguage=en-en&itemPos=58&itemSort=en-en_sort_string1%20&itemCount=78&sysParentName=&sysParentId=64">FONDATION LE CORBUSIER</a>.<br />
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
What
Le Corbusier and like-mined modernists sought to combat most of all
was the normal organic evolution of cities. Traditionally, cities
and urban settlements developed in an unplanned fashion, following
the changing needs of their citizenry. For the modernists, infused
by a passion for idealized mathematical order, this produced only a
chaos, a detestable hodgepodge. The city street is noteworthy for
its randomness: it leads us to chance encounters, unexpected detours,
and the experience of various street theatres of public exhibitionism
and desperation, pathos and comedy. This was unacceptable to the
modernists; they sought in a very real sense to destroy the street.
This was because they had a keen appreciation of what is today called
<i>pyschogeography, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">allied to an
ideology of muscle-bound modernism</span>.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
The environment in which we live and work is not merely a series of
functional or aesthetically pleasing locations that we use and enjoy
in the course of our daily activities. Rather, the environment is an
intrinsic part of our total experience. Like the food that we eat
and the books that we read, it becomes a part of us, and has a
profound, though often quite subliminal effect on our mental lives.
As a corollary to the general mystery surrounding how the mental and
physical interact with one another, place and mind are intertwined in
various subtle ways. Le Corbusier and his disciples were not only
aware of this, but they believed that urban planning was explicitly a
form of social planning and<i> control</i>. Le Corbusier believed
that there was a<i> Plan</i>, as unique and precise as the solution
to an equation, for the design of urban settlements, which, once
instigated, would inevitably yield a perfectly harmonious society.
This was the meaning of his polemical slogan/question <i>Architecture
or Revolution?</i> Environments are no longer to be determined by
the unpredictable behaviour of people and history; rather this
situation is reversed, so that a centrally planned and controlled
environment begins to determine the behaviour of people and history.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
This was why the modernists dreamed of razing vast areas of existing
cities, and building new ones from scratch. Like contemporary
neoliberal economists, they saw no room to gradually implement
change; the world had to be remade in the image of their ideology.
It is reductive, however, to view le Corbusier and early modernist
architecture exclusively in the light of its dubious political
underpinnings, and the ultimate failure of modernist urban planning.
To do so, at any rate, overlooks his brilliance as an artist, and the
fact that his buildings, viewed in isolation from his troubling
manifestos, were often striking, even beautiful creations.
Nevertheless, by the late sixties, the modernist ethos of urbanism
was increasingly being viewed as a failure. Jane Jacobs' 1961 book
<i>The Death and Life of Great American Cities </i>was an influential
critique, and a powerful argument for the spontaneity and ecological
intelligence of the organic street over the mono-functional blocks of
the modernist dream. In the waning fortunes of the high-rise in
Great Britain, we find probably the most direct influence on
Ballard's <i>High-Rise: </i>Erno Goldfinger's Trellick Tower.
Goldfinger was a six-foot tall, taciturn Hungarian-born architect who
moved to London in the '30s. He occupies a somewhat comical place in
pop culture history: Ian Fleming found his architecture and general
character disagreeable enough to christen the quintessential James
Bond villain in his honour. When Goldfinger threatened legal action,
a farcical clash between the two ensued, with Fleming threatening to
change the name to <i>Goldprick </i>before the matter was settled out
of court<i>.</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgruRUNEqkH0WoBVWQmVm4X1E3rfnS-l2tapKOXpX6TsISk7UPQSrL0eFaDVoP919unO99kQY6jd8wNbABBo7mGtTWU7cwCR45fpGwLCjok2nGeR94wCAsrGairhPUWMjuVEwF-qkCZY9cK/s1600/goldfinger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgruRUNEqkH0WoBVWQmVm4X1E3rfnS-l2tapKOXpX6TsISk7UPQSrL0eFaDVoP919unO99kQY6jd8wNbABBo7mGtTWU7cwCR45fpGwLCjok2nGeR94wCAsrGairhPUWMjuVEwF-qkCZY9cK/s400/goldfinger.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
Commissioned by the London Council in 1966 for social housing in
North Kensington, the 98 metre concrete behemoth of Trellick Tower is
today regarded as a fashionable London icon. In its early years,
however, it was nick-named the “Tower of Terror,” having acquired
a reputation for litter, mechanical failure, and an epidemic of
serious crimes and sexual assaults.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUuJWzeGJOVzSoccVH8eouGiQ3cvbsOb_Cimkh2HVJfkveWDUB1bm0jjOjkXk43JXwcO__Snx_zOPedYtfQQESj8C0YlL3g5cL8VeQpxv6NXA5TRLLF7dFjP7hB6jwN6nwoThELIQvG0Q3/s1600/trellick-tower-l_1697428i+Andy+Spain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUuJWzeGJOVzSoccVH8eouGiQ3cvbsOb_Cimkh2HVJfkveWDUB1bm0jjOjkXk43JXwcO__Snx_zOPedYtfQQESj8C0YlL3g5cL8VeQpxv6NXA5TRLLF7dFjP7hB6jwN6nwoThELIQvG0Q3/s400/trellick-tower-l_1697428i+Andy+Spain.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOuXK9FTcVcz_KoYaiDWNYjJrKST5Ub_LYqMEjQUkWpwffxTD_4I9PhwGbrK2v6SGSyqyEYBNQLCVBEa1LNc16PVaCxA2agM0hZAQXZ1aAwaqkHzhH9fyZ1uihTYProNiR632vb4nYit-p/s1600/Trellick-Tower%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="409" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOuXK9FTcVcz_KoYaiDWNYjJrKST5Ub_LYqMEjQUkWpwffxTD_4I9PhwGbrK2v6SGSyqyEYBNQLCVBEa1LNc16PVaCxA2agM0hZAQXZ1aAwaqkHzhH9fyZ1uihTYProNiR632vb4nYit-p/s640/Trellick-Tower%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfZ_R7mXvtx1URFJKZ7k3qN48HSjjb3soRiC4oPvk7D-v-3SSojKARnQsxjoVsiAA3IAwobzX9GBUO-hrmbYp9o9ZOf-LZjaG38UEa1E-epk56EOW2igQguV66S5FXIopvxfoehAtrx7xi/s1600/Trellick-Tower-view.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfZ_R7mXvtx1URFJKZ7k3qN48HSjjb3soRiC4oPvk7D-v-3SSojKARnQsxjoVsiAA3IAwobzX9GBUO-hrmbYp9o9ZOf-LZjaG38UEa1E-epk56EOW2igQguV66S5FXIopvxfoehAtrx7xi/s1600/Trellick-Tower-view.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Top photograph by Andy Spain. Bottom image found at <a href="http://londonfromtherooftops.com/tag/trellick-tower/">London From the Rooftops</a>.<br />
<br />
Continued shortly.</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-79222707941148756572016-02-14T14:16:00.000-08:002016-02-14T16:02:26.896-08:00The Last Will and Testament of Tillinghast Nebula (Part 2).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-harRnhk8Zm5qOWUCFQg5FPTnr5CMOJlZIM7jYfOvMYoniITkV9pP4rmHpLipVLEUAw9qeGSVDrqXCnP8RFz9xlU2lSnGZK8ZL1yDvBQEk3RdHXnxR1tw9HmZaJeoqgNHsg40IIpRHcHx/s1600/stardust.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-harRnhk8Zm5qOWUCFQg5FPTnr5CMOJlZIM7jYfOvMYoniITkV9pP4rmHpLipVLEUAw9qeGSVDrqXCnP8RFz9xlU2lSnGZK8ZL1yDvBQEk3RdHXnxR1tw9HmZaJeoqgNHsg40IIpRHcHx/s400/stardust.jpg" width="291" /></a></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
2.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
That
was how the old year ended, and the new began: with the image of the
dead astronaut presiding over everything, its myriad associative
meanings reflected in every surface, and every joy an overwrought
fleeing from its grim determinism. In my head, occupying its own
habitually strange environs, the danger was that Gabriel Summers’
corpse would become the symbol of the new century, a sort of capstone
and negation of every dream of the previous one. It had the scope to
be more than a symbol, to evolve into an entire mythology. Elor
Summers had been for us the kind of aspirational icon that the rock
star or film actor had been to our parents: the innovative
entrepreneur with galaxy-spanning dreams; the youthful billionaire
who’d sealed his fortune writing code in a dorm-room; the dynamic
CEO who stirred his creatives to dreams of the future like generals
sent soldiers to the imagined glories of a battlefield. Now he was a
squat, broken figure, forever to be remembered as the man who sent
his son to another world, never to return and never to be
resurrected.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
Even
prior the Martian tragedy, however, our dreams had turned to orbit
nightly around the themes of death and technology. Our lives had
become rudderless, uncertain things: with job security a thing of the
past, we were office nomads, working one and two month contracts in a
dizzying succession of companies whose actual business we were no
longer cognisant of; rents escalated so rapidly that urban-dwellers
often carried their entire life-possessions around in ruck-sacks,
using real-time trackers to monitor the ever-fluctuating geography of
affordable rental zones. With all these assaults on our stability,
all this narrowing of our aspirational horizons, one might have
expected violence, revolution, or some degree of discontent to be the
order of the day. In actuality, we were the most passive,
anaesthetized generation imaginable. As though being led drugged
over a precipice, our lives in this time of upheaval were dominated
by algorithms and entertainment. The image of Gabriel Summers seemed
on some level to echo our own – the image of a dead thing encased
in a technological shell. The emergence of some upstart theology was
surely required to rouse us from the peculiar condition of
somnambulism which attended upon the early years of the new century.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
Perhaps
it was this yearning which had infused the imminent return of
Tillinghast Nebula which such a weight of expectation. As with many
of his contemporaries, the 80s had not been kind to the star's
reputation and carefully cultivated mystique. The gods of the
post-war youth explosion – those who'd made it through the other
side – washed up on the shorelines of the 80s as middle-aged men,
like a group of huddled revellers whom daylight had finally
discovered, the joys and wayward, fleeting enthusiasms of their long
night laid bare. The ultimate currency of their youth was gone, and
popular music had shifted from the Dionysian mode to something like
the regulated marching anthems of Plato's ideal autocratic regime.
To have been iconic representations of youth in an era of unbridled
youthfulness, their destiny was now to fall to the earth of
middle-years with crushing velocity, and the 80s mowed through the
dreams constellated around them like the Reaper with his scythe,
revealing in high relief the comedy of all our lives, the parodies of
ourselves that we will one day became, the nostalgias we will feel
for an irretrievable zeitgeist.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fEWhOSmrj6Y/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fEWhOSmrj6Y?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
Healthy,
happily married, and having abandoned the chronic drug-use that
somehow achieved an effect of synaesthesia between his own identity
and the personae of his songs, Tillinghast was now a regular human
being, after all. He flirted with world music and stadium rock,
participated in several of the then popular live telecasts in support
of global benevolence, and spoke wryly of his youthful misadventures
on the chat show circuit. It was the beginning of a gradual retreat
from the public eye which was all but complete by the late 90s.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgJ-CykvkqinxZDlzcwzgFuFc1s6vEJa1h8G201DY0XX5DqgN-uMmwkV9P6H7YHFLZzhttoRuscMA8TLAMoQg6pX35ryUBYGTJkVV5NYcqKYV-KMFUv3lBU2DUYiWYYkbzexyHwiNtKXHJ/s1600/ruby+slippers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgJ-CykvkqinxZDlzcwzgFuFc1s6vEJa1h8G201DY0XX5DqgN-uMmwkV9P6H7YHFLZzhttoRuscMA8TLAMoQg6pX35ryUBYGTJkVV5NYcqKYV-KMFUv3lBU2DUYiWYYkbzexyHwiNtKXHJ/s400/ruby+slippers.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiiHNdrYe1iPoUuCD9ktuRGshPbxGz2osVtSIboh3qLb-CAHQImCzdvO2Fv1Qg24kUIV7nixfCzD6KFUiK6DrxcBExyPCoUxlhh3_Z5Pudn3cXnxjHlezflBMd6EIrLcosTTJLsgUZJHx_/s1600/monolith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiiHNdrYe1iPoUuCD9ktuRGshPbxGz2osVtSIboh3qLb-CAHQImCzdvO2Fv1Qg24kUIV7nixfCzD6KFUiK6DrxcBExyPCoUxlhh3_Z5Pudn3cXnxjHlezflBMd6EIrLcosTTJLsgUZJHx_/s400/monolith.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9uKY21hYPypHrOTNFOdo_t7T_4CSPVFK-cH6tq1HRt9L1fWhKxVU515f758lcqsiExc1LSqz9g6enbe5P2s4d3hGHjQgnimU-GYBNrF_wkNYFTzab1m-z4RQh0XJ5LbgRJtXhpUUxuqhO/s1600/shane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9uKY21hYPypHrOTNFOdo_t7T_4CSPVFK-cH6tq1HRt9L1fWhKxVU515f758lcqsiExc1LSqz9g6enbe5P2s4d3hGHjQgnimU-GYBNrF_wkNYFTzab1m-z4RQh0XJ5LbgRJtXhpUUxuqhO/s400/shane.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He
now lived with his family in a penthouse suite in New York's
ill-omened Dakota Building, with public appearances as fleeting and
inconclusive as those of UFOs. Various rumours regarding his mental
condition were circulated by <i>Mission Command, </i>a Nebula fansite
which was also steeped in the popular conspirative which held that
entertainment superstars were divided between the mind-controlled
proxies of secret political cabals (themselves the representatives of
sinister Off World Interests), and a counter-force of insurgents who
utilize the sorcery of mass media for benevolent means. Some said
that Nebula was haunted by the re-emergence of his erstwhile alien
personae, and the suspicion that the real life of an artist is an
insubstantial shadow cast off by the more vivid existence of his
creations. Others claimed that the star had become almost catatonic,
and spent long, bedridden days in contemplation of a series of film
props which he had accumulated over the years, and arranged in a
puzzling tableau. This tableau was said to include the mirror from
his own film<i> Looking Glass </i>(1975), the ruby slippers worn by
Judy Garland in <i>The Wizard of Oz </i>(1939), the Monolith from
<i>2001: A Space Odyssey </i>(1968), and the buckskin shirt worn by
Alan Ladd in <i>Shane</i> (1953).
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What
this particular juxtaposition of objects meant to the ageing star, we
were not given to know. Perhaps in contemplating them, his mind
journeyed through some archetypal landscape of deep-rooted personal
significance – a notional Death Valley where Brandon deWilde's
plaintive boy-cries still echoed after the receding image of the
gunslinger; where Dorothy, Toto (here morphed by the errant logic of
dreams into a Martian rover), the Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Man still
follow the Yellow Brick Road, past solitary cowpokes who strum their
lullabies to dying fires and lost loves, onward to an Emerald City
which has been replaced by the austere form of the Monolith, around
which sanguine chimps play games of checkers and watch the sand sift
to the bottom of hourglasses, as though waiting to witness some
transformation denied to their species, something incalculable that
resides far beyond wit, courage or heart.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It
was also possible, of course, that Tillinghast was merely leading the
life of a more or less typical husband and father, away from the
prying eyes of the media, and a public who couldn't help but
mythologise him, and couldn't concede that it had been only a
performance, and a trick of the times.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4VB77EMcYEeTizT2BqjulXBE_ZttJOaoI1u5jJ0Y1iPuX0t2i0qPntoeTOcBCTnssqpnTnN_P51jSywD5_l0ucYx0ekw6l8viRe2i1-E-lfMIlL3DmgVPefp4fEMVMnooMhlDkcYIL-oJ/s1600/martian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4VB77EMcYEeTizT2BqjulXBE_ZttJOaoI1u5jJ0Y1iPuX0t2i0qPntoeTOcBCTnssqpnTnN_P51jSywD5_l0ucYx0ekw6l8viRe2i1-E-lfMIlL3DmgVPefp4fEMVMnooMhlDkcYIL-oJ/s640/martian.jpg" width="393" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
3.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Other
winds of paranoia were blowing through the ether that January. On
the 6<sup>th</sup>, a spoiler dropped on Noosfeed for the season 2
finale of <i>Angel Investor</i>. It was a catastrophe – people
were so demoralized that they instantly shared it, figuring to spread
the misery or something. After a couple of days, the spoiler was
everywhere, not just on Noosfeed, but spilling out into the real
world like a contagious and vindictive Tourette's . Various hitherto
quote unquote normal people, seemingly unhinged by the effects of the
reveal, were shouting it in the streets. Some bitter case hired a
aeroplane to tow around a banner with the spoiler summarised until
the authorities interceded. One friend of mine saw it tattooed on
the shoulder of an elegant young Japanese neo-punk – another
written in the sand on a beach, washed away by the tide an instant
later.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So
far I'd been inexplicably lucky. I hadn't got caught yet, but it
meant I had to stay off Noosfeed, and walk around the streets in a
hyper-alert paranoiac state. Whenever I went out, I listened to
Tillinghast Nebula music on my head-phones, and tried to maintain a
state of awareness whereby I wouldn't drift automatically into
reading any text, or even lose my concentration sufficiently that
some troll, aware of my head-phones, might somehow physically act out
the spoil in a way that was instantly comprehensible to me. I may
have been losing my mind a little, but it was interesting.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Having
to avoid Noosfeed put me in a pickle, though, going beyond standard
withdrawal symptoms. I'm a freelance entertainment/conspirative
journalist. I contribute content to various 'Feed nodes and
click-holes. I wanted to do some digging into the source of the
spoiler itself. Most people think that major spoiler drops come from
rival streamers, but that's just the beginning of it. Chinese
hackers and Russian psi's have been probing the secrets of Western
long-form narrative television for years, dropping spoilers through
proxies as a form of destabilizing psychological warfare. Without
Noosfeed, I was going to have to carry out my investigation in the
Deeper Web.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It's
a testament the success of the Deeper Web that not a great many
people are aware of its existence. The problem with the Deep Web was
that you just couldn't hide anything on it from the real specialists.
No matter how many layers of encryption buried under, or how
sophisticated the overlay network, government agencies had classified
super-computing tech that opened it up as easy as clicking on a
regular 'Feed node. As soon as any information is stored digitally,
no matter how far from the beaten path, it is instantly available to
intelligence agencies, many of whom have already gone further off the
grid than you could imagine. So to move forward, the architects of
the Deeper Web turned full-circle: they resolved that the only way to
exchange information freely and safely was to restore an oral
culture. The Deeper Web was a group of individuals – they called
them USB Bards – who had elected to become the repositories and
brokers of vast stores of contraband information. The USB Bards had
undertaken an in-depth study of long lost mnemonic techniques going
back to ancient Greece. Each Bard had their own virtual city which
operated as a visual data base. Their powers of visualization were
so intense that many of them were said to spend idle, opiated hours
wandering the streets of their own notional principalities, and in
the Deepest Web of all, the Bards shared notes amongst themselves on
mysterious encounters they'd had therein.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Not
only had the Bards mastered the ancient art of memory retention, but
they also evolved entirely new techniques that made them equally
adept at forgetting. Using the visual iconography of long outmoded
desktop computers, the Bards could move memories into a Recycle Bin,
and even permanently delete them, making them impervious to all forms
of enhanced interrogation. It is widely believed that the peculiarly
ascetic and neutral character of the USB Bard was a by-product of the
fact that they edited their personal memories, removing traumatic
emotional complexes in the manner of the system adumbrated in
Hubbard's <i>Dianetics, </i>making themselves spectral and robotic in
the process.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
USB
Bards exercise a series of different functions for clients, while
ultimately following their own inscrutable agenda at all times. They
carried insurance data dumps for whistle-blowers and sold credit
details to carders; they saved a thousand things screamed by
psychotics and whispered by dreamers in their sleep that otherwise
would be lost forever; they sometimes acted as pornographers,
recounting ten minute vignettes of amateur porn in an elevated poetic
meter of their own creation, in performances which were prized as
eerily erotic by connoisseurs; they stored film scripts, manuscripts
of novels, philosophical treatises, lewd limericks and <i>haiku</i>
which were deemed to have dangerous or subversive content; they saved
things that people thought while they were shaving or emptying their
bowels, fusing them into a single mosaic of transient impressions
which was like a vast Joycean novel; they had created an index of
plausibility for conspiratives, and shared information with low-level
journalists like myself, again serving their own elusive long-term
ends.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I
had arranged a meet with my USB Bard, who called himself <i>Malcolm,
</i>through the usual Whisperer, and an encryption code that utilized
billboards, news-paper headlines, and the tilt of a high-street store
mannequin's pelvis. I took a bus out into the mountains, and as soon
I disembark, the otherness of the natural world hits me all at once.
I feel like I've been in the city and staring at a screen too long,
maybe, too long in the porous, schizophrenic, hectoring ambience of
the street and the 'Feed. The hedgerows and the fields, the crows
wheeling above and the cows with cautious, sluggish eyes, all seem to
recognise me as an unwelcome intrusion. After trudging along for
about ten minutes, I see the USB Bard standing by a rusty meadow
gate, his form almost lost in a dense ticket of brambles. He wears a
Burberry macintosh, navy pinstripe suit and bowler hat. He has an
umbrella to complete the look. His skin is translucently pale,
gleaming in the setting evening sun. When he speaks, it is the sound
of a half-forgotten decade, an early morning before you were born.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The
most plausible conspiratives suggest the <i>Angel Investor</i>
spoiler is Russian in origin....but the purpose of the release is not
disruptive, but more in the line of a fact-finding exercise.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“To
find out facts about what, exactly?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I
don't have any reliable conspirative to answer that. But bear
certain things in mind: the character of the show's titular angel
investor, Tyrone Crest, is believed to be modelled on Elor Summer.
Conspiratives of moderate plausibility suggest that the failure of
the Martian mission was due to sabotage.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Sabotage
by whom? US government?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Unlikely
to be US acting autonomously, more probably at the behest of a
transnational, such as the GFAB.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The
Global Fiscal Advisory Board is an international think tank which
meets under considerable secrecy and security every four years. It's
stated purpose is to provide policy suggestions to ensure proper
co-ordination in the economic strategies of the various transnational
conglomerates: the IMF, World Bank, European Union, Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership and so on. The GFAB was believed to
be involved in the trading of insider information with a certain Off
World Cartel, speculators on an interplanetary exchange index whose
stocks and currencies are levels of sentient misery in different
quadrants of the galaxy.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Several
moderately plausible conspiratives suggest that the plot of <i>Angel
Investor </i>is a clearing-house for a mixture of genuine inside
intelligence and carefully seeded disinformation. Hence, it seems
likely that the Russians have dropped the spoiler in response to the
possible sabotage of the Summers Mars mission, as a means to probe
the attitude of the GFAB towards private-sector space exploration.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> “</i>What
the fuck is going on here?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> “</i>I
don't have any reliable conspirative to answer that. But consider
this: a highly plausible conspirative suggests that Noostream have
re-written the season finale episode, so that the spoiler is no
longer strictly accurate. A question remains, however: <i>if the
spoiler was originally correct, but no longer, is it still a
spoiler?”</i>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> </i>The
Bard looked at me with a peculiar intensity, as though matters of
great import hinged on the solution to this abstruse problem.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Some
more information which may prove relevant. The name of Tillinghast
Nebula's forthcoming album is <i>Dog Star Lazarus Lounge Lizard</i>.
A highly plausible conspirative suggests that Nebula is dying, and
intends the album – <i>or some document associated with the album</i>
– to be his last will and testament.” </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9MhbCzTqFsQ/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9MhbCzTqFsQ?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Continued
shortly.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-62069615819255186362016-01-31T10:42:00.001-08:002016-01-31T10:42:07.516-08:00The Last Will and Testament of Tillinghast Nebula (Part 1).<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCSla_53L5BuNiHpJM_IsIDbyg7Wt8jHUgfk7sASVGYIzXtGjafMD7Z1CDCwdUmt8rdWCRAOemgAAYgvYMZ7w18VhzgNcevHJSBgCMQwLm1vj25TkNfyN90J-BK9C0m3ocGthWqBoBAr-2/s1600/Bowie+double.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCSla_53L5BuNiHpJM_IsIDbyg7Wt8jHUgfk7sASVGYIzXtGjafMD7Z1CDCwdUmt8rdWCRAOemgAAYgvYMZ7w18VhzgNcevHJSBgCMQwLm1vj25TkNfyN90J-BK9C0m3ocGthWqBoBAr-2/s400/Bowie+double.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It would be one of those
years where nobody could imagine what was going to happen next.
There was a certain eeriness infusing everything, owing to the
conjunction of two events, on the surface unrelated to one-another:
the death of the Mars astronaut Gabriel Summers, and the sudden
return from obscurity and subsequent death of the glam rock icon
Tillinghast Nebula. These events we imagined to be unrelated on any
kind of literal level; in a subterranean logic of symbol and
coincidence, however, the conjunction was bizarre, and pregnant with
troubling resonances. Tillinghast Nebula's first big hit <i>Mission
Command (Radio Silence from the American Capsule)</i> was a
moon-landing novelty record about a doomed astronaut. In fact, when
the Martian mission fell apart, and it first became apparent that
Gabriel Summers would be stranded alone on the Red Planet, many
people evoked the memory of <i>Mission Command </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and
its powerful depiction of a sympathetic, almost umbilical connection
between humanity and the astronaut which they are powerless to save.</span><i>
</i>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">The
connections went deeper, however, as Tillinghast had always presented
himself to some degree as an alien marooned on </span><i>our</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
planet, as isolated in his own way as Summers' was in the arid
desolation and radio silence of Mars. Tillinghast, though he had
referenced many cosmic locations, real and imaginary, during his
sci-fi glam rock phase, would always be associated primarily with the
Red Planet. Then there was the timing of the events. Elor Summers,
the venture capitalist and space entrepreneur announced in August
that the Mars colonisation project had suffered a series of tragic
set-backs, which resulted in the death of fourteen of the
colonialists, leaving only his own son Gabriel alive. It was surely
around this time that rumours first began to circulate on Noosfeed
that Tillinghast Nebula was emerging from nearly a decade of
seclusion, putting the finishing touches to a new record that would
be released early in the coming year. </span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
All
through September and October, the world watched Gabriel Summers, the
loneliest man in the solar system, via the video feed from TOTO, the
robot rover that followed his every move, beaming back his daily
struggles to millions of tablets and phones across the earth. The
signal was one way; owing to the disastrous malfunction of Elor
Summers' experimental technologies, we could not communicate with
Gabriel. We could not tell him how much love we had for him, how
ardently we hoped that he would persevere, and find some measure of
happiness and reward in his isolated existence on the Red Planet. We
could only watch the TOTO feed, hoping perhaps, by the same implicit
belief in sympathetic magic which prompts people to cheer at athletes
on a television screen, that the global force of our emotional
investment and concentration, the perfect synchronisation of our
hopes and desires, might somehow travel the vast distance between
earth and Mars, another signal bouncing invisibly across the
blackness.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilJdXVXci4sxSOSvtEu_D2-KytlIkXCUZnUdIq85sItYSGAJ2BEUv6InlKkgtKb6g8xElpb4hGGqnLwtcI29i_Sf8PdeG5AGnCZ8VgdRwLs2DtNyIKGXIB6fhDyUIjwmOVDEFAuV6sJcKZ/s1600/major+tom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilJdXVXci4sxSOSvtEu_D2-KytlIkXCUZnUdIq85sItYSGAJ2BEUv6InlKkgtKb6g8xElpb4hGGqnLwtcI29i_Sf8PdeG5AGnCZ8VgdRwLs2DtNyIKGXIB6fhDyUIjwmOVDEFAuV6sJcKZ/s400/major+tom.jpg" width="363" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
How
was it that our emotional lives had became so entwined with the
fortunes of the lonely astronaut? For years, it seems to me, all our
minds had been blurring together, ever since Noosfeed superseded all
the previous search engines and social networks, and gradually we
spent more and more of our days scrolling through this vast,
fragmentary hive mind. Though few of us cared to acknowledge it, we
no longer consumed books, magazines, or news in any conventional
sense of the term; rather we contributed our share to an endless
stream of transitory points of emotional engagement that were always
moving downstream, a ceaseless flow of ironic hieroglyphics,
Pavlovian arguments, and conspiratorial rumours that moulded our
minds, and melded them together until all experience seemed vacuous
unless it could be shared on Noosfeed, and our private consciousness
felt either valueless, or something precious which we could no longer
regain. In this fashion, our minds had ebbed together in a communal
retreat from a world which seemed beyond our ability to understand or
exert any control over; a world which we all felt intuitively was
falling apart and coming undone while we shared our piecemeal,
opiated Noosfeed dreams.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It
was a natural, then, that our emotional lives, already concretized as
a single, amalgamated entity by Noosfeed, could become affixed to
that of the lonely astronaut. Feeling subconsciously that society
and culture had reached a dead-end spiral on planet earth, we could
look to Gabriel Summers as an embodiment of our collective hope that
mankind might perhaps succeed elsewhere in the universe. That we
could start afresh; that we would not renew the same mistakes, the
same interminable tragedies, which had marred our earthly cradle, and
sapped our great promise. This was the scale of the burden we placed
on the astronaut's shoulders; we had made him an every-man figure
whose great ill-fortune and sufferings would be a test by which the
whole worth of the species might be judged. Just as our own lives
had become increasingly artificial and untethered from tangible
reality, Gabriel Summers existed in world of hyper-reality: in the
brooding, blasted landscape of the dead planet, and the daily
struggle to survive and remain sane, there was no distraction of any
kind from the sheer facts of his existence.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
We
watched him as he worked on the terraformed pavilion which would
provide food when his supply of protein pills ran out. We shared his
appalling loneliness, the deep troughs of his despair, the moments
when he contemplated suicide. Our moods followed precisely after his
in their every ebb and flow; you could feel it in the air when
Gabriel smiled at TOTO, and faced the chores of his day with courage
and equanimity. Market fluctuations, crime and suicide rates, the
fashions and sexual currents of big cities, everything on earth
became entwined with the distant activities of the lonely astronaut,
with subtle nuances in the language of his space-suited body, with
rocks and patterns glimpsed in the ochre dust of the dead planet.
When Gabriel began to speak of a <i>presence </i>encountered out
there in the brooding Martian valleys and desert expanses, even the
world's most ardent atheists thrilled privately with the notion of
experiencing the emergence of a new religious gnosis, specific to the
Martian environment. The night that he told TOTO that Mars was
thronged with ghosts, we wondered if his sanity was slipping away
again.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1_FdoVz3-G9nWWVIO-IsO99wdJ68fRmcvDMiE7oy-7041lSQ51LwEwOnvzTPexnLlFkNI0ashqg1_TaHiuygscyne_cMPoPqDVlhQasKCcBZm2z2Bty9Zx8Gnw1avngnx-TbIXsamOtQY/s1600/decal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1_FdoVz3-G9nWWVIO-IsO99wdJ68fRmcvDMiE7oy-7041lSQ51LwEwOnvzTPexnLlFkNI0ashqg1_TaHiuygscyne_cMPoPqDVlhQasKCcBZm2z2Bty9Zx8Gnw1avngnx-TbIXsamOtQY/s400/decal.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In
those same days when Gabriel Summers spoke in halting whispers of a
host of Martian ghosts, the world was also stirring with the rumoured
return of Tillinghast Nebula, the decadent glam rock icon from the
Golden Age of Pop. Tillinghast had all but vanished for a decade; no
records, no tours, even his sporadic acting career had dried up.
Nevertheless, the mystique of the ageing pop star grew if anything
more palpable in the years of his absence. The myths of his youth
were renewed, and we almost began to believe again that he might
really be an alien. Born in the same year as the flying saucer, and
finding his first flush of fame in the shadow of the Apollo
moon-landing, Nebula would always be identified with the complex web
of anxieties and desires surrounding the figure of the
extraterrestrial. Early on in his career, he found some happy
serendipity in the double-meaning of the word <i>star</i>: the
distant luminescences of the night sky, and the new type of humanity
created by the mass media. The star in the sky was a vast thing
rendered tiny by great gulfs of interstellar space; the star in the
media landscape was a relatively insignificant thing (a person like
any other) magnified to giant proportions by some alchemy of
technology and fantasy.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Just
as the journey to the stars had been regarded as an apotheosis in
outer space, Tillinghast reasoned that the ascension to the status
of an icon in the media age could be an apotheosis of inner space.
The surrealists dreamed of collapsing the distinction between the
unconscious and the world of everyday reality; the star achieved this
by reifying his private fantasies, and making them the communal
fantasy of his audience. Tillinghast was particularly obsessed with
the archetypal story of a being who descends, either voluntarily or
by misadventure, from a higher realm to a lower one. In the lower
realm, he is a messianic figure, a teacher, and a subversive
disruptor of social mores and conventions. Like all
mystically-minded rockers, Tillinghast was particularly enamoured of
the figure of Dionysus, the exotic outsider-god who foments an
ecstatic, underground gnosis in woodland groves and hidden places, a
new mystery cult whose sacraments are irresistible to women,
hysterics, and other figures marginalized by the dominant society. In
the twentieth century, this fallen god had to be an extraterrestrial;
Superman had proved that. So Tillinghast created an image which was
androgynous like Dionysus, but also bizarre and otherworldly, like a
fashion-spread from some other dimension, normally only accessible
via magic mushrooms or psychotic episode. The image was repellent
and absurd to the middle-aged gate-keepers of dystopian orthodoxy,
but held a instant, talismanic power over the still protean
adolescents. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8arYqnp8tRE/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8arYqnp8tRE?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For
Tillinghast, the story of the rock star as alien messiah could only
end in one of two ways. In some versions, the alien is destroyed by
his own fans, dismembered and consumed as a transubstantiated body, a
host or plasmate of some indecipherable future sexuality. In the
other version, he is destroyed by his own ego, having become tainted
by the lures and deceptions of the lower world. Lost in a stupor of
satiation and boredom, he gazes forlornly at the stars he has lost,
never to be regained. Working around variations of this basic mythic
template, Nebula created a dizzying variety of science fictional
personae during the height of his fame: <i> Technical Tilly the
Erotic Scientist from the Crab Nebula</i>, <i>Apollo Elsewhere and
the Venusian Teddy Boys, the Diamond Android Geisha, </i>and so on.
After the glam boom faded, an increasingly cocaine-frazzled
Tillinghast went through his “Germanic phase”, a period marked by
his obsession with Wilhelm Reich, the “Odic Force” theorized by
Baron Carl von Reichenback, Nazi occultism, and the so-called “Berlin
school” of experimental electronic music. In a notoriously erratic
<i>Melody Maker </i>interview, Nebula declared that the Apollo 11
Lunar Module was “clearly an Orgone Accumulator, part of some
Masonic rite.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In
the late 70s, Nebula hired a crack team of Philadelphia soul session
musicians to record <i>The Unmoved Mover on the Dance Floor</i>, a
concept album that boldly mixed earthy disco grooves with Scholastic
metaphysics. On that record, his persona was a mysterious
Gatsby-like figure who haunts various discotheques, elegant but
aloof, dancing without passion and seemingly enslaved by an elusive
memory. Occasionally, he brings revellers back to an LA mansion
where sombre cheetahs lounge by the swimming pool, and a sinister
valet, stationed in the rest room, spooks revellers by declaiming in
a neutral voice: “<i>Welcome to the Villa of Ormen</i>.” When
the guests enquire as the whereabouts of the host, he replies:
“<i>You've swallowed it</i>.” </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-qJk2l29B0JJxsEn35kjopZgy2Fc4O44Hp3-XyukF4gHTOiSul9_7-d2fpaidGXXt6Zm6L17o6Yu8yGcBuNf3q0BqgJfe0oPR5Jj8NdwWb0CXJOm1YPTv_vRL23oMeHpuSVJJNgnWTDU/s1600/the-man-who-fell-to-earth-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-qJk2l29B0JJxsEn35kjopZgy2Fc4O44Hp3-XyukF4gHTOiSul9_7-d2fpaidGXXt6Zm6L17o6Yu8yGcBuNf3q0BqgJfe0oPR5Jj8NdwWb0CXJOm1YPTv_vRL23oMeHpuSVJJNgnWTDU/s400/the-man-who-fell-to-earth-001.jpg" width="331" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In
the 80s, tapping into the new Zeitgeist of conspicuous consumption,
Nebula reinvented himself once again as the Thin White Speculator (or
the Tycoon Who Sold the World to Off-World Interests). A sinister,
bespectacled figure clad in Armani, the Speculator amassed his vast
fortune through a series of technologically advanced patents which
transformed the world: a 3D Projector Hi-Fi System that rendered the
Pop Star obsolete; <i>Aseity, </i>the lucid dreaming
aid/anti-depressant drug that replaced film, television, video games,
and even politics to a large extent; Impolex R, the new synthetic
fabric whose colour changes in tandem with the mood of the wearer,
leading to a post-privacy era in which monogamy is obsolete due to
the immediate blatancy of sexual arousal. In this anaesthetized new
culture inaugurated by the Speculator, everybody wears skin-tight
Impolex R onesies, transforming the streets into an impressionistic
riot of fluctuating mood-tones; people engage in open sexual
encounters in office cubicles and sub-way trains, before retiring to
the seclusion of their conapts, where they drift away on ultra-vivid
<i>Aseity </i>trips, complex <i>Choose Your Adventure</i>
psychodramas aided by New Age music and 3D Hi Fi visualizations.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The
Speculator himself continues to wear Armani (on the few occasions
where he had worn an Impolex R onesie, it remained stationary in an
unearthly shade of deep purple, suggesting the presence of an emotion
unknown and utterly indecipherable to other human beings.) He plays
the market without passion, and sits at restaurant terraces, watching
the sand fall through an hourglass which he carries at all times in
his briefcase. Like all Nebula's latter personae, there is an air of
abstraction and aloofness, a suggestion of an alien who has completed
a fact-finding mission, and now longs to be repatriated back to his
homeland. Earth time, however, is much slower, and the memory of his
homeland is diminishing, day by day, becoming fragmentary, dreamlike,
the subject for a work of art or a tremulous religious faith. At the
end of the album, Tillinghast has come full-circle; the Speculator
has resolved to become a cosmic glam rock star, in order to shake
humanity out of the glazed stupor his off-world technologies have
inaugurated, and to provide for himself a mythic record of his
homeland which will survive his own forgetfulness.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgGxt2M80biayLJfM0FtYxYEjqJCGDy1mufsw5c0VlBZ-QlCmzTRO7PfVTI9HaorvJisroKfafU5MsbWxrjDCKFkeUegeU1mIkcdDy3SMgcF1QVhwmoGbbTXFiVq4gFvefl00KhioiYpa/s1600/bowie+mirror+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijgGxt2M80biayLJfM0FtYxYEjqJCGDy1mufsw5c0VlBZ-QlCmzTRO7PfVTI9HaorvJisroKfafU5MsbWxrjDCKFkeUegeU1mIkcdDy3SMgcF1QVhwmoGbbTXFiVq4gFvefl00KhioiYpa/s400/bowie+mirror+3.jpg" width="322" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Of
all the personae Nebula adopted, perhaps the most bizarre and
uncharacteristic was David Jones, the timid, unfulfilled working
class youth he played in his film debut <i>Looking Glass</i> (1975).
Written by Nebula in collaboration with its director, the ill-fated
Kenneth Anger associate Chris Arlington, <i>Looking Glass </i>was<i>
</i>a mediation on the nature of fame and the perennial theme of the
<i>doppelgänger. </i>David Jones is the polar opposite of
Tillinghast Nebula: a shy and repressed young Londoner who works as a
night porter in a slightly seedy East End hotel called the Sheldrake
Inn. David was raised by his over-bearing mother Janis (Diana Dors),
his father having died in WW2. He has an older brother who has been
hospitalized for some unspecified illness, probably schizophrenia, a
tragedy which hovers unspoken over David's relationship with Janis.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
At
the start of the movie, David is twenty-six years old. He has just
separated from his wife and young child, for reasons never clearly
specified, although Janis harangues him for “not being a bloody
man.” Becoming alienated from his boisterous, going nowhere
friends, and crippled by shyness towards the opposite sex, David
begins to slide into a depression. Suffering from insomnia, he works
by night in the hotel, and by day walks the streets aimlessly,
brooding over the apparently unending litany of humiliations that his
life has become. One day, he wanders on a whim into an antique and
curio store. Inside the shop, he pauses to look at his reflection in
an art-Deco mirror. The image that greets him, though clearly that
of his own face, is a completely different person in every other
regard: a glamorous, otherworldly and androgynous figure, with long
hair, elaborate make-up, and an expression of self-confidence
bordering on mockery.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Alarmed
by the apparition in the mirror, which seems to manifest his own
latent potentialities and submerged desires, David runs out into the
street, and finds himself in a London somehow different from the one
he is familiar with. Hair and clothing styles have changed;
news-paper headlines adopt a peculiar tone, and the billboards
advertise unrecognisable products that appeal to desires more
commonly suppressed. Many people stop and stare at David, and soon
he realizes why: there are posters everywhere for the androgynous
double he saw the mirror, who seems to be some kind of pop-star
called Tillinghast Nebula. The attention from the pedestrians
becomes more intense, and he hears their whispering voices amplified
like the drone of an angry beehive:</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Is
that him?”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It
can't be him, he looks normal.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It
<i>must</i> be him, look at his <i>eyes</i>.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The
hair is completely different.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“He
must be in disguise.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“They
do that sometimes, to see if they get noticed.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Tillinghast...is
that you?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“He
was a bloody poof on <i>Top of the Tops</i>.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“It
<i>is</i> him.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Tilly,
over here!”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Over
here, Tilly!</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Panicked,
David starts running, and a sequence of rapid, jagged cuts suggest a
nervous breakdown of some kind. He comes to back in the antique
shop, looking at the mirror again, but now his reflection has
returned to normal. The proprietor, a tall, elderly gentleman with a
kindly, if distracted, expression, addresses him from the counter:
“I check the looking glass myself, Sir, from time to time, just to
make sure I haven't gone anywhere since the last time I looked! But there
I be, always looking back at myself. You'd have to be quick on the
draw, Sir, to beat the man in the mirror! It's a queer life for him,
though, no? First thing in the morning and last thing at night,
grooming and washing and shaving and squeezing spots and scrubbing
and <i>looking, </i>Sir, looking very intently, as though either of
you knew any better who the other really was. How does he occupy
himself in-between times, that's what I wonder. Does he simply sleep
all day, in a quiet, empty mirror world? Or does he have his
freedom, Sir, while you're not at the mirror, his freedom to wander
around in a empty world, all the while perhaps wondering why you get
to live in the real world, and he only in the looking glass one? It
occurs to me, Sir, that the man in the mirror must resent us
bitterly, we who he must imitate in all our private moments, in our
vanities and insecurities. It seems to me that sometimes people
<i>change, </i>abruptly, without any apparent cause. Well, Sir,
might it not be that their reflection found a way to take a hold of
them, and swap places? What would a <i>reflection</i> do, I wonder,
given autonomy over a real body? I think about these kinds of
things, Sir, when the shop is quiet.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A
few years pass. David starts working as a clerk for a legal firm,
and marries again, this time to art teacher Sara (Jane Asher). Bored
and frustrated by his work, however, he continues to brood over a
sense of missed opportunities and life passing him by. “I was
meant to do<i> something</i>,” he tries to explain to Sara,
“something else, and I was meant to be <i>somebody</i> else, but I
missed the boat, somehow.” Sara, meanwhile, growing resentful of
his passive, reclusive nature, begins an affair with older PE teacher
Reggie (Stanley Baker). </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One
day, while David is waiting to cross the street, an immaculate
limousine pulls up alongside. The window rolls down, and once again
he is presented with his double. The androgyne, looking frailer than
before, is clad in a tuxedo, and rests his chin on a cane, cradled in
brittle, twitching hands. He is accompanied by two women: an African
with sharp cheekbones and large, limpid eyes, and a voluptuous
red-head in witchy bohemian rags. The women point at David and
laugh, but the androgyne regards him with a peculiar, quizzical
expression. The window rolls back up, and the limo drifts out of
view.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Over
the course of the following weeks, he begins to see the androgyne
more frequently. Passing by an art gallery with an all-glass facade,
he sees his double holding court, surrounded by Japanese conceptual
artists and beautiful, vacuum-eyed pleasure seekers. On another
occasion, he chances on the androgyne scurrying with a group of
revellers from a taxi to the foyer of a once elegant hotel. This
time, he is disguised as a mime, and his entourage a boisterous group
of medieval mummers; they sprint into the hotel like nocturnal
creatures startled by the daylight. Each time their eyes met, the
double regards him with the same puzzling expression: a look not
quite of recognition, but more of one grappling with the elusive
meaning of some anomalous presentiment like a deja vu. Bizarrely,
the locations in which these encounters take place – the art
gallery, the hotel, an apartment block – can never be found again,
suggesting some kind of fleeting intersection between the real London
and a phantasmal reflection of the city, a double like his own, alike
and yet subject to an alternate destiny.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
David
returns to the antique shop where the first apparition of the double
took place. “Yes, I remember you, Sir, indeed I do. You were
quite taken with a looking glass, Sir, and stared into it for such a
long while, as though you were are at the pictures! Where is the
mirror now, Sir? Well, it was actually sold not long after the very
day you yourself were admiring it, if you can believe that. One of
my most esteemed customers, a <i>visitor</i>, Sir, a foreigner with
very refined and unusual tastes.”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbdEK_Gnj53pGeFCLkqdkI0sF6rID6i4Zhyphenhyphen5x4OoVAG_zMoDcIAs-IFTJchKK_D3xqFyKuIUM-SuRbtfvEZirypkzmyhVZqe-5o6E9oHw8KCuv6VTDxba5DlzqrXVpMjTcfetE5BWiycoz/s1600/bowie+mirror.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbdEK_Gnj53pGeFCLkqdkI0sF6rID6i4Zhyphenhyphen5x4OoVAG_zMoDcIAs-IFTJchKK_D3xqFyKuIUM-SuRbtfvEZirypkzmyhVZqe-5o6E9oHw8KCuv6VTDxba5DlzqrXVpMjTcfetE5BWiycoz/s400/bowie+mirror.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
At
this point, David's life is at its lowest ebb. His first wife is
happily re-married, and his son, now six, barely recognises him. His
own marriage is disintegrating into a nightmare of silence and
recrimination. To add to his increasingly tenuous grip on his
identity, Janis has started to confuse him with his mentally-ill
older brother; “You should be more like your brother David,” she
keeps telling him. While his own life falls apart, he becomes
increasingly fixated on his double, and the idea that it is the
mysterious androgyne who has stolen all the opportunities which
should by right have been his. His double gets to live out all his
dreams – his fantasies of sexual indulgence and wealth, fame,
beauty and brilliance – while he is forced to endure only the grey
daylight, the drudgery and disappointment by which such flights of
appetite and imagination acquire their full lustre and intensity. He
becomes obsessed by the notion that he must kill his double, and
destroy the thief, the imposter, who had stolen his destiny.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One
morning, David is seated at a bench in Hyde Park, and Tillinghast
Nebula joins him, the pair sitting in silence for a moment before
Tillinghast speaks:
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I
first saw you many years ago, when my career was just taking off. I
was on acid and made the terrible mistake of just wandering off down
the street without anybody to mind me. People were staring at me, of
course, and recognising me, and that felt good at first. But after
awhile I started to hear their thoughts, buzzing in my head, and it
was driving me crazy. Some of them wanted to fuck me and some of
them wanted to be me and some of them wanted to kill me and some of
them just wanted the frisson of interacting with a famous person. I
had this utterly depressing realization that I was<i> nobody</i>, and
the reason they reacted to me in that way had more to do with their
own lives – with how some awful Machinery had narrowed the horizons
of most people's lives down to such an extent that the celebrity –
any celebrity - became a focal point for all their emotions, their
fetishes, the commodity dreams that the Machinery had been beaming
into their brains since they were children.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I
had a panic attack, and I think I started running. When I came back
to my senses, I'd taken refuge in an antique shop. I wandered over
to this mirror, and when I looked in, I saw <i>you, </i>not myself,
and yet I knew you were <i>myself. </i>I knew it was real, too, not
the acid. So a few days later, I bought the mirror, because I knew
it wasn't any ordinary mirror. Among dealers of antiques and rare
books, you see, there are sometimes magicians, who hide magical
objects among everyday things – cursed books, music boxes that
induce somnambulism, puzzle boxes that summon demons, things like
that – knowing that certain sensitive people will be drawn to them.
That mirror, I eventually learned, was a gateway between worlds.
You needed to position it in different places, and eventually you
would notice one detail in the reflection that was different, one
tiny detail that told you that you were looking into a different
world. In time, you developed the capacity to pass through the
looking glass, into the other world, taking parts of your world with
you. But we had seen <i>each other</i> – that's why our different
worlds became intertwined.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“When
you pass through the looking glass, you learn that there are a
multitude of different worlds, each of which is essentially the same,
but each of which actualizes different possibilities. In each of
those worlds, there is a different you, experiencing an alternate
destiny. All your dreams, nightmares, strange fugitive memories,
sensations of deja vu, are all fragments of the other lives you are
living concurrently in different dimensions. Another you endures
your worst fears; another enjoys your keenest fantasies. There is a
kind of economy, a balance, of destinies and desires, gratuities of
fortune and grief, ranging across an infinity of forking paths and
permutations. You and I make one-another, you see; I am a creature
of your longings and fantasies, and you are a creature of my fears an
insecurities. The star and his public. I know you feel that I have
taken something from you, but in reality, we only give to one
another. We weren't brought together to kill the other, <i>but to
take one-another's place.</i>”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It
transpires that Nebula had been dreaming for years of a perfect
escape from the chaotic and insular world he'd created around
himself. Having become one of the most recognisable faces on his
world, he grew obsessed with the now exotic and unattainable quality
of <i>anonymity. </i>To walk down a street without exciting the
drama and burden of people's expectations, projections and fantasies
was a distant memory, an act of impossible magic like some conjuring
trick he once knew but could never re-learn. Everything he'd
achieved, in the end, had imprisoned him: consigned him for life to a
cloistered world of sycophants and acolytes, mind-numbing and
life-threatening indulgences, fame and drugs making his mind into an
all-enveloping fishbowl, a mansion with sprawling, maddening
corridors, mirrored walls, and no exit.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> </i>David
returns to his wife, and tells her that he needs to go away for a
short while to clear his head. He promises that things will be
better when he returns. He visits Janis, joining her on the balcony
of her flat. “I'm going away for a little while,” he says.
“You'll not go anywhere”, she laughs, “too fragile you are,
afraid of everything. You'll not go five metres from the door
without needing somebody to hold your hand. You should be more like
your brother David, you should.” He had Tillinghast then adjourn
to a decrepit, shadowy Kensington town house, and we watch in a long,
ingeniously edited sequence as they swap identities, David becoming
the glam rock icon, and Tillignhast the shy, melancholy clerk and
cuckold.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It's
dawn when they've finished, and Tillinghast begins experimenting with
the mirror, positioning it in different parts of the room. Finally
placing it at a slant on front of the fireplace, his eyes dart
rapidly from the reflection back to the room itself. “There we
are,” he says finally, “<i>look</i>.” In the mirror, he shows
David a narrow tracery of cracks on the reflected ceiling that aren't
present on the ceiling above. “Focus on that detail,” he
instructs, “look at it very carefully, and then look at your own
reflection. If you do it properly you'll start to feel like you're
actually in the mirror, not out here. Once that happens, it will be
time to go through.” After performing this meditative exercise for
some time, David begins to experience the vertiginous sensation of
his point of view shifting from outside to inside the mirror; one
moment he is looking at the reflection, and the next at Tillinghast
and himself as though through a window from the outside. Eventually,
he feels as though he has morphed fully into a reflection, a pristine
creature of light that only attends upon a physical body.
Tillinghast has his arms on his shoulders now, nudging him gently
through the looking glass. “It's a little disorientating at
first”, he whispers, “but there's only one way to learn how to
swim.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Through
the looking glass, David Jones (now Tillinghast Nebula) experienced
all his fantasies in a giddy rush, and died shortly thereafter, a
glorious rock n' roll suicide. The real Tillinghast Nebula retired
into the seclusion and anonymity of David Jones' life, eventually
raising a family with Sara and living to old age. As he got older,
the memory of his hedonistic adventures as the glam rock icon began
to fade, remaining only as fragments of an otherworldly carnival, a
free festival which he'd attended only his dreams, his youthful
dreams of a golden age when high technology made stars and rockets,
and new gospels that were written in radio signals and received by
television antennas.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YF_ESqYuhSQ/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YF_ESqYuhSQ?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Late
in November, the tragedy struck, throwing a pall over the world.
Millions were watching the TOTO feed as Gabriel drove the Mars Buggy
at a brisk clip along the edge of a very steep, rocky slope, faithful
TOTO hurtling after him. Many people subsequently claimed that they
felt a palpable tension, even before Gabriel parked the Mars Buggy,
but I suspect that this was only with the benefit of hindsight. Why
did the lonely astronaut stop the Buggy, and start clambering up the
slope? We will never know. The most common theory is that he saw a
metallic object glinting up there, and went to explore. Others have
argued that the flickering light source on the slope is merely a
camera artefact. Whatever the explanation, his behaviour becomes
peculiarly rash. TOTO cranes his head upward, and we watch Gabriel
clambering almost frantically up the cliff-face. He pauses from time
to time to look back, and we can only read our own interpretations
into the expression of the tiny, pixillated face in the space helmet. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Then
everything falls apart. A foothold crumbles beneath his feet, and
Gabriel is tumbling back down in a hail of dust and stones, his arms
failing and clutching the air. The millions watch, frozen, hapless.
They are telling themselves that Gabriel will be okay, that he will
pick himself off the ground and make some self-deprecating joke.
When he is about half way down, however, we hear a sickening <i>crack;
</i>his space helmet has struck a boulder. We hear those fast, heavy
breaths; those dying breaths that filled the world, and haunt it ever
after. Now he is on the ground, crawling towards the Buggy, a
desperate bid to get to the spare breathing apparatus. He gets so
close to salvation, so close it is almost a miracle. TOTO observes
the struggle with a detachment that seems preternatural. Gabriel
reaches the Buggy, but by then it is all over. He slumps against the
vehicle, positioning himself so that his body, arms outstretched like
a saviour, faces TOTO, and the eyes of the world. TOTO, following
his programme to keep Gabriel in his sights at all times, has not
moved since. Nobody wants to look, but nobody can turn their eyes away.
We tuned in on a nightly basis, charting the rapid decay of our idol,
the symbol of our hope. The scene was one of utter stillness,
interrupted only now and then by older Martian rovers that sauntered
eerily by, carrying out the functions of obsolete reconnaissance
missions, programmes they would follow until their circuitry finally
burns itself out. In that vast, lonely backdrop, we watched
Gabriel's beautiful face become shrunken and discoloured.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One
day, we tuned in, and the transformation was complete: only the skull
remained inside the space helmet. The image was complete now, like a
painting or a religious icon, which conjoined in the one crumpled
figure the dream of the stars and end of all dreaming flesh. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Continued shortly.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-10110926362692194032015-12-25T08:42:00.002-08:002015-12-25T12:04:10.162-08:00Michael Mann's Heat (1995). <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzo8eob4Fhf6tDa-wSavr_qKgvIm4Jq8eCK2Cq1cbil7CyFvdD59JKHftzWQ_v4LmoeaxfSUMfUS9kShuDBqldlgvSHdFay7n0vPxGRtC41I1mfYr3oWS9J4oXNdjy1TKaG5DkZ4abNp9W/s1600/e389592e862974a85f3e88e1abdd05f0.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzo8eob4Fhf6tDa-wSavr_qKgvIm4Jq8eCK2Cq1cbil7CyFvdD59JKHftzWQ_v4LmoeaxfSUMfUS9kShuDBqldlgvSHdFay7n0vPxGRtC41I1mfYr3oWS9J4oXNdjy1TKaG5DkZ4abNp9W/s320/e389592e862974a85f3e88e1abdd05f0.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>To mark the 20th Anniversary of <i>Heat</i>, a re-posting of an essay I wrote back in 2009, originally</b><a href="http://kirbydotsmovies.blogspot.ie/2009/05/heat-1995-part-1-both-sides-of-law_27.html"> here</a>.)<br />
<br />
<b>Part 1: Both Sides of the Law.</b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
While he was
directing his debut <i>Thief</i>, and later producing <i>Miami Vice</i> and <i>Crime Story</i> for
television, Michael Mann conducted on-going and in-depth research into the
private and professional lives of law enforcement officers and criminals. As he
put it himself: "I like to move through a subculture until I feel the
colors and patterns and tones and rhythms of the lives of the people and
place." Mann's hands on approach brought experienced operators from both
sides of the law into the acting fold: Dennis Farina and John Santucci both had
small parts in <i>Thief</i>, and larger roles in <i>Crime Story</i>. Farina had been a
Chicago cop for eighteen years, and Santucci a skilled jewel thief. It was
within this extended fraternization with the law's enforcers and truants that
Mann discovered the genesis for <i>Heat.</i> Chuck Adamson, another veteran police officer,
was an old friend of Mann whose experiences on the beat formed much of the
template for <i>Crime Story</i>. During the sixties, Adamson had shared a coffee with
a thief named McCauley; the pair enjoyed one another's company, despite an
acute awareness that an encounter under different circumstances could prove
fatal for one of the two men. Later on in '63, Adamson was called to the scene
of an armed robbery, and shot McCauley six times.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
This simple
enough anecdote, an insight into the shades of grey that inevitably inhere into
even the most adversarial relationships, seemed to haunt Mann, and gradually
developed in his mind into what is for many people the quintessential Mann
narrative: the story of two lonely, driven men who occupy opposing sides of the
law, and who, despite extraordinary differences of character and temperament,
recognise in one another both a mutual dependence and an essential similitude.
Contrary to the interpretation of <i>Heat</i> frequently espoused by the critic David
Thompson, the purpose of this dynamic was by no means to suggest an moral
equivalence between the two characters, or even to suggest that they are
particularly alike in most respects. Rather, as Mann said himself: "I
heard that the detective had some kind of rapport with McCauley, and that was
the kernel of the movie. It would be trite to say that they were the flip side
of the same coin. McCauley and Hanna share a singularity of intelligence and
drivennes, but everything else about their lives is different." <i>Heat</i> was thus
about a rapport, an empathy, and a respect between two adversaries, predicated
on a shared, perhaps emotionally debilitating commitment to their perspective
vocations.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Again, as with
Frank in <i>Thief,</i> we can read these characters in variety of ways. They share
with Frank the same contradictory mixture of intense self-affirmation and
self-abnegation and defeat. We can read them as expressions of the perennial
American myth of rugged masculine individualism, transposed onto the complex,
impersonal urban architecture of the postmodern world. We can see them as cops
and robbers proxies for the experience of the artistic vocation, in a manner
which explores the inherent alienation of artists and others who possess a
particularly intense absorption in their work, and the close proximity of this
absorption to forms of obsessive compulsion and autism. Mann has referred to
McCauley as a "highly-organized sociopath", and Hanna as
"extremely dysfunctional". Their relationship in <i>Heat</i> is a battle of
prowess, a cat and mouse game, and, as Sergio Leone described <i>Once Upon a Time
in the West</i>, a long and stately "dance of death."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Mann is known
for working slowly and spending a long time in research, but of all his
projects, <i>Heat</i> probably had the longest period of gestation. Some form of the
script seems to have existed since 1986. In 1989, Mann shot a compressed
version of the script in two weeks as the low budget television movie <i>L.A.
Takedown</i>; it was a proposed pilot for an NBC series which never materialised.
(I can never bring myself to watch<i> L.A. Takedown</i>, since it has been so
thoroughly bettered by its later incarnation. The Al Pacino role is played by
an actor called Scott Plank, who apparently gives a pretty decent performance,
despite possessing the most unfortunate surname imaginable for a thespian.) The
precise details of how the script evolved are unknown to me, but by the time it
reached the big screen in 1995,<i> Heat</i> had blossomed into arguably Mann's most
complex, ambitious, and nuanced script. Working within an elegantly precise
three-act structure, Mann had branched out around his two central protagonists,
weaving a complex tapestry of secondary characters and domestic sub-plots. He had done a stunning job of fleshing out close to
twenty characters, and turning the typical prioritization of genre cinema
towards plot mechanics and action on its head. In Mann's script, the
characterization, the interaction of the secondary characters, and the
languorous, contemplative moments, were as crucial as the action set-pieces,
and the final film attains an extraordinary fluidity in the way it moves between
alternately romantic, melancholy, and kinetically violent registers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
In its journey
from NBC to Hollywood,<i> Heat </i>had also acquired an immense ensemble cast, and
orchestrated an unprecedented casting coup: the first together on-screen
pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The significance of this was two-fold.
For movie lovers, De Niro and Pacino were emblematic, iconic figures of the
extraordinary creativity and artistic integrity which had characterised the New
Hollywood movement of the seventies. American cinema experienced something
truly remarkable in that decade, which each successive generation has only
served to render more unprecedented, and more worthy of our rueful nostalgia.
Establishing themselves in roughly the same years as Nicholson, Hackman,
Hoffman, Beatty, and Warren Oates, De Niro and Pacino had nevetheless carved
out the greatest niche in the mythos of naturalistic American movie actors
since Brando created the template in the fifties.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Pacino was a
lean, slight, cherub-faced kid with an air of street-savvy; back then, he was as
comfortable with composure and austerity (<i>The Godfather Part 2</i>) as he was with
demonstrative physicality (<i>Dog Day Afternoon)</i>. De Niro was harder to pin down.
In his early years he appeared as a blank slate whose only common denominator
was a certain air of purpose and drivenness in performance. He could do a kind
of weedy klutziness very well, and also a quality of power, of suppressed
ferocity, with an equal faculty. He combined these contradictory qualities as Travis
Bickle in <i>Taxi Driver</i>, in what remains his most shattering performance. As the
seventies passed into the eighties, he had gathered about himself a fearsome
legend of obsessive dedication, of physical plasticity and protean
disappearance into character. His stock-in-trade, as with the young Brando,
became playing volatile, insecure, inarticulate men.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Also, as De
Niro and Pacino possessed a special resonance to American cinema in its last
truly robust and artistically rigorous period, they had also developed a mythic
stature within the crime genre. A fresh-faced Pacino had played a hipster cop
fresh out of the academy in <i>Serpico</i> (1973), and laterly the more wizened,
world-weary variety in <i>Sea of Love</i> (1989). On the other side of the law, he had
played Brian de Palma's cartoonish Cuban ubermench Tony Montana in <i>Scarface</i>,
and his older, more contemplative and soulful Hispanic cousin in the same
director's <i>Carlito's Way</i>. De Niro, unlike the majority of major American movie
stars, tended to steer towards flawed, if not pungently unpleasant characters,
and thus spent most of his time on the wrong side of the law. In the seventies,
his star took flight as the small-time hoodlum and eternal hustler Johnny Boy
in <i>Mean Streets</i>; he played a virile, brill-creamed Vito Corleone for Coppola, a
paunchy, petulant Al Capone for de Palma, and also took the lead in Scorsese's
nineties crime epics<i> Goodfellas</i> and <i>Casino</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
For these
reasons, it was particularly apt that these two actors should embody Mann's
battle of prowess between two aging, obsessive, and preeminent professionals.
It added a charge to the eventual encounter in the diner which had a rich
resonance outside the drama of the movie. As their characters circle around one
throughout<i> Heat</i>, De Niro and Pacino had hovered about one another for years,
both in terms of professional stature, and iconic roles in American cops and
robbers movies. The eighties and the nineties were to a large degree a twilight
of the idols for the seventies auteurs. When De Niro and Pacino made <i>Heat</i>,
their titanic stature was still more or less intact, but both, also, were on
the slide: Pacino into exaggerated self-parody, and De Niro into a perhaps more lamentable condition of sheer
disinterest. The sly sparring and defiant expressions of dedication to vocation
expressed in the diner scene are thus both "a mythic moment", as
David Denby asserted, and a sad reminder of the many years yet to come between
these great actors and the height of their prowess.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPO_NExIU23OPjHXZ8ISJOEvKyC2skBKCJTp8mOP9YdnngvwfINGb3uhfyag_iCCQ1x7xXUfkyR6lV2MXXfl9JeuCAFO9j5DARFlqEdoh-OasbCBOV9UKljE_KdOvOgIfw3eT4l1dHgqs9/s1600/massive-movie-match-ups--20080402005125600-000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPO_NExIU23OPjHXZ8ISJOEvKyC2skBKCJTp8mOP9YdnngvwfINGb3uhfyag_iCCQ1x7xXUfkyR6lV2MXXfl9JeuCAFO9j5DARFlqEdoh-OasbCBOV9UKljE_KdOvOgIfw3eT4l1dHgqs9/s400/massive-movie-match-ups--20080402005125600-000.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b style="text-indent: 36pt;">Part 2: Emotion and Detachment.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6iV15-rSx4OXX6AEWumupdSVyYxf42j2sAyjFOgfkmTXihZCiRWan3GY1Y7VsJzSRcK8nWZtVma9Vb4H3JnY5H5XfoysgTtJUW_y0wja39fNPpqvhEZn7gAPK3zxrzDwodTgs_-OX4UCX/s1600/heat_l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6iV15-rSx4OXX6AEWumupdSVyYxf42j2sAyjFOgfkmTXihZCiRWan3GY1Y7VsJzSRcK8nWZtVma9Vb4H3JnY5H5XfoysgTtJUW_y0wja39fNPpqvhEZn7gAPK3zxrzDwodTgs_-OX4UCX/s400/heat_l.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b>The Opening.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
One the main
pleasures of repeated viewings of <i>Heat </i>is the discovery of a variety of
smaller, unobtrusive moments throughout the movie which possess a significance
or beauty which was not apparent in an initial viewing. The movie's opening
thirty seconds are a good case in point. On the face of it, there's very little
to write home about. Eliot Goldenthal's haunting, ambient score wafts in very
quietly over the studio title. We see a static shot of an incoming train moving
slowly through a smoggy landscape of smoke, neon, and steel. (This is, of
course, the same rail system which would provide Tom Cruise with his metaphor for
the disconnectedness of LA life in <i>Collateral</i>, and later the scene of his own
demise.) Over a black background, the movie's cool, minimalist title card
shimmers into view. We are then introduced to DeNiro's character Neil as he
alights from the train, both in a long and close shot.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU8cvzWX-Qq3ILOk7BsiWFPyVn8y8TopnteGh1o8SOaO5xrHvsGnGKyK5p2BSaz4-bbQ6S1_VfIlUjVBz-BPYPV-uIloj7A7sMHybOTGFtLvHQWUMbe6gQ_OsTw7WHp7uRV6rw2SVCA-yU/s1600/heat-2-754936.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU8cvzWX-Qq3ILOk7BsiWFPyVn8y8TopnteGh1o8SOaO5xrHvsGnGKyK5p2BSaz4-bbQ6S1_VfIlUjVBz-BPYPV-uIloj7A7sMHybOTGFtLvHQWUMbe6gQ_OsTw7WHp7uRV6rw2SVCA-yU/s400/heat-2-754936.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It doesn't
seem like much at all, but in actuality this short passage, by a mixture of
composition, design, and scoring, establishes the whole tone of the movie,
which might be best described as a mood of precision and detachment, with a
deep undercurrent of melancholy and longing playing at its lower frequencies.
Instrumental in achieving this effect is Goldenthal's theme: it is a perfect
aural expression of a subtle, but no less intense longing for emotional
spontaneity and connection in a landscape which is cold, metallic, and
geometrically precise.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The physical
landscape in which <i>Heat </i>takes place is Los Angeles, which Mann and his
cinematographer Dante Spinotti evoke with an otherworldly, almost sci-fi
ambience recalling<i> Blade Runner</i>. According to Empire's Ian Nathan, “this is an
urban milieu almost space-age in its abstract beauty, but emotionally desolate,
a blank canvass against which the dispossessed act out their desperate dreams.
Nothing anchors people – all the houses are stunningly angular, magnificent
architectural vacuums free of personality.” Jean-Baptiste Therot provides a
brilliant description of Mann's<i> mise en scene </i>in his essay <i>The Aquarium
Syndrome</i>, which is worth quoting at length:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
“Today, Mann
is one of those rare filmmakers whose films succeed in delivering a vision of
modern, urban America: those impersonal places, the freeways, suburbs,
uninterrupted traffic, the America that Baudrillard calls magnificent and
sidereal. This is a world of railway yards, neon signs that flicker night and
day, a world that seems resigned to the omnipresence of glass and concrete.
Mann renews from film to film, with a rare obstinacy, this cold, blue,
geometric aesthetic, although it is sometimes broken up by an unusual graininess,
or lack of order that creeps into the system. Predominant here is the
transformation of spaces into “no-places”: hospitals, hotel rooms, roadside
cafes, vacant lots, airports, warehouses, empty apartments, are all subject to
a sort of hyper-geometrization of the frame, inherited from the Don Siegel of
<i>The Killers</i> (1964) and <i>Dirty Harry </i>(1972), and the formal experiments of
Antonioni in <i>Red Desert </i>(1964) and <i>Zabriskie Point </i>(1970).”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhyphenhyphenM9bU_YMdjhoTygcq3U4Hc4-7VwlG2aAXFzRklRmCu8ECdsB-bw8SuhWfa0JO9QxxST_ypQi7YD3Fml5FPuyZ3CgZvwICw5UaPcDZMOwYdwM-PAdGBXhTuLJoTzRlA7BOUhSnUanRML/s1600/js13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlhyphenhyphenM9bU_YMdjhoTygcq3U4Hc4-7VwlG2aAXFzRklRmCu8ECdsB-bw8SuhWfa0JO9QxxST_ypQi7YD3Fml5FPuyZ3CgZvwICw5UaPcDZMOwYdwM-PAdGBXhTuLJoTzRlA7BOUhSnUanRML/s400/js13.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Case Study
House 22, Los Angeles, 1960, photograhed by Julius Shulman.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
To Therot's
astute allusions to Baudrillard and Antonioni, you could also add the cold
modernist sheen of J.G. Ballard's dystopian novels. With Antonioni and Ballard,
Mann shares a deep-rooted attraction/repulsion towards the reflective surfaces
and straight lines of contemporary urban architecture; with Baudrillard, a
fascination with the contradictory qualities of artificiality and hyperrealism.
(Mann's repeated foregrounding of transitory places and channels of conveyance,
such as hospitals, hotels, warehouses, etc, reaches a greater extreme in <i>Miami
Vice</i>, and is echoed in Olivier Assaya's criminally underrated<i> Boarding Gate</i>
(2007), a film I would recommend for enthusiasts of Mann's films.) Later in <i>The
Aquarium Syndrome</i>, Therot asks What kind of people live in these places? The
answer provided by <i>Heat</i>'s intro is Neil McCauley, and again after repeated
viewing you begin to realize how much of Neil's character is already sketched
out with remarkable economy in the opening.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Alighting from
the train, DeNiro's body language expresses the essentials of McCauley's
character. We see a figure that is polished, precise, methodical, and interior;
a perfectly austere master criminal in the mould of Jean Pierre Melville.
(Later we learn that the extent of his spartan fastidiousness; his minimalist
apartment is barely furnished.) In this regard, McCauley seems perfectly
attuned to the steely, impersonal terrain in which he moves; however, his
expression in close-up, accentuated by the soundtrack, suggests a degree of
weariness and sorrow. McCauley later describes himself as “alone, but not
lonely”, a description which seems, in the light of his courtship of Eady, only
partially true. In the course of the movie, Hanna is forced to acknowledge that
he cannot lead a meaningful life outside of his work. McCauley, on the other
hand, has reached a point where persistent vigilance and personal vocation are
no longer meaningful; like Jeff in Melville's <i>Le Samouri</i>, and Cruise's similar
assassin in<i> Collateral,</i> he has the air of a weary ghost in the shell.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Before leaving
the intro, it is worth considering briefly the title itself: <i>heat</i>. Heat refers
most explicitly to law enforcement, to the perennial threat around the corner
in McCauley's oft quoted credo. But the word also evokes passion, heightened
emotion, and the complications of the emotional life; things which, in Mann's
noir-tinted world, almost invariably prove as fatal as bullets. Much of <i>Heat</i>'s
time is given over to the difficulty of maintaining relationships, or, in
McCauley's case, the difficulty of being without one. As Mann puts it, once
McCauley encounters Eady, he is “out there with the rest of us, in the realm
where emotions become complex and motivation isn't simple.” The empathy between
McCauley and Hanna is in part derived from the fact that they have both avoided
the messy complications of emotional commitment throughout their lives,
McCauley by way of spartan discipline, and Hanna by bulldozing his way through
three marriages. Between themselves, they occupy a purely masculine order which
eschews emotional complexity and vulnerability, but is nevertheless a cold
world, characterised by conflict, fatalism, and dead bodies.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b>Choices.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwsQ7fiTH2XgSuilN8ljyOT94hK8gpx273jS6iqCJQ2T_2WJrBiurQxz4N0uX_yS-Y4zP75Z79cg2VGClmD-vro_07kulqMjmmeVFuB7s32QZiHY2cZEwRy_HghGaHbp73JDYRcuS2r9bj/s1600/heat-3-755083.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwsQ7fiTH2XgSuilN8ljyOT94hK8gpx273jS6iqCJQ2T_2WJrBiurQxz4N0uX_yS-Y4zP75Z79cg2VGClmD-vro_07kulqMjmmeVFuB7s32QZiHY2cZEwRy_HghGaHbp73JDYRcuS2r9bj/s400/heat-3-755083.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Anna Dzenis
has called <i>Heat</i> an “epic crime film about two tribes and three couples.”
Throughout its duration, <i>Heat </i>explores both the similarities, and conflicting
demands, between membership of tribal and familial units. McCauley, for
example, shows an interest in tight, cohesive family units when talking to
Eady, and exercises a patriarchal role within his crew, being particularly
paternal towards Chris (Val Kilmer). Hanna, on the other hand, succeeds in
saving his step-daughter from an attempted suicide attempt. It is
characteristic of him, however, that his proficiency is in precisely this kind
of life-threatening crisis situation, the kind he encounters in work, but not
in the everyday domestic activities of fatherhood. His allegiance is tribal,
and orientated towards hunting, and the rest, as Diane Verona observes, “is the
mess you leave behind as you pass through.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
In so far as
Mann conceived <i>Heat</i> as a drama rather than a genre piece, its most dramatically
significant moments are those in which the characters make choices. Some of the
choices made in <i>Heat </i>are long meditated over, and clearly signposted as
significant moments; others are brisk, spur of the moment, and not immediately
resonant in a first viewing. In the first category, you think immediately of
Hanna's decision, effectively the end of his third marriage, to answer the call
in the hospital, or the split second pause later on when McCauley looks from
Eady to Hanna coming around the corner. (This is the most mythically heightened
moment in <i>Heat,</i> when McCauley looks in stunned disbelief at what had been an
abstract code become a reality in every detail.) McCauley's real undoing occurs
earlier, however, with a different choice. Driving away from the heist
scot-free, he is informed by Nate that Waingro is still alive. According to
Mann, this is the point where the action moves from probability to determinism.
McCauley has his dream within his grasp, but also the opportunity to settle
everything neatly, to avenge his crew. The car lurches under a tunnel, and for
a split second the whole screen is bathed in a bluish white incandescence. He
turns back. (The lighting effect was apparently accidental, but edited
brilliantly to capture the lightening speed with which McCauley seals his
fate.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMbC_fIywVBk2e-xZb1ESTEfOfA-JBFQqb0TvpXHv4FZT_vH06073eslPlXw0qtHBz9vkUXYXzBWuStuJ_pI_Xu_4v5OwWwTIAy9Fb36t4nMQxqQGH8c8RcjeSbrPUe7dajFZUGT3eHGYT/s1600/heat-20-755160.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMbC_fIywVBk2e-xZb1ESTEfOfA-JBFQqb0TvpXHv4FZT_vH06073eslPlXw0qtHBz9vkUXYXzBWuStuJ_pI_Xu_4v5OwWwTIAy9Fb36t4nMQxqQGH8c8RcjeSbrPUe7dajFZUGT3eHGYT/s400/heat-20-755160.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It is also
worth noting the choices of some of the secondary characters. The storyline
involving driver Donald Breeden (Dennis Haysbert) has significantly less screen
time than most of the other characters, but it is movingly evoked and acted.
Breeden's relationship, along with McCauley's, is one of the few in the movie
which isn't deteriorating, and you really feel for his attempts to build a
modest, stable existence away from criminality. Later on, McCauley appears
unexpectedly at the diner where he works, and offers him a quick escape from
the petty frustrations and small, incremental victories of the “normal-type”
life. Once again, a lightning fast decision is made, and a few hours later,
Breeden is dead.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
One of my very
favourite of<i> Heat</i>'s smaller, more intimate moments is the last scene between
Chris (Val Kilmer) and Charlene (Ashley Judd). At this point, their
relationship seems all but over, and Charlene has been put in a position where
betraying Chris to the police is an almost unavoidable moral imperative. When
the moment comes, however, she finds to her own surprise that she cannot betray
whatever tie remains between them. She makes a very slight gesture with her
hand to indicate the trap. Kilmer's initial expression of exhilarated happiness
becomes clouded and dazed, and without fully seeming to register what has has
happened, he becomes, like so many other Mann protagonists, a solitary figure
disappearing forever into the far distance. The scene is wonderfully played;
the ability of Charlene to communicate something so succinctly with a gesture,
and of Chris to respond so quickly and instinctively, tells you everything you
need to know about the world they inhabit. It is also the sweetest, most
hopeful moment in <i>Heat</i>'s otherwise leaden atmosphere of steadily encroaching
doom. <i>Heat </i>is often interpreted as a story of men who eschew emotional
commitment to women in favour of masculine camaraderie, and games of skill and
prowess which ultimately prove fatal and destructive to all connected with
them. However, Chris' assertion “For me, the sun rises and sets with her” is a
counter-argument, a rejection, of McCauley's credo of non-attachment: “Do not
have anything in your life that you are not prepared to walk away from in
thirty seconds flat, if you feel the heat around the corner.” In the end, it
seems justified since theirs is the only relationship with any potential
“future” after the end of the movie. (Of course, whether they do have a future
together or not is rendered academic by the strange magic of cinematic closure.
I love the scene precisely because this wordless, ambiguous exchange is the end
of their story.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b>Closing.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQQ949zxoHBbCfeMHe3YsbQCDHOWBFeEjia0gIwF-uFNuRGjVUAZxONwC5xl9wsgN3A3uWJD_jakcMRdh3KmehQgPM5BstaXeKJSB35xWPTqnjMfLqSryhzQDyJFvr6fsxBcmKWtBliWPB/s1600/heat-5-755046.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQQ949zxoHBbCfeMHe3YsbQCDHOWBFeEjia0gIwF-uFNuRGjVUAZxONwC5xl9wsgN3A3uWJD_jakcMRdh3KmehQgPM5BstaXeKJSB35xWPTqnjMfLqSryhzQDyJFvr6fsxBcmKWtBliWPB/s400/heat-5-755046.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
“<i>Heat </i>is awash
with death and a sense of pathos from the very start. It is as if the end is
already enacted at the beginning, and the characters are like ghosts that walk
through this dream world.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Anna Dzenis.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
One of the
things I admire most about <i>Heat</i>, and about Mann's work in general, is its
particular sensitivity to mood and tone; its ability to create, by a
combination of scoring, <i>mise en scene</i>, dialogue and performance, a very specific
filmic world or universe. Anna Dzenis comments on this quality with relation to
<i>Heat:</i> “<i>Heat</i> is more than just a crime story. It is a dreamscape – a poetically
rendered world.” This remains the most intriguing paradox about Mann's films –
the obsession with realism, verisimilitude, and research, as against the sense,
particularly in his crime films, that one is in, as Dzenis puts it, “a
poetically rendered world.” This is particularly evident in Diane Verona's
speech in <i>Heat</i>: “You don't live with me. You live among the remains of dead
people. You sift through the detritus. You read the terrain. You search for
signs of passing, for the scent of your prey, and then you hunt them down.
That's the only thing you're really committed to. The rest is the mess you leave
behind as you pass through.” There is little attempt to capture the cadence of
actual speech here; rather, the effect is poetic, and almost akin a piece of
musical score, in way it contributes to/articulates the tone and mood of the
film.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
As much as
<i>Heat </i>draws from real events, and specific, concrete things which Mann
encountered in research, the movie is also a carefully modulated tone poem, an
exploration of the perennial male anxiety with regard to emotional commitment;
a noir world in which the heat around the corner is always complex, difficult
emotions, and the real danger is perhaps derived from the unavoidable necessity
to open one's self up, to become vulnerable, to acquire something in life that
you cannot abandon, no matter what the consequences. Thematically and tonally,
<i>Heat </i>moves between opposing poles of emotion and detachment, as all of Mann's
major characters seem caught between the alternate pull of heat (passion,
connection, life-force) and coldness (sterility, conflict, detachment, the dead
bodies that haunt Hanna's dreams).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
This dichotomy
cuts through the whole of <i>Heat</i>; it is evident in the movie's tendency to view
landscape from a wide, abstract vantage, and human faces and bodies in extreme,
intimate close-up; in Mann's attitude towards his characters, which is at once
one of complete emotional engagement, and cerebral detachment. <i>Heat</i>'s
conclusion, heavily redolent in its action of the similar airport chase that
concludes Peter Yates's <i>Bullitt</i>, is no exception. McCauley and Hanna, both
unable to attain the more rewarding existence offered by their domestic
attachments, are finally drawn to their inevitable duel, to the testing of the
principals each expressed earlier in the cafe scene. More than this, they are
reabsorbed into the movie's steely, geometric terrain, McCauley back into the
landscape from which he emerged at the beginning of the film. As foreshadowed
in Diane Verona's speech, he is betrayed by a shadow cast by floodlights, a
trace or a “sign of passing” rather than his own person. It is an
overwhelmingly hollow victory for Hanna; for him, as for McCauley's crew, the
“action is the juice”, the end an abstraction that facilitates the thrill of
the chase. As J.A. Lindstrom points out in a fine essay <i>Heat: Work and Genre</i>, the
ending of <i>Heat </i>leaves the quintessential Mann dichotomy between work and
domesticity without any hope of resolution:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
“The film's
resolution offers us the grim notion that work requires abandoning those we
care about; and then it will probably kill us. Choosing not to sacrifice home
life will not, however, insulate a relationship from harm. Thus the
accommodation to the status quo that the genre film normally offers to its
audience is a bitter pill in <i>Heat:</i> work rules fatally, and proclaiming the
importance of our personal lives will not rescue us from professional demands.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
If <i>Heat</i>
refuses its audience a neat resolution to its thematic concerns, however, it
attains near perfection in terms of aesthetic resolution. The final shot,
echoing the first, is wide, equisitely composed shot of Hanna holding Vincent's
hand, tempering the potential melodrama of the moment by viewing them from
behind, in a pictorial, almost impersonal framing. The brilliant inclusion of
Moby's <i>God Moving Over the Face of the Waters</i> feels like a final release of all
the emotion that had been pent-up and submerged beneath <i>Heat</i>'s polished and
precise exterior; as an ending it is both melancholy and strangely
exhilarating, such is its fine balance between emotive outpouring and abstract formal
precision.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-23112464102439829852015-09-29T12:16:00.000-07:002015-09-29T12:16:19.454-07:00&More Again.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju3PTJNQ-EQgZGKoTgowynVfZ2HzBaswBkXsWZ93or0JJezRU_cn69h9TD8PApcyYTBv4rYWfpqJlphD-Ycblqe5hz83KgI30nNaGeMO-KKnVaYGpjt95cbes8Td9x_WSvfi-M5hV02Jlo/s1600/andmoreagain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju3PTJNQ-EQgZGKoTgowynVfZ2HzBaswBkXsWZ93or0JJezRU_cn69h9TD8PApcyYTBv4rYWfpqJlphD-Ycblqe5hz83KgI30nNaGeMO-KKnVaYGpjt95cbes8Td9x_WSvfi-M5hV02Jlo/s400/andmoreagain.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3A1158337912%3Aplaylist%3A5dH0vLQzkkSSDxwU5zF6gX" width="300"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif9l8P5LsmGKbKUvFGbpBJ-JOi3xl6Kg3nujd2imIdDaEp2sIYNqcj8AmKjPuyACmurv_s-hH8bxhzDGJgM-d56MHNCviOM4HtrPo2XOR6sFZxohgvqZ8KW8AIckIxAZREIHlRFoghpbXL/s1600/trip.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif9l8P5LsmGKbKUvFGbpBJ-JOi3xl6Kg3nujd2imIdDaEp2sIYNqcj8AmKjPuyACmurv_s-hH8bxhzDGJgM-d56MHNCviOM4HtrPo2XOR6sFZxohgvqZ8KW8AIckIxAZREIHlRFoghpbXL/s400/trip.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-35956524703837970952015-09-27T13:30:00.001-07:002015-09-27T13:38:46.099-07:00Infomercials of the Uncanny: Time-Life's "Mysteries of the Unknown." <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH1jz9Poz2QVrfZxm60dEc0n-cd6MWGCv3IDmlV2fDZa_q58OjvqGXHMj1U90D0BOYoqZG8ltTCzeZYfoTtdu0GfR9kOsO23fanzbmt_3dLx55SdxhJQCCwHfKIXudC7dfzUYFxuL2DuLn/s1600/time+life.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH1jz9Poz2QVrfZxm60dEc0n-cd6MWGCv3IDmlV2fDZa_q58OjvqGXHMj1U90D0BOYoqZG8ltTCzeZYfoTtdu0GfR9kOsO23fanzbmt_3dLx55SdxhJQCCwHfKIXudC7dfzUYFxuL2DuLn/s400/time+life.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysteries_of_the_Unknown">Mysteries of the Unknown</a></i>" was a highly successful series of books dealing with paranormal subjects which Time-Life Books published from 1987 to 1991. The format and presentation was similar to previous paranormal periodicals published in Britain in the 70s and early 80s, such as the legendary <i>Man, Myth and Magic </i>and the <i>Unexplained </i>magazine:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDpWXllEBVx9woirTbS5o3pK7fdrOc9qeAAaGj_IuN1yx4n_iXx7kvHUiLEM_8_TbadZx29mYY-l98Iuaa0jt9Mnaf3hXOql1QKbKf6B8pNI7NtfyIWjdLpLeIYmJXf4X_IPl-hjr4dGim/s1600/unexplained+staring+into+my+soul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDpWXllEBVx9woirTbS5o3pK7fdrOc9qeAAaGj_IuN1yx4n_iXx7kvHUiLEM_8_TbadZx29mYY-l98Iuaa0jt9Mnaf3hXOql1QKbKf6B8pNI7NtfyIWjdLpLeIYmJXf4X_IPl-hjr4dGim/s400/unexplained+staring+into+my+soul.jpg" width="295" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This irresistible 1988 commercial for the series captures the surreal joy of yesterday's mass market esotericism:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/v4zBYh2PUyk/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v4zBYh2PUyk?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This other spot is less memorable, and probably only notable for an early Julianne Moore appearance: </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Lal0aWAys0k/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lal0aWAys0k?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Images: </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Mysteries of the Unknown from<a href="https://hotteahotbooks.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/bookshelves/"> ODDS AND THENS</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Unexplained from<a href="http://tearoomofdespair.blogspot.ie/2014/05/a-fiend-for-magazine-weird-shit-movies.html"> THE TEAROOM OF DESPAIR</a>.</div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-14626590728851345332015-09-08T15:23:00.000-07:002017-01-13T17:46:51.753-08:00The Bird Out of Space and Time (Part 7).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPW16apu1xUsM7wUVmGDUWVeyZbLHZVBaQrjmEXjt43JgL-SncXRwbVWZEe45FXEAemZui6NljCxcBmUEl0G9Sk905NyBz1fPvfusOqFTWSbDNZ3MhuF_rSOSwC5tjp1SUP7OY6RJvFBPD/s1600/the-window-1925%25281%2529.jpg%2521Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPW16apu1xUsM7wUVmGDUWVeyZbLHZVBaQrjmEXjt43JgL-SncXRwbVWZEe45FXEAemZui6NljCxcBmUEl0G9Sk905NyBz1fPvfusOqFTWSbDNZ3MhuF_rSOSwC5tjp1SUP7OY6RJvFBPD/s400/the-window-1925%25281%2529.jpg%2521Blog.jpg" width="292" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
He had watched me
silently from the rocking chair and then moved with imperceptible
briskness to my shoulder, like the spider that suddenly bolts into
motion when his hapless prey has snared itself.
Nevertheless, I was indeed trapped. He'd priced the Pusey book at a
fraction of its market value, so that even if I derived no pleasure
from owning it, it would at least stave off my imminent poverty for
close to a month when things got bad. I nodded ascent, trying not to
betray too much enthusiasm. He smiled, took the book curtly out of
my hand, and strode to the counter, the motion of his long, rigid
joints having the character of a kick-started arthritic machinery.
Seating himself, he glanced at the cover for the first time.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Ah, this is an
interesting one, yes. I haven't read it now, but the, ah,
circumstances surrounding it, very interesting....”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I was starting to worry
that the buffoon was wise to the book's real value.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The mysterious
circumstances surrounding the book, are you aware of them?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 1.25cm;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 1.25cm;">I
shook my head.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="text-indent: 1.25cm;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Oh, extremely
unusual. The author vanished, you know, off the face of the earth.
He was never seen again. And the manuscript of this very book was
found among his final possessions. Did you know that?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I didn't.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Yes, he had a tiny
garret flat in a rather squalid lodging house. And all they found
there were some books on heraldry, a hoard of peculiar trinkets and
curios, and the manuscript of this book. But no Mr. Pusey, alas. So
you could say that this book was his last will and testament, if you
like! All his worldly goods, so speak, bequeathed to the world, or
all them that might have care to read it. And there were apparently
great rumours and a great intrigue surrounding the disappearance of
this - ” he paused to consult the book cover “ - this Mr. <i>Pusey</i>.
It was speculated that he'd discovered some kind of <i>portal</i> or
<i>door</i>, though which he departed from all the privations and
imperfections of this world, to some supernal realm outside of space
and time. Not only that, mind you, but certain aficionados claim
that he'd divulged the secret of finding that portal in the
manuscript, albeit in the form of a code or series of riddles, such
that only the most diligent and attentive reader might discover it.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Although I hadn't
intended to betray any knowledge on the subject, the dealer had
snared me again.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“That's nonsense.
Pusey was a failure from an industrious, well-to-do family, living in
obscurity and poverty. He didn't discover any magic door – more
likely he took his own life, probably dived into some lonely stretch
of the Thames, and the body just never found.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The antique dealer's
face brightened, as though he had been waiting to have this
discussion for some time. He had a tendency to discuss morbid
subjects with a disconcerting buoyancy and giddiness, as though his
mind were a dying hearth, fed by the kindling of a particular type of
metaphysical horror.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well, now, that might
be the case. Indeed, that may well be the truth of it, in the end.
Isn't it possible, though, that what you're saying, and what I'm
saying, might both be true? Might, in fact, essentially be the same
thing?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What do you mean?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well, sir, the taking
of one's life might in a sense be regarded as a kind of passing
through a door out of time and space, might it not? And, as to the
second part of the rumour, supposing that this Mr. Pusey discovered
something in the course of his researches – some <i>awful fact</i>,
if you will, about the fundamental nature of reality, the knowledge
of which drove him to self-annihilation. Well, might it not be this
<i>awful fact </i>which Pusey had coded into his book, such that the
diligent reader would also discover that fact, and thus be likewise
driven to self-annihilation?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Your idea is based on
an absurd premise.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Which is that now,
sir?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“That there is any
fact so universally appalling that anybody and everybody who learns
it would immediately be driven to suicide.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“I think that premise
is defensible, sir.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Certainly not. The
world, and the series of facts that constitute the world, affect
people in a variety of different ways, according the disposition and
history of the individual in question. There is no joke that
everybody will find hilarious, no sunset everybody will find
breath-taking, and certainly no fact so unfathomably bleak that it
would render the mortal existence untenable to all who are made privy
to it.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Well, now, you make a
good point there, indeed, a good argument! But I've given some
thought to this, you see. This old shop is rather quiet now, and I
have lots of time to think while the old clocks tick tock. I have to
entertain myself, you see, because nobody would ever play a radio in
an antique shop. Have you ever heard the radio playing in an antique
shop? No, it’s an unwritten rule of the profession that our
premises must be as silent and sombre as a mortuary, as though the
old items were laid out to their final rest, so to speak. So I've
nothing to listen to most days, except the old clocks tick tock and
my own thoughts, such as they are, and to pass long stretches I've
often given my thoughts over to somewhat abstruse philosophical
questions, such as the very one under current consideration: <i>is it
possible that there could be some fact or discovery pertaining the
nature of ultimate reality, so utterly dreadful in its ramifications,
that it would drive all men who learned it to certain
self-annihilation? </i>And, indeed, the first objection I've
considered to the existence of such a fact is the very point you
raise: the variability of human disposition and taste, such that some
will enjoy getting stung by a nettle, or the taste of Brussels
sprouts, against the better judgement of the majority.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“However, consider
this: the more something pertains to the ultimate core of reality,
the greater the degree of homogeneity we encounter in the human
response to it. Certainly, people can have this or that response to
a book, a film, politician, dessert, or a new humanitarian cause.
But these things, I would say, do not pertain to ultimate reality;
they are the grit and the castles we have built in our little sandbox
of language and culture to hide from ultimate reality. We can afford
a variability of response to these things, because they are, in the
end, matters of aesthetic taste and rhetorical plumage – negotiable
shapes which we can mould and re-make in the grit and the sand. But
the closer something comes to essential reality, I say, the less
variable our response to it. Consider aging and death – yes, some
put on a braver face than others, and some will eke from the manifold
indignities of the corporeal process a certain kind of poetic
grandeur, or gallows wit if that fails, but most of us, I think, are
uniform in our response to aging and death. Think you of the palaver
of a Sartre or Heidegger, and how a group of young men might while
away hours in furious disagreement as to the virtue of one brand of
philosophical cant as against another. But only saunter by a
voluptuous and desirable woman, and the differences between those
young men wash away in the undulant tide of her flesh.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack1"></a>
“But these things – desire, aging, and death – are only
manifestations, minor quirks, if you will, of ultimate reality. They
universalize us to the degree that we cannot quite avoid them, or
neutralize their power over us with the shapes we mould in the
sandbox. Our bodies are, I would say, little pieces of the grammar
of ultimate reality, slotting together and parting away by
punctuation and ellipsis, so as they must according to rules which
ultimately elude us. But if our responses became more homogeneous by
virtue of this grammar alone, how much then the same person would we
all become, were we put face to face with the speaker of that
grammar, the source of all our pains and pleasures, and the
immensities through which their echoes weave and vanish, like peddles
cast to a bottomless well?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
Although
I had no greater desire at this point than to extricate myself from
the company of this garrulous and disagreeable codger, I had to
concede a certain rhetorical flair to his peculiarly elaborate
patter.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.27cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Now you can probably
tell, sir, that I’m no scholar. I only had as much schooling when
I was young as kept me out of the way until I was able to start
earning. But I’ve always had my curiosity about the nature of
things. Well, not quite always. In hindsight, I think that
curiosity came over me only after a specific experience I had when
was about twenty-seven odd. A peculiar experience I had, sir, with a
certain tree. I was still living at home then, up on one those
narrow housing estates that are all cobbled together on St. Michael’s
Terrace, near the gasworks. But I worked in the old Hobbs Lane
brewery on the quays then, before that fire that some said was
started by “Dozy” Davy and the “Michelin Man” gutted the
place in ’84. And every evening I walked back to the Terrace down
Percy Road. Do you know Percy Road? A narrow street, very old,
grand houses, very wealthy. Well, not <i>awful </i>wealthy, but
affluent, if you know what I mean.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Right as you come on
to Percy Road there are two bars on the corner of the t-junction, and
every evening their terraces were full of young men in suits and
well-dressed women. I was a little envious, I suppose, of people
that had jobs you'd dress up for, and the leisure and purse to be
enjoying a drink on the evening of a school night. But there was
also this tree, on the left side of Percy Road, which always
commanded my attention in some peculiar way. I couldn't tell you
what kind of tree it was, to be honest, only that it was very tall,
planted right on the edge of the footpath, and leaning in a slant
towards the higher storeys of the houses.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“What it was about
this particular tree that was so arresting I cannot adequately
define. Trees are in general an incongruous sight on a city street,
if you give some thought to it. The natural and built environments,
many have argued, reflect two fundamentally different orders of
being, the natural world being characterized by a fecund, irregular
complexity, and the built environment, in contrast, by a tendency
towards geometric simplicity of form. So a tree in the midst of a
city street represents, I would say, the juxtaposition of two
different orders of material existence, in the same way that a
traffic light planted in the midst of wild meadowland would strike us
as peculiar.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“But this one, I
think, felt particularly out of place, as though it had stood in
splendid natural isolation, and the city, with all its concrete and
stone and bustle, had simply encircled it to its very roots, but
never vanquished it, nor altered its essential connection to the soil
and the primordial earth. As though – and I know this to be only
my fancy – Percy Road and the city were simply an event which had
grown up and would pass away while the tree remained, magnificent,
unperturbed, and indifferent.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“One day, these vague
intimations which I felt in relation to the Percy Road tree cohered
to form what I would call an epiphany. It was an evening in May, and
the first sunshine of a dour, gloomy year, with everything giddy and
astir and rushing back into bloom. But I was in a mood that day such
that the buoyancy of the weather only made me feel more aggrieved
with my lot in this world. My troubles then were typical of young
men, I suppose – the feeling, as it were, that the world were
something I could see, but never quite enter fully into. Well, I was
sore oppressed that day, and the envy I felt towards the carefree and
fortunate revellers at the terraces all the greater, the more
undignified. But then I took in the full picture, so to speak: the
intersection of the two streets, the happy folk milling about at
either side, and in the middle, curving a little to the left, the
great tree. And in an instant, I had the most peculiar presentiment
that the tree was the only thing in the picture that was <i>actually
real. </i>It felt as though everything else – the houses, cars,
people – were an illusion, an insubstantial image projected over
the true world, and the tree alone, like a sore thumb, belonged to
the underlying, solid reality.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i> “</i>Well, this
presentiment put me in such a funk that I stopped in my tracks, and
tried to figure out the source of such an impression. And it downed
on me slowly that it had something to do with <i>time</i> – with
how the human world, because of its awareness of time, was defined by
and rooted in the temporal, in a way which the natural world was not.
The movement and speech of the revellers appeared suddenly
exaggerated and comical to me, as though speeded up. They – we –
lived in an instant, and the awareness of that goes through us all
like electricity, making us dance skittishly about, and perform such
a febrile, frantic pantomime, as though it were actually real, and
not simply such roles as children adopt in a game before rain or
dinner calls them back inside. Even the houses, I thought, some a
hundred or more years old, betrayed that uniquely human awareness of
time, the energetic panic of it, followed by its exhausted pathos and
humiliation.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Now, the tree, in
contrast, appeared to me to partake in some fashion of the eternal
rather than the temporal. Though it too had grown and would decay,
it did so without panic or compulsion, without motion or discontent –
its immobility and unperturbed mode of being perfectly attuned to the
undifferentiated purity of the eternal, and the slight stirring of
its boughs in the breeze like the lazy respirations of some god
marking whole ages of human time in their falling away. It was a
strange sensation that I felt in those few moments, and perhaps a
little eerie and frightening, but it took me out of my present
discontents, out of the whole stream of my identity in fact, while
the May sun beat down on the junction.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Such things, of
course, are fleeting, but the notion that the world which I took for
granted might in some sense be unreal or illusory stayed with me. I
come, as I said, from the Terrace, and such notions are not given
much credence there. Over the years, I would occasionally have
experiences similar to that engendered by the Percy Road tree –
certain places, particularly near parks or bodies of water, certain
conjurations of light, ivy-covered redbrick buildings, discovered
streets or estates that give you the feeling you are no longer in
your own familiar city – those things instilled in me a peculiar
contemplative trance, where I began to have memories that belonged to
strangers, intimations of the whole stream of separate identities,
like diving into other minds for an instant, such that I occasionally
felt as though I were not myself at all but everybody who would ever
exist, and a great pall of dread and loneliness and nothingness with
that realization, as though I lay beneath a thousand tombs,
nourishing the soil of a thousand acres that would be visited only by
the hollow reed of my own ghost, stirring the grasses and the foliage
to a deeper gradation of the silence. And I thought for many years,
sir, that it was some foible or malady of my brain that put these
thoughts into my head, and I fretted about this in silence.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“Years later, when my
brother Morris and I were running this shop, I started to read books
of philosophy, and I learned that the notion that everyday reality
was an illusion – far from being an anomaly cooked up by some
curdling of my brain matter – was in fact almost a commonplace
among the learned, such that it seemed as though everyone who had
ever given serious consideration to the nature of reality had arrived
at some variation of the basic thesis that it was a counterfeit or
mirage. Look to yon Hindoo sage of the antique Indies – he long
ago proclaimed all things fair and foul but a veil of fantasy, and by
thus reasoning does he display feats of contorted posture as could
only be attained by regarding all cramps and palsies as afflict the
body as but the minor threads of a tapestry of universal falsehood.
Look to yon Plato, who saw all things as the etiolated shadows cast
off by Perfect Forms, such that our world be like a ravaged face
whose former beauty might yet be dimly read between the lines and
creases. Or yon Parmenides, who reasoned that there was in fact but
one single existing thing, such that anybody who counted more on his
fingers had fallen into gross error. Or the Holy Roman Church, for
whom this life and this world is but a paltry and backward hinterland
to the Kingdom of God and the Life Eternal in the Hereafter. Did not
Kant argue that we know things only such as our sensations make them
appear to us, and what they are in actuality must remain forever a
veritable mystery? Just so had Paul saith unto the Corinthians, that
we see things here as through a glass darkly. Even today’s
priestly caste, yon scientist, who prides himself as the supreme man
of practical reality, saith that all this solid, variegated world
which our senses perceive is but shoals of minuscule and maddening
tadpoles swimming in seas of mathematical probability. ”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
I
could only gape at the dealer by this point, troubled by the
paranoiac intimation which strikes many of us when we encounter the
mad in public, that their monologues are somehow bizarrely
synchronized replies to the train of our own private thoughts, if not
our very thoughts themselves, spilling unceremoniously out into the
world like a fold of flab through a loosened fabric.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack2"></a>
“Well, what conclusion might one draw from all this? That –
whether the supposition of the world’s unreality be a true
intimation of the nature of things, or the product of a curdling of
brain matter general throughout the species – men have, in all
times and all places, resolved that that which they see directly is
<i>misleading</i>, and thus sought to look<i> through</i> the world
of appearances, and gaze directly upon ultimate reality, whether by
contemplation, piety, or squinting into microscopes. Now, to bring
us back to our initial theme, supposing this Pusey were consumed by
that ambition – by this burning desire to pierce the veil, to see
<i>through </i>the world – and further that he addressed himself to
this task in a direct fashion, by looking very intently at things.
He was, as I understand it, an inveterate street-walker, who always
carried himself with an air of contemplative distraction. What else
might he have been doing then, but trying to fix the world before
him, as an object of contemplation, so that he could to see through
it?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Let
us imagine that his efforts slowly bore fruit over the years. First,
the world began to soften around its edges. Its contents become
liquid where previously they had been solid, and begin to flow into
one another. The world becomes like its reflection on a body of
water: protean, all straight lives curved, everything which was solid
and fixed now undulant, everything which was rooted now cast off in a
slow dance as the surface on which it rests stirs in its ceaseless
interior motion. And he feels surely the beginning of a rapture, the
sense of the imminence of his goal, the stirring of anticipatory
bliss the lover feels as the object of their desire becomes, even if
only notionally, attainable.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“In
time, the image of the world loses all its original contours –
instead of the reflection on a watery surface, the motion of the
surface has transformed it into a dancing figure of total abstraction
– and each time Pusey goes into his trance, he travels further away
from the everyday world. Thus, the nearer he attains to his goal,
and the deeper his rapture grows, the more he is an isolated failure,
an eccentric or madmen, in the world without.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“One
day, the world can persist no longer, even as an abstraction, and
vanishes altogether. And now in turn, Pusey begins to see all those
other things which mystics and philosophers have glimpsed beyond the
veil: the Perfect Forms, the Unmoved Mover, the Pure White Light,
mandalas and monads, mathematical tadpole swarms, they all pass
before his eyes as in a parade, and each is revealed, like the world
before them, to be an illusion, and like the world before them, they
too collapse into abstraction and vanish away. And now, after a long
period in a pure, milky void, a new picture begins to cohere, and
Pusey knows that he has unwrapped the final Russian doll, pierced the
last veil, and is presently to see ultimate reality, to know the
final, unmediated truth which underlies all human illusions.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJyVar-ovtH6rhVfauzTql1UVbofOpD9gLq_bW6zD7Dqr9Il4BSNYWV3vdemfe8-YEiu6UXNJujrHr8BIl-s8R2W5E3_hk1yuYnepKo4PSKufRzx4EJUHFluXaKf9DYCjtFxspfhcL6G_W/s1600/Jack_in_the_box_after_Gavarni.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJyVar-ovtH6rhVfauzTql1UVbofOpD9gLq_bW6zD7Dqr9Il4BSNYWV3vdemfe8-YEiu6UXNJujrHr8BIl-s8R2W5E3_hk1yuYnepKo4PSKufRzx4EJUHFluXaKf9DYCjtFxspfhcL6G_W/s400/Jack_in_the_box_after_Gavarni.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“And
he sees the slate grey sky of a cold desert, and beneath it a great
wasteland of parched black soil stretches into infinity on all sides,
an empty, uniform desolation with no beginning nor end, and no
demarcation of one part of it from any other, a landscape through
which one might walk for all eternity and maintain for all that time
the same relationship with the horizon, and the same prospect ever
before and behind. But as his vision of the wasteland becomes
clearer, he sees that it is <i>populated </i>with objects that
traverse its infinity, rising and falling, rising and falling, making
the whole plane like a black ocean of steady undulation.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“What
are they?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Well,
sir, they are jack-in-the-boxes.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“What?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Jack-in-the-boxes,
sir. The alleged child’s toy composed of a box, from whence a
sinister clown figure abruptly springs, so as to engender comedic
shock, with the box sometimes disguised in the shape of the
universally beloved and soothing <i>music box</i>, so as to intensify
the discordant shock of the clown’s emergence.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“No,
I mean, I know what jack-in-the-boxes are, but…..how did they get
there? Who made them?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Well,
sir, since you ask that question, I see you haven’t understood
aright. The jack-in-the-boxes were <i>always</i> there, and nobody
made them. They are, so to speak, the <i>necessary being</i> from
whence all merely contingent being derives. The malice of the
jack-in-the-box implied the necessity for a dupe, for a conscious
being to be <i>taken in</i> by the pleasant appearance of the box,
and thus startled by the clown. The universe is engendered only so
that its sentient beings are lead through all their delusions of
grand, noble, or tragic things, back to the ultimate mockery and
blind malignancy of leering clowns emerging infinitely out of their
boxes...”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“But
how can clowns and children's toys predate the existence of matter
itself?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Well,
sir, one might well ask where such things come from in the first
place, no? We are surrounded by <i>notional things – </i>creatures,
entities, and convoluted notions themselves – such as have no
apparent physical existence, and I'd like to know where <i>they
</i>come form. Perhaps these
<i>notional things </i>came
before us, and gave birth to us as we have done to adding machines?
The very first man who donned the motley apparel of the clown must
have had some <i>prior inkling </i>of
what a clown was – and his audience likewise – otherwise, they
surely would have had him locked up or dunked in a pond, and the
practise never taken off. And, sir, the origins of the
jack-in-the-box itself are shrouded in mystery. Some say it were the
rector John Schorne, that pious healer and terror to the gout and the
common sinner, who inspired the conceit when he incarcerated yon
devil in his boot for a time. Well, I would say that Schorne were
far too recent, and the jack has been a slumbering in some box since
yon Pandora, at the very least.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“But I make apology for the long-windedness of my discourse; I
meant only to provide an hypothetical example of a truth so terrible
that it's discovery would drive all men to self-annihilation, and I
would make boast that I have done just that, for though there are
some who might have a partiality for infinite grey wastelands, and
others for row upon upon row of leering, exultantly evil
jack-in-the-boxes, there wasn't any borned yet as would rejoice in
the combination of the two constituting the ultimate, underlying
reality.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
I handed him the money.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Well, that's certainly very interesting, but I really need to be
getting along..”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Indeed, sir, and my apologies again. You know I must say I'm
actually rather glad to have rid of this book. Oh, I'm sure it's all
superstitious nonsense, but I've a fear that I would have read it
sooner or later, and mayhap then vanished out of sight myself. I
don't want to disappear, you see. It's just that at my age, you wind
up with very little to look forward to – very little, sir, in the
line of new experiences and novelties on the horizon. Well, what I
look forward to most of all now is my funeral. I cannot wait to see
what sort of weather I get for the big day, who comes along to squint
at me in yon box, what the priest says, and so forth.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
It seemed that he was to detain me with one further lunacy.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Eh, don't you think that.....your funeral might be the one thing
which you almost certainly <i>won't</i> get to see?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
He smiled cannily.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“That is indeed the opinion must would venture on the subject, sir,
but I happen to have some insider information which gives me every
hope that I <i>will</i> see my own funeral, as sure as I'm seeing you
now, looking at me as though I had two heads. Well, in fact, I <i>had</i>
two heads once, after a fashion. I mentioned earlier that I used to
run this business with my brother Morris. It was Morris, actually,
who got the lease on this place – he won it in a game of cards with
Ronnie Sullivan that went on for three days and three nights in the
granny flat over Fagan's Drapery, while wives, childers, and assorted
crones took turns mounting the stairs to try to rouse them from their
collective lunacy with a wailing of entreaties and imprecations.
They talked about that game of cards for years in the Terrace.
Putting up the lease of a property on one hand, would you believe it?
People lived shorter and wider in those days, if you know what I
mean. Nobody worried about their health until they were dying, and
they didn't really worry too much about it then because it was too
late anyway.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Well, my brother Morris wasn't just my brother – we were
identicals. Now, there are many popular notions regarding the
uncanniness of identical twins which I can tell you from experience
are spurious. For example, it's often held that one twin must be the
good one, and the other the bad – well, I would say that most
twins, like most people, are good some of the time, bad some of the
time, and indifferent for most of it. Now, on the other hand, it's
commonly believed that that the bond between identical twins is of a
close, psychical nature, such that the twins are privy to knowledge
about one another which confounds everyday notions of time, space,
and the locality and interiority of the mental faculty. Well, I can
tell you, sir, this queer supposition is entirely true. When I was a
young child, I began to experience what I called “flashes.” The
flashes were a queer thing. I would be doing any old thing, you
know, walking home from the butchers, playing conkers with bigger
lads, or taking a pinch of snuff with some bold lads behind the old
concrete outhouse, when suddenly, just for the briefest instant, I
would be seeing something else entirely. One second, I would be
looking down a certain street, and the next thing, I would see a pair
of feet bobbing at the bottom of a bath. Or I would be talking to
somebody indoors, and the next thing, I'd be looking at a woman's
backside sauntering down some nearby street! The<i> sound</i> of
where I was would persist, but it was like, for a couple of seconds,
I was seeing through somebody else's eyes. It were a strange thing,
for example, to be entirely stationary, and yet to have one visual
field in motion, as though one's eyes were a cinema screen.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Well, these flashes persisted intermittently as I grew up, and
puzzled me greatly. It seemed to me that if one were to <i>see
things, </i>they should be of a fantastical or bizarre nature, like
row upon upon row of seaside chalets on the dark side of the moon, or
perambulators scuttling around on spider's legs while mothers encased
in tortoise shells tried vainly to catch after them – weird things
such as that. But my flashes were of the most banal nature, and all
took place in locations which were instantly recognisable to me. It
as though as though I were going mad in a tiresomely ordinary fashion
– a double blow to my pride.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“One day, I was sitting on the couch reading an adventure of
<i>Torrace Manning, the Spy with the X-Ray Eyes, </i>when suddenly
the panel which I reading – in which Torrace was eyeing Esther St
Claire, and saying “DON'T ASK HOW I KNOW, ESTHER, BUT MONDRAGOON IS
ON HIS WAY UP THE STAIRS AS WE SPEAK – WITH SALINGER'S MANSCRIPT IN
ONE-HAND AND A PISTOL IN THE OTHER” - vanished, and I saw my own
face looking back at me from the bathroom mirror. So I ran up and
went a banging on the bathroom door, and sure enough, Morris opens it
and goes: “By Christ, I thought you were MONDRAGOON coming up with
the stairs with his revolver!” Well, the mystery was solved.
Morris, as it transpired, had also been having the flashes, and when
we compared notes, it was readily apparent at our mental wires were
crossed at brief, sporadic intervals<i> </i>such that we would see
through the other's eyes for little fleeting moments here and there.<i>
</i>And this was a very special thing, a secret bond between us,
ever after. Oh, we had our rows and so forth, but there was always
that thing between us – that our minds were interconnected,
directly, without words - that they were, even if only for little
<i>flashes</i>, not alone, not burrowed up inside the skull and
needing stuttering words to try to dredge them out. When we were
apart, we were always together in a sense, and when we were together,
we'd have little jokes and knowing comments about the flashes.
Women's hindquarters were the most frequent thing I'd see in the
flashes, because Morris was a fierce divil who believed as an article
of faith that a woman's legs and backside in ambulatory motion was
the only thing on earth that justified the ways of God to man! He
had a skill, sir, such that he would allow his shoelace to become
untied, so as to crouch down at precisely the opportune moment to
get an eyeful! The Gentleman's Periscope, he called it!”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
The dealer laughed and slapped his thigh as this recollection of his
twin's incorrigible piehawking.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“And the years went by, he used to complain to me that whenever he
got flashes they were always of dull books, of yon Plato and so
forth. Anyway, one day, Morris was standing at the Long Corner,
talking to Michael Hobart and the Michelin Man, and he had a stroke.
He was dead, sir, on arrival at the hospital. The Lord giveth and He
taketh away, or so they say. I would say He might be less generous
in the giving, or less capricious in the taking away, but such is not
my place to say. Though we were so intertwined, I had no premonition
or awareness of what had happened to Morris, until they came and told
me in the shop. I couldn't believe them – I thought they were
speaking in a foreign language, or just some figurines from a dream.
And I was in such a shock and a panic that I couldn't even look at
Morris to make the identification. I was down at the mortuary with
my friend Peter and some guards and other fellas, but I kept getting
feint and shaky, and eventually the guard puts me lying down and gets
me to close my eyes, and he says: “Yes, it's him”, and that's how
they made the identification. So I didn't actually get to see Morris
until he was laid out for the removal, and I'll take this to my own
grave, sir. I walked up towards the coffin, in that hushed little
room, and I had the trepidations and fear, but I knew I had to look
at him and say goodbye, so I kept going. And I got to the coffin,
sir, and looked into it, and would you believe I saw the last person
on earth I was expecting to see: <i>myself</i>!”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“You mean you saw your brother?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“No, sir, I mean precisely what I said: I saw myself.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“But he was identical to you...”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Yes, but what I mean to say is that when I looked down, I didn't
see yon fellow below in the coffin with his eyes closed, but rather I
saw a fellow with his eyes open, squinting like a badger, looking
down at me from <i>above: </i>it was <i>myself</i> I saw, sir,
through Morris's eyes, looking down at himself!”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“I think that the stress...you became disorientated...”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“No, sir, not at all. It was the last of our flashes, clear as
day. I looked up at my myself, looking down at myself, with the look
of timid fear and shock on my face, and I said to myself: “<i>My
god, this is what I look like. This is what I have looked like all
along</i>.” And then the flash faded, sir, and my face became
Morris's, down below in the coffin, eyes shut tight and not a stir on
him.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
We fell silent then for a few seconds, and I heard the swing of the
grandfather pendulum and the other clocks ticking, and ticking, the
hushed flow of the river and of distant traffic, and in my
imagination these sounds, and our voices before them, tickled the
leaves of trees scattered across the city like tiny fingers striking
piano keys.
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Have you had any flashes since?”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“I've seen things, sir, yes. But I can no longer be certain
whether they are flashes from Morris, or just stirring of my own
imagination, remembrances of dreams, and so forth.”</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
His face darkened palpably for an instant, and then resumed its
former buoyancy.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“Well, sir, here is your Pusey. It has been a pleasure indeed, and
if you'd permit me a parting piece of advice, I would say to thee
that, when reading on this book, if you do begin to have some
intimation of an <i>awful fact </i>hidden craftily<i> </i>in the
prose, or even the mapping of the way to yon Door to the supernal
realm outside of space and time, I would say, sir, simply put the
book away, and cease reading on it! Mayhap the world of buttocks and
brambles and Brussels sprouts and briers be the ultimate reality,
after all, and all such contrary notions as the philosophers and
sages avow are only a kind of mist or spume cast off by the churning
turbulence of their brains; a misty spume, sir, wherein one might
lose oneself and never find shore again; such is perhaps the true
danger of such allegedly cursed books, sir, and the reality
underlying the tales of <i>disappearance</i> that surround them.”
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
He eyed me in a peculiar and disquieting manner as he spoke, a
look both conspiratorial and accusatory, like a kind of nod of
recognition between two old war criminals which chance had reunited by a butcher's counter. </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
Continued shortly.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFxtSg-K78MCACdFlED0Cnd6Zq5OeMisdSUB8lGzEqeZx7ByjNmk6xesFx-Lmq3FKwqyNC8ZJJTIM_fjskeTDZZ0Svu8V2rHp9uNpBoxsEOV46_Qhp5Lougl6OOGONTZ0K6z7_pzQIiwwH/s1600/800px-Jack-in-the-box_1863_Harpers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFxtSg-K78MCACdFlED0Cnd6Zq5OeMisdSUB8lGzEqeZx7ByjNmk6xesFx-Lmq3FKwqyNC8ZJJTIM_fjskeTDZZ0Svu8V2rHp9uNpBoxsEOV46_Qhp5Lougl6OOGONTZ0K6z7_pzQIiwwH/s400/800px-Jack-in-the-box_1863_Harpers.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-71031126644737973352015-08-28T12:19:00.000-07:002015-08-28T12:19:13.967-07:00August 2015: REPO MAN BLUES.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-huyn6b0J13iE5MSxcsmH1rFBAO3a8B3cESejXCgfKWWpfs19MFktGEWO3z2MbWFSoPpE49Gh9pRu_HnKCcIFGdnyzHiCSNWg8-JG8zxhjN-BmS0cR-UyP489vUDMYW0d4s5VDWRVY925/s1600/repo+man.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-huyn6b0J13iE5MSxcsmH1rFBAO3a8B3cESejXCgfKWWpfs19MFktGEWO3z2MbWFSoPpE49Gh9pRu_HnKCcIFGdnyzHiCSNWg8-JG8zxhjN-BmS0cR-UyP489vUDMYW0d4s5VDWRVY925/s400/repo+man.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
"The life of a repo man is <b>always</b> intense."<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3A1158337912%3Aplaylist%3A38zry98c4weCm6o8o1pLOs" width="300"></iframe>Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-82090632929899293682015-08-16T08:11:00.000-07:002015-08-16T08:11:18.290-07:00August 2015: THIS IS NOW.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-F_pYOL7_W_a_yQ8MFUS9hREtNevvB80-wIBJksz6C0ZvJ8uePcEAOcKUSWtkzKm-8wagXL7esn7-llLv6eYsgm88CdkhXo_L8bOZLa_TfvpkAsIsXsWvFn_C5lC7ucGriVMdU5sTOHQj/s1600/drive+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-F_pYOL7_W_a_yQ8MFUS9hREtNevvB80-wIBJksz6C0ZvJ8uePcEAOcKUSWtkzKm-8wagXL7esn7-llLv6eYsgm88CdkhXo_L8bOZLa_TfvpkAsIsXsWvFn_C5lC7ucGriVMdU5sTOHQj/s400/drive+3.jpg" width="337" /></a></div>
<br />
A playlist of music from this century, for a change.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3A1158337912%3Aplaylist%3A29KO1bkNLIhIgsZPZ3Z0Hc" width="300"></iframe>Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3179069863789416483.post-17849052988282970942015-08-15T14:47:00.002-07:002015-08-15T14:47:36.148-07:00Tom Adams, James Wedge, and John Fowles' The Magus.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2AgGFhaZFWiQwHsYqZd2ZSp5DEK_dsC7YiFX9nD5FCpmiiAGIvhAGWN703eIDSTP-8iS1AnvhyphenhyphentkMDfo9e8b9wAgEQb7hmJWHyrMQS6szZeR3HCxvNIQFiz6zChUBPTZEbFJsZBfOF4RJ/s1600/tom+adams12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2AgGFhaZFWiQwHsYqZd2ZSp5DEK_dsC7YiFX9nD5FCpmiiAGIvhAGWN703eIDSTP-8iS1AnvhyphenhyphentkMDfo9e8b9wAgEQb7hmJWHyrMQS6szZeR3HCxvNIQFiz6zChUBPTZEbFJsZBfOF4RJ/s640/tom+adams12.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I've recently been re-reading John Fowles' wonderful 1965 novel of mystery and metafictional trickery <i>The Magus</i>. I'll probably blog about the novel itself in the near future, but this post is about the cover of Pan's 1971 paperback edition. The first edition of the book featured a fantastic painting by Tom Adams, pictured above. Adams was a prolific cover artist in the 70s, bringing a distinctive, surrealistic style to bear on the hard-boiled world of Raymond Chandler, and even the staid whodunits of Agatha Christie:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5HAn1Ykcm9_UcO7kt0nhVYQhACPwNh-w-IVCUDq27TcPdK5Od63udGPs024u77-gphu4VpKlVURDgRojDa3nMDYm_zM_uypT4dHZLXk9MKJBbOE1vvlbsjoP0K0kyoad_9gm9X1G-JT3E/s1600/tom+adams11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5HAn1Ykcm9_UcO7kt0nhVYQhACPwNh-w-IVCUDq27TcPdK5Od63udGPs024u77-gphu4VpKlVURDgRojDa3nMDYm_zM_uypT4dHZLXk9MKJBbOE1vvlbsjoP0K0kyoad_9gm9X1G-JT3E/s640/tom+adams11.jpg" width="380" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7j8abj6tjM2cUhpklX_lFoTJObKPUQnII1-paqTOgm7EtolXNu30sfNfIc0x069bFkZxZQBiM62N2J7uCHxw2I9KCjL1EvUr4RG3ixKSID8AgmEK40dqcJ4VWKnDnKmeM6sVWgdOFeIqn/s1600/Tom+Adams.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7j8abj6tjM2cUhpklX_lFoTJObKPUQnII1-paqTOgm7EtolXNu30sfNfIc0x069bFkZxZQBiM62N2J7uCHxw2I9KCjL1EvUr4RG3ixKSID8AgmEK40dqcJ4VWKnDnKmeM6sVWgdOFeIqn/s640/Tom+Adams.jpg" width="388" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNrKs4RTUc7lvbDJMjMeexmYft4i5RFFpyoUZr5pub7F2Af_O1vuSREYLow2iceaOwwlzILYHfRNKygukgGUb-O781G01nbcP-fZ-Y2XHYmPOYAYW7UxSkibnRZDxNOHHEIQeYbm6U164h/s1600/tom+adams4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNrKs4RTUc7lvbDJMjMeexmYft4i5RFFpyoUZr5pub7F2Af_O1vuSREYLow2iceaOwwlzILYHfRNKygukgGUb-O781G01nbcP-fZ-Y2XHYmPOYAYW7UxSkibnRZDxNOHHEIQeYbm6U164h/s640/tom+adams4.jpg" width="384" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1wD1nn5O5itJaM5h3MWNbECmI6Iw_CHo1l4RcVg48hPwfGPDtLHcuqb40aQhPetyEuHWseTIjvMnp_PgxfQO71Z6vrJJFD2PXT6y6xEDZeU32zFzvYwftQ1BZk7bOJ_2mLBWsXI4LZWiZ/s1600/tom+adams+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1wD1nn5O5itJaM5h3MWNbECmI6Iw_CHo1l4RcVg48hPwfGPDtLHcuqb40aQhPetyEuHWseTIjvMnp_PgxfQO71Z6vrJJFD2PXT6y6xEDZeU32zFzvYwftQ1BZk7bOJ_2mLBWsXI4LZWiZ/s640/tom+adams+3.jpg" width="384" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Although Adams' painting for the original edition of <i>The Magus </i>is doubtless the definitive version, I maintain a particular fondness for the early 70s paperback edition, which was a variation on the original painting. This edition was in my attic when I was a child, an oddity in the midst of various Harold Robbins and Arthur Hailey airport boilers. The cover of <i>The Magus </i>held a considerable fascination for my brother and myself, for more or less obvious reasons: </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmRHQkrgS2V1eCpDWPYU-AMNZJ4kgDjUJO_rSj78GVtTsZXsrXlf7z603pE6jXPZQpalxXWY2tFOATnNz-Plf0i9wuy7ZFxZ65Blq0FvsLd4zu6OHToN-Qibyf9nfahqKqS4Cx7CHhRzbk/s1600/THE+MAGUS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmRHQkrgS2V1eCpDWPYU-AMNZJ4kgDjUJO_rSj78GVtTsZXsrXlf7z603pE6jXPZQpalxXWY2tFOATnNz-Plf0i9wuy7ZFxZ65Blq0FvsLd4zu6OHToN-Qibyf9nfahqKqS4Cx7CHhRzbk/s640/THE+MAGUS.jpg" width="392" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Well, it has everything, no? Recently finding a copy at a second hand stall gave me the opportunity not only to re-read the novel, but also to learn a little bit more about the somewhat arresting cover. The back credits Adams for the painting with the addition "<i>girl from the James Wedge photo.</i>" Wedge, whom I wasn't aware of, turns out to have been a figure out of the swinging London of Antonioni's <i>Blowup. </i>A talented fashion designer, he established the chic boutique <i>Top Gear </i>on King's Road with model, photographer, scene-maker, and author of romantic fiction Pat Booth.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpGhw3BE8ZLYk7ocZrkVo593S6TQeM5qpVHRElMN4naQ_N6OKxnFaMXfDUVpyFfhKqh8TNiPLsukahEp5Es6w2CN0dmBnDodiljsS-YqJiQ0g8Sm6wUc2wuPJPQ1UoTPCzc6Fra9myo-6b/s1600/top+gear.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpGhw3BE8ZLYk7ocZrkVo593S6TQeM5qpVHRElMN4naQ_N6OKxnFaMXfDUVpyFfhKqh8TNiPLsukahEp5Es6w2CN0dmBnDodiljsS-YqJiQ0g8Sm6wUc2wuPJPQ1UoTPCzc6Fra9myo-6b/s400/top+gear.JPG" width="280" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Wedge and Booth gravitated towards fashion photography in the 70s, with Wedge developing a distinct style of hand-tinted, often surrealistic imagery. Here we find the lithe siren whom we last saw astride his Satanic goat-head Majesty on the cover of <i>The Magus</i> in her original appearance: </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaGFS3IthLdIAZ_E4js-mwPBbrb8M-SvMVjaiFzlUXLgXt0ySsvOZGs7IS2ZC-up3wG-viSnD076IBlKYCekxyWvMyuK-Qqv70IXccDCR1wYRK8Gs9HhmjwFxYM1PiAil29hMcUGP4xTab/s1600/tom+adams6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaGFS3IthLdIAZ_E4js-mwPBbrb8M-SvMVjaiFzlUXLgXt0ySsvOZGs7IS2ZC-up3wG-viSnD076IBlKYCekxyWvMyuK-Qqv70IXccDCR1wYRK8Gs9HhmjwFxYM1PiAil29hMcUGP4xTab/s640/tom+adams6.jpg" width="444" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivBlsYC4I872Aw9907BfAXgrth6HnKIqyfoK9jMvlnep3VD_ze9WYVUhembqf6JPr5qjh9zAsAEMQ1D91rLaRu-DBaY66rv3EEBTDJNWye-aH3F0YU12Pp2EfCy3RqP_cBP7M_CuG23hOY/s1600/tom+adams8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivBlsYC4I872Aw9907BfAXgrth6HnKIqyfoK9jMvlnep3VD_ze9WYVUhembqf6JPr5qjh9zAsAEMQ1D91rLaRu-DBaY66rv3EEBTDJNWye-aH3F0YU12Pp2EfCy3RqP_cBP7M_CuG23hOY/s640/tom+adams8.jpg" width="460" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7hbE4CqexENlFH0fR6pCuo8StNqR6RtAGknts6oXMI-K7ul1qmWv8cud-naee8GYzESuvN3XbfDCjq2zFbWTTIO4LckhIlYWmHVIjIp_uhRlRuH2LWjhtE5M9jx3DkkaaGuFJ7YEWvM6R/s1600/tom+adams7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7hbE4CqexENlFH0fR6pCuo8StNqR6RtAGknts6oXMI-K7ul1qmWv8cud-naee8GYzESuvN3XbfDCjq2zFbWTTIO4LckhIlYWmHVIjIp_uhRlRuH2LWjhtE5M9jx3DkkaaGuFJ7YEWvM6R/s640/tom+adams7.jpg" width="460" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The Magus </i>was filmed in 1968 by Guy Green. Despite an impressive cast (Michael Caine, Anthony Quinn, and Anna Karina) the film was notably NOT a success, with Caine regarding it as one of his worst, and Woody Allen famously commenting that if he had his life to live over, he would do "everything exactly the same, with the exception of watching <i>The Magus</i>." The film has, however, acquired a cult following over the years; I find it hard to believe isn't at least somewhat entertaining. A cracking trailer at any rate: </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/T7C_XmcJPjA/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T7C_XmcJPjA?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Incidentally, John Fowles met Michael Caine at Cannes prior the filming of <i>The Magus. </i>The author's reflections on Caine in his diary are hilariously prissy and uncharitable: "He can't act, but takes himself very seriously; hot for birds, for the dolce vita, for prestige. Very ugly, these new ultra-hard young princes of the limelight." Still, though, what a turn of phrase - <i>the new ultra-hard young princes of the limelight - </i>a perfect name for a band, or anything.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
http://featherstonevintage.blogspot.ie/2012/07/james-wedge-part1.html</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2013/08/31/tom-adams-book-covers/</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
http://randoymwords.blogspot.ie/2014/07/favorite-book-covers-tom-adams.html</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/3724</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
http://raggedclaws.com/category/tom-adams/</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Tristan Eldritchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10239386613395519115noreply@blogger.com0