Obligatory Eraserhead Post

I'm going to agree with the idea that the film plays out like some sort of elaborate nightmare. It's surreal in it's imagery but, like any good nightmare that occurs naturally, it follows some sort of plot even if it doesn't make any sense.

Lynch sets up a world for us that we have to accept right away without explanation. For example, things like the industrial wasteland landscape that we are introduced to at the beginning of the film, or the man with the chemically burned face, describes a world where the human being is not the most important factor. The film doesn't go into why this is or how this society works because, as in a nightmare, the audience is just merely seeing it happen and are meant to accept it as a way of life in this newly adopted reality. Also, the tiny chicken scene just goes without saying.

Really, it's just that the whole movie feels like a bad dream that David Lynch had one night in college. The bottom line is: This shit is scary. It makes us feel uncomfortable but interested. Eraserhead is like a nightmare that you don't want to wake yourself up from.

Postmodernism Generator

During my quest to find a topic, any topic, to cover so I can try and attain the necessary amount of posts, I've come across a device of the internet that just might be the most postmodern thing I've found. What the following link will take you to is a postmodern generator. This is a webpage that will randomly generate quotes from postmodern philosophers and couple them with postmodern ideas whenever you refresh it. The result is an incomprehensible essay due to it's mish-mash nature.

You may not think that this is totally postmodern, but I think it proves that it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong. If the internet is able to bring me nonsensical postmodern essays, I don't know why I should even bother coming up with anything else.

I promise I'll try anyway.

Blog coming at you.

Here's a clip from an episode of Gilmore Girls.



Although I don't think it's been confirmed by the show's creators, the clip looks suspiciously similar to the dinner scene in Eraserhead, including the awkward silences and dialog, the shot of the clock, and the concept of the boyfriend meeting the girlfriend's parents, who want what's best for their daughter. A couple of people agree that it might be a parody of the scene, including this lady (check the third paragraph of the article).

Here's my issue with it. This scene can't measure up to the scene it's based on, and honestly, it's not as funny as the original. Sure, it is funny, but only if you know the show well enough. So what are we supposed to do with a parody based on a more explicit work? Gilmore Girls is, of course, a more family-friendly program than Eraserhead, and therefore, it's not as ironic. A parody of Winnie the Pooh in which Pooh dresses as a dominatrix and Eeyore threatens to kill himself is probably more ironic than a parody of a controversial movie on a not-so-controversial TV show.

There was also a parody of Eraserhead in the first episode of Tiny Toons, where Babs puts an eraser on her head and says, "Look! I'm Eraserhead!" Though I couldn't find a clip of it for you.

What I really wonder is, do you agree that a parody or pastiche is more successful if it's more controversial than the original work, or can it still be as much of a success due to other factors?

in the end, all that matters is that it was.

So, for a film which has a primary message of the loss of all new ideas, it’s funny, almost, that I’ve learned something new because of it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_zcqvDPpzQA

I found this while putting around across the Internet. I saw first the baby and thought it was a fake. In the thumbnail of the video, I was reminded of the baby from “Eraser head.”

The child in the video suffers from a skin disease called harlequin ichthyosis. It was called that because most sufferers of the disease end up with a scaly diamond shaped pattern of abrasion and sores across their body. The resulting impressions are nostalgic of the harlequin-esq carnival costumes.

Now-a-days, it is possible for persons with harlequin to live fuller lives; this, of course if thanks to new technologies. New information that is shared through learned texts of growth and study. In a way, it’s like my experience with the film [Eraserhead]. Even if those ideas that sparked it had already been thought, and expressed before, through objective chance, and a level of Internet-surfing boredom, they still taught me something new; that in itself is worth their continuous expression.

I prefer pens...

The most interesting connection within the dark and nightmarish film “Eraser Head” was the relationship between the title (and correlating scene) and the man who seems to be controlling the world. In reference to literature, the controller it obviously the author. He gave life to everyone, as if they are all characters in his grand narrative.

In the title scene, when Henry’s head is extracted like an aging Swiss cheese, then literally turned into eraser tips for pencils, the author dies, because his character’s mind is wiped clean. With no mind, there is no character. With no character, there is no story. With no story, there is no author—he has no purpose.

Another level to this poor artist’s inescapable demise comes from the characters and the readers in the film co-inhabiting the same plane. They are equals and interact with each other they same way they interact among themselves. If then, a character can rightly be called an “eraser head” then a reader, as an equal can be called the same. As a reader though, the title takes on another meaning.

Readers erase, or forget works of literature. Therefore, reproduced stories are always new when they are read again. This perpetuates the idea that there are no new ideas, and thus, if all ideas are reproductions of potentially pre-read texts, then there is no single author.

In this light, I think this film is balanced somewhere between modernism and postmodernism. The author is fighting his downfall and trying to create something new out of something that is very much like that which is consuming it. [Modernism] At the same time, he fails, and the film is left to a pluralistic audience of viewers. [Postmodernism]

Strip the Soul

A video I remember from high school. This is Porcupine Tree's "Strip the Soul" music video on their enhanced album Absentia from 2002. I think it's appropriate considering that we just saw Eraserhead.


Porcupine Tree - Strip The Soul


This is my home, this is my own, we don't like no strangers
Raise the kids good, beat the kids good and tie them up
Spread it wide, my wife, my life, push the camera deeper
I can use, I abuse, my muse, I made them all

This machine
Is there to please
Strip the soul
Fill the hole
A fire to feed
A belt to bleed
Strip the soul
Kill them all

They are not gone, they are not gone, they are only sleeping
In graves, in ways, in clay, underneath the floor
Building walls, overalls, getting bored, I got faulty wiring
Brick it up now, brick it up now, but keep the bones

(Do you want a western home in the rubble ?)

Eraserhead

Ok, so here's my thoughts on the film. Given the way the movie progresses, even though there is definite abstraction and fragmentation present, it strikes me as being more Modern than Postmodern. Then again, this does also bring into consideration what delineates the Modern from the Postmodern. I think the key with "Eraserhead" is the presence of some sort of overlying narrative. The film seems to have a certain set of goals at its outset, and by the end of the film those goals are met. We meet Henry, we meet Mary, and eventually we meet the Baby. Although we do not ever discover what the baby is, that does not seem to be the major concern. What is concerning the parents more is how to deal with the creature. They try to feed it, they try to nurture it and care for it, but no matter what they do they still do not know what to do with it. It certainly cannot be treated in the same way any normal child could be handled. They can't even seem to name the creature. In the end, though, all is well. Henry removes the bandages and exposes the Baby's heart and stabs it, ending its perplexing existence and conquering it. He then goes on to find some sort of bizarre love with the Lady in the Radiator.

Taking into account the events in the film, it would not qualify as Postmodern since it follows a teleological path. Another thing to consider is how it tries to create a narrative in which the seemingly unconquerable is conquerable. If you consider the Baby as trying to achieve the same sort of symbolism as the Minotaur in House of Leaves, then you can clearly see how differently David Lynch handles the unknown from Mark Danielewski. The Minotaur is not something that can be unravelled and exposed, its heart ready for the taking, but the Baby is clear and in sight, no matter how strange it may be.

And that's that.

Socks 4 Socklops

David Firth is a British animator whose series of animations, "Saladfingers," gained popularity back in 2004 and continues to grow today. He started out working with hand animation, but eventually started to use Flash to make his work. One of his lesser known films: "Socks 4 Socklops" really struck me as interesting in a sort of Postmodern way by the way that it takes fragments of stories and composes them in a manner that does not follow a pursuit of meaning. Take, for instance, the scene involving the French scientist. Everything the scientist creates turns out to be completely useless. I see his character very clearly as a jab at the useless nature of science.

I would like to warn those who are squeemish not to watch this film, as it contains animated violence and gore. Watch at your own risk, please.

Sock 4 Socklops


So, what I would like to hear opinions on this from whoever would like to contribute. Can this work be considered Postmodern, or does it fall under some other sort of category? I think it is a very difficult task to try and pin anything as being Postmodern or not, or maybe that's just me. Anyways, enjoy!

what i'm trying to say is that...there shouldn't be a point.

so, in a way i'd like to talk about all the differences there are in eraserhead between postmodernism and surrealism/modernism, though i could talk about the similarities also. even if this will end up in a jumbled mess probably here goes...

i kept trying to place this movie with surrealism, as much of the class was saying they thought it was surreal, though i couldn't fit it in perfectly to the genre.

the reasons for my opinion are this:

1. there's a plot. even if there were ways for people to get confused about certain things and even the whole meaning or story line, the fact that there was an actual story, that they follow through to the end, is more than most (or any) surrealist films.
2. If we think of any example, Un chien andalou (from 1929)it is said the salvador dali and luis bunuel went into making the story knowing that it couldn't make any sense. It wasn't supposed to. ideas jumped through to different ideas in a matter of minutes. in eraserhead, though the meaning is questionable and lynch doesn't agree with anything anyone has come up with, the story line of the baby and the man who has to take care of this baby because he had sex with a woman (when they weren't even married gasp) and the process of him being left alone by the baby's mother. there are visions of sperm like objects constantly, and the tone of sex is beyond apparent. the lady in the radiator takes a stand against them by squishing them under her feet in rebellion while saying everything will be ok, (in heaven).

there are in fact moments and ideals in this however that are very much based off of surrealist concepts however:

1. the dream sequences. the subconscious plays a huge role in this movie. his dreams of men in a factory turning his head into erasers, his dreams of the baby appearing from his body.
2. the lady in the radiator has a surrealist feel saying that things are ok, but coming from a radiator which is a symbol of henry's desire for suicide.

i think if anything it is obvious that this film is made by someone who knows what he is doing through the decades of arts. he has made a point of this movie to have both surreal subconscious nature and the makings for a really well done postmodern piece.


also...just so monica gets to see how eraserhead and radiohead come together...here you go ma'am.

in the panoptic colony

Ever since we read the Foucault, it has got me thinking about Kafka's In the Penal Colony. Now, I know that the whole Postmodern movement started up around the 1970's and that In the Penal Colony was written in 1914, but they seem to really inform one another. I don't think either that the story is all that Postmodern, but more like both Kafka and Foucault were drawing from the same history and text in terms of discipline and punishment.

In the story, none of the characters have names. they are all referred to by their title: the officer, the explorer, and the condemned man. Much like Foucault's body of the king, and body of the condemned man. In the Penal Colony serves to illustrate the old means of discipline.

For those of you who haven't read it--well, you should. It's friggin' Kafka and there are sexy torture devices involved. Full text: http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/kafka/inthepenalcolony.htm


anyway- an explorer comes to the penal colony to observe and study their system of judgment (Michel?) and is shown by the officer their "machine" with which they are going to execute the "condemned man." The explorer learns that their justice system is not the best (ie: the condemned man doens't know why he is being executed and cannot defend himself) and learns that the machine is meant to carve a phrase into the body of the condemned for 12 hours. At the end of 12 hours, right before he dies, the condemned man comes to"Enlightenment" of what the machine as taught him. The officer complains that no one comes to see the executions anymore and that this new boss wants to shut him down. The explorer says that he cannot endorse this and at this, the officer frees the condemned man and places himself under the machine--which malfunctions and instead of "exquisite torture such as the officer desired" it impales and kills him.

right. so, this seems to be a perfect example of the punishment of the body. They are not concerned with the state of his mind or rehabilitating him. He learns to be just through the mutilation of his body. He learns by "decipher[ing] the script with his wounds." This torture is idolized as a blessing where by though you die you are shown what you cannot see without the pain. The "Enlightenment" is "a moment that might tempt one to get under the Harrow oneself."

And the officer does just this when he realizes that the times of physical torture is over and he subjects himself to his own punishment. He does not gain his enlightenment and is simply killed quickly and violently.

To me, this shows the passing of the era of punishing the body and begins to question the idea of Enlightenment. Seems like our friend Franz was really on the ball in beginning to voice in his own way the basis of Foucault's ideas of punishment. Just wanted to put that out there, since it's been bugging me.

Also, when looking for a full text of the story i came across a "dramatic short film" as it is called of In the Penal Colony. And dramatic it is. I couldn't watch the whole thing, just skipped around but it involves dramatic slow motion chases and falls, classical music, german accents, a "machine" made with a budget of about $40, stiff acting, and very slow goose-stepping. it's good for a laugh, but read the story and don't blame Kafka for this.

P.S.

I don't think the italics worked on that last post - but don't forget that book titles are italicized and chapters/articles are not.

<3
M

Bibliographic info

OK, as promised, here are the citations for the class handouts.

The three below come from the following compilation (please include it in the citations):


A Postmodern Reader. Ed.s Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon. Albany: SUNY Press, 1993.


Articles:

Derrida, Jacques. "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences." 223-242.

Hassan, Ihab. "Toward a Concept of Postmodernism." 273-286.

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. "Excerpts from The Postmodern Condition: A Report On Knowledge." 71-90.

Then here's the Foucault:


The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.

Foucault, Michel. "The Body of the Condemned." 170-178.
"Docile Bodies." 179-187.
"The Means of Correct Training." 188-205.

Please do CORRECT MLA FORMATTING!!
Consult cheat sheet on library homepage if necessary.

Noticed a few things in the movie

A few things that caught my eye, or mind, whatever. I haven't thought them all through yet to their ends seeing as how we still have to watch the rest of the film.

1. We see Henry walking by a building that looks similar to the efficient housing of modernism. Perhaps there is some meaning about walking away from the unfeeling architecture. Maybe it is just another scene of a dude walking around.

2. Henry also heads into a tunnel/under a bridge (I'm not sure what it was) that looked like a large square tunnel/underpass thing. Not to say that architecture can't be square or boxlike unless it is influenced by modernism. Having the scene after the building that looked like housing left me trying to pull some connection. As does most of the film.

3. The lingering idea of neglect seems to pop up a lot. The man pulling levers seems very determined and harsh when pulling. They let out squeals that could be fixed with a bit of oil perhaps but it seems unlikely that they will be cared for. The mail slots or shelving unit that holds papers like mail slots appears dusty and covered in cobwebs. The older woman who does not move (grandmother?) seems neglected. Mary, the husband, the pups and of course "Spike." I guess it is just fine to leave the baby alone especially when it is sick.

4. Thinking of the baby as a product of Mary and Henry, I was trying to come up with what it would mean if the baby is not fully formed or is disfigured. It seems easy to jump to the idea that neither Henry nor Mary are fully formed individuals and any mixing of the two would not equal a whole. Like two people having the genes for some disorder would probably pass that on to any offspring. (I know it depends on the genes and the disorder) Or even thinking about it with mental illness. Having one mentally ill parent can have an influence on the child and two mentally ill parents makes it an even greater possibility that the child will also be mentally ill. I'm not saying that Mary and Henry are mentally ill. I'm not even going to try to go there with them.

So, yeah. That is all right now. These are clearly just a few things I had thought of. Nothing concrete.

Oh, something neat, I thought. Because of the darkness of the television and the darkness of the movie, some parts made it so the action was hidden and all I could see was the reflection of all of us watching the film. Sort of a cheesy "in the dark we find ourselves" kind of thing. It also tied to the idea of being kept in the dark, for me. I thought it was fun and kind of cool for something that wasn't intentional.

latest blog tally

OK, here's what I have:

Maggie - 9 (done since some were extra long)
Ryan - 8 (just do one more, since a couple were really long)
Laura - 8
Jeff - 4
Davyn - 2
Kelsey - 10 (done)
Erica - 1
Ben - 10 (done)
Julian - 0
Matt - 6
Rachel - 9
Marie - 11 (done)
Kristen - 5
Jess - 7

The blog will be closed for business at the end of the day on Sunday, May 11.

Also - on Monday, May 12, at 1 PM, you will be expected to present for seven minutes on your final paper. You may read from it or talk about it or show something or perform... whatever.

I will post bibliographic info for all the handouts I gave you soon (here).

Spike and other thoughts

Okay, first of all—I maintain that the baby is cute. I don’t find “Spike,” as the baby is (aptly?) nicknamed by the actor who plays Henry, disturbing at all. I sort of want to pet him, which is strange seeing as I tend to not be an admirer of babies in the first place. He just needs love (like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree) and a bit more care and attention than a humidifier (also, like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree). Does humidity help measles? I wouldn’t think so.

Anyway- the thing that stuck out most to me was the great number of juxtapositions within the film. Lots of characters and images seem to have a counterpart. The one that came immediately to mind was the inside Mary’s house during the dinner scene: there is a bitch with a large litter of chubby pups feeding from her then juxtaposed with the admission of the existence of an unhealthy baby that they cannot feed easily (at all?).

Other juxtapositions:

-The plain wife Mary with the oversexed neighbor wearing half a shirt, with the chipmunk-cheeked woman in the radiator.

-The passive Henry with the workman in charge of the levers who seems much more together.

-The father’s arm that cannot feel with the shrunken chicken that can feel.

-The cheery father and aggressive mother.

-The absence of middle lighting- either dark or highly lit, or that could just be the film quality of our TV.

-The worms? Those I just don't get quiet yet, between the small acrobatic worm and the large tapeworm-esque one's I'm not sure of a relationship yet or just what they might be a binary to. Perhaps the woman in the radiator for her active role against them and their passive rather lying about (this would exclude the jumping worm). But that doesn't hold up to me. Very interested to see the rest of this.

I’m not quite sure just yet how this has to do with the PoMo concept of juxtaposition, but it definitely brings up the whole idea of binaries. I just don’t see these juxtapositions being deconstructed as of yet, but it’s only the first half so far.

few things with minimal meaning...

ive been very tired lately...

in fact i had a moment today where i had to question if i was high or not since i was in such a trance and didnt know if i was awake, and why these stupid ideas kept coming into my head. this started a few nights ago writing the paper...ask ben and jeff, they were there. or maybe they weren't...hmmm.

a while ago this person bought me a cd of short stories read by actors to a live audience in new york, one of the stories being raymond carver. im not gunna lie, all i kept it around for was that, the other ones on the cd didnt make me so interested.but in any event, i hadnt listened to it yet, and at a yard sale i just went home for i realized there was a pile of things my parents were selling of mine. this being one. mark picked it up, and had never heard or read the story cathedral by carver. well, one thing lead to another and yesterday i was riding in a car with cathedral being spoken by a weird guy and me not being able to stop thinking about house of leaves.

now this is where that 99% chance of me being high asleep or drugged on pomo comes in. but im just gunna get this out anyway...

in cathedral, carvers wife has a job reading documents and other papers to the blind man robert. (oh, oh, its like zampano!) then theres this whole thing of carver being worried that he's coming over, and awkward around a blind man. until finally, hes describing cathedrals to him, or at least trying to...and failing. but when he gets down on himself, the blind man takes his hand and they draw this building together. In my stupid head i couldnt get away from thinking how similar these two stories were, in this dumb way that raymond was johnny and robert was zampano.

again...ive been very tired lately.

I've never been able to let things go

So, I’m still unsettled about the class discussion from Wednesday. I think that people are different in their own homes than they are on the streets. Even if everything that we do outside, in public, or scripted by some hegemonic text; I think that we allow ourselves some freedom from that, once we are inside.
The idea of “behind closed doors” itself may be a text. So when we see people behaving in a way that they have been trained is the correct expression of physical attraction, we can follow our training and say, “get a room.” But even then, we’re abiding by the fact that there is a level of propriety and that some things (that are fun and are suppose to make us feel free) are meant to be kept ‘private.’
Something that I think Maggie had brought up during the discussion made a lot of sense to me. Suppose that once off the streets and behind our drawn curtains we do allow that “frumpy” style of dress that makes us feel more comfortable. Now suppose that that too is a text, and that we have been rained to think that those clothes are more comfortable because of their fit and inappropriateness for public-wear. I think my main point is that it doesn’t matter that that is a text too, because regardless, we still feel more comfortable. The concept of textual hegemony doesn’t negate the relaxed demeanor that it causes.
In this case, if there were a tower with an elusive guard surveying over students, it would matter that they know, or be told he is there (even if he’s not). But, if they were never told that they were being watched (which is why I originally asked if they knew) then they would act the way they are texted to act when they think no one is looking. They would follow the proprieties of the “behind-closed-doors” moral code.

Life is but a Game

Beginning of my essay so far. Read carefully and click on the coordinating links please.

Terrorism in Western society is a fickle matter that affects a population more so when a government exasperates it, which it most certainly will if it wishes to remain in power. Although a government is a body of people usually and notably ungoverned, culture has fashioned itself to respond best to violence and fear through manipulation by a high power. Lies and ignorance are weapons stronger than anything a terrorist can ever muster. In Don DeLillo’s Mao II he writes of the world’s social norms and interests being run by popularized terrorism made accessible and easy to understand by way of U.S. propaganda. It isn’t a subculture (?) of people in uprisings anymore; it is pop culture at its most perverse state in human history. Artists no longer shape human culture, but instead the consumerism of malicious terrorist acts and Western economy-running products made by underage Asian children. People are too often simpletons to be herded for cultural slaughter. They are taught to fear Middle Easterners and buy American (!) to help win the war against terrorism, which is the actual fuel that keeps the country’s furnace running.

Foucault died in 1984