YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #10:

A glimmering array of armored warriors contending mightily with the moss of amnesia.

THE NEW PARADIGMS IN BRAGGING RIGHTS #26:

I’m so lonely I give myself rabbit ears in the group photo.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #9:

A cat that refuses to be drawn since the moment you attempt to draw it will be the moment it bites off your fingers yet you will be compelled by destiny to draw it anyways so get comfortable.

MOVIE REVIEW: EGGSHELLS (1969)

Written/Directed/Photographed by Tobe Hooper

Edited by Robert Elkins and Tobe Hooper

Produced by Hooper, David L. Ford, and Raymond O’Leary

Music by Shiva’s Headband, Jim Schulman, and Spencer Perskin

Starring

Kim Henkel

Pamela Craig

Sharron Danzinger

Ron Barnhart

Allen Danziger

. . .

THE GOVERNMENT IS VIOLENT-NOT US!

-protest slogan on display in the film Eggshells (1969)

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

Eggshells is a movie where I found myself fascinated by the overall conception of it, but I had a hard time zeroing in on the individual characters. I didn’t catch their names, but their conversations were often lively. Maybe it’s supposed to feel like some people you hung out with over a debauched, drugged-out summer. Not sure. 

The film begins with a vivid documentary portrayal of an anti-war protest and then spins out into a wholly fictional narrative of broke-ass young people navigating lust, love, values, drugs, anxiety about the future, marriage, and the psychic influence of a phantom entity dwelling in the basement of their hippie-dippie party house. Eggshells is wonderfully eccentric and funny, but also a bit impenetrable. I didn’t mind it, though, because it took interesting risks while taking advantage of a range of filmmaking styles and techniques.

In the heart of the city of Austin, Texas vociferous, peaceful protestors march to bring American soldiers home from Vietnam. Cops are ready to suppress, brutalize, and kill with clubs, guns, and gas. But explicit violence is avoided-in fact, we see a protester shake hands with a uniformed police asset. Moreover, the peace marchers come brandishing an array of American flags, which are themselves often transcendentally framed from low angles against blazing sunlight. The heart and soul of America lies with We the People-not the White House, not Congress, not the Senate, not the Pentagon, not the Governor’s Mansion, not the state legislature, not the party bosses, not the Chamber of Commerce, not the Supreme Court, not Madison Avenue, not Hollywood, not Big Business, not the National Guard, not Your Local Sheriff, not the arms manufacturers-it’s us. By the way, this stirring display comes from filmmaker Tobe Hooper, the guy who would go on to bring us The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I sort of expected Eggshells to start in a place of hopeful idealism, and then descend into a hell of mutilation-but, nope, that’s not what happens here.

A handful of fictional characters are woven into the documentary footage of civil disobedience. These characters pass through and around the protest event, but they’re somewhat detached from it, even if they are sympathetic to the cause. They seem to be on mundane errands in town. They make their way back to their two story party house, and that’s where we spend most of our time. Just kinda hanging out. Time passes painlessly enough in clouds of reefer smoke. There’s a party. People talk about politics. They get high. They get drunk. They fuck. They discuss feminism. They worry about money. They ruminate on the value conflicts with their parents. They modify the seams of a wedding dress. But there’s no actual dramatic fight between the characters. Everybody basically gets along.

One of these young people wanders into the basement where he falls under the influence of a strange force that presents him with a sword straight out of Legend of Zelda or maybe an Errol Flynn picture. The dude takes up the blade and has a delightfully edited duel with himself. So, I dunno, maybe the conflicts that matter are within hearts and minds; we’re all just dueling with our shadow self, maybe?

At one point, a couple is fucking, and their sex is perhaps turbocharged by the psychic emanations of the basement whatsit unleashing a goofy-but kinda awesome-psychedelic light show. Naked bodies in action unleash cosmic powers that make the Silver Surfer and Captain Marvel look like a couple of pikers.

Another character-a drunk wannabe novelist-takes off his clothes and sets a colorful shaggin’ wagon on fire . . . but I couldn’t tell you if this was drunko shit or the influence of the basement entity or just a pure fantasy riff. I think this confusion is actually the point, but your guess is as good as mine.

If you’re looking for a conventional narrative climax . . . well, you kinda get two. The first is a lovely outdoor wedding where the rabbi’s poetic words seem to evoke a religiously derived kind of psychedelic romanticism of merging souls forged by eternal love beyond human comprehension. Climax #2 involves people under the influence of the basement thing digging up an absurd contraption that, uh, teleports folks to a higher dimension . . . or something? Maybe the basement entity represented some accumulating psychic force representative of people’s collective wish to get beamed off of the violent planet Earth and off to Star Trek somewheres? You take a look, and decide for yourself.

Eggshells mixes fiction, documentary, stop motion animation, and psychedelia to evoke a tumultuous present tantalized by wild promises of a better future. Sure, you could say it’s all hippie dippie nonsense cycling through drug addled brains. But the oh-so-sober Christian warmongers jolly well fucked up the operation in Vietnam, didn’t they? And they had all the intelligence, all the money, all the military toys, all the popular support of the Hard Hats and the Silent Majority and John Wayne his own self. Maybe American existence, as a sum total of all its functions, is just the dialectical output of a war between competing regimes of illusions. At least the hippies and the peaceniks in Austin didn’t napalm any children. So credit where it’s due.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #107:

EXCLUSIVE: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE SPIDERMAN/MOTHRA SEXTAPE, AND HOW IT ESCALATES THE BEEF BETWEEN GODZILLA AND NYC’S ARACHNID DEFENDER!

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #8:

The cosmic majesty of a cheeseburger trainwreck brought on by the caprice of fully mechanized warring nutritional advisors.

OCCLUSION #5:

-REPORTS OF A BIZARRE, HYPERAGGRESSIVE VEHICLE, OR, POSSIBLY, A PERSON DRESSED AS A WAR MACHINE OF SOME KIND. WE GO LIVE TO THE PARKING LOT OF-

the bigass pickup truck

adorned with the Samsara Armaments logo

not a company vehicle

just a private citizen

branding his shit with the insignia of his favorite death merchant

-LIKELY A MISIDENTIFICATION OF A REGULAR CAR OR TRUCK MERELY DECORATED WITH THE NAME OF AN ARMS MANUFACT-

tubby middle-aged man

wife and brat

detrucking in the department store parking lot

I’m there, too, and curious what tubby’s got inside his truck

I tend to stare

but few can hold my gaze

which strikes like a bee

when you thought you were a safe distance from the hive

now you feel it smarting above your brow

I’m a hive you best not stare at

in this sense

but no

mostly

I just catch glances

which are quickly averted

but every so often a tough guy will lock sightjellies with me

and then I gesture

sometimes obscenely if I think it will escalate things

but usually the tough guys back down

when they actually

fucking

SEE

me

‘cause

well

I am a sight

I do like to put my work on display

but I’m also rather conceptual in my appearance

if you’re focused on your usual business

you’ll more than likely walk on by

dismissing me as some defective aspect of the advertorial hellscape

or a member of the walking wounded recently voided from some defunct division of some corporate cancerplex capriciously cutting costs

even if I’m crying

just like that song

not that I remember ever shedding tears

you have to be born to do that

right?

I think that’s how that works

I fake cry if I think it will escalate things

but that only usually works with specific types

in fact

more often than not

crying draws the boringass bleeding hearts

who don’t have anything I’m looking for

and

unfortunately

tubby and his fam

likely don’t have that spark I’m after

either

despite putting out vibes

but I might slash open his truck

see if he’s got an actual arsenal

or is he just another poseur

it’s hit or miss with these self-branded types

their wives aren’t always onboard with the traveling arsenal act

not that I need the weapons

I am a weapon

it’s just amusing to me

to do as I please

to see who’s actually ready for some action

ready for a real conceptual sort like myself

I’m frequently disappointed

which is my way of saying

I’m almost always disappointed

going back years

but the readiness

but the hope

is all

-RAZY FROM THE HEAT. AT LEAST THAT’S THE PERSPECTIVE OF SOME SOCIAL RESEARCHERS WHO ASSERT THAT SUCH BIZARRE ENCOUNTERS AND SIGHTINGS ARE LIKELY TO INCREASE AS GLOBAL WARMING PUTS MORE HEAT DOMES-AND THEREFORE MORE PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS-ONTO LARGER CHUNKS OF THE POPULA-

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #7:

An elaborate arrangement of intertwining minimalist mood boards giving birth to a particolored deluge of heaving, twitching, moist’n’meaty vistas of thoroughly routinized proceduralisms in a context of competitive malaise-mongering.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 13

 

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #6:

Motorcycle helmets insisting that they are in fact people’s true faces.

ONE LINE MOVIE REVIEWS #57: ABIGAIL (2024)

At the bottom of the barrel you will find . . . a vampire ballerina, apparently.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #5:

Meeting the burning face of a regular customer within the militarized frame of the Rax Roast Beef drive-thru window during a seven year period of near constant regional bacchanal.

THEME MUSIC FOR EVERYTHING #10:

My Own Personal Game Over Theme: Game Over by Yoshihiro Sakaguchi (1943 NES OST)

It’s the sonic equivalent of “Better luck next time, kid.”

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #4:

Bingo cards of hope and woe.

MUSIC JOKES #8:

Take This Job and Shove It by Johnny Paycheck

Takes on a whole new dimension if you sing this song while self-employed.

Strong “Boss Battle with your shadow self” vibes.

Which, admittedly, can be its own kind of fun.