Contrasted Crazy

This is the poem I wrote closing out the notebook I finished today that had been started on twenty days ago. It extends from something I was writing the other day exploring the lines between insanity and whimsical eccentric tendencies. Whether I put that out anywhere, is to be determined later. At the end of the poem, the two second to last lines is a reference/paraphrase of the song She's A Rebel by Green Day.

Whimsy and insanity:

The line between giddy and glee

Intertwined with destructive tendencies

Full of color and lifeless

Nothing in eclectic everything

Swelling, curtailing in restless 

Maniacal sedation fused to elation

Horseshoe equilibrium

Trouble made double with a—

twist of fate and a melody

Chaos in cordiality

Inspection of Late Night With The Devil (2023)

Late Night With The Devil is a 2023 film made in the lineage of campy b-horror movies, found footage, and 1980s Satanic Panic era talk shows such as Geraldo or Oprah; who at the time made hundreds of hours of specials on stories of supposed Satanic cults in a loose but interconnected network roaming about the United States committing horrific crimes against children, creating Manchurian candidates, and many other dastardly deeds; such never really existed however. As portrayed in this flick, Jack Delroy, a man with a vaguely suspicious past, is the host of a lower rated syndicated talk show in 1977 on Halloween, trying to get a boost in viewership with the special holiday set planned. With this setup the groundwork for the rest of the show is laid down for what is essentially, a perfect theme which, by being pre-1980 would be a proto-Satanic Panic piece.

The guest list for the night consists of a psychically inclined man who has the purported ability to communicate with spirits, in a way he likens to a ham radio, and gives the audience a due display, much to the dismay and dismissal of the featured skeptic sitting on the stage. This skeptic serves as a counterbalance to Jack and the rest of the evening's stars, to the point of having an actual financially compensating prize for anyone who could prove the supernatural real, similar to the real life One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge from the James Randi Educational Foundation that was in place from 1964 up until 2015; and was denying the paranormal activity going on around them, even after learning the psychic who had been taken off stage after having a seeming migraine from a malicious presence and vomiting up black blood had died. Quickly then going to a commercial intermission and moving the psychic out of the way, recuperating themselves running the show and reinvigorate live audience who had bore witness so as to be able to proceed with the main part of the show that night.

Coming to the climactic segment with the prior scare serving as a warning, or catalyst, for the horror about to occur. Here we see a variation of the classic Satanic Panic tale: a parapsychologist with (and whom she also serves as legal guardian of) her young patient Lilly, the sole survivor of a diabolical cult who worshipped the demon Abraxas (in reality the Gnostic 'god above gods') and died in a Waco-imitation shootout with federal agents and burned themselves alive inside their suburban abbey, which was all detailed in a book by the mental health professional. This leads to the conjuration of a spirit who can possess Lilly's body, and done so in a manner which to the skeptic seems akin to ideas of hypnotism to which he then gives his own performance of for the room; all subtly touching upon the matter of what was at the time known as Multiple Personality Disorder (now rebranded as Dissociative Identity Disorder for posterity purposes after the moral hysteria subsided) and repressed memory syndrome. 

Nonetheless, in spite of the skeptic's denial and to the growing unease of the room and Jack after the death of the psychic and witnessed summoning; no amount of pedantic dismissal would save the night when the demonic entity came back to raise Hell in the studio.

Select Bibliography:

Mulhern, S. (1994). Satanism, ritual abuse, and multiple personality disorder: A sociohistorical perspective. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 42(4), 265–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207149408409359

Waterhouse, R. T. “Satanic Abuse, False Memories, Weird Beliefs and Moral Panics.” Doctoral, City University London, 2015. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/11871/.

Vanity in a Void

Solid black surrounded the cockpit. The inhabitants of the spacecraft had long since grown wary of one another on their now sixteen year voyage into the final frontier. It had been at least a decade since they last saw the sun's waning rays. They were on course to anywhere and nowhere at this point; but they nonetheless continued their routines ad infinum: maintenance inside and out, water and oxygen reclamation, exercise, sleep, gaze into the dark abyss they drifted within... rinse and repeat on the daily.

One day (night? who knows anymore when there's no sun) one of the four crew members was going from the cockpit into the main hull of their ship when he heard a few taps. Being onboard with three others, he thought nothing of this and continued to his quarters for some rest. Another set of taps. He slept a dreamless sleep.

The other three sat in the engine room. Given they were drifting, the combustion machine was shut off to conserve power; it was were they could have a smoke without catching the ship on fire. They had heard the first tap, and like their crew mate thought nothing of it. Someone may have made a passing grunt. They then heard the second time when it sputtered out. Then again. Again, again and again. It would start, stop, tap in increasing and harsh speeds, stop. 

tap tap

taptap

taptaptaptaptapTAPTAPTAPTAPTAP

TAPTAP

tap tap taptap

TAPTAP TAP TAP TAP

tap

They all went on alert and began a detailed inspection of the entire vessel as the orgasms of tapping burst out continuously. It sounded as if rain in a hurricane mixed with a turret on rapid fire. The man who had just fallen asleep for a moment was now up and pumping with adrenalin, he rushed back to the cockpit to check the ships diagnistics; another suited up and grabbed his tether to go out the airlock and check the exterior, bringing a specialised umbrella in case it was a microscopic meteor shower, or some sort of cosmic dust doing the battering. One stayed back in the engine room to make sure the issue wasn't originating there while another checked the hull for any sign of an air leak.

The three inside met within the hull when nothing showed to be wrong that was causing the tapping. There was one rotating gear that had needed replacing in the engine, but that was swiftly taken care to and yet, the tapping persisted. After a few moments they realised they were one member short as the fourth hadn't come back from outside the ship yet, though he should have been. Two quickly went off to see what was going on. When they got to the airlock they saw a missing suit and tether, but when looking through a small window they saw no tether anywhere. They could see nothing. One suited himself up while the other stayed behind to watch his tether and make sure nothing like that happened. The tapping continued.

Still in the cockpit the now wide awake member continued to check diagnostics triply when suddenly a knife slammed into the glass before him, then again. The alarm on the spacecraft went off as the sealing door between the hull and cockpit slammed shut while the rest of the glass shattered as the depressurisation shot it out into the abyss. The man inside imploded almost instantaneously. The one with the knife had been the formerly missing crew mate, a shard had pierced his suit and he died there and then. 

The tapping stopped to the shock of the one crew member still inside near the airlock as the alarm blared.

As one of the now two survivors of the party was approaching the middle of the hull from the outside he heard a pulsing sound buzzing over his radio. He quickly turned back and went back to the airlock. Back in the ship the two rushed to the hull and looked out another small window to where now only a sealed door shielded them from the harsh outer space; through that they could somewhat makeout a suit floating through wreckage. The tapping resumed.

It wouldn't stop.

Two days, or however long it really was, there was no more ship adrift. Nothing. No evidence of anything being in the void at all. 

Review of Alice In Wonderland (1903)

Cecil Hepworth's 1903 silent movie adaptation was the first of such ever made based on Lewis Carroll's childrens book Alice's Adventure In Wonderland. It is a nearly ten minute variation that sticks to the script of the source material practically to a T. Like many early films, in viewing it seems more like watching a stage play, but in that is an enjoyable displayed appropriation of the text to the screen. An interesting note is that being made when it was, the actual Alice Liddel whom Carroll based his story's character on was still alive at the time.

This is a poem I wrote while stoned from weed for the first time in three months. I was when I wrote it as I am also in typing it up.

Red-hot

Fire preventing ront

Inferno sterilization 

Burning pridges, rebirthing purity

New unnecessary

Weighted remnants wary

Rusted revival

Trivial and forgettable dreaming

Forlorn ecstasy

Satisfied beneficiary 

Voided cold

Coded for reload

Culled satisfactory

Dissolved debris

Egotistical and sold

Analysis of Alice In Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy

Alice In Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy (1976)  is probably the most unique portrayal of Lewis Carroll's story, for the obvious fact in that it is a pornographic musical. A Freudian dreamscape of releasing repressed sexuality. 

The backdrop of this adaptation has Alice as a young adult working at her job as a librarian when she and a man whom she shares a romantic tension with get into a small debacle over the topic of having sex. Alice negates the idea (as later revealed in her dream after being propositioned for the act with the King), wishing to stay pure until marriage; though as is revealed throughout the film this standard doesn't hold up to inner repressed curiosities she holds; but at this introduction she stands in her resolve. From there he leaves and Alice goes on to resume her work a moment, then breaking into song where she considers that maybe she's holding herself to a standard that isn't realistic, that she is too strict with herself while being at a young age, and maybe is too quickly reprehensive towards partaking in Earthly delights; likening herself to a large redwood tree that takes 500 years to mature, pondering if she could do all that in just two so as to not be so 'grown up' so soon.

It is after this number she settles back down to find a copy of Lewis Carroll's book Alice In Wonderland, and in that the story is what would be called today, 'meta', with events about to transpire. Having never read the novel before she decides to do so, falling asleep and entering into a dream while doing so; where she then meets the White Rabbit and follows him through a mirror into Wonderland. The use of a mirror as the portal to this realm could properly signify that the world she has entered shows just what she tries to cover up, or stave away from her mind but is there nonetheless as, "the dream is a sort of substitution for the emotional and intellectual trains of thought," where, "the dream not infrequently anticipates, in impatience, as it were, the expected pleasure," from repressed desires.

It must suffice to state that we obtain matter enough for the resolution of every morbid idea if we direct our attention to the unbidden associations which disturb our thoughts— those which are put aside by the critic as worthless refuse.

With this, each song that spontaneous comes into fruition in the proceeding events serve largely as prelude for what is ultimately exploratory sexual activity for Alice. Learning in witness, and two instances of personal participation, of such erotic engagements: masturbation, fellatio, cunnilingus, fingering, full on fucking, and orgiastic activity in the kingdom serve as a sort of unconscious awakening for Alice to rid herself of what would seem based on her conversation with the King, as externally prescribed prohibitions. This then showing the dream by and large to serve as a form of sublimation for latent feelings of curiosity manifesting what she otherwise outwardly deemed as morbid, near incomprehensible or desiring the undesirable; and shedding those sensibilities. 

The formula for these dreams may be thus stated: They are concealed realisations of repressed desires.

The film ends with Alice on the run, escaping from the Queen after a trial which resulted in 'giving her head', coming to a body of water she leaps in and on account of being unable to swim nearly drowns. But, being a dream before any real harm occurs she awakens as she is once again confronted by the man who had come to apologize for his insistent and slightly belligerent advances prior; however Alice initiates a kiss which then turns into the two making love. Latent desire fulfilled and inhibition stripped of all its restricting clothing.

Select Bibliography

Freud, Sigmund, and M. D. (Montague David) Eder. On Dreams. With Internet Archive, Mineola, N.Y. : Dover, 2001. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/ondreams000freu.

Criticisms of Dark Side Of The 90s (Part III)

I have now watched the fifth and sixth episodes of Vice's documentary series Dark Side Of The 90s first season. Needless to say, and some of it is a bit repetitive in the same vein as to what I had to critique in regards to the second episode. Ultimately however I've come to realize that it's a sensationalistic conveying of information and general lore about the presented topics; and despite the claim of being 'dark', are rather glamorised in a voyeuristic manner— and more on that subject contextually with episode 6. 

Episode 5. Grunge and the Seattle Sound

Sound Garden, L7, Green River, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, and of course, Nirvana. The topic of this episode being the bands under the Sub Pop record label and who in a reverse-British Invasion took hold of the musical world for a few years with the explosion of grunge; a seminal mix of metal and punk rock wearing frayed flannel. Detailing a straightforward overview of the history attached to Sub Pop as a label and some of the notable acts which signed to them; most notably and most talked to obviously being Nirvana. Through that the 'dark side' presented here is the death of half a dozen grunge band frontmen. Heroin usage in the scene was noted earlier in the episode, and like how the second episode of the show had its focal point of River Phoenix's overdose, the suicide of Kurt Cobain is front and center to it all. It's a mundane extreme thing where sure, these people are stars and die young and thus crystallized in that image as they never could falter in that; but as Danny Goldberg noted in his book Serving The Servant: Kurt Cobain was not a saint; he had faults and died as a result of them. If they weren't famous, the deaths would be just a statistic.

Episode 6. Baywatch: Sex Sells

 No shit it does, has, and always will.

Voyeurism and proto-influencers is what this episode takes as its main topic as it pertained to the original Baywatch series. It opens with a line from one of the interviewed cast members stating that it induced something about personal image onto younger people that they really didn't need to worry about; as if generations prior weren't concerned with say, getting drafted to Vietnam or working hard labor to sustain their families. It seems quite minimal in at the face of it all as and issue seeing as such is perpetual today to an even more apparent degree from Eugenia Cooney and extreme anorexic (and as a similar side with this, bulimic) disorders; the meth-infused and surgical corrections as means to alleviate dysmorphic tendencies with 'looksmaxxers' like Clavicular; or so called fat activists professing that being overweight is a personal, radically empowering and prideful display of a healthy body. Going into the history of this even with the body modification aspect of with personal augmentation in contrast to the simultaneously glamourised heroin chic. Such insecurities and aesthetic preferences has stuck around, obviously; though the augmentation in all manners, from breasts to height seem to be less of a stigma, just look at The Kardashians as the poignant epitome of it all.

Speaking to the voyeurism involved with the Baywatch show as it was made to be sensually stimulating in its appeal (though in this episode one of its creators claims in a contradictory statement that it was, "sexy, not sexual") with stars like Pamela Anderson coming to it hot off of a Playboy cover. Today this can be seen in its own form with the gained popularity of a starlet like Sydney Sweeney. Madonna had her SEX book— which is briefly noted in the episode— but even then with the hindsight of say, Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat seems repetitive throughout the last 60 years, since feminists were burning their bras. 

On that topic it then delves into the tumultuous relationship between Anderson and the rock drummer Tommy Lee and resulting leaked sex tape... while one had gotten her fame from a Playboy cover and the other now occasionally posts pictures with his lower ligature out on social media for all to see. Revenge porn it may have been in its release, but as seen in the infamous event that occurred in the earlier 2010s known as 'the Fappening', this is again only cared about if it's that of a celebrity's privacy breached.

"Babble babble, bitch bitch rebel rebel, party party, sex sex sex; and don't forget the violence" —Marilyn Manson, This Is The New Shit

Analysis of Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland (2010)

Tim Burton's 2010 adaptation of Lewis Carroll's children's book Alice In Wonderland can ultimately be described as that of an amalgamation of both the original author's tales of this young girl's fantastical dreams, and reinvigorated by the novel director's own taken artistic liberties imbued into the movie. 

Naturally, Burton paints this version of the story with his own and typical darker flare that one knows him for; and in a way that is reminiscent of 1993 masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas. In that stop motion-captured theatrical Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, has grown weary of his role in leading the Halloween holiday and filled with a sense of inevitability in bored, hollow, repetition. Due to this Jack masterminds a takeover of Christmas after falling down a hole in a tree and discovering the joyous occasion. In spite of his maniacal efforts however, the escapade almost ends disastrous and in him spoiling all for the winter holiday, but he luckily manages to get old Sandy Claws back in his sleigh and saves the day; and accepts his status over that which had felt stagnating to him...

Going down the rabbit hole in this revision Alice is thirteen or so years older than she is in the events of Carroll's stories, though those are portrayed as nightmares in the starting scenes. Young Alice here is now 19 and faced with the expectation of fulfilling a preplanned path and accepting a marriage proposal planned in a very public affair. After running off to chase the sight of a rabbit rushing through the bushes and avoiding the popped question she isn't sure how to answer yet, falls down the hole yet again. After making her way then through the small door and consuming the DRINK ME bottle to shrink in order to do so, Alice is ultimately faced with yet another choice in the world of Underland (which was christened Wonderland by her younger-self's inability to pronounce Underland): she can either fulfil a prophecy and pick up a sword to slay the draconian Jabberwocky and save the fantastical land from the tyrannical rule of the Red Queen, or she can let the large headed woman with an army of playing cards remain the dominant power. The story ends with and, "off with the head," for the Jabberwocky and banishment for the Red Queen; where Alice then returns to the upper lands and nulls the proposal for marriage and sets sail to China to continue her late father's company. 

There are many allusions to the original books, naturally; as well as additions from Burton's expertise. Being in the future to when Alice was but a 7 and a half year old the tale reworks many phrases and points; and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter is a delightful portrayal. That said, the major idea behind this and the 1993 Burton film is the question of fate and agency. Jack Skellington can be likened to a godhead of his domain, and role being kept to a necessity; Alice in her impossibly characterised dream is a cog in a preconceived script, but with the agency of where she wants to turn in both saving Wonderland and getting married. One shows an acceptance and reinvigoration in his part to play; the latter details away from that determinism with Alice's dream serving as sublimation for her to realise where she would go in the real world. 

Doomer Date

I was thinking of this whole AI apocalypse idea a bit more today and realised: this is nothing more than a broad blanket of Doomeristic thinking. So I wrote this brief poem; it's sort of a combination of my recent polemic piece on AI Doomsday Fantasies and the research back in March I did on the concept of Doomerism as a whole.

Doomerism:

Deterministic despair,

Placant, vacant fetishization—

Faith in death and wait,

Wait lacking in full weight;

Fundamental about inevitable,

Pushed further and nearer away—

Everyday's another end date

Ode to Chaos

I wrote this to commemorate the 6th anniversary of what is my favorite album by Marilyn Manson released on this day in 2020: the seminal and unmatched We Are Chaos. I will love this album like there's no tomorrow until the day I die.

Breathing up and beating down

Hurricane blurs like actless blasphemy

From the ashes of cordiality

Rising rewind, a respirator on fire

Chasing what is made away into frame

Bleached finger prints over tattered remains

Of charred lessons in refrain

In the front and to the back

Nagging at my brain

Pushing and pulling; tightrope wire over flame

Inhaling the heavy fumes of tomorrow

Stewing in prior decay

Change with conscious stain

As the record spins on replay

Drowning visions like a lullaby

Rearranged but always reingrained 

Some things crumble while remaining the same;

With no permanence,

Blame is a delusional game

Soaring eagle in the sky,

Crashing like a meteor

In a crow's eye—

A teal spectacle of disintegrating inferno

A tale spoken of on rainy days

Love for the grey while the sun is blocked away

While Prometheus' torch stays unquenched

How many times can it be painted, so many instances to say?

Conjuring calamity, pleasurable insanity

Like a rusty nail lobotomy

But it sounds to amaze

Through ever-constant breakthrough raze

Heroes are overrated and scum overdone

Idols and deified entities just a temporary daze

Light it up with a match to sober haze

Redundant in rhyming rephrase

Pedantic purgatory and soft serving entertainment

Hard hitting and into the mental abyss I gaze

Filled empty in sonic soliloquy