#losing my mind over the 2001 space odyssey reference

[filmloversociety]

Barbie the Movie (2023), dir. by Greta Gerwig

[purplesurveys]

1003

survey by --rainboweyes--

When you think of this country, what first comes to your mind?

Argentina: We have a local brand of canned corned beef called Argentina, so instead of the country I immediately thought of that food. But if I really have to connect this to the country, I also remembered a wrestler called Giant Gonzales; he hailed from Argentina.

Brazil:  Those “Come to Brazil” hashtags that used to trend all the time on Twitter. Brazil had some reallllly loud fanbases; I’m just not sure if they’re still as vocal now.

Canada: Bret Hart. Also @inchoate-surveys, heh.

Denmark: I don’t really know anything about Denmark. OH WAIT NO there’s Legos, so we’ll go with that.

England: I honestly thought of their dishes first since I find them rather unique and super different from the Asian dishes I’m used to. We don’t really use beans or make a lot of puddings and pies, but I think they’re all interesting. 

France: Escargot and baguette lol. I’m constantly thinking of food, guys; what a shocker. Also the movie Funny Face since most of it was set in France.

Germany: Sauerkraut and long words.

Hungary: I always confuse Hungary with Germany, but the difference is I don’t know a single thing about Hungary. So I don’t actually know how to answer this haha oops, sorry.

Ireland: Niall Horan HEHE. Also the wrestlers Becky Lynch and Sheamus. Ireland’s got a lot of talented folks.

Italy: @justsurveys (:D), Lizzie McGuire, the movie Roman Holiday.

Jamaica: I also first thought of a wrestler. His name is Kofi Kingston and I remembered him because at one point in his career he was packaged to have a Jamaican gimmick even though he’s actually Ghanian, just because of his race and the fact that he had dreadlocks. Like seriously? Classic example of WWE being racist and stereotypical...ugh. It’s truly hard to vouch for them sometimes.

Japan: The brutally honest first thing I thought of wasssss how they took over my country for a few years and subjected thousands of women and children to various forms of torture before killing them.

Korea: Korean food :( Man I miss having jjajangmyeon.

Libya: Their old flag, which was just entirely green. No designs, no stripes, no other colors. Just a good ol’ green flag.

Morocco: I think of Marrakesh and how colorful the place is. I’d love to go someday.

Norway: Northern lights.

Poland: The current Pope. < OMG editing this answer. The Pope I was thinking of was John Paul II, the actual Pole. Pope Francis is from Argentina lmaooooo so sorry

Romania: I honestly can’t tell you a single thing. Slowly starting to realize that I’m not as good in geography as I thought I was, ha.

Russia: Onion domes, I think that’s what they’re called.

Spain: When I think of Spain I always immediately think of the unfinished church, Sagrada Familia is what I think it’s called, if I remember correctly. It’s in my bucket list of places to see, for sure. Then there’s also the 333 years of colonization, but I’m not feeling bitter enough tonight to rant about that.

Tunisia: Not a clue. I’m bringing my ass to read more about other countries after this.

Turkey: Gabie, because she has Turkish blood.

Uganda: That Joseph Kony documentary that blew up nearly a decade ago. I’m pretty sure that was based in Uganda.

United States of America: Trump, Target, cheeseburgers, elderly people on scooters, those machines at the store that count your coins for you, more cheeseburgers.

United Kingdom: The royal family, Black Mirror, accents that sound fancy.

Australia: Barbecue, kangaroos, deserts, Vegemite.

New Zealand: I thought of my relatives who live there. Also Lord of the Rings.

List 3 movies you like in each genre.

Action: Eugh, I hate this genre. Wonder Woman is probably the only action movie I ever really enjoyed.

Comedy: Can romcoms count? I like The Proposal, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, andddddd This Is Spinal Tap. 

Drama: Room, Revolutionary Road, Requiem for a Dream.

Fantasy: Huge pass.

Horror: Midsommar, The Shining, (the original) Carrie.

Kids/Animated: Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Tangled.

Romance: Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Carol, Two for the Road.

Sci-Fi: 2001: A Space Odyssey(!!!), The Martian, Interstellar.

Thriller: Misery, Black Swan, Gone Girl.

Western: Not my cup of tea. The only thing I could think of is Breaking Bad, and that’s not even a movie.

Answer just in numbers.

Number of brothers you have: 1.

Number of sisters you have: Also 1.

Number of the house you live at: Eh.

Number of close friends you have: Off the top of my head, 3.

Number of pets you have: 2.

Number of times you shower a week: 6 or 7.

Number of concerts you've been to in your life: Too many to count if I include local gigs at schools. But if we’re only referring to bigger acts held in arenas or stadiums, 4.

Number of cars your household has: 3.

Number of serious relationships you've been in: 1, but we dated twice.

Number of movies you've seen at the cinema this year: Hahahaha

Number of people who live in your house: 5, including myself.

Number of plug sockets in the room you're in now: 4.

Some more randomer questions.

What food do you have cravings for the most? My cravings are always changing, though. Right now, it would be sushi and takoyaki. We actually just had both last night for dinner, but we devoured them SO fast and now I’m seeking them out again.

What TV shows do you hate to miss on TV? I’m not that attached to any show. I used to religiously follow WWE Raw and The Walking Dead and always wanted to watch both live as often as possible, but those days are long gone.

What do you tend to lose the most? My appetite. As for actual items...probably pens.

The last time someone shouted at you - why were they shouting? It’s been a while since that happened, so I don’t remember.

Would you rather have a cactus or a bonsai? Cactus. I heard taking care of bonsai trees is quite complicated, and I just know I’d kill it within a day or two, if not a lot shorter.

What scary story freaks you out the most? Not really in the mood to think of an answer to this considering it’s 1:07 AM and dark as fuck in my room D:

Are you better with gadgets or cooking? Probably gadgets, but just barely.

How would you rate your own looks? Personality? I hate deciding on things about me. I don’t want to hype myself up too much but I don’t want to drag myself down either lol

What accent is the most attractive? Some English accents are very pleasant to the ear.

Do you get annoyed when people spell your name wrong? Not for the most part since I have the more uncommon spelling anyway. But if someone is talking to me on like Messenger or Viber where my name is blatantly stated and spelled out and they still misspell it, then I get peeved.

[randomrichards]

THE BEST MOVIE MOMENTS OF 2018:

HONORABLE MENTION:

The Opening/Closing Credits from BUDDIES

I’m putting this as honorable mention because this is an older movie recently rereleased.

The first film about the AIDS Crisis, Buddies strikes at the heart with its opening credits with a typed list of AIDS victim up to 1985. Set to a mournful score by Jeffrey Olmstead, the never ending list of lives cut short puts you in tears.

Alex Honnold faces Boulder Problem in FREE SOLO

Most thrillers can only wish they could be as gripping as in the moment when Alex Honnold maneuver’s his way through the most challenging section of El Capitan Wall without rope in this Documentary.

Ray Offers Wisdom from Mid90s

“If you looked in anybody else’s closet, you wouldn’t trade your shit for their shit.”

Ray (Na-kel Smith) and his friends may not be the best role models for the impressionable Stevie (Sunny Suljic), but in this moment, Ray teaches him a lesson in perspective.

Glenn Close’s performance in THE WIFE

I’m not referring to any moment. Just Glenn Close’s acting. She speaks more volumes with her face than most actresses could with dialogue.

10)        The Beach Scene from ROMA

Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) is an extraordinary woman. Sure, her life hanging towels and cleaning dog poo doesn’t seem like anything special. But like many lower working-class people, she endures. Boy does she endure a lot of shit in this movie. Not only does her deadbeat boyfriend ditch her to practice martial arts, but her baby is born dead. Despite all this, she not only continues her work, but she shares a close bond with the family. She showcases this bond and her strength when a fun day at the beach goes horribly wrong.

When Paco (Carlos Peralta) and Sofi (Daniela Demesa) swim too far out, Cleo walks into the ocean to save them despite not knowing how to swim. We watch in dread as she faces severe waves to find the kids, the camera always close to her.

This scene also contains a beautiful scene of the family hugging Cleo when she tears up over losing her baby. Seeing them all huddled together in front of a bright white sun captures the heart.

9)         “A Place Called Slaughter Race” from RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET

Admit it, it’s fun to take pot shots at Disney Tropes. Hell, even Disney gets in on the fun. And boy do they seize on every moment to mock Princess tropes when Vanellope Von Shweetz (voiced by Sarah Silverman) encounters the Disney Princesses. Of course, it helps that Director Rich Moore and Head of Story Jim Reardon creates some of the best episodes of the Simpsons. Though there are many hilarious moments[1], none can hold the candle to Vanellope’s “I Want” song.

As she reflects over a puddle, Vanellope sings about her longing to be in the gritty game “Slaughter Race.” Seeing this little girl perform this lighthearted musical number over a background of riots and dumpster fires is comedy gold. Nearly every element of this number elevates the comedy, from singing shark (with cats and dogs in its mouth) to the creative lyrics (“Am I a baby pigeon spreading wings to soar?/ Is that a metaphor?/Hey, there’s a dollar store”). And the number still finds time to emphasize Vanellope’s fear of hurting Ralph (John. C Reilly).

Kudos to Alan Menken for mocking the trope he (and the late Howard Ashman) introduced to Disney. Just as deserving of Kudos is Silverman, who faced to task of singing in Vanellope’s high pitched voice.

8)         Charlie Loses Her Head from HEREDITARY

With her unusual hobbies, connection to her late grandmother and that clicking sound, you’d assume Annie’s (Toni Collette) daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) would be the centre of the whole film.[2] Boy, were we in for a surprise.

Spoilers!

When Charlie suffers a peanut allergy reaction, Peter (Alex Wolfe) races her home. On his drive, he sees a mysterious figure in the middle of the dark road. In his attempt to dodge it, he doesn’t see Charlie hanging out the window. Seeing her head slam right into a pole leaves us as traumatized as Peter is. To see them kill off a main character so early in the film is downright shocking. With this death, predictability goes right out the window and we are left uncertain of what direction this film will go.

7)         Neil Armstrong Soars in the X-15 Rocket Plane in FIRST MAN

It’s funny how the most exciting scene in this film isn’t the moon landing. Don’t get me wrong, the scene’s still breathtaking in its realism, but it’s surprising how thrilling the opening scene.

Damien Chazelle hits the ground running with Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) soaring the atmosphere in an X-15 Rocket Plane. He soars higher and higher into the skies until he flies out of earth’s surface and gets stuck in space

Albeit, you know he will be back on earth in time for the moon landing. And yet, I found myself on the edge of my seat, wondering how he’s going to get back to earth. Most of it is thanks to the visual effects, which contains some of the most believable since 2001: A Space Odyssey. The effects leave CGI in the dust with practical effects that look so real, you’d think Gosling was actually flying into space.

6)         The Ferris Wheel Scene from LOVE, SIMON

High School Movies are home to many unforgettable romantic scenes. There’s Samantha (Molly Ringwald) and Jake (Michael Schoeffling) standing over a birthday cake in Sixteen Candles. There’s Patrick (Heath Ledger) singing to Katarina (Julia Stiles) on the bleachers in 10 Things I hate About You. And who can forget Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” outside Diane Court’s (Ione Skye) in Say Anything. Be ready to include the closing scene of Simon (Nick Robinson) waiting on the Ferris wheel for online pen pal Blue from Love, Simon.

After being outed by a student, infuriating his friends for deceiving them in his attempt to stay closeted and abandoned by Blue, Simon makes a plea to meet with Blue face to face on the Ferris Wheel at a carnival. As he rides on the Ferris Wheel, he, fellow classmates and the audience wait in anticipation for Simon’s happy ending.

5)         The Book Heist from AMERICAN ANIMALS

When Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) and Warren Lipka (Evan Peters) plotted to steal extremely valuable books from the Transylvania University library in Kentucky, they thought they had the perfect heist. With the help of their friends Erick Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson) and Chas Allen (Blake Jenner), they thought they pull off a heist as smooth as Oceans 11.[3]

But reality hits them like a sledge hammer when they try to pull off the heist. Unlike their dreams, Librarian Betty Jean Gooch (Ann Dowd) doesn’t get knocked out with one taser jolt. It also isn’t easy to lug a six-foot book down a flight of stairs. Then there’s the fact the basement has no exit. That’s just a few of many problems they never consider. From then on, we witness them pay a huge price for their hubris and lack of real-world understanding.

Only youths as smart as they are to come up with such a stupid plan.

4)         The Mutant Bear from ANNIHILATION

Biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) and her team find themselves in a quite a bind. After entering the Shimmer, physicist Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson) has barely survived an attack from a mutant alligator and Anthropologist Cassie Sheppard (Tuva Novotny) has been attacked by a bear. Now paramedic Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez) has gone mad and has tied up Lena, Radek and Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh). But when they hear Sheppard’s cries for help, they will soon find Anya is the least of their worries.

Their journey delivers many grotesque, nightmare inducing visuals (especially the slithering intestines.) But the most memorable moment in this film was the image of the helpless crew trapped in a cabin with a mutant bear. Bears are scary enough on their own, but a faceless one is pants spitting meeting. And then you hear it imitate Sheppard’s screams and suddenly you need a new pair of pants.

3)         The Great Snap from AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

The whole Marvel Cinematic Universe had been leading up to this moment. The fact that nearly every character had a moment to shine in this one movie demonstrates the astounding direction of the Russo Brothers. But despite all the epic fight scenes, everyone agrees that this film’s greatest scene is the heroes moment of defeat.

Despite every effort made to stop in, despite outnumbering Thanos and despite Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) sacrificing Vision (Paul Bettany) to destroy the mind stone, Thanos still got all the infinity stones. And with a single snap, Thanos succeeds in wiping out half the universe’s population. One by one, we watch many of our heroes vanish into dust while others watch in helpless horror. But none are more heartbreaking that the moment when Spider-Man (Tom Holland) falls into Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) arms, crying “I don’t want to go.” All because some characters couldn’t make the sacrifice needed

Yes, we knew he was going to succeed in the end.[4] And yes, you know most of the heroes won’t stay gone.[5] And yes, their return will likely involve the surviving heroes sacrificing themselves.[6] But the ending still feels powerful despite this knowledge.

It all concludes with Thanos sitting near a cottage, content in his triumph. If the MCU ended here, it would have been a perfect ending. But I’m still curious to see how this will go.

2)         The Closing Close-Up in CAPERNAUM

The closing image of Zain’s (Zain Al Rafeea) face will haunt you beyond the closing credits. Throughout the film, we’ve seen this kid struggle through hell on the streets of Lebanon, trying to protect his sister from their resentful parents and helping an Ethiopian Migrant Worker take care of her son. But when he’s sent to prison for assaulting a pimp who bought his sister, he decides to sue his parents for the crime of bringing him into this miserable world. Writer/director Nadine Labaki never looks away for a second to the brutality of Zain’s world and how it brings out the worst in Zain.

When the film freezes to the image of Zain smiling for a Passport photo, your heart breaks for him as Khaled Mouzanar’s haunting score plays out.

1)         Tish and Fonny’s Walk Through the Park in IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

No other opening scene has done a better job of putting its audience under its spell than when loving couple Tish (Kiki Layne) and Alfonzo “Fonny” Hunt (Stephan James) stroll through a park holding hands.

There’s beauty in every element of this scene, from Nicholas Britell’s romantic score to the warm looks in the character’s eyes. But what really sells it is James Laxton’s lush cinematography. The colours pop through the yellows and blues on the couple’s clothes and the green of the grass. You are as in love with this couple as they are for each other.

Then the film cuts to Tish visiting Fonny in prison, this time the yellow is the prison, the blue is Fonny’s jumpsuit and the green is on Tish’ outfit. From then one, we know why their love is worth fighting for.

[1] Mostly at the expense of Ariel (Jodi Benson)

[2] Especially when she appears so prominently in the advertisements.

[3] As indicated by a fantasy sequence.

[4] Since we know this was going to be a two parter.

[5] Especially when there are already planned sequels to Black Panther, Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. After all the money Marvel’s got from Black Panther? They’re not going to give up that meal ticket.

[6] What with Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans retiring their characters.

[doomedandstoned]

French Occultists Hua†a Deliver Cryptic Final Masterwork

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Review by Billy Goate

Think you've heard it all and you're confident about closing the books on 2018 and putting out your best-of lists? I advise you to hold your horses, my friends, because you haven't heard this yet. Get ready for what is without doubt the grandest album of 2018. Guttural rumblings of bass collide with sublime organ tones, shooting holes through the dank chamber like laser rays of radiant sunlight. Soon this feast of sound will be joined by damning riffs and strangely majestic voices that layer melodies in shifting keys, one upon the other, until a spire is created like an ancient ziggurat.

The latest offering by French occultic doomers and Roadburn Festival alumni HUATA is like none other. The band, which recently made an appearance on our 'Doomed & Stoned in France' (2018) compilation, often configures as a five-piece. However, the consistent heartbeat of the project has been founding member, Ronan Grail, and long-time bassist Benjamin Morea -- both of whom constitute the backbone of the now 12-year old act that hails from Rennes.

Long renowned for their stirring live rituals, Hua†a have two extended-plays, two splits, and one previous full-length to their name already, the brilliant 'Atavist of Mann' (2011). However, nothing prepared me for the power of their crowning achievement, 'Lux Initiatrix Terrae’ (2018).

I find myself struggling for points of comparison to entice the reader to become a listener. Shall I draw parallels to the imposing architecture of Ufomammut, the sweeping compositional vision of Slomatics, the ardor of Inter Arma, the airy psychedelic soundscapes of Pink Floyd, the sanguine tenor of Pallbearer, or the harmonic resplendence of Chrome Ghost? At the risk of losing some of the faithful doomers, the most fitting association to the size, scope, and most importantly spirit of Lux Initiatrix Terrae comes not from the realm of metal, but from the world of classical music. I'm thinking of one ambitious work, in particular: Ferruccio Busoni's massive Piano Concerto in C Major, Opus 39 -- one of the most ambitious works ever written in its genre class. Like Hua†a, Busoni laced his work with cryptic references to the occult, ancient orders, and esoteric knowledge.

I hasten to add that Hua†a's magnum opus is not symphonic metal, though "symphonic" seems a most fitting adjective for it. Let's think of it as a rhapsodic fantasy marrying epic and gothic doom to atmospheric, surreal heaviness, whilst subtly flirting with spaced-out domain of psychedelic and occult rock. Some tracks ("The Golden Hordes Of Kailash," for instance) usher in surreal scales and unusual chord progressions that remind me of the creepy grandeur of the mutant worship service in Beneath The Planet of the Apes (1970).

This modern day Tower of Babel aspires to reach the heavens with a power, elegance, and resolute will encountered so rarely in the realm of metal or, for that matter, anything else across the many genres of contemporary music. During its exalting 70-minute run-time, I felt I was bearing witness some incredible modern cantata. This was more than my usual audit of a new promo; this was an all-absorbing listen and an altogether moving experience.

After hearing this record, I'm convinced that Hua†a have definitely given Batushka a run for their money at Psycho Las Vegas over the summer. No Vinyl Stage for these guys, though. Take them straight to The Joint, fellas! A sounds this large is worthy of the same immense theater that brought us Enslaved, SUNN O))), Godflesh, and Indian this year; Candlemass, Yob, Electric Wizard, and Sleep in the years prior.

I've been avoiding using well-tread power words like epic in much of my reviewing this year, but it's time to pull this one off the shelf. This is a special occasion, for Lux Initiatrix Terrae is the band's final work as Hua†a -- an emphatic punctuation to a long and fruitful career. You'll not encounter a band as fascinating as Hua†a or an album quite as majestic as the one before us this year, perhaps not even this decade. Make no mistake, Hua†a's strange, bold chef d'oeuvre will be discovered in this crowded year of excellent releases and, with any luck, reach wide appreciation. At the risk of sounding orgasmic, this record is a triumph.

Right now, you can sample two singles from the album -- its opener, "The Mystical Beast of Revelations" and the third track, "The Solar Work." Both will make you hungry to hear this regal heptad of hymns in all its fullness. On November 23rd, Hua†a's Lux Initiatrix Terrae will see a physical release on a very limited run of 200 cassettes via Sludgelord Records and Seeing Red Records, with vinyl available via French label Music Fear Satan.

To satiate the appetite while we wait, Doomed & Stoned is pleased to bring you the record’s finale, "Third Eye Nation." Though belying in the trippy ambience of its opening moments, the 16-minute monolith soon overtakes the soul.

Give ear...

Lux Initiatrix Terrae by Huata

Interview by Shawn Gibson

with additional question by Billy Goate

Recently, I sent away for Hua†a's new cassette and can't wait to get it! I already have 'Open the Gates of Shambhala' (2010) and 'Atavist Of Mann' (2011), but 'Lux Initiatrix Terrae' (2018) is my first preorder. I must have listened to album's opening track, "The Mystical Beast Of Revelations," four of five times in one sitting already. I play it as loud as I can during my daily commute. It's an amazing song that takes me to places not of this earth! The vocals sound different than the first two albums. The music sounds more sharpened and honed, though still very much the Hua†a we know and love. The organs add to the uniqueness and mesh well with the heavy, doomy vibe of multi-faceted gem of doom, ritual, occult, and psych metal. It was high time we interviewed the band, I thought. Following is my recent exchange of words with , in which they take us behind the veil of secrecy for a rare look at the musical minds that make up Hua†a.   (Shawn)

☿

I used to have a radio show and played "Diving In The Swamp" and "The Imperial Wizard," which I absolutely love. Your new album comes out on November 23rd, which happens to coincide with a full moon. That's a great time to release an album, intentional I would imagine. I'll make sure to listen to 'Lux Initiatrix Terrae' under the light of the full moon and be transcended!

Ben: Thank you for those kind words. We like "Thee Imperial Wizard," too. It was a good song to play live, really deep and slow, as we enjoy.

Who is presently in the band?

Ben: I play bass in Hua†a and also guitars on Lux Initiatrix Terrae, plus fx and synths. I am responsible for a lot of the musical arrangements and composed both the music and lyrics with Ronan.

Ronan: Currently, Ben and I remain in the band, but the last album was recorded with David Barbe on drums and Gurvan Coulon on organ. At this point, we must say it's hard to hold Hua†a alive. We've had a lot of lineup changes. As the founder and last remaining from among the original members, I played with dozens of guys. I don't feel proud of it at all and I can't deny the help and devotion we had from many of the former members. I just wish I had not to deal with these lineup changes.

"At this point, we must tell the truth. There won't be Hua†a anymore."

So Hua†a is now a two-piece? What does that bode for the band's future?

Ronan: At this point, we must tell the truth: there won't be Hua†a anymore. This album will come as a posthumous album. This is due to musical disagreement and I now realize why many bands used the same argument and how it's difficult to explain! I personally don't want to stop playing music like Hua†a, because it's a strong thing I need to do in my life. Like, making it real, see? The thing is, Benjamin is at least as much in Hua†a as me and I can't deny it. So what I want to do now is make music again and all the ideas that could help me to make music like Hua†a did would be welcome.

Ben: As Ronan says, we weren't on the same page, musically and emotionally speaking, anymore after 10 years of doom worshiping to continue this project. We started to write this album in 2013, record it in 2015, and release it in 2018. This lapse of time weighted on us very much, in terms of how we wanted to continue this band. Our wills, visions, and expectations have changed throughout this hiatus and this split is for the best. Now I'm focusing on my other project, Fange, which grew up fast and good, as well as a new experimental hip-hop act called Bienveillance.

Lux Initiatrix Terrae by Huata

Who did the artwork for Lux Initiatrix Terrae?

Ronan: Ben has done all the artwork in Hua†a, from our first release onward. He did all the T-shirts, too, all of Hua†a's imagery remains his vision.

Related to that, when you’re not making music what do you like to do?

Ben: Creating visuals, having nice drinks and meals with friends, playing board games, watching the NBA, and listening to music, obviously.

Ronan: I am currently training for adults undergoing kite to become a Cook. I had a lot of jobs before. I'm like a regular guy; I like to eat, to drink. I like those good things we can take in this world, as I tend to be epicurean. For example, I like to drink and discover a lot of IPAs.

What's a damn good book you've read?

Ronan: I am now reading, again and again, 'The Morning of The Magicians' (1960) from Bergier and Pauwels, and I can tell that the power of this book remains in the themes it tackles. Hörbigers’s Welteislehre, especially, retains my fascination.

Ben: 'The Morning of the Magicians' is definitely inspiring and so is 'The Secret Doctrine' (1888) from Helena Blavatsky. A few books from Robert Charroux were also big inspirations for us in the writing of Hua†a's lyrics and philosophy. Otherwise, ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’ (1968) from Arthur C. Clarke is brilliant, as is the Kubrick's movie adaptation, my favorite of all.

What makes you laugh?

Ben: Monty Python, The IT Crowd, Black Books, Ricky Gervais, etcetera. English humor is the very best. Ace Ventura is also one of my favorites, along with Les Visiteurs.

Ronan: Monty Python! I love the absurd humor.

I love to cook and eat. What are some good French foods you love?

Ben: All of it, man. Don't mess with French people about food. This is more than a cultural institution here; it's a freakin' religion! (laughs) French gastronomy is a masterpiece -- from meats, cheeses, and wines, to fishes and seafood, to even offal, snails, and frogs. All are great, without mentioning the quality of our pastry. But if I had to choose one stuff it would be the bread. Everywhere else's bread is shit.

Ronan: (laughs) Well, I'm actually learning a lot about this topic, as a future Cook. I'm now attending to make a "Poulet vallée d'Auge," a chicken flamed with calvados -- yummy! -- cooked with onions, fresh cream from Isigny, mushrooms, cider, and all of this with roasted potatoes and a good Merlot from our many varieties of wine grapes.

What are your influences musically?

Ben: The first bands I ever listened to as a child were Magma, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, and a lot of '70s rock, thanks to my father, so these records really influenced my musical approach. Black Sabbath is the obvious one, because I'm devoted to the art of the riff. Also John Coltrane, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Zorn, and Trent Reznor are some composers I really admire, among many others. But for Hua†a, my influences were much more from the '70s psychedelic era than the doom-stoner one.

Ronan: I hear from my childhood rock, blues, folk and pop music. I'm not that much into metal music; I mean, not all of it. I'm now exploring some progressive rock music.

Hua†a is from Rennes, so I'm curious about some of the bands from area that you guys dig?

Ronan: I love Eat Roses. What they did was so deep and beautiful. Totorro also does good music. I'm not that much into thrash or death metal, but Hexecutor or Cadaveric Fumes are doing an excellent stuff. And the wave of garage rock bands -- I'm from Rennes -- is quite cool too, I even found Le druide du Gué Charette, which is from this wave and also wear monk robes like we did!

Ben: Eat Roses was the best, but DEAD and You, Vicious! are also quite good in the post-punk scene in Rennes, along with my mate, folk singer Dany von Del Baüt of Malaad Roy, and Straw Hair, who play hip-hop.

How is the metal scene in Rennes?

Ronan: There are the Roazhon Underground productions, Black Karma's new festival, and of course the "Tendresse et passion" scene. A lot of foreign bands visit the Mondo Bizarro or Terminus bars.

Ben: There was a big hardcore scene in Rennes in the late-'90s 'til the mid-2000s, but the metal scene didn't really grow up here. Can't say that there are obvious bands or venues, except the Mondo Bizarro, to really federate everyone, but some promoters are doing a good job to make it live.

What has been an awkward moment as a band?

Ben: Too much to remember, but most of them were more funny than weird moments, which makes good anecdotes, at least!

Ronan: There are so many I can't tell!

Your music has always had religious overtones, thematically and especially instrumentally -- namely through the use of organ. Do any of you have background in Christianity and Catholicism? I'm imagining, perhaps, the music of the cathedrals of your childhood, the grandiosity of the organ music there.

Some of us have been baptized and/or followed catechism class as children, but this has nothing to do with our reason for using an organ in our music, even if we are very impressed and enjoyed by organs in churches. There is nothing about religion in Hua†a, but there is spirituality and the will to cite many cults and convergences between ancient beliefs and occultism throughout history.

For this recording, what did you work with, organ-wise? It sounds like one of those incredible, elaborately piped church organs.

We would have loved to record a proper piped church organ, such as the one you can see on the alternative cover of Lux Initiatrix Terrae, but as with previous albums, we just recorded with a 1961 Hammond Organ -- which actually was used in a church in Brittany, back in the day. We chose to add an organ to our music because of our '70s musical background, but you're not completely wrong by saying that the majestic tones and serenity brought by the organ tones fit well with our musical purpose!

I'd love to probe the depths of each song, because I'm sure there are all kinds of fascinating details there our readers would love to know about. That said, I can understand if the band desires to preserve some mystery and leave it to the prerogative of the listener to search these things out. Certainly there are many rabbit trails to explore, not the least of which is the band's name.

Our lyrics and universe are very deep, indeed, and we do like to let our audience get into this if they want to. There is a big part of our work which remains hidden -- that's the purpose of the occult. To be honest, only a few really dug the lyrics, which are written in an ancient German code in our records, so you have to unscramble them in the graph way and by their meaning and references.

That is truly fascinating. Also, I noticed there were quite a number of contributing artists credited on the record.

We have had so many musicians throughout the years that it might be difficult to follow, I admit! We recorded Lux Initiatrix Terrae with a proper line-up, but summoned several extra-musicians to help us in expanding our musical palette. Their collaborations were even very mysterious, as we didn't meet in person with any of them -- except Laetitia, whom Ronan knows. They all recorded their own parts. We've only reached out to them with ideas of what we wanted and they managed to write what we were expecting.

I imagine there was a deliberate rationale for this?

Nothing extravagant, I'm afraid. They were just living in different areas of Brittany and the recording process took place in several spots over a two-year period. But it definitely fits the purpose not knowing who they are and having no interactions with them.

Not to end on a sour note, but I’m saddened to hear this is perhaps Hua†a's last album!

The decision to split apart was quit recent, but we were already in a hiatus for three years and no ceremonial activities in four years. As you may have gathered, we're a bit outside all these preoccupations we had back in the days, but it's always interesting and a pleasure to picture the whole frame of Hua†a with new disciples!

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[iloveabunchofmovies]

Alien

Alien is one of the most influential pieces of media in modern history. It's the kind of movie that everyone is expected to have seen, but somehow, I hadn't until now. It's hard for any movie to live up to that kind of build up, especially a horror movie about a completely unknown threat. I've been exposed to so many clips, parodies, descriptions, homages, toys, and other references that it really felt like I had seen it all before. There were still moments when I felt a bit tense, but my interest definitely flagged a bit once the alien was on the loose and people started dying. The scary, exciting parts lose some of their power when you already know what to expect. I wonder, though, if I feel that way just because I'd personally had the movie spoiled, or if the movie really does get a bit weaker somewhere in the third act. I've read that the rough cut was three hours and 12 minutes, which was trimmed to an hour and 57 minutes for the theatrical release. I typically think that if you can drop an hour from a movie, you should, but I found that the slasher portion felt disappointingly rushed. The first act, though! Magnificent! This is the stuff that can't be spoiled, no matter how hard you try. Such love for the art and craft of making movies! It's slow in a way that brings to mind 2001: A Space Odyssey, but there's no beauty or wonder here. It's like if you took that vision of the future, and then you let it get old and grungy. You hand it down the nobodies with no future and no connections, and you let them handle the dirty work to support your pristine dream of total domination over the cosmos and your fellow man, alike. And you make it mundane. I get why this is a classic. There's so much to think about within every shot. The creativity is astounding, but it's also perfectly familiar and grounded. It's the plot of a million sci-fi and horror b-movies, but it's treated with care and artistry. And, like, H.R. Giger. I mean, come on, now. Honestly, it's not essential viewing. I'd already picked up enough through cultural osmosis. It's a darned good picture, though, and I'm glad I finally watched it. - - -

I’m ranking every movie I watch between my 33rd and 34th birthdays right here on Tumblr dot com because I am some kind of idiot person, I guess.

Spider-Man

Moonrise Kingdom

Fatty Drives the Bus

50 First Dates

Alien

I Feel Pretty

TMNT

The Darjeeling Limited

The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story

Legally Blonde

The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Pork Pie

Incredibles 2

Election

My Fair Lady

Thunder Force

[leo-dale19]

Where dreams lead

The Serotonin God has led me down many a winding road - I have followed him to the point of exhaustion, he cannot escape me, he is by no means out of sight but he repeatedly disappears and reappears from behind the trees that are the various obstacles of unlucky fate that separate me from permanent reunion with him. Unless I get permanent brain damage, we will meet again and be united with the present moment anew. This lesson goes to show you should never let go of your loved ones, because you have no idea where you’ll end up without them and there are no guarantees. Well, there are, but merely on a divine level.

I would be highly intrigued to know what is currently happening on a subconscious level, what canals of my birth trauma am I currently unconsciously passing through again amidst the current everyday chaos. On saturday night I had the interesting return of 2001: A Space Odyssey into my conscious space. More precisely, I suddenly remembered Peter Hyam’s sequel to Kubrick’s masterpiece, the tight associations it holds with January/February 2012, the longest, grayest, winter I could remember, literally a pale shadow of its 2011 predecessor (although that comparison mainly refers to March and its 2011 analogue). I was convinced that 2001 world of eternal ectasy was truly eternal, I didn’t see how it was subject to physical laws of what chemicals I may or may not have ingested into my body. But God works in strange ways. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V68pnTJwjQU

For the first time in a very long time, I took advantage of a sudden moment of mental lucidity to take pictures of myself looking more or less presentable. This is a rare occurence, as although I do not consider myself unattractive, I have one of the main distinguishing features of a paranoid schizophrenic - I am very, very bad at regularly taking care of myself. One can deifnitely argue that self-absorbedness is more frequent in moments of mental insecurity, which I agree with, but my paranoias go to such extents that I get states where I am totally unaware of myself as “really being there”. Like I am so absorbed in my ego that all I feel is merely my mental image of myself, rather than what I actually look like to other people. So on Saturday I actually had the luck to experience a brief moment of mental lucidity where I was somewhat in limbo between two states - being paranoically anxious and being self-aware enough to realise what I seem like to the outside world. And so I decided a little cam-whoring was necessary, as I could indulge in some potentially constructive self-loving. That is, undeniably still a state of mental insecurity, but not as detached from reality.

Vkontakte has become a bizarre obsession. I plan on keeping my russian interest going for as long as possible, but the group of people I have come to know on Vkontakte know nothing of who I really am and I shamelessly take liberties in the image I create of myself to them. I am aware it is an escape. I often wondered whether they could realise that too, but people aren’t stupid - I know they do, although they obviously can’t complete the rest of the picture as they lack the facts and can only guess at what my true essence is. I think they are strangely tolerant or just bizarrely intrigued - or perhaps quite simply both - by this foreigner who speaks perfect russian, which, if they are to believe him, he learned all by himself. I also suspect life in russia is quite drab so there is no real time to reproach other people for not getting on with their life (although there probably is but more within the social-status confines of their own everyday society) or quite simply to be picky about fantastically weird occurences that you come across: my mum mentioned the USSR made you appreciate the simple things a lot more, and a an anglo-german russian-speaker who lives in france is more bizarre and interesting than it is worthy of cynically questioning. Although those russians are not a rarity either, I can feel a lot of what I was convinced for many years was unique to the English - a merciless contempt for those more talented than one’s self (although the english, as far as I can tell, are still worse and generally obnoxious about it, since it isn’t merely a petty character trait but a whole institutionalised social class mentality). I’ve already come across a few people on my adventures who I plan to never trust or have any serious dealings with, as, I kid you not, it would not surprise me that if we were to meet, they would give me away to the secret police or some shit because of their immature teenage jealousy, making up some pretext to have me taken away for good, away from the world where I may potentially humble them. Russia, I feel,  is one of those countries where truth is a very, very bizarre phenomenon and it is very hard to establish what it is in a country so vast and so varied, the accounts I get of life in Russia differ so much among themselves that it’s impossible to know what really goes on, although inevitably I have been able to attribute certain views to certain precise character types, for example a common archetype is that of the Denial russian: these are generally reasonable looking types, not necessarily extreme-oriented, however they have no interest in a free society, justify the authoritarian regimes they’ve lived through, blatantly deny the existence of certain horrors of russian society to the point where talking to them feels more like reading  a history book on Soviet Propaganda than it does like getting an objective view on what’s going on in the country. I accentuate “reasonable-looking” as I feel in the western world we immediately imagine anybody who supports anything totalitarian as a raving fanatic, but we’ve become quite desensitised and we must remember that evil in the vast majority of cases is criminally banal; and if one gives it some serious thought, it could never be any other way, since evil can only be committed by superficial people for superficial motivations. It is destructive and intentionally illusory, whereas love allows life to grow. It is therefore intriguing to see very ordinary people supporting such great evil in such a petty manner; would they maybe be more worthy of respect if they at least had some finesse to their wrong-doing? These people generally have a very strong vanity streak and there are more pictures of them on their pages than ther are of anything else. One could say I am the last person to judge, but I’ve realised my narcissism is quite often merely a by product of my unstable state of mind, an energy that stabilises me so as not to go fully psychotic, but then again, it is possible I am more truly vain than I think. And even then, or rather, especially then, it is a sort of pseudo-narcissism, i.e a hypersensorial daydream, not an actual philosophy to life that I put into action and impose on people around me, I have gained too much self-awareness for that. It is merely an energy that takes hold of my present moment awareness.  But on top of that, in the depths of universal love something tells me that I cannot really be a narcissist. Dave Bowman powering through the red Stargate, the light reaching 6 year old me on the grass next to lake Divonne tells me that my mind is blessed with forces too great and beautiful to truly have narcissism at the core of its inner essence. It is a symptom of my illness, and Universal Love is with me. The Consciousness Network knows of me and I have experience in accessing it.  It just blows my mind that I have managed to lose touch with it, as this seems unthinkable every time I come in conatct with it. Sand, trickle not through my fingers but shape into an empire!  

I am having a sudden OCD panic attack so will have to take a break from writing this (there is still more). The sudden lucidity that allowed me to write everything above is dissipating. It will return. I must believe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR98qq9iHmw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi9buHnx9rU

Underworld are a recent revelation; not a discovery, as I have known of them for several years. It is just that something has grasped me in their music of late, something very homely, friendly to Karl Hyde’s voice combined with their sound textures. Songs like Bird One are moments where, much like I had at times in the past about russians, I catch glimpses (of a man, moving uphill) of hope for english and anglosaxons, that is in a Eugenics sort of way, namely that, despite their general contempt for all things rational, their anarchic spirit gives them a raw spirituality that I find mainland europeans can tend to lack once taken over by their abstract concepts. There is a certain finesse to the constant crescendo that is Bird One that I feel could only come from the souls of a couple of english blokes, a certain friendly naivety that gets lost when for example their mainland european counterparts try to emulate it; although I generally tend to prefer the French to the English, I know from personal experience that the latter have more of a natural feel for making music. I have started to take racial theories seriously recently - not in the sense that I feel they are truly grounded in reality or are necessarily of any value, but in the sense that I believe that people don’t just make these things up, and in our distinct social groups prevalent energy trends can be mutually communicated in a deeply profound way, creating a mystical sense of unity, for better or for worse. I am admittedly highly untypical for an englishman, for various reasons, but even though I have never lived there I feel a sort of strange sentimental attachment to certain things english, things that speak very directly to my immediate behaviour and personality, more so than many french things, although I do still have a special connection with various of the latter having grown up with them and all. I found that for a long time the way I thought in Russian was more cloesly linked to the english part of my brain than to the french part. 

Underworld give me hope for the english. That the english are more than the friday night pub-drunkards, or the social-status obsessed sociopaths that populate the country, that they really have a Weltanschauung within their character that is worth sharing. The english generally seem like uncivilised barbarians compared to their european neighbours, and there have been points where I may have considered the possibility that they were quite simply an inferior nation with lower capacities. They have no real sense of culture, any idea of what it is to be human, what it is to be. I feel they are liberal in a way that other european countries aren’t - whereas in France people, I feel, are truly concerned about democracy and freedom, in England liberal mentality seems nothing more than a social trend that shifts according to the tide, for example english people are traditionally the worst homophobes I have ever met, back in the 60′s  they effectively condemned one of the world’s greatest minds, Alan Turing,  to death for his sexual orientation, and suddenly as of a few years ago it became socially accepted that sexual equality was a thing and now everyone goes along with it likes it’s totally normal. The english have no real values. They are an entertainment culture like the americans. I even find the russians are sometimes more respectable in their fierce respect for their culture, (although I do find them very superficial themselves of late and appreciate the english’s basic niceness which I think is more profound than the paranoid frown russians greet everyone with). But they produce wonders of art that make me think twice. There is something godly in that fuck-off anarchy. Yes, I am a hopeless romantic. But by God does the world need us. It is hopeless without us.

A maintes reprises over the past days I have been convinced that my brain is gone for good and that my Odyssey will have no stargate ending, i.e a banal end in which the computer actually manages to kill me because I forgot my space helmet. This is all because this time last week, I ate about 12 entire packets of ham within the space of 3/4 days, since I realised it had a great capacity for digesting serotonin, i.e to end my current mental drought. I went a bit too full retard on this one though and have been feeling what I believe are the effects of excess serotonin: headache, confusion, trouble with memory, slight depressin etc. I pray to god and have not lost hope that my mind will gradually stabilise, but I will say one thing - there is no worse fate in this world than being boring and superficial. I have felt states of mind so dull these past days I became terrified at the prospect I may never rediscover my former psychotic Eden, but also horrified at the idea that people actually live in such limited states of consciousness. No fucking wonder there is so much evil in our world, I certainly don’t blame anyone for resorting to it. I would literally rather die than live in those states for the rest of my life and so keep going merely in the hope that this is all purely temporary, which I tend to truly believe. Moral of the story is, kids, don’t eat 9 packets of ham within the space of two days, cus y’all might fuck up yo brains in doing so. A worthy death is worth far more than a meaningless existence.

To elaborate on 2001 - Kubrick’s 2001 is more than just a film for me, for many many years, until the wonders of modern psychiatry altered Universal Love’s playing fields, that world was a crucial part of my general life perception. It was an energy that flowed like a river underneath all occurences of the physical world, reminding me of the divine and greater good in this life. It is something supernatural, on a heightened sensory level, where my inner world mixes ecstatically with the ouer. It is when I lost those sensations that I inherently started to become a disgustingly superficial person. Religious faith in such things is crucial, as life may take them away.

[dappled-things]

“Knocking at the doors of human perception” is how Tim Adams describes the exploration of human selfhood in the form of transhumanism. As traditional notions of “human” have been challenged by postmodern thought, which questions universal modes of meaning and legitimation (New Keywords, 270), a complex discourse regarding “the human” has arisen thanks to increased technological abilities. Wolfe (and Heidegger) argue that while proper relations with technology may bring about edification, improper relationships may distance man from his essence (4-5). Popular culture mirrors the complex narratives revolving around these questions, particularly as artificial intelligence and human enhancement become viable. Written works, such as I, Robot by Asimov or 2312 by Robinson, and visual media, such as Space Odyssey 2001 and Akira, become spaces for exploration about the benefits and dangers of technological impact on the human identity. This year, with varying levels of success, Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner 2049 present autoethnographies for alternative human identity and explore human value, appropriation, and agency.

Before continuing, I would like to clarify a few concepts, both in definition and function. Firstly, by referring to both films as autoethnographies, I am drawing on Mary Louise Pratt’s definition: texts “in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations others have made of them” (35). Although most autoethnographies are traditionally written in first person, I would argue that K’s (Blade Runner 2049) and the Major’s (Ghost in the Shell) perspectives are dominant within their respective films, providing biographical, if not autobiographical, accounts of their experiences as marginalized persons. Both stories provide subjective, post-modern quests for identity within modernist trappings of progressivism, materialism, and scientism. Secondly, there remains the challenge of how to read alternative human identity. K is artificially intelligent; the Major is the ultimate transhuman. Yet, beyond these literal readings, one can view K as a metaphor for the human condition within the framework of reductionist scientism, which is often linked to materialism and physicalism (Van Riel and Van Gulick, Nagel) or the Major as the exploited, yet evolutionarily-progressive human within a neo-Marxist framework. Reading K and the Major literally or metaphorically pushes us readers to question what “human” really is – and why that question is even important to us.

In Blade Runner 2049, the exploration of “human” is limited due to the very nature of its genre – dystopian, film noir science-fiction.

Smog and mountains of garbage paint a bleak picture of humanity’s future

A dying tree symbolizes the death of nature, but the flower represents hope?

Humanity through the lens of A.I. personhood within the figure of K, is devalued, exploited, and limited. Society mistreats Replicants, keeping them firmly in their place, as shown by the derogatory term “skin job” applied to K on a number of occasions. Rachel’s baby, to the Replicants, is a symbol of hope, yet the viewer is not afforded any vision of that freedom. More telling is the conversation between K and his superior, Lt. Joshi:

“K: I’ve never retired something that was born. Lt. Joshi: What does that mean? K: To be born… means you have a soul, I guess. […] Lt. Joshi: You’ve done good without one.”

Here, K implies that not having a soul suggests lack of value. Although he is acknowledged by Lt. Joshi, K is told that “the World is built in a wall that separates kind. Tell either side there’s no wall, you’ve bought a war. Or a slaughter.” In the name of order, Lt. Joshi justifies the ongoing devalued status of the Replicants. Exploitation automatically results. Joi, K’s holographic lover, is a product which we are encouraged to see as unique and desirable, but later we are forcibly reminded of her less than free status as a program thanks to a highly sexualized ad. We can also see the blatant exploitation of AI personhood in the scenes where Wallace inspects and handles new “product”.

The uniqueness and intimacy of Joi is removed by the overt sexualization of her program later in the film, creating a sense of meaninglessness regarding the relationship between her and K.

Replicant creation disturbs as we view the “human” as products.

A link between exploitation and agency can also be found within the whole subplot of verifying memory. Uncertain if his memories are real – K’s journey to discover the truth swings from hope (Ana affirming the memory as real) to despair (all Replicants share the memory). Implanted memories, some may argue, are a form of exploitation, as identity is forced upon the subordinate. However, K’s identity nevertheless forms through limited agency as he responds to “truth”. K gains awareness and limited freedom as he names himself “Joe” and aids Deckard to reunite with his daughter. Freysa tells K that “dying for the right cause” is “the most human thing we can do”, but although “Joe” is successful, he ends up dying alone in the snow.

On the other hand, in Ghost in the Shell, the exploration of “human” is more optimistic due to the foundation upon which it rests – the acceptance and exploration of consciousness and the soul. As a result, the transhuman Major is valued, if temporarily exploited (and appropriated, literally), and she finds a larger degree of agency, working toward a more sustainable future.

With her brain implanted in an entirely robotic body, the Major is the ultimate transhuman.

Is the Major an example of an unhealthy link between human and technology? As she loses touch with her body, she begins to question her human essence.

To begin with, as opposed to K, the Major is a highly valued, cutting-edge scientific experiment who shares a complex almost mother-daughter relationship with the lead scientist Dr. Ouelet. Dr. Ouelet constantly refers to the Major as a miracle, and reminds the Major that her ‘ghost’ (soul) is still present and valued. Dr Ouelet’s self-sacrifice for the Major’s freedom upholds the doctor’s belief that the Major is a valuable step in humanity’s evolution. Batou reminds the Major that she is not a robot, despite her entirely robotic body, and Aramaki, the Major’s superior on the task force, has even stronger opinions on the Major’s intrinsic value, stating:

“You are more than just a weapon. You have a soul… a ghost. When we see our uniqueness as a virtue, only then will we find peace.”

Faced with a hacked robot, the Major begins to question her selfhood.

Batou sees the Major as human, and ultimately must accept enhancement himself due to an accident.

However, symbolized by the Hanka Robotics Corporation, a system of exploitation exists, in which Dr. Ouelet’s character is implicated. Not only does Hanka Robotics forcibly kidnap young “rebels”, but they experiment on the teens – putting Motoko’s brain into a robotic shell, wiping her memory, renaming her, and placing her on an anti-terrorist task force.

In the face of termination, the Major does not give her consent.

Memories of her kidnapping return, but they remain “glitchy”. This visualization of her disintegrating and disintegrated memories call into question the infallible power of memory – and the uncertain knowledge of self.

Like K, Motoko (now the Major) goes on a quest of self-identity. Yet, unlike K, she not recovers only her memories, but rediscovers her family, her memories and her ability to act for herself. No longer is consent in name only, but her agency is legitimized as she enacts justice through Aramaki’s gun.

Aramaki: Major? I’m with Cutter. Is there anything you’d like to say to him? Major: Tell him this is justice. It is what I am built for. Aramaki: So… Do I have your consent? Major: My name is Major, and I give my consent.

[Aramaki shoots Cutter three times, killing him.]

Here, the story appears to suggest that in terms of navigating alternative technologies, the uniqueness of personhood and the agency to enact one’s will are important for sustaining identity. She ends the film stating:

“My mind is human. My body is manufactured. I’m the first of my kind, but… I won’t be the last. We cling to memories as if they define us. But what we do defines us. My ghost survived to remind the next of us… that humanity is our virtue. I know who I am… and what I am here to do.”

The Major’s assertion that she is the first, but not the last is echoed in Adams’s article and Stephen Lilley’s book Transhumanism and Society: The Social Debate over Human Enhancement, regarding inevitability claims (61-71). Over the past century, the mythos of human progression linked to technology has been perpetuated as normative. However, human anxiety regarding artificial intelligence and human enhancement lingers, resulting in films such as Blade Runner 2049 and Ghost in the Shell. These films, utilizing the medium of science fiction, subverts the traditional ethos of progressivism and scientism to mobilize concepts of value, appropriation, and agency. Both films explore how technology may undercut or exploit the “human” figure. However, I would argue that Ghost in the Shell in particular offers a more optimistic view which links the essence of human (the “ghost”) and relationships (her task force) to a sustainable future with a promise of agency, one we are more likely to hope for.

Picture Captions

Figure 1. Smog and mountains of garbage paint a bleak picture of humanity’s future.

Figure 2. A dying tree symbolizes the death of nature, but the flower represents hope?

Figure 3 – The uniqueness and intimacy of Joi is removed by the overt sexualization of her program later in the film, creating a sense of meaninglessness regarding the relationship between her and K.

Figure 4 – Replicant creation disturbs as we view the “human” as products.

Figure 5 – With her brain implanted in an entirely robotic body, the Major is the ultimate transhuman.

Figure 6 – Is the Major an example of an unhealthy link between human and technology? As she loses touch with her body, she begins to question her human essence.

Figure 7- Faced with a hacked robot, the Major begins to question her selfhood.

Figure 8 – Batou sees the Major as human, and ultimately must accept enhancement himself due to an accident.

Figure 9 – In the face of termination, the Major does not give her consent.

Figure 10 – Memories of her kidnapping return, but they remain “glitchy”. This visualization of her disintegrating and disintegrated memories call into question the infallible power of memory – and the uncertain knowledge of self.

Works Cited

Adams, Tim. “When Man meets metal: rise of the transhumans.” The Observer. Guardian News and Media Limited, Oct. 29, 2017, theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/29/transhuman-bodyhacking-transspecies-cyborg. Date Accessed: Oct. 31, 2017.

Blade Runner 2049. Dir. Denis Villeneuve. Warner Bros Pictures, 2017. Film.

Chitwood, Adam. “’Blade Runner 2049’ Writers on whether Deckard is a Replicant.” Collider. Complex Media Inc, Oct 2017, collider.com/blade-runner-2049-is-deckard-a-replicant/. Date Accessed: Nov 2, 2017.

Ghost in the Shell. Dir. Rupert Sanders. Paramount Pictures, 2017. Film.

Lilley, Stephen. Transhumanism and Society: The Social Debate over Human Enhancement. SpringerLink, 2013, libaccess.mcmaster.ca/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4981-8. E-book. Date Accessed: Oct 30, 2017.

Nagel, Thomas. “What is it like to be a bat?” The Philosophical Review, vol. 83, no. 4, 1974, pp 435-450. JSTOR. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2183914. Ebook. Date Accessed: Oct 27, 2017.

���Postmodernism.” New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Edited by Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005.

Pratt, Mary Louise. “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Profession, 1991, pp 33-40. JSTOR. JSTOR, http://www.jstore.org/stable/25595469. Date Accessed: Nov 1, 2017.

Riesman, Abraham. “Does Blade Runner 2049 Settle the ‘Is Deckard a Replicant’ Debate?” Vulture. New York Media LLC, Oct. 7, 2017, http://www.vulture.com/2017/10/does-blade-runner-2049-say-whether-deckards-a-replicant.html. Date Accessed: Nov. 2, 2017.

Van Riel, Raphael and Van Gulick, Robert. “Scientific Reduction.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter Edition, Ed. Edward N. Zalta, 2016, plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/scientific-reduction/. Date Accessed: Oct 27, 2017.

Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement: Exploring the Human in Alternative Identities “Knocking at the doors of human perception” is how Tim Adams describes the exploration of human selfhood in the form of transhumanism.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Bright Wall/Dark Room May 2018: An Essay on 'Punch Drunk Love' by Ethan Warren

We are pleased to offer an excerpt from the latest edition of the online magazine, Bright Wall/Dark Room. The theme for their May issue is "Second Time Around," featuring essays on films that their writers once hated but now love, or vice versa. In addition to this essay by Ethan Warren below, there are also pieces on "Suspiria," "Adam's Rib," "Manhunter" "Paris, Texas," "Interstellar," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "The Assassin," "Drop Dead Gorgeous" and Emir Kusturica. The above art is by Brianna Ashby. 

You can read previous excerpts from the magazine by clicking here. To subscribe to Bright Wall/Dark Room, or purchase a copy of their current issue, click here.

American adolescence is a marathon of milestones. In those wilderness years between the end of childhood and the onset of adulthood, every birthday seems to bring some seismic new authority—now you can drive; now you can buy cigarettes and a lottery ticket; now you can buy your own beer. But there’s another milestone that, while less often heralded, may be, at least to some of us, the most significant of all: on your 17th birthday, you can buy your own ticket to an R-rated movie, and enter that darkened theater unsupervised.

There’s something solemn and almost mystical about gaining access to a new tier of films. We go to the movies to gain insight, references, social cues that we can use to navigate the world. There’s so much that we experience first on a screen—faraway places, unfamiliar lifestyles, what it looks like to hurt someone and be hurt, what it looks like to love and be loved—and being granted entrance to grown-up movies is like being handed a manual for the adult experience, one you believe you’ve earned by virtue of this personal epoch shift.

That shift happened for me in 2002, and my friends and I spent that year gorging ourselves on the grown-up films of the day. We rushed out to see Adaptation, About Schmidt, Road to Perdition, and afterwards we furrowed our brows over Sprites at Chili’s and earnestly discussed the experience, test-driving analytical terms we’d learned in English class. It felt satisfyingly adult, but I have a feeling I wasn’t the only one with a nagging voice in the back of my head: would’ve been great to see Spider-Man or The Two Towers again instead…

I never voiced that feeling aloud, or even gave it full voice in my head. Because that longing for juvenile art reminded me of the most disturbing truth imaginable: despite this leap towards adulthood, I still felt like me.

One chilly Saturday night that October, my friend Josh and I visited a creaky old arthouse near his home on the south shore of Boston. I’d recently read a review in Entertainment Weekly—the publication of record to my high school mind—that described something fascinating: an Adam Sandler movie for grownups.

“The Sandler we see is, in essence, the same Sandler we have come to know,” Owen Gleiberman had advised, “except that the movie isn’t nudging us in the ribs to laugh at him.” To young men with almost no understanding of cinema except that they loved it, this was a thrilling and fascinating notion.

Ninety-five minutes later, Josh and I burst out of the theater enraged. That movie wasn’t just bad, it was appalling, offensive. We wanted to call the director and chew him out for wasting our time with that faux-artsy bullshit, and any intelligent and rational viewer would obviously agree. We shook with anxious fury as we stepped into the ice cream parlor next door—it was cold out, and Josh’s mom wouldn’t be there to pick us up for another 10 minutes.

*

Punch-Drunk Love—Paul Thomas Anderson’s fourth film as a writer/director, released when he was just 32 years old—puts you on uncertain footing from the first frame. With no title cards to orient us, we cut in on Barry (Sandler) hunched in the corner of the screen, making a phone call in what appears to be a barren warehouse. He mumbles about the finer points of some corporate fine print, but before we can get the drift, he’s distracted by a strange sound. He walks out onto a dreary corner of predawn Los Angeles and looks in vain for the source. In the distance, a car hits a curb and flips, a visceral and horrific accident that could well be lethal, observed with a detachment that emphasizes nothing. Barry flinches, and then a taxi pulls up, stops long enough for someone to place a harmonium on the ground in front of him, and speeds off.

This avalanche of input is accomplished in three minutes, and we scramble to organize all we’ve seen—was the strange sound relevant? (It wasn’t.) Will that accident be relevant? (It won’t.)

These opening minutes feature no score, and camerawork that’s mostly neutral and restrained. Over the next few minutes, the viewer can start to acclimate to this cold tone. But then, as happens so often in this film, as soon as you gain a foothold, the ground starts to shifts under you.

The eerie vibe lasts about 10 minutes, and then the score finally kicks in. A calliope-tinged waltz brings a sense of grace to the proceedings for, oh, about two minutes. Then that dreaminess is broken by an abstract interlude—shifting colors scored by an atonal aural collage—which is itself then broken when we jump into Barry’s morning as a distributor of toilet plungers. We watch him move about his warehouse in long, smooth takes, all set to a score of thudding timpani and various taps and creaks, which creates a mood of teeth-gnashing anxiety even before we witness the assaultive phone calls and potential for workplace accidents that surround Barry at all times.

As an adolescent, I thrived on the familiar. I fancied myself mature enough to handle avant-garde art, but in a pre-streaming world, I had little exposure to films that truly challenged me. I would pore over descriptions of Eraserhead and Putney Swope, wistfully trying to conjure them in my mind, but whenever I persuaded my parents to drive me over to Video to Go, the selection I perused had “daring indie provocation” defined as Chasing Amy—which, though I would never have admitted it aloud, did provide some shameful measure of relief; that Eraserhead sounded pretty freaky. In that old seaside arthouse, though, I experienced for the first time a full-scale assault on my understanding of what a movie could look and feel like, and I had no way to process a surging tide of intense emotion.

Punch-Drunk Love continues to swing wildly between extremes. Over another stretch of about 10 minutes, we experience brutal rage (when Barry is overwhelmed during a date with Emily Watson’s Lena, a woman seemingly out of his league, he steps into the bathroom and kicks in the stall doors, grunting with volatile distress), we experience achingly sincere emotion (when the date ends with Lena unexpectedly calling Barry back up to her apartment for a kiss, he sprints down the hall like a man on fire rushing towards an extinguisher, underscored by strings and accordions straight out of an Audrey Hepburn romance), and we experience stark terror (after the date, Barry is accosted by extortionists and flees on foot as they pursue with hurled invective). 

And I do mean we experience these extremes, rather than observing them, as Anderson uses every tool at his disposal to put us directly within Barry’s feverish worldview: When the score is oppressively percussive, we’re infected with Barry’s own excruciating stress, and when the score soars with romance under externally mundane events, we’re reminded of the heart-shaking significance of this moment in his life. When a shot goes agonizingly long without the relief of a cut, we’re left stranded along with Barry wondering when this anguish might end, but when a scene is shattered by a jagged flurry of cuts to accompany the introduction of some new character or information, we’re stranded again as both we and Barry struggle to process this sudden influx of input. And when a frightening outburst of Barry’s is shot with cold objectivity, we become implicated as Barry then turns to see everyone—ourselves included—staring at him, reminding us, somehow even more keenly from an outer vantage than if we were within his, how lonely it feels to lose control when everyone else has retained it.

For a young man trained on traditional film grammar, never forced to sort out provocative juxtapositions, this was all too much. Three-quarters of the way through the film, I broke. As Barry and Lena lay in bed on the verge of consummation, whispering flirtatious threats of violence—“I’m looking at your face and...I just wanna fucking smash it with a sledgehammer.” “I want to chew your face and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them.”—my discomfort flipped into revulsion. I’d made every effort to engage with this movie, and now I felt mocked, a sting that burned all the more for my low-humming fear that I was still too immature, and so worthy of that mockery. I built a wall between myself and the screen just before the finale erupted in a crescendo of cruelty, rage, courage, and love, numbing myself in the nick of time. Rather than grapple with any of my intense responses, I made a simple ruling: this was the worst movie I had ever seen.

*

Three months later, I went off to a new school, three hours from home. It was my idea, an attempt to shake some measure of courage and confidence into my life, but as my departure approached, I started experiencing explosive bursts of emotion. One night, seized by something I could neither understand nor articulate, I punched a wall, shattering the plastic casing around the light switch. I was shocked at how much damage I could do on a volatile impulse, and my anger melted into bitter self-loathing.

When I arrived and started settling into my new dorm, my new roommate and I tried to bond through that age-old young man’s ritual of comparing pop culture tastes. I mentioned that I had recently seen the worst movie ever made: Punch-Drunk Love.

“You probably didn’t understand it,” my roommate sniffed. He hadn’t seen it, but he knew it was artsy stuff.

“Yes I did!” I spat back. “And there was nothing to understand!”

I didn’t have the vocabulary to defend my opinion, only the memory of my amorphous distress. But before I could gather my thoughts, I was overcome with shame at being accused of intellectual inferiority. This was the imposter syndrome that I had crossed states to escape. But the invisible infection couldn’t be shaken that easily.

*

Slowly but surely, in fits and starts, I kept growing up. I was in college when Anderson released his next film, There Will Be Blood. I tagged along with two more enthusiastic friends, and while I expected a dreary historical epic, I was startled by how strange and lithe the movie was, shocked that it could have come from the director of the worst movie I’d ever seen. I was in grad school when Anderson released his follow-up, The Master, and I watched it alone out of tentative curiosity—then rushed back out immediately with friends, eager to share this enigmatic bruiser of a film. Before long, I was routinely citing it as my favorite movie.

I doubled back to his earlier films; I loved both Boogie Nights and Magnolia, but they felt like the work of a different artist entirely, one less sure on his feet and more indebted to his influences than the one who’d produced these singular masterpieces in the past decade. Falling in love with his remaining body of work, though, never sparked any interest in reconsidering Punch-Drunk Love; I remembered everything I’d hated about it. But I was nagged by curiosity as to how this little film I recalled as so spiteful and ugly might serve as a link between these two eras in his work. When it showed up on Netflix, I finally bit the bullet, pressing play with the apprehension of a spurned lover at risk of being hurt all over again.

*

The intellectual response was the same: I have never seen anything like this. But as I experienced all the same whiplash that unmoored me a decade earlier, the emotional response was flipped, leaving me breathless with joy. Where before I had seen nothing but a haze of ugliness, I could now sort and compartmentalize the stylistic juxtapositions, and the result was one of the richest viewing experiences I’d ever had.

Early on, there’s something approaching the kind of conventional joke I had once expected from a grown-up Adam Sandler movie. In the middle of the first stressful warehouse set piece, Barry offers to demonstrate a new non-breakable plunger for potential buyers. He smashes the plunger on the table, and it shatters in a geyser of particles. He remarks, “OK, this was one of the old ones.” That moment could come from a comedy of any style, but a conventional one would use editing and sound design to help us process the joke. Here, the moment is only one note in a symphony of anxiety and it’s played so deadpan that it almost crosses the line into anti-comedy. On first viewing, I was so behind the 8-ball I would barely have registered the opportunity to laugh.

I now had the benefit of Anderson’s full filmography to decode the sequence. Each of his films has a prankster’s spirit that evinces an admirable lack of pretension. Even the towering Old Testament-style epic There Will Be Blood was largely influenced, he claims in interviews, by Tom and Jerry and Spy vs. Spy. That willingness to subvert genre expectation is a large part of what makes him so appealing as an artist. While some “serious” filmmakers feel the need to saturate their dramas with unvarying solemnity, Anderson has the confidence to play with every shade of tone available, knowing that this variance will make each disparate element pop to maximum effect.

When a bleak drama is subverted by jolts of laughter, it’s a relief; comedy subverted by unvarnished pain and distress, though, is a much more acquired taste. Watching Punch-Drunk Love now, I marvel at the unbearably tense warehouse scenes because I recognize the puckish spark and unique vision in that discordant cinematic symphony. But as an adolescent, I didn’t yet have the necessary experience and context to laugh along with provocation. Feeling mocked, I responded with a very adolescent outrage.

From my current vantage a decade and a half removed, though, my adolescent response strikes me as appropriate. Josh and I weren’t just irritated in 2002, we were rattled to our cores in ways we could only process with agitated babbling and shrill jokes. That disturbed intensity, it seems so clear now, was an unconscious attempt to control the narrative for why we felt how we did, to assure ourselves that we were sophisticated cinephiles with complete perspective on our revulsion. But if we’d truly had perspective, we would have been recognized the truth too awful to reckon with in that moment: that Punch-Drunk Love functions on a very specific level for adolescent boys, one so precise and intense that it’s easier to look away from than to accept. It’s simultaneously an expression of fantasies they don’t dare express, and a bleak realization of their darkest fears.

*

Each of Barry’s defining traits perfectly matches the profile of a typical adolescent boy. He’s agonizingly uncomfortable in his own skin, constantly shifting posture and expression in search of some elusive social ease. His trademark primary-blue suit, which appears at first to be a flourish of heightened production design, is quickly revealed to be a deliberate affectation—when an employee asks why he’s wearing a suit, Barry responds, “I bought one. I thought it would be nice...and I’m not exactly sure why.” I would wager most adolescent boys have experimented with similar sartorial trademarks in hopes of crystallize their identity—Maybe I’ll be a hat guy, maybe I’ll be a Chuck Taylors guy. On that chilly October night when I first watched Punch-Drunk Love, I can say with virtual certainty that I was wearing the canvas jacket I’d recently festooned with carefully selected pins and patches, and which I would wear daily for the next several years, convinced that as long as I wore something distinctive, I could project the illusion of a sense of self.

But Barry’s emotional troubles are more severe than social anxiety; he seems plagued by turbulent pubescent hormones, leading to mood swings that are unbecoming in a teenager but horrifying in an adult. When he’s teased by his sisters during a party, his bruised feelings surge so hot that he punches out the panes of a sliding glass door. Moments later, he confesses to his brother-in-law, “I don’t like myself sometimes,” then collapses into sobs, clasping his face as though to literally hold himself together, and lurches away moaning, “I’m sorry.” There’s a dark comedy to the sequence, but it rings recognizable to me now in a way I couldn’t have allowed myself to see as a teenager. I remember the snap into destructive rage that made me break my parents’ light switch, and I remember so often wrestling with a shame over my very existence as I struggled to imagine where I might fit into the world. Some alarm must have triggered in my teenage subconscious watching this film—there’s a chance you could feel this way forever.

At my darkest moments, this alienation convinced me I might be unworthy of romantic love. Barry clearly never outgrew this fear, and it sparks the twin plot strands that braid into a vision of simultaneous fantasy and terror. When his sister suggests introducing him to Lena, he instantly tries to sabotage the potential setup: “Yeah, I don’t wanna do that!” he responds with a sort of shocked awe. “I don’t do stuff like that!” It’s so much easier, as I knew all too well at 17, to avoid trying than it is to invite the inevitable pain of rejection.

But Barry aches for connection, so he calls a phone sex line late one night. He finds brief satisfaction for his lonely urges in the operator’s unnaturally erotic voice, unzipping his pants in a tense hunch at her direct order when he can’t delay it any longer. The next morning, she calls back and begins extorting him, a call he takes in a tight hallway, literally boxed in. It’s the realization of any anxious virgin’s darkest fear: if you accept anyone’s offer of help alleviating your loneliness, you’ll pay for it.

The extortion follows Barry throughout the rest of the film, first in phone calls that seem almost supernaturally able to track his location, then in the team of enforcers who accost him after his shockingly successful date with Lena. The fact that this blackmail threatens to destroy what seems like Barry’s first real shot at love only heightens the tragedy from an adolescent perspective.

Lena is so kind, engaging, and assertive in her desire for Barry that she’s not so much too good to be true as possibly divine. She’s the platonic ideal of a first girlfriend, the kind of girl your mom would love but who’ll eagerly participate in your most embarrassing bedroom desire (say, Barry’s urge to whisper violent threats as foreplay). She’s the teenage ideal, and this miracle is put at risk because just days earlier Barry accepted his unworthiness of love and paid for sexual relief. It’s a perfectly calculated recipe for teenage despair.

We learn very little about Lena, and why she might pursue Barry with such intense focus despite his initial resistance. Her nigh-supernatural goodness does beg the question of whether she represents a complete character; we’re left to fill in the blanks about her, and while Watson’s performance paints a vibrant portrait, she’s certainly thinly sketched on the page. But in a story that places us in the mindset of an overgrown adolescent, a preternaturally perfect love interest seems appropriate. How many adolescent boys are actually capable of considering the objects of their affection as three-dimensional beings? If the happy ending, the promise of a future with Lena, offers Barry the chance to finally leave adolescence behind, then the perspective it takes to actually deserve Lena, to see her as a complex person, is a door that opens as the credits roll—a door that I, as an adolescent identifying with Barry so strongly that I repressed it as a coping mechanism, would be only dimly aware of for years to come.

*

A question has nagged me since I first revisited Punch-Drunk Love: was my old roommate right? Did I, in fact, not understand this movie on first viewing? With a few more years’ perspective and many more viewings under my belt, I don’t think so. I may now have the context to recognize Anderson’s goals, but that doesn’t mean I watched the film incorrectly before. Films aren’t cold and static objects. They’re dynamic organisms, built to provoke emotional responses, and as long as our inner landscapes can change, a film will change with us. You can watch a film until you’ve memorized every inflection of every line reading, and still be caught off guard on the hundredth viewing thanks to some new significance that couldn’t have coalesced before you became the person you are today. A final, definitive understanding of a movie is as elusive as final, definitive understanding of yourself.

In my mid-20s, I noticed a pattern: whenever I look back at who I was five years ago, I feel disappointed in the choices I made, embarrassed by what I thought was important. I feel relief that those times are behind me, and a temptation to believe that I’ve finally got it figured out, that I’ve won the game of growing up and it’s smooth sailing from here. But with every half-decade’s leap, I can sense another me five years in the future looking back in disappointment. It’s tough to grapple with this knowledge that you’ll always be a work in progress, but there’s liberation in it, too. It can be such a burden to know that you’re irrefutably right, and that any challenge to your worldview is an act of spite.

Whenever anyone asks why Paul Thomas Anderson is my favorite filmmaker, I say that his films only grow richer on repeat viewings, largely because they always leave with some question. I still puzzle over the symbolic value of the car crash that opens Punch-Drunk Love and is never remarked upon. I haven’t managed to fully track the role the harmonium plays in Barry’s emotional journey, though I’m developing a hunch that you could compare it to the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that reading might help contextualize some of those weird sound effects. Better watch it again through that lens and see what happens.

It’s so tantalizing to feel like enlightenment is just beyond my reach, that the next viewing will bring me that much closer, and that maybe, if I’m lucky, someday I might catch that missing piece that brings it all together.

*

Punch-Drunk Love changed for me once again on my most recent viewing. I was struck more than ever by the ending.

I had just enough time to squeeze in that short runtime while my wife and daughter went out to brunch—it turns out my fear of never loving myself enough to be loved, the fear that once made the film unpalatable, was yet another certitude that just needed a little patience and perspective.

We actually settled very close to where Josh grew up—and he settled, along with his wife and son, only a few miles from where I grew up; funny how life rhymes that way sometimes—so I often go back to that drafty seaside arthouse where we underwent that formative trauma. It’s the best place around to see challenging films, so I went back this January to see Phantom Thread, the eighth feature film by Paul Thomas Anderson. His career is twice as long now, and I’m twice as old—making me the age that he was when Punch-Drunk Love was released; another rhyme—so I’m even more tuned in to the way his style has grown in sophistication, how his thematic concerns have deepened. But that prankster energy is still there in the way he subverts period romantic drama with deviant sadism, and that penchant for a strange and incongruous obscenity—it’s impossible not to laugh in disbelief when Reynolds Woodcock shouts that, “no one gives a tinker’s fucking curse,” or when Lancaster Dodd processes his frustration in The Master by cutting off his thought with a sputtering, “PIG FUCK.” There are so few important directors working in important genres so willing to get so weird. His movies may be even more grown-up now, but goodness knows he’s still him.

I’d never before been particularly struck by the final line of Punch-Drunk Love. But this time it took my breath away. As I kept an ear out for my family’s return, I considered Barry sitting at his harmonium—I’ll crack that riddle next time for sure—and then I considered Lena, wrapping her arms around this overgrown adolescent who may finally have a fighting chance at becoming a man. I considered that quiet moment at the crossroads where one story ends, and so many more are about to begin.

“So,” Lena says quietly, “Here we go.” Time for another great leap forward.

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