In 1983, DC decided to assign the title Swamp Thing, a then old title, to now-known-to-be-insane writer, Alan Moore. What Alan Moore produced revolutionized comics as a format for horror. My dad tells this story about the Batman movie that Tim Burton made: Batman, he says, was the first movie to "take the comic book genre seriously." Before Batman there were comic book movies. But they were told as melodramatic sob stories, that could as easily have had no superheroes in them. Batman, he says, gave a superhero doing superhero stuff.
As I understand it, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing did a similar thing for comic books. Alan Moore's Swamp Thing was the first comic book, I am told, to allow comic books to be considered in the literary genre--especially the literary genre of horror, in Swamp Thing's case. Prior to it, comics were one thing, and literature was another. Alan Moore helped with Swamp Thing to blur the lines.
Good for him.
If you like a cunningly written story that makes you think in puzzling terms, pick up this one. It's peculiar and interesting, each issue is well structured. It fails in terms of long-term impetus, I think. The largest questions about the character of Swamp Thing himself are answered reasonably quickly, it seems, so conflicts have to come to Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing himself produces little to no conflict. In that way it falls short. I liked reading this volume--the first volume in the run of anthologies of Alan Moore's retelling of Swamp Thing. It left me content, though. The ending of the anthology satisfied me, leaving no mysteries unsolved, no conflict unresolved. The world was at balance.
I view Swamp Thing as a piece of history, beautifully constructed. A museum piece, if you will, if an enjoyable one. It's a good thing to read and understand...but there's better entertainment out there. I feel bad saying that, since it is Alan Moore, and his story-telling never fails in Swamp Thing. Still, he's written more gripping things.
His intent may have been different in Swamp Thing, however. That's something to consider.
Showing posts with label propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label propaganda. Show all posts
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Monday, October 18, 2010
An Open Letter from Lt. Oliver Twisted to the Members of Spiritus Ex Machina
In October 2023, this letter was sent to all the field agents of the Spiritus Ex Machina movement, who had been imposing themselves covertly into every layer of Western culture for the past sixteen years, especially the culture in the U.S.A., which was their primary target. Their goal was simple: to insight a paradigm shift. It was stated by The Leader—Gen. Victor Werner—that all Western Culture encouraged its entropic implosion. Gen. Werner stated, “The frictions of living today are causing the future to degrade. Only through remaking today can realness be saved.”Courage by Sly, Gen. Werner said.
Prior to the execution of what has since come to be known as The Witch Hunt—when all the undercover agents of Spiritus Ex Machina rose from their positions in all echelons of society, politics, and the commercial spheres to enact Spiritus Ex Machina agenda—Gen. Werner’s trusted lieutenant, Oliver Twisted, wrote a letter to all primary members of the Spiritus Ex Machina movement. He wrote the letter to make a final recap of policy and technology before The Witch Hunt commenced.
Friends, soldiers, my dear knights, I greet you. You are valorous men and women, brave examples of all values we dearly revere. Courage by sly. Be their Relevant Thing. Overturn the paradigm of today, save tomorrow from barbarians. The world today is clawing itself as a great panther caught in a trap with nothing to eat but its own haunches. Literacy decreases, thought contracts, as populations grow. The Blind Clone populates every crowd, and every crowd cluster to the insubstantive vagaries churned by mills of Western idealism as mosquitoes cluster to bug zappers. The Blind Clone pines for meaning, for some concrete actuality, for some relevant thing to define his thoughts, to fill his heart with warmth. Dear knights, the Blind Clone is ripe for the filling. Let us give him a guiding star. We shall be their Relevant Thing.
Courage by Sly, dear knights. You are positioned in the media, in business, in political spheres, and poised to invent a new paradigm. Western idealism would have the Blind Clone believe that happiness is found in success, that success is found in material things, and material things are provided by Western idealism. We know better: that the Blind Clone can find actualization inside himself. Be valorous, dear knights. First, those of you in the media will unveil your presence. You will awake and you will smile through your teeth at all the Blind Clones, being your pretty, Sly selves, and you will attract attention. You will write entertaining things and you will tell entertaining stories, so that all the Blind Clones wish they were you. Some will turn on all their friends right there, claiming secretly to themselves that they are self-sufficient already, and they require no advice from any of their peers. They will claim secretly that they are self-sufficient, just like those immensely entertaining pretty people they’ve been watching on television and in the movies and reading of in newspapers and on the internet and all over the place. Self-sufficient, just like you are.
Soon after the Blind Clone has fallen in love with those of you in the media, those of you in the spheres of politics and business will create crises. I am sorry, dear knights, but you will be despised. You know that you are righteous martyrs. You know that you will be held up as brigands and highwaymen for your enactment of dire policy that destroys the economic prosperity of Big Business. You will enact such policy as complete and utter prevention of outsourcing. You will encourage entrepreneurial enterprise, and commit inane amounts of money to research and development departments at the expense of production. You will enact stringent policy of quality control, of educating and caring for your employees. You will spend more on materials than on advertising. You will, through your vast wit and classical educations, and all around personability, cause an overturning of every big business. You are positioned respectably in all Big Business. You are respected, admired, appreciated. Your advice is about to cause every American monopoly to raise their prices outrageously. Within months, Big Business conglomerates will begin being forced to sell pieces of their companies. Smaller, private investors will begin reclaiming the illusion—remember this, that it is an illusion—of free enterprise. And because you are in politics as well, dear knights, we are ensured this victory. You will be despised. Your associates will hate you, because everyone will lose money. The public will hate you, because they will no longer be able to afford the lifestyle to which they have come to feel entitled. Courage by Sly. Take strength knowing, dear knights, that you are martyrs to the cause. For when the Blind Clone can no longer live how Western idealism tells him that he is entitled to live, will he not look into himself for his life and find that he is self-sufficient, just like you are?
Be valorous, dear knights, for this will be a long, arduous fight. We are staging a coup against an invisible enemy: Western idealism is an insidious beast with no body. It permeates all solidity in most of the world, and it has been slowly soaking into every worthy quality of this hard reality. It has been crawling out of decadence and greed since the invention of supposed free-thought. The Blind Clone is a statistic, and he does not wish to change that. He is comfortable. So clearly we don’t want to uproot that belief. It’s already there. We may as well use it. Let us redirect it. Through our example, what we will exemplify is: you are unique, just like everyone else. Western idealism is decadence. When corporation falls, the Blind Clone will have no decadence upon which he can rely. That void created, we will fill it with arrogance. The Blind Clone, in search of meaning, will fall on his uniqueness, according to your example, dear knights. He will say to himself that he is a rebel, different than all other persons, exactly as you are.
You are all positioned so as to maintain your inspiration on the masses. Naturally, your presence will initially be enough to incite our paradigm shift. Equally as natural, it will not be enough to carry on the impetus of our campaign. Business will become swiftly diffuse and out of our immediate control. That will not matter, since decadence no longer controls the crowd—consumerism will no longer be their definitive aspect. We will control the Blind Clone through his arrogance. The media will be our forum of control. We are clever, pretty people. We are naturally inclined to control the media. People who entertain will want us to lead them, and we will make ourselves visible, public, and beloved. We will maintain our presence in political spheres, naturally. There must continue to be some other who we can satirize. Politics will be our object of ridicule.
Dear knights, take advantage of cult followings. Encourage their existence. Encourage their obsession with you, their aspiration to be you. Then, when the General calls you to action, they will do as you say.
Fear not, brethren. All for which we have striven is nigh. Take heart: we will save the future from today’s beast.
Signed
Lt. Oliver Twisted
Shortly after this letter circulated among the members of the Spiritus Ex Machina movement, the Witch Hunt was successfully executed. Within a few months every business monopoly either dissolved from the policy enacted by Spiritus Ex Machina agents or they were on irreparable spirals toward dissolution. The government maintained its old impetus in spite of all corporate interest disappearing. Certain branches of the media—the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, etc—supported the government on the advice of Spiritus Ex Machina agents. In the following confusion of Big Business no longer requiring the media or being able to efficiently utilize them, Gen. Werner negotiated the absorption of all networks, printing houses, and other publication facilities, into one massive umbrella corporation run solely by himself and his entourage. The bureaucracy of the corporation obscured his authority slightly. Anyone who cared to research it learned just enough to be suspicious of his presence. The various media were carefully engineered to appear distinct, as if the messages of their various stances had not been homogenized into the Spiritus Ex Machina regime, when, in fact, the movies, books, video games, etc, produced by the media disseminated Spiritus Ex Machina policy—you are unique just like everyone else, courage by sly—in breadth.
Not long after the successful execution of the Witch Hunt, one hundred thirty-seven agents of Spiritus Ex Machina—approvimately a tenth of the movement—died in manners similarly mysterious to the ways Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Heath Ledger died. Surviving members of Spiritus Ex Machina kept in line and kept scared. Naturally, Gen. Werner has never released a statement about these deaths. Spiritus Ex Machina continues to recruit. Members of Spiritus Ex Machina still die occasionally. Cult followings rule the world. Everyone is a rebel, just like everyone else.
Courage by sly.
You are unique, just like everyone else.
Prior to the execution of what has since come to be known as The Witch Hunt—when all the undercover agents of Spiritus Ex Machina rose from their positions in all echelons of society, politics, and the commercial spheres to enact Spiritus Ex Machina agenda—Gen. Werner’s trusted lieutenant, Oliver Twisted, wrote a letter to all primary members of the Spiritus Ex Machina movement. He wrote the letter to make a final recap of policy and technology before The Witch Hunt commenced.
Friends, soldiers, my dear knights, I greet you. You are valorous men and women, brave examples of all values we dearly revere. Courage by sly. Be their Relevant Thing. Overturn the paradigm of today, save tomorrow from barbarians. The world today is clawing itself as a great panther caught in a trap with nothing to eat but its own haunches. Literacy decreases, thought contracts, as populations grow. The Blind Clone populates every crowd, and every crowd cluster to the insubstantive vagaries churned by mills of Western idealism as mosquitoes cluster to bug zappers. The Blind Clone pines for meaning, for some concrete actuality, for some relevant thing to define his thoughts, to fill his heart with warmth. Dear knights, the Blind Clone is ripe for the filling. Let us give him a guiding star. We shall be their Relevant Thing.
Courage by Sly, dear knights. You are positioned in the media, in business, in political spheres, and poised to invent a new paradigm. Western idealism would have the Blind Clone believe that happiness is found in success, that success is found in material things, and material things are provided by Western idealism. We know better: that the Blind Clone can find actualization inside himself. Be valorous, dear knights. First, those of you in the media will unveil your presence. You will awake and you will smile through your teeth at all the Blind Clones, being your pretty, Sly selves, and you will attract attention. You will write entertaining things and you will tell entertaining stories, so that all the Blind Clones wish they were you. Some will turn on all their friends right there, claiming secretly to themselves that they are self-sufficient already, and they require no advice from any of their peers. They will claim secretly that they are self-sufficient, just like those immensely entertaining pretty people they’ve been watching on television and in the movies and reading of in newspapers and on the internet and all over the place. Self-sufficient, just like you are.
Soon after the Blind Clone has fallen in love with those of you in the media, those of you in the spheres of politics and business will create crises. I am sorry, dear knights, but you will be despised. You know that you are righteous martyrs. You know that you will be held up as brigands and highwaymen for your enactment of dire policy that destroys the economic prosperity of Big Business. You will enact such policy as complete and utter prevention of outsourcing. You will encourage entrepreneurial enterprise, and commit inane amounts of money to research and development departments at the expense of production. You will enact stringent policy of quality control, of educating and caring for your employees. You will spend more on materials than on advertising. You will, through your vast wit and classical educations, and all around personability, cause an overturning of every big business. You are positioned respectably in all Big Business. You are respected, admired, appreciated. Your advice is about to cause every American monopoly to raise their prices outrageously. Within months, Big Business conglomerates will begin being forced to sell pieces of their companies. Smaller, private investors will begin reclaiming the illusion—remember this, that it is an illusion—of free enterprise. And because you are in politics as well, dear knights, we are ensured this victory. You will be despised. Your associates will hate you, because everyone will lose money. The public will hate you, because they will no longer be able to afford the lifestyle to which they have come to feel entitled. Courage by Sly. Take strength knowing, dear knights, that you are martyrs to the cause. For when the Blind Clone can no longer live how Western idealism tells him that he is entitled to live, will he not look into himself for his life and find that he is self-sufficient, just like you are?
Be valorous, dear knights, for this will be a long, arduous fight. We are staging a coup against an invisible enemy: Western idealism is an insidious beast with no body. It permeates all solidity in most of the world, and it has been slowly soaking into every worthy quality of this hard reality. It has been crawling out of decadence and greed since the invention of supposed free-thought. The Blind Clone is a statistic, and he does not wish to change that. He is comfortable. So clearly we don’t want to uproot that belief. It’s already there. We may as well use it. Let us redirect it. Through our example, what we will exemplify is: you are unique, just like everyone else. Western idealism is decadence. When corporation falls, the Blind Clone will have no decadence upon which he can rely. That void created, we will fill it with arrogance. The Blind Clone, in search of meaning, will fall on his uniqueness, according to your example, dear knights. He will say to himself that he is a rebel, different than all other persons, exactly as you are.
You are all positioned so as to maintain your inspiration on the masses. Naturally, your presence will initially be enough to incite our paradigm shift. Equally as natural, it will not be enough to carry on the impetus of our campaign. Business will become swiftly diffuse and out of our immediate control. That will not matter, since decadence no longer controls the crowd—consumerism will no longer be their definitive aspect. We will control the Blind Clone through his arrogance. The media will be our forum of control. We are clever, pretty people. We are naturally inclined to control the media. People who entertain will want us to lead them, and we will make ourselves visible, public, and beloved. We will maintain our presence in political spheres, naturally. There must continue to be some other who we can satirize. Politics will be our object of ridicule.
Dear knights, take advantage of cult followings. Encourage their existence. Encourage their obsession with you, their aspiration to be you. Then, when the General calls you to action, they will do as you say.
Fear not, brethren. All for which we have striven is nigh. Take heart: we will save the future from today’s beast.
Signed
Lt. Oliver Twisted
Shortly after this letter circulated among the members of the Spiritus Ex Machina movement, the Witch Hunt was successfully executed. Within a few months every business monopoly either dissolved from the policy enacted by Spiritus Ex Machina agents or they were on irreparable spirals toward dissolution. The government maintained its old impetus in spite of all corporate interest disappearing. Certain branches of the media—the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, etc—supported the government on the advice of Spiritus Ex Machina agents. In the following confusion of Big Business no longer requiring the media or being able to efficiently utilize them, Gen. Werner negotiated the absorption of all networks, printing houses, and other publication facilities, into one massive umbrella corporation run solely by himself and his entourage. The bureaucracy of the corporation obscured his authority slightly. Anyone who cared to research it learned just enough to be suspicious of his presence. The various media were carefully engineered to appear distinct, as if the messages of their various stances had not been homogenized into the Spiritus Ex Machina regime, when, in fact, the movies, books, video games, etc, produced by the media disseminated Spiritus Ex Machina policy—you are unique just like everyone else, courage by sly—in breadth.
Not long after the successful execution of the Witch Hunt, one hundred thirty-seven agents of Spiritus Ex Machina—approvimately a tenth of the movement—died in manners similarly mysterious to the ways Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Heath Ledger died. Surviving members of Spiritus Ex Machina kept in line and kept scared. Naturally, Gen. Werner has never released a statement about these deaths. Spiritus Ex Machina continues to recruit. Members of Spiritus Ex Machina still die occasionally. Cult followings rule the world. Everyone is a rebel, just like everyone else.
Courage by sly.
You are unique, just like everyone else.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Third submission of "Totem" and the speech
Stardate 21230.6/The Year of Our Lord 2009, September the ninth
Wednesday
Dear folks,
It was actually two days ago. On Monday. All very exciting.
This afternoon I gave an ad libbed speech on the subject of how the Dalai Lama supports the fact that civilization rests on the curiosity of writers. Giving a speech on that topic off the cuff is kind of exciting, I tell you no lie. I think I totally muffed it. I was able to speak clearly, annunciate all my words, and I managed to hit all my points and in the right order without getting lost. That was good. But it wasn't MOVING--unless it was, and I just couldn't hear it. All I know for certain is that no one laughed at the funny parts, and no one told me afterward what they thought. Now I don't know where I messed up, or if I did. I can't tell where I need improvement.
Still, it was essentially my first speechifying gig, and I actually did it. I feel like I've accomplished something today.
Sincerely,
Bouncy Mind
Wednesday
Dear folks,
It was actually two days ago. On Monday. All very exciting.
This afternoon I gave an ad libbed speech on the subject of how the Dalai Lama supports the fact that civilization rests on the curiosity of writers. Giving a speech on that topic off the cuff is kind of exciting, I tell you no lie. I think I totally muffed it. I was able to speak clearly, annunciate all my words, and I managed to hit all my points and in the right order without getting lost. That was good. But it wasn't MOVING--unless it was, and I just couldn't hear it. All I know for certain is that no one laughed at the funny parts, and no one told me afterward what they thought. Now I don't know where I messed up, or if I did. I can't tell where I need improvement.
Still, it was essentially my first speechifying gig, and I actually did it. I feel like I've accomplished something today.
Sincerely,
Bouncy Mind
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
I, Q?
Q...what is it about our language that has made this letter uncommon? It's as good as many letters, and better than some. It certainly looks nicer than K, and there's more fun to be had out of it than T. Admittedly, it isn't as controversial as R, and hardly more controversial than C, although it rubs shoulders with the middling controversy of L. Because, though, the spheres of influence between Q and L are so disperate, this isn't as prestigeous as it might be.
I think I really know why Q is so uncommon. It's because it's a fake letter, more or less. It's a letter that came about through accidents, typos back in the writing era, and pseudo-organization. It's a new letter, like Y it's compensating for ignorant authority, and like J making noises it ought not for ignorant peonage.
From this point forward, I'm making it my missions to reform the alphabet. The current one is a mess. Sheesh.
I think I really know why Q is so uncommon. It's because it's a fake letter, more or less. It's a letter that came about through accidents, typos back in the writing era, and pseudo-organization. It's a new letter, like Y it's compensating for ignorant authority, and like J making noises it ought not for ignorant peonage.
From this point forward, I'm making it my missions to reform the alphabet. The current one is a mess. Sheesh.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Propagandist Reality
For a little while, I thought that I did not exist.
I had lost my birth certificate and my sociel security card and my voting registrating and all the receipts I got for any paycheck I ever got and all my school information. And for the longest time I wondered...did I, then, not exist? I mean to say, without a social security number, no birth certificate, would America admit that I was even here?
The state of mind made me think about myself a great deal. How would I really feel if America would not admit that I existed? It felt odd, this state of mind that this homeland country had no connection to me, and I none to it. None to anything. Paper, words, lists, are important for our social reality. Not being on this paper, in these lists, would make one, I think, more real, almost. A less metaphysical, and thusly more tangible blot in space-time.
Jason Bourne, for instance, has no social security number.
Fortunately, I found all my information. I exist again.
I had lost my birth certificate and my sociel security card and my voting registrating and all the receipts I got for any paycheck I ever got and all my school information. And for the longest time I wondered...did I, then, not exist? I mean to say, without a social security number, no birth certificate, would America admit that I was even here?
The state of mind made me think about myself a great deal. How would I really feel if America would not admit that I existed? It felt odd, this state of mind that this homeland country had no connection to me, and I none to it. None to anything. Paper, words, lists, are important for our social reality. Not being on this paper, in these lists, would make one, I think, more real, almost. A less metaphysical, and thusly more tangible blot in space-time.
Jason Bourne, for instance, has no social security number.
Fortunately, I found all my information. I exist again.
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