Showing posts with label alcohol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alcohol. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Smiley Face Killers
Some nine months back, the LoS reported on the Mississippi River's apparent appetite for death.
And now we learn with fear and sadness that Christopher Jenkins, supposedly a victim of accidental drowning in the Mississippi near downtown Minneapolis on Halloween of 2002, was perhaps a victim of the Smiley Face Killers:
From CNN.com:
Now let's jump west to British Columbia, where four sneaker-wearing severed right feet have washed to shore in British Columbia in less than one year.
What the?!? Four severed *right* feet washed to shore!?! Four?!?
Let's repeat, again, that last statement from Detective Duarte: "It would, in my view, be impossible to be one person."
An astute blog-reader recently noted this pair of quotes from Charles Manson and David Berkowitz (Son of Sam):
With that in mind, consider the gruesome case of the Happy Face Killer, currently incarcerated for eight murders, a string of crimes committed while the killer taunted the police with notes inscribed with a smiley face.
Again, Detective Duarte: "It would, in my view, be impossible to be one person." Say it three times and it's true.
Thank you, Detective. I will sleep soundly as I dream of the Happy Face Killer bilocated, roaming and killing while quietly incarcerated.
The face of the LORD is against them that do evil -- Psalm 34:16
God help us.
And now we learn with fear and sadness that Christopher Jenkins, supposedly a victim of accidental drowning in the Mississippi near downtown Minneapolis on Halloween of 2002, was perhaps a victim of the Smiley Face Killers:
From CNN.com:
In all, the investigators say they've connected the bizarre drowning deaths of at least 40 college-age men across the country ... connected by a creepy symbol left near the water's edge: a smiley face painted on trees and other surfaces ... The most sinister was found in Iowa ... drawn in red with a devil's horns. Next to the smiley face was a note that read, "Evil Happy Smiley Face Man." ... The detectives say the string of deaths could be the work of more than one killer because some of them took place on the same day in different states. "It's so widespread. We have so many different victims in so many different areas," Duarte said. "It would, in my view, be impossible to be one person."Let's repeat that last statement from Detective Duarte: "It would, in my view, be impossible to be one person."
Now let's jump west to British Columbia, where four sneaker-wearing severed right feet have washed to shore in British Columbia in less than one year.
What the?!? Four severed *right* feet washed to shore!?! Four?!?
Let's repeat, again, that last statement from Detective Duarte: "It would, in my view, be impossible to be one person."
An astute blog-reader recently noted this pair of quotes from Charles Manson and David Berkowitz (Son of Sam):
What about your children? You say there are just a few? There are many, many more, coming in the same direction. They are running in the streets -- and they are coming right at you! -- CM
There are other 'Sons' out there -- God help the world. --DB
With that in mind, consider the gruesome case of the Happy Face Killer, currently incarcerated for eight murders, a string of crimes committed while the killer taunted the police with notes inscribed with a smiley face.
Again, Detective Duarte: "It would, in my view, be impossible to be one person." Say it three times and it's true.
Thank you, Detective. I will sleep soundly as I dream of the Happy Face Killer bilocated, roaming and killing while quietly incarcerated.God help us.
Friday, March 23, 2007
INLAND EMPIRE: drunken musings
First point to consider is that most “big” Hollywood directors wanted to be filmmakers. And while they may have been in love with film as a primary artistic vehicle, they were still preoccupied with storytelling.
David Lynch’s early films were not stories at all, but film loops presented and or commissioned as art installations.
Lynch’s first artistic goal was to be a painter.
Recently, he has said: “I want to create a never-ending loop that never repeats itself.”
....
Most reviews say the same thing; the movie is not to be deciphered. It is an experience.
The film abandons “narrative” in any sense that can be put into words. Film here, while not “pure,” (blegh) is divorced from the narrative dictates of the novel that Hollywood seems to demand. Hollywood is his theme. It continues an arc begun with Lost Highway and taken to a more complicated but still primarily bicameral (brain) structure in Mulholland Drive. Inland Empire is at least tricameral.
The film’s credits open with a movie projector beam highlighting the title. We are drawn to the fact that this is a movie. The “identity” of the film is established: projected light in darkness.
....
If it is up to everyone to determine the “meaning” of the film for themselves--which Lynch seems to have tacitly acknowledged by refusing to shed light on his intentions--then attempts to interpret or otherwise explain the film are futile.
It’s significance rests in the experience of the film. What each viewer brings to it, and what each viewer’s expectations, feelings and physical condition at the time of viewing determine what the “meaning” may be.
....
If an intelligible interpretation cannot immediately be made, we are left with sensation and emotional response. The film disorients not only with techniques of (audiovisual) editing and narrative disjunction, but with emotional dissonance. One literally doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Patently absurd histrionics still disturb. Ridiculous images still cause a sense of apprehension. One laughs at horrible things. Doubt is cast.
The film represents a kind of device for exploding normal sensibility and expectations surrounding received Hollywood tropes to shake us out of a complacent viewing posture.
The relationship between the cinema and the dream comes out of nowhere, with bells on. The oneiric condition continues beyond the screen. One leaves disoriented. This is augmented by the unusual length of the film, not to tell an overly complex story, but to overload the senses in order to manipulate the emotions and destroy the craving for logic.
....
Even with such apparent chaos and confusion, repetition and wormholes in time abound. Despite three hours of motion, we are in fact immobile in chairs, static. Cinema is a medium of time. Painting is a medium of space. Inland Empire attempts to reconcile the two and partially succeeds.
The length of the film accentuates the stasis and dynamism. David Lynch is fascinated with the loop: stasis and repetition within the confusion and situational meaning of events. The moviegoer is not used to ambiguity, not really used to the schizophrenia of characters except as a narrative device. Rarely is the whole act of going to the cinema so violently interrogated. Telling is that in this “film” Lynch has abandoned film but opted instead for commercially available digital technology.
There are many viewers. The film’s multiple identities don’t even begin to do this justice.
....
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and It’s a small world.
....Straight Story....Some kind of heads up?
David Lynch’s early films were not stories at all, but film loops presented and or commissioned as art installations.
Lynch’s first artistic goal was to be a painter.
Recently, he has said: “I want to create a never-ending loop that never repeats itself.”
....
Most reviews say the same thing; the movie is not to be deciphered. It is an experience.
The film abandons “narrative” in any sense that can be put into words. Film here, while not “pure,” (blegh) is divorced from the narrative dictates of the novel that Hollywood seems to demand. Hollywood is his theme. It continues an arc begun with Lost Highway and taken to a more complicated but still primarily bicameral (brain) structure in Mulholland Drive. Inland Empire is at least tricameral.
The film’s credits open with a movie projector beam highlighting the title. We are drawn to the fact that this is a movie. The “identity” of the film is established: projected light in darkness.
....
If it is up to everyone to determine the “meaning” of the film for themselves--which Lynch seems to have tacitly acknowledged by refusing to shed light on his intentions--then attempts to interpret or otherwise explain the film are futile.
It’s significance rests in the experience of the film. What each viewer brings to it, and what each viewer’s expectations, feelings and physical condition at the time of viewing determine what the “meaning” may be.
....
If an intelligible interpretation cannot immediately be made, we are left with sensation and emotional response. The film disorients not only with techniques of (audiovisual) editing and narrative disjunction, but with emotional dissonance. One literally doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Patently absurd histrionics still disturb. Ridiculous images still cause a sense of apprehension. One laughs at horrible things. Doubt is cast.
The film represents a kind of device for exploding normal sensibility and expectations surrounding received Hollywood tropes to shake us out of a complacent viewing posture.
The relationship between the cinema and the dream comes out of nowhere, with bells on. The oneiric condition continues beyond the screen. One leaves disoriented. This is augmented by the unusual length of the film, not to tell an overly complex story, but to overload the senses in order to manipulate the emotions and destroy the craving for logic.
....
Even with such apparent chaos and confusion, repetition and wormholes in time abound. Despite three hours of motion, we are in fact immobile in chairs, static. Cinema is a medium of time. Painting is a medium of space. Inland Empire attempts to reconcile the two and partially succeeds.
The length of the film accentuates the stasis and dynamism. David Lynch is fascinated with the loop: stasis and repetition within the confusion and situational meaning of events. The moviegoer is not used to ambiguity, not really used to the schizophrenia of characters except as a narrative device. Rarely is the whole act of going to the cinema so violently interrogated. Telling is that in this “film” Lynch has abandoned film but opted instead for commercially available digital technology.
There are many viewers. The film’s multiple identities don’t even begin to do this justice.
....
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and It’s a small world.
....Straight Story....Some kind of heads up?
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