The Congress

The real meat of this narrative hangs on an old but incredibly fruitful frame: is an artist's work or their persona ultimately of value? The pop-cult of personality certainly points in the direction of the mask. She is offered the opportunity to sell the mask to Miramount studios, and go on her merry way. Live her life, but never act in anything ever again. They own the mask.

Robin Wright acts in her own narrative gonzomentary,
and does it with the gravitas of a fallen angel.

This film sets up an incredibly tight first act, and then veers in an entirely unexpected, psychedelic direction from there.

As at-times interesting and surreal as the rest of the movie is, it could've been done in a way that was more consistent with where the movie seemed to be going, although that course change isn't so joyfully pointless as Tarantino's Dusk Till Dawn. Vampires and crotch cannons don't suddenly appear in the middle of a crime drama. Rather, you're dropped into the middle of Waking Life, with a bit more Matrix revolutionary zeal and a bit less philosophical speculation.

Might consistency have bit deeper and bled a bit longer? Maybe. That depends on your tastes.

But whatever flavor suits you, this film hearkens to a time, now lost to the haze of distant memory, when movies sought to make us question our culture, and our place in it. (I think it might have been the late 90s.)

Pop-art often employs repetition of the mask or container. (Think Warhol.) The Congress, in its way, can be considered a part of this tradition. In a movie that seeks to analyze an industry that functions only by cannibalizing itself, and doing so often off the flesh of its talent, the only tools available are a pastiche of what has come before. This is a sense in which The Congress is deeply postmodern, in a more than passing sense.

Its inveigh against Hollywood uses self-referential bricolage as a device for their own deconstruction. Tropes from nearly every genre available to Hollywood are used toward that end. Pointillism, bricolage, etc. are only useful devices to the extent that they relate back to a single thread. In this case, that thread is not a single narrative, not plot or resolution, but the theme of alter-ego as product. The alter-ego as icon, as obsession, as the lure painted over the heavens when the Gods of old will no longer do.

How much can you drill down into a single theme, how many fourth walls can you break, before the sublime turns into the redundant?

That line is seriously tested through the final act, but not, I think, ultimately broken.

All It Takes Is The Right Story. Mythos Media

The Pop Culture Edition – What Had Happened Was Ep. 27

by Susan M Omand, Omand Original, All Rights Reserved

 Subscribe via RSS, or download the episode directly.
What Had Happened Was is a grumpyhawk collective podcast co-hosted by grumpyhawk (that would be me) and Benjamin Combs. In this "week-in-review style" show, we cover and comment on stories with a tech, science, weird, or strange sort of angle. Visit grumpyhawk.com to see and hear more from the collective. 

Hello people of the internet! Today grumpyhawk and Benjamin Combs are talking about China collecting body parts from prisoners and how that will now be optional, Snowden denies giving sensitive information to the Guardian, Arkansas bill limiting body modification goes to the State House of Representatives, Time Warner Cable offering antennae to their customers as a way to alleviate the CBS situation, Marvel to bring superhero-themed road show to the US next year, and Ben Affleck as the new Batman. All on today's episode, The pop culture edition.

Show Notes:

1. China says it will stop harvesting organs from prisoners
2. Snowden denies being source of The Independent's "NSA leak" story exposing UK base
3. Senate Passes Bill That Bans Certain Tattoos, Body Markings
4. Time Warner Cable offers free antennas, Best Buy credit to customers caught in CBS blackout
5. Marvel to bring superhero-themed road show to the US next year
6. Ben Affleck is the next Batman

[Take a Trip with us... Mythos Media.]

Designer Drugs, the Zombie Apocalypse, and You

 

A Modest Proposal: 2012

By Rusty Shackleford

Some of you may remember a piece written by myself, no less than a half a year ago, on the potential of chemicals included in head shop designer drugs to chemically lobotomize the user and to effectively dissociate the hind brain from the frontal portions of the brain. The drug would then essentially paralyze the frontal portions of the brain, leaving a human being concerned with only the most rudimentary functions of the limbic brain: fucking, eating, and killing. 

Welcome to 2012. The only difference is that at the time, we postulated that such an effect could be achieved through chemicals sprayed upon "spice" packets sold in headshops containing active agent JWH-018 which is, in and of itself, a fairly unknown quantity. Since then, I have watched with a growing interest as report after report published on the internet, major news networks, blogs and newspaper articles have hit with new details on "zombie cannibalism attacks" generated by "abuse of bath salts, superacid, etc" depending upon whom you ask. Enter "Kapin Trips" (tm).

The substance in question
The following excerpt is from an anonymous tip off I received via the e-mail from a former organic chemist working for a company that I will not name. Suffice to say, he made me very certain of his credentials, and that the company in charge of this operation has its hand in a lot more than just legal recreational drugs: It goes deeper than you could ever imagine, and it is completely horrifying.

[Related topic: "Project Know" !]

He wrote to me after having read my piece on the use of over the counter or legal head shop drugs in creating armies of drone assassins. He asked me how I knew, and how I had discovered this on my own without any apparent insider knowledge of any of these events transpiring. The following is an excerpt of our communication via e-mail, verbatim except where omissions of titles and names were necessary for anonymity's sake.

Modern Pop-Culture Identity: 30 Seconds Myth and Mima

By James Curcio

In a world where we are expected to play a variety of conflicting roles, in which our lives are all interconnected, broadcast and dissected, we invariably develop situational identities. We are not one person, we are many people who go by the same name.
Though all of us deal with this in varying ways as we go through life, nowhere is it more of an issue than in pop culture. The long list of psychologically and emotionally fractured ex-teen stars is ample proof. “Who are you?” Mima asks of herself, in Perfect Blue. It is her first line in our ‘play within a play.’ It is a question that really seeks no answer, instead expressing the complete lack of a frame of reference.
Over a decade after its release some of the devices of this film may now seem old – websites pretending to portray the ‘real life’ of pop idols, obsessive paparazzi, frothing J-pop fans – however, many of the questions explored by Perfect Blue remain as vital as ever. In fact, it is possible they have become even more so as the line between reality and fiction continues to blur.
This is no new phenomenon. Consider 30 Seconds To Mars. The only good thing about their myth, or their "modern myth," are the wild gesticulation a sane mind has to go through to make sense of the explanations that have been given for the band's name. 

"[The band's name] actually comes from a thesis that the band found online that was written by a former Harvard professor. And one of the subsections of the thesis was titled 'thirty seconds to mars' and he goes on to talk about the exponential growth of technology that relates to humans and saying that we are quite literally thirty seconds to mars. What it means to us is, we thought it best described our music, in short."

Huh. So they're transhumanists, from the sound of it? That seems... improbable. If you take five seconds to listen to the music, and if the capillaries in your head don't pop and swell in a desperate attempt to seize hold of your brain and for the love of sanity STOP, it's hard to imagine they've evolved beyond human. Not that any of us have. Leto tried to explain it another way on their website, 

"For us, the name 30 Seconds To Mars has little to do with space, the universe or anything like that. It is a name that works on several different levels. Most importantly, it is a good representation of our sound. It's a phrase that is lyrical, suggestive, cinematic, and filled with immediacy. It has some sense of otherness to it. The concept of space is so overwhelming and all encompassing I doubt there is a song written that doesn't fall within it."

Maybe what they mean is that if you attain enough caffeine in your bloodstream, you feel like you've reached that singularity. In July 2010 the band won "Best International Band" at The Relentless Energy Drink Kerrang! Awards 2010. That's the name of an award now? Holy fuck. I think I should've won that award, too. 
I'm not trying to bash on Jared Leto's acting, or on the fact that "modern myth" hasn't evolved outside the manufactured pop alt culture it grew in, I just want to understand what it is about the boy band formula that still works after all these years. 
I know that'll get 30 Second To Mars fans railing. I know you have your Echelon, but look, the mechanism of attraction is the same. The thing that brought you to them is the same idol and icon worship that takes place in boy bands, it's just shooting a few years older and to a different demo, which includes boys that want to identify with their protagonist: the lead singer. 
How is it that the same things can be tweaked and recycled for so long, and still hold a grip? That, maybe, is the modern myth in their song: "To buy the truth, And sell a lie." As each generation grows, corporations get a better insight into what they react to at various stages of development. The marketing process can be refined. To the old and enfeebled, it seems like it is a dumbing down, but more likely, they are instead seeing themselves slowing down. The mechanism of desire and identification remains the same. 


30 Seconds To Mars is just another one of those bands, you know? It isn't 30 Seconds to singularity, though. It's 30 seconds of fame until their skin is flayed off and sewn over the next flavor of the moment. Except Jared has an exit strategy with a solid acting career, and maybe that's another little tidbit to pull from this: these days, even rock stars need an exit strategy and a backup job. It also helps to have a cult, I mean uh, street team. (Jared Leto said the following "Some people ask us if this is a cult, I say this,it's something special, it's not for everyone, it's only for those who understand.")

However, it is rare that we take a step back and think about how all of these things are symptoms of underlying identity crisis, a crisis that actually transcends most of our other sexual, cultural or racial boundaries. The teen idol, acting out the pre-scripted, cut-out role, and their screaming fans are united in their lack of intrinsic identity. The former plays to the expectant dreams of the latter, yet neither of them actually are that illusion. When it shatters, there is nothing there. Playing to the expectation of a lover is ultimately no different than playing to the hopes of the audience. It is all acted in the mirror.
Is she Mima the pop star? Mima the actress? Mima the shy girl who loves her tetra fish? Unless if pantomiming is all it takes, the answer is “no.” She is none of the above. What about Jared Leto the actor? Can we say the same of his Modern Myth? 
“Who are you?” Mima asks herself, never really finding an answer. Everyone in the film is united in their desire to be this perfect idol. This is the reality Perfect Blue gives us a glimpse of, although you see it anytime youturn on the television. Japanese or American, all of our cultures seem to meet at this crossroad: we are a planet of voyeurs. (An extended version of this piece will be in The Immanence of Myth.) 
 Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

Battlestar Galactica and the Eternal Return

"A man's character is his fate." Heraclitus

Over the past month, I've been re-watching Battlestar Galactica from the perspective of modern myth, as well as strikingly poignant melodrama. I realize that there's not a whole lot at this point that can be said about this show that probably hasn't already been said before, somewhere else, but I still can't resist tossing in a few passing thoughts.

First, I found myself thinking a great deal about the tired argument of determinism versus free will in the light of ourselves as individuals, as personalities, rather than it being a matter of the inherent nature of the universe. This shift of emphasis is key.

The decisions that we make at any given point are in a real sense "pre-determined," as who we are is defined in many ways by the decisions that we make when faced with specific questions. Though there is no way to test this for sure, it stands to reason that if we are again faced with the exact same dilemma, while in the same frame of mind, being who we were at that moment, we would make the same decision. Again, and again, and again. It is fixed. And these decisions have very little to do with the rationalizations that we may convey to them, they have much more to do with an amalgum of hard-wired responses mixed with what we can kind of crudely call our software. Less mechanistically, many traditional theories of economics have proven themselves flawed - that is, theories that are based on purely rational "game theories" - because they don't take into account any of the cultural or emotional elements at play. The Dow reflects confidence of a certain kind far more than anything tangible.

So, in a manner of speaking, all prophecies are self-fulfilling. But the fixed point is identity, not externally driven destiny. A man's character is his fate.

This isn't a new idea to me, I play with it some in the novel I'm working on now (Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End)-- but I feel it is dealt with quite well by the BSG writers.

This leads me to another underlying element of the cosmology of BSG, the idea of Eternal Return. This is dealt with in different ways by philosophers and writers over time, but it essentially boils down to the idea that in an infinite universe, the same cycle of events will occur time and again. This idea is somewhat distinct with the idea of Eternal return that Eliade explores, altough there is a way in which this pertains to BSG plotlines as well. This is how prophecy and destiny can be said to occur from the outside, as we are not perhaps without free will, but in an infinite universe, we are possibly committed to playing the same role as one who has come before, and before them, and so on into infinity as well.

The wikipedia article has a number of starting points that you can explore on this. I found this particular amusing: "The first line of Disney's Peter Pan is "All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again." This line has been cited as the inspiration behind the same theme in Battlestar Galactica."

Though I'm not much for plot analysis, or getting spammed with complaints of spoilers, I feel that a show that has run its course can be opened up in such a way. So close your eyes now if you've not seen it, and enjoy the series-- for its occasional failings it is in my opinion one of the best Sci-Fi Television shows ever produced. (And it is all available Instantly on Netflix.)

When the Cylons and Colonials discover the first Earth, they discover an Earth that came before -- itself raviged by nuclear war. Throughout the series by that point we've seen various elements of what could be described as prophecy -- events re-occuring in a similar to way as how they had thousands of years before, like when they encounter the Eye of Jupiter -- and there is the idea of "floods," as Baltar refers to them when dying on the Basestar with Roslin (though they seem to literally be nuclear holocausts), and these are ongoing evolutionary tipping points that push the ongoing circular narrative of exodus, homecoming, recapitulation, hubris and conflict, and another flood. How many times has this happened? Hypothetically, in a truly infinite universe, an infinite number of times. The Cylons are closer connected to their genetic memory in the fact that they maintain memory through the process of resurrection, but humans and cylon alike are constantly plagued by flashes of genetic memory, and memory of their role within this never-ending drama.

On our own planet, there is some evidence that this occurs in ecosystems, where there is a stasis of a sort that occurs for a long period of time, and then there is a catastrophe or series of catastrophes, for instance a comet strike and increased volcanic activity... and then the dinosaurs come to prominence. And then over 100 million years later, bam. Same thing, comet strike and volcanos, and you have the rise of the mammals.

Though I've already railed against the idea of reincarnation in its most literal sense, this is an experience I've had many times-- of meeting someone, and feeling like I've known them before. Of a certain series of events having a certain gravity, and this nagging sense that it had happened before and would again. But what does any of that mean? And how can we know?

I don't know. How can we really know anything?

At any rate, it's a fun show.

Trololo: Christoph Waltz, Russian legend, and amyl nitrate

Just going to show that myth is always a key element in meme-making, this video has been popping up all over the place recently. Brooke Burgess pointed this out to me, as I've apparently been living under a rock the past couple weeks working on Immanence of Myth, a script, and several other things. This video is -- I imagine -- something like doing amyl and DMT at the same time, without the machine elves and anal relaxation:



The recent spike seems to have preceded this absurdity:

Although Google Insights returns a years-long trend for “Edward Hill” it should not be assumed that they are all for this Edward Hill, as the name refers to a number of historical figures. However, searches for “Edward Hill” and “trololo” have shown a marked increase in Feburary of 2010.

However, the source of the video's popularity might not be quite so recent.

As those who frequent this blog regularly know, normally I would provide some context or analysis on how the myth ties into the more recent outcropping of the media. But in this case, I've got nothing on the connection between a Russian folksong about the returning hero and this. It's something like a synchronicity that pops up thirty times during your day, after ten instances of the number thirty one or ravens you start to wonder if the universe is telling you something, but what the hell are you going to make of it? Maybe I should try that amyl and DMT thing. I'll let you know if anything comes of that...