Hyborian Bridge 146

The image of corporate America is caught by the SpaceX astronauts going for liftoff on Musk's machine.

If a corporation is the head, it makes sense to have a row of faces staring at you through space-visors. All helmeted space-faces seem to look oddly similar, like they've entered some parallel-verse. This was the one flaw of Outland, I felt, as the ''High Noon" battle took place suited-up outside of the colony (unlike the French Connection-style chase inside the gridiron complex).

Could that indicate that in space everyone becomes the same by dint of the technological imperative? A lone voice can fight for only so long. A lone wolf has to be different but what if the imperative of space is to become one with the machine via the algorithm?

What I really mean is that by conquering space, one enters a parallel dimension where algorithms rule. Anyone who challenges their authority is doomed to failure. (Space IS that reality, but it is possibly becoming apparent down here, if one thinks of the recent US election chaos!)

The parallel dimension convinces the ego for the reason it is composed of number, perspective and the rules that run it. 

As was said back in H06

on the Old Gods of Hyboria (the Shemitic mother goddesses), where there is belief in the strength of fertility, the worlds of information and belief are tied together. What is credited is what serves the laws of fertility and renewal. With this s can be associated obscene acts and the annual rebirth of the mate of the goddess with the cycle of vegetation (see Yaple).

The animalistic, the obscene and the filth if the earth revitalise through strength and cultish reverence. The animalistic represents sex, death, rebirth, the bloody hunt of prey. Does space represent the exit from this world through the universe of illusions (electromagnetism)?

Aldrin photographed by Armstrong (seen in reflection)

The mirror of illusions inside which things appear the same. Space is the most true mirror I that it is barren. The ego is persuaded by the image that reflects the truth of a perspective illusion.

Space is the place where the ego heads via algorithms (number). By ye same token, it's the domain of sameness. The gods and goddesses and their rustic physicality remain on Earth while Man - as a disembodied head - voyages the stars.

More broadly, since the new space frontier is built on computers, is it a case that the bigger the computer the better for everyone, as with Amazon's global franchise? Many would say that is America's future. An interesting image is this one from Conan #1 that juxtaposes future space travel with a sorcerer.

The sorcerer's overreaction could be that of shock the old gods had been overturned in this far future epoch! The gods are difficult to escape though, their vengeance, as this Jefferson Starship track illustrates.

WINDS OF CHANGE

Gods and goddesses of the sky and earth represent the storms of creation and destruction. Unless those stories are outmoded the old ways could well return.

Kantner, though a fan of sci-fi and the romance of planetary voyage, is questioning all things in

AMERICA

Is the future America one of illusions? Beliefs incorporate obscene acts and from.them is born a society of strength and not simply one of information. How does one fight back when one's strength is sapped? 

By entering space, does one also enter a hermetically sealed capsule that essentially seals the head off from the outside world of the body (see Orphans of the Sky, a construction of the delusory mind as opposed to the physical universe that is visible to all).

An active world can be a simple one - see HB145 on Godard - and has the romance of physical balance.

The head and body are balanced together and obviously connected via the neck. Rather than saying that the head represents 'intellect' and the body is 'anti-intellectual', it's more true to say that a romantic world is one where action (body) puts emphasis on song, breathing, swallowing food (see P1). The hunt, the apres hunt (the piste, the apres piste).

The future'they' envisage is persuasive to the ego; for that reason one should be suspicious of its veracity. Their future is supposed to be 'smart' - meaning of the intellect - but in a way that means dumb, sincw we're going to be told what to do.

How to process information that is beyond one's ken? Is that what they want so that we enter an illusory mirror world of all these so-convincing images?

The head is electrochemical impulses (see ) but our primitive reality is muscular and to do with glands and serpent-like extensions. The primitive can't be reconciled to to what'they' term advance, it can only be ignored or replaced by a profane version (see previous).

The elegance of the human figure, the arch of the neck, the swaying sensual grooves, are truly intelligent because they express physicality. Without this the psyche is nowhere. Django without the performing women and guitar player (and horses) wouldn't be Django

"And me I don't want to go to the moon

I'm going to leave that moon alone

I just want to dance with the rosebud Sioux this summer" (Generation, Buffy)