20191005

Ego is the First Form of Synchronicity - Notes/Rough Draft

How does this work again?  Off the top of my head (no internet search)

Todd Phillips new film The Joker was released this week.  His first film was Hated in the Nation about GG Allin. 

From what I have seen in the previews, The Joker stars Joaquin Phoenix as a traumatized and possibly mentally ill man who strives for acceptance through performing on stage.

Phoenix is famous for an elaborate joke, I’m Still Here, in which he “retired” from Hollywood, and pursued a dream of becoming a rapper on stage.

GG Allin and Phoenix ( or is it "the character" Phoenix plays in ISH) represent two individuals who achieved success in the polished game of fame, before turning on and dropping out, and then sharing their descent into madness. 

Again, I am only assuning from what I have seen in the previews, The Joker seems to be Phillips and Phoenix attempt to tell the story about the dark side of chasing fame, of the people who go into the pursuit with unavoidably tragic baggage.  People who have lost so much, and have somehow been led to believe that ascension into the world of fame is a form of salvation.

In trying to select an album to listen to when taking in this new movie, I look for puzzle pieces of fact that fit together.


I immediately seized upon The Glowing Man by Swans.

A.  They are both two hours long

B.  Robert DeNiro’s character is named Murray Franklin/The Glowing Man has a song called Frankie M.

C.  Robert DeNiro is starring in a new film called The Irishman/I am Irish

D.  The Clown makeup of The Joker represents a type of “glowing man”, a person whose face is lit up and amplified

E.  Michael Gira’s early performances in the 80’s remind me of a more stable GG Allin, in the sense that Gira laid waste to his ego in the most savage and vulnerable of ways. 

F.  The two opening songs “Cloud of Unknowing”/”Cloud of Forgetting” represent a striving to be released from the imprisonment of some type of trauma, or a dark and uneasy past.  This is something that can be achieved gracefully, or perversely.  I feel that this film will show the dark side, the perverse side of salvation that arises in hopeless situations.

G.  The final song on the album is called “Finally, Peace”, which is something that I believe the character of The Joker is ultimately searching for.

For me, these are enough puzzle pieces for my mind to twist and turn and piece together into what I can only describe as a metaphysical lens through which to see, hear.



iAhuasca: an arrangement of interdependent correspondences designed to transcend perspective so completely it triggers a niagra of coincidence that, once believed, projects pre-cognitive synchronicities into the foreground.


I have only seen previews of The Joker.  I have not read any movie reviews.  I have looked up character names and the time of the movie on Wikipedia.

I do not know the plot of this film, but I feel like I know what it is about,.  I feel like I have heard it already in the music of The Glowing Man;  this is simply a chance to see a film version of that music. 

Will the marriage of this album and this film be interesting? 

Of course.  Any chance to sit and listen to The Glowing Man from start to finish is going to be an interesting meditation.

Will there be synchronicity?

Of course.  Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. 


But what happens when a stopped clock is right three times a day? 

Or four, or five times a day?  These sparks are the kindling for the type of experience I am looking for. 

I am going to the theater in about an hour.  I plan to take a few notes, and then I hope to polish these notes into another final synthesis of what this blog is all about.


3 comments:

  1. I'm looking forward to reading about the Joker/Glowing Man experience. A lot has been written about the choice to set Phillips' Joker film in the year 1981. '81 was a big year for post-punk albums, such as Bauhaus' "Mask" and "Faith" by the Cure. These tended to be albums clocking in under an hour, though. I like how the Glowing Man run time approximates the Joker film.

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  2. “Artists are usually paid a one-off ‘synchronization fee’ when their songs are used on movie soundtracks,” Ray Bush, managing director of The Music Royalty Co. tells Yahoo Movies U.K.

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