Fragment of a 2017 Dream

I actually have-

-this is a valuable collector’s item-

I own

In a climate controlled vault

The very first edition

Of the issue of Nintendo Power where they had the Communist Manifesto as a pull-out special strategy guide-you know where you have to pry open the staples in the center of the page to get the booklet out of the center of the magazine?

Yeah.

Low print run on that one.

I was told Martin Shkreli bought up all the other original copies, presumably to destroy them,

but then I heard

that he saw himself in the Marxian writings

saw himself as a harbinger of capitalism's implosion,

something like that?

I mean

like

who the fuck knew anyone took Marx seriously anymore?

-October 2017

Copyright 2017 by William D. Tucker. All rights reserved. Used with permission

MOVIE REVIEW: THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017)

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

Written by Guillermo Del Toro and Vanessa Taylor

Produced by Guillermo Del Toro and J. Miles Dale

Cinematography by Dan Laustsen

Edited by Sidney Wolinsky

Music by Alexandre Desplat

Starring
Sally Hawkins
Octavia Spencer
Richard Jenkins
Doug Jones
Michael Shannon
Michael Stuhlbarg

Review by William D. Tucker

The Shape of Water is a Cold War era science-fiction fairy tale about monstrosity, romance, interior states of fantasy, and the break down of perfect systems of control whether they be American capitalistic militarism or Soviet totalitarian communism as agents or assets within those systems break under pressure, find love, decay in their given jobs, or some combination of these factors. The movie bounces back and forth between different levels of harsh external reality and interior fantasy.

We begin in the depths of some lagoon, and zoom into the submerged hallway of an apartment building. The water drains away, and we realize we are in a kind of dream, or some more elastic than normal reality all in tones of green. When the narrative voice over comes across the speakers, and the opening credits of actors, producers, and craftspeople appear on-screen it actually kind of brings us back down to reality because we get our bearings: we're watching a narrative movie with actors playing characters conceived in a screenplay written by humans, produced by humans, directed by a human. We, the audience, exit the zone of uncertain surrealism, and begin to navigate the Cold War, pre-Kennedy assassination world of The Shape of Water.

Our protagonist is a mute-but not deaf-woman named Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), who works nights as a janitor inside a top secret government facility in Baltimore rather cleverly called Occam Aerospace Research Center. Elisa was abandoned as an infant, seemingly bearing the scars on her neck of some horrible mutilation which has left her mute. Elisa's partner on the night shift is fellow janitor Zelda Fuller (Octavia Spencer), who confides every last detail of her mundane marriage to Elisa, who is happy to listen since she lives alone and seems to live vicariously through Zelda, and her neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins), a middle-aged commercial artist who also lives alone. Giles and Elisa both live in neighboring apartments, and they constitute each other's primary form of social life. If Giles were heterosexual and thirty years younger, he would've proposed to Elisa by now, and maybe Eliza would've accepted-but this reality isn't so simple for these good-hearted, struggling people.

One night, Elisa and Zelda are cleaning a chamber of the gothic research center containing an open pool when a high tech cylinder is wheeled in containing a humanoid fish man creature (Doug Jones, who played the similar Abe Sapien in the two Del Toro directed Hellboy movies) overseen by Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon) a super creep in a suit who's in charge of the fish-man at the research center. Elisa sees the creature through the plate glass of the cylinder and there's an immediate connection between the human and the seemingly non-human. Or less-than-human? Or more-than-human? Later, we find out that the the fish-man-referred to as "the asset'"-was kidnapped from his home in a river in South America, and that this creature is believed to offer new modes of existence to the human race which could make them more durable in outer space . . . but the only way to know is to dissect "the asset."

Complications arise. Colonel Strickland reveals himself to be a white supremacist and a  sexual predator. Elisa establishes an unexpected rapport with the fish-man. Not to mention there's a Soviet agent in the house. The Soviets may try to steal the fish-man, or destroy him to prevent him from giving up cosmic secrets to the Americans. Everyone sees some precious dream within "the asset," who is characterized as having been once worshiped as a god in his native land, and may possess paranormal power.

Along the way, conflicts involving sexuality, class, race, white supremacy, and the oppression of women during 1960s America boil forth from the soul of this intricate dream of a film.

I don't want to give away too much, here, you really should just see how it plays out for yourself.

The Shape of Water is my personal favorite film I've seen in an actual movie theatre this past year. Only Get Out, Logan, Blade Runner 2049, and Detroit came anywhere near moving me the way this movie did. It's also a strong return to form for Guillermo Del Toro, who's previous films-Crimson Peak and Pacific Rim-were gorgeous visual spectacles, but came up short in the script department, falling back on the tropes of gothic romance novels and mecha anime. Entertaining, sure, but somewhat insubstantial for me. This is easily his best movie since Pan's Labyrinth. Nothing comes easy for any of the characters-good, evil, in-between-in this story. Even the repulsive Colonel Strickland is shown in context as an effect of a system of brutality more than a cause, though Strickland himself is absolutely complicit.

The Shape of Water even has my single favorite line of dialogue of this past year's cinema . . . which I wouldn't dream of spoiling!

Be good to yourself. Go see it.

Every Day Is Halloween 5: Shadowing Up

Every Day Is Halloween 5: Shadowing Up
by William D. Tucker

Santa pulls the chains
attached to the steel arrows
buried deep in the heaving flanks
of His twelve cloud-tripping reindeer.

Claus reaches into His bottomless sack
(all done up with runes that keep twisting themselves up into ruins evocative of bygone empires, makes your brain hurt to stare at it too long, makes you want to go build an empire, just so it can eventually be all bygone and shit)
grasps the blazing industrial complex of intertwined mandalas of intertwined industrial complexes within
transmits dreams of world-girdling conspiracies through all the face-splitting hairs of all his beards
(which are, of course, mystically empowered antennae, learn something new every-)
to all the faithful of all ages
gives them ENEMY
gives them the Rubblemind to go deal with ENEMY
broadcasts to all the boys and girls
on both lists, actually,
who have all mostly organized themselves into competing militarized secret police agencies,
the militarized secret police model having displaced all the others-nuclear family, tribe, organized crime, cult/organized religion, legacy political party, terrorist cell, tabletop role-playing gathering, online gaming network-to become the primary mode of human professional and/or social activity.

Santa makes sure to shadow up
before appearing on radar as a paid propaganda asset of various military-industrial-infotainment complexes around the world
or for His select on-camera major media market appearances
wouldn't do to let the kids-of-all-ages behold the pierced reindeer
(reindoors, actually, that let Claus clip in and out of vanilla space-time, make the goddamn schedule)
definitely would not do
to let anyone
of any age
behold His true face
or any part of His true body
which is mostly a lot of teeth, claws, and agonized vestigial faces
glitching in and out of mundane reality
too many leftover, conflicting design assets,
too much malevolent design creep going in all directions,
over too many iterations
across too many corrupted, partial-build realities
trying to be too damn many places at once'll do that
gotta provide all the boys and girls
of all ages
on both lists, mind you
with ENEMY
on schedule
in all the asshole realities.

Which doesn't leave much He can reveal without properly shadowing up first.

Ho-ho-ho, motherfuckers.
-December 2017

Copyright 2017 by William D. Tucker. All rights reserved. Used with permission. 

Every Day Is Halloween 4: All-Purpose Stabulation/Squibulation Person

Every Day Is Halloween 4: All-Purpose Stabulation/Squibulation Person
by William D. Tucker

A god-the God?-answers the sweaty, gross prayers of some degenerate aspiring filmmaker, most likely some jerk-off film school graduate ... 

And some god-the God?-spake . . .

saying . . .

If you're willing to inject a virus into the computer graphics pipeline

while wearing DIY prosthetics makeup
of a monstrous being you spent a month of Tuesdays cooking up inside your brain
must be an original
no cosplay allowed

AND

you agree to shoot using only film and 100% analog editing equipment and techniques
no sound,
must be black and white

AND

you light one of the letters of the Hollywood sign on fire-any letter, so long as it burns

then
you will be blessed
with an All-Purpose Stabulation/Squibulation Person
a kind of ersatz human from another plane of existence
(e.g. a recent theatre school graduate)
who has been completely neutralized, stripped of all individuality by advanced acting techniques
who you will be permitted to use as you see fit
in your artsy-fartsy black and white shot-on-actual-film movie

typically,
end-users stab and/or shoot these neutrals after imbuing them with the identity of their choice of fantasy target
(identity induction protocols/procedures are included in an accompanying instruction booklet found inside a kangaroo-ish skin pocket in the abdomen)
it could be
man, woman, child
someone you knew in life,
someone powerful,
someone evil,
someone innocent,
mom,
dad,
an ex,
someone you imagine,
even a fictional character,
I mean
vengeance fantasies are stupifyingly common among aspiring filmmakers these days.

BUT
you don't have to go down that road
you could cultivate your neutral into a real human being
befriend them
nurture them
set them free
even if that almost never happens-you could do that shit
you really could
you could break that mold into tiny pieces
but the odds will most likely exert a crushing power over your pittance of "free will,"
and you will run to type
and make some kind of an arty fucking snuff film
as per usual
as per the norm
just another angry little shit with a camera,
aaaand
a head full of power/domination fantasies
nothing special

but go ahead and prove my ass wrong
wrong as Richard Nixon
I would be very amused by that
amused AF
-October 2017

Copyright 2017 by William D. Tucker. All rights reserved. Used with permission. 

Free Agent 2: The Throne of Contemplation

Free Agent 2: The Throne of Contemplation 
by William D. Tucker

As part of my indoctrination into RIVALCORP, I am cracked, scanned, and drained-which means I sit in a well-appointed Throne of Contemplation  with all my bodily needs attended to, the drug-pump primed just so, and my choice of authorized flickers via direct brain stimulation. I re-watch the Beverly Hills Cop Trilogy, including the TV edits. I'm actually a really big defender of Beverly Hills Cop 3, and I even think there are some inspired cuts in the censored-for-television version. A couple of the shootings are actually more abrupt and violent with the cartoonish squib-work cut out, but other scenes do suffer. I go through every iteration of the Beverly Hills Cop saga before cycling into a state of lucid dreaming.

I got into the habit some jobs ago of refusing to dream when locked down into the Throne of Contemplation, because I didn't want my internal phantasia to be recorded and made property of the system. But then they would just interdict the sleep state, and that took awhile to resist. Once I got into lucid dreaming I forced the most depraved scenarios and imagery into the system: vast howling chancroids vomiting up greasy feces and broken off teeth; syphilitic samurai seppuku; cockroaches eating eyeballs out of Muppet Baby faces; a U.S. president eating nothing but hair for every meal ... but I got worn out with that routine.

Why bother to monkey wrench the system? The system is, itself, Sabotage Incarnate. The true believers keep it puttering along on a lean mixture of malice and avarice. Juvenile shock perversities  are amusing dirty jokes to spice up a puritanical day.

Moreover, I'm certain every loyal employee has engaged in such acts of so-called resistance. I got the idea from a colleague who has been mostly deleted from my memory. The system is fully capable of total erasure of an individual identity but that method has been deemed, for now, to be inefficient. The web of an individual mind has too many useful strands, connections, intersections, and working networks to be obliterated outright when it can just be steered onto the right path with the proper rewards and stimulation. Some pruning-sure, fine, and they have refined that capability to a shockingly precise degree. I admire it. I do. What they've achieved is absolutely astonishing. Solo units such as myself have largely seen an enhanced quality of life at the end of all processes. So why fuck with shit?

I don't exactly love Big Brother, or whatever you want to call it-it ain't that warm of a sentiment.
And I wouldn't say He loves me.
But He's done right by me in terms of the basics.
-August 2017

Copyright 2017 by William D. Tucker. All rights reserved. Used with permission. 

Free Agent

Free Agent
by William D. Tucker

Mid-cycle
None of the faces or uniforms or masks or languages registered
ran diagnostics on my eyes, ears, heart
it wasn't my eyes, ears, heart

I went to the company store to buy new getup
was promptly removed from the facility

And they were kinda rough with me
which was funny at first
made me feel like Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop,
but they weren't truly abusive,
didn't throw me through a plate glass window

The paramilitaries looked new and shiny
upgraded from combat webbing and shaved heads
into a league of techno demi-gods
or a cosplay science ninja team
heads encased in robo-insectoid helmets

On the street before the great and convoluted facility
I stood crying
I tried so hard to suppress all emotion
but the internal drug-pumps had already deactivated upon my termination
the tears flowed
I blubbered even.

I stood there for an hour or more,
half hoping I'd be shot by a shiny paramilitary
but no dice.

I stalked down the middle of the road,
hoping to be rundown,
but all the autocars swerved just so,
even broadcasting messages of compassion, recommending suicide prevention hotlines, Jesus Christ,
Buddha, L. Ron Hubbard;
one especially devout car offered to roll with me along my dark path,
but I mouthed insipid syllables 'til it left me alone with a pamphlet full of mistranslated, out-of-context Bible quotations.

A half hour passed
I settled into a stalking rhythm which the autocars found agreeable,
just a little deviation from their ground-plans
didn't even get clipped
I'd always wanted to test the collision detection on these machines
and an autocar pulled up next to me, told me to get in, and something inside me responded to a signal
-the chem-pumps I think-
which guided me to yes.

In the air conditioned cab, stimulant-alcoholic drinkbox in my hand
the autocar spoke at length about all the opportunities that awaited me inside RIVALCORP
which wasn't the true name, but a cipher
because the real name was knowledge reserved to the executive class
or possibly just the great algorithms in the Cloud of Clouds
the near immaterial  deities rumored to have the whole game on lock these days.

I couldn't even recall the name of the company I was just fired from,
my mind only coming up with PREVIOUS GIG, PASTCORP, variations on that general theme.

I swiped my consent through screen after screen
of terms and conditions
just like I did when I got headhunted for PASTCORP.

Why do they even allow any memories, for fuck's sake?
They write in so many strategic erasures and interdictions,
everybody's hacking into everybody else's chem-pumps,
just do the full wipe, fer Hubbard's sakes!
I'm pretty sure they like it like that-leaving in just enough to promote an illusion of free will,
easy enough to frustrate, tip over into despair in a world of unlimited choice,
and thus conformity, obedience, self-indoctrination follow on with the quickness
to still the cognitive dissonance.

Also,
a full wipe just means you gotta increase resources devoted to re-skilling, re-indoctrination lead times,
so,
yeah,
it's cool.

The autocar regaled me with readings of official poetry as it whisked me towards another great and convoluted facility. The verses stirred my at-a-distance-controlled heart. Shit would work out for a few hundred cycles more, I would know where I needed to be.
-August 2017

Copyright 2017 by William D. Tucker. All rights reserved. Used with permission. 

Hopper

Hopper 
by William D. Tucker

1.
White light against a plaster wall
Looking with my back turned.
Window is the vacancy of intersection.
A perspective on one aspect of the jagged upper texture
There is pointing and then there are jabs from the buildings.
You sit there, white light on your back.
The room is so suffused with cold, clear light.
Nothing is hidden yet nothing is revealed in the cold, clear light.
We speak of matters with a speech that the Observer does not render exactly
In the rendering, we become a pantomime.
Nowhere above and beyond this room,
So filled with light,
Can we ever speak truly of the vacant point of intersection.
Who has ever spoken before the cold, clear light suffused this room,
How was it even possible?
It isn't blinding, it isn't sudden, in fact it lacks all flourish or sensationalism.
The cold, clear light simply is, and it is in a most unavoidable way.
Nothing hidden, nothing revealed.
Looking with my back turned.

2.
Drink. Purchase. Sitting. Another drink/purchase.
Routine of the room of the cold, clear light.
Papers. Organize. Read. Papers. Sort. Prioritize.
This is the work of the room of the cold clear light.
Pillows. Laughing. Porch. Train car. Outdoors. Indoors.
This is the room of the cold, clear light.
Green, beige, red, blue, yellow, purple:
These stand out in strange new ways beneath the cold, clear light.

3.
He wished to communicate sunlight on the side of a building.
Many received his communication.
Others received many other things besides.
Drink. Routine. Cold. Clear. Light.
"More real than real" as one person put it.
Critical response: good, suffused with the cold, clear light.
He did not try to explain, except for elaborate designs and plans.
Many view. Experience an array of emotions.
There is a look of awareness at the science and rigor of construction.
Science/rigor/effort is reduced to "emotional response."
Cold, clear light becomes invisible.
"I get a sense of loneliness," one person says.
"This makes me feel a certain way," says another.
Rigor, effort, construction, science subsumed by "emotion."
Opinion. Subjective. I like. I think. I feel.
Drink. Routine. Cold. Clear. Light.
Looking with my back turned, I see them turning away having observed,
felt, thought, and processed very briefly the offering before them.

4.
Plans. Construction. Intersecting lines of purpose.
The science and the rigor necessary to achieve that specific effect.
"I want to communicate sunlight on the side of a building."
Result: opinions.
I think. I feel. Maybe. I like. I did not like.
I am approached for moments, perhaps, having extensively researched, practiced, and calculated myself.
Moments.
The rigor disappears. Lines of intersecting purpose are softly, gently smudged into pleasant, distinct blurs of opinion.
Invisible. Cold. Clear. Light.

5.
Opinion passed.
Return of routine.
Beyond initial foray into understanding.
Drink. Office. Papers. Organize. Dance. Sunbathe.
Analysis:
Cold, clear light becomes visible perceptible
Intersecting lines of purpose rise to the surface.
"I can see the wires."
Repetition of analysis.
Rigor and science unearthed
Notebooks are thumbed through
Paradigm shift/analysis again:
Cold, clear light hides nothing and reveals nothing.
Analysis:
"In this place there are fewer, wealthier people. No one has any memory of the past. Everyone is prosperous, satisfied, happy, and no one quite wants to remember how it got that way."
Paradigm shift/analysis again:
"He is expressing a deeply ambivalent attitude towards his subject matter. The elements of the voyeuristic collide with an overwhelming sense of the privacy of each person's universe. Ultimately, the voyeuristic wins out, because, alas, the end result is the work itself. He could not resist looking into the realms of privacy and then sharing what he saw with others."
Paradigm shift/analysis again:
"It is the portrayal of man's environment as supremely indifferent that wins out over everything else. His settings are neither threatening nor comforting, destructive nor supportive, good nor evil. His humans, likewise, have learned to dwell in this environment with all harmony by becoming creatures of supreme indifference themselves."
Analysis. Results ad infinitum. Each analysis different.
Return of opinion.
Opinion refined.
Opinion/analysis synthesis.
Still opinion.
Cold, clear light hides nothing and reveals nothing.
-February-April 2003

Copyright 2003 by William D. Tucker. All rights reserved. Used with permission. 

living skeleton actor fuck (7/24/15 version)

living skeleton actor fuck

by William D. Tucker

role puts flesh and guts and blood on me

it used to make me feel complete

now it makes me feel heavy, arbitrary, old,

like I was never quite here

it’s fuckin’ weird

Because

I have all the evidence in the world

that I was here

never really went away

never gave up

but, uh, I dunno.

the feeling inside

does not change

a lot of work,

a lot of awards,

a lot of love from all over the world

but it’s, uh, it’s definitely a king of shreds and patches kinda deal

yeah . . .

. . . multiple past personas inhabiting my body at an advanced age . . .

OVERCROWDING OF PERSONAS

My head is thick with Personas-I won’t lie . . .

but for my next project

very stripped down

just the bones

black box theatre

no vocal chords, lips, tongue, lungs,

none of that.

maybe just have the air conditioning cranked up to the max

with, like, the script in front of the vent

breeze will lift the text off the page

let the words whisper right through me . . .

heh,

won’t that be something?

-May-July 2015

Copyright 2015 by William D. Tucker. All rights reserved. Used with permission.