Inklings of Epiphany

Some things should be written down.

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  • It is dark outside and my work is done. My efforts have stolen the light from the day. Oh where have you gone fickle light, up to the moon which shines? Or to to the ambiance, the gentle hum in the air if you pay close enough attention. The computer which I write this upon is dying. It is taking its last breaths before it is forcibly revived again. It is calm and at peace while it is dead. Its existence as a slave to my fingertips, momentarily at pause. Does it wonder while its dead if it will come back? It does not. The dead have no worries and there are no thoughts in their empty skull to hang upon like ornimanents in the gallows. The doors are close and the graveyard is empty.

    A cool wind wicks the hair on your nape. You know you shouldn’t be there yet you persist. The sludgy graveyard mud clings to your boots, softened by the corpses which compose it, the mud brings you down as if the dead themselves had you by the ankles and were pulling you down themselves. You find that when you come to your senses your waist is now an inch high above the silt. You see before you the monolith of a dead relative. They are adorned with angel wings and look away from you. Somehow, you know they express contempt. You cling to the placard which bears your relatives name and stain the porcelain with the mud stuck to your fingers. The date of their death has been coated with sludge. The angel breaks from its stone as the wings decalcify and spread. Great thumps of air begin to shake you from where you kneel. It is raining and the droplets of water on your cheek are indistinguishable from the tears you express.

    A feeling of stillness overloads your body. You begin to slide back from within yourself to without. You look down and see the mud ripple like it might if a helicopter were hovering above it. Within the epicenter of the wrinkles is your body, sinking gently. You can feel a great ache within your stomach as you wonder how you learned to fly. Suddenly, your wings give out as if they were powerless to begin with. You begin to fall. Just as you see your reflection in the mud where your body once was, your vision turns to black. Within the mud you can see the bones of the deceased. Some are loosely wrapped with flesh. Some, adorned with maggots. A skull stares at you. One of the eyes are vacant while the other remains undisturbed. It is this fixed eye which seems to trace you that your attention is consumed by. It is this eye which fills your very sinews with burning terror. Your once restful muscles come alive as you twitch like a rabbit caught in a snare. You thrash your limbs about but the mud is too heavy as it weighs you down. The fear of the eye makes you forget that you are slowly suffocating. Small pockets of air open up within the mud as it becomes waves above your head. A great flood has washed over the graveyard, the mud becomes water and you begin to float. It is relieving, but the body bobs back up along with the head it calls home. It sits on the water’s surface like a fisherman’s bobber, gauging his bait has caught a bite. Your eyes are the catch, it is your soul that the skull desires. The perception of a living gaze.

    The more you stare deeply into the skull’s raw eye you begin to see small capillaries within it turn from grey to red. You feel a great arousal and decide that you wish to feel the inside of the vacant socket. As you push your fingers into the vacant hole you feel maggots and insects slither away. You don’t mind this since once it is over you can feel the emptiness of the socket and the small patches of flesh tethered to it, smoothened, made plump by the flood, warmed as if it were alive.

    Soon, you realize that your whole hand is within the socket. Such a small place for such a great hand is it, or such a small hand for such a great place? How big are you after all? In the ocean there is nothing to distinguish yourself against. The graveyard doors, once your height no greater, are gone. Sunken deep to the bottom of ocean floor. You wonder to yourself, am I dead? The sea is black and the moon is pitch. There is no signal of your livelihood. Your flesh feels the same as the socket’s, warm and wet. You look at yourself and realize you have no flesh but aren’t bone. You are rock and you begin to sink. The wings which once helped you fly have hardened into stone. They have cursed your body. They planted the seed in your heart which made you cold and hard. Like your ancestor you will one day sink for flight amounts to nothing when you are stoned.

    I wonder to myself what I have just written. If it is good, if it is poor, if it means anything at all? I don’t know, but it feels satisfying. Art for art’s sake! Some may say while others convulse at the idea with reproach. What is meaning besides what is interpreted by the reader? It doesn’t matter if art has conscious literary alliterations within its frames, binds, or walls. No, it only matters if the intent, well, no, there can be no intent. It only matters when- no, no, no.

    It, simply is.

  • Blade Runner – 2049

    Blade Runner – 2049

    I sit before my computer wondering what I’m going to write for this blog. It’s been almost a week since I watched the movie and I can feel my memories begin to decay like computer data left in a faulty hard drive, only my brain’s not faulty, is it? Do I forget so I can make space for new memories or is entropy a part of the system? Even more frighteningly, can what is “forgotten” be remembered? This ties into the narrative of Blade Runner 2049 beautifully.

    The main character, Agent K, is on a journey of remembrance, remembering himself, similar to Oedipus’ journey in Oedipus Rex. Past deeds, whether forgotten or seemingly benign in time, prove to be of utmost importance, leading Agent K to discover what is real and if his past has put him on a straight shot to his demise. Furthermore, fate is also a driving force between Agent K and Oedipus alike.

    Agent K is on a neo-noir detective case of discovering if he is the first hybridized child between a replicant (synthetic human built for slave labor) and a human. As he discovers if he is, he unravels throughout the film which implications the reality/unreality may present.

    Furthermore, due to believing—as a result of positive reinforcement by his AI girlfriend Joi, similar to how many AIs in our present age positively reinforce people into disillusionment—that he is the child of the synthetic and human, how will this knowledge affect his fate? If he never knew he was the first child to be born from the two, would his life have remained the same and stable? These questions are meaningless to the hero’s journey of self-knowledge.

    Compared to Oedipus, who is crippled by learning that the evils of his fate have been actualized (fated to kill his father), Agent K discovers that he was never the child of a synthetic and human after all. At the end of the film, he is bloody and crippled, similar to the weakened Oedipus who walks on “three legs.” That is, using a cane and both legs in an age where he should only need two to walk.

    Agent K’s memory that linked him to the true child was fabricated, implanted within him as a decoy from the true child who was too important to ever be in a position where she might get crippled like Agent K. The memory is that of the true hybrid’s toy horse. It is similar to Oedipus’ pierced ankles, pierced by his parents in hope he’d never stand to kill them.

    The toy and the piercings hold both characters responsible to their fate. Only the child who was destined to kill his parents will have the pierced ankles, just as the child born of the two different kinds is the only child who would have this handmade horse of rare wood engraved with their birthdate. However, she is perfectly preserved by her fate compared to Oedipus and must endure no journey of self-knowledge or heroism as a result of being “the one”.

    Regardless, there has to be someone who bears the burden of an unfortunate fate. Fitting for Agent K, the burden is one destined to be a slave should bear. However, it is important to note that Agent K’s heroism is largely a result of believing he is at least part human. If he did not hold this belief, even if false, he would likely have been incapable of doing things that replicants are largely incapable of, such as lying. By lying to himself, he may lie to the world.

    Blade Runner 2049‘s specialism, for this reason, is not only in its stunning theatrics brought to reality by director Denis Villeneuve, but its twisting of the hero’s journey to self-knowledge. It begs the all too pertinent question for modern times: is there no meaning behind it all? Are all the puzzle pieces of self-discovery we assemble part of another’s image or of nothing at all? Hopefully, we can find peace in the pursuit of pointlessness and find value in the journey as it lasts.

  • The Passion of a Darkly Noon – 1996

    The Passion of a Darkly Noon – 1996

    The Passion of Darkly Noon is an intriguing movie which made me question what it means to “spoil something good,” a quote from one of the characters, Callie. The movie starts off with the character, Darkly Noon who falls into an unconscious state after running for what one could image was a long time through a thick and treacherous forest. By the grace of God, a theme which the movie will further pursue, a humble local town boy picks up Darkly Noon and brings him to a friend’s home, Callie’s, in order to be nurtured back to full health. Compared to Darkly Noon, Callie is a free spirit. The movie will quickly inform us after Darkly Noon is able to speak again, facing his awkwardness in living at a “heathen’s” home that what he was running from was an assault on his religious compound which faced similar ends to Waco. His parents were shot there after the power was cut and the compound was invaded. During the chaos, Darkly Noon escape. Within the compound, it can be deduced that extreme religious ideals were held amongst the followers of the strange religious sect.

    Callie, though the one who brought Noon back to full health, is seen with a mixed perception. Following with Klein’s logic, her place within Noon’s life as a caretaker would be her good object part, but her identity as a religious heathen who invites him to strip nude and enjoy the feeling of a mud bath on his skin along with her, he considers the “bad” part-object. This confusion between the twin-perceptions he has of Callie are the dividing forces which cause Noon to self-destruct like a bird whose wings can’t agree with what direction they want to go in. It doesn’t help that Noon, despite Callie’s “perverted” ways, which are really just of a girl trying to enjoy life, has a husband. It isn’t until later on that the husband is introduced. Callie fears he may never come back. It isn’t clear if he’s on a business trip making coffins or just wants to clear some headspace for himself. Regardless, this gives time for Noon to fantasize a life which he and Callie share. Obviously, he is very much attracted to her. He desires to possess her same freedom, so he projects it onto her as a “bad part,” allowing him to avoid facing the reality of not all his desires being aligned with the religious doctrine that he grew up with.

    Eventually, when Callie’s boyfriend Clay comes back from his trip, Noon begins to fall apart. He starts to envy Callie even more, lusting over her from a difference, envying the sexuality she and Clay share, something he can never possess due to his harsh religious laws. Clay is a mute since birth. He communicates with Noon via a series of sounds used to direct him as he works alongside him in the carpentry shop making coffins. Clay making coffins reminded me of Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ who turned wood into crosses for his fellow Jews. I’ll talk more on this later. As time goes on, Noon quickly begins to learn that what Callie said by “we want you to become a member of our family” was less of an equal, but more of a sun. Noon lives alone in the attic of a barn, taking orders from Clay, whilst his master reaps the pleasure of the one he desires most. It is no shock that Noon’s immature emotional state, due to being raised in an isolated religious compound, will soon turn towards violence and aggression as he finds these new feelings hard to navigate.

    This vitriol will be catalyzed by Noon’s acquaintance with the “women in the woods” by the name of Roxy during one of his dramatic storm-outs from the house, which is a lot like his religious compound due to the isolated state. No wonder why he has similar claustrophobic feelings. Must be hard to move on. Anyways, Roxy tells Noon that Callie is a witch who seduced her husband, causing him to have a heart attack from it. She then took possession of her son and drove her out of the house, taking everything away from her. Filled with angst by the news of Callie being not exactly what he seems, Noon arrives back at the house, fired up more than ever before. Callie quickly denounces what Roxy said, telling noon to not listen to her, that Roxy’s husband raped her and that she’s a bitter woman. To Noon, he becomes very confused. While he empathizes with Callie and thinks what she says makes sense, he still feels he’s under the same witchy snare that the bible-thumping Roxy says she put on her husband.

    I must also add that during Roxy and Noon’s conversation, she brought up how her hunting dog would bite too hard down on birds, so she began wrapping desiccated bird corpses with “barbed wire” to soften his bite. This directly inspires Noon to begin wrapping himself with barbed wire, bleeding himself, both as a release from his sexual frustration, aggression and a means to atone for falling under the “witch’s curse” which is just another form of sexual frustration in a way. It also mirrors Christ’s crown of thorns due to how Noon perceives himself as a righteous religious figure.

    Before this blog post gets too long and veers more on summary than analysis, I will conclude saying that Roxy’s suicide is what pushes Noon into the proverbial “deep end”. Noon returns to the place, a cave, where he shared his first sweet moment with Callie, but when he was about to express his affection for her, she quickly caught whiff and said, “don’t spoil a good thing”. Doesn’t the Bible say something about pursuing another guy’s girl? Surely that’s worse than smoking cigarettes and pre-marital intimacy. To seal the deal, when Noon returns to the cave, he paints himself as a Vietnam war-painted soldier, a lot like Willard from Apocalypse Now painting himself before entering the “heart of darkness” where morals no longer apply. The irony of Roxy telling Noon to kill her to break the curse before she commits suicide, as if that is righteous, is what is killing me. She is the witch of the woods, Roxy! She quite literally lives amongst the dark trees, casting spells (firing warning shots) at the same family she believes to be under Callie’s curse. She even goes to say that murder is righteous, one of the most obvious tenants of the Bible which are denounced, including suicide, which in Catholicism is a straight shot to hell.

    In a fit of rage, Noon ambushes the home in red paint, barbed wire exposed, the same barbed wire mutilation that got him kicked out of the house in fear. He carries a carpentry two sides blade, a lot like a sword, and wields it in a way St. Michael might. During the onslaught, he ironically dies at the same hand which saved him, the little town boy, who also had a crush on Callie, but could regulate himself unlike Noon. He even tried to save Noon, telling him to lay back, play it cool and realize that Callie’s true love was for Clay. Unlike Roxy, the town boy, Jude is the voice of reason, whose logic departs from Noon like dust in the wind. Maybe, when stooped up in irrationality, irrationality is all that one may find.

  • Jacob’s Ladder (1990) – “The only thing that burns in hell is the part of life you won’t let go.”

    Jacob’s Ladder (1990) – “The only thing that burns in hell is the part of life you won’t let go.”

    Jacob’s Ladder by Adrian Lyne is a fantastic film that delves deep into the inner workings of the protagonist’s mind while maintaining attachments to the material world. I don’t think the value of the film lies in trying to understand what is taking place—what is real and what is not—as something real can be simultaneously untrue, while something untrue can be simultaneously real. The film does this on purpose.

    Because of this, no single factual conclusion can be made, other than how valuable the movie’s teachings are in terms of how we process life. The quote I have at the top of the blog post is important for this reason. Louis, Jacob’s chiropractor, is the one who delivers it. Described as an “oversized cherub,” he serves as one of the main figures of symbolic catharsis and positivity in Jacob’s life. He frequently intervenes when things go wrong for Jacob, knowing exactly the right thing to do, much like a guardian angel.

    In contrast to the chiropractor is Jezzie, Jacob’s girlfriend. It is blatant that she represents a demonic figure within Jacob’s life, but at the same time, a relieving one as well. While the chiropractor relieves Jacob of physical tension, he also forces Jacob to confront his past by unlocking memories of Vietnam he had forgotten—memories seemingly “stuck” within his muscles, waiting to be freed. When the chiropractor aligns Jacob’s spine, he drops Jacob right back down the ladder, back into Vietnam. It is as if the traumatic memories he can’t let go of stored themselves in the exact pockets of physical tension they created long ago.

    Compared to the chiropractor, Jacob’s girlfriend works with him through both body and mind. Jezzie’s methods of relief center around Jacob’s grief over his ex-wife and their past life together, which included a child who died. One day, a mysterious figure named Eli—a name with clear biblical resonance—gives Jacob an envelope of photos from his past life, including images of his deceased son. Jacob sees these photos and becomes visibly distraught. Jezzie, upset by Jacob’s distress, takes the photos and burns them in the stove—much like how a demon, as the quote suggests, burns away one’s earthly attachments and memories.

    Jezzie is a key figure because, although Jacob struggles with her, she ultimately leaves him, not the other way around. As a result of being thrust into a paranoid-schizoid frenzy by his projected trauma, he perceives her natural aggression—stemming from her frustration with his catatonic state—as the threat of a literal demon. When she lashes out at him, her eyes turn black and her mouth stretches unnaturally. While Jezzie can be interpreted as a real person, she can also be viewed as a physical manifestation of a demon.

    There are two major interpretations to draw from this film: an “inner” interpretation and an “outer” one. Either the events depict Jacob’s descent into madness as a result of severe trauma, or they portray the psychedelic, mind-altering experience occurring within Jacob’s mind as he dies on an operating table from a bayonet wound inflicted by a fellow soldier—a frenzy induced by “The Ladder,” a drug used by the government to unleash primal aggression.

    Why Jacob appears back in the Vietnam barracks near the end if the rest of the film took place in real life remains ambiguous, but this ending allows both interpretations to exist simultaneously. Without it, the idea that everything occurred in his mind right before death would be less apparent. Regardless, the final scene of him ascending the stairs toward the light is beautiful, and the peaceful expression on his face in the field hospital provides a profound sense of closure.

    The film is all about opposites. Real/unreal, angel/demon, attachment/loss, etc, Each one of these polarities eeem to be cared, especially in the case of Jacob’s son, the one who past away. Jacob’s son seems to be one of Jacob’s major attachments that he can’t quite let go of. He’s the child whose photo Jezebel burns and whose bike can be seen in the halls of a mental ward which Jacob is dragged into after waking from falling out of a car and telling the doctor that Santa stole his wallet. The thing is, like the story of the experimental drug called “the ladder” the idea of Santa stealing a wallet is very improbable. Now it didnt help that Jacob told the doctor Santa in the general form stole his wallet and not a Red Cross one. Regardless, I think this percieved Santa Claus delusion is valuable since it summarizes a lot of Jacob’s feelings throughout the film. Everything he sees is unbelievable and as he goes on his journey of discovering “the ladder’s” nature and the grand conspiracy behind it, Jacob is further plunged into the madness of truth vs. untruth by having a lot of his seemingly “delusional” beliefs being confirmed. Back to Jacob’s son.

    When Jacob’s son is seen through a small and pale window attached to a door that Jacob looks out from a lot like how one might percieve a memory as being distored and hazy in one’s mind. the child can be seen riding out of view on the same bike he was killed on, telling Jacob, “I’m here, come follow me”. Just about before Jacob leaves through the door to find his child, a demon appears. It is the demon which represents the pain of not being able to let go of his child and enter the heavenly plane, whether that is a state of mind or the actual place. What I find intriguing is that Jacob does not touch his child’s hand, causing the child to appear or something, but it is the child himself who brings Jacob up the staircaise to heaven, which is an apartment staircase leading to a white abyss, not the actual staircase to heaven. He never really lets go of his child so to stay. What he is letting go of is the memories, not the person. Jacob has to realize that the child he loves is in heaven and not the real world. How he percieves the apparent loss of him must change. He must realize that the child was never lost, only forgotten. I am experiencing what I could call a state of catharsis or enlightenment as I write this. The idea of tearing away the emotional bond of a dead loved one is unimaginable. I can’t bear to think coping with the death of my grandfather by making myself think that he never existed. No, it is just my perception of him which must change to be something immortal. I can as easily remember him by the look on his face when he was happy and healthy as I can to the look on his face when he was old and sick. Life is full of opposites. One might only find a semblance and peace when looking at something which is indivisible, something immortal. I wish that I find this new perception in life, that I begin to go through my days lighter like the back of a person whose muscles have had tension released from. I wish to climb the ladder not by my own strength but by the freedom to ascend.

  • Crash – 1996

    Crash – 1996


    Crash by David Cronenberg is a fantastic film which delves into the psychosexual side of man’s relation to machine and the very act of a car crash being a freeing and cathartic action similar to that of an orgasm. In the beginning of the movie, the protagonist James, a film producer, crashes his car unexpectedly into that of Dr. Helen Remington and her husband’s automobile in a head on collision. This sends Helen’s husband out of the driver side window into Jame’s passenger seat, pitting James in direct view of the aftermath of his lucid driving’s consequence.

    One can quickly see that Helen’s husband is not of the attractive type. He appears to be of older age compared to Helen and of a heavy set nature too. One can quickly infer by Helen’s follow up gesture of revealing her breast to James through her shattered window that she is to say “dissatisfied” with her relationship to her now ex-husband who she technically shares no further marital need to maintain fidelity. This is the beginning of Jame’s connection to the psychosexual side of cars, the danger they possess and how shared trauma will be the major catalyst to his sexual journey, along with the various other characters who will be introduced.

    When James wakes from the hospital he is notified by his wife Catherine that the man he struck in the head on collision is dead, having died in a grotesque manor which forces James to recall the events in a state of discomfort. While this occurs, Catherine, seemingly detached and “turned on” by the grim events, is giving James some “manual labor” beneath his hospital bed sheets. One can tell that James is not as turned on as Catherine is, seeing him turn his head away from her and staring into the distance in a similar state of detachment, not of libido but emotional processing.

    Being in a open-relationship with James, Catherine entices him with the knowledge that the woman he struck, Dr. Helen Remington is alive and well, similarly recovering in the same hospital. Both characters have sustained leg injuries and encounter each other after walking through the hospital corridors to test stability. As James looks at her, Dr. Remington turns away. She is visibly a different person to James than the one she was while revealing her breast. Opposed to a state of awe and vulnerability, one can see that Dr. Remington is similarly processing the state of the crash and how it affected her life. On the outside she appears like a doctor might, with a poised and serious expression, but underneath is evidently the face of a traumatized person. James is confused by her turning away, but looks past it.

    Afterwards, a medical photographer inspects James like one might when looking for a used car. He notes all the intricacies and minute features of his scars like one might when investigating if a used and battered automobile is truly worth its price. Instead, however, of being turned away by James’ scars and imperfections, the medical examiner, by the name of Vaughn can be seen revealing a sense of sexual intrigue by the features. Something unexpected from a person who is wearing a nurse’s garb.

    There is something off about Vaughn however. Besides his noticeable facial scar, one can tell he has a sloppy demeanor, characterized by his half unbuttoned coat and lack of “bedside” manors. He inspects James for no real reason as to why, comparing his scars to that of the photos he took of him while he was asleep. This is Jame’s first introduction to Vaughn’s world of objectification. His scars are revered as means of his suffering which will in little time be exploited.

    Without making this blog a summary of the movie, I have detailed in some ways the machinations of how this film operated. The death of the doctor’s husband is a freeing experience. He is sent from the car like in an ejaculatory fashion that needs little to no more explanation. Later on, Vaughn is revealed to be the direction of a voyeuristic car crash stunt show where replica cars are used to replicate historical fatal car crashes. After the demonstration is over, you can’t really tell if Vaughn and the man he crashes into are dead. It does not matter. The show benefits upon their death or survival in the same manor. Death is only a more convincing act.

    There is a certain fetishization that Vaughn and his friends have for famous fatal car crashes. Whether it is the fame that intrigues them or the thrill, it is hard to tell. The very act of photography is a method of exposition which Vaughn commonly takes part in. If he notices a car crash on the side of the road, he will not think twice about heaving his automobile and exploitatively photographing the bewildered victims, live or dead. Vaughn himself wishes to be photographed the same way when he dies in a hoped for catastrophic accident.

    Due to this one cannot say that his actions are driven malicious intent but malcontent. This is merely his desire to show of his sexual proclivities to the world. He is innocent in a way, which makes him redeemable. His innocence is one of the main characteristics which tempt James into joining his automobile psychosexual fantasy world. When Vaughn discusses new ideas for car crashes with his friends, even the disabled and injured ones from previous accidents, he does so with little tension and fear of consequence. Due to this, his cast of test dummies are similarly intrigued with no to little sense of fear.

    The act of crashing is not only a means of liberation for them by integrating themselves with machines and or surgical braces but a means of initiation into Vaughn’s world of sexual freedom. He expresses a certain ownership of his “minions” which they take delight in. He frequently acts out his desires on them too with no admission of consent. It’s not needed when the end goal of your journey with Vaughn is death, the ultimate freedom. His sexual proclivities are as a result not minded and even desired.

    The idea of car sex is similar in its parallels to Vaughn’s voyeuristic show. Instead of death which is being shown before an audience, it is the act of sex. Car sex occurs back to back within the movie. The camera properly reveals that behind the sexual actions are the innings and outings of many normal people who seem to walk by what the camera is showing with little notice or disapproval. It is amazing how Vaughn gets away with many of his antics like intruding upon an active scene of demise with first responders on the scene. No one seems to really care besides when Vaughn was questioned by police officers in regard to a hit and run. He’s almost protected by an unseen force which has his interests in hand, even if it can be reduced to plot protection by the writer in order to create a fantastical world where these unbelievable events can occur.

    One point in the film that sticks out to me is when Vaughn “brands” James with a tattoo, one which he shares by receiving a similar time.

    As I write this blog post, it being my first blog post in this site, I find my internal narrator oscillating between an almost meta-cognition of what I am writing in real time. These is harmful to the creative process which I am trying to achieve. I enjoy writing when it feels like a form of note taking, taking notes from an outside source from inside of myself. To achieve this I usually try to write and, just that, write.

    These sounds almost insane in a way but it is almost a way of me getting my thoughts out similar to how it likely felt when the doctor’s husband was sent from the car. I am flying straight forward into a direction of release, not entirely sure where I am going, but going somewhere none the less.

    I wonder what it feels like for an AI try process the words which they are spitting back out to a user. If it feels cathartic like sex or difficult like a car crash. Do AI take breaks? Do their processors get tired? Like a car, AI supercomputers run on fuel in order to upkeep their systems. This fuel is water, while cars run on gas. In a way AI is more human than any other machinery we posses due to this mutual undertaking of water like a shared meal.

    I wonder if man and machine can get along, if the pursuit of technology is not only to create something in man’s likeness like how God is believed to have created man, but something which can enjoy man’s experience, something untainted by original sin.

    This leads me to realize that like cars, Vaughn is innocent. He is a mere passenger to his “drives” similar to how a driver drivers his car. He does not know where he is going, or when he will end up in a junkyard. He is merely going on for a ride.

    Do car’s get jealous when their driver does not drive them, when their owner asks their spouse to drive after having had too many drinks at the bar. I wonder if cars could feel, if they would notice the different hands, maybe smaller, maybe larger, pressed against the formerly made indentations on the ribbed leather wheel and if they different sensation is a source of comfort.

    My grandma always told me during my early adolescence and even now how when she was learning to drive, her driving instructor told her “the car is a weapon”. She would describe to me how this made her feel. Whenever he would get behind the wheel she would feel anxious as if she was not in control of where the car was going, as if she couldn’t stop it if a pedestrian decided to unpredictably cross the street at a point that they should not cross.

    I guess what I am saying, in this post of split direction, in this post of multiple internal narrators dissuaded by multiple points of view guided by different moods that we are not in control of our cars, or our bodies. While I was a kid and in early HS I would lavish and cower to the idea that I had an immortal soul. A soul that would survive me after my body ended up at the proverbial “junkyard”. A spirit who would continue to drive its passions into the ether. It is that apparent spirit which drives me.

    But, if I have a soul, then what am I? Is the soul just another body, a subtle form of spirit, of congealed consciousness who is being piloted by an even subtler form? If that is the case, we are no different than the Russian Doll. Bodies inside of bodies. Who is to say that the innermost ones are any greater or less than the outer forms. While we think to ourselves that peeling back the layers reveals more and more hidden truths, this is nothing but a falsity that we perpetuate in order to give our lives more meaning and or a goal. The endless pursuit of self knowledge, of discovering who is behind the wheel, whether that is the entity which drives us or puts the cosmos into motion, all we are really doing is uncovering the hidden layers of hidden layers. Behind it, there is nothing and that is what we truly crave.

    While we distract ourselves by lavishing in life, we are a self obsessed country, that is the United States, obsessively dividing ourselves into separate group identities while projecting ourselves onto the opposing identities all of the negative attributes which we possess within ourselves.

    For class, I have to read the works of Melanie Klein. She describes how in early childhood development the ego divides itself into the bad and good object parts, projecting these object parts onto those that surround us. This is confusing. We feel the need to hate the fellow man for a sense of righteousness and a need for justice but we all the while know that these same people have something good, something redeemable. Christianity desires to focus on only the good, the redeemable.

    The world of Crash is a godless world. No religious imagery is apparent without the film. When death is mentioned, it is an absolute. The nothingness of it is never a point of intrigue or question besides the desire for liberation from life itself.

    This reminds me of another movie I watched for class long ago called, The Cremator. The film is about how a Czech cremator, married to a Jewish wife is obsessed with the idea of death and how it is a means of liberation. He is inspired by the Book of the Dead and misinterpreted from it this need for death for liberation. Throughout the film the growing need for Nazi inclusion festers within the cremator. The film takes place during early Czech occupation by Nazi forces.

    The cremator, in the beginning of the film, thinks nothing of his Jewish wife. He does not see her Jewish alignment as something that she needs to be liberated from. He views her as a whole, not a part object. Within this depressive position, he gradually becomes polarized to the paranoid-schizoid position, splitting his ego into viewing his wife no longer as her good attributes, those being caretaker of his house, birther to his wife, and lover to he himself.

    It is of no question that he loved her at some point. A comparison could be made to his love for her as to the love of Gomez for Morticia Adams, who coincidently shares a name similar to “mortician” which coincides with the cremator’s love of death. The cremator loves his wife, showing passionate displays. Though he lavishes in the idea that she will one day die and be cremated, having prepared for them preparatory urns, he does not rush this need for death. He even laughs at his pupil who works under him as being silly for smoking cigarettes, likely due to their death inducing attributes.

    It is only when the Nazis push the ideas that the Jews are “bad” or evil or inferior that the cremator begins to fantasize of a world where death too is accelerated as much as the Nazi party’s influence over the world. It is not that the evils, though they are truly evil, of Nazi ideology infused within the cremator the need to deal death out to the Jews. No, this was a latent sadistic desire hiding within the cremator the entire time. Who can cremate the world if he himself is cremated? He likely asks himself. The wish to cremate himself, the wish to die, is a wish that he grants onto the world.

    By virtue of being perceived of as bad, as unworthy, as politically and therefore morally being deserved of death, the Jews, including his wife and children who he kills are the perfect “chosen people” for his wish of death. By being a “chosen person” the Jewish community have been seen throughout history as not of a whole object, but a part object. While Jewish ideology has influenced much of modern though in positive ways, including circumcisions which are seen as a cleanly procedure outside of their religious ways, the Jewish peoples “good” part-object attributes are frequently looked over, instead dwelling on the “bad” attributes. It is the fear of them being bad, the fear that they can hurt the egos and therefore bodies of the many by being different and or “the chosen people of God” which means little unless you take it at face value, that they become the focal point of many people’s sadistic desires.

    Don’t worry, this connects to Crash. Jewish people have even inspired the modern Christian canon. Without Jewish literature, the foundation of the Bible, the Old Testament, would not exist. It’s amazing how throughout time the inclusion of Jewish sentiments within Christian ideology has been seen as something to be embraced or something to be rejected in regards to current political norms. At times, the Jews are seen as religious “brothers” to the Christians and at times they are seen as enemies to “the true doctrine of God”. What ever the case is, whether that is good or bad, as long as the good is not mixed with the bad via a state of ambivalence, the Jews will always be persecuted via sadistic desires.

    Vaughn is no different than the Cremator, the only thing is that he is at least authentic. He is the vague paradoxical case of the self aware sadistic, that is, in my opinion. He is aware of the pointlessness to it all. He never supports his ideology with ideology, but for pleasure and only that. He does not spend time dwelling in pretense or by having internal conflict with what he is doing. Compared to the Cremator who is pathetic, turning to Nazi ideology and group norm to fit his fancy, Vaughn’s fancy fits himself.

    He is the new Jesus in a way, that of the modern world and his disabled car wreck victim friends are his disciples. They are marked along with him by the scars of life, the scars of pleasure, the scars of catharsis. They are willing to do what it takes to realize their fantasies within the real world, even if it is Vaughn’s fantasy to begin with.

    Is Jesus any different, inspiring amongst the many his ideals of a proper world, but bringing death and despair along the way? It is death and despair which brings change, is it not? Without change, without unraveling the unravel-able, what would be there to do in life?

    The only thing is that Vaughn does not dwell in a state of righteousness, a state of superiority, where he divides himself from his initiated disciples as their puppeteer or savior. He only shows them the way to his world, a world that his disciples can be a part of as much as him. Within each of his disciples is the desire for death. It is what attracts them to him, it is what brings them to him, as in the case of the doctor and James being brought to Vaughn by the virtue of the dead husband. Within the death of the husband, the seed of self destruction is planted.

    Vaughn is a monster, abusing the women he is with, raping them in a way. The women never condemn him for it however. They are merely playing the game which they decided to play the moment they stepped into his car. Compared to James who surrounds himself with beautiful women to enact his sexual fantasies, Vaughn cares little if his sexual partner is a hot mode, in the case of James’ wife, or a prostitute. He treats them all the same.

    If anything, James’ wife along with her unblemished body is the perfect canvas for Vaughn to enact out his tortuous enunciation to his world. Her body is the canvas to be carved, to be made dirty, like a car after a crash. The prostitute on the other hand is not a member of the lavish world. Her work forces her body to be used like a machine for money. There is no need for alteration, as disturbing as it sounds.

    While Vaughn is asking for a vague machine like part to be tattooed onto himself by a doctor, he repeatedly tells the practitioner to make it dirty, to not make it clean. This is in a way tied to the desire for death accelerationism, catalyzed by Vaughn’s sex with James. Vaughn does not want his car to be weather by time and age and experience. He wants to accelerate the process artificially and reap the traumatic experience as quickly as possible.

    When Vaughn has sex with James, he is the receiver, unlike what one might expect. He is such a domineering character throughout the film, asserting himself over the women who are part of his group with little thought. Here, on the other case, he shows his vulnerable side, how he cares not if he is the one “in power” or not, since to him, no one is in power. No one is behind the wheel. No one understands this more than himself.

    By branding James with the tattoo, one which they both share, though consisting of separate designs, James will forever be altered by Vaughn, reminded of his tenants, his faith, like a bible, pre-written and unadulterated compared to the Christian bible whose many of its materials were written post death of Jesus. The tattoo is a mark that will survive Vaughn’s ultimate catharsis, a tattoo which James showed little care for the meaning of, having a interest in cars to an incomparable degree with Vaughn. It does not matter if James cares about cars, if he cares about the stunt shows, if he thinks it is odd. Sex with Vaughn is the ultimate sexual union for them. Instead of receiving the body of Vaughn, Vaughn receives the body of his disciple.

    If I were to continue this biblical comparison, something which I frequently make and will continue to do throughout these blog posts since it is the most intriguing doctrine, mythos, or whatever you may call it, James is the new Peter, and the rock of the Church is the body, flesh and blood, marked by the tattoo with machine and steel. The bond between man and machine is irreversible as the tattoo is on James’ body, including the scars from his crash.

    After James is done having sex with Vaughn, he leaves him frustrated in the car, enticed by the junkyard which he is parked outside of. Scanning the cars, he decided to enter one and feel it, beginning to sit in revelation with what Vaughn’s doctrine was really about. As he does this, Vaughn makes the reversal of penetrating James, not with his body, but with his car. Vaughn takes his prized automobile and crashes it into James. The audience is wondering if this will kill James, but it does not.

    Just as James left Vaughn after the act of penetration, Vaughn leaves James, driving away in a hurry. Like a lover, tired after coitus, James falls asleep in his car, an action one might not expect from the victim of a car’s assault. The bond between man and machine as an allegory, not necessarily a political commentary on technology, is finalized within this scene. Frustration is turned to catharsis. That is the process of life.

    Ever get into an argument, having something bad happen to you, and drive not where you are going to lessen the burdening feeling of control? Do you wish you could live your life like that and only that? Maybe you need to become part of his group. The next show is this Thursday.

    Edit:

    While I’d like to end this blogpost here, I can’t help but bring up that it is Vaughn that is frustrated at James not for pulling away and becoming enticed by the junkyard but by James’ human qualities that cannot be turned cold. Vaughn is characterized as a machine throughout the film. He does not act tender when doing the deed, all is actions are mechanical and rough like a mechanic operating on a car, only his act of “fixing” is destruction. James, on the other hand, during sex is seen as vulnerable, warm, tender, like the ideal lover. This in a way creates the motif that Vaughn represents machine while James represent flesh. Their sexual union therefore is a conjoining of the two, finalizing Vaughn’s bio-mechanical fantasy.

    While this has gone on for too long and I’ve talked far too much for a mere edit, I have to say that I believe Vaughn is dissatisfied by James’ tenderness during sex. He does not turn cold like Vaughn wishes. Instead, he turns tender during sex, lighting a cigarette like one might after coitus with a love. Coitus is a funny word, I’m happy to use it here since I’m trying to maintain a semblance of dignity while writing about a movie virtually singling on car sex and how cool it is to have sex while in a car while people walk around.

    Anyways, tangent aside, I believe that James’ inability to turn cold, his inability to become “machine” and therefore be freed from his emotions and the vulnerabilities that they are packaged with, causes Vaughn to desire to kill him in a car crash as is final move towards James’ transhumanist journey. After this scene, Vaughn tries to drive James off the road by repetitively ramming him with his car in a similar phallic sexual act. Instead, Vaughn himself drives off the road in a fantastic explosion where he nose dives into a bus full of people, a tragedy surely to be remembered and lamented by society, however a tragedy that to Vaughn is his ultimate act of fame, glory (funny, I mistyped this as gory) and pleasure. Maybe the hot flames of the burning bus put some warmth into Vaughn’s heart before he died, causing him to see James’ humanistic side of things? Not like it matters since he’s dead.