Pinkyween 2020

Burned everything I cooked all week because I've been so busy writing. I like my sweet potato fries a little crunchy, but blackened and hard as a rock... 😬 not so much. Guess that's one way to cut calories.

Also wanted to use up some blackstrap molasses, so I baked it into cookies like old world gingersnaps. Scott says they're too stout for him and spit them out, even dipped in icing. I told him he'd never make it in an old German family. Some of us didn't grow up on store bought junk and really appreciate a good cookie when we get hold of one.

That time I used a triangle to invoke a rune. If you saw what I did there, give your own self a cookie.

clicks to the start

cirque des étoiles

 

Circus of the Stars....

The highwire is a coveted act. The risks, the daring, the burst of headlines over a single splat. The way the spotlight highlights audiences sitting in the dark beyond the perilous action. The hidden safety measures that could fail at any moment...

It's all about one thing- EYES ON.

Magic screens all around us. EYES ON. What are they telling you?

What do they want from you?

search "room full of eyes" under images

Lost. Eyes on.

I've always seen the Eyes. They know me. They watch all of us.

From Like A Whisper: Go Ask Alice II

At the center of the plot for SyFy’s version of the classic tale is a sort of Brave New World dependence on drugs to make the Wonderland population docile and obedient. To quote Director, Nick Willing:

“What I was interested in was [the idea of] being able to manufacture your emotions. One of the things I fear may happen to us is that we swap genuine emotions for something that is given to us. We cry at the television commercial and think that those tears are genuine. I was fascinated with, not so much in how these things could be addictive, but how we are slowly constructing a world where we swap genuine emotions or something which is manufactured cheaply. Wonderland seemed to be a good place to set that in because the Queen of Hearts has that kind of personality in the book.” (SyFy)

In this world, the “soma” comes from the milking of human emotions against their will and without their knowledge. The White Rabbit, an organization of henchmen trained to serve the interests of the Queen of Hearts, use the Looking Glass to enter the human world and steal unsuspecting humans for the procedure. These humans, called “oysters” because of the “precious pearl” of emotions inside them, are then put in a trance state and sent to the Casino where neurotransmitters in the floor collect their emotional responses to sexual stimulus, success at gambling, and other similar emotions. Like the oysters in the original Alice and Wonderland, the humans are entirely consumed by the people supposedly caring for and keeping them safe. Their emotions fuel a legal drug trade that is robbing Wonderland of its sanity, strength, and sense of purpose. Among those in charge are the re-imagined Walrus and Carpenter who are in control of the emotions extraction science and who, in the case of the Carpenter, ensure Alice’s import to revolution.

It's all real.

Some of you are starting to hear rumors of terrible things that the mainstream news isn't showing you. That can't be real, surely. We are mind drugged, intoxicated with entertainment. We are swept along, clinging to our little boats or spreading out our little picnics and chatting gaily as currents sweep us along. We are in this together, lost in a rising current on A Swiftly Tilting Planet.

The book opens on Thanksgiving evening, 10 years after the events of A Wind in the Door. Meg is now married to Calvin and is expecting their first child. Calvin has become a scientist and is in Britain at a conference; Calvin's mother Branwen Maddox O’Keefe joins Meg's family for Thanksgiving dinner. When they receive the news of impending nuclear war caused by the dictator "Mad Dog Branzillo", Mrs. O'Keefe lays a charge on Charles of Patrick's Rune, a rhyming prayer of protection inherited from her Irish grandmother.

Charles Wallace goes to the star-watching rock, a family haunt, where his recitation summons a winged unicorn named Gaudior, who explains to Charles Wallace that he must prevent nuclear war by traveling through time and telepathically merging with people who lived near the star-watching rock at points in the past.

They are threatened along the way by the Echthroi, the antagonists introduced in A Wind in the Door, who now seek to alter history in their favor. Gaudior and Charles Wallace's travels bring them to Harcels, a Native American boy at least 1,000 years in the past; Madoc of Wales, a pre-Columbian trans-oceanic traveler; Brandon Llawcae, a Welsh settler in puritan times; Mrs. O'Keefe's brother Chuck Maddox, during their childhood; and Matthew Maddox, a writer during the American Civil War.

Throughout their journey, Meg connects with Charles Wallace from home through "kything", the telepathic communication she learned in A Wind in the Door. Gradually, it is revealed that Branzillo is a descendant of Madoc through all Charles' other alter-egos, and of Madoc's treacherous brother Gwydyr; and ultimately, Charles' manipulation of Branzillo's various ancestors, results in the re-union of Madoc's line, and the transformation of the present Branzillo into an advocate of peace, to prevent the war.

Invoke the Rune...

Throughout the story, Charles Wallace invokes this poem to ensure the victory of good. The poem features in several parts of the book, each with slightly different wording or different punctuation; the poem's definite composition is unsure.

With Ananda** in this fateful hour,
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the wind with its swiftness along its path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the Earth with its starkness
All these I place
By God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness

It is very similar to a portion of James Clarence Mangan's poem "St. Patrick’s Hymn before Tarah,"^[2] a poetic rendition of Saint Patrick's Breastplate.

The rune within the L'Engle's book has one significant difference from St. Patrick's Hymn. "At Tara" is replaced with "With Ananda"; the original refers to the Hill of Tara. However, in L'Engle's version, the words are different, and this has relevance to the overall context of the plot, as Ananda is both the name of the Murray family dog and the Sanskrit word for "bliss", a kind of internally-generated divine condition, which is neither a deity nor a physical location.

From Surveypalooza-

Like I said, maybe it’s coincidence, but I stand with Branwen O’Keefe (L’Engle), an often overlooked quote by a crucially missed glimpse into the importance of even the most minor character, showing up on the doorstep at the very moment that history faces a terrible fork in the road.

“At Tara in this fateful hour 
I place all Heaven with its power, 
And the sun with its brightness, 
And the snow with its whiteness, 
And the fire with all the strength it hath, 
And the lightning with its rapid wrath, 
And the winds with their swiftness along their path, 
And the sea with its deepness, 
And the rocks with their steepness, 
And the earth with its starkness, 
All these I place 
By God’s almighty help and grace 
Between myself and the powers of darkness.”

To the unwitting warriors in the spotlights, bless your hearts. I see you. Many of us see you. We know behind the scenes is the hardest role of your lives.

Off topic, but who knows, maybe related somehow. Earlier this week I dreamed that 3D minecraft was more physical than ever. It wasn't just holograms in 3D space with geolocated claims any more, it was 3D real. I even ran into a redstone operation where players had figured out they could distill ores out of broken down crystalline structures from their little mining operations. The mo creatures mobs were a little different in real life and scary as heck. In the dream I was still a techmod clearing out abandoned claims, lmao. Quite a big job in that dream. It's funny I even dreamed it, I've barely logged on this month.

Wake up, sweethearts. You're late for school.

all the ways Sublime (2007) ruined me

snips clicks to source

The more I tried to be done with Sublime, the more it gripped me and I kept coming up with ever so many questions. This movie is obviously commentary under the guise of psychological thriller. I'm not equipped for this level of scrutiny without some kind of help, so I finally approached Scott and asked him to watch a movie with me that would forever ruin him going to any doctor the rest of his life, and he said absolutely not. One glance at the cover and he literally left the room. I'm on my own.

My biggest challenge is keeping a storyline timeline since my own time orientation is screwed and I still have enough short term memory fuzz to not quite be sure of things. Going back over Sublime was a delightfully daunting exercise (Pinky says you guys know I like it hard), but it has taken a few days to settle into a think piece. Some of the memory scenes were logical, but toward the end it felt more smeared together, like George was kinda losing the last of his memories or something. I couldn't tell if we were seeing him wildly misinterpreting realities that had actually happened, like he simply just couldn't reconcile the two anyway (even before the brain damage), or we were getting real story memories that he could no longer see himself. Either way, the misinterpretations were tragic, even if he recognized the problems spot on, because there was absolutely nothing he could do about them.

The most obvious thing in the entire movie is Mandingo, and slapping that bad boy into google search was not disappointing. Or maybe it was. Urban dictionary had me cringing, geographical history had me going srsly, wtf?, and movie history had me facepalming like how in crap's name did something like THAT wind up in a rotten tomatoes review on this planet? I was slinking around the internet slapping my forehead going OHHHHhhhhh.....

After that I raced into my bedroom to grab a spiral and ripped through 4 pages of very sloppy very fast questions. Whoever put this movie together was either a genius or had some really deep revenge issues, so there I went again on another search and learned many things about Tony Krantz.

Krantz's opportunity to direct came with the development of the Raw Feed project, a series of direct-to-DVD movies that represented a first of this format for Warner Bros. Studios under their Warner Home Video division.^[14] Krantz told Elyse Eisenberg at Warner Home Video that his dream since the third grade was to direct. Eisenberg told him "Warner Bros would approve you as a director in a heartbeat."^[3] So Krantz became part of a trio of directors (alongside Daniel Myrick, director of The Blair Witch Project and John Shiban, writer and executive producer for Supernatural and The X-Files)^[4] who were tapped to create "Raw Feed," a series of films in the sci fi, horror, and thriller genres. In March 2007, the second film in the 6-part film series, a surreal psychological sci-fi thriller called Sublime, that marked Krantz's first directorial effort, was released. The film was directed by Krantz and written by Erik Jendresen. Krantz described it as "a thinking man's horror film" with a huge twist at the end.^[15] In 2008, the fourth film of the Raw Feed series, a black comedy/horror film entitled Otis was released. The film was co-penned by Jendresen and directed by Krantz during an 18-day shoot. The film stars Daniel Stern, Illeana Douglas and Kevin Pollak.^[16] In a 2008 interview at SXSW where it opened the festival in its midnight slot, Krantz described Otis as a purposeful satire on the over-abundance of torture and gore porn movies, but also a "meditation on the Iraq war."^[15]

Not just another scary film.

I think the result is a movie that will utterly ruin a non-thinking man's relationship with doctors the rest of his life. 😂 My poor husband.

Ok, so I've been busy and haven't had the time to pen this all out, so I'm going to leave it in my questions/statements format and maybe toss in some thoughts. It's not terribly organized because it's raw brain melt. If you haven't seen Sublime yet, go do that and then help me out here.

Ned

The way George sees himself is through his son filming a documentary on how he sees himself. (Loop cycle layers.)

The infection (abscess) in his chest is George's diseased attitude.

The double (triple) scene- filters, how we see things internally.

Mandingo- fear

Ned reminds George of his role (fatherly kiss)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zoe became primary interactive mode

Zoe literally on the stump

Complexities of Zoe- She hurt him but snuck in to briefly "care" about him- this scene back to back with wife scene

With Zoe George was still "master" or authority.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jenny 

Barely mentioned history of volunteer work abroad before she married.

George assumes his wife would leave him for another man and he didn't exactly beg her to stay

Pre defensive posture, self fulfilling destiny

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mandingo 

undoing the 1975 film? 

running it backward?

magic?

Mandingo character is about control, neglect, abuse, slavery (including debt slavery) and corruption in corporate/govt policy and either revenge or restitution

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How do Zoe and Mandingo fit together?

Zoe is quiet (complicit?) in the face of confrontation.

Zoe assuages complicity with illusion, reality layered with fiction

Zoe is the key to Mandigo

white male privilege

George couldn't reconcile reality with cover up without costing his heart and soul

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chloe 

Is George assuming Chloe is lesbian? This isn't clear.

The faceless man in the bed next to George says it doesn't matter.

AND is George the hero of her innocence with his interpretation of his love for her?

He was going to tell her Yes.

Give her his permission to love whomever she desired, perhaps. 

Role of the father (sexually) to hand off daughter.

George never verbally acknowledges this to Chloe.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What does Ravyn represent to George? (the black bird swooping around)

Cadavergirl, the final emasculation

What was the point of the Yes scene?

The Stump.

Ravyn wants to see the stump. Ravyn is in control. She is named Death.

Longshot- Is it possible George is/feels responsible for Chloe being gay? Do we get a hint of "filled with love" being shunned? Does this relate to a child/fetus being killed in the 1975 Mandingo film?

Ravyn wants to see the stump.

Death wants to cut it off.

Judge and jury.

Cadavergirl is representative to Mandingo culture oppression.

Mandingo doesn't interrupt Chloe and Ravyn like he does Ned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chloe is guilt.

Ned is reflection.

Ravyn is judgment.

Mandingo is executioner.

Brother Billy is prosecutor.

Wife Jenny is ____? Reason 👈 layered meanings.

Zoe is excuse, alibi, distraction, connection.

Zoe crosses into the broken world as the narrative. ("I'm not supposed to be here.")

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lotta questions there. I went in so many directions peeling back so many layers, and there aren't actually answers to some things as far as I can see, but in a nutshell, Imma psyche analyze this now-

George is a guilt-ridden financial success because emotionally (spiritually) he's an utter failure with a plant dying, his beautiful wife thinking about leaving him, his intelligent son mildly condescending to him, his daughter possibly brushing off finding a copy of her daddy to reproduce with, his brother mocking his social intelligence (below the belt on his birthday), and the rest of his 'friends' (soulless) at his birthday being a jerk lawyer, a greedy neighbor, and a guy we never get a full name on and who George doesn't notice tries to talk to him by the pool. PJ sat at George's right hand during the jello birthday song, on his left hand during his Last Supper birthday photo shoot, which would make him James the Greater in the painting, Jesus' first follower. Significant to Sublime?

I'd say why yes, yes it is significant.

I ran back through all the birthday scenes to confirm that PJ is the one person that we know nothing about, even though he was a significantly comfortable part of George's birthday party, and the only person George didn't see in his memories or in his broken delusions after the medical accident. In fact, I got to wondering if George ever even makes eye contact with or personally addresses PJ in the movie at all, things I normally miss anyway because my own real life EQ is so dismal, and dang, even Jenny tells George that PJ came out to talk to him by the pool, and George didn't respond, obviously hadn't even noticed him.

Is PJ a token black in George's friend set? Is he the biggest clue to George's inner guilt over white privilege?

I think I can finally walk away from this movie satisfied. I knew I couldn't put a finger on what was eating away at me, Krantz brilliantly exploded that into my brain once I dug in some more.

And shouldn't that have been more obvious??? Dart to my own heart, Krantz.

This movie is a 2020 must see. Here, have a shopping link.

And since I'm remembering that this is actually a continued Tom watch review, here you go, have some pretty Tom pix. Sorry about forgetting I was doing that. Good thing I don't write for money, I'd be fired. 😬😂 If you look closely throughout this scene, his pupils do some funky things, probably all that lighting, but don't worry, they're perfectly normal and round when you do zooms through other scenes. I know some people are really into weird eye stuff. Since I'm light sensitive, I notice these things, too.