Do you hear what I hear? It's the sound of my comical voice on Star Theory again! Kyle invited me back to talk about Gremlins, in movies and elsewhere. Here is the Star Theory article for the show. And here is the podcast link. And here is the download link. (It's 13.7MB You might have to right-click and choose "save link as...")
I just got back from my hiatus so I didn't have time to write anything to accompany this podcast, but I think between Kyle's post, and my previous article on the subject, we've got it pretty well covered.
The idea that gremlins are both bad and good came up during the discussion, as well as the idea of gremlins being externalized inner demons. Coupled with this, scarredsoul called in to the show and poked fun at my slothy nature by questioning my opinion of the seven deadly sins. Just after the show I read something in The Song Of The Bird which I think goes well with my attitude on the subject:
A preacher put this question to a class of children: "If all the good people were white and all the bad people were black, what color would you be?"And today I read something in Alan Watts' (not Alan Watt's) book The Book On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are which goes well with the above sentiment:
Little Mary replied, "Reverend, I'd be streaky!"
Thus for thousands of years human history has been a magnificently futile conflict, a wonderfully staged panorama of triumphs and tragedies based on the resolute taboo against admitting that black goes with white. As when Tweedledum and Tweedledee agreed to have a battle, the essential trick of the Game of Black-and-White is a most tacit conspiracy for the partners to conceal their unity, and to look as different as possible. It is like a stage fight so well acted that the audience is ready to believe it a real fight. Hidden behind their explicit differences is the implicit unity of what Vedanta calls the Self, the One-without-a-second, the what there is and the all there is which conceals itself in the form of you.
Well, that's all I have to say about that. Per tradition, the title of this blog post is an anagram of the name of the blog :) And the opening line of this post is my favorite part of Gremlins part 1; when the mom finds the cocoons and starts walking down stairs and the gremlins put on the Christmas record with the song lyrics, "do you hear what I hear?"
