Thread for mundane ironists

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21

Robert Louis Stevenson from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.”

Or selves as the case may be.

That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.

Not unexpectedly though.

I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated, the trembling immateriality, the mistlike transience, of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired.

How terribly strange to be 70? How about 82, Paul?

“O God!’ I screamed, and ‘O God!’ again and again; for there before my eyes–pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death–there stood Henry Jekyll!”

Next up: “O God!” for all the rest of us.

It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me.

Next up: the horror of being fractured and fragmented, grimly awaiting the arrival of godot.

I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment.

In other words, depending of the answers.

22

Coming of age with a stutter. Not only that but one attached at the hip to the horrors of a hopelessly introverted personality. It’s painful to watch at times. Especially on the debating team.

Is this a love story? It is if you hate love stories.

Hal surmises that understanding life and love shouldn’t be like “rocket science”. But rocket science is like a game of tic tac toe in comparison. After all, rocket science is far more about either/or than neither/nor.

Rocket Science

Narrator: And so it goes. The high school debate, like the war that rips through your city and ravages everything in its path; Kids wielding words like weapons and brandishing ideas like axes. Nothing else mattered in that final round. There was no world beyond it.

Like the philosophy fanatics here.

Narrator: That year’s National Debate topic was farming subsidies. And if you don’t know how farming subsidies could inspire all this commotion then you don’t know life and there’s nothing to be said about it. Suitcases end marriages and farming subsidies launch cataclysms.

Then the part where many debaters can argue either side. It’s the arguments themselves that count.

Ginny: Coach Lumbly, with the pilgrim hat, she teaches Patterns of Adult Living. On her third husband, name of Wallace Lumbly, Wallace the third. That’s a particular pattern she doesn’t lecture us on in class. Well, she came up to me after a presentation on egalitarianism and said that although my argumentative skills were at the fetal stage she sensed, somehow she intuited, my potential and invited me onto the team and, so, two years later, here I am doing the same with you. Recruiting. Ferreting out the debating talent from the masses. That’s you. I’ve ferreted you.

And he falls for it.

Ginny: …deformed people are the best debaters. Maybe it’s because they have a deep resource of anger. It serves them well.

Next up: deformed ohilosophers.

Ginny: Have you ever felt like you can burn the world down?
Hal: Every day.

Me? Take a wild guess.

Ginny: Write down these template arguments against abstinence: One, supporting it violates the barrier between church and state; Two, it’s an enforcement of a dated, sexist agenda; Three, sexual freedom is the basis of human freedom; Four, it separates us from Western cultures, Europe in particular, when we should be drawing closer to our international allies; Five, psychologists say that repressed sexual functions can create adult neuroses; Six, abstinence programs actually increase risky sexual behavior among teens; Seven, it creates barriers between free- love-generation parents and their more conservative children; Eight, and finally, we oppose abstinence because the world might end and then basically everyone we know dies a virgin.

Anyone care to encompass the “template arguments for abstinence”?

23

Epistemology

“In mysticism, knowledge cannot be separated from a certain way of life which becomes its living manifestation. To acquire mystical knowledge means to undergo a transformation; one could even say that the knowledge is the transformation. Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, can often stay abstract and theoretical. Thus most of today’s physicists do not seem to realize the philosophical, cultural and spiritual implications of their theories.” Lois McMaster Bujold

New thread?

“We have traditionally thought of knowing in terms of subject and object and have struggled to attain objectivity by detaching our subjectivity. It can’t be done, and one of the achievements of postmodernity is to demonstrate that. What we are called to, and what in the resurrection we are equipped for, is a knowing in which we are involved as subjects but as self-giving, not as self-seeking, subjects: in other words, a knowing that is a form of love.” N.T. Wright

Got it?

“The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.” Arthur Schopenhauer

Clearly, some will take advantage of this more than others.

“The urge to know scrapes against the inability to know.” Anthony Doerr

My point, of course.

“Thought and science are therefore raising problems which their terms of study can never answer, many of which are doubtless problems only for thought. The trisection of an angle is similarly an insoluble problem only for compass and straight-edge construction, and Achilles cannot overtake the tortoise so long as their progress is considered piecemeal, endlessly having the distance between them. However, as it is not Achilles but the method of measurement which fails to catch up with the tortoise, so it is not man but his method of thought which fails to find fulfillment in experience.” Alan Watts

Mine in particular, he suspected.

“Why is it so difficult for us to think in relative terms? Well, for the good reason that human nature loves absoluteness, and erroneously considers it as a state of higher knowledge.” Felix Alba-Juez

You know what’s coming, Mr. Objectivist:

24

Rocket Science

Student in library: Descartes. Man, oh man. [looking over at Hal] Hey, would you be interested in joining my club? The Junior Philosophers.
Hal: Oh, uh, well, I uh…l…my plate is kind of full.
Student in library: I know what you’re thinking. We read everything, but no Hegel, if that’s your concern.

Something we can all agree on, perhaps?

Hal [to Ginny’s mom at the door]: You, could…will you just tell her that…that I’m done and over with the masturbation defense? Tell her that, will you? Just assure her that I’m…that I’m…that I’m…that I’m done with masturbation and I’m ready to show her.
Ginny’s mom [closing the door]: You take care now.

That could have gone better.

Hal: I spent the last seven minutes of my round-one speech trying…trying to say the resolution.
Speech teacher: Oh, man.
Hal: Yeah.
Speech teacher: Well, there’s that video I gave you, “Singing Instead of Talking.”
Hal: Yeah, did, uh…did rat poison and a straw come with that video?

Singing philosophers?

Debate coach: Do you know Mento Buin, who doesn’t speak more than six words of English? Or Evie Spedarsky, who has such pronounced Irritable Bowel Syndrome that she’s being studied by a team at Princeton?
Hal: No.
Debate coach: What about Elvis Hunsinger, the boy who pees himself in gym class?
Hal: Well, everybody knows…Elvis.
Debate coach: Ginny tried to recruit them all. Never crossed my mind that this could be some scheme of hers, but, when you think about it looks pretty pat.

I know what you’re thinking: what scheme?

Girl: So how far did you get with her?
Hal: Does…does it count as second base when it’s groping through the shirt?
Girl: Maybe in public school.

True.

Ben: It’s all so pointless. That’s the realization I came to at States last year. Life is nothing but repetition, the same thing over and over. Somebody might give you a trophy and that’s supposed to mean you’re making progress but there’s no such thing. The fights you fight today are the fights you fight untill you die.

Win some, lose some. On the other hand, as Mary Pickford once suggested, “failure is not falling down, but staying down”.

Hal: You know, love shouldn’t be…shouldn’t…it really shouldn’t be like rocket, uh…shouldn’t be rocket, um…Sometimes, I don’t know, I guess I just wonder when it all starts to make sense, you know?
Dad: All what?
Hal: All this. You know, everything.
Dad: Oh. Well, I guess there comes a point, you see, when you reach a certain age and you’re in Jersey, or someplace just like it, and you stop trying to figure it all out.

Or, if you’re lucky, you never start?

25

Of Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy once famously said, "every word she writes is a lie, including “and” and “the”.

How does that fit in here? I don’t know. I know very little of this literary rift. But even if it is applicable to Julia it matters little. It could have been. And almost certainly came close to being true for…how many?

Julia

Lillian: I’m not scrappy. Don’t call me scrappy. You make me sound like the neighborhood bulldog.
Dashiell: You are the neighborhood bulldog, Lilly! 'Cept you got some cockeyed dream about being a cocker spaniel.

Let’s pin this down.

Lillian: I can’t work here.
Dashiell: Then don’t work here. It’s not as if you’ve written anything before, you know. Nobody’ll miss you. It’s a perfect time to change jobs.

Another smartass. Just what the world always needs.

Dottie: Way down deep he’s very superficial.

In other words, way up in the clouds.

Julia: They took me to see Cairo. They told me how beautiful Cairo would be, bit it wasn’t. I said to my grandfather, “Look at these people. They’re hungry. They’re sick. Why don’t we do something?” And he said, “Don’t look at them.” I said, “But they’re sick.” He said, “I didn’t make them sick.”

Next up: “I didn’t send them to the concentration camps.”

Lillian: There are women who reach a perfect time of life, when the face will never be as good, the body as graceful or powerful. It had happened that year to Julia.

Tell that to the Nazis?

Lillian: What are you reading now?
Julia: Darwin, Engels, Hegel, Einstein.
Lillian: You understand Einstein?
Julia: Sure.

I still don’t.

26

Julia

Dashiell [after reading Lillian’s play]: You wanted to be a serious writer. That’s what I liked. That’s what we worked for. I don’t know what happened but you better tear this up. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not good enough. Not for you.

Like this can all be calculated…objectively?
Then…

Dashiell: It’s the best play anyone has written in a long time.
Lillian: Are you sure.
Dashiell: I’m positive.
Lillian: But are you sure?

A big, big difference, isn’t it?

Lillian: I like being famous. You know what happens when I go shopping for groceries now? I’m famous. I buy mayonnaise and I’m famous. I have letters from people in Idaho.

Anyone famous here? Just out of curiosity, for what?

Dashiell: It’s only fame, Lily. It’s just a paint job. If you want a sable coat, buy one. Just remember, it doesn’t have anything to do with writing.

Let alone the part where Julia comes in.

Julia [in a letter to Lillian]: This is my friend, Johann. He will tell you what I need, but I tell you don’t push yourself. If you can’t, you can’t. No dishonor.

Unless that’s all it is.

Johann: Julia said I must remind you for her that you are afraid of being afraid and so you will do what sometimes you cannot do. That could be dangerous to you—and to us. So please, try not to be heroic.
Lillian: I assure you, I would never try to be heroic.

And you? How far would you go?

Johann: But please, madame, if you cannot do it, do not do it.
Lillian: Please stop saying that.

If you get her drift.

Julia: Are you as angry now as you used to be?
Lillian: Mm-hmm. Yes. I try not to be, but there you are.
Julia: I like your anger.
Lillian: You’re the only one who does then.
Julia: Don’t you let anybody talk you out of it.

On the other hand, angry about what?

27

Slavoj Žižek

Ideology is not a conceptual frame externally imposed on the wealth of reality, it is our experience of reality itself.

On the other hand, whatever that means?

God was a lazy programmer.

He still is.

Without you I cannot live, with you I am alone.

Actually, this is a real thing.

…in today’s market, we find a whole series of products deprived of their malignant property: coffee without caffeine, cream without fat, beer without alcohol . . . And the list goes on: virtual sex as sex without sex, the art of expert administration as politics without politics, up to today’s tolerant liberal multiculturalism as an experience of the Other deprived of its disturbing Otherness.

Next up: philosophy without…

The fact that Bernie stole the show at Biden’s inauguration, and that the image of him just sitting there instantly became an icon, indicates that the true world spirit of our time was there, in his lone figure, embodying skepticism about the fake normalization staged in the ceremony. The celebration of his image expressed that there is still hope for our cause; people are aware that radical change is needed.

Let’s just say this wasn’t my own reaction at all.

Orwell’s point is that radicals invoke the need for revolutionary change as a kind of superstitious token that really works to achieve the opposite; i.e.,prevents the change from really occurring.

Human psychology, let’s call it.

28

Julia

Dashiell [after reading Lillian’s play]: You wanted to be a serious writer. That’s what I liked. That’s what we worked for. I don’t know what happened but you better tear this up. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not good enough. Not for you.

Like this can all be calculated…objectively?
Then…

Dashiell: It’s the best play anyone has written in a long time.
Lillian: Are you sure.
Dashiell: I’m positive.
Lillian: But are you sure?

A big, big difference, isn’t it?

Lillian: I like being famous. You know what happens when I go shopping for groceries now? I’m famous. I buy mayonnaise and I’m famous. I have letters from people in Idaho.

Anyone famous here? Just out of curiosity, for what?

Dashiell: It’s only fame, Lily. It’s just a paint job. If you want a sable coat, buy one. Just remember, it doesn’t have anything to do with writing.

Let alone the part where Julia comes in.

Julia [in a letter to Lillian]: This is my friend, Johann. He will tell you what I need, but I tell you don’t push yourself. If you can’t, you can’t. No dishonor.

Unless that’s all it is.

Johann: Julia said I must remind you for her that you are afraid of being afraid and so you will do what sometimes you cannot do. That could be dangerous to you—and to us. So please, try not to be heroic.
Lillian: I assure you, I would never try to be heroic.

And you? How far would you go?

Johann: But please, madame, if you cannot do it, do not do it.
Lillian: Please stop saying that.

If you get her drift.

Julia: Are you as angry now as you used to be?
Lillian: Mm-hmm. Yes. I try not to be, but there you are.
Julia: I like your anger.
Lillian: You’re the only one who does then.
Julia: Don’t you let anybody talk you out of it.

On the other hand, angry about what?

29

Time

“The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination.” Joseph Campbell

Abstract enough for you? Though, sure, point taken.

“Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings.” John Updike

Where do they take it?

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.” T.S. Eliot

In other words, few things are more imponderable than spacetime itself.

“In magic - and in life - there is only the present moment, the now. You can’t measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. ‘Time’ doesn’t pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we’re always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn’t act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we’re going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don’t want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.” Paulo Coelho

Magic works for me.

“Your hand can seize today, but not tomorrow; and thoughts of your tomorrow are nothing but desire. Don’t waste this breath, if your heart isn’t crazy, since “the rest of your life” won’t last forever.” Omar Khayyám

How’s that working out for you?

“It’s always about timing. If it’s too soon, no one understands. If it’s too late, everyone’s forgotten.” Anna Wintour

Your it first?

30

The Color of Money

Eddie: You’re hooked on Carmen, aren’t you?
Vincent: Yeah.
Eddie: Crazy about her?
Vincent: You’re getting a little personal here. What?
Eddie: You’re losing her, kiddo.
Vincent: What do you mean?
Eddie: She don’t get the allure of this place.

Hustle, hustle, hustle.

Eddie: This ain’t pool. This is for bangers. Straight pool is pool. This is like hand-ball, or cribbage, or something. Straight pool, you gotta be a real surgeon to get 'em, you know? It’s all finesse. Now, every thing is nine-ball, 'cause it’s fast, good for T.V., good for a lot of break shots…Oh, well. What the hell. Checkers sells more than chess.

Next up: Texas hold 'em?

Eddie: How much did you take off Moselle? I heard a hundred…
Vincent: One Fifty!
Eddie: [sarcastically] A hundred and fifty?
Vincent: That’s right, a hundred and fifty.
Eddie: You walk into a shoe store with a hundred and fifty bucks, you come out with one shoe! We were working on five thousand!

Of course, eventually, Vincent does come around.
Doesn’t he, Eddie.

Eddie: You gotta have two things to win. You gotta have brains and you gotta have balls. Now, you got too much of one and not enough of the other.

Well, he is, after all, a Scientologist.

Vincent: I’ll really try, you know? Let’s go for it. But you know, Eddie, I mean, uh…it’s just tough for me to lay down. You know, it’s just, uh…I get in there, and it’s just tough. It’s just, uh, it’s just tough to lay down…but i’ll try. Okay?

Next up: Grady.

Grady: It’s like a nightmare, isn’t it? It just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn’t it?

His hair ain’t so perfect now.

31

The Color of Money

Carmen: How you doing?
Vincent: Hmm? Carmen, I’m playing here now.
Carmen: I know. Vincent, you win one more game and you’re gonna be humping your fist for a long time.

The allure just keeps on shrinking.

Eddie: Are you a hustler, Amos?
Amos: Come on, Eddie, man. Luck.
Eddie: Are you a hustler?
Amos: Hey, you don’t want to pay me? Keep it. Forget it. I don’t want no bad feelings. When the big guy loses. I lost, I paid. I don’t…
Eddie: Are you a hustler, Amos?
Amos: What? You want to quit?
Eddie: Fuck you, kid. Double it again.

Oh, he’s a hustler alright.

Amos [to Eddie]: Hey, I want to ask you something, an’ I want you to be real honest. Do you think I need to lose some weight?

Brutal…
And all of it coming down to this:

Eddie [looking down at an envelope filled with cash]: What’s that?
Vincent: That’s for you. That’s your cut.
Eddie: Cut of what?
Vincent: For the game.
Eddie: What game?
Vincent: Our game. I dumped. Got a front to lay $4,000 on you. Then I dumped. I dogged about four shots. Eddie, you know, you are a very, very good player. I feel shitty about getting booted but there’s other tournaments, right?
Eddie: Right. You dumped, huh?
Vincent: Carmen didn’t want to go for it but I told her you of all people would appreciate it. There’s $8,000 there. After I beat Grady Seasons, the odds were a joke.
Carmen: Two brothers and a stranger.
Vincent: It was beautiful. It was fuckin’ beautiful. When I banked the 5. When I saw the table I knew it was going to be the 5. To be able to just miss the pocket by a hair…I mean, the audience…“oh!” It was… It was… I… $8,000 in there.

Now what, Eddie? After all, you taught him everything he needed to know about pool and capitalism.

Vincent: You got brass, man. I’ll give you that. You want my best game? You couldn’t deal with my best game.

And your best game?

Vincent: Eddie, what will you do when I kick your ass?
Eddie: Pick myself up and let you kick me again.
Vincent: Oh, yeah?
Eddie: Yeah. Just don’t put the money in the bank, kid. If I don’t whip you now I’ll whip you next month in Houston. If not, a month after that in New Orleans.
Vincent: Yeah, what makes you so sure?
Eddie: Hey, I’m back.

With glasses to actually see the balls?
The male ego! The male battle! But at least with pool [give or take the occasional dump] there is a clear winner and a clear loser.

32

Phil Ochs: Love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal.

Here is a narrative bursting at the seams – oozing – with self-righteous indignation. Those fucking conservatives! Thank God the Rachel Maddows are out there exposing them!

And, sure, up to a point I’m oozing to. But I have no illusions about the gap between the liberal idealism on display here and the reality of a Bill Clinton or a Barack Obama. Or an MSNBC. At least not with respect to preserving crony capitalism at home and abroad.

But it is certainly true the conservatives here are skewered. The word “scumbag” leaps to mind.

The Contender

Kermit: During the confirmation period, I want you out of sight.
Laine’s husband: Pardon me?
Kermit: A wife there behind her husband is perceived as supportive. A husband following around behind his wife is perceived as a puppeteer.

Perception here being everything.

Runyon: I take it you have a predisposition. About the confirmation, I mean.
Webster: No. Actually, I’m 100% objective.
Runyon: Mmm. Do you have a dictionary, Mr. Webster?
Webster: Yeah.
Runyon: Take a magic marker, cross out the word “objectivity”. Your constituents want you for your opinions, your philosophy, for you subjectivity.

Being “one of us” in other words.

Laine’s husband: The senator got a little wild when she was 19. What is the big deal?
Kermit: Let me explain the big deal to you. The people of this nation can stomach quite a bit. But the one thing they can’t stomach is the image of a vice president with a mouthful of cock.

Then Trump rides into town…to make the hypocrisy all the more glaring.

Kermit: We’ll just have to make this all not worthwhile for Mr. Runyon. What have you got on the distinguished gentleman from Illinois?
Staffer: Some pretty good stuff. S.E.C. investigation, 1985.
Kermit: You got stocks? I want something EMBARRASSING! Something sexual! Little boys, midgets, that sort of thing! Cows!
Laine: Come on, Kermit. If we do that, we are no better than he is.
Kermit: We are no better than he is!

In other words, not really.

Runyon: Greatness is the orphan of urgency, Laine. Greatness only emerges when we need it most…in time of war or calamity. I can’t ask somebody to be a Kennedy or a Lincoln. They were MEN created by their times. What I…What I can ask for is the promise of greatness. And that, Madam Senator you don’t have.
Laine: Well, then I just wouldn’t be using sex as leverage if I were you, Sheldon. Because, you know, there’s one thing you don’t want. It’s a woman with her finger on the button who isn’t getting laid.

Scary enough for you?

Runyan: Clausewitz said that war is the natural extension of politics. But politics is also the extension of war. They are one and the same.

I told you!

33

God

“If there is a God he’s a great loathsome spider in the darkness.” John Fowles

Next up: yu’re a pantheist.

“‘All true believers have good reasons for disbelieving in every god except their own,’ said Birbal, ‘and so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none.’” Salman Rushdie

Whereas those of my ilk are more than willing to give them a chance to actually demonstrate that their God does in fact exist.

“I had given him a life not worth living, but I had also given him an iron will to live. This was a common combination on the planet Earth” Kurt Vonnegut.

What would you give him?

“I have no problem with God — it’s His fan club that scares me.” A.B. Potts

Shitless here.

“There’s always a choice. That’s God’s way, always will be. Your will is still free. Do as you will. There’s no set of leg-irons on you. But…this is what God wants of you.” Stephen King

The truly, truly exasperating part, let’s call it.
For some of us, let’s say.

“He had discovered that there was not just one God but many, and some were more than cruel — they were insane, and that changed all. Cruelty, after all, was understandable. With insanity, however, there was no arguing.” Stephen King

It’s all beyond His control.

34

The Contender

Laine: No, not my personal life. It’s just nobody’s business.
Webster: That’s not what the people will tell you: the people will tell you it is their business…that you’re setting standards of morality for their children. Especially their girls.
Laine: Have you ever heard of Isaac Lamm?
Webster: Isaac Lamm? No.
Laine: He was the first one to come before HUAC…the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was also the first one to name names, first to cooperate with the government. The dominoes fell from there. Careers crushed, families destroyed. Just imagine, Mr. Webster, if Mr. Lamm had just said, “Fuck you,” to the committee. I magine how much harder he would’ve made it for them.

Or, sure, easier.

Laine: I’m not sure that I get the point of all this.
Kermit: You said under oath that you never committed adultery. You perjured yourself.
Laine: I didn’t commit adultery.
Kermit: You were fucking Will when he was married.
Laine: Even the most loose defiinition of committing adultery would not include that.
President: God damn it, she’s right. You’re right. In order for it to be committing adultery, she’d have to be married at the time. Your husband may have been an adulterer. You’re not. Fine. What you are is a sex-crazed, home-wrecking machine. The female Warren Beatty.

Spin, spin, spin.

Laine: [closing remarks at Congressional confirmation hearing] … And, Mr. Chairman, I stand for the separation of Church and State, and the reason that I stand for that is the same reason that I believe our forefathers did. It is not there to protect religion from the grasp of government but to protect our government from the grasp of religious fanaticism. Now, I may be an atheist, but that does not mean I do not go to church. I do go to church. The church I go to is the one that emancipated the slaves, that gave women the right to vote, that gave us every freedom that we hold dear. My church is this very Chapel of Democracy that we sit in together, and I do not need God to tell me what are my moral absolutes. I need my heart, my brain, and this church.

I know: only in the movies.

Runyon: There’s a reason they call me “Honest Shell”.
President: Irony, Shelly.

I liked him better as Sid Vicious.

Runyon: I don’t mind confessing, I am at a total fucking loss.
President: Shelly, Jack paid that woman to go off the fucking bridge. He paid her to save her.

Not quite though.

President: You know, Laine…you could’ve looked those pricks in the eye and told them the truth. Under oath. Told them they were full of shit. And barring that, you could’ve at least told me.
Laine: But see, it really wasn’t any of your business either, and it still isn’t.

Same with Trump?

35

Madness

“There are those to whom one must advise madness.” Joseph Joubert

Starting with me?

“Jack’s doctors have told him he is crazy… but, the truth is, it’s the Voices who are crazy, not him.” Jennifer Daydreamer

Of course!

“‘Sir,’ I interrupted him, ‘you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady; you speak of her with hate — with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel — she cannot help being mad.’” Charlotte Bronte

On the other hand, in a wholly determined universe, she couldn’t help being sane either.

“Qui cache son fou, meurt sans voix.”

On the other hand, dead is dead.

“Madness has no sense of humour” Adam Foulds

Unless, perhaps, I am the exception.

“The marvellous logic of the mad which seems to mock that of the logicians because it resembles it so exactly, or rather because it is exactly the same, and because at the secret heart of madness, at the core of so many errors, so many absurdities, so many words and gestures without consequence, we discover, finally, the hidden perfection of a language.” Michel Foucault

Sounds like something he would say.
So, does it sound like something you would believe?

36

Mulholland Drive

Rita: What are you doing? We don’t stop here.

Uh, it’s scripted?

Luigi: This is the girl!
Adam: Hey, that girl is not in my film!
Vincenzo: It’s no longer your film.

She’s in the film. And, thanks to the cowboy, it’s still his.

Betty: Come on, it’ll be just like in the movies. We’ll pretend to be someone else.

Wink, wink.

Betty: It’s strange calling yourself.

Next up: calling Robert Blake.

Cynthia: Do you know somebody called “the Cowboy”?
Adam: The Cowboy?
Cynthia: Yeah, the Cowboy. This guy, the Cowboy, wants to see you. Jason said he thought it’d be a good idea.
Adam: Oh, Jason thought it’d be a good idea for me to see the Cowboy. Well, should I wear my ten-gallon hat and my six-shooters? What’s going on Cynthia?
Cynthia: It’s been a very strange day.
Adam: And getting stranger.

Let’s just say he hasn’t really seen anything yet.

Cowboy: A man’s attitude…a man’s attitude goes some ways. The way his life will be. Is that somethin’ you agree with?
Adam: Sure.
Cowboy: Now… did you answer cause you thought that’s what I wanted to hear, or did you think about what I said and answer cause you truly believe that to be right?
Adam: I agree with what you said, truthfully.
Cowboy: What’d I say?
Adam: Uh… that a man’s attitude determines, to a large extent, how his life will be.
Cowboy: So since you agree, you must be someone who does not care about the good life.

Word games.
Don’t leave home without them.

37

Mulholland Drive

Cowboy: When you see the girl in the picture that was shown to you earlier today, you will say, “this is the girl”. The rest of the cast can stay, that’s up to you. But the choice for that lead girl is NOT up to you. Now… you will see me one more time, if you do good. You will see me… two more times, if you do bad. Good night…

Good it is then.

Betty: What’s it open?

Wink, wink.

Silencio…

That’s all folks!

Cowboy: Well, just stop for a little second and think about it. Will ya do that for me?
Adam Kesher: [sarcastic tone] Okay, I’m thinking.
Cowboy: No, you’re not thinkin’. You’re too busy being a smart aleck to be thinkin’. Now I want ya to “think” and stop bein’ a smart aleck. Can ya try that for me?

Next up: all the smart alecks here. One in particular.

Betty: [Betty and Rita are in bed, about to have sex for the first time] Have you ever done this before?
Rita: I don’t know. Have you?
Betty: I want to with you.

Don’t let me stop them.

Gene: [after punching Adam] That ain’t no way to treat your wife, buddy. I don’t care what she’s done.

Of course, Gene doesn’t know the half of it.

38

Mulholland Drive

Betty Elms: [opens door] Yes? May I help you?
Louise Bonner: Someone is in trouble. Who are you? What are you doing in Ruth’s apartment?
Betty Elms: She’s letting me stay here. I’m her niece. My name’s Betty.
Louise Bonner: No, it’s not. That’s not what she said. Someone is in trouble. Something bad is happening!

Don’task.
Unless you enjoy being spun around and around.

[Adam catches his wife Lorraine in bed with Gene Clean]
Gene: Just forget you ever saw it. It’s better that way.

That ever work for you?

[observing the car wreck]
Detective Neal Domgaard: [holds up an evidence bag containing a pearl earing] The boys found this on the floor in back of the caddy.
Detective Harry McKnight: Yeah, you showed me.
Detective Neal Domgaard: Could be unrelated.
Detective Harry McKnight: Could be. Any of those dead kids wearing pearl earings?
Detective Neal Domgaard: No. Could be someone’s missing maybe.
Detective Harry McKnight: That’s what I’m thinking.
[Detective McKnight looks down the hill out over the Los Angeles skyline with a sense of purpose. The scene fades. Neither character appears again in the film]

Just in case you missed that.

Jason: Did you want to tell me something, Adam?
[Adam turns to Jason as Ray Hott appears behind Jason, staring ominously at Adam]
Adam: This is the girl.
Ray: Excellent choice… Adam.

David thought so.

Betty: Get out! Get out before I call my dad. He trusts you; you’re his best friend. This will be the end of everything.

A film within a film let’s say.

Rita: Go with me somewhere.
Betty Elms: Now?
Rita: Right now!

Silencio!

39

Nicolas Chamfort

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

Get back to us on that.

A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.

Get back to us on that.

Happiness is not easy to find. It’s very difficult to find it in yourself — and impossible to find anywhere else.

You know, so far.

Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.

New thread?

All that I’ve learned, I’ve forgotten. The little that I still know, I’ve guessed.

Or, sure, something like that.

Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live.

Let’s think less about that.

40

What does this movie actually have to do with anything? Hell, if that was relevant almost none of them would get made. It does say something about the culture, though. But if, “the cure is worse than the disease” was ever relevant, it’s relevant here.

People it seems – men in particular – must stop being plastic. They need to stiffen their spines and take on “the system”. And then replace it with, say, mayhem. Only a little less psychotically.

Still, as far as I’m concerned, any film that eviscerates our consumer pop culture like this one does is worth watching. Again and again if necessary. Also, it’s contempt for corporate culture.

Fight Club

Narrator: When deep space exploration ramps up, it’ll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.

Trump universe.

Narrator: Anything clever, like a coffee table in the shape of a yin -yang, I had to have it. The Klipsk personal office unit. The Hovetrekke home exerbike. Or the Ohamshab sofa with the Strinne green stripe pattern. Even the Ryslampa wire lamps of environmentally-friendly unbleached paper. I’d flip through catalogues and wonder “What kind of dining set defines me as a person?” I had it all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof that they were crafted by the honest, hard-working, indigenous peoples of…wherever.

The Mr. Reasonable Syndrome let’s call it.

Doctor: You wanna see pain? Swing by First Methodist Tuesday nights. See the guys with testicular cancer. That’s pain.

Just ask Marla.

Narrator: Marla Singer did not have testicular cancer. She was a liar. She had no diseases at all. I had seen her at Free and Clear, my blood parasite group Thursdays. Then at Hope, my bi-monthly sickle cell circle. And again at Seize the Day, my tuberculous Friday night. Marla…the big tourist. Her lie reflected my lie. Suddenly, I felt nothing. I couldn’t cry, so once again I couldn’t sleep.

Yo, Meatloaf!

Narrator: I’ll tell you: we’ll split up the week, okay? You take lymphoma, and tuberculosis…
Marla Singer: You take tuberculosis. My smoking doesn’t go over at all.
Narrator: Okay, good, fine. Testicular cancer should be no contest, I think.
Marla Singer: Well, technically, I have more of a right to be there than you. You still have your balls.
Narrator: You’re kidding.
Marla Singer: I don’t know… am I?
Narrator: No, no! What do you want?
Marla Singer: I’ll take the parasites.
Narrator: You can’t have both the parasites, but while you take the blood parasites…
Marla Singer: I want brain parasites.
Narrator: I’ll take the blood parasites. But I’m gonna take the organic brain dementia, okay?
Marla Singer: I want that.
Narrator: You can’t have the whole brain, that’s…
Marla Singer: So far you have four, I only have two!
Narrator: Okay. Take both the parasites. They’re yours. Now we both have three…
Marla Singer: So, we each have three… that’s six. What about the seventh day? I want ascending bowel cancer.
Narrator: [Narrating] The girl had done her homework.
Narrator: No. No, I WANT bowel cancer.
[the clerk gives them both a weird look]
Marla Singer: That’s your favorite too? Tried to slip it by me, eh?
Narrator: Look, we’ll split it. Take the first and third Sunday.
Marla: Deal.

He wondered if this sort of thing actually happened.

Narrator: Marla’s philosophy of life is that she might die at any moment. The tragedy, she said, was that she didn’t.

How hard can that be, Marla?