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The Bullshit Master is in the house!

The Bullshit Master is in the house! published on No Comments on The Bullshit Master is in the house!

Is he casting an illusion to seduce people into thinking that the bullshit is true? Or might he be casting an enchantment to dispel the bullshit and show reality? Or maybe he’s just making a general commentary on anything that comes out of the current President’s mouth.

Continue reading The Bullshit Master is in the house!

Day 26: “No Goblin King yet.” Modern Wizard in the Labyrinth

Day 26: “No Goblin King yet.” Modern Wizard in the Labyrinth published on No Comments on Day 26: “No Goblin King yet.” Modern Wizard in the Labyrinth

My current temp assignment places me in the state’s largest office complex, as measured by square footage. Like the hospital where I once worked, the complex started as separate buildings, together forming an integrated plant for the manufacture of computer chips. Over the course of expansion, separate pieces of architecture merged into one convoluted maze. The company that originally filled these buildings now retains only a ghost of a presence; current primary tenants are another chip manufacturer that bought out the local division of the first and a division of the state’s Health Access Department, where I work.

I’m ostensibly here to do UAT testing, which in itself is its own recursion of absurdity, but, after several weeks, I’m now 86.2% certain that I’m in the Labyrinth. Here’s the evidence:

Everything looks the same. The sadistic genius who constructed this place started off with that thoroughly dank industrial style common to so many 1960s and 1970s office buildings: unadorned square forms the color of wet mud, cement walls, long rectangular windows impossible to open, raw metal pillars, endless corridors – all topped off with liberal use of jaundiced fluorescent lighting. After duplicating this style in several cubes, they then linked the cubes together with identical glass catwalks. I have walked around for fifteen minutes, expecting myself to be in one building, only to realize I’ve gone through three replications instead.

The landmarks aren’t landmarks. When I discovered that one of the glass catwalks had bird decals along its sides, I rejoiced, thinking I had found a way to differentiate it from all the other catwalks. But no. All the other catwalks have the exact same decals, in the exact same pattern, at the exact same positions. It’s like the place is working against me.

The arrows point the wrong way. There are signs pointing to two key locations, the cafeteria and the state offices. 95% of them actually show you which way to go, but 5% of them point you in precisely the opposite direction, just for shits and giggles. Of course I followed the 5%.

The maps show you where you aren’t. I came across a route for indoor walking that described a loop through several buildings. It showed a location where the route started, but there was no indication of where I was in relation to that starting point. What is the point of a map if there’s no basis for comparison?

The denizens have a sarcastic and scatological sense of humor. I saw a sign on a door that said, “We provide fast service…no matter how long it takes!” Also someone scribbled out the first word on the “Records Retention Room” label and wrote “Poop” instead.

Time runs differently here. You may have no idea where you are around here, but you’ll always know what time it is. Well, scratch that. You’ll always see a clock, as they hang throughout the halls at junctions both major and minor. You’ll probably never know what time it is, as each clock seems to preside over its own local time zone that varies from all contiguous ones anywhere between zero and ten minutes.

There are dangers untold and hardships unnumbered. To get to my office, for example, I must traverse the Fiery Corridor of Death, a catwalk in which the overcranked HVAC combines with exposure to natural sunlight to yield about 50 feet of heady, smothering heat. Then, of course, there are the Exits of Mockery, which means that the door most convenient to my car would sound a fire alarm if I opened it, so I have to circumvent it with a 10-minute walk in the opposite direction. And then there’s a Failure Analysis Lab, where, I assume, you are taunted with explicit details of all your past mistakes until you cry. Chilling.

I suppose that, if I solve the maze, I will escape and win a permanent job with decent pay and benefits. But what constitutes a solution? Should I be heading for the center? As far as I can tell, this place has no center. Should I be heading for an exit?

And who’s in charge of this thing? The Goblin King appears to be conspicuously absent, which I suppose is good because he’s an immature, petulant little shit. So should I be looking for Daedalus or perhaps Ariadne? Should I be on my guard for a Minotaur? Now that I think about it, I do hear a dull roar, but that could just be the air conditioning….

Girl, implicated: the child in the labyrinth in the fantastic

Girl, implicated: the child in the labyrinth in the fantastic published on No Comments on Girl, implicated: the child in the labyrinth in the fantastic

Greer Gilman, master of purple involuted mock-Jacobean epics, muses about one of my favorite themes. The girls who have adventures in labyrinths fare differently compared to the boys. [Also she has a bone to pick with Tehanu’s crabbed domesticity in Ursula Le Guin’s novel of the same name. So do I, Gilman. So do I.]

I like her observation that the girls [Ariadne, Alice, Eilonwy from — yack! — the endlessly irritating Book of Three, Arha/Tehanu, Sarah] find their ways out; they know where they’re going. Meanwhile, the boys [Theseus, the White Knight {?}, Taran, Sparrowhawk/Ged, Jareth] don’t; they get lost and bonk around aimlessly. They’re "clueless," Gilman says, which is to say without a clue…or without a clew, Ariadne’s map-like ball of thread that knows the way through the passages. ["Clue" as a hint of a guide derives from "clew" qua thread. I love etymology!]

So why do we only hear of the boys getting out and through the maze? Why don’t we ever hear of the girls who get to know their labyrinths and walk through the darkness, unafraid of Minotaurs?

Beats me. For some reason, Inanna’s descent to the otherworld ain’t considered as compelling. Why not???

Pfffffft.

Goin’ to read Moonwise again, even though it drives me up the wall.

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1673607.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.

Labyrinth news: novelization reissued with bonus material

Labyrinth news: novelization reissued with bonus material published on No Comments on Labyrinth news: novelization reissued with bonus material

Janna surprised me a few days ago with a hardcover reissue of A.C.H. Smith’s novelization of Labyrinth, [re]published at the end of April. This version contains the same novelization text as the original 1986 paperback, but omits the insert of color stills. It does, however, contain previously unpublished goblin drawings by Brian Froud, as well as pages from Jim Henson’s journals, in which he jotted notes about his original conception for Labyrinth in 1983.

I care nothing for the novelization, as it’s indifferently written, but the supplemental material intrigues me. I’m most interested in Jim Henson’s notes, which I haven’t cracked yet, except for a brief glance, during which I caught the phrase "Goblin King = death?" That made me think back to the afterword of the 20th anniversary edition of Brian Froud’s book of conceptual drawings, Goblins of Labyrinth, in which he envisions Jareth "with the worms of death eating through his armor." I haven’t been able to forget that image, so I’m curious to see how Henson wanted to develop it. I also wonder exactly which fairy tale Froud’s referring to.

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1644358.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.

Look who I found in the Daz store!

Look who I found in the Daz store! published on No Comments on Look who I found in the Daz store!

"Underground King for M4." Bulge-related morphs included, much to my amusement. Hair not included, much to my disappointment.

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1623152.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.

Chthonic Jareth

Chthonic Jareth published on No Comments on Chthonic Jareth

I love this piece of fan art, Evil King 2, by MarylinFill on DeviantArt. She accurately captures the menacing underworldly power that emanates from him when he first appears. Reminds me of the Major Arcanum the Magician. Also the kind of air I was trying to evoke with Timonium.

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1514116.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.

While I’m on that subject…

While I’m on that subject… published on No Comments on While I’m on that subject…

…I will put this in a new entry, so as not to detract from Sarah’s triumph. After Sarah says, "You have no power over me!" I just love David Bowie’s final facial expression. He looks wrung out, worn down and deflated.  He’s not angry at all, just disappointed and hopeless. He knew it was coming; he knew it a long time ago, all the way back in the ballroom in a bubble when Sarah wrenched herself from his arms and escaped. He knew it when she ran after Toby in the stair maze, instead of him. It’s the ineluctable trajectory: dude is goin’ down.

Continue reading While I’m on that subject…

“You have no power over me!”

“You have no power over me!” published on 2 Comments on “You have no power over me!”

Though generally not a fan of Jennifer Connelly’s one-note performance as Sarah in Labyrinth [where that one note = HUH???], I do love the way she delivers that line. She starts off reciting the little climactic speech from the play that she was struggling with in the beginning.

As she begins, you can see her speaking pro forma, mouthing the words because that’s the function of the Protagonist during a Showdown with the Antagonist. Staring into middle distance, not really at Jareth, she goes through the motions necessary to achieve the Climax…

…And then she stalls on "kingdom as great." While she’s wracking her brains, Jareth takes the opportunity to butt in with a truly ridiculous show of groveling: the "Do as I say, and I will be your slave" speech that has launched a thousand kinky OTPs.

Sarah continues to try to remember the next Step in the Formulaic Process, but then you can actually see the moment where she stops. She looks up at Jareth and really perceives him for the first time in that scene. You can see her realizing that, for all his bluster, he’s terrified of her. You can see her deciding that he’s no longer worth it. You can see that weight of terror lifting from her shoulders. You can see her confidence blooming as she looks straight into his eyes, standing up a little taller, even smiling a bit.

At that moment, she’s finally full of herself and her own power. You can see her pride and her hope and her determination when she states with calm finality and some amazement, "You have no power over me." Those words happen to be the Next Words in the Spell of Confrontation, but, more importantly, they are the words with which Sarah seizes her own agency after an entire movie of being a whiny, reactive, powerless girl. HURRAY!!!!

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1513353.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.

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