Spatting Theory

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?"
Little Mary replied, "Reverend, I'd be streaky!"

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:

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?"

Tarot in Film

Here's a little video on tarot card symbolism in movies. Some movies directly reference Tarot cards and sometimes there's a scene which appears to be inspired by them. It's just one of those things I would have liked to see, but since no one else made a video like this I had to get off my lazy ass and do it. There's plenty of scenes I didn't get around to using or couldn't put in since many of my movies are in VHS format still.

Some scenes are a bit more subjective than others, but I think they fit well enough. ;) Even though I wasn't going for a synchromystic video this time, there's still a couple of synchronicities among these movies. Johnny Depp walks in on a "Hanged Man" in The Ninth Gate, only to be the "Hanged Man" in Pirates of the Caribbean. And Heath Ledger is hung by one leg in The Dark Knight and is the "Hanged Man" in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Tarot in Film - Part 1 from ViolatoR on Vimeo.

There are some other interesting connections to be made. In the original black and white Metropolis, the female robot takes on the form of a resistance leader in order to subvert her influence. She then becomes a sex object for the ruling elite. And in the scene where she is performing for them, she rides atop a beast with many heads like in Revelations, but also like in the final engraving from The Ninth Gate or Crowley's Thoth deck where Strength was turned into Lust and depicts a similar scene.

The mad scientist who makes the robot stands in front of her with the leader of the city in a mirror the The Devil card which has a figure surmounted with a pentagram with two other figures standing below and on either side. He also has a single gloved hand which is how some people interpret the colored hand of The Hermit tarot card from the Marseille's deck: