Helter Skelter Vol. 1

Around four years ago, I discovered Christopher Knowles blogspot The Secret Sun.  It was and is a consistently brilliant source of history and insight, and a doorway into the mysteries of our culture.  Thanks to The Secret Sun, I also discovered many other writers in the blogosphere, many of which proved to be just as thought provoking.

I had been an avid reader and student of most of the major names of occult and esoteric field since college, and felt that I had, as Robert Anton Wilson so eloquently put it, constructed a pretty good bullshit detector.  I was confident that these new voices I was reading were no bullshit, and that I was very lucky to have found them.

It was a very lonely journey on the path, but with each new writer I discovered,  I couldn't help feel that I had found "the others".  Slowly, and awkwardly (and sometimes a bit bizarre), I started to not just read the emerging dialogue, I started to also participate in the dialogue.  To be honest, it was probably one of the happiest times of my life.



And then at some point Stanley Kubrick entered the picture.  I don't know the specific article that did it (probably Rob Ager, another brilliant writer and source of endless insight) but I became obsessed.  I had seen most of Kubrick's films, or at least I thought I had, but I had never realized the depth of genius that everyone seemed to be arguing was on display.  I had to know more.  This is where Mark LeClair enters the picture.  No other writer seemed to hint at the Truth (whatever that is) more than Mark.

Over the next few weeks/months, I am going to share the entire e-mail correspondence that occurred between Mark Leclair (The Wrong Way Wizard, Artislav Mel) and myself.  This correspondence reflects the work that ultimately led to the discovery of the Kubrick Transformer.

Unless noted, this will be completely unedited and uncensored.  It is a completely honest account of the research Mark and I shared as we hunted down the mystery.

This first section is a conversation Mark and I had in the comments section at the Wrong Way Wizard blogspot.  I had posted this Top Secret comment in the oldest post at the blog, so that only Mark could read it.  Like I said, awkward, geeky, and a bit mad.  It led to the beginning of the email correspondence that follows.

*I can only speak for myself here, but this correspondence documents an eight month period of intense experimenting and research, and will reflect a process of learning.  At times other people's work will be questioned, and hubris will always be lurking in the shadows.  


From the Comment Section of Angel In The Morning.  I am WK23, and Mark LeClair is Herbie Mimbitz:

March 6-10, 2011

WK23-

I bury this nugget, because anyone on the path should wake to the fact that your blog is a contemporary stepping stone, a brick in the cosmic wall. You do good work. Here is my offering: Inception, pause at 2:03:06. Rewind frame by frame to when the clock hits 2:03:04 exactly. Cue up side one of Meddle and push play on both. Watch. Replay the second time with subtitles. Boo yah. ! .


March 6, 2011 2:38 AM

 Herbie Mimbitz: The Ping Pong Pandava said...

Hey WK23,

I am a Cosmic Class Procrastinator. I have yet to go to the mall which is just across the street, and buy that media. Now I will add Inception to the list. Truth is, doing these Meddle plays has been on my mind non-stop. Why I have delayed allows me to share a bit about my life, in the spirit of our Net Friendship.

I suffer from pretty bad agorapohbia. I don't mind being around others, I have no fear, so to speak, but I can't bring myself to step outside my front door.

The problem started when I was in a bike accident in the summer of 2000. I suffered a head injury and well, I haven't been the same since. For a while things were pretty rough.

Anyhow, I hope this isn't the proverbial "too much information". I don't really feel the need to tell you my life story or anything, but I feel you deserve a comprehensive explanation for why I am so desultory with so much data at the doorstep.

You can count on it that I am very interested in what you may choose to share regarding your own research. I'm am downloading Inception and Meddle right now, and will do the lab tonight.

Pax Owt for Now

Da WWWiz

March 6, 2011 6:02 PM

 WK23 said...

Wiz-

This Meddle/Inception is just a monster, and I am looking forward to hearing your interpretations.

No need to apologize for sharing personal info with me. Too much info is almost impossible these days. Agoraphobia is an awful state of mind. I can imagine how difficult the simple things I take for granted must be. Keep the faith Mark.

March 6, 2011 7:37 PM

 Herbie Mimbitz: The Ping Pong Pandava said...

My Dear WK23,

I have done the Meddle w/ 2001 and The Shining.

Awesome... I mean, what a trip. Jay Weidner proposes the use of "Echoes" over the same 2201 sequence you recommend and all I can say is...score one for WK.

The Shining Meddle is great too, and I spent my day (all of it) looking at it and sliding it over a bit here and there--totally wicked. I have some ideas about the perfect place for it to sit that are a little different than you suggest, and I want to experiment a bit more... but it is all you man. Totally bitchin'.

Haven't done the Incept yet... my download failed.

And what a great album is "Meddle". I had heard only Echoes previously, but I like side one muchos grande.

Thak you, my friend, for the gift of your vision. I might like to do a post on this matter, but will talk more w/you first.

DaWWWiz

Pax Owt for Now

March 9, 2011 2:53 AM

 Herbie Mimbitz: The Ping Pong Pandava said...

WK23,

It is 7 am and I'm still at it.

Boy have I got a find for you, to return the joy as it were. If I am telling you something you have already discovered, then it is a double thank-you from me. Either way, thanks to your Meddle Mash, we both win.

Here are your instructions.

Put your music player on ALL PLAY REPEAT. Very important.

Proceed with the 2001/Meddle Mash according to your discovery. I find it easier to use visual cues, so I line up the first track to begin exactly as the Monolith begins to fade away, at about 2:01:31.

Watch your own discovery unfold before your eyes and prepare yourself for a treat.

When the movie ends, let it (and the music) play on to the final title card which reads THE END.

Here you will need a little volume on the movie track. Listen for the final note of The Blue Danube. When Danube has ended, quickly slide the movie time bar selector all the way back to the beginning of the DVD. The slide should be executed in 1.5 to 2 secs, maximum.

This should take you back to nearly 3 min of black screen (overture) followed by the MGM Title Card, and then the credit sequence and so on. "Echoes" will have been playing for a while by the time the movie proper begins.

Let it play and you will be fucking blown away, my friend.

I'm still watching now, onto the second play of "One of These Days". Up to this point is it really splendid, and I'm gonna stick with it a while longer...

... but up to the end of "Echoes" is fah shizzle most hizzy my nizzy.

Jay Weidner should be so on the money...

Your Meddle Mash is killer.

Pax Owt 4 Now

March 9, 2011 5:36 AM

 Herbie Mimbitz: The Ping Pong Pandava said...

WK

By the end of Danube I mean the end of the phrase. Time code 2:24:25. Slide to the start at this point.

March 9, 2011 6:24 AM

 WK23 said...

Wiz-

Right on. I am excited to take it further with 2001 as you suggest.

Make sure to complete this Meddle Mash with both Inception, and, of course, A Clockwork Orange. ACO doesn't work as a whole as well as the others, but starting at 1:56:00, it delivers some worthy moments. Inception, for me, is really the true fireworks, especially reflecting on the experience of watching it the first time. I really stress taking it in first without subtitles, and second with.

A few notes:

I have been equating the iPhone/iPod with the Monolith for a while now, as I am sure you do as well. In 2001, right before the start of the Meddle Mash, the image of the planets in vertical alignment with the Monolith/iPod completing the Cross resonates with my own completed picture of 2001/Inception/The Shining/ A Clockwork Orange all being projected at once, stacked on top of each other, a cinema totem pole (another Inception image, and a totem)and synched to Meddle. Each film than becomes a planet.

The McCluhan first edition of Understanding Media is eerily similar to the cover of Meddle. The eye on UM, the ear? on Meddle. I forget where I read this but it is dead on.

Weidner's article of the hypersphere is excellent, and ties into the totem image of Inception.

I really believe that the synch of all films together will bring much added value to some of the images.

I actually expect a post from you on this, I don't think there is any one else who can map this out. Just make sure to digest the Inception Mash (one spoiler: Nolan actually works in the image of the album cover).

March 9, 2011 2:05 PM

 WK23 said...

Wiz-

I have a MAJOR work to share with you, probably sometime next week. It connects a lot about what we are discussing in this thread, and I know it will be crystal clear to your critical vision. There are elements that I am happy to broadcast here, buried in this, the first comments section of your blog, but it might be prudent to communicate the initial components of this next discussion via email. I really believe it will be a catalyst to a possible integration of a lot of your ideas.

March 10, 2011 6:56 PM

This series of messages led to the email correspondence that begins here.  The emails are grouped by the title of the email thread.

Back To OZ:  
March 10-15, 2011

Klaus :

My plan was to see if I could synch a film correctly the first time I ever saw it, with out any knowledge of the film.

I think I can carefully go on record as saying that I might be the only person in the world to have experienced this next connection in the theater, and very possibly the only person ever (unless it was executed with intent).  I didn't want to broadcast this one until you have the opportunity to take it in.  Only one other person knows about this, and he's a good guy, also a fan of your work.


I identified my film.  I had a good feeling the film was going to be loaded with imagery conducive to a good synch, but what album?

I had to choose between Meddle and DSOTM, and it became quite obvious which one to use without much thought.

So, I bought a ticket the first week the movie was our, sat in the last row with my iPod, and trusted that I would know when to push play.

Who would have known that it fucking worked.  So well, that I had to leave after one cycle of the album just to process what I had seen (once you see it, you'll also understand that there was almost a built in instruction to leave after one cycle).

I proceeded to go back and watch two cycles, and once again leave the theater.

I returned and finished the film on the third viewing, which took almost three cycles of DSOTM.  I went back a fourth and finally watched the movie without DSOTM.

Just imagine if someone somehow experienced 2001/Meddle the first time they ever saw the film?  Also, to know that the packed audience in front of me was experiencing something completely different--unravelling that dynamic is central to the debate.

Well, I hope you haven't seem the film I'm referring to so you can take it in fresh.

I'm going to see if you can guess the film.

LeClair :

OK, from the hip, I'm gonna guess either No Country or True Grit, but there are a few others that seem possible. The Social Network?


I remember a comment you once made that expressed a mutual interest in the Coen Bros., but I admit I am grabbing at straws. If I am wrong, I'd love a chance at another guess. Give me some kind of a hint. Or if you aren't a fan of such games... please SPILL THE BEANS... you're killin' me here (and I love it).


I am seriously intrigued, and if the flick is still on the big screen, I would love to go and give this a try myslef. I see two or three movies in theater per year, at most, but I can--will--make it happen. For a look at the wonders you have intimated, I would make it happen ASAP. Am I too late?


By the way, now that we are on email and in case you don't already know, my real life name is Mark LeClair.


Pleasure to meet you William Klaus of Yahoo.


Pax Owt and I Await Your Dispatch


You've really got me going. Your title "Back to OZ" makes me think maybe it's Tron Legacy.

Klaus :

The ultimate chaos magick initiation flick for the next generation:  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I've seen the previous films, and actually did this same experiment for the previous Potter.  It is quite thrilling to walk into a movietheater and know that you are "sacrificing" it in some way, in essence, altering the director's version, by receiving it through a filtered lens the very first time.  It is taking control of virtual reality, especially when the masses around you are all under the directors spell, while you are fully aware that you are the only person under a different spell.

I had done the first Dark Potter with "The Half Blood Prince" as a kind of media dare: I would not know the plot, the dialogue, new characters names.  I would have to tell myself my own story based on image and soundtrack alone.  It was incredibly entertaining; I have only seen this movie once, that initial time, and will some day revisit it.

It would be two years before I retried this experiment, but this time I KNEW, or rather, expected some definite marriage between the two.

To repeat, I have not read these books, and in regards to the previous movie, I had "remixed" it into my own story.  "Hallows" was the organic sequel to my own Dark Potter vision. (Obviously, we always tell ourselves our own story of reality, but, well, you know what i'm saying here)

There is no doubt that whatever is bubbling beneath the surface of these types of media marriages/synchs/mash/eclipses is in full focus with DSOTM and the Deathly Hallows.

The film comes out on DVD next week.

Til then:  No Country/Side One of Meddle is nice.  Do this at the BEGINNING of the film.

Tron:Legacy with DSOTM was, in hindsight, actually pretty awesome.

After "Deathly Hallows" registered so completely, I pretty much saw all movies with DSOTM, not necessarily for the synchs (which are there) but mostly to divorce soundeffects/dialogue from film, and focus on IMAGE, and to see what story my brain was telling me based on these images alone  These experiments were over a one month period, and all funnel into my initial readings of McCluhan, and all greatly influenced by a lot of your writing.  Heavy stuff bro.  King's Speech, Mega Mind. Narnia, The Fighter, some Russel Crowe movie I walked into late.  Taking in these films this way had a profound effect on me.

That most amazing part of this process,   based on my experiences,  is how this affected my dreams.  I'm thinking that this is major breakthrough type shit, not sure which direction it will take.

Needless to say, there is a lot going on here.

To conclude:  the synchs made way to the process, the process opened up a conscious dream state.  I call it iAhuasca.

LeClair :

You are becoming my hero. iAhuasca indeed! Brilliant.


The Deathly Hallows Mash, eh? I am into to it. I have yet to see the film, so I have a clean slate for the experience. I'll pop you a line when I've got the movie, to receive my instructions.


Have you tried the Meddle/2001 loop around yet. You won't be disappointed.

Klaus :

Re: 2001/Meddle Wrap Around:  Majestic.  Just a beautiful transition and book end to this work.  Thank you for sharing.  The return "ping" when Moonwatcher looks at the bones about killed me.  Plus, I don't think I'll look at that floating pen in the same way ever again.

I equate the line "One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces" as this type of editing, something impossible in the 1970's.

Google "Meddle Mash", you should get the lyrics to a song by an aptly named artist.

I think the wrap around ends nicely with San Tropez, around 41:28,  when the photographer (young Kubrick) announces that he is through, so that they can announce Dr. Floyd, who begins his speech.  Let the movie take over from there...perfect balance.

One last note:  starting Echoes at 1:37:52.  Subtitles on.

I'm going to say that starting "Seamus" at 1:35:36, and letting the album play out is the one.  Gotta love the teamwork.

Start Inception at 1:37:21 with Seamus.  The story of Mal.

LeClair :

Your interpretation of the lyrical reference to "cut up" is chilling, and I do not choose this term lightly. I hope I can live up to your standard on this, because right about now, I'm feeling it bro, and I am shaken. Have you seen "The Phantom of the Paradise". There are certain pieces of music that are remarkably similar to those found on "Meddle". There is a reference to "cut up", vis, "...all this cutting up ain't easy and it isn't for the queasy or the weak of heart...". The song, called "Life at Last", is on my blog at the very bottom of "Quiz Show Holocaust". There is a musical riff in "Echoes" that is found quite literally note for note in "Somebody Super Like You".


And my dreams are off-the-hizzy lately.


Life at last.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mQ0nzo_rU4


Somebody super like you.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2iHPnmAT0o&feature=related


Something interesting about the initials WK. "Meddle" is 46 minute and 44 seconds long. With track spacing that's about 46:46


Listening to Weidner on RedIce radio.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssnlbnAGGV0&feature=feedu

Klaus :

Using my iPod, I'm starting Seamus at 1:35:35.5, and I'm just in AWE

Gonna check out that Weidner later tonight.

Owsley Stanley died today, nicknamed Bear.  Amazing guy.

Thoughts on Weidner:

It's always hard to process talk of Satanism, especially the whole pedophile/sex/death cult.  I know that it existed or exists in some form, but it just doesn't seem to register as a cult institution.   It seems essentially a societal mirror, or a psychological moat that one must cross.  No one crosses with the guilt of knowing they create damage in the realms of children, sex, and violence.  It seems like a test of some kind.  The Monarch thing seems somewhat legit as a technology.  I have trouble processing those angles.    

I do think that the most evil thing vampiring the world today is pornography, especially Internet pornography.  Vampire city.

The whole Elite thing is an intellectual trap to me, the final tempation of Christ/Buddha.  Maybe Kubrick was deceived, and is atoning with these embedded confessions.  The creepiest connection to his insider knowledge is the sound of the tennis ball in The Shining, echoes of the bodies hitting concrete on 9/11.  I think I might buy into that angle you suggest, that Kubrick knew of the plan.

  I don't really like that Weidner sells his info, makes DVD's.  There has to be some disinformation going with that.  I have to say your blog always has the authenticity of a true seeker.


Start "Seamus" at 1:37:21 in Inception with subtitles.  For 2001, I'm going with 1:35:35.5.  Shame On Us indeed Stanley.

LeClair :

Yeah, I agree about Weidner... he seems to be holding back as much as he reveals. Good for business, I guess. Nevertheless the Monarch, Pedophilia angle is present in Kubrick, especially in The Shining and EWS.


I basically agree with your idea that it is all "some kind of test". But what a test!!


I keep on digging. I have no doubt you do the same. Perhaps we can really break this wide open. I don't know, but I do know I am committed.

Klaus :

So, starting The Shining with Seamus, to complete through side one, the first pings of Echoes strike when Hal and Charlie appear on the radio.

I'm starting Seamus at 1:36:30.  Over Larry's right shoulder is an ad for "pooch" air fresheners, as well as what appears to be a dog in the cartoon on TV.  The Garage is a male version of the Kitchen.  Dig. It.

There's that Grand Piano behind Jack...

The climax to Echoes in The Shining and 2001 seem to focus on the major conspiracies.  Or not.  But something was orchestrated.

Careful With That AXE SprayYou Teen:  
March 16 -18, 2011

Klaus:

Rob Ager's essays have a wealth of insight, but I agree with your opinion that he seems to stop short of piercing certain veils.

I like his cycles of abuse, culminating in the picture of Jacks grandfather at the end.  The abuse/amnesia component works perfectly with "shining".  Sexual and violent abuse is an archaic form of mind control, with healing psychic eruptions, manifested as waking dreams,  paralyze with insight.  But does Kubrick hint at the newer tech, a cleaner form of mindcontrol?  Something not done in shadows, but out in the open? This newer mindcontrol, Kubrick might be suggesting, is escapable as well.  A genetic  "shining", deeper than repressed unconscious "shining", that works with codes rather than simpler forms.  (PKD with his visions).

Ager doesn't seem to make that leap into the non-local weirdness, which is fine, but it shouldn't be ignored.  This must be Kubricks Finnegans Wake, the nighttime  to compliment 2001's  daytime Odyssey.  In space, it is always daytime, the sun always shines.  In the Overlook, it is the son that shines.

LeClair:

I am overwhelmed by events in Japan. My brother and his family live in Tokyo, and he isn't taking it well. My mom has aged 5 years in the last week. I feel , for myself, like I am in suspended animation. I can't seem to think or make decisions. I sleep and listen for updates and nothing else.


Anyway, just wanted to touch base. I have enjoyed your discoveries so much, and hope there is more adventure in the future. Please keep in touch.

Klaus:

Mercy.  Completely understand.  My thoughts go out to you and your family.

LeClair:

I appreciate your thoughts. It's weird. I feel like the world is coming to an end. I want to just forget it and move on, or even revel in it, as I have in past catastrophe, but for some reason this event has heavy hooks in me and I can't shake them.


There are six reactors a Fukushima, each housed in a Cubical Cooling Tower. The two color paint job on the cooling towers are white and pale blue, and looks like sun dappled water. The tower colors are eerily like those on the flag of Israel, which sports the hexagon and in turn the Cube. The Hebrew letter Mem means "water", and the letter form for Mem is described by Kaballists as "cubical". Mem also means "forty". Forty years ago were the events of "Watergate" and not coincidentally, the Fukushima Daiichi Facility goes on line in 1971. The Tepco Logo is devised of Six Rings which harkens both the number Six and also Saturn and its hexagonal polar anomaly. From "tepco" I find "octep" like "octopus" and also "optec" as in "optic".


As silly as is seems, I consider the possibility that Stanley planned all of it.


It is madness, I admit, a divine madness, though.


My thoughts are also with you, WK, whoever you are. Take care of yourself and loved ones in these crazy times... and as it all unfolds, keep in touch.

Visions of Urbana 3.0: Waiting For The Worms

The Book of Abramelin, written by Abraham of Worms (c.1362-c.1468 A.D.) outlines an elaborately disciplined ritual designed to activate the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.  It rose in popularity in the early 20th century due to an English language translation from the French by S.L. MacGregor Mathers of the Golden Dawn.

The operation is an extreme test of discipline, in which the participant must pray before sunrise and sunset, must practice chastity, sobriety, and must remain honest and true within all practices of life.  There is a great deal of silence and solitude within the operation, an operation that lasts 6 months according to Mathers.

In 2006, a new translation from the German version of The Book of Abramelin was released.

The first and most obvious difference between the two texts is the style of the writing itself.  I was delighted how easily and naturally Mr. Guth's translation flowed compared to the formality of Mather's King James style.  This I more or less expected. What I didn't expect was how the text itself differed in content.  First of all, the original book was comprised of four "books" instead of only three that are found in Mathers edition.  Second, we learn that the heroic six-month preparation program that is outlined in Mathers is actually a much more complex ceremony lasting eighteen months.

From Lon Milo Duquette's Forward to The Book of Abramelin: A New Translation
from translator Steven Guth and editor Georg Dehn:  

Also discovered in Book Four is a four letter word square for "traveling in the air on a cloud" that contains the letters NASA.

The Jupiter Mission in 2001: A Space Odyssey satisfies many of the components that are essential to the working of the Abramelin operation.  Chastity, sobriety, disciplined orders of business.  18 months in all.  

Is it possible that the Holy Guardian Angel spoken of in the Abramelin text revealed itself to those on board?  Bowman clearly goes through a transformative experience, but could HAL have inadvertently invoked an artificial Holy Guardian Angel too?  Would the appearance of this True Will within HAL be observable and communicated to those back on Earth?

Visions of Urbana

"We sit here stranded though we all do our best to deny it"

 

"The Ghost of electricity"

open the        e        y        e                                   p        o        d           door HAL

"In this room the heat pipes just cough…"

"And Madonna, she still has not showed

We see this empty cage now corrode

Where her cape of the stage once had flowed

The fiddler, he now steps to the road

He writes every thing's been returned which was owed

On the back of the fish truck that loads

While my conscience explodes"

--Bob Dylan

Overlooking The Perilous Chapel 3: Doc-Man

A Sirius Man Eats Whole Wheat Bread

Samuel Beckett wrote of James Joyce:  "To Joyce reality was a paradigm, an illustration of a perhaps an unstatable rule…It is not a perception of order or of love; more humble than either of these, it is a perception of coincidence."  Before we can comprehend reality, we must perceive it accurately, we must examine closely.

Upon closer examination, the apparent continuity error in the game of chess between HAL and Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey was not an error, it was simply a bluff made by HAL to gauge the perception of Poole.   This truth, although in plain sight, was buried by Kubrick, and would only be discovered by the majority of his audience until many years later.  It appears Kubrick, like HAL, was also bluffing.  Was it for the same reason HAL bluffed Poole?  To gauge the perception of the audience?  Sneaky bastard.

Joel and Ethan Coen are a couple of sneaky bastards too.

There is nothing wrong with simply appreciating A Serious Man as a dark comedy, or enjoying 2001: A Space Odyssey as an epic special effects driven science-fiction film.  But the Coen's are, as I said, sneaky bastards.  And like Kubrick, they are offering us something much more profound than just a comedy.

In A Serious Man, Lawrence "Larry" Gopnik and Arthur Gopnik are brothers, who both involve themselves with extremely complex and intellectual exercises.  One embodies the madness of artistic creation, the other the burden of proof.   

The Mentaculus

Arthur is a lonely lumpy soul who spends his time gambling, lurking, and obsessively scribbling into print a work called The Mentaculus, a title that conveys a calculus of mentation.  It is his "probability map of the universe", and is written in a language that seemingly only makes sense to Arthur.  One quick glance and it looks as though poor Arthur is quite ill, mentally.  Yet it reminds me of something else written in a language no one can seemingly understand….

James Joyce, one of the most highly respected artists of the 20th century, spent the last 17 years of his life working on what he called his Work In Progress, which eventually became Finnegans Wake.  Finnegans Wake is a work of literature that makes absolutely no sense to 99% of the people who attempt to read it.  The other 1% claim, rather loudly, that it is a work of genius.  It would be a whole lot easier for the majority to dismiss this book if it weren't for the fact that so many intelligent and respected people populate the 1% who revere Finnegans Wake.  What the hell do they know?  What do they see that the rest of us can’t?

It is possible that The Mentaculus is Arthur’s Work In Progress.  Unfortunately, Arthur is living in Minnesota in the 1960's, and cannot command the kind of audience that Joyce did.  We don't even know if Arthur has ever allowed anyone else to read it.  Ironically, he lives with the one person who might make sense of his masterpiece, his brother Larry.

Schröedinger's Cat

Larry is more successful than Arthur, he has a wife and two children, a career, and a solid social identity.  

Larry is very intelligent, a Professor of Physics, and spends his time lecturing on the laws and theorems  calculated by people even smarter than he, yet he remains the epitome of "those who can, do, those who can't, teach."  Larry is shown lecturing on the Schröedingers Cat thought experiment, and it is a good reflection of Larry's life.  Larry is both Teacher and Student, Married and Alone, Faithful and Faithless, Found and Lost.  It all depends on the observer.

Schröedinger's cat is also a good reflection of the Standard Model of Quantum Physics at the moment, as it remains both Fact and Fiction.  The calculations and equations of quantum physicists promise a unified theory of everything, an explanation for the existence of time, space, and the universe that we live and die in.  The mathematical equations have promised that matter is composed of certain scientifically observable objects, the most important being the top quark, the bottom quark, the tau neutrino, and the Higgs Boson,  So far the bottom quark (1977), the top quark (1995) and the tau neutrino (2000) have been discovered, just like the calculations have promised.  But the Higgs Boson remains the elusive companion of this group, and is still referred to as the Hidden Variable.  We can't claim the Standard Model to be fact until this is finally observed.

"In 1963, when I assigned the name "quark" to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been "kwork". Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word "quark" in the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark". Since "quark" (meaning, for one thing, the cry of the gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with "Mark", as well as "bark" and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as "kwork". But the book represents the dream of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the "portmanteau" words in "Through the Looking-Glass". From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry "Three quarks for Muster Mark" might be "Three quarts for Mister Mark", in which case the pronunciation "kwork" would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature."

 Murray Gell-Mann

Arthur and Larry (Art and Law), two very different brothers, are actually both searching for the same thing, the hidden variable to life, but all they have to show for in their search is loneliness and divorce.  It is said that it is always darkest before the dawn, and for Arthur and Larry, it's getting pretty dark in Room 2³ of the Jolly Roger Motel.  

"Arthur, you've got to pull your self together"

"It's all shit Larry.  It's all shit."

"Arthur don't use that word."

"It's just fucking shit."

"Arthur."

"Look at all that Hashem has given you.  What has he given me?  He hasn't given me shit."

"Arthur, what do I have?  I live at the Jolly Roger"

"You have a family.  You have a job.  Hashem hasn't given me shit.  He hasn't given me bubkes!"

"It's not fair to blame Hashem, Arthur.  Please.  Sometimes….please calm down.  Sometimes you have to help yourself."

"Hashem hasn't given me shit.  Now I can't even play cards."

We have two brothers embracing in the void of an empty swimming pool, lost in a world where Hashem, the divine God they were raised with, has abandoned them.  

There is a message next to Arthur, (a sign?),  that is painted on the concrete, a message that neither are paying attention to.  The audience is most likely not paying attention to it either.  

The message is never revealed completely, but common sense tells us that 3 FT NO DIVING is painted on the concrete as a warning to those who would jump into the shallow pool.  Nothing profound.  But a knowledge of James Joyce and quantum physics is not a common sense, it is a rather uncommon sense, and in this scene, seen through a lens informed by Joyce and quantum physics, the perception of a very curious coincidence occurs.

James Joyce uses the symbol "Ǝ" in the architecture of Finnegans Wake to represent what the Buddhists call "void" and the Taoists call "wu-hsin" or NO MIND.  This NO MIND represents the "class of all possible minds", meaning the aggregation of all possible minds.  This mind does and does not exist, like that damn cat, and is best expressed in the paradoxical language of mystics and the mathematical equations of quantum physics.  Robert Anton Wilson in his brilliant essays on Joyce equates Joyce's Ǝ with the Hidden Variable of quantum physics.

If we allow ourselves to fill in the missing letters through this lens, this message, written on the edge of a void, might be trying to say:

Ǝ

NO 

DIVINE

WHY?  Well, we have two brothers embracing each other, one a poor man's James Joyce, the other a poor man's Schröedinger, and both are lamenting their relationship to the divine.  The message is both pessimistic (NO DIVINE = NO GOD) as well as optimistic ( Ǝ NO DIVINE =  the Hidden Variable, the class of all things Divine is right by you!).  The Coen's have planted a message that seemingly embraces both the pinnacles of artistic and mathematical expression, a message buried as deep as the bluff of HAL.

But do the Coen's believe that the message is the pessimistic one or the optimistic one?  

There is a clue, another message buried somewhere else in the film, one that is more explicit even though it only appears for a brief second of screen time.  If you are paying very close attention, I think the Coen's are very clear as to their answer, because it seems that the elusive companion of the quarks, the Hidden Variable of the Standard Model of quantum physics is as close to Arthur and Larry as the coincidental message painted in black by the side of the pool.  It's right there in The Mentaculus.

A Really Big Shew Pt. 4: The Other Side

In film, a continuity error is a mistake that eludes the careful eye of the director.  Even after watching a scene dozens of times, these errors often go unnoticed for years.


Stanley Kubrick was a perfectionist as a person, as a chess player, and most famously, as a film director.    So why are there so many continuity errors in his film The Shining?  Many of these errors are well documented here, here, and here.


There are many theories as to why such a well known perfectionist allowed so many imperfections in The Shining, and I agree with those theories that contend that these continuity errors are not in fact errors, and should not be considered imperfections.   They are deliberate choices by the director.  I call these deliberate choices chickens.


It has been established that Stanley Kubrick incorporated his understanding of the writings of Marshall McLuhan into 2001: A Space Odyssey, so it is no leap of faith to suggest that Kubrick, the obsessive-compulsive perfectionist, read The Gutenberg Galaxy cover to cover several times.  I believe he knew about the magical chicken that, in only one second of screen time, helped to illuminate the divide between how literate man and non literate man experience film.


The appearance of this chicken can be considered a type of continuity error, an unintentional element that became part of the film without the intention of the filmmaker.  Remember, the literate man literally could not see the chicken, and had to watch the film frame by frame to be convinced that it was there.


But to the non literate man, the chicken was the star of the show.


I believe that Kubrick understood this and began to recognize that his audience was comprised of the "literate" and the "non literate", and started experimenting with a kind of intentional continuity error, a deliberate chicken, that was obvious to some and invisible to others.


Kubrick makes use of the chicken during this scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey:

Let's call those that have little or no knowledge of the game of chess "non literate" and those with a deep knowledge of the game of chess "literate", and assemble an audience of both to watch 2001.  If we were to stop the film at the end of this chess scene, and ask the audience what they saw, we would find the a similar result of the study in Africa.  The "literate" man would mention the flaw in the winning move, a “chicken” unnoticed by "non literate" man. 

"To convolute McLuhan, in 2001 the message is the medium."

The general consensus of the "non literate" audience would be that Frank and HAL were killing time on the ship playing a game of chess, a game which Frank loses.


A "literate" audience would have more to say.  They would mention that the game of chess depicted between Frank and HAL does not follow the established rules of chess, a fact unnoticed  and unmentioned by the "non literate" audience.  This is our chicken.


If we believe that HAL’s bluff is an accident, a continuity error, then it does nothing to further the narrative of 2001.
If we believe the bluff is not an accident, and is in fact intentional, the chicken opens the doorway into a mystery, and the narrative of 2001 comes alive.  This hyper-literate chicken in 2001 was no without purpose.  In fact, it convoluted McLuhan’s non-literate chicken.


Kubrick was an above average chess player with a very deep knowledge of the game.  The game depicted is the master game Roesch vs. Schlage from 1910 which is documented and published.     There is a 0% chance that the inaccuracy of the chess game was a continuity error or that it eluded Kubrick.  


In fact, the comprehension of 2001 depends completely on the bluff.  And yet, it is hidden from the majority of the audience.  Why?  If The Shining is loaded with these hidden chickens, how are they important to the comprehension of the film? 

A Really Big Shew Pt. 3: Chicken of the See

Why Are There So Many Chickens In The Shining?

In the previous post I discussed the "Film Literacy in Africa" study that Marshall McLuhan references in The Gutenberg Galaxy.  At the center of the study was a short film shown to non-literate tribal natives in Africa.  The film was designed to demonstrate the proper techniques for removing standing water, and actors were filmed doing so in a very slow and deliberate fashion.  When asked what the natives had seen in the film, they quickly responded that they had seen a chicken.  With further questioning they mentioned that they had seen a man as well, but they had not processed what the man was doing.  They hadn't "made a whole story out of it" and, to the surprise of the researchers, were unable to see the film in a three-dimensional perspective.   Much has been made out of the inability of the native to process the film, but there is another angle to this that I want to focus on.

When the natives mentioned that they had seen a chicken, the filmmakers were baffled.  They had not, to their knowledge, filmed a chicken.  It wasn't until they watched the film frame by frame that they eventually saw that there actually was a chicken in the film, for about one second of screen time at the bottom right of the screen.

We have two radically different reviews for the same film.  This is not a subjective argument about how funny or entertaining the film is.  Both reviewers see something objective that the other cannot.

                    The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man, & when separated
                    From Imagination and closing itself as in steel in a Ratio
                    Of the Things of Memory, It thence frames Laws & Moralities
                    To destroy Imagination, the Divine Body, by Martyrdoms & Wars.
                                                                                 

                                                                                 William Blake, Jerusalem 1804

McLuhan argues the same idea as Blake, that any time a bodily or mental function is extended into a new technology, sense ratios are changed, and when the sense ratios of man are changed, the man changes.

The film study in Africa explicitly demonstrates this.  Let's say that literate man sees Film A and non literate man sees Film B.  Film A and Film B are not subjectively different, they are objectively different.  And neither can capture the completeness of the film on their own.   When analyzed through the lens of both perspectives, we reveal Film AB, which captures more information than is contained separately in Film A or Film B .  This is not to say that Film AB offers the complete film.  The complete film may only exist conceptually.  For now, lets refer to this concept of the complete film as just FILM.  


Obviously, non literate man is capable of developing the lens of the literate man, but is literate man capable of resurrecting the lens of non literate man?  Can man also have access to BOTH lenses, and if so, can these lenses coexist?  Do they work separately, at the same time, or both?

The Great Artificial Barrier

“2001 is a non-verbal experience; out of two hours and 19 minutes of film, there are only less than 40 minutes of dialogue. I tried to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalised pigeonholing and directly penetrates the subconsciousness with an emotional and philosophic content. To convolute McLuhan, in 2001 the message is the medium. I intended the film to be an intensely subjective experience that reaches the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does; to ‘explain’ a Beethoven symphony would be to emasculate it by erecting an artificial barrier between conception and appreciation.”

                                                                                                                                                                                               Stanley Kubrick,  Playboy 1968

convolute 

       A.  (transitive) To make unnecessarily complex.
       B.  (transitive) To fold or coil into numerous overlapping layers.

Did Stanley Kubrick mean Convolute A or Convolute B?  Or a combination of both, Convolute AB?  Or did he mean CONVOLUTE?  And why did he say "message is the medium" instead of "medium is the message" as McLuhan had originally written it?  


If I attempt to "explain" Kubrick, am I also guilty of "emasculating" and "erecting an artificial barrier between conception and appreciation"?  Probably, but my goal is to "tear down the wall" after I'm through.