Black Eyeliner

“…it can get dirty and you don’t have to worry. You know, you can spill coffee on it… I mean, I am getting a little tired of it now… I tried for two or three years and then I went back to this; because it’s so— I think it really is about not wanting, for me. I don’t want to feel. I don’t want to worry about myself, I want to be out of myself and I don’t want to worry about my body. I don’t want to worry about anything. I don’t want to worry about it…” told Annie Leibovitz, the final photographer of a living John Lennon to Bella Freud, granddaughter of the father of psychoanalysis, on her psycho-fashion-focused podcast Fashion Neurosis. Aside the convenience of the color, and a small stint of sprinkled shirts when having child; her reasoning being an interesting explanation; an apparel chosen so as to dissociate from her own external persona. A black-flat-affect, so to say. 

Regarding fashion and its actual impact on a person’s psyche, undoubtedly as a person is what they eat, they regret what their attire refracts, chosen for aesthetic effect. Not as cause, more a contributing factor. Perspective taken in by the senses; light refracting into the eyes for sight, historically has a fair role in life as well as in general health: during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918, treated patients placed outside into open-air wards gained an increased likelihood for survival in recovery. 

Under settings a bit over a century later in more modern refractions of data, the change from yellow lighting to pale, fluorescent and its subsequent salience is a poignant pick. The former being warm, nostalgic, infectious but pleasant; while the updated replacement is stale, sterile and coldly reminiscent of a hospital or morgue— a place uninviting. 

Simultaneously, sitting in the sun and that truly warm light the yellow imitates, can cause skin cancer and land one in for that final hospital stay regardless of mode of dress. With that it’s not so black and white, rather a refutation of that polarity. Humans are not vampires outside of kinks and rare allergies; the sun is needed for nutrition as much as nightly negations of it are as a matter of balanced being. 

Interestingly however, both pale and yellow lighting are uncanny in their own reflections in their own way. Similar to the analogy regarding morality and the aesthetic based qualms about killing one and simple flicks of the wrist in attempts at the other, it’s almost a false binary in that. Yellow feeds into nostalgia while pale lighting is almost designed for depression. The moon’s refraction isn’t pale, it’s with a silver hue that separates it from the sun; though it is with the same light-style as a morgue, “the moon attracts and repels alternately the fluid of the earth, and thus produces the ebb and flow of the sea…” [Transcendental Magic, Eliphas Levi] Light within the dark making it possible for life; and dark encompassing it so as to allow for a balanced breath in the midst of solar heat. 

Departing momentarily to a brighter hue and quoting American designer Pauline Trigère, who urged simply, “when you’re feeling blue, wear red,” and in response and extended explanation in her guidebook Your Beauty Mark, Dita Von Teese asks on this advice and answers extensively. 

“How essential is red to a wardrobe? As my makeup artist friend Gregory Arlt likes to quip: ‘Red is the little black dress of makeup!’”

[…]

“So are the powers of a red lip that the color is unequal to any other shade of lipstick. In traffic, red might mean stop. Yet everywhere else in life, it connotates action. Ancient civilizations applied red face paint for fertility rituals. Artists color passion, lust, and anger in red. Witches claim it is the most potent of colors in a spell… Scientists have established that seeing red increases heart rate, blood pressure, and hunger… two researchers in 2008 […] found that whether the forces are societal or biological, the color red acts as an aphrodisiac for men: they find women in red more attractive…”

Bulls charge at the color, however analogous that statement can be used in differing contexts, all are with the same gist; red is an invigorating color. Historical aesthetics however, has been quite saturated in and remembered in “monochromatic celluloid” and the polar coloring being testament to the big screen’s influence. Evolving into the pale blue hue bleeding into eyes from pocket devices in the middle of the night. 

Being a matter of perspective the style and interpretation of the presented image can be manipulated by various changes of frame. Literally. All however seems to be active inductions of dissociative phenomena, similar to Annie Liebovitz’s personal experience with black; a more monotone, apathetic application of mirror neurons in regards to one’s own existence. 

Accessing Age

According to the latest episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, Australia— as well as a number of other nations now in talks to enact similar policy— social media has been banned for users under 16. Not mentioned but simultaneously as globally  platforms (from) Discord (to Porn sites, in certain states) begin implementing a form of visual identification/ authentication for access. An interesting difference in means of mediation; one being a seeming invasion of privacy, or in many mind perceived as such, and the other an implementation of moreso for adolescents. While understandable in a certain perspective, contextually in the US with current events and the alleged ties between school photos as brief notable example, there’s questionable aspects to it. 

Reasoning noting in the addictiveness of media mediums; and relating that if any other thing was (called cause in cases for) killing people with such an  innately possessive nature, would be strictly regulated. Like having a set age for drinking or the purchase of tobacco products. Sensible in a certain regard; it used to be a challenge to find addictive content, in the same sense adolescents— specifically between 13 and 20– will attempt, and in some moments succeed, and procuring anything from cigarettes to weed and sexuality. 

Exposing a level of irony, parenting has long touted the line against peer pressure— as it removes part of their own perceived authority in their own units— explaining much of it is, in part resulting because, ‘all the other kids have it’. Giving in so as to not possibly stunt their social development; all the while as those who were hit with the tech advancements in the most crucial years first, emerge with reporter regret in the resulted loss in social development from it’s over-inclusion so forced upon them. 

Retro-revolution being on the rise for the better few years— starting mostly from the re-popularization of vinyl records and likely in some byproduct of the hipster hype preceding it— is given an alternatively marketed route of content consumption. In a way, it’s like an actualization of past power interlaced with mixed optics, creating total environments which bring actualization, at least a modern form of it, to the phrase ‘retro-futurism’. 

Interestingly, it was the younger demographic in this 13 to around 32 age bracket are responsible for literal revolutionary reorganization of entire nations in the last 365 day cycle. Utilizing the platform of Discord, notably to democratically elect a new leader figure in the instance of Nepal; it’s curious the same platform is beginning restrictive measures with its new ownership; as all the other implemented prohibitions begin. 

What is the true end? What is the hidden rhyme and reason? Is there any? Is it overreach? Irony? Due process coming? Is it just safety and security or set up seclusion in selected settings?

Gray Gaeity

Drinking gin, it’s not a binge;

Stoned on survival, thriving cordial

Broke benevolence and intoxicating—

Choking in a haze of incense,

Gray gaeity in manic sanity

Personal pariah, protective precognition;

Dopeless eloped, sober seratonine;

Determined isolation, dreaded lonesome

Cigarette sex, nicotine like an alcoholic utter—

lively slow suicide; lesser lies love vice

Verse tonic and a pounding brain, typhonic

Delightful diabolical symphony, engrossing egress

Pluribus: Anthemic Aliens

Latest in creation from the producer of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is the series Pluribus. Essentially, the singular season has depicted what can be described as akin to tales like Anthem by Ayn Rand or Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, but with Aliens. 

The world of Rand’s novella is one where the notion of even the singular ‘I’ is obfuscated in attempt at total depersonalized and collective consciousness. Vonnegut describes in his short story the inclusion of built in inhibitor chips, of sorts, in order to achieve this totality. Pluribus combines these tropes and mixes in the presence of an extraterrestrial hive mind which infected all but 13 humans on the Earth. Liken-able in some regard to an international Fascism; it’s almost similar to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith wherein the rise of the Empire coincides with the Republic Clone army’s hidden brain chips were activated.

While the detractors within both of the 20th century writers characters are depicted as ousted oratory others or murdered martyrs, it’s suspiciously more positive in its presentation of the hive mind; most remaining accepting the invaders odd hospitality. Actively working to add the 13 remaining singular souls; they indulge in excess or revel in families that no longer really exist beyond a performance put on for their benefit. Interestingly this extraterrestrial care is apparently part of their biological prerogative; they aren’t even able to harm a plant by picking fruit according to their own admission; pitfall of such empathetic nature results in excruciating bouts of pain, akin to epileptic seizures, to all those in the vicinity of a character such as Rhea Seahorn’s  played Carol, when she has intensely negative emotions— and extreme to the point of causing mass casualties at times  

Actualized equality in totality is the essence of these bits of data. Pluribus shows an uncomfortable situation, at least for two of the 13 remaining individual human entities, and anyone who wouldn’t want a boring as shit spoon-fed existence— at least until the alien inhabitants figure out how to connect them too.

Persistent Patterns

Cynicism: confirmation bias,

Castrated compassion,

Coagulated recognition—

Patterns persistent;

People piss along pitilessly

Strange Illusions

 A short analysis of the 1945 film Strange Illusions

A teenager named Paul has a dream while out with a doctor, that his widowed mother has begun seeing a man with a murderous secret. Sinister in nature his dream was incredibly precognitive and he quickly makes his way home and upon arrival it appears the help of the house is in agreement regarding the man being ultimately a suspicious character. 

For a few initial instances, it seems Paul’s fretting is overblown concert as Brett, the man to soon be engaged to his mother gives off no innately unnerving vibe. However behind closed doors with the aid of what was supposed to be his doctor, expresses his own sense of unease at Paul’s prying about business he seemingly shouldn’t know. Proving Paul’s hypothesis correct, the man is in fact out for revenge against the family of Detective Cartwright, or the late father of the protagonist, for legal trouble. 

Paul’s sister comes to attention on the issue, divulging to her brother that while swimming Brett had forced himself on her. Explaining, though he stopped as quickly as he attempted, “I felt sort of queer about him ever since.”

All the while, in spite of Paul’s clear unease and Brett’s progressively more insistent attempts for a swift marriage, the widowed Ms. Cartwright remains incredibly oblivious to the situation. A fool in love, so to say. 

Overall the subtext of the movie seems to lend itself to the idea that the gut instinct of a child’s intuition is usually more accurate than mirror neurons being manipulated in a fully developed frontal lobe. 

Circus From Hell

Circus from hell, instant pulsating swells

Masterful maze of fragmented jails

Carry the burden, weight of the world

Social underdevelopment, amusing comedy

What is society in relation to me?

“Lies, everybody lied”

I care until it dies, shrugging shoulders to my confused eyes

Why? Temporary temptation; false hope elucidation

Intense serotonin, bleeding bereavement

Pitiless plight, anti-white light

Yellow hue comes all true

Deceptive refraction, unsafe correlation 

“Love is just a history that they may prove…”

Old act, freeze frame it’s all the same and then beyond the time of day

 Fetish For Finale: The Doomsday Clock

An observational rebuttal to the fear-mongering of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

By Claudia Berdella

According to the latest statements from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist, the Doomsday clock which supposedly shows how close we are to Armageddon is at 85 seconds to zero hour. As of January 27, 2026 their Security Board announced their placement of the hand. Headlines reporting on the news give an air of immediate imminence; fear inducing propaganda, claiming the position of solid authority on the matter… As if the clock is not a mere arbitrary monolith and hasn’t been reset on numerous occasions. 

Sarah Starkey in her written press release for the Board quotes a 2021 speech from CEO and professor Maria Rose to illustrate the given message:

“Without facts, there is no truth. Without truth, there is no trust. And without radical collaboration this this moment demands is impossible. We are living through an information Armageddon— the crisis beneath all crises— driven by extractive and predatory technology that spread lies faster than facts and profits from our division. We cannot solve problems we cannot agree exist. We cannot cooperate across borders when we cannot even share the same facts. Nuclear threats, climate collapse, AI risks: none can be addressed without first rebuilding our shared reality. The clock is ticking.”

Not wrong by a longshot at face value: global tensions are at a fever pitch, and AI directly feeds into climate issues. However, what is this, if not fear mongering? What is this if not an insincere voice regarding a fetish?

Since humanity developed knowledge regarding its own mortality, paired with the Upper Paleolithic ‘creative revolution,’ evolving an overactive intellectual capacity and biological prerogative for self preservation, high is the likelihood that apocalyptic scenarios have been around as long as any semblance of society has. 

Terror Management Theory, as presented in the book Worm At The Core: On The Role of Death In Life— or Ernest Becker’s ever poignant precursor The Denial of Death— is the highlighted absurdity within the death-wish. Similar to a suicidal individual, doomsday scenarios are a hypothesized form of symbolic ego gratification. A monumental moment, then it’s all done. In the individual person this is delegated to self-esteem (ego) and romanticism of the human condition in comparison to the vast scheme of universal existence. Essentially the basic thought process in such is that at least you aren’t the only one dying and there’ll be nothing to miss out on; and maybe, just maybe, there’s an extension of consciousness beyond the post-Morten rigor mortis where we can all meet. 

Even in the imagined end-scene, there’s a post-credit snippet. Denial of death permeates. 

Say we do wipe our species off the face of the planet like in any apocalypse movie or a biblical barrage occurs and brings down perdition, what is the former but a self-fulfilling prophecy? What is the latter but deified daydreams? What is it if not a formalized fetish? Seemingly, the idea of a deathwish is encapsulated almost perfect, in both hope for and fear of an imagined end of the human world. 

Albert Einstein has the famed line explaining, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones,” in association with the idea of a nuclear battle and subsequent fallout reducing technological advancements back to antiquity. Humanity in this hypothesis survives however. As it would seem, even if a nation like Israel decided to enact its Samson option, likely it is that survivors would still manage to straggle their way through. Atomic arsenals have obviously improved tremendously since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and undoubtedly moreso since the Tsar Bomba; so the reconstruction of societies would be more of a struggle undoubtedly from the survivors, but like cockroaches have managed numerous extinction events, humans are pretty resilient in spite of excesses. 

Blaming technology is unimaginable in the face of history and human tendency. Calling it causation for increased division among people is averting the human responsibility in the matter altogether. Back in the day, union busters would bring in black workers to piss off white strikers— it’s nothing new, imposed animosity. It all merely updates to the times as, mind you, humans are the ones programming it so. 

With that, powering the technological advancement in the race toward artificial intelligence, also lies climate change. Eating up resources as an energy means, but simulating not irreparable. Without humanity much issues presented would revert. The Doomsday clock merely symbolizes the end of human existence, not the Earth which has spun and sprouted life before man and will long after. 

With that, what is the actual truth and fact here? The planet would objectively fare better without mankind? Highly unlikely would it be for the entirety of ecosystems to die off, even in the advent of abhorrent man-made mutilation. The end of the world is just a placeholder for The Last Hominid’s Inheritance of Extinction. Overestimating itself: humanity is and are not the sole inhabitants of the planet, nor would it be the first or last to die here. 

At face value, human society is neither innately good or bad, it is and evolves as time progresses. Most every era of its existence has it been predicted the end of the world was right around the corner; soon or sometime shortly after one’s lifetime. Sure, the span of human existence is but a short blip on a pale blue dot thus far, but with that (and to paraphrase Nietzsche in his book Human, All Too Human), come many assumptions as to its qualities and characterization of its own conscious perception. 

Ultimately the Doomsday clock is a ruined orgasm on loop. Almost a self-fulfilling prophecy with the Great Filter hypothesis and centuries of media from the Bible to Stephen King’s ‘If It Bleeds’, depicting a sudden stop to it all. Realistically and observationally, such is nothing more than a fetish without finish. 

Refracted Attraction: Issue Is Its Own Escape

Eliphas Levi uses the phrase “infallible reason” in regards to fellow travelers, cautioning them of the possibility of going mad as a result of the danger in toying with the operations of occult science. As if science, of the occult inclination or accepted variety are not madness in of themselves on some level. Delusion is key to the willing of and illusion, until it becomes an attainable reality, is it not?

He explains his position further a few paragraphs later. Expressing that, “human passions produce blindly the opposites of their desire, when they act without direction. Excessive love arouses antipathy; blind hate counteracts and scourges itself; vanity leads to the abasement and the most cruel humiliations…”

Like myself at the beginning of the last year, 2025, with the will being refracted towards and external entity; and basing it in some sense on the obsessive madness detailed in Lolita, sonically synthesized to the album Eat Me, Drink Me; all the while attempting to evade its dreary, closing confirmation for a self-fulfilling prophecy. Shane warned. D’Annunzio preached. But I have little regret. “My pain is not ashamed to repeat itself,” only the issues which coagulated it so. It’s less cruel humiliation as Levi described, the verbiage I would use that of what Quentin Tarantino delegated in a podcast interview conducted by Brett Easton Ellis; when recollecting his a certain period of his life wherein it was himself and a friend existing and feeding off of one another’s ‘pathetic-ness’. 

Like Jesse Pinkman and Jane in Breaking Bad, or better shown with Jimmy McGill/ Saul Goodman and Kim Wexler in its sister series Better Call Saul; together it’s ecstatic, cute, invigorating— but really as both shows go to present, it’s really two anchors weighing one another down. “It’s better to push something when it’s slipping, than risk being dragged down.”

Surviving

What is thriving?

Constantly conniving.

Strange sentry,

Charged with breaking in and entering

“What’s in a name?”

Freeze frame, lock and wait-

Get high with excessive haste;

Hate the waste,

Issue is it’s own escape.

Rogue Delay

 

Depressive expression

Pervasive correlation 

Rogue allegation 

Strained delay

Familiar foreign fugue

Gray gaiety

Translucent dissociation

Unimaginable mind migration