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Latest Posts by infranaut - Page 2
4000!
A huge thank you to my 4,022 subscribers. That number really snuck up on me. If you’re an artist please hit me up! I’m sitting on a episode of Castles in the Air until I have some cool art to go alongside it, and I’ll start uploading them to Youtube as well.
I have to disagree here. The only thing punching a nazi does is make a martyr out of them. Cultural wars are only won by hindering and lessening sign-up rates for the opposition. Sure, it’s possible to get people to leave the side they’re on or have a change of heart, but you’re never going to “win” that way. You’re only going to win if you can stop people from joining.
And punching these people doesn’t work. Young, dumb and disenfranchised people who have the potential of siding with this ideology are absolutely not going to see an asshole getting their just desserts. They are going to see someone they view as similarly disenfranchised getting hurt for their beliefs. That’s what they’re going to see. They’re going to see evidence that the opposition are “PC thugs” as they’ve been told. They’re going to see the masses cheering as someone whose ideology they agree with (or have the potential to agree with) gets hurt - and that doesn’t dissuade evangelism.
No matter how much you dislike it, and how wrong you feel it is on a moral level, engagement with the young and vulnerable to adopting this ideology is the only way to make progress, because if we all write someone off who is on the verge of adopting these beliefs they will only have one place to go. Treat people on the verge with sympathy, speak to them reasonably and with respect, and try to change their mind. The old vanguard, and those who will never change - the public figures of hate, though, need to be fought with mockery. These are people who should be not be shouted down as they speak, but be viciously made the fool afterwards. Tear down the idols and heroes of hatespeech, but engage the young and vulnerable.
I know I am coming from a fairly privileged position here, and admit it may be easier to accept this form of rhetoric having never been the victim of right-wing extremism. I hold no ill will to those too tired or flummoxed to expend any energy on these people.
The point I wanted to make, simply, is that if you want to feel good, punch a nazi. If you want to win, engage the young.
!!!NEW Teen Sexting codes that !!YOU!! should know!!!
HELLO fellow parents. Over the last three (3) months I have been analysing my teens Texting and Sexting texts and have discovered a veritable SWATHE of new sex text code that I will share with you NOW. Simply scroll down to see the codes. Warning: some of these are quite unpalatable.
🏃🏻 - I ran into an old friend who I had sex with
💀 🍆 💀 - I am infertile, let us engage in risk-free intercourse
g2g - Good to go (for sex)
Can’t talk, SAD! - Can’t talk, Sucking A Dick!
✂️ 🍆 - My recent adult circumcision has left me prepared and eager for sex
Code Blart - My parents are watching Paul Blart Mall Cop, come over for quiet sex as their riotous laughter will conceal our sinful animalistic grunting
BCARWPBKFHRITPHS💀LUMUACHLACAMHPTS - Beloved character actor Ray Wise, perhaps best know for his role in Twin Peaks, has sadly passed away. Let us meet up and celebrate his life and career, and mourn his passing through sex
✈️🌫👎 🍆✖️ - Chemtrails have damaged my libido and left me unprepared for sex today
POPS - Prime ovulation, peak sex
3.14159 - The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter
👉👌📹👀 - Let’s have sex in the blind spot of my parent’s security camera rig
lol - come on guys, surely we all know this one (face palm)
AM - I have no mouth and I must cum
🏅- come look at my Sex Medals
💀 💀 💀 🍆 - My family has died, come over for sex (note: number of skulls equal to number of dead family members your teen has)
Emoji - Term for small images used to depict sex acts
🍑 🍑 - Put a peach in my butt
cu46 - Have yet to crack this one. Any other parents out there able to illuminate this?
Like a breath
Raising her head skyward in frustration, her eyes glide over a choppy, crystalline sea. The only sky the Forager has ever known, as if the air itself ruptures into a tumultuous gray just above the mountains. With her limited understanding of the world, she used to assume the atmosphere a physical thing, that thinned out as it approached the ground. Up there, she figured, the air was like a mighty ocean.
Sighing, she digs her hands back into the muck below. A thick, shapeless assembly of dirt and clay – all that remains of whatever structure once stood here. However old this building was, and whatever import it held, to her it was merely something to be dredged. An unspecific mass incarnadine, to be hopefully panned for gold.
The cracks along the ground were filled with this rubbish; great splinters through the earth at the bottom of unimaginable gorges, into which all the works of civilization came tumbling down into. A single split like this had the potential to contain centuries of progress – countless artifacts and trinkets, buried within the rubble. Their individuality now faded, together they lie as a great amalgamation, and a monument to inevitability. If she were to grab hold of something – some old keepsake or remain – it may well be all the we would ever see of a certain snapshot in time. To the Forager, it meant an exchange and a meal.
Indeed, it is hard to say how many priceless heirlooms and invaluable relics she had herself broken in search of a more easily quantifiable trade.
One false step and she herself could be swallowed by antiquity.
To say the history of the objects she held in her hands had ever crossed her mind would be a half-truth – a lie to flatter the ghosts of whatever world she trudged through. Only the immediate past of a given object – how pristine it appeared – ever factored into her thought process. After all, “worth”, and especially human worth, is an invention. Despite lofty connotations, the scrap she neatly folded and tucked away now carried with it a newer, more objective value than what previous generations might deem it to have.
With an ache of pain, the forager arcs her neck skyward. Long before her time, vainglorious scholars waxed poetic about the idea of the convergence. In the now, the reality, the word had lost it's meaning. She had never known her celestial body as a singular identity – only as a part of the twisted amalgamation. Everything had been drawn inwards, you see. As the universe drew ever closer to its inevitable conclusion, it's satellites and travelers were dragged towards its center. It was like a great homecoming, in a sense. Every atom was called home, to be reunited in their single point of origin. In time, it would all be crushed together – every star and every world. There would be a great unification before the end. Out with creation, and in with destruction. Like no more than a breath, with another perhaps to follow.
But for now, and for another trillion years, this will be the shape of things. A tumorous mass, growing larger by the century, and then shrinking into nothingness.
And all sentience throughout all time would amount to - this final stage of evolution – is rats on a ship. Hungry and cold, rummaging through the trash of their forbears.
With her head held high, the foragers eyes glaze over the continent of another planet. Her peers, also raising their heads, might look at her own. It gave her solace, before she got back to work, imagining that she herself was to others a similar, tumultuous sky.
There are times in my life I have wondered where the pain goes when it is absent. In my age I've realised that the answer to that question is simply; 'deeper'.
Owen from “Lilytooth”, a work in progress
Castles in the Air, Episode Four:
The Frame
Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The podcast is created and owned by Will Donelson.
After a lifetime of work, a scientist and his team finally succeed in creating a working time machine. However, he quickly finds the device taken away fro him and turned into a commercial product, and people soon begin taking "tours" of the past. The scientist ponders the nature of recorded history, and the worth of documentation holds in a world where the past can so easily change.
Subscribe on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castl…air/id1191981068
Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/the-gate
Stream on Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/podcast/castles-…34?autoplay=true
RSS: castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss
Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson
This episode features voicework by Hameed Mourani
Closing theme is “Blood on the Snow I" by Black Tape for a Blue Girl
Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton. This episode also features music by Wren.
Episode art by Skye Liberace (http://dieskye.space/)
Castles in the Air is owned by Will Donelson.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us on iTunes! I would also appreciate any ratings/reviews on iTunes as it helps boost the shows visibility.
Thank you for the patience with this one.
Castles in the Air, Episode Three:
Bird of Passage
Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The podcast is created and owned by Will Donelson.
A strange man visits an isolated Trucker's Diner along the open road. He hasn't slept in days, and can't bring himself to eat. After some coercion, the patrons get him to reveal what troubles him; nihilistic and disturbing visions, brought on by the appearance of an ethereal crow that flies beside him as he drives.
Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson
Listen and Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castles-in-the-air/id1191981068
Stream on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/castles-in-the-air/e/49018534?autoplay=true
Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/bird-of-passage
RSS: http://castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss
This episode features voicework by Deejay Montez, Paul Brion, Austin Nebbia, Sam Leigh and Vianka Ayala.
Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton. This episode also features music by Wren.
Closing theme is “Dark Bargain with the Antlered King” by Elves and Dwarves
Episode art by A. Rehman.
Castles in the Air is owned by Will Donelson
If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us on iTunes! I would also appreciate any ratings/reviews on iTunes as it helps boost the shows visibility.
Once again, thank you to everyone for being so supportive and sending so many nice messages and the like. Next episode in two weeks!
Castles in the Air, Episode Two: Jamais Vu
Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The podcast is created and owned by Will Donelson.
A couple sit together in a diner, passing the time with cheap conversation. A car outside drives by one too many times, and the two sat behind them seem to be repeating themselves. Something is clearly wrong, and despite how much they want to leave, something is keeping them glued in place. As time itself unwinds, loops and rearranges around them, they find themselves questioning their very reasons for being.
Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson
Please Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castles-in-the-air/id1191981068
Stream on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/castles-in-the-air/e/48846067?autoplay=true
Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/castles-in-the-air-episdode-two-jamais-vu
RSS: http://castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss
This episode features voicework by Jane Duncan and John Skaggs. This episode features additional voicework by David Milk and Paul Cipparone.
Music used:
"Humility" by Mangokitty, check them out at vickisigh.tumblr.com
Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton
Episode art by Will Donelson
If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us on iTunes! I would also appreciate any ratings/reviews on iTunes as it helps boost the shows visibility.
Once again, thank you to everyone for being so supportive and sending so many nice messages and the like. Next episode in two weeks!
First episode of the Podcast is out!
Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone.
An astronaut awakens, frozen in place. He quickly realizes that he has regained consciousness and exited cryosleep ahead of schedule, making him unable to move. He desperately fights to keep control of his withering mind, and figure out if there is a way out of this nightmare.
Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castles-in-the-air/id1191981068
Stream on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/castles-in-the-air/e/48721057?autoplay=true
Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/castles-in-the-air-episode-one-callisto
RSS: http://castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss
As this is the first episode of the podcast, all ratings, subscriptions on iTunes and shares are greatly appreciated.
Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson. This episode features voicework by Zack Furniss.
Music used:
"Bedroom Window" by @sloth-hooks
"He is Like this Wall (Coda)" by Jeff Morton
Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton
Episode art by Sage Parker
Scepticism is the luxury afforded to those free from the pain of desperation
Castles in the Air, Episode Five (A Work in Progress)
Rolling
I always enjoyed the sound of the projector clicking and sputtering to life.
I work in an arthouse cinema. We show oldies and obscure flicks. A lot of what some people would call “classics” mixed with trash to appease the ironic, younger crowd. Personally I think if a movie is bad you shouldn't watch it, and if it's old... Well, older movies always me uneasy. I never liked seeing moving, colourless faces. The more faded and grainy the film the sicker it made me. Like I said, I'm not really a movie buff.
We do have them though. I've found that people can summon the most passionate responses to anything, especially things you don't understand. The cinema is small, but always full of people and rhetoric, a bustling hipster exchange where it's hard to even finish a thought.
Every night but Thursday. Thursday, at eight o'clock, the places is vacated. Completely empty except for me, and our patron. I never speak to the guy – I don't ever even see him, but he's worked something out with the manager. Every week on Thursday, eight o'clock, he has the place to himself, and he watches “his movie”. If it weren't on film, he wouldn't even need me there.
There's an uncanny aspect to these old movies that extends beyond the sound and visuals. We're the first people on Earth to be able to see these long-dead, moving faces. Have you ever considered that? For all of human history, when someone was dead, they were still. An image or a painting. That's not true for us anymore.
Though the people on the screen remain youthful, the stock expires and becomes grainy. I always felt like it's as if the film itself is trying to break the illusion of immortality we've granted these characters. The projector reassures us – it provides us with a distraction from our dissatisfaction whilst also allowing us to pretend for a while. We laugh at those zombies up there, and by doing so breathe life back into them, and into the audiences decades ago. The same feelings – things are alive.
The film itself, though? That's another matter. That's an impermanent, physical, fleshy thing that ages and dies just like us. It breaks the spell. Call me nihilistic, but I think the movement to abandon the medium in favour of digital is laced with the sad tinge of denial. We need to preserve our idols, and in doing so, ourselves. When I watch those young-but-weathered faces up there, all I can think about is denial. How much of what I do, day to day, comes down to denying mortality? I don't know about you, but I feel it's... Something you can only ever not think about. It's not something to conquer. Maybe watching the screen so long has opened my eyes to it, but I think film is too honest to survive.
He needs me, you see, because it's on film. Maybe you've never seen anything on film before, but if you have you may have noticed a black oval appearing in the upper-right hand corner of the frame from time to time. That's a cue mark – it's meant to signal to me, the person running the projector, that it's time to change reels. I'm no good with just remembering or timing it, so I have to pay attention. I've seen this movie... Maybe a hundred times. It makes me afraid.
It's avant-garde. Or maybe dada? I'm not a humanities major, so I couldn't tell you, but it's... unsettling. There's no title card, and there are no end credits. Maybe the film itself isn't what gets to me, so much as that man's devotion to it. How can anyone care so much about something – about one, specific thing? How can anyone ever dedicate themselves like that? I wonder what's stranger... If he sits down there, eyes glazed over, in a routine, or if... He's down there, feeling it all. Feeling the things he felt before, again and again. That scares me.
Time to change over. Sounds and shapes I can hear in my room. Images that project on the back of my eyelids and echo through the halls of my apartment. They mean so much to that man, but to me they're abstract uneasiness, and they follow me home.
Sometimes I feel like my life is one long lead-up to a jump scare. The sinking and uncertain feeling that it could be coming any minute now. Now could be the moment when it – whatever it is – happens. I let my mind wander. I try not to pay attention when I don't have to.
Am I on the screen, am I in the audience, or am I up here, waiting to transition?
Cue mark. I reach out to change reels but there's nothing there. I look down, and my hands look old.
The way my life is going... I know if I don't do it now, I'll never die with dignity.
Owen from “Lilytooth”, a work in progress
The Cradle
We assumed we were in the box.
It was only natural, after all. It’s what anyone would have thought. We had been away for almost six years. A little silver glint in space; not even enough to catch the eye. The CAS system kept us asleep most of it, of course. If we’re talking waking hours, we had been away from Earth maybe eight months.
Space is full of radiation. There’s a reason so many old astronauts have cancer - it comes from everywhere. Our ship had a ridiculously simple monitor, a light really, that was meant to alert us when radiation levels were about to get too high. The trouble was, when we were under, something went wrong. No way of knowing what, but this little green light was on the fritz. We looked at it and no one could figure the thing out - our chief engineer, after some tinkering, told us that the thing was garbage. That there was a 50/50 chance it was accurately indicating high levels of radiation. When you’re in a little metal tube, surrounded on all sides by death, those odds really don’t sound so bad.
Still, it was enough to get to you. It turns out an even chance was the worst thing we could have heard. I would gladly have taken 90/10, or even 99/1 odds. The certainty of death would have been infinitely more comforting.
After a few days, someone brought up we were exactly like the cat in the box. I’m sure everyone is aware, but if you’re not, I can give my two cents. Schrödinger’s cat is a kind of tawdry metaphor that was never really meant to be taken seriously, but the basic premise is as follows; a cat is placed in a box with a Geiger counter containing a trace amount of some radioactive substance. In the space of an hour, it’s equally possible that the substance remains unchanged as it is the substance decays. If the substance decays, a flask of poisonous shatters and kills the cat. In the hour before the box is opened, the contents of the box are a superposition, wherein the cat is both alive and dead. Upon observing the contents of the box, the superposition “chooses” an outcome. It was a metaphor that, to my foggy recollection, was meant to mock the idea of a contradictory harmonious state. However, it caught the public imagination and became accepted into the vast sea of pop-science.
What is interesting, however, is the notion that an action in the present, ie opening the box, can in fact change an event in the past, in this case whether the cat has been alive or dead the last hour.
We were currently the cat in the box; there was a 50/50 chance that we had been poisoned. The monitors on Earth would know for certain whether we were or not, but we were not due to communicate with them for another six months. It was funny, in a way. We joked about being zombies. That we were just waiting for the boys back open to crack open the lid.
After a month, it stopped being funny. I became unsure whether I was feeling the effects of radiation poisoning. Maybe it was a placebo, maybe it was all in my head, but I swear I could feel it. I could feel this looming dread, this decay deep in my bones. Examining the path the ship had taken, one of my peers figured out exactly where the radiation source must have been, if it indeed existed at all. After two months of uncertainty, we decided to open the box ourselves.
It was not our decision to make.
We put ourselves to sleep and turned the ship around. We had a six month timer; that would put us in range of Earth.
In that sleep, you are meant to dream. I had nothing. When I think back to my time under, I recall nothing. Only the darkness and a strange anxiety.
We awoke, looked out the window, and realised we were wrong. We were wrong all along.
We were never in the box.
A neutron star is the result of a collapsed star. While relatively tiny in size, their density is incredible. A neutron star with a radius of only 7 miles can have a mass of over twice our sun. They also give out enormous amounts of radiation. A tiny, blinding usher. A calamitous angel. The scroll, rolling up the night sky.
Swallowing whole the world entire.
Uncertainty was the curse. There was an even chance that there was no radiation source. There was an even chance the monitor was faulty. There was an even chance we were all fine.
But we had to know, and in our knowing, we became fate. We were the observers. We forced the choice. We changed the past and smashed the vial.
It wasn’t us in the box, it was the world. But we needed to look. We needed to.
Tried my hand at a Gaster battle. I haven’t seen much art embracing his whole shtick of being a lost/deleted/corrupted file. I think something like this is more in line with what Toby would give us in terms of an actual encounter with him.
Mountains Crack the Clouds
If i were able, I would tell you; “be careful what it is you want to know.”
Impossible as it may be to implement, i can think of no greater advice to give.
Our own secret pessimism is betrayed by our eagerness to look to leave the Earth. How terrifying the concept of being alone is. How horrific, the notion that all there is to discover is in each other.
I don't say this sarcastically or mockingly – it's true. Since I first began my cosmological research I found the notion that this planet (and by association, this culture) is an outlier utterly repellant. Individuality is the worst thing that could happen to us as a race. To find that we are the only thinkers in a stagnant universe. To be completely alone except for the company of other men. God, how we fear being alone - how we flee the thought of isolation... but for me, personally? For the individual? That's something entirely different. There are no lonely echoes in this ship. I don't float down the halls longing for another to share the burden. That's why I'm here.
Being away from people is a blessing.
I mean, logically speaking, it's impossible we're alone, isn't it? Science does not like the idea of there being outliers, or one-off's. The universe is just too big - it just doesn't make sense that there would only be one species in the entire infinite goddamn universe that can make it into space, let alone exist. There must be – the math wouldn't fail me. I can't just have home to go back to. I'm a pioneer. I'm going to discover amazing things. That's why I'm out here – to make contact.
I won't lie and say that I don't find myself overtaken by boredom from time to time. The universe is big, but my comprehension of it is small, as is my capacity for wonder. Maybe it was a mistake to make me an astronaut – I get used to everything. To space, to cities, to people... My God, I am used to people. There has to be something more interesting out here – there just has to be.
I wasn't always interested in the idea of intelligence foreign to Earth. Back home, I studied the sun, of all things. I remembered reading how, long ago, they thought that there was life on there. That the sunspots where mountains, poking through the clouds... Given what we know now, that's an even more beautiful thought, I think. Standing atop a dark mountain, looking over a sheet of nimbus clouds with the firey intensity of a septillion atom bombs.
Sunspots are interesting things. They're around two thousand degrees kelvin cooler than the rest of the sun, and though they look almost black, that's only in comparison to the brilliant intensity of the rest of the photosphere. Also interesting is that no one really understood that much about them until recently – we knew that they could release powerful solar flares if given time. We also knew they were caused by disturbances in the sun's magnetic field – but still, we didn't know why.
I put forward a theory; that the Sun's magnetic poles, much like our Earth's, were about to flip. The sunspots we see are not actually all too common in young stars that still have a while before their poles switch places. As the magnetic flip draws closer, we begin to see more and more sunspots.
Of course, that was all just theory. Preamble to my real cause of looking for alien life. I've sat up here for almost three years, now. Just... listening for radiowaves. Letting these machines look for... Anything. I haven't found anything yet, of course, but there's hope. We can shoot out data at lightspeed now, surely we are not the only ones doing that? Surely, in this infinite universe, there must be those more advanced than even us? Of course there are, it only makes sense. In an infinite universe, this simply has to be the case. There have to be people who have been around longer than we have,
Many consider this position a punishment, and in a way I suppose it was meant as one. They couldn't fire me for what I did – they couldn't even keep me out of space. Apparently I'm too valuable to keep grounded for the rest of my life but expendable enough I can be sent on what they perceive as a dead-end mission. It doesn't matter; I'm up here, and I'm going to make history for a planet I never want to go back to.
People think their differences are precious. They think that what separates them is important or – even more ridiculously – demands respect. I'm from here, I believe this, I’m owed this.
Events come and go, and people happen to each other. Differences aren't things to be deified– people are difficult enough already. No man has the right to be surprised when others seek to rectify their problems.
God, don't send me back to Earth. Someone, please. Take me somewhere else.
I said that, time and time and time again, until I heard the good news. I was told that my theory had just been proven – that the sun's poles where about to switch, and that the increase in sunspots over the last thousand years was indeed build-up. It was going to happen, eventually. Not for another few thousand years.
The thing is, I realised what that meant. I saw the terrible implication of it.
If sunspots are caused by magnetic disturbances, and the sun's entire magnetic system was about to get flipped upside down, that would mean... Well, an enormous increase in sunspots, the likes of which we had never seen before. Perhaps even enough to cover the entire body.
What I'm curious to is if the Earth could handle the sun's overall temperature (or even just enough of it) decreasing by 2000 degrees kelvin. If by some miracle it could, there is no chance it would survive the gargantuan solar flares that would follow. Our planet’s life expectancy had just been cut drastically short.
This didn't bother me. What bothered me was my understanding of space, and life. Every planet that can support life needs to orbit a star – to have a sun of their own.
And if every civilisation needs a sun, and every sun goes through this magnetic switch, it means that
every single sun is a time bomb, waiting to kill the planets that orbit them.
The assumption we had been working under was that we would have to make contact with a more advanced species, but,
no sun will allow a civilisation to get that far.
Universe-over, they are snuffed out right before they can.
we are not alone in the universe – we can't be, but
we may as well be,
and all I have is Earth.
Is it insecurity or ego which drives men to so ferociously want to uncomplicate complicated women?
At the moment of conception, the story exists as a superposition of possibility, idly waiting for someone to crack it. Waiting for someone to skip to the last page.
Music as Metaphor
In the video above, India sits at the piano, playing a soft melody to herself. In this moment, she is alone, reflecting on her predicament. She has a violent darkness in her that at this moment, causes her more sadness than anything else. This is her meditation.
Charlie enters, the looming figure that is representative of this darkness made flesh. Charlie is outwardly violent, unashamedly manipulative, and takes immense joy in his cruelty. Throughout the film, he attempts to indoctrinate India into this ideology. He interrupts her melody with the kind of deep, foreboding chords you would expect, which India futilely attempts to rebuff with her original, soft melody. The following scene perfectly illustrates the relationship between the two characters without a word being said.
While India is still technically in control of the song, Charlie is controlling it’s tone and atmosphere with these dark bass notes. Much like in life, he is trying to get under her skin, and seduce her into his psychosis. Note how he ever-so-gently let’s their hands touch 19 seconds in, daring her to get closer to him, daring her to let him lead. Perhaps excited by this touch, India gives in, and at this point the song becomes a duet.
This is music as metaphor.
Closing her eyes, India allows the music to naturally progress, lowering her defenses, entertaining the idea of harmony. Charlie brilliantly picks up on this moment of weakness, and utilities it to completely take control, changing the music dramatically as well as closing the gap between them physically. She loses all her autonomy in the song, and for a moment plays nothing. She should not have thought cooperation would come so easily.
Unwilling to accept this, she herself makes a bold move; changing the mood of the song. She enters with a lighter, much more playful flourish, as if this is all a game or competition. Look at how she looks at Charlie; she wants to know just how much she can control him, to what extent she can lead (or equally, to what extent he’ll let her lead). She studies his face intensely, desperately curious how he will react. she has been baited, and by engaging Charlie rather than ignoring him, she is already letting him take control. This is especially pertinent given how light and and playful the song has become.
That said, listen to what happens when their eyes meet; however playful, the notes start to sting.
India realises her mistake, and yet again tries to rectify it. However, it is too late, in this moment they connected, and a sad, dark honesty comes out in the song. India knows she is like Charlie, sh knows it but she hates it, and right now she cannot deny it. Charlie realises that he has more power over India now by allowing her to take the lead, and allows her the spiral downwards around the 1:25 mark. He knows what it will lead to; the ostinato.
This is the moment when India and Charlie are truly working together; India allows herself not to lead or follow, but to work in unison with this monster. This is when she has fallen completely under his spell, and she allows herself to. Charlie understands this, and the physical barrier between them completely breaks down. The music grows somewhat sadder as India feels the lust and longing in her grow from this physical contact. She knows what Charlie is. She knows what she is. She cannot help what she wants. This is the closest the two get to having a sex scene in the film, and honestly, it’s an infinitely more effective way of conveying their relationship to one another. Charlie moves out from behind India, knowing his seduction has worked. India closes her eyes, her legs tense, and she is lost in the song.
The song abruptly stops, and there is a clear look of both exhaustion, horror and realisation on India’s face. She pants and takes the silence in. Charlie leans in to kiss her, and also disappears behind her in the shot. When she turns to him, she see’s he was never actually there.
This is the power he holds over her.
Stoker is a fantastic film from one of my favourite working Directors, and I feel this scene perfectly illustrates the idea of music as metaphor in cinema.
Whatever Happens
In what we would consider a long dead universe, the last quark hangs in existence. Really, it cannot be said to hang or float, or be described with verbs at all.
There is nothing outside the quark. There is nothing beyond it. When we imagine this, we may imagine an expanse. A white void that stretches into infinity. This is incorrect. Outside the quark, there is nothing. There is no void, no expanse. The lack of existence is not something the quark inhabits; it is a force pressing down on it from all sides. The quark, in this sense, is all existence. The Quark is now everything.
This is what he would imagine, if he could. Never shutting his eyes, he watches Seychelles disappear beneath the bow as the ocean gently lifts and releases the ship. “It’s a small thing”, he thinks without knowing exactly what the thought refers to. To Seychelles, his ship was indeed small. To his home country of Somalia, however, Seychelles was perhaps even smaller. He continued on like this in his head as he watched the crown of the archipelago blink in and out of existence over the waves. To France, Somalia must seem small. He wasn’t sure, he assumed it must be so.
When someone does wrong, scale can be very comforting. He avoids eye contact with his fellows, and instead finally turns his gaze to the other ship. So much larger, so many more people. He takes comfort knowing that, to the sea, they are both small. I his mind, he moves up. Up to where the two boats are dwarfed by the ribbon of islands, up still to nothing but the ocean, up still until he can no longer picture the map. If he could have imagined that quark, he would have felt very comforted. To what hadron was it once attached, he might wonder. What he does consider is that there will eventually be something that will be the last thing to exist.
It could only take him so far, though. There is a hungry pain and a looming fear that disturbs the serenity of scale.
It is a mistake to think Nihilism comes easy. It would have been a great comfort for him to picture that quark at this moment, and felt the embrace of insignificance. To imagine his own cells, on the microscopic level, and travel back a quarter of a million years with them. To imagine the light from the very same moon hitting Mitochondrial Eve‘s eyes for the first same. To picture the Old Mother when she herself was new, before her genes branched off into a million directions, one artery of which lead him here, to this ship, on this night, holding this gun. How would any of this unease matter to him then?
You can be hungry, but you can’t steal. You can steal, but you can’t hurt anyone. You can hurt people, but you can’t kill them. How far back from that print do you have to stand before you can’t read it anymore? What could be done that Eve or the Quark would ever know?
He knows what it is that he has to do whilst feeling what he is told he has to feel. “It would be a blessing”, he might think, “to be small and to know it.”
Instead, he imagines the ship, sliding across a granite sea. He moves back until it disappears into the glint of the moon on the waves, and then further back until the light itself is gone. He could do anything.
You will be okay.
I see a lot of people talking about the Mad Men finale in a cynical sense. They see it as the punch-line culminating from seven years of build-up; one of the longest, cruelest shaggy dog jokes ever told. Without sounding too stand-offish, I think this is absolutely the wrong way to view the finale and that is does a great disservice not so much to the writers or the show itself, but to Don.
The ending is one that is immediately a little polarising, but once given time to digest most people agree that it really does just click. The reading I’m so opposed to is the idea that “after all that Don just made an ad! Haha! People never change” in regards to the series ending with the iconic Hilltop Coke ad, after Don has a huge emotional breakthrough.
The thing is, to take this view (like many people have, from random tumblr users to Wired), you have to completely ignore the kind of man Don is. The question of Don’s character has been at the centre of the show since it’s very first season, and has been examined in so many ways that it makes the conversation hard to ever really finish, and harder still to begin. However, there is one thing about Don that I will always believe, that has been supported by the show since the very beginning;
Don is a man who believes in a pure ideology. He wants to connect with people and he wants the best for them.
Now, does this mean Don is morally sound? No, he’s actually anything but. He cheats on his spouses, he’s not really a great Dad and he is prone to being unreliable. Despite all that, Don beliefs have always been idealistic, lofty and sincere. That is what makes the character so wonderful to talk about, and at the same time makes him so incredibly tragic: he is a man whose weaknesses constantly betray his own morality.
Don may be cynical, but he really, really doesn’t want to be. Rachel calls him on this way, way back in season one, when he gives his “born alone, die alone” speech. She see’s through it immediately, and it catches him off guard. One of the things I’ve always adored about the show is its incredible level of humanity, and even seemingly casual interactions can be incredibly powerful character moments when this is properly utilised.
This lack of cynicism goes doubly for advertising. Think about it; how many times has he brow-beaten Peggy (and everyone else who works under him) for being phony in her work? For not being sincere?
Don doesn’t want to sell you a product; he wants to sell you a feeling that he associates with a product. Why is Don so passionate about this? Why is this what Don wants to sell? Simply put, it’s because it’s a way to connect. Connection has always been what Don has ached for.
Why did Don leave his new place of employment? Well, because he didn’t belong there. That was a place where Ivy League ad gurus sat around a table and talked about the demographic they were after while taking notes like they were studying for an exam. It was a place where the product they were selling was their ability to sell a product.
This not the place for Don. Don, who used his own life and pain to demonstrate the value of the carousel. This is the man whose first experience with love was being given a Hershey bar, which he would eat alone in his room and pretend to be normal. Maybe this is sad to you, but to Don it’s real.
With this in mind; think about what the Coke ad Don apparently creates is about; a collection of people, of all genders, races and ages, united together by a common product. This is the image Don envisions for a product that, hand to God, used to have vending machines that said “White Customers Only” (that’s right, Coke had honour-based racist vending machines). A product that isn’t even mentioned until 20 seconds into the commercial. What Don wants to sell you is the feeling that when you sit down and drink a Coke, you’re drinking it with a million other people all over the world. There’s a reason it’s the most successful commercial of all time. It may look schmaltzy, cheap or silly today, but at the time it was something people genuinely wanted to hear. Don doesn’t want you to know how great this sugar water tastes, he doesn’t want you to know that it’s better than a competing brand, or even cheaper; he wants you to feel what he feels.
And what did he feel? Well, his epiphany in that episode came when Leonard, seemingly the opposite of Don, gave a speech that rocked Don to his core. He told a story of loneliness, or worthlessness and of the desire to be loved. And Don understood. So much so that he hugged this man, who he had never met, and wept. He knew the answer to the question he repeatedly asked Peggy only a few episodes ago. Don wants to sit down with the world and buy it a Coke. It’s really what he’s always wanted.
Mad Men was always a show about introspection. To think that the show’s final moments wouldn’t reflect this is an incredible oversight, and to think that Don changes for the worse in the very last moments of the show is doing him a huge disservice.
The Hilltop ad is about empathy. It is Don, realising that not only is he not special, but neither are his worries. The way Jon Hamm played the scene supports this; he realises who he is. He is an ad man, he is a human being, who wants to connect to other human beings, and that want is ubiquitous. Don does not just “come up with a great ad”, because ads were never that cheap to him. He finds a way to communicate the feeling of profound empathy he felt the previous day, when he and Leonard were both people, together, in the only way he knows how; an ad.
Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is Okay. You are Okay.
Goodbye to one of the greatest shows of all time, and thank you for the beautiful send-off. You are not alone. You will be okay.
Callisto
Sleek, silver. No shadow. Silver.
You acquaint yourself with what you’re looking at. The fog around the corners of your eyes dissolves. Slowly, the ceiling above you begins to materialise. “I am alive,” you think, “but too soon.”
This was wrong. Surely, this is wrong. You had heard that time doesn’t seem to pass when you’re under, but this seems distinctly different. Something was looming over you - the sleek silver ceiling that bore no shadow seemed like a distant, yet familiar threat. That was it - there should be a shadow there! If you in orbit of Callisto by now there would be a shadow. You turn your head -
No. You can’t. Something is wrong. You can’t move - you can’t even feel. Not like a numbness, no, like an absence. Your eyes dart down - the position of your body makes hardly anything visible. You just want to check - is it still there? Are you all still even there? Then you remember;
The Cells Alive.
The Cells Alive System was revolutionary. Loosely based on a process used in a Japanese Fridge of all things, the process involved freezing living tissue without the risk of damage or liquid crystallisation. For longhaul journeys like this, it was a Godsend.
By why were you awake? Why had your brain awoken without the rest of you? You wondered if something similar had happened to the rest of the crew - if you could just turn your head, you could check on them. A hot wave passes over you - or more accurately, your brain. Your mind. That’s the part of you you can feel. What was happening?
Sleek, shadowless ceiling. Just look at something else.
Memory ekes back in, slowly. You remember now - something had gone wrong. The ship lost power. You had no idea why - you were in a pod, for God’s sake. Either way, the hum of the ship was gone.
Well, “hum” is an embellishment. You have no sense of hearing presently, but when the ship is moving, you can feel the vibrations in your skull. If you can move your eyes, it’s a safe bet you’d be able to feel the ship’s engine, rocking them ever so slightly.
Or maybe your ears did work. Maybe there was just nothing to hear.
The ship was at a standstill - yet here you were. You remember, in your earlier days, before the mission, asking about the safety of the pods. In the dim blue light of a distant memory, nestled deep in the canopy of your faraway world, you remember, and are overcome with horror.
Early in the morning, the engineer reassures you. The pods run on a separate power source. They’ll keep you frozen, and keep you fed, even if the main ships power dies. Your body needs so little food in this state, and the machine will even exercise your muscles a little while you sleep.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why are you awake? How long will you be awake? Does Earth know you are?
It is frustrating that the overwhelming panic that grips you has no outlet - no sweat, no swearing, no screaming - nothing. Even your eye control is limited - you can’t even blink. The pod is keeping your eye moist. Were the settings jumbled? Why was your brain awake? Why were your eyes?
“Send me to sleep,” you pray. “Send me to sleep, send me to sleep until we’re rescued, please.” Like a child, you wish you could tighten your eyes, to amplify the strength of the wish.
Then another terrifying thought overcomes you; what if they aren’t coming for you? What if, back home, all they see is that the power is out? What if they assume you dead? What if they never come? How long will you be this way?
Silver, sleek, featureless. This image would burn into your eyes until, even if you escaped, it would have long since shrivelled up your retinas. Please, you ask, give me a shadow. Give me a detail to latch on to - give me something.
“The CAS system will keep you going,” I remembered, “pretty much indefinitely.”
Send me to sleep and kill me. Please. Send me to sleep and kill me. Cut the feeding tube off. Let your muscles atrophy. Please. God. Please.
Deja Vu. You remember thinking this before. What time was this? Has this happened before to me? How long have I… You remember… Yes, this did happen before, you woke up. But something was different.
Christ, God, no. The ceiling, you remember now. It wasn’t featureless. There was a mural on it. Where was it? Where had it gone? It was a schematic of the ship, where had it gone?! Was this the same ship? had you been taken, somehow? Was I home?! Wait, no, have I -
had you just been here long enough for your eyesight to fade?
How long have you been here?
No, I can’t have… This is all… Ah yes. Now you remember. Silver. Sleek. Featureless. You hadn’t woken up just now. It was… something else. A moment of clarity… You think. Alzheimer’s? Dementia? Not a physical thing, though. It was time, gnawing at me… Something… Else.
They say that time passes quicker the older you are. I wonder how long I have been here… Time doesn’t seem to be passing quicker, though maybe i would only notice if I had a point of reference… Something besides this ceiling… Maybe if I tried to have a conversation, everything would be moving too fast for me to follow. How long does it take a human brain to rot from the inside out, on its own accord?
I wonder if they mourned me, on the news… I wonder what a human face looks like. What do shapes look like?
The moments of clarity are the worst. I want it to take me over completely. I wonder how scared I was, the first time. The first time I realised this was everything… I wonder how different I really have it from people back home. This is ageing, this is just… Time… That’s all it is. The time we’re all afflicted by… condensed… into a…
How old are you? I remember now… Laying here… you remember the schematic fading… You could even notice it happening. Almost in real time, I saw it fade. Let me close my eyes.
Callisto, you think, must be beautiful. A beautiful silver. Sleek. Featureless.
He could never shake the calamity of time from his face, nor the persisting ache of life from his demeanor. Without knowing a thing about the man, you would look at him and think "My God... he survived all that?"
Stage notes from "Lilytooth”, a work in progress
Annihilation
0.0001 multiplied by the speed of light squared is 9 trillion.
Or, 100mg worth of matter and antimatter multiplied by 3x10^8 squared gives you 9000000000000 joules of energy. Specifically, this is referred to as Annihilation energy.
0.0001 kg would provide the equivalent of 14.28 % of the energy in the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
The average weight of two human bodies is 124kg.
I find the days for which I long the most are not those where I was happiest, but where I had the most before me.
Jepthah in “Lilytooth” a work in progress.
Infra - sub, or below
Naut - to sail, though in recent years it has become intrinsically tied to space. See; astronaut, cosmonaut.
What if the Camera Really Do Take Your Soul? Arcade Fire, Anthropology and Western Myth.
“Flashbulb Eyes” is not a particularly long song (especially compared to the others on the album), and lyrically speaking it... Well, it's eight different lines.
However, it is in this track where (I feel) the albums two strongest themes, fear or sociopathy and hatred of fame come together in the most succinct and straightforward way.
Though recently, this song has inspired me to think about something else; the idea that certain people once believe that “the camera can steal your soul”. It mostly seems to be colonial bullshit.
What you're looking at here is a photograph from keen scientific writer and pioneer of Japanese photography, Ueno Hikoma. During Hikoma's life, he captured many iconic scenes of the Japanese countryside, as well as its inhabitants. His work was widely influential, and he maintained close relationships with and even taught many of the other great Japanese photographers of the time (Uchida Kuichi, Noguchi Jōichi and Kameya Tokujirō to name just a few). At times, however, superstitions crept into his craft, and he had trouble taking the pictures of a number of his Japanese countrymen. You see; it was a belief in some areas that having your picture taken would also take your soul away.
Except, no, that's not really true at all, it's just how Western society seemed to interpret it. It's true, Hikoma had difficulty taking the pictures of some Japanese citizens, however it wasn't really for fear of a soul being stolen. It was in fact far closer to some of the Japanese believing that they could become sick from having their picture taken, possibly due to the bright flash – and even this belief does not necessarily come down to superstition as much as misunderstanding. The camera was still a relatively new contraption – especially if you were a farmer and had never seen anything remotely similar before – so general unease around it does not seem too absurd.
This example, by the way, happens to be one of the very few (documented, at least) examples of a people actually fearing the camera in this way.
Other instances of of civilisations fearing the camera seem to stem more from cultural misunderstandings. For instance, the Australian Aboriginal culture (much like the Iroquois) is an intrinsically oral one, containing no written language. History and stories pre-1788 were maintained through song and repeatedly told stories rather than through physical documentation (The Iroquois, conversely, would appoint “Sachem”, individuals tasked with remembering and teaching Historic events). As a result, the Aboriginal tradition has become a profoundly esoteric one. Due to this traditional, recording an Aboriginal ceremony, song or practise is a matter of extreme contention, and it is highly recommended (and really, just a mark of respect) you consult the host before taking pictures. The avoidance of the camera, for these people, is not a matter of fear, but of cultural preservation.
In Janet Hoskins study of the myth, she theorises that the fear of the camera stealing blood is actually far more likely than the notion of a camera stealing a soul (Noting that the cameras “click” sounding similar to a sucking sound). This sounds a little odd, but makes sense – after all, the notion of a “soul” is not necessarily common to every culture, and even if a culture does posses a “soul equivalent”, who is to say their version is capable of being stolen? Is it not also possible that fear of the camera could also have begun out of fear of the power it represents – taking ones image forever, without their consent? Anthropologist Rodney Needham labelled the belief that the camera can steal the soul a “literary stereotype”.
In fact, the idea of a soul being stolen through a representative image is a distinctly European one. During the Victorian era, it was common practise for all mirrors to be covered with sheets or rags at a funeral. This was due to the incredibly strong belief the Victorians had in “the soul” - notably that immortality was achieved through the resurrection of the soul. Mirrors were covered so that no reflection of the dead would be present at their funeral – the common superstition was that if any reflection were present, then the deceased soul could be trapped forever. It makes sense now, that many Westerners would have associated other culture's avoidance of the camera with the soul. This idea of the “reflection” representing the soul likely carried over to the introduction of the camera, where in stead of a “reflection” mirroring the soul, it was a photograph.
Ah yes, reflections. Reflektions.