Destruction of the New.. by the Old (2)

 It all started in '63; the original pulp imagination that comes from primitive roots. Those same routes that are described by Kari Hohne in The Mythology of Sleep: the Waking Power of Dreams (prev.) The forest of belief and fear that the hero must conquer and integrate to the Self.

Pulps are our books of conquest, and the fighting never stops - until everything is neutralised by sameness. This was why I took an unpopular line vis-a-vis the Ukrainian war, since the neutralizing dragon of the West is somewhat more subtle than a Russian tank.

Once everything is neutralised there will be no more wars since what is there to fight about in a kingdom of the dead? The physical reality is acrobatic and not of the head (ego.) It was the acrobatics of a Kirby cover that enticed BWS, according to a YouTube snippet.

Pulps are the acrobatic world; the primitive expression that is lost to calculation of the head. A good indication of what has been lost is to pit Tony Stark against Elon Musk!

Both are ostensibly doing very similar things. Helping the military (in Ukraine or Vietnam); miniaturising electronics (in satellite arrays or iron suits); acting the playboy (in Hollywood or Monte Carlo.)

What is to explain the fact that Iron Man's gadget-laden universe seems to increase in interest with each passing year, while Musk's becomes an electrically neutralizing force of palpable dimensions?

The answer is that Musk lives in his head while Stark lives in the dreamland  of the pulps. Dreams are myths, and despite any modern futurist credentials, are rooted deep in the past; in the forest of fear and the serpents of lore.

Musk is on a one-way trip to the calculating land of ones and zeros - the dual-note of 'Jirel Meets Magic' (prev.) The end-product of that trip is the neutralizing effect of information, or the vanishing-point of technique (sun, the Relativity of time.)

Dreams are primitive, primordial, serpentine and cannot be distracted by these neutral types of technique that lead nowhere. The calculating head is ineluctably drawn into itself, into the universe of electromagnetic impulses.

Outside is the dream that animates reality; the forest of fear; the labyrinthine, serpentine ways. Into this delves the Iron Man, and it is the old world of myth rather than a Brave New World of nothing.

It is ever the case that delving into myth opens the route to a revival, a renaissance. From Greek ruins come majestic insights.

In Tales of Suspense #43, Stark labs are assaulted by the Netherland, in the delectable shape of the lady Kala, who wants Iron Man to help them conquer the overworld. As descendants of Atlanteans, their technology is sophisticated, but Kala discovers this is one conquest she can't win.

Like Proserpine in Pluto's underworld, she cannot emerge except as a symbol of the death that gives strength to growing things (spring.) Like Proserpine, her diaphanous undergarments are a symbol of the lower regions that entice only to destroy.

The primitive blood and corpse-like land of the pulps is a harbinger of vitality that is lost to the calculating head. Like the dog in Goodbye to Language (N3) that rolls on decaying matter and springs up invigorated, the germs and nasties that inhabit the physical reality also imbue strength. Metamorphosis and revival are linked to lifecycle and the psyche of childlike wonder (imago).

Pulps inhabit a primitive, dreamlike world where the psychology is one of conquering fear, one that Marvel's heroes epitomised. The timeless area is like a type of detritus that continually revives.

The strength of revival is forever attached to immortality or death, and this gothic principle runs through comics. The Eternal Vishanti; the Living Tribunal; Eternity.

Ditko's dynamics in Doctor Strange may be the opposite of Iron Man, but the dreamlike and the primitive vistas are eternally there. Anything else is a wasteland that vanishes the further one advances into it. The mirror of illusions; the head of the sorcerer; the promise of a future that vanishes into the mists of oblivion; the land where calculation is everything and physical reality nothing; time is relative and eternity is nowhere; primitive realism and psychedelic grandeur are lost to time.

Destruction of the New.. by the Old (1)

The old in this case is myth. One can analyse archaic stories - such as the Gilgamesh saga - through the prism of dream symbolism, as Kari Hohne does in The Mythology of Sleep: the Waking Power of Dreams. 

The hero is forever fighting - reminiscent of Marvel Comics - and the aim is the integration of different aspects of their persona. Enkidu, the forest dwelling wild man, is sent to kill the tyrant Gilgamesh, but they end up partners in arms. They set off to kill Humbaba, hideous guardian of the Cedar Forest.

Fear can take on monstrous proportions, especially when it is trapped inside of the forest of our beliefs. (page 190)

Humbaba is the Shadow Self, who must be confronted, challenged, defeated and integrated with the Self. This is the heroic challenge. Conflict and defeat are keys to integrating Self.

If we are angry, we meet a world that is angry. If we only know pain, we find ways to validate it. This is something we fail to realize as Victims. (page 194)

It seems to me our modern world of confusion is to validate the Victim ethos, as opposed to the Hero ethos. We live in a world of isolated egos, never able to integrate Self through conflict.

Conflicts cannot only be psychological in nature, they exist in a concrete world of differences that manifest in nature as predator-prey.

These two recognise their opposite in eachother, and it identifies, strengthens their belief in Self. Without conflict and the battle, the integration of Self is hardly conceivable.

This is where feudalism is much more of a forest of belief and fear than is our modern neutralised world of ego. I did say earlier that Putin's aggression in Ukraine was confused because, in the normal course of events, communes are rebellious places, and they respond best to tyranny 

But we do not live in normal times; there is not so much tyranny and rebellion as the tragedy of an ego that is incapable of integrating the Self.

The Self can be integrated through tyranny and rebellion, as it was on the Middle Ages - and in the field of heroic fantasy. It can only be integrated through differences, it cannot be integrated in a world where everything becomes the same.

Putin's point about the Victim status of 'cancel culture' was well-made (namechecking JK Rowling, prev.) It is possible the West is trying to cancel Russia, and the route to sameness could be Ukraine.

To make this point completely visual, here's a clip of Putin's daughter Katerina, performing as a competitive 

ROCK'N'ROLL ACROBAT

Acrobats throw eachother around, and it's noticeable the man is heavier and taller to accommodate the tricky routine. Physically that's very apparent. Compare this with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.

While psychologically he might be a she, physically speaking it's apparent the spread of shoulder and narrowness of hip are male. This matters if we live in a physical reality as opposed to just a psychologically fixated one (of the ego .)

The trouble is that the Western way is composed of distorted rhythms that neutralise the psycho-sexual aspect of physical reality. Back in P200, it was pointed-out that a spinning-top must have invariable time if it is to have a primordial rhythm. The Earth is a spinning-top, so it must have invariable time (not relative.)

The sun is spinning and pulsating; the moon is spinning and orbiting. In space they are acrobatically linked through invariable time. The closeness of the connection is almost incestuous. 

Artemis and Apollo 

So what has that to do with Ukraine? Ukraine has become a proxy war of the West versus Russia, whereby GPS missile technology is showing dividends.

GPS is relative time, relying on ultra-accurate calculation (by machine.) Musk's Starlink array is a vital part of this war.

While Putin might prefer to have s conflict of tyranny versus rebellion (a type of balance), the actual conflict is a proxy war of West versus Russia. The proxy-war does not care for ideals or beliefs, and is part of the Victim mentality that the West fosters in place of a true religion.

Both the West and Putin are confused, and this confusion spreads like a cancer to all areas of modern rule (misrule.) The Victim status has now descended on the Caribbean. They cannot accept that conflicts of the past are part of an evolving process, and instead only know anger and pain. Prince William, unfortunately, on a Commonwealth tour with Kate, is bent like a weak reed.

In a world of victimhood only the hero can conquer; only primordial myth can defeat the weakness of a modern rule of order that is disorder; the disorder of sameness; of calculation as opposed to belief; of neutralising information as opposed to psycho-sexual action.

The neutralizing dragon (3)

 Goodbye to Language is another typically montage-like film where a lot takes place offstage, here in the house of a liaising pair. It's sometimes from the dog's eye view of Roxy, the mutt who spies things at home and wanders round the forest (in 3D though mine was 2D.)

Launching into a review is not really the intention, and this is exceptionally difficult to critique, so I'll start by going back to the aforementioned 'shot/counter-shot'.

A lot of people may have felt, "but this is ubiquitous", and for TV shows I think it probably is. At random I looked at 'The Doomsday Machine' Star Trek episode from 1966. The opening has Kirk walking round the control room. He first asks Lt Palmer a query (the stand-in for Nichols/Uhura), then he proceeds to Spock and asks him.a query. Both had shot/counter-shot, followed by a distance shot of Sulu. 

It's logical without being creative, and the documentary format itself - interviews - is 100% logical (uncreative.)

However, films are films. In Goodbye to Language, the living room of the liaising pair has a large screen continually showing classic pictures. The last one shown was a silent film, and of course this is more like a drama with masks as opposed to language.

Godard idealises the silent era of such as Chaplin, and an ideal film does not necessarily have language as it's about seeing the world as it is (through a dog's eye view.)

I took a look at the trailer of Power of the Dog, and there was an action scene followed by the typical duo scene where there is shot/counter-shot. To use that is lazy directing because it follows the language. The language is covering the visual sense, directing it.

Film doesn't have to be like that. Another old film playing in the background had the two characters, man to left foreground, woman to right background. The sense of romance in the lighting and expressions and sound was palpable.

The other thing is that a camera is something you point. It makes things very easy and therefore technically lazy. Technique rules rather than the visual. The technique of comic books is different because it's often better to show the two characters, or to vary the angles. This is the opening to 'All Around the World' Planetary graphic novel.

Shot/counter-shot puts language at the head of things,  whereas a film should be filmic - visual. The difference of a film from a TV interview should be very apparent! Godard's films are vehicles for ideas, not language.

There are various ideas and quotes. The Apache word for world is forest.' The labyrinthine land where Gilgamesh roamed (prev.) Untidiness and darkness, soiled beauty, soiled maidens.

A labyrinthine place has a physical cycle of repair and regeneration. Words do not count there. We live in a topsy-turvy world where words have come to define the physical reality but, in fact, the reverse is the case.

The snake-like, labyrinthine ways are the ways of action, and from these come the epics of past ages. Words are born of the wordless. The shots of water in this film (and the others) have an Odyssey-like depth.

Going beyond words is going into myth. Myth is reality without the Dominion of language (of 'fact'). If this is the Western way, Europe and America are both on the wrong side of history. The two characters wander the house in a state of ennui - inspired by words?

He has a scene and theme reminiscent of Weekend (1967), where Byron, Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft (writer of Frankenstein) are wandering the forest of lake Geneva, declaiming. The romantic era is long gone, only Frankenstein remains!

'If Russia becomes European it will never be Russian again'. Another saying that holds water. Putin's principles are confused, as was noted previously, but to have the endless interviews of shot/counter-shot is going nowhere very fast.

Not  only forests are labyrinths, but towns and ports back in the day. That is what is being lost. The scented decadence of movement and force that provides romance and dark ambiance. Action, not words.

AMSTERDAM

Where there is communal action, rebellion is always there. Even in Russia, if Putin is a tyrant rebellion is still possible as we've seen.

The neutralizing dragon of news (words) renders things neutral, partly through this trope of shot/counter-shot, partly through ignoring the physical sphere entirely. Sex-differences are no longer de riguer (see Rowling.)

A neutral world is also one that is compulsive- as opposed to fecund or sexual. This makes another link to Weekend, which starts with a description of an anal-oriented orgy. Here it takes the form of the 'equivalence' of toilet humour.

The neutralizing dragon (2 of 3)

 Notre Musique is satisfying visually with sweeping scenes of a war-struck Sarajevo - bridges and emerald green River, majestic edifices gutted to the bone, fleeting city-trams - and not least for Godard's appearance as himself at a conference where he espouses his antagonism towards the cinematic device of 'shot/counter-shot'.

I'll start with that, as to interpret what he means is tough, and without understanding this piece may as well remain unwritten! Shot/counter-shot' is a documentary method whereby two actors are shot at identical angles, and they are made to seem equivalent.

From that seeming triviality, he goes on a rigmarole. Elsinore in documentary form is a fairly plain castle in Denmark. It is only placed in the vision by the knowledge it is Hamlet's castle.

The way I understand that is that a documentary style appears real but lacks vision. Reality has two faces in that struggles are going on. Between men and women; between blacks and whites; between Red Indians and cowboys.

A trio of native Americans appear as 'ghosts'; Godard also shows a photo of Richmond, Virginia after the civil war. 

So, the film is a poetic exploration of violence and war - victors and losers - and possibly also feuding as I've been using it in a communal sense. Godard's films are known for being documentary-style, but they are nothing without the vision and here the fantasy-elements are rendered realistically.

What that means in short is that documentary style of shot/counter-shot renders reality without the vision and you have just the text, or words.

"Text has covered vision."

Vision is dark, sombre, tragic. Also gay.

The bridge bring rebuilt over the river has two faces representing the pain and guilt of war, struggle between peoples. The water is a rich emerald green - which I took to be the fertility of blood sustained in the conflict. The Noto-esque underworld (see 'Red Lace'..) is there all the time, and red changes to green (the Styx.)

In the sombre world that is not all text (head), the physical processes (body) create active areas of regeneration from degradation. Reality is two-faced because from the brute destruction and disorder comes ultimate revival and fertility.

Branching off from what Godard may have intended, there is an Arcadian reality where physical processes are left to themselves in relatively primitive situations of country, peasant-based smallholdings.

Arcadia is where Buffy's quote on dried buffalo manure (see quote HB70) rings true, because things are generally left to their own devices. Untidiness becomes tidiness through the natural processes that just happen.

In American terms, it's the country blues that seem quite simple stylistically, but actually have a lot of physical, tonal content.

GOING UP THE COUNTRY

Canned Heat in their third album have an extended country blues called 'Parthenogenesis/Nebulosity'. As the sleeve notes say, the meaning of that is not atall clear, but it could simply be literal. Parthenogenesis means (among other things) the unfertilised eggs of queen bees that give rise to male drones. 

I did a little reading on bees, and their lifecycle is astonishingly fecund and debauched! This is the very content of a blissful Arcadia, one that is heard only through (nebulous) pan-pipes. To some that would be reactionary, even an Uncle Tom-ism, and I think that may well be the case. Truth is no stranger to controversy. That is, the physical reality of the body rather than words of the documentary head (text.)

The next film I'm looking at is Goodbye to Language from 2014, which one might assume has a not dissimilar theme. The documentary-style head has no physical content - of Arcadia or the underworld - but has a lot of neutralising style (words, and words that can't be used.)

What we get is a world of policies (federal legislation) but where you can't insult people. As I've been saying for awhile, insults in organic communes are normal and just a recognition of differences that exist. Even words that are not insulting such as 'Redskins' are legislated out.

Shot/counter-shot in the documentary-style establishes a world of text that corresponds to the reality 'they' want. It's one that has not the physical untidiness (disorder, destruction) nor the gaiety of revival (psyche, Dionysian rites.)

As a director, Godard's aim is to "shine a light on darkness.. notre musique.' One must first have the darkness. Without the revival from darkness there can be no psychic strength.

The neutralizing dragon (1)

 Having watched about 1/3 of Notre Musique - from 6 years previous to Film Socialisme - it's a thematically dense piece so I thought I'd write something about the end of the end of one film and the beginning of the other, since they're thematically similar, followed by something on Notre Musique (follow that?)

Yes, cos Godard's gnomic utterances seem to inspire reflection along certain lines - though it's difficult to say where the film stops and the thought starts!

For a start, going back to his view of TV as 'the state', Film Socialisme has the line at the end that the state is 'We', the individual 'I'; in a drama we pull together; in a tragedy not atall.

While Notre Musique has the line

The dream of the individual is to be two; the dream of the state is to be one.

There is also the line

Democracy and tragedy were wed in Athens.

To weave these together, I have to start from my previous stuff on antagonism inside communes - the mini feuds that resolve conflicts. The friction of different personalities or between husband and wife or differences between clans. Feuding allows for a modicum of force to enter into relations; dueling or fisticuffs. Not everything is state-sanctioned by policy, basically.

Now, when Godard says 'democracy is tragedy', that might apply to a state-sanctioned democracy where the individual was submerged. But it doesn't necessarily apply to the type of feudalism that is inherent in communes where policies are not allowed to dominate (the example of Detroit and federal civil legislation was cited, Drama 3).

Antagonism is a physically active situation (of the body) where there is psychic strength enabled. Where the head becomes dominant (in policy), one is much more approaching a psychological situation where tragedy is unavailable.

In a sense, this is the modern world. As I said before, Putin's aims in Ukraine are confused (his principles) because he is not allowing for the fact that strong communes are feudal and should not be tyrannised or made to come around to one point of view (the unitary state.)

Putin is very verbal and uses words to instigate conflict of a unitary state on the communes. In actual fact, the word 'tyrant' was used as the nom de plume of a coin collector of British and Anglo-Saxon kings; he meant 'absolute monarch' but, in fact, the barons had en masse equal power to the king and it was all a balancing act.

'Tyrant' in antiquity, simply meant king, hence Oedipus Tyrannus. In the plays such as also Electra, there is a psychological wash over the protagonist who sort of retreats into their shells. The Greeks invented psychology along with other things 

In the drama of a commune, to paraphrase Godard, individuals come together at times of crises; but in a tragedy individuals are distinct, isolated.

This applies to the modern situation in general because of the doctrine of sameness as opposed to antagonism that enables differences to be resolved.

What I was trying to get at is that there is a principle of movement and force that gives a commune self-government through feuds (probably the blues!) This principle is being ironed-out through the neutralizing dragon of news.

It's a sort of 'zero' whereby differences of the physical reality cannot be tolerated (as in JK Rowling's case). Richard Ingrams of the 60s satirical mag Private Eye says

At 84 I would like to write another book.. but it's hard to be controversial these days, particularly if you're old. I spend a lot of time reading PG Wodehouse. He refers to a psychiatrist as a "loony doctor". That would cause great offence now. (DT)

The physical or sexual areas are not verbal but actually real flesh and blood. 

Going back to Putin, he is more like a tragedian than a tyrant. But, in a sense the same applies to the neutralizing West. Communes which are free - in physical state and free-spirit - are rebellious and so can be tyrannised by a king. It's a state of balance.

In a world where force and movement do not really exist in that sense, the neutralizing news creates a despondency of individuals, and that is the tragedy of democracy which I think Godard alludes to.

Pictorial 213

 Taking-up the devil's mantle again, the universe is experienced in a physical way when time and silence have meaning (staring at the stars). Movement is appreciated by the eye - rhythm, force - as Daredevil leaps along rooftops.

The wash of news, and now social media, dulls the metaphysical with the scourge of 'facts'.

Learn to see before you learn to read

goes one of the lines in Film Socialisme, the 2010 collage or collision of scenes by J-L Godard (then about 80.)

With the American Way battered, and the Russian way even more battered, seeing through a battered European perspective may be a wise alternative.

Battered, meaning shabby ambiance, soiled beauty, sultry decline and divine swine. The latter are the animals that peer through the screen at odd times. The purrs of cats from a YouTube meme, seen on-board a cruise-ship (also harbouring Patti Smith in cameo); the cloven-hooved creatures at a Core d'azur gas station..

FILM SOCIALISME

At about 3 plus minutes is a shot of the gas station's waterpump windmill (in shadow), reminding me of the Old West's iconic windmills. The film may not have much narrative flow, but Godard is a master of creating a sense of the casual and natural, people pawing like animals (the off-beats of off-screen music..)

What that could say is, the life lived casually and naturally comes first; the story comes second. For a start, why does the French gas station have a windmill? Presumably to pump water from a well, meaning either they have less plumbing or more water - as in the Old West.

If this is a French and French West African way, it is anti the Anglo world which is ruled by capital. By the 'cleanness' of smart plumbing and increasingly by algorithms (text or story.) Numerical efficiency rules (Ed Sheeran writes algorithmic pop songs for dollars?)

Outside the Anglo world is the shabby-chic European twilight. 'Facts', unfortunately, are no longer sufficient to run an order that is governed by algorithms.

Pam Geller, as noted previously, blatantly lied about Trudeau for the sake of her principles; the Russians are blatantly sidestepping truth in Ukraine for the sake of their principles.

"Putin plans to rebuild the USSR and have Russia back as a superpower. He genuinely doesn't see Ukrainians as their own people. He sees them as inferior Russians. (guy called Ingram.)

But, for Ukraine to be part of a new Russian Empire would clearly be superior to being just another capitalist country like, say, Denmark.

Principles have to have priority over 'facts' because only principles have the force and rhythm of movement, of purpose. Facts are always there to be argued over endlessly.

For example, American forces in Afghanistan committed similar acts to the Russians in killing innocent parties. It was either 'mistaken' or 'unavoidable', the result was the same.

The more primitive way of looking at reality is through force and purpose and movement. These supply principles which modernity lacks.

Putin's principles are confused, as was noted before, because the modern paradigm is confused. The same goes for America in Afghanistan.

The legitimacy of communes and free trade ports - see historical prev. - is a case of disorder and rebellion first. This enables legitimate physical action that establishes order.

These types of opposite statements and quotes litter Godard's film (a classic is, 'Islam is the occident of the East' by Rudyard Kipling.) The primitive sense of disorder and beauty and natural rhythmic force is necessary to create a renewed sense of purpose that is not purely the Anglo credo (text) of dollar, algorithm, number.

Pictorial 212

 The disorder of the underworld brings order in its wake. Put another way, the struggle between differences that becomes strength, that produces psychic luster. Storm-damaged trees that fall, that replenish the habitats of the lifecycles of numerous bugs (P211). All this is a way of simply leaving things be; leaving things to decadence and revival, the natural cycle of germs or Man (physical vigour.)

Instead of the law of supply and demand there is a much older law of trading-ports that become established by dint of geography and maritime conquest.

The entrepot of Amsterdam and the free trading ports of the Hansa have much in common with old Shanghai (TofF2) with its fermenting pig manure and decrepit wharves; romance and decadence entangled in the gloaming.

Unfortunately, that's all I can say of these archaic maritime trade-routes for now as I got diverted by watching 'Scenario Video', Godard's screen-notes for Slow Motion (prev.)

Godard is intent on discerning truth, which is the link of music to film, or between dialogue and movement. Film is above all the experience of time (27 times a second) and not simply of 'shooting the script' in post-Hollywood fashion.

Movements are the way we experience time, and dialogue interferes with that. There are punctuations of silence in much the same way as is practiced in action comics (or BWS Monsters for the sake of breathing and experiencing the character's state of mind.)

In terms of action, 'the silence of speed' allows us to experience time in an animalistic fashion. Do we have punctuations and pure silent action in our modern lives? is a question in point.

This tallies with our exposure to news, which is purely verbal. The war in Ukraine is clearly socially emotional, so doesn't that mean something is lacking?

Movement is rhythm and force, while dialogue is 'pure information' (in quotes). The Russians are apt to describe this as "misinformation" ("what is the source?") but in any case could be a case of information overload.

In a war the aim is to win, and Putin has a greater right than simply 'fact', which is the right of legitimate physical action.

It's a war of principle; as was said in P211 though, the principle loses legitimacy as modern wars create an order, when the disorder of rebellion is what brings order in its wake.

I mean, the legitimacy of communes and free-trade ports during the time of the Hanseatic League. Putin's (nostalgic) principles are confused owing to the modern paradigm of pure calculation (or Relativity.)

This in turn tallies with our experience of time. The divine rhythms which sailors used to steer by are denied us and we are assailed by a social and factual smorgasbord.

'The silence of speed' is an area where physical action has legitimacy in that the universe is being experienced in a physical way (not just through a verbal wash of news).

Where the physical universe exists, the psyche has a development over time. Silence is that experience, and has the assets of fantasy and poetry (as opposed to supply and demand.)

One other way to delineate it is that it's probably the opposite of Simon and Garfunkel's iconic 60s anthem The Sound of Silence! 'Hello darkness, my old friend' could take you to some other area of decadence that is in the nature of true living.

Time is fundamental to experience in a foundational way (dance, force, stillness, punctuation), and therefore an area where physical action has some legitimacy (in terms of reality or realism.) Where that is so, the psyche develops over time (childhood innocence.)

If we live in a nefarious area where illegitimacy rules, that is a fundamentally confused situation. Blaming Putin or anyone else is too easy when the paradigm itself invites confusion. To be ruled by a state of confusion is a recipe for rule by social media rather than the force and rhythm and stillness of dance (by the stars.)

The tyranny of the calculating head versus the unspoken force of the twisting body under the turning stars. The continuity of action; microcosm echoes macrocosm - P200. Like the Batman on the NY skyline making iconic shapes; meditating under gargoyles; finding meaning before speaking; natural strength before weakness.

The Batman, it's grim up there