Cinematically Columbine

1.Elephant

Watching Elephant, a 2003 film from director Gus Van Sant. From what I understand it’s largely based on Columbine, and has a more homoerotic interpretation of Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold’s dynamic. I find I highly probable, or possible that in reality the two engaged in some sort of homosexual exploratory activity and could have been some kind of killer-queer-duo in the end.

So far the film has opened on a shot of lights at what is presumably a football field in front of a grey-green overcast sky– as if a tornado is about to form by the color scheme. Then switching to a drunk parent driving, then pulled over by his choppy-haired bleach-blond son John; then trying to make-up with his child by talking about going hunting together over the weekend. Then cut to a photographer named Eli in a park photographing a punk couple. A tag-team football match in a field before what appears to be a more legitimate practice goes on in the background. Eric arrives at school and calls his brother to come pick up their hungover father, as the principal walks up behind him and sends him to the administrative office for tardiness. 

A brunette wearing a beach style necklace then walks into frame, putting on a red lifeguard hoodie; as the camera pans and proceeds to follow him across the campus where he stops to meet a girl, who he’s presumably dating, then walking into class with her after the viewer learns their names: Nathan and Carrie. John receives detention. 

Now to a shot of John crying, a girl kisses him on the cheek. She then goes to a Gay/Straight Alliance club meeting. Cut to the meeting where a never-changing youthful discussion about sexuality occurs. 

For the majority of this section I was under the impression John was an imitation of Eric Harris, based on the hair. However after stopping in the hall for Eli to take a picture of him, walks out the door where he is greeted by two armed students walking into the building, where their names are revealed: Eric and Alex. A bit on the nose. 

Two scenes in a row then with the Dylan Klebold representative, Alex. One of which depicts him going through the kitchen and cafeteria taking notes. When inquired about by a classmate answers in that which can only be known as foreboding by the audience, of she’ll just have to wait and see. 

Okay, I get it now. In terms of the focus on the mundane aspects of a school shooting: the elephant in an otherwise banal room. In that and with its focusing on the different perspectives it also likens in to the old parable about three blind men feeling an elephant, all with their own incorrect opinion and personal truth of feeling the large mammal. Personal, not statistical in its portrayal.

Now focusing on three girls, briefly shown as Nathan passed by them in his long walk scene. I think this is showing who will die side by side with who will be the reason why, and who will be negatively seen in the wake of their deadly actions. An interesting style of simultaneous one-shots. “I wanna live to get mine,” one of them remarks regarding a driver’s license as they walk from the cafeteria into a restroom; wherein they perform bulimic activities in side-by-side stalls. 

The Eric Harris caricature, succinctly named Eric, enters the scene as Alex/Dylan plays Beethoven on his piano. The Elephant in the room here clear as day, in that it’s a deconstruction of the idea music was to blame for Columbine. He comes in through some basement window and proceeds to hop on a bed, open a laptop computer and begin playing a Doom imitation. About half an hour left in the film now. Beethoven ceases and Alex joins Eric on a couch, taking the computer into his own jurisdiction and goes to a website selling guns. Then to a scene at night, storming while the camera slowly gives an overview of the room and two future perpetrators sleep. Waking up for a breakfast of pancakes, then ditching school to await the arrival of guns ordered two scenes prior; waiting in the living room watching a documentary on Nazi Germany until they do. Getting them, the narrator on TV flatly asks, “Peace, did Hitler say?” as they tore into the packaging of their newly purchased automatic weaponry. They then proceed to Alex’s garage where they practice shooting at a pile of accumulated fire wood there. 

Focus changes once again to a face shown prior but now given the name Michelle wearing a pinkish/red sweater half walking half jogging down the hall, passing by Eli as he snaps his pictures of John. She makes her way to the library where she signs in and begins work reshelving volumes. To Dylan once more, this time showering. Eric then joins and one comments, “I never kissed anybody,” and the two proceed to do just that under the running water. Cutting then to both dressed, tying their shoes and going over a map spliced with them setting up explosives in the cafeteria and moments yet to occur in the near future. 

“Most importantly, have fun man,” Alex tells Eric. A slient drive with in a car with a cracked front window as they go to their educational institution; where they encounter John on their way into the campus buildings. Following John then as he runs to warn others…

I stopped notation for the culmination of the event as the two conducted their sociopathic massacre. Eric ranting to the principal about actually listening to struggling, troubled kids, then shooting him numerous times in the back, after letting him run for personal amusement. Alex entering the bathroom with the three girls and killing them. Eventually meeting up with Alex again for a brief interaction with his partner in crime, who then shoots Eric too whilst discussing their kill count. Alex proceeds to the kitchen where he finds and corners Nathan and Carrie in the freezer, listlessly– albeit with a hint of personal bemusement– recites eenie meenie meine moe while waving the automatic rifle between the two, movie cutting back to the overcast grey-green sky where it began as he gets to the end, with no clear indication of who he shot next: just one or both? Himself too? The Elephant in the room.

Researching a bit and I learn that Gus Van Sants presentation of events was heavily inspired– as well as taking its title from– a 1989 BBC short film by Alan Clark, fittingly about murder as well. It depicts numerous, senseless acts of murder where rhyme and reason are stripped away. In a way it’s very Lynchian as is its imitation by Sant in their emphasis on long, uncut scenes following a character: allowing for the viewer to simply take it in and sit with, well: the elephant in the room. 

2.Zero Day

Starting Zero Day, an adaptation of the Columbine Massacre which came out in 2002, a year prior to Elephant. So far the movie has more of a found footage feel to it; seemingly imitating the real home videos created by Eric & Dylan. Opening with almost 1to1 physical embodiments of the class of ‘99 killers and introducing them as Calvin and Andre. In this it shows a birthday party for a five year old Calvin, sitting rather unamused and looking quite uncomfortable, it seems he’s portrayed in what would be today phrased as an ‘autistic’ way. Main introduction to the two however comes in a few minutes after these opening credits where the two and a friend set up their camera in front of their school, where Calvin gives a standard mockery of the whole, “best years of our lives” trope so often repeated by adults in regards to the teenage experience. 

At this point it would seem Calvin has a plan, whether Andre knows and is in on it beyond his scheming is unknown to the viewer. With direct allusion to real statements made by and written in the Diaries of Eric & Dylan, it’s a lot more on the nose about the coming violent event than Elephant; even with something like Alex taking notes in the cafeteria and making a reference only he and audience would understand. 

Footage cuts between dates and old-school teenage debauchery: lighting illegal fireworks at a lake on the 4th of July and using long since expired eggs to throw at a house in the middle of the night on Andre’s birthday; using a newly gifted camera to capture the moment. More redoing of the Columbine home movies; now confirming Andre knows the plan as he explains the plan for posthumous uncovering of their ‘tell-all’ footage. Opening a space in a nearby bank so as to prevent pre-mortem discovery. 

Calvin gets his bottom bracket of braces removed. Mundane spliced into what is generally viewed as insane. 

Going through Andre’s fathers’ gun collection which according to Andre, was used for hunting. He explains that in spite of being out of the room by his dad’s own design when he would go to grab the mobile artillery, he’s known where both safe and key where located since the 5th grade and was merely humoring his parent thereafter. Andre then constructs one of the rifles after sorting through the other guns. 

July turns into August, showing now Calvin exploring a cemetery with a girl named Rachel; who comments that she views Andre as violent and weird– and from what can be gathered the feeling of dislike between the two is quite mutual– having, “a lot of anger” unresolved that makes her uncomfortable. Calvin asks her about how she perceives their dynamic to which she says she views Andre as the more dominant and in charge of the two. She then takes the camera and asks Calvin as to why he films everything with no clear-cut answer given.

Then to a bit where Andre and Calvin are constructing untested pipe bombs, espousing detailed instructions on how to and the efficiency in certain techniques; much pulled directly from the online presence of Eric Harris. Cut to Calvin musing on the difference between mere suicide, which he notes while thousands do and in that he’s no different: what makes his case exceptional is his choice is his, “way of the samurai,” addition to it.

On another date the two discuss Andre’s cousin Chris and using him as an unbeknownst “patsy” to steal guns from for their “Zero Day” plan. Going out with an unsuspecting Chris to practice shooting; footage of which again harkening back to that taken by the real-life perpetrators in Littleton, Colorado. When back at his cousin’s place they inquire to him, in what to most would seem typical youthful morbid curiosity, which gun would be most optimal in use to kill a person, to which Chris responds that any would really do the trick.

Camping with Calvin’s family and a brief moment of joking around with his younger brother.

August becomes early September and Andre recites their plan, explaining why they have no set date except to wait until the temperature outside reaches exactly zero degrees fahrenheit; as it would be announced on the radio as the two wake up one morning. Going over their, “invasion plan,” then with a slide show on an old box computer, meant as layout for their own killing spree and outline for others to imitate. Eric expresses anticipation in a video on his own. Later on in the course of months the two go to a poetry reading at night, where Calvin gets on the stage in a military-style outfit and recites his own piece. Comparing himself to a bullet and the Third Reich, ending the limerick with, “and it’s a wasted life.” Getting offstage they heckle the next act and leave as Andre expresses annoyance and dramatically emphasizes that Calvin could have caused major social and personal repercussions from his reading being so topical.

September suddenly to New Years Eve and clearly nothing came of the reading. Cut then to January 10, where Calvin explains while the temperature had in fact reached zero their plan was forcefully postponed on account of Andre catching a stomach virus. Calvin then explains that while Andre has an ideal of some interschool/interstate spree after their own school is shot up, he at least knows he will be coming back out of the school in a body bag. Back at the bank they discuss leaving a trail to their box of video tapes, talking about the superficial blame which will undoubtedly be attributed to various influences from music to movies, which Calvin asserts as wrong because the idea is their own.

January then cuts to April where the two have a bonfire. Burning their books, video games and movies so as to emphasize that the idea was truly of their own scheming. Calvin reading a kindhearted note Andre saved from a girl in the 8th grade, to his dismay. In burning all their shit they realize now they ‘have to’ act quickly. Then they talk about prom, Andre detailing his disdain of Rachel. Banal teenage drama. Turning then to the topic of who was leader in the coming escapade, lightly mocking the notion. 

In a limo all of a sudden with a person named Josh filming, picking Calvin and Rachel up. Andre not present as he exclaimed a scene prior he wouldn’t stoop so low. Young adults enthusiastic with menial adolescent babble. Then showing Andre, filmed by his dad on the camera he bought his son for his birthday at the beginning of the movie, surprising him at work then riding in the car with him while expressing pride in him as they make a final pizza delivery, heading home after. Back to the limo less around an hour later, post-prom and the party more rowdy than before– likely a bit intoxicated. Calvin has the driver take him to Andre’s to be dropped off.

“We acted alone,” Calvin emphasized once again. An hour after arriving to Andre’s the two talk of how it was all an act of their own volition and even if they had been discovered earlier, would have done it eventually nonetheless. “Could you blame them for not noticing?” whilst pinning the responsibility on the world around them for molding them into doing the soon to commence shooting; relating it to a duel like in the old days, a way to squash beef. Relating themselves as deities in human form for their ability to choose life and death of their classmates, and their whole point in the act was, “respect and love for fellow man,” acknowledging the seeming contradiction in their perpetration and doing away with it being to teach people to value life. They then finally go back to Chris’ house to steal the weaponry, only slightly complicated by a party across the street; leaving the clueless cousin a note they had merely borrowed the guns to use in a home movie.

Turn to May first, the morning after, and they park in the school lot preparing their firearms. Expressing nervousness and debating who gets/wants what gun, and how instrumental each other were to the act. They then exit the vehicle, leaving the camera rolling on the dashboard as they make their way into the school.

From there it shows black and white security camera footage as 911 calls are overlayed over the chaos unfolding. Throughout the bloody ordeal the operator on a phone left on attempts to make herself audible to Andre, whose name she learned from someone yelling it, repeatedly attempting to reason to unhearing ears. Describing what she heard in the room– a library– from the landline audio until the two simultaneously blow their brains out. The film then cuts to 9 days after their attack, with some other adolescents sneaking onto the campus grounds where crosses had been erected to the dead youth, including Calvin and Andre. Already vandalized, the troupe proceeds to light them on fire, drive away and the movie ends.

3. Collected Considerations

I was discussing with a friend once regarding the epidemic of school shootings, stating I personally doubt such events would cease anytime soon– more likely it is that they will evolve into another form. The school shooter, as Calvin noted and Shane Bugbee has explained to me evolved out of strings of suicides which would start with one kid, then run through a school and then infect another nearby. Such base never yet going away either, given the many perpetrators in such events in the end of their murderous moment take themselves out. 

Both films explore the mundane aspect of the murders, even with the central reference point of Columbine, which in of itself is banal. As a result of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold it’s an eyesore, whereas had the events of April 20, 1999 not occurred, it would be passed by like any other educational institution is on the road. 

In a bit of irony to it all, like Calvin and Andre relating themselves to deities and Eric Harris’ shirt on the day of the massacre reading, “Natural Selection,” none of it would seem so. Harkoning back to the 1989 inspiration for the 2003 Elephant adaptation, what’s presented is senseless and without meaning beyond likenability to the three blind men feeling around. None of it is done over food, shelter or any resources beyond a vague motif of ‘revenge’. Certainly, other species such as Dolphins engage in the activity of killing for sport. The fittest blowing their brains out with their victims; only achieving their goal posthumously in getting on the cover of Time magazine. Another case to be gawked at, grappled with and grabbed onto with mortal fascination and/or imitation.

A contrasting view to the violence depicted in these films, and mundane surrounding them all, I think of Gregg Araki’s Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy. Namely, the second installment The Doom Generation. Portraying in this movie a wild ride of a night three adolescents share, going through a ringer of violence and bisexual exploration, which culminates in Jamie Duval’s character having his penis chopped off by a gang of Neo Nazis, dying from shock and blood loss as the leader of the group proceeds to rape Rose McGowan’s character… They then in turn get killed and Rose escapes outside with the other still-alive young adult, driving off as if nothing ever happened. She lights a cigarette, a minor but constant dissociative self-medication throughout the movie, beginning and ending with said action so simple and everyday. The difference in nihilistic violence portrayed by Araki in his films is that while senseless, is often enacted upon the youth by older forces; while in Zero Day, Elephant and Columbine the gore is caused by the youth brutalizing the youth. 

The full answer however, is there is none as I told my friend once. It’s, as Gus Van Sant and his predecessor implored: an elephant in the mundane malaise.

Kether & Xeper— Comparative Analysis

I am currently reading this book The Search For Abraxas by Stephen Skinner & Nevill Drury and thinking, Kether sounds like that Temple of Set thing, Xeper. So in a comparison between the two while the former is Qabalah and the latter based on Egyptian mythology they are both, in conceptualization, negating of blind faith for the goal of enlightenment. 

In that it differs as Xeper (meaning to become; per Aquino's inversion) is isolate and crystallizing of the self apart from an "All" whilst Kether (meaning the crown) would be reintigration and similar to Hinduism with the self disintigrating into said "All". Historically Xeper was representative of Kehpri, or the scarab beetle, indicating a god of light and order until 1975 when the high ranking military official and occultist split with/was kicked out of the Church of Satan due to ideological and libido conflicts, mashed the idea together with Set—a god of chaos, storms and foreign lands; or as Aquino claimed, the Supreme Deity who bestowed in homosapiens with a mandate in and of an inverted archetype of Xeper, or, "isolate intelligence". 

Kether in the Qabalah meaning, "the crown": an asexual hermaphroditic androgyne which in certain variations of the Tree of Life sits at its top. From Kether supposedly emerges Chokmah (Mercy, Male, and Force) and Binah (finite time, Severity and Female) archetypes, or forces in the universe. Kether being an Equilibrium between the two and originator of them simultaneously. "Thus the principle of balance of opposites by a reconciling factor  between Force (Chokmah) and Form (Binah), just as science sees the Universe as a balance between energy and matter," detailed Skinner and Drury in their aforementioned book. 

Exit Wound Review

Marilyn Manson performing at the Van Buren in Phoenix, AZ. 9/28/2025. Photo by me.

New Zealand, the lucky bastards in the future time zone position of the Earth's rotation making it a day ahead of those in the Western hemisphere; got a new Marilyn Manson track off the upcoming One Assassination Under God Chapter 2 album. Presumably, tomorrow where for us over here will get the track as well. Nonetheless what I heard from the track entitled Exit Wound is a wonderful tune, far more groovy than anything off of Chapter 1, which includes its seeming predecessor Sacreligious where it takes to a similar sound as the delivery of the line, "and all of your ghosts are blind." With that it's a continuation of what some have deemed as Eat Me Drink Me fully realized, or in my personal opinion after listening to the gracious international uploaders sharing the track, is structurally reminiscent of the collaboration with Emigrate on the song Hypothetical mixed with the aforementioned predecessor atop an outtake from The Golden Age of Grotesque era. Continuing with the hollow vocal effects which bring to mind those heard on the title track of Mechanical Animals, with added in screams and growling similar to Born Villain songs or the b-side song Front Toward Enemy, which appears to be listed now on Chapter 2 as the third on its list. Altogether continuing with the atmosphere solidified on the prior chapter's title track and expanding into this grand-narrative of One Assassin-Nation Under God as Manson deep-diver Forever Dirt explored in a reaction to that song. Lyrically sharp as ever with lines like, "Ballerina bayonets, slice us up with pirouettes/ Mouth is shut on hand grenade," and, "Turn off the spotlight, whose god will you be?/ Will they want you if your hands are clean?/ Can't stop the bleeding, I'm not healing soon/ You shot the world, I am the exit wound..." it's far more aggressive than the majority of releases on Chapter 1, continuing in the harshness of Front Toward Enemy, but with more of a groove to it. All that to say it's an excellent example of Manson's musical accumulation.

Notions of Nostalgia

I wonder if in 10-20 years there will be some nostalgia felt towards advertisements of today. Watching anything involves ads— even though the whole idea of streaming and Netflix was to get away from the cable bullshit. Simultaneously however, as seen with contemporary (meaning current day) imitation of 1950s-80s television advertising and special segments created for The Boys— Soldier Boy singing Blondie, Bombsight selling methamphetamine weight loss pills or partnerships with Liquid Death with The Deep and VP Ashley Barrett for the current day which add to its 'irreverent parody' while also encapsulating an intriguing cultural tendency longing for 'the good old days'.

From the hilarity of Big Bill Hell's Cars to craze about Phil Swift from Flex Tape it seems as if advertising is more than just passing propaganda. People collect old fliers and keep new ones; remember catchy or absurd slogans— "wheeeereee's the beef!?"— in a seemingly sonderful state of longing. 2000s fruitigo aero presented a slick high-tech vision of where technology was heading while the Fallout game franchise capitalised tremendously on marketing even a post-apocalyptic radiated wasteland as an attractive daydream with its embedded retrofuturism...

Orange Room

The room had an orange hue from the center lamp light. A warm, inviting embrace to contrast the pale fluorescent ones lining the street outside, giving the feel of a cold morgue to vagrants wandering around after dusk fell into night. Among the vagrants was a cat, curious as ever, who saw the light while perched on the roof of the house across the street.

Jumping down in two hops, first onto a trash bin and then onto the ground the cat then made its way from one side of the road to the other. Meandering around the invitational glow in an attempt to find a point of entree. Leaping up onto the wall, and climbing the house's windowsills then to a smaller open attic window.

Making its way down through the house to the light the cat heard scuffling and mumbling as it approached the shining source. Suddenly halting, it began to morph. Paws became hands and the tail retreated into an arched spine as the feline contorted into a what resembled a hominid silhouette. Its fingers and limbs continued to elongate, nails sharp and ligatures tall and thin to the bone with an astonishing height. Continuing then to the room, sticking to the shadows it entered and found an elderly couple asleep on the couch, lamp left on as the TV played reruns of 1950s westerns on low volume. Inching forward the former cat made its way to the black and white screen.

"What in the sam-hill," a gravelly old voice spoke quietly behind it as a sharp and audible click was occurred. The creature turned around quickly to an awakened old gentlemen who had felt it brush his leg on the way to the TV set. But, before he could pull the trigger the creature whipped back to the screen and leaped into it like a diver at a lake. Rippling waves across the screen then turning into a whirlpool behind it, then bleeding out in waves across the atoms of the room catching the old man and his now awakened and terrified wife in their clutter pulling them in along with the creature. Then, as if nothing had ever happened, the television returned to its scheduled program and room stilled, without a trace of any oddity.

A week later the concerned daughter of the couple stopped by. Having not heard from either parent in a week and with her mother's increasing dementia was concerned as to what she might find. Opening the door she was greeted to more stress as the house was completely silent. Walking into the living room, she saw the orange lamp flickering in and out, needing a new bulb as the television buzzed with static and universal background radiation. Alarmed the daughter began across the floor to the coffee table where the lamp sat near the couch. Grabbing the landline phone sitting there atop a stack of half-finished sudoku books and beginning to dial emergency services, the device began to melt in her hand. The liquidated phone coated her hand and expanded, growing to cover her entire body as the contents it coated within began to deflate.

Receding finally, all that was left was a cat who then wandered back outside.

Surgical Dreamy

Somber, solvent nostalgia

Sonderful cannon-fodder

Liminal shadow silhouette

suspended in memory

Obscure long-lost melody

Surgical dreamy,

Quaainterlude inemnity

Coffee Crusade

Things can change so much only to stay the same— tomorrow is different but it’s still the same— as I stand here waiting for the 62 bus here on the corner stop across the street from a gas station. I’m gonna grab some coffee from the Barnes & Nobles cafe, as I have a gift card with a $33 remaining balance. Welcome To Paradise plays in my ears; an accurate melody, as always with Green Day, and one which I feel I’ve lived over and over now in my own way.

“It makes me wonder why I’m still here

 For some strange reason it’s now feeling like my home

 And I’m never gonna go”

But as also sung by Billie Joe on the song Jesus Of Suburbia quite poignantly that, “home is where the heart is but what a shame cause everyone’s heart doesn’t beat the same…”

On the bus now. It seems less rickety than before I left two months ago. Still free though, thankfully. I think I just saw Scott, a homeless acquaintance I used to get stoned with on breaks while working at Circle K. Looks like he had a shower recently…

Analyzing The Art Of Peace & Lex Talionis

About halfway through my reading of the teachings of the founder of Aikido I realized that the words of wisdom noted down as being quite proto-Crowleyan. Where this sense is then encapsulated is in the statement that, “The way of a warrior is based on the humanity, love, and sincerity; The heart of merital valor is the bravery, wisdom, love and friendship. Emphasis on the physical aspects of warrior is feudal, for the power of the body is always limited,” which then is echoed in the Thelemic dictum of, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under Will.”

Then said exploring the idea of brute strength alone as flimsy and farcical as body ages and metabolism change is capabilities; With the added notion that, ‘there’s always a bigger fish.’

From there becomes able to be interpreted via a Satanic framework. Noting the 11th rule of the Earth, which advises: “When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask them to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him,” and giving him outline on how to do so without solar systemically ruining one’s own life simultaneously— “Warriorship is none other than the vitality that sustained all life.”

In essence: tooth and claw is not all which exists…

With that, it has been said that 'an eye for an eye makes the world blind', but this is very much false- inherently false. You have two eyes, if you are stupid enough to lose both, then clearly you're the idiot who fucked around and found out... twice, quite obviously not learning from the first time that actions have consequences.

As Newton said: "every action has an equal and opposite reaction." It's simple cause and effect- punishment fits the crime.

Self-preservation is the highest law and if you cannot preserve your eyes- a vital organ of your body- what use are you to yourself as an individual? Demonstrating this is the founder of the philosophical system of Objectivism based on rational self-interest, Ayn Rand put it well when she said, "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his absolute."

Now, how reasonable are you if you have by your own actions lost both your eyes? How noble are you in productive achievement if you have faced such an example of lex talionis? How heroic and happy are you, having been responsible for the loss of a vital sense? Clearly the reasonable answer to all these is very little.

As Lucius Cornelius Sulla put it: "No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wrong me, whom I have not repaid in full."

Lex Talionis can go either way, in your favor or your detriment. It depends on who you surround yourself with and how you interact with them and others in the world. Do unto others as they do unto you. Of course, this doesn't mean you should go out and be a pretentiously solipsistic prick, going around administering judgement on anyone who should slightly wrong you. Some people are simply psychic vampires who aren't worth any of your time. However you also shouldn't let anyone walk over you. 

Universal Tortoise

 There is a regular raven in the neighborhood, and is seen only preceding a black outdoor pet cat. The connection between the animals is none, except turning to stone when for a brief moment the sun flickered. Baffling the surviving scientists of the non-rock inhabitants of the Earth’s population; learning that reversal is impossible it would seem. Even chipping at the new statues stone bodies results in the release of an acidic blue liquid— which when tested seems to be a sort of semen high in pH content— which eats away rapidly at organic material. 

Some months later a meteorite with a core of antimatter crashes and it is learned by touching a bit to one of the sun’s statues, that it would reverse the freeze… 

It’s at the precipice of reviving each person until the core was suddenly dropped and everything went to instant white to nothing but a few million beings made of pure antimatter where a planet once spun in orbit. They drifted through the solar system until eventually where Pluto sits at its cold distance. Landing, the people melted into the planetoid, merging with it as it hatched like an egg into a tortoise. 

After some millennia of roaming around the cosmos the tortoise snacks on an underripe brown dwarf; getting ill and then vomiting out a concentrated beam of unimaginably hot intergalactic material. This then ripped the tortoise in half as it expanded in all directions, hitting the borders of the universe causing the structure to buckle then swiftly collapse like a tape measuring tool snapping back into unimaginably cramped singularity: the glass eye of a fox. 

The Love Witch (2016) Analysis w/ Shane Bugbee (orig. 3.27.2026)

Claudia: It's recording.

Shane: Or do you want me to talk?

Claudia: Yeah, that was an interesting take on it.

Shane: What was?

Claudia: That it's basically what you've been saying.

Shane: Oh, it definitely felt like that. It felt like, "Wow, this is what I've been saying." Like how LaVey was a mama's boy—there's a lot of that kind of stuff going on in Satanism. At least, let's put it this way, that may be where the Satanic Temple shines. They have politically active, politically correct gals in the group. Maybe that's where the men—I bet you, like the Church of Satan, the women are very predatory. I'm going to bet, if I understood the Satanic Temple crowd enough, the men are the predatory ones. I'm going to bet you that's how it is.

And that's an interesting thought. I don't really hang out with Satanic Temple people. In fact, I don't hang out with anyone younger than the Church of Satan crowd anymore; I did that for a few years in my life. It was just because LaVey touched me. I talk about it a lot, or people ask me about it a lot. LaVey understood that, though.

I thought about him watching it and I felt like I could see LaVey in here laughing too. I started laughing at parts that no one else was laughing at. Some of it was obviously funny, and I laughed at those parts too, but I continued to laugh because it was just like a documentary of my life, and everyone's life I know that's into Satanism.

Just think about any of the heavy hitters in Satanism you know—anyone you're thinking about, anyone that knew Anton LaVey. Know this: they are having the same kind of life. They are with a very predatory woman who won them over with her sexual prowess, and they are under control. They are under that person's thumb. They cannot do anything without that person's permission; that's just the way it is.

But I grew up in Chicago—my nationality is a Chicagoan—but some of my family is Italian, so I got to see inside that culture. Italian tough guys are not really tough guys; it's their wife. They go in the house, and their wife is a predatory woman. It's just like that movie, where she'll get on him: "That guy is calling you, he's treating you like a bitch, you got to go fuck him up!" That's the woman inside the house. Then the guy comes out full of rage and kills someone because he was called a mama's boy or called names by his partner. It's like, holy shit.

But I thought it might be recent too because of some of the raps, like "marriage is bondage," which I've said. If this movie's only 10 years old, I'm not the first person to say that, but I definitely am the first in Satanism. There are not too many people in Satanism that admit to flaws and weaknesses—they're the alien elite, after all.

Claudia: Whatever that means.

Shane: Yeah, I'm the alien, I'm the fucking spaceship. I don't know what I'm saying, I'm like Kanye. I just thought it sounded cool.

Claudia: I thought it had a good visual aesthetic. I thought that was cool.

Shane: Oh, I loved it because it was campy and horrible. But I will tell you, whoever wrote that knows what they're talking about. This is what I'm saying. Wherever they read this stuff, it felt like we were in a time machine back in the day of LaVey. I would have loved to have seen this with Carla, because Carla has all these big ideas about doing shit with the Satanic Witch stuff. But that's the problem with the world: everyone's got big fucking ideas, and no one can make them happen. And the people who can make them happen are funded and killed. I know, I'm one of them. Yeah, so what else about that movie? Are we going to smoke that joint?

Claudia: Sure.

Shane: What the fuck, I thought we were going to smoke on the way in there, but I didn't need any, did I?

Claudia: No, I thought we were...

Shane: We were late, we were at the wrong movie theater. It was like retro—and don't tell me retrograde doesn't happen, because all these weird things happen. I'm never late to a movie, and if I am, it's probably because of a retrograde if I look at the calendar. It's a people watch. We're in Logan Square at the Logan Theater.

Claudia: I guess the first half hour wasn't that important.

Shane: Well, I figured it wasn't, based on the name of the movie: The Love Witch. I thought it sounded like a porn. And you know what? I thought about the old days of porn and how it was filmed with that beautiful aesthetic and those kinds of actors. They would act just like that. Old porn wasn't hard or what people would call misogynistic; the old days of porn were really campy and cool like that. So I say bring that back, or it should have had porn in it. I mean, porn is a little crude, but you can do things like finger-fucking to make it more graphic. I would have been more graphic.

Claudia: You already did that though.

Shane: What?

Claudia: You already did that though.

Shane: That's true, I'm Satan. I loved the movie. I went into it thinking, "Oh my God, what if this thing triggers me because of my life?" I'm not getting involved with any more witches, because I go to a therapist and a psychiatrist who tell me better. They talk me down. Just them teaching me boundaries and stuff like that has helped out a lot. Now I catch it and I'm like, "Oh Jesus Christ, another fucking witch." Witches.

Claudia: Well, it's better than that other one.

Shane: Which one is the other one?

Claudia: That four-hour castration movie.

Shane: Oh, the one you came out laughing so hard from. I don't know what I would tell you now that I'm smoking this weed, Jesus Christ, but I will tell you there's a flaw in that movie. They would say black witches are like the love witch. Satanists are pretty diverse, so I see that thread in there, but there's also a very upper-scale, healthy side. They've had generations of education and healthcare, they know what mental healthcare is, they go to counselors, and they deal with life a little differently than some of the more radical Satanists.

There are plenty of people who consider their mind the most important thing, not their genitalia. We are not only a carnal animal beast, but we're an intellectual breed. That turns people on. I'll tell you this, here's what I thought: oh boy, I've dated plenty of sad girls. That's what a witch is in the context of this movie—it's a sad girl. It makes me sad that someone would find power in their genitalia, because that's a very limited part of someone. It's very fun, and I get how manipulated you can be using it, but...

Claudia: I think the detective guy kind of spoke to that end, too, because he mentioned borderline personality disorder, or almost being on that spectrum. And that's really on the head, because I've noticed that's pretty rampant within Satanist groups, at least online.

Shane: You mean amongst women or amongst Satanists in general?

Claudia: In general.

Shane: Okay, so there's one person that's more aggressive. Weird, okay, got you. Yeah, thanks, I would agree. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think when people don't treat their problems, that is the bad thing, especially when they have access to healthcare. I get it, I've had plenty of problems. I didn't want to be there, thinking, "Oh, this is a fucking Satanist movie, I don't need to be here." The last place I want to be is a Satanist movie, because people will know me there. So I looked and said, "Let's go."

Claudia: Yeah. I wonder who made it, if they were Satanic.

Shane: You were absolutely...

Claudia: ...correct to guess that it was The Love Witch. It was.

Shane: It was worth it. 

End of Analysis.