Hear Here Part 3: Is It Shining

"A more perfect Logos" is what we are looking for.

Why is that two people can watch a film by Kubrick and come away having seen two radically different films?

The Logos is essentially an informative type of thought; Homer was the first rockstar of the Logos, as he orally communicated the story of Odysseus.  The oral transmission is one step down, one degradation of the Logos.  Think of it in terms of Beethoven's music: "you think this is good, you should hear what I hear."  Beethoven heard the "pure" sound, and did his best to translate it with the instruments available to him.

In an effort to preserve the Logos of Homer, the story was written down into manuscripts, a second degree of degradation.  In an effort to preserve the sound of Beethoven, he wrote the sheet music.

Logos>Homer>The Odyssey
Sound>Beethoven>Sheet Music

Depending on how much you agree or disagree with McLuhan, typographic print is a degradation of manuscript.

Modern film (sound and vision) degraded the Logos even further.  Just like hearing Beethoven on CD is degraded from a live orchestra.

Logos>Homer>The Odyssey manuscript>The Book>The Film

We always say "the book is better than the film" because we are closer to the source, the Logos.   This is why we have only one Wizard of Oz book, but ten different filmed versions of it.

Film is an extension of man;  if clothes are an extension of skin, film is the extension of dream.  When Kubrick says "If only you could see the film I have in my head" he is saying "If only you could see the dream I have in my head."  Kubrick utilizes the best of what is available to bring the Logos through to us.  This is why he delayed projects for years (AI) because he needed new technology to better bring the vision to us.  After watching Kubricks initial representation of the dream, we attempt to reduce by association:  turn the film into an audio-book, something closer to literature, something closer to the Logos so that we may better see Kubrick's dream.

To make this more explicit, Danny figures out how to escape the nightmare by retracing his steps.  

Defending The Dream, W. Klaus

Disorient the senses.  Meditate, intoxicate, abstain, or indulge. Explore the wider range of seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling.  New and unusual thoughts rise to the surface.  Discover new facets of creation, new facets of the creator.

Disorient the media.  Cut-up, juxtapose, reverse, mash-up.  Explore the wider application of sound, color, form, narrative.  New and unusual thoughts rise to the surface.  Discover new facets of the art, new facets of the artist.

The first time I disoriented the media was when someone suggested that I isolate the left stereo channel while listening to “Strawberry Fields Forever”.  If you haven’t done this before, try it out.  And play it LOUD.  You’ll discover just how much of a bad ass Ringo was.  It's a simple little trick, but worth it when you find buried treasures like this.

Lot Wizards

I discovered a new way to disorient the media thanks to those old-school? wizards the Flaming Lips.  Zaireeka, released in 1997, included four separate CD's designed to all be played at the same time.  After the novelly of the project wore off, I was inspired to experiment with my own record collection.  I spent a few months playing more than one album at a time, sometimes three or four, to see if they merged into something more than just chaos.  I mean, what else are you gonna do with your Sven Väth CD’s?

It quickly dawned on me that DJ’s do this all the time, with more defined edits and more complex equipment.  But there was something slightly more organic, more archaic, this way.  Sure, more often than not the product of these experiments was pretty bad, but every now and then a certain synergy would take place that was oddly listenable.  Fine, blame it on the weed, but it was exciting!  These experiments were intriguing enough for me to finally go ahead and watch The Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon.

Even though I entered into Dark Side of the Rainbow with incredible doubt (doubt is essential), the experience of watching Dark Side of the Rainbow blew me away.  Really, it changed the way I looked at everything.  There wasn't any specific moment that I really held onto, it was more the overall ebb and flow, as well as the opportunity to experience a film and album that I had seen and heard my whole life in a completely different way.  With just one viewing, both the album and the film transformed for me, but I wasn't exactly sure how.  No surprise, I soon began experimenting with combining other films and albums.

It Is Shining

For me, all great art, regardless of form, delivers an undeniable excitement, and a distinct feeling of awe.  These different experiments helped me to recreate that initial excitement.  As a bonus, I was discovering details and themes that had otherwise escaped me.   All because of a few simple but unorthodox twists and turns from the norm.  Too much time on my hands, maybe, but fuck the critics, this shit works. 

Link

Over the last year, I have been experimenting with a new technique.  Instead of isolating the images of certain films, I have taken to isolating the audio of films, and listening to them as if they were audio-books.  This would have been incredibly difficult 25 years ago, but it is ridiculously easy today.  Simply download a film to an iPhone, put headphones on and the phone in your pocket, and walk outside your front door.  I'm sure this seems rather unexciting, and often times it can be.  But like any "book," it all  depends on the "author".  I first got inspired to do this while walking through Lincoln Park Zoo.  Having no music I wanted to listen to, I remembered that I had downloaded 2001: A Space Odyssey to my phone.  Inspiration for me usually presents itself as a good joke, so, up for a laugh, I fired it up.

Go do this, it is incredible madness.  Especially if you are high at the zoo.

A Clockwork Orange followed a few months later, which was a complete and total revelation.  It was as if I had never seen the movie before.  It just completely changed for me, and I haven’t re-watched the movie proper since.  Not sure if I ever will.

And then it hit me.

Just like the "aha" of  “To Serve Man,” the title of Kubrick's last film became an explicit instruction, a reversal of the Ludovico brainwashing technique.

So eyes wide shut.  Yeah, that destroyed me.

The next film up for my listening pleasure was, obviously, Kubrick's swan song.  Until I listened on headphones, I wouldn't have considered Eyes Wide Shut Kubrick’s masterpiece.  But things change.  Why do we consider just the visual architecture of Kubrick's work?  His arrangement of sound is just as incredible, and when isolated, reveals deeper elements of his genius.

Wing Boss

At this point in my re-education of Stanley Kubrick, and of film in general,  I started feeling that my excitement wasn't in the realm of "discovery".  I wasn't revealing anything that wasn't there, and if I was simply late to the party, that was ok.  I just felt lucky enough to have found the password.

I considered booting up The Shining next, but decided instead to go with Dr. Strangelove.  I'm not sure why I avoided The Shining, maybe I was saving the best for last?  Anyways, Strangelove was an utter disappointment.  Meaning, it was...boring.  And the same thing with Lolita.  Nothing really grabbed me with these experiments.

And then I put off these experiments for months.  I'll say this, I never felt like this was something to do indoors.  Intuitively, it just seemed like something to do outside.  So fall turned to winter, and the lab was closed.

After staying inside for most of the winter, on a lovely spring day, I decided I needed to get out side for a walk.  To keep me company, I downloaded The Shining to the phone and stepped outside.  It was time.

The opening music began playing and it was as haunting as it ever was, but larger.  So large it felt like I might get devoured.  And it seemed to last an eternity.  Then I saw it.  I mean, I saw it man, it was crystal clear.  A green grassed playground, filled with children laughing and playing.  And a dog.  I mean, it was all just there.  For the life of me, I had never seen a playground in that movie before, ever.  I stood motionless in the middle of the sidewalk, intent on rewinding to restore my sanity, when the conversation between Danny and Wendy ruined everything.

          "Anyway, there's hardly anybody to play with around here."
       "Yeah I know." 

When I watched The Shining traditionally, like normal folk, I never saw the playground,  My ears might have picked up the sound, but I didn't see it, and it's impact on the conversation between Danny and Wendy was purely subconscious.  It was only when I removed the images and isolated the sound that I discovered the reality of this playground, the absolute sadness of it, and it's impact on the story.

Was the inclusion of this audio picked at random or was it intentionally placed?

 -What is a ghost?  Stephen said 

with tingling energy.

Hear Here Part 2: Hardly Anybody

In the film version of Stephen King's novel The Shining, Stanley Kubrick plays the role of Wendy.  Well, Shelley Duvall plays the role of Stanley Kubrick playing the role of Wendy.  Our first clue that this is the case is when the camera first pans in to the apartment complex where Wendy and Danny are eating breakfast.  The clue isn't obvious at first, especially upon an initial viewing of the film, but it is loud and clear, especially if you are able to listen to the film on headphones (I highly recommend listening to the entire film on headphones only; you will be amazed at the things you "see").  It is one of Kubrick's cruelest jokes as well.

As the camera pans in, we can hear, out of sight, but obviously present, the sound of a very crowded playground.  We hear the sounds of many children laughing and playing in the morning sun.  It would seem impossible that these children are unattended, so it is safe to assume that there are at least a few parents supervising the fun.  Most likely these are the children and parents who live in the same apartment complex of the Torrances.

As the camera makes it's journey indoors to the kitchen where Danny and Wendy are reading and watching, the dialogue addresses Danny's growing confusion about what the hell is going on, and, with the flattest of flat affects, Danny challenges his mother yet again with a completely false statement of fact.

          "Mom?"
          "Yeah…"
          "Do you really wanna go live in that hotel for the winter?"
          "Sure I do, it'll be lots of fun."
          "Yeah.  I guess so.  Anyway, there's hardly anybody to play with around here."
          "Yeah I know.  It always takes a little time to make new friends."

What bullshit.  Danny can not only hear what's going on outside his windows, he has probably driven by that playground full of kids many times.  His eyes and ears tell him that there are plenty of nice people having fun, plenty of friends to be made, but his mother, his protector, tells him no.  This perversion of reality is a confusing and bizarre game for a six year old child, let alone an adult, to endure.  The psychic stress of this discrepancy between reality and authority compels little Danny to look deeper, beyond the surface reality of his surroundings, in order to reconcile the "illusions" that are so damn confusing.

          "Yeah, I guess so."
          "What about Tony, he's looking forward to the hotel I bet."
          "No I aint missus Torrance."

Enter Tony.  Tony is the fractured part of Danny's personality, the only voice of reason who isn't afraid to speak the truth.  Tony exists to express the truth for Danny, as violence and or verbal abuse seem to be the consequence of choice for getting out of line.  But not for Tony.  Tony is imaginary.   When the shit hits the fan, Tony disappears before anyone can lay a hand on him.

It is curious that Tony speaks in slang, and not the proper grammar of a school teacher.  This introduces the first connection between Danny and Dick Halloran, who, one assumes, adopts a different mode of speaking when removed from the stilted confines of the Overlook Hotel, and who also knows the frustration of having one's personality fractured by a dishonest and repressive regime.

          "Do you know why I pulled you over Mr. Halloran?
          "No Officer, I don't."
          "Do you khow fast you were driving Mr. Halloran?"
          "Yes Officer, the speed limit is 55 mph and I was driving 55 mph."
          "Step out of the car Mr. Halloran."
          "I don't know why I have to-"
          "STEP OUT OF THE CAR."

Stanley Kubrick, in his role as Wendy, assures the audience that what they are about to watch is a movie version of Stephen King's best-selling novel, The Shining.  It has all the characters, it takes place in the same hotel, and it describes all of the frightfully spooky action of the book.  But the Danny's in the audience realized that Stanley was lying.  The smart ones saw through the Stephen King cover story.  And, like Danny, were probably shamed by popular opinion when expressing an alternative view.  Of course Stanley, like Wendy, knew the cover story was crap, but if given the choice between explaining the real horror of the situation, or telling a story, both Stan and Wendy protect the story at all costs.

Enter Room 237.  Rodney Ascher's documentary spotlights our imaginary friends, our Tony's.  Our truth telling weirdos, freaks, and nut jobs who aren't afraid to speak up, who have seen through the bullshit and are speaking up to defend the battered senses of the confused.  These brave voices, like Tony, strive to reveal something that we used to see and hear clearly, but have been battered and hammered and taught to ignore.

Hear Here: The Disappearing Right Hand Path

"Isn't this where we came in?"

An excerpt from an early, unpublished draft of The Hallows of Death, written sometime in 1995:

Late in the day, when school ended, Harry Potter decided to try the Hermetic transform once again, so that he would know the world around him.

     First he speeded up his internal biological clock so that his thoughts raced faster and faster.  He felt himself rushing down the tunnel of linear time until his rate of movement along the axis was enormous.  First, therefore, he saw vague floating colors and then he suddenly encountered the Watcher, which is to say the Boggart, who barred the way between the Lower and the Upper Realms.  The Boggart presented itself to him as a nude female torso that he could reach out and touch, so close was it.  Beyond this point he began to travel at the rate of the Upper Realm so that the Lower Realm ceased to be something but became, instead, a process;  it evolved in accretional layers at a rate of 31.5 million to one in terms of the Upper Realm's time scale.

     Thereupon he saw the Lower Realm-not as a place-but as transparent pictures permutating at immense velocity.  These pictures were the Forms outside of space being fed into the Lower Realm to become reality.  He was one step away, now, from the Hermetic transform.

     The final picture froze and time ceased for him.  With his eyes shut he could still see the room around him; the flight had ended; he had eluded that which pursued him.  That meant that his neural firing was perfect, and his pineal body registered the presence of light carried up its branch of the optic conduit.

     He sat for a little while, although "little while" no longer signified anything.  Then, by degrees, the transform took place.  He saw outside him the pattern, the print, of his own brain; he was within a world made up of his brain, with living information carried here and there like little rivers of shining red that were alive.  He could reach out, therefore, and touch his own thoughts.  The room was filled with their fire, and immense spaces stretched out, the volume of his own brain external to him.

     Meanwhile he introjected the outer world so that he contained it within him.  He now had the universe inside him and his own brain outside everywhere.  His brain extended into the vast spaces, far larger than the universe had been.  Therefore he knew the extent of all things that were himself, and, because he had incorporated the world, he knew it and controlled it.

     He soothed himself and relaxed, and then could see the outlines of the room, the coffee table, a chair, walls, pictures on the walls:  the ghost of the external universe lingering outside him.  Presently he picked up a book from the table and opened it.  Inside the book he found, written there, his own thoughts, now in a printed form.  The printed thoughts lay arranged along then time axis which had become spacial and the only axis along which motion was possible.  He could see, as in a hologram, the different ages of his thoughts, the most recent ones being closest to the surface, the older ones lower and deeper in many successive layers.

     He regarded the world outside him which now had become reduced to spare geometric shapes, squares mostly, and the Golden Rectangle as a doorway.  Nothing moved except the scene beyond the doorway, where his mother rushed happily among tangled old rosebushes and a farmland she had known as a child; she was smiling and her eyes were bright with joy.

     Now, Harry thought, I will change the universe that I have taken inside of me.  He regarded the geometric shapes and allowed them to fill up a little with matter.  Across from him the ratty blue couch that Ron Weasley prized began to warp away from plumb; its lines changed.  He had taken away the causality that guided it and it stopped being a ratty blue couch with Butter Beer stains on it and became instead a Hepplewhite cabinet, with fine bone china plates and cups and saucers behind its doors.

     He restored a certain measure of time--and saw Ron come and go about the room, enter and leave; he saw accretional layers laminated together in sequence along the linear time axis.  The Hepplewhite cupboard remained for a short series of layers; it held its passive or off or rest mode, and then it was whisked over into its active or on or motion mode and joined the permanent world of the phylogons, participating now in all those of its class that had come before.  In his projected world brain the Hepplewhite cabinet, and its bone china pieces, became incorporated into true reality forever.  It would now undergo no more changes, and no one would see it but he.   It was, to everyone else, in the past.

     He completed the transform with the formulary of Hermes Trismegistus:

     Verum est . . . quod superius est sicut quod inferius et quod inferius est sicut quod superius, ad

      perpetrando miracula rei unius.

     That is:

     The truth is that what is above is like what is below and what is below is like what is above, to

     accomplish the miracles of the one thing.

     This was the Emerald Tablet, presented to Maria Prophetissa, the sister of Moses, by Tehuti himself, who gave names to all created things in the beginning, before he was expelled from the Palm Tree Garden.

     That which was below, his own brain, the microcosm, had become the macrocosm, and inside him as microcosm now, he contained the macrocosm, which is to say, what is above.

     I now occupy the entire universe, Harry realized;  I am now everywhere equally.  Therefore I have become Adam Kadmon, the First Man.  Motion along the three spacial axes was impossible for him because he was already wherever he wished to go.  The only motion possible for him or for changing reality lay along the temporal axis; he sat contemplating the world of the phylogons, billions of them in the process, continually growing and completing themselves, driven by the dialectic that underlay all transformation.  It pleased him;  the sight of the interconnected network of phylogons was beautiful to behold.  This was the kosmos of Pythagoras, the harmonious fitting together of all things, each in its right way and each imperishable.

     I see now what Voldemort saw, he realized.  But more than that, I have rejoined the sundered realms within me;  I have restored the Shekhina to En Sof.  But only for a little while and only locally.  Only in microform.  It would return to what it had been as soon as he released it.

     "Just thinking," he said aloud.

     Hermione came into the room, saying as she came, "What are you doing, Harry?"

     Causality had been reversed;  he had done what Voldemort could do: make time run backward.  He laughed in delight.  And heard the sound of bells.

     "I saw Chinvat," Harry said. "The narrow bridge.  I could have crossed it."

     'You must not do that," Hermione said.

     Harry said,"What do the bells mean?  Bells ringing far off."

     "When you hear the distant bells it means that the Saoshyant is present."

     "The Chosen One," Harry said.  "Who is the Chosen One, Hermione?"

     "It must be yourself," Hermione said.

     "Sometimes I despair of remembering."

     He could still hear the bells, very far off, ringing slowly, blown, he knew, by the desert wind.  It was the desert itself speaking to him.  The desert, by means of the bells, was trying to remind him.  To Hermione he said, "Who am I?"

     "I can't say," Hermione said.

     "But you know."

      Hermione nodded.

     "You could make everything very simple," Harry said, "by saying."

     "You must say it yourself," Hermione said.  "When the time comes you will know and you will say it."

     "I am--" the Wizard said hesitantly.

     Hermione smiled.


I never fully understood Harry's relationship to Voldemort, or why Voldemort was threatened by a child until I read this.  It wasn't Harry's ability to resist the Dark Arts that threatened Voldemort; he would have been perfectly fine if Harry had ignored the Dark Arts altogether.  What most threatened Voldemort was Harry's ability to master the Dark Arts, his ability to control them, something Voldemort never could.  That's some pretty deep shit.

This Is Your Drugs on Brain

The above story is a fake.  The "early, unpublished draft of The Hallows of Death" is actually a mash up of Philip K. Dick's The Divine Invasion with Harry Potter.  Other than some of the names, J.K. Rowling had nothing to do with it.

Hardcore Harry Potter fans probably recognized the shenanigans right away and stopped reading before I even had the chance to confess.  Casual Potter fans probably sensed it was some kind of a fan-fiction stunt but stuck around long enough for the punchline.  To the observant Dick-heads?  We are a fractured bunch, so I have no idea.  And to the few of you that might have trusted me, I apologize.  If you feel deceived, deception was not my intention.  Let me try to explain.

Mash ups are everywhere.  In music, film, collage, video games, anything really.  The most complex field to utilize mash ups is probably quantum physics.  Finished in 2008, the Large Hadron Collider is a high-energy particle collider designed to test out and prove different theories about particle physics.  It mashes and smashes like a beast.  The most famous function of this nine-billion dollar machine was to find observable proof of that elusive particle known as the Higgs-Boson, which for decades existed only as a mathematical theory.  Amazingly, only five years after the completion of the LHC, those incredibly smart people working at CERN provided observable proof of it's existence, which means apparently one of two things.  Either millions now living will never die OR everyone living right now is already dead.  That's some pretty deep shit too.

I wonder what Marshall McLuhan would think about all of this?  I think he would laugh at first and then calmly explain to the perplexed that the Large Hadron Collider is also a fake, a ridiculous, expensive fake.  The real technology, the largest high-energy particle collider ever made, is that great gray lump in your head, and every second of everyday it is busy mashing and smashing every conceivable component of reality.  And this is just when we are awake!   When we go to sleep, or when we ingest certain plants, we really let the fucker rip.

So why build the LHC?  Why the fake?  And what does this have to do with Roger Waters?

"So ya, thought ya, might like to go the show….."  

R.W.

Nu-Beta Blues Pt. 5: The Magic Theater is Not For Everybody

“In eternity there is no time, only an instant long enough for a joke.” 

Herman Hesse

Nu-Beta Blues Part 4: Chymical Empire

Blue meth is literally IN the fast food.  Ricin is literally IN the cigarette.  The gun is literally IN the Coca-Cola.  What is this saying?

If I abused Heisenberg's* blue meth, smoking, snorting, or shooting it several times a day, it is pretty much guaranteed that my physical and mental health would go to shit.

If I abuse fast food, cigarettes, and Coca-Cola, eating, smoking, and drinking them several times a day, it is pretty much guaranteed that my physical and mental health would go to shit too.   But there's a huge difference between smoking blue meth and eating fast food, right?

Heisenberg's product is addictive, meaning users of his product are technically victims.  They are helpless to stop using once the drug enters their body, once it affects their brain.  Once it takes over their mind.  This is why meth, which used to be LEGAL, is now ILLEGAL.

Fast food, cigarettes, and Coca-Cola are LEGAL because they are not addictive (well, cigarettes are addictive).  But processed junk foods high in salt and fat and beverages loaded with high fructose corn syrup aren't, right?  Because if they were, they wouldn't be LEGAL, would they?  

What if we found out that consuming fast food, cigarettes, and Coca-Cola had a synergistic affect?  What if when all three were consumed, they became as addictive and damaging to your mental and physical health as blue meth?  If this was true, would we make sure they become ILLEGAL too?  

The empire business sure has a lot of competition.  And really, who wants to live in a world without Coca-Cola?  Or diabetes, heart disease, obesity.  And cancer.

Cereal Killer/Gateway Drug

*Another Heisenberg, Werner Heisenberg is famous for his work on a different kind of bomb.  But that's a whole nother story.

Alamagordo, NM:  Detonation site of Trinity, the first nuclear bomb.