Category Archives: horror

On loud commercials

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This is not about weird local commercials for flooring or odd used cars or sewage pumping. This is about how television stations raise the sound level of commercials, a move that should be illegal, but still plagues us all. Imagine, you are watching a favorite television show at a normal level of sound. A commercial for pick-up trucks cut in at the same decible level as an old 747, knocking you off of the sofa, leaving you both startled and deaf. I know that “they”, the advertisers have been doing this for decades, but I still hate it. I end up diving for the remote control, spilling my potato chips and soda, in order to hit the mute button. I get it–they want me to pay attention, but really, the exact opposite happens: I take note of the offending product and vow to never, ever to buy it, no matter what it is. Once I get the screen muted, many commercials are actually rather entertaining, especially when you can’t really tell what is being advertised. Since the sound if off, you can’t hear either the music, the sound track or the voice-over, so many times it’s not easy to tell what is being sold at any given moment, especially if they need to use euphemisms to describe the product. I particularly hate the ads for all sanitary products, diapers, catheters and the like. Food ads late at night are despicable. All truck ads are blatantly loud and obnoxious. Some insurance ads, especially if the character is dressed in white, are creepy and sketchy, which is not exactly the image an insurance company wants to put forward. Honestly, if they didn’t turn up the sound during the ads, I might actually listen and watch. In the meantime, I will turn off the sound, defeating the entire purpose of the commercials, and make up my soundtrack and voice-over, all the while maintaining my list of annoying products that I will never use.

On loud commercials

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This is not about weird local commercials for flooring or odd used cars or sewage pumping. This is about how television stations raise the sound level of commercials, a move that should be illegal, but still plagues us all. Imagine, you are watching a favorite television show at a normal level of sound. A commercial for pick-up trucks cut in at the same decible level as an old 747, knocking you off of the sofa, leaving you both startled and deaf. I know that “they”, the advertisers have been doing this for decades, but I still hate it. I end up diving for the remote control, spilling my potato chips and soda, in order to hit the mute button. I get it–they want me to pay attention, but really, the exact opposite happens: I take note of the offending product and vow to never, ever to buy it, no matter what it is. Once I get the screen muted, many commercials are actually rather entertaining, especially when you can’t really tell what is being advertised. Since the sound if off, you can’t hear either the music, the sound track or the voice-over, so many times it’s not easy to tell what is being sold at any given moment, especially if they need to use euphemisms to describe the product. I particularly hate the ads for all sanitary products, diapers, catheters and the like. Food ads late at night are despicable. All truck ads are blatantly loud and obnoxious. Some insurance ads, especially if the character is dressed in white, are creepy and sketchy, which is not exactly the image an insurance company wants to put forward. Honestly, if they didn’t turn up the sound during the ads, I might actually listen and watch. In the meantime, I will turn off the sound, defeating the entire purpose of the commercials, and make up my soundtrack and voice-over, all the while maintaining my list of annoying products that I will never use.

On Deckard, the Blade Runner

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Deckard is one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite movies–Blade Runner. Deckard, a paid police assassin kills replicants when they are out of control or anywhere where they aren’t supposed to be. The movie is an existential examination of what it means to be human–to have self-awareness, to be unique, to have memories, to have purpose, to live your own life. Replicants are artificial human beings, or at least that is the starting hypothesis of the movie. They are used for distasteful, repetitious, or dangerous jobs that human beings do not want to do. Apparently, ethical considerations of treatment are off the boards because replicants are not really people, don’t have parents, are the result of complex DNA experiments. When replicants go wild, however, Deckard is called in by the police to identify and eliminate rogue replicants. So Deckard “retires” replicants who are no longer doing their jobs and are more an annoyance than a solution. By using a euphemism to describe the murder of a replicant, human authorities sidestep the issue of just how human the replicants are or if replicants are really just a name for slaves. The fact is, though, that replicants are such perfect reproductions of human beings that the humans need complex tests in order to identify the replicants. So if replicants are such perfect copies of human beings, why aren’t they human beings? Ridley Scott wanted to cloud the issue further by suggesting that Deckard was, ironically, a replicant as well in his movie version of the book, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Phillip K. Dick (in which Deckard is not a replicant). Though Scott’s idea is intriguing, I believe it eliminates part of the ethical question concerning the retirement of replicants, but Deckard’s job certainly fits the bill for a replicant job–distasteful and dangerous. If Roy Batty, the dangerous battle replicant that Deckard must retire, has so much super-human strength, why is Deckard so fallible and weak? Of course, if Deckard were a replicant designed to retire replicants, he would have to be programmed to believe that he was human in order to do his job. He would have to have an unlimited, or undetermined life span, he would have to believe that replicants were a threat to both himself, particularly, and humanity, generally, and he could not suspect for a moment that he himself is a replicant. Ergo he would have normal human strength, suggesting that Deckard is both human and replicant at once, blurring the line between human and replicant to the point where there is no difference between the two. The question of what constitutes a human being is in play as is the right of the government to determine life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the case of the replicants, or do the replicants have rights? All of these questions double back on the society which has created artificial humans, but obviously considers them to be less than human in spite of the fact that hardly anyone can tell the difference. Deckard can “pass” as human, though a suspect one. Deckard as a human understands that the matched euphemisms of “retiring replicants” does not mask the problem of killing humans, and he struggles mightily with doing his job precisely because his profession puts into question the slavery of the replicants, which pushes the existential question to the forefront–what are we all doing working for big government, big business, or big bureaucracy? In the end, I think the story works a little better if Deckard is human, but making him a replicant with an indeterminate termination date certainly is suggestive.

On Deckard, the Blade Runner

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Deckard is one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite movies–Blade Runner. Deckard, a paid police assassin kills replicants when they are out of control or anywhere where they aren’t supposed to be. The movie is an existential examination of what it means to be human–to have self-awareness, to be unique, to have memories, to have purpose, to live your own life. Replicants are artificial human beings, or at least that is the starting hypothesis of the movie. They are used for distasteful, repetitious, or dangerous jobs that human beings do not want to do. Apparently, ethical considerations of treatment are off the boards because replicants are not really people, don’t have parents, are the result of complex DNA experiments. When replicants go wild, however, Deckard is called in by the police to identify and eliminate rogue replicants. So Deckard “retires” replicants who are no longer doing their jobs and are more an annoyance than a solution. By using a euphemism to describe the murder of a replicant, human authorities sidestep the issue of just how human the replicants are or if replicants are really just a name for slaves. The fact is, though, that replicants are such perfect reproductions of human beings that the humans need complex tests in order to identify the replicants. So if replicants are such perfect copies of human beings, why aren’t they human beings? Ridley Scott wanted to cloud the issue further by suggesting that Deckard was, ironically, a replicant as well in his movie version of the book, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Phillip K. Dick (in which Deckard is not a replicant). Though Scott’s idea is intriguing, I believe it eliminates part of the ethical question concerning the retirement of replicants, but Deckard’s job certainly fits the bill for a replicant job–distasteful and dangerous. If Roy Batty, the dangerous battle replicant that Deckard must retire, has so much super-human strength, why is Deckard so fallible and weak? Of course, if Deckard were a replicant designed to retire replicants, he would have to be programmed to believe that he was human in order to do his job. He would have to have an unlimited, or undetermined life span, he would have to believe that replicants were a threat to both himself, particularly, and humanity, generally, and he could not suspect for a moment that he himself is a replicant. Ergo he would have normal human strength, suggesting that Deckard is both human and replicant at once, blurring the line between human and replicant to the point where there is no difference between the two. The question of what constitutes a human being is in play as is the right of the government to determine life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the case of the replicants, or do the replicants have rights? All of these questions double back on the society which has created artificial humans, but obviously considers them to be less than human in spite of the fact that hardly anyone can tell the difference. Deckard can “pass” as human, though a suspect one. Deckard as a human understands that the matched euphemisms of “retiring replicants” does not mask the problem of killing humans, and he struggles mightily with doing his job precisely because his profession puts into question the slavery of the replicants, which pushes the existential question to the forefront–what are we all doing working for big government, big business, or big bureaucracy? In the end, I think the story works a little better if Deckard is human, but making him a replicant with an indeterminate termination date certainly is suggestive.

On vertigo

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Vertigo is a strange unbalanced sensation that makes you want to throw up. Climbing around spooky old Spanish castles and cathedrals, I’ve had my share of strange experiences, looking down from high stone keeps and creepy pigeon-infested bell towers, climbing weird spiral staircases, and crossing flimsy medieval catwalks. I didn’t understand poor Jimmy Stewart until I looked over the wall and into the moat from atop the main keep of the castle in Segovia–straight down almost two hundred feet. My palms get sweaty, my neck gets goosebumps, and something odd happens to my stomach. It’s not so much I’m afraid of heights, but I also hate walking on transparent floors which you can see through. I don’t mind flying, proof of which are my more than seventy trips to Europe in thirty years. Yet, looking over the edge from some high-up place–a rocky, mountain path with no railing, a glass elevator, a very high suspension bridge. Vertigo is more about how your brain is trying to deal with the imminent danger it seems to be perceiving. It’s almost as if your body is bailing out at the worst possible moment, just when you need strong legs and a clear head, both things seems fail. Seeing birds fly below your horizontal line of sight is unsettling and a little nerve-racking. I can’t watch high wire acts or trapeze artists, and rock climbers give me the heebie-jeebies. I have no idea why people try to climb vertical walls using only their hands and feet. Although I drive over freeway fly-overs, the bay bridge in Tampa gives me second thoughts. I once drove over it by accident. Sky-scrapers don’t give me second thoughts, but I won’t look down a stairwell from the twenty-seventh floor. Heights don’t paralyze me, don’t leave me speechless, but they leave me thinking. As long as I don’t have to look down into the abyss of empty space in front or below me, I am very happy with being up high. Vertigo, however, always catches me by surprise, robbing me of my courage. I know it’s totally irrational, but rationality has nothing to do with it. So don’t ask me to skydive, bungee jump off a bridge, repel down the side of building, or ride a scary roller-coaster that turns its victims upside-down. Perhaps my sense of self-preservation is too great for high-risk behaviors or dangerous hobbies. Vertigo is a physiological response, however, which is very real regardless of what provokes it. As a child I never liked the slides in parks, but I didn’t mind climbing the rope up to the top of the gymnasium, touching the iron ring on the ceiling, and coming back down, even though that climb was forty or fifty feet. Yet, looking off of a balcony into all that empty space between me and the floor makes me sweat. I suppose that rock climbers and hang gliders who have no fear of heights, no vertigo, won’t understand this strange feeling of utter helplessness and blind numbing fear. Yet, the vertigo that Jimmy Stewart feels in Hitchcock’s 1958 psychological thriller about dopplegangers and simulacra is very real, paralyzing, strange. So I avoid scaffolding, catwalks, multi-floored stairwells, glass elevators, transparent floors, high places with low railings, scary theme park rides, balconies, high suspension bridges. I just don’t know how the birds do it–having wings helps I assume.

On vertigo

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Vertigo is a strange unbalanced sensation that makes you want to throw up. Climbing around spooky old Spanish castles and cathedrals, I’ve had my share of strange experiences, looking down from high stone keeps and creepy pigeon-infested bell towers, climbing weird spiral staircases, and crossing flimsy medieval catwalks. I didn’t understand poor Jimmy Stewart until I looked over the wall and into the moat from atop the main keep of the castle in Segovia–straight down almost two hundred feet. My palms get sweaty, my neck gets goosebumps, and something odd happens to my stomach. It’s not so much I’m afraid of heights, but I also hate walking on transparent floors which you can see through. I don’t mind flying, proof of which are my more than seventy trips to Europe in thirty years. Yet, looking over the edge from some high-up place–a rocky, mountain path with no railing, a glass elevator, a very high suspension bridge. Vertigo is more about how your brain is trying to deal with the imminent danger it seems to be perceiving. It’s almost as if your body is bailing out at the worst possible moment, just when you need strong legs and a clear head, both things seems fail. Seeing birds fly below your horizontal line of sight is unsettling and a little nerve-racking. I can’t watch high wire acts or trapeze artists, and rock climbers give me the heebie-jeebies. I have no idea why people try to climb vertical walls using only their hands and feet. Although I drive over freeway fly-overs, the bay bridge in Tampa gives me second thoughts. I once drove over it by accident. Sky-scrapers don’t give me second thoughts, but I won’t look down a stairwell from the twenty-seventh floor. Heights don’t paralyze me, don’t leave me speechless, but they leave me thinking. As long as I don’t have to look down into the abyss of empty space in front or below me, I am very happy with being up high. Vertigo, however, always catches me by surprise, robbing me of my courage. I know it’s totally irrational, but rationality has nothing to do with it. So don’t ask me to skydive, bungee jump off a bridge, repel down the side of building, or ride a scary roller-coaster that turns its victims upside-down. Perhaps my sense of self-preservation is too great for high-risk behaviors or dangerous hobbies. Vertigo is a physiological response, however, which is very real regardless of what provokes it. As a child I never liked the slides in parks, but I didn’t mind climbing the rope up to the top of the gymnasium, touching the iron ring on the ceiling, and coming back down, even though that climb was forty or fifty feet. Yet, looking off of a balcony into all that empty space between me and the floor makes me sweat. I suppose that rock climbers and hang gliders who have no fear of heights, no vertigo, won’t understand this strange feeling of utter helplessness and blind numbing fear. Yet, the vertigo that Jimmy Stewart feels in Hitchcock’s 1958 psychological thriller about dopplegangers and simulacra is very real, paralyzing, strange. So I avoid scaffolding, catwalks, multi-floored stairwells, glass elevators, transparent floors, high places with low railings, scary theme park rides, balconies, high suspension bridges. I just don’t know how the birds do it–having wings helps I assume.

On the Borg

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Normally, I have few problems separating fiction from fact, fantasy from reality, and unlike Don Quixote, I can tell the difference between a windmill and a giant. Nevertheless, the first time I met the Borg, a race of half-human, half-machine cybernetic drones, I knew I was watching a cautionary tale about the dangers of digital mechanization, the incorporation of technology into the human body, and the uncontrolled growth of technology industries. The Borg, first seen in Star Trek: Next Generation, are a race of biological robots who are controlled by a single “collective”, which is code for eradicating, once and for all, the individual. The actors wear a series of mechanical appliances which are supposed to enhance their biological processes–better eyes, better ears, better hands, whatever, the mechanical parts are better than the biological equivalents. Of course, by eradicating the individual, the social interaction between the drones is less than zero, having been reduced to the social behavior of a colony of bees. The actors playing the drones all look pretty much alike, and their skin is gray, and their amour is black, further erasing the last vestiges of their humanity. The Borg are a kind of cross between undead zombies and Frankenstein’s monster with no will of their own, no thoughts of their own, not really alive or dead—more like machines that have on/off switches. Certainly, there is no personal initiative or ethical or moral codes controlling their behavior. They follow the orders of the “hive” without questioning anything. They don’t even interact with one another, which means they have no emotions, can show no empathy, can show no mercy. They are ideal killers. They are the ultimate consumers of technology as they assimilate the others’ cultures with which they come in contact. The Borg has only one concern: assimilate as many races as possible, adding the uniqueness and technology of each race to their own advantage in search of some sort of ideal perfection. Every time they assimilate a race, they also eradicate the unique identity of each victim, a sort of ethnic cleansing, as it were, to insure the idea that perfection does not lie with the individual, but only with the fascistic collective. Perfection, then, is about eliminating all that is unique or different and bending all of those cultures to some ultra-creepy ideology that is concerned with the pursuit of perfection. Why should we, as a people, be concerned about the Borg? Beyond the fact that they are creepy and dark villains, they are also a metaphor for our own society of consumers who are ruled by the collective marketing strategies of the technology companies who are dedicated to rolling out more and better technology to capture the consumer dollar. One of the side-effects of this technology race is a total lack of concern of what technology does to the people who use it. Can we actually say that computers, cell phones, tablets, and laptops make our lives that much better? In some ways, they do enhance communication, especially for those people who are on the go and hard to get a hold of. I like to have a phone in the car in case of emergencies, but I worry about the time people invest in social media and what that takes away from their relationships. I worry that the technology crushes individuality and creativity, that smart phones and tablets eliminate real face to face communication, that technology isolates the individual, repressing or eliminating real communication. Is the Borg collective our society turned on its head and taken to its last apocalyptic logical conclusion? The day it is possible to have a smart phone implanted into your head so you don’t have to worry about carrying it around or making sure it’s charged is the day we all need to take a good long look at what we are doing, but then again, by then, it may be too late.

On the Borg

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Normally, I have few problems separating fiction from fact, fantasy from reality, and unlike Don Quixote, I can tell the difference between a windmill and a giant. Nevertheless, the first time I met the Borg, a race of half-human, half-machine cybernetic drones, I knew I was watching a cautionary tale about the dangers of digital mechanization, the incorporation of technology into the human body, and the uncontrolled growth of technology industries. The Borg, first seen in Star Trek: Next Generation, are a race of biological robots who are controlled by a single “collective”, which is code for eradicating, once and for all, the individual. The actors wear a series of mechanical appliances which are supposed to enhance their biological processes–better eyes, better ears, better hands, whatever, the mechanical parts are better than the biological equivalents. Of course, by eradicating the individual, the social interaction between the drones is less than zero, having been reduced to the social behavior of a colony of bees. The actors playing the drones all look pretty much alike, and their skin is gray, and their amour is black, further erasing the last vestiges of their humanity. The Borg are a kind of cross between undead zombies and Frankenstein’s monster with no will of their own, no thoughts of their own, not really alive or dead—more like machines that have on/off switches. Certainly, there is no personal initiative or ethical or moral codes controlling their behavior. They follow the orders of the “hive” without questioning anything. They don’t even interact with one another, which means they have no emotions, can show no empathy, can show no mercy. They are ideal killers. They are the ultimate consumers of technology as they assimilate the others’ cultures with which they come in contact. The Borg has only one concern: assimilate as many races as possible, adding the uniqueness and technology of each race to their own advantage in search of some sort of ideal perfection. Every time they assimilate a race, they also eradicate the unique identity of each victim, a sort of ethnic cleansing, as it were, to insure the idea that perfection does not lie with the individual, but only with the fascistic collective. Perfection, then, is about eliminating all that is unique or different and bending all of those cultures to some ultra-creepy ideology that is concerned with the pursuit of perfection. Why should we, as a people, be concerned about the Borg? Beyond the fact that they are creepy and dark villains, they are also a metaphor for our own society of consumers who are ruled by the collective marketing strategies of the technology companies who are dedicated to rolling out more and better technology to capture the consumer dollar. One of the side-effects of this technology race is a total lack of concern of what technology does to the people who use it. Can we actually say that computers, cell phones, tablets, and laptops make our lives that much better? In some ways, they do enhance communication, especially for those people who are on the go and hard to get a hold of. I like to have a phone in the car in case of emergencies, but I worry about the time people invest in social media and what that takes away from their relationships. I worry that the technology crushes individuality and creativity, that smart phones and tablets eliminate real face to face communication, that technology isolates the individual, repressing or eliminating real communication. Is the Borg collective our society turned on its head and taken to its last apocalyptic logical conclusion? The day it is possible to have a smart phone implanted into your head so you don’t have to worry about carrying it around or making sure it’s charged is the day we all need to take a good long look at what we are doing, but then again, by then, it may be too late.

On translating

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Translating by definition is falsification and, ultimately, betrayal. Languages are not parallel so all translation is marked by what is lost, not by what is gained. All translators know this because it is their job to understand, interpret, and compromise as they switch a text or discourse from one language to another. There is no such thing as a literal translation, and all bilingual people understand this chasm between languages that cannot be bridged by translating. Translation is about changing a text is such a way that it might be understandable to people who don’t speak the original language. All translation is about loss. As I look at an English translation of Dante’s Inferno, I can only lament the loss of rhythm, sound, and rhyme. We get the “gist” of what Dante is saying about sin and shame, ego and pride, but his art as a poet is lost forever: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita. Translating and translation are about the translator turning a blind eye to the myriad and multiple meanings that cling to the original words and sacrificing the author’s creativity and originality so that the text might be accessible to others who fall outside the circle of the author’s language. Yet, translators prevail, get hired, and they do their jobs with little shame or humility. Translations are as ubiquitous as taxes and death. Could it be, all along, that translation is the world’s oldest profession? The problem, of course, is not translation, but the multiple languages the people of the world speak, that Tower of Babel from which we are doomed to inhabit forever. Yet, I am not in favor of making one language a required, dogmatic official language. The more common norm is for people to live in multilingual societies. Even today there are many areas of the world where people speak two, three, or even four languages according to the demands of the social situation. Being multilingual does not solve the problem of translation but it does eliminate the need for translation. If a person speaks Italian, reads Italian, then anything they experience in that language is self-explanatory even if the person’s first language might be German or French. Translation only occurs if the original language is a barrier to understanding the text, or conversation, or song. The only way to approach translation is to assume failure before you even start, and by assuming failure, the translator can only produce a new text which was inspired by the original. In a sense all texts are failed translations of other texts, and there exists no ur-text or Q manuscript which might have been original. Misreading, misunderstandings, ambiguity, mistakes, lacunae, accidents, double-entendre, obscurity, complexity, prejudice, bias, and misinterpretation all plague the translator who cannot avoid or evade his/her own human condition as imperfect translator. In the end, all translators must recognize their failure, ignore the imperfection of their work, and move forward to the next sentence with the understanding that failure is the best they can do. In a larger sense, this is the existential question of the human condition–translator as failure.

On translating

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Translating by definition is falsification and, ultimately, betrayal. Languages are not parallel so all translation is marked by what is lost, not by what is gained. All translators know this because it is their job to understand, interpret, and compromise as they switch a text or discourse from one language to another. There is no such thing as a literal translation, and all bilingual people understand this chasm between languages that cannot be bridged by translating. Translation is about changing a text is such a way that it might be understandable to people who don’t speak the original language. All translation is about loss. As I look at an English translation of Dante’s Inferno, I can only lament the loss of rhythm, sound, and rhyme. We get the “gist” of what Dante is saying about sin and shame, ego and pride, but his art as a poet is lost forever: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, / ché la diritta via era smarrita. Translating and translation are about the translator turning a blind eye to the myriad and multiple meanings that cling to the original words and sacrificing the author’s creativity and originality so that the text might be accessible to others who fall outside the circle of the author’s language. Yet, translators prevail, get hired, and they do their jobs with little shame or humility. Translations are as ubiquitous as taxes and death. Could it be, all along, that translation is the world’s oldest profession? The problem, of course, is not translation, but the multiple languages the people of the world speak, that Tower of Babel from which we are doomed to inhabit forever. Yet, I am not in favor of making one language a required, dogmatic official language. The more common norm is for people to live in multilingual societies. Even today there are many areas of the world where people speak two, three, or even four languages according to the demands of the social situation. Being multilingual does not solve the problem of translation but it does eliminate the need for translation. If a person speaks Italian, reads Italian, then anything they experience in that language is self-explanatory even if the person’s first language might be German or French. Translation only occurs if the original language is a barrier to understanding the text, or conversation, or song. The only way to approach translation is to assume failure before you even start, and by assuming failure, the translator can only produce a new text which was inspired by the original. In a sense all texts are failed translations of other texts, and there exists no ur-text or Q manuscript which might have been original. Misreading, misunderstandings, ambiguity, mistakes, lacunae, accidents, double-entendre, obscurity, complexity, prejudice, bias, and misinterpretation all plague the translator who cannot avoid or evade his/her own human condition as imperfect translator. In the end, all translators must recognize their failure, ignore the imperfection of their work, and move forward to the next sentence with the understanding that failure is the best they can do. In a larger sense, this is the existential question of the human condition–translator as failure.