That's pretty unrelated, though, though not so unrelated that I wouldn't be able to shoehorn in if I tried. Shoehorning. Huh. One of the reasons modern superhero films can sometimes seem so odd. We're used to plot being presented up front, all the necessary characters introduced in the first half, that like Spider-Man 3, or the Amazing Spider-Man 2, or BvS:DoJ of course, can feel so odd, in that they introduce new villains in the last halves of the movie. I don't think that, say, Vertigo would've been able to get made nowadays, with its whole twisted Kim Novac transformation-into-the-image-of-a-lie-which-also-happens-to-be-herself occurring only within the final thirdish-quarterish of the movie.
Um. Listen to some Miike Snow now, a'ight?
My morality is based around sensation. Morality is laws, right, and laws means expectations. Your existence, you can do two things to your external environment, interact and sense.
Sorry, I'm kind of reconstructing my relationship to existence right now. Forgive me if I'm somewhat shaky. Have you ever had a profound existential moment staring at your hands? And have you ever had a profound existential moment staring into the mirror? Today I stared at my hands, in a mirror. It's an experience I shan't recover from any time soon, I think. No backing out of this rabbit hole.
Time is reinforcement of morality- the longer you exist, the more you learn to expect, the more moral you are. God is eternal; it makes sense that God has the most power (power is influence over environment (locomotion (movement) changes the environment which means changing what you can interact with (influence) and what you sense.))
What is our moral obligation toward what we influence, how we interact, I haven't figured out yet. Technology is miraculous- it increases our influence, thus is more powerful than we are, thus is closer to God.
There was a time my world was filled with darkness, now I am expected to fill it up with something.
I'd change shapes just to hide in this place. I'm still an animal.
You don't see this kind of thing much more either, explorations of what it means to be humans. AIs have supplanted actual animals, it seems, but... I suppose even the Island of Dr Moreau is a rarity as far as these explorations from the past go.
Planet of the Apes showed today at Paramount 5; the listed start time was 7:00 but it was closer to 7:30 when they actually started playing it (not deliberately or anything, just out of sheer neglect.) I knew I had to go see it, being the cinemaphile I am; don't care if I'm also a poor college student; $10 a ticket wouldn't be that bad at FatCats. I made sure to get in a half-hour early, to ensure a seat for myself. Thought that probably the place would be packed.
I was the only one there.
Ken Burns documentary on the National Parks Service. Special previews nationwide, one of them in the High School auditorium, but nobody showed up to that. Except for those of us behind the scenes. Even if anybody had shown up, there wouldn't have been anything to show; we'd never managed to get the AV set up. So. I guess this is just my kind of thing.
I had an hour there, before the movie began. Half an hour early and half an hour late. Fortunately I'd brought something to do; I've been looking into Mayan art and Animal Style designs, Celtic Knots Book of Kells illuminated manuscript that kind of thing, trying to divine their secrets, how they managed to achieve such good graphic design before the invention of graphic design. I mean, look at this:
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| Linda Schele and Peter Matthews, "Palenque: Hanab-Pakal's Tomb," in The Code of the Kings (1998), p. 102 |
That's not even designed and you couldn't design it better. (I know I've been posting up my Ancient Temples and Temple Texts papers, but am not doing it today; the remaining 5 papers are just reviews of some of the papers I've read on one topic or another.)
Graffiti, as well. I've been fascinated in it especially since around the end of spring break. Same thing- more deliberately designed, obviously, but still amateur work. How do they achieve the effects they do, without formal training? Their use of color especially. The particularly maddening thing is you find this kind of thing replicated in the furry fandom all the time, highlighted with particular emphasis for example with this year's BLFC
or the cover of the album "Phwoa" by furry electronica/ambient artist Halley Labs
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| not that these particular examples aren't professionally designed; I'm just using them as examples of how naturally furriness fits with typical graffiti color scheme |
I puzzled over this for the better part of the hour. A few answers received, but it's a topic I'm going to need to explore in a lot more depth.
I realized there as well, there was no way I'd been going to miss it. Planet of the Apes, I mean. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself. And with a jolt I realized: hey, I know something about myself; I'm not some wide-open personalityless entity of absolute lack of characteristicness.
And I also realized, I'm the only one here, so I'm the whole audience. I laugh, that's the whole audience laughing. I get up and cheer, that's the whole audience getting up and cheering. I pop a bit of popcorn into my mouth, the whole audience is munching their concession at the exact same time.
And later on tonight, after the film and after the existential hands-in-mirror-gazing, I realize, if it's characteristic of me, if it's what I expect, then it's my morality. Because rules are expectations. That's what they are. (Communication itself, interaction through a certain set of expectations, that meaning will be received. Interaction with others, fellow sensators, sensors, sensationizers, fellow interacters, some "I" that's part of the universe but not part of you. Communication, interaction with that, using language, which is a set of rules. I say "fun," you have expectations, rules, of what I mean by that, thus communication is or is not achieved.)
Sensation is my morality, and when I get up and use the restroom, that's the whole audience missing the part of the movie where Charlton Heston escapes from his cage. That scene goes un-sensed, by anyone, and I feel guilty, because it breaks my rule of morality, of sensation.
Use the restroom, yeah. Movies, I've discovered, are much more enjoyable if you've got the large combo with free refills. Gives your body something to do while the rest of you focuses on the flick. Also, I've got enough connections with the behind-the-scenes of movie theaters to know, it's the only thing that's really making them money, especially on such a screening, so, another aspect of my morality unrelated to the sensation thing, of course I'm going to nab some concession.
Saltiness of the popcorn negated by the sweetness of the pop; also physiologically the liquid negates the saltiness by giving the salt something to, I forget the name of the process, osmose or whatever. Caffeine dilates the kidneys, so I'm not sure whether that would enhance the process or weaken it?, but whatever.
Frequent drinks that go right through you, with all the salt and stuff; your bladder fills up quickly. During the movie and after it; I wash my hands when I'm finished, of course, and stare at them in the mirror...
The film only begins because I remind them that anyone's in there. They skip straight over the previews (half an hour apparently short enough that they don't have to do it to the film showing after that even though I'm overlong) but from what I could see of the one frame of preview that did slip through, it would have been Suicide Squad as the first preview. Suicide Squad trailer, the one that plays Bohemian Rhapsody... which come to think of it, is a better encapsulation of the existentialism than Animal is.
...caught in a landslide... no escape from reality...
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