Glickenhaus’ The Astrologer (1975) and the search for the “hori-zon” in 70s movies, part 2 of 3.

rev Aug 29-30-31/ Sept 1, 2021.

Kate is then shown by the fireplace, as if forged by it, determined to make herself look as hot as possible, to be unrefusable this time, note, please, her unbra’d breasts pointing through

then she goes in for a big kiss, he gives it to her

but they immediately pass by each other

But then it is precisely because Kate’s role is so cryptic that it appeals to me. What IS she doing in the movie? What clues do we get that she is somehow part of all this?  We now come home, to see her having got all dressed up, and set up a dip in front of a painting of…a Black Sun,

there are also two interesting sculptures at her gateway, a head, maybe his, and a gate, hers, is she a gate?

she sits, nervously waiting to spring something on the hub

when he comes home, she is excited, eager to please, the fire is on, dinner in front of the fire, the whole bit, he is like “shit”,

then we see what I have called a spacey-hippie painting, with a sort of spiritual message, Hilma af Klimt, 1975, but for her, bespeaking her, it means that between hell and heaven she is the embodiment of the Black Sun, far sentience, this tells me for the first time that whatever it is about her that is causing this curious behavior between them, of which we only see the negative space, and are as confused as she is, it comes from far out in the darkness of the universe, it is a big, primal secret

then when he quickly says, no thanks, I’m exhausted, I’m going to bed, she is crestfallen, meaning that the picture, in picture play, speaks to her sudden depression, and being caught in a black out too, so an incursion of the Black Sun into their life

but then she regroups and tries again, comes in to the bedroom, saying we have to talk, he is untying himself, it seems that they have an impressionist still life at the foot of their bed,

and this time the rebuff comes with but a glimpse at a painting I very much wanted to see more of, but this is all we get, casting their marriage into a haunted place, like a country road in winter, ice cold, for some reason unspecified

on my rendering of this scene, redreaming it, her effaced self is expressed by the unshown picture, she is shown profiled by the empty road, as if to say that her breasts, exposed in cleavage here, are yearning to be touched

she then actually accosts him, begging him to fuck her, but he wont

when I redream these scenes, it is to work them out better so that the agency that is blocked can come out, but then she is upset so comes at him, but has to pass through the mirror

this struck me as odd, the arrangement of things around their bed

what this means is that she comes round from the Foot to the Side of the bed, and through a mis an abyme consisting of a mirror casting the primrose path of the other painting out into an eternal dimension, the end result of her accosting him will be that they lay perpendicular to the bed, across it, this is a demonic position in bedding, and usually the site of pornographic encounters, not love, for that reason, thinking ahead to the conclusion of how this might’ve gone in a more realist contemporary movie today, as why would there be any question if she is a virgin still, just give her the test, with a finger, so that bruteness means that as she comes through the nexus of emptiness and manipulation, she is possessed by a demon from Demon Lover (1975), which I watched in double feature with this yesterday, and it is by that demon,

like the demon-size familiar in Demon Lover

their entanglement or angel wrestling would involve a more brutal act, a finger to check if she was a virgin (cryptically, I will concede that all this reverberates off some non-movie memories, weird, as always that the formation is still in my mind). I will also mention at this point that even though she only made like three movies total, Monica Tidwell was known in 1975 still, no doubt, for her Playboy layout in 1973 (like the third time I have encountered this particular connection in the bowels of 70s horror), so she had showed herself off, and, it will be noticed, at 19, she was a redhead from Louisiana, who had what was called at the time, saddled with some legend of hotness based on color and stereotype of crazy redheads, a firecrotch,

which, though she had ample breasts, seemed to be her primary profile (the theory being that all pinups had one outstanding feature which was then by “gore” of form of the star-shape of the body put front and center and everything else conforms to it

then, too, a few years later, ending her acting career, she again played a strangely unreal prostitute

who strips nude for her client right there up close on the couch, side by side, only for them to attack him as a group, the ambient sleep demon attack shot

at which point in viewing time hurricane Ida wobbled east toward New Orleans

all of which indicates that in the spaz nature of the nexus between viewer and movie itself there is a gap as in the actual movie her plea, when he backs off, recoils only to the point where they have, she has known in advance, he told her, that there was an issue that needed to be worked out, and they are working on it, as indicated by the scene ending with a heart to heart on a bedspread that loozy whoosy oceanic, perhaps a foreshadow of their consummation at the end

so, she does have, in my view, a ”demonic” (peculiar psychodynamic) profile, but the movie kept things under wraps to make the ending a surprise.

There are other paintings in the offices and the offices are in a classic brutalist structure of the time, bespeaking the fear that institutional scientific life was getting carried away, and problematic, mad

when he has to go on another mission, spying on Kajerste, the charismatic one goes further with the theory, by what they learn exploring these templates we will be able to go into the mind and zap specific places to help those with them overcome disabilities, which, in fact, is happening.

the idea seems to be that if they identify the zodiacal profile of a person, they can then, since they know of the difference between it and others, enhance it by sending video and images directly into the mind, to change the profile, and this would be a practice way to exploit the fact that as he said earlier we have found the key to the mind, But, then, she has an interesting objection,

so far the human brain, if you zap the horion in it, to improve it, it reads those zaps not as reality, but as dreams, which means that its impulse would be to keep the results inside the head, as fantasy, and leave it at that, shortcircuting the attempt to use the profiles to improve human social life. So, a problem. This means that in the current state of sleep science in 1975 they were not yet aware of the fact that, in fact, if one has a REM Sleep disorder, and engages in a parasomiac routine, like getting up in the middle of the night to eat, see Hobson, that disorder would seem to be a gateway to enacting a profile change in lived life, if asleep. So, interesting, the point being it is searching for an ultimate solution, 70s style.

Nonetheless, and with this doubt, they go ahead with it. The first plan was to make a face mask of Kajerste then put an imposture in his place

but now it seems like Rahv has decided to go into the camp herself, the plan is to film a fake version of his effect on his followers, on videotape, to what end, I am not sure

then sneak into his camp late at night, and attach a censor or implant something, without waking Kajerste, gluing it to his head, so that it goes directly into his brain, I guess the idea is to reprogram him to not do what he does

so, basically, this is a form of dream manipulation? planting a sent dream directly into the head, to change his nature? she gets quite detailed, he will be tranquilized; the videotape, with the fake knife will be put directly into his brain, for him to act by it, he will then, upon next waking, confuse these events with the real events

that will cause him to be killed, I think. So, basically, this is a variation on mind control Manchurian Candidate style assassination, to end Kajerste’s reign of terror in India.

The problem is, she does not seem to know what Kajerste is really interested in, the child waiting to be born, that is, if Kate had a child, and she was the Virgin Mary reincarnate, in form of her ZP, then that child, it stands to reason, would be a kind of messiah, so there is a touch of The Omen series here too. But because she miscalculates what Kajerste’s mind is fixated on, it seems none of her hypnosis or arts work, he is awake

the figure on his forehead seems to be a Savoy demon figure, that is, his mind is trying to approach the state of Epigogy, when in a tingle he can see who the savior is, so I will call this, in passing, a Savoy Demon depiction of a frontal-effacing demon who lets his epagogic sense expand out past her reason to forsee any monstrous plan coming at him, so she is cooked quick, she gets the dagger and the poison, for real, dead.

it is unclear why all this is here, it might just be narrative fill, as happens in movies, or it could be an inversion of the pact that Alexei and Kate have made, to not have sex until he knows for sure if she is the virgin birther, I mean, clearly, the congressman wanted to fuck her, he is very attracted to her, he is lead down the primrose path, for her, doing it for her;but it ends up with him getting it too. So, cautionary version of the same, in between.

Then Rhav goes into Karjerste’s camp, in a midnight raid, an unexpected dimension of her character, the plan is to zap him with tranquilizer and then implant him with something so that they can control him, not vice versa, I think, unfortunately she is stabbed to death

there is also, we find out, some odd aspect in the bodies attacked by Kajerste, in the previously seen effort to impress himself onto them,

this obviously relates to the Achilles Heel, which resulted from a mother’s attempt to make her son immortal, by dipping him in Lethe, but having to keep hold of him by the heel (so, a form with something in common with extreme body magic)

It might also relate to the baculus viatoris, which Byzantine angels made use of for landing, to signify by the wobble of the landing that they are supernatural beings getting their bearing on natural earth

but then, we see that Alexei has a dream, he is maybe worrying about Rhav, and if it is going to go well, but it manifests in his mind, as worrying about Kate,

first he sees those feet of the corpse they examined today, the fact that Kajerste skewers his followers like ducks by a hunter on a hook accentuates his brutality

then he sees her in the camp, that is, this is Kajerste’s camp, but in dream form, and he envisions Kate being there, worrying him

and now she is the one who is nude with Kajerste, it is unclear. Upon first appearance nude, however, very briefly, Tidwell’s body struck me as unformed, and almost octopuslike in its fleshy excess, her breasts swinging,

he thinks back to the wrestling match they had, which continues to worry him, will she hang on til they find out, or will she, out of frustration, run off to him

he imagines, hearing her again beg him to make love to her, Kajerste doing the same, ceremonially

but, my demon formulation of the original wrestle wasn’t half off, he immediately superimposes over that a horrific image of a corpse bloating by floating in a river for a while, the breasts having hardened by rigor mortis into awful tumorous forms, so he imagines Kajerste’s touch of her as a touch of death,

then when she gets the body fusing experience, she is back in a gown but

except she is laughing, damn, so she is dead to me

but, then, in this dream, which is a pretty regular montage style dream, but with a not bad symbolic level glass onion formulation of thinking going on under it, it seems that unlike Rhav Alexei knows what Kajerste is really interested in, he sees the pose, with the white Savoy demon or angel representing the desired messiah for him to use as an antichrist on his forehead

and, surprisingly, because I did not see it the first time, nor would I have known what it meant, there is a flash, just one second, the child born, which Kajerste has mentioned

Now, I suppose to indicate the complexities involved in Alexei being in India, coming back in the rain, being told the correct date of Kajerste s birth, which by local knowledge confirms his evil ZP

and her being way back in NYC, she then returns to the card reader, but the card reader suspects that the young man who works for her is now working for Kajerste so tells her to never come back to her, it is no longer safe, a sort tenuous linkage to the plot (but notice, the threat of death given validity by a memorial aegis of two who died, the Kennedys

then Kate makes apologies for the young man, but the lamp over her head means she is acting blind, she does not know what’s up, that she would in any way be in jeopardy (I guess she would be, if they thought she knew where the child was),

then there’s a great sort of mind wipe shot, the sort of thing that says, this is NYC, in broad daylight, nothing is going to happen

looks to me like the Village

but then, and this part of the story is played with very slightly, the movie does slice its plot points thin, it seems that in fact upstate New York Karjerste has gathered about him a following, and she is kidnapped and driven up to a gathering, it looks like of evil hippies, shadow hippies, moonies, cultists, all the post-hippie post-60s washouts that characterized the times, she is a bit upset

but, then surprise, it turns out that Kajerste has, somehow, got from Delhi to Catskill, lickety split, he is there, in the USofA

at which point, the soothsayer sneaks in and stabs him

clearing the camp, somewhat confusedly, leaving Kate there alone, this also a bit montagey

at this point, Alexei is back, and we return to headquarters, a rather odd shot,

it is only at this point that we begin to see these strange paintings all over the headquarters. They seem to speak to the crisis of the moment. In this one, as it seems Alexei talks with the plant who brought Kate up to the camp? this one

it seems to represent the psychomachia for Kate’s soul going on at this point, she would be the sunflower figure on the left, the threat to her is on the right, what’s in the middle, as yet unclear (the child, a manifestation of the Savoy demon figure on Kajerste’s forehead. It does feel quite scirpographic, something like this. If the sleeps of Rhav and the congressman, and their mission, can be thought of as the first nightmare of the movie; then Alexei’s nightmare of worry about Kate, and it sort of being acted out, is the second nightmare, and seeing her nude in his control is seeing of the Umwelt of the story, that is, he understands she is his guiding star, but might still be the miracle ZPer virgin birther, then, the rainstorm is a script sign of the luor-orana, that is, the crossing over, Kajerste met in person by Kate is the encounter with TIND-TIRH, and that then sparks the turbulence (see previous post on Alien for more precise working out, the rising up in the turbulence of Savoy, to then introduce the arrival of the Epigogic demon, who oversees the monstrous place of sacrifice etc. Something like this

and I say “something like this” because I think Glickenhaus was at best operating by instinct almost unconsciously and since this inner psychodynamic progression was not nearly ready to be discerned, it was somehow picked out of the plot of the book, and given sight in a script of shorthand sequences, for the demons in progression here too to represent the passage. As a result, then, too, the paintings, whoever might’ve done them, and how out of it they were in 1977. we leap out into the crisis stage, I suppose the headquarters represents his movement to that stance, So that this painting

is a freeze frame version, that is, a rationalistic overcast, onto the psychodynamics that might be rumbling under it, to depict the psychomachia of the cenote, Kate displaced from fata morgana to the place of sacrifice, Kajerste precipitating as the cenote itself

and then the strange white form in the center

a precipitation of the white figure on Kajerste’s forehead

by way of Kate’s unawareness of the problem

and her appearing before him for real, the fear that raises

into the terrain of the place of sacrifice at the top of the cenote, which is why things are vacant here

and that is, his real target, which Rhav missed.

This whole trip up to rescue Kate is a bit confusing, but, again, I now argue that the images are meant to bring her in contact with Kajerste, but in a dreamlike way, to alert her to the danger, so, there is the path to danger, the road

then, next morning, it is all over, she is left sleeping in white on a bench

in abandoned camp, this is a dream image, her presence on the place of sacrifice, foreshadowing that the real interest is in her child

then the deus ex machina rescue

and reunited.

Here for decoration but as stage directing devices to move things along. Each shot we get of them sets up a step in a process, so this first view of a large painting set over a couch proposes that there has formed a vector of threat and that by a red slithering form from below, something demonic is afoot

there was another picture on the other side of the office, and the figure on the right seems to suggest a watching figure, with something going on

then we go back to the couch, and the major statement painting over it, and as the red demon form comes up there is, in fact, a central core or shaft, and it is blue, or in pain, but also, note, vaginal, so it is a symbol of the female, there is also a pink form, Kate’s body, or Kate’s child, spilling out of as if the womb of Kate, and then this purely symbolic as it were prelude to the conception of birth is added to by a figure on the right

which seems to be a Madonna figure, echoing on the Madonna in the card reader’s office

and so predicting, with the houseplant as warning, that the next phase of reincarnation is happening.

end of pt 2.

Glickenhaus’ The Astrologer (1975) and the search for the “hori-zon” in 70s movies, part 1 of 3.

rev Aug 29-30-31/ Sept 1, 2021.

with mention of cryptophasia and Caroline Kent; Hoare Albert and the Whale; Thomas Mann Doctor Faustus.

Apparently, James Glickenhaus thought this, his only movie, The Astrologer (1975), was a terrible movie, so happily let it disappear. Nor is this the Craig Denny cult lost film, The Astrologer (197SIX), but, here again, I have a different standard for judging things, and found a great deal of interest in this 70s movie. Once again, too, it sometimes happens that movies made by somewhat amateurish directors have a chance to let in some raw material from a time that more polished directors might block, so that is of interest too.

The first thing to consider here is that, once again, a 70s movie seeks to find an essence or truth that can solve the problems of earth, but in an all-or-nothing matter that in the end serves only to dissipate that force in the real culture outside the movie. That is, in the 70s, such explosive, or all-or-nothing constructs served to provide compensation forms for a culture quickly moving away from the 60s, if not demonizing it, and thus replace real activism with fictional hope in the context of a movie (the irony of this expansive pulse in movies being that it is the opposite trajectory from the recoil that brought forth from the ruins of modernist binaries postmodernism, a word I began to make use of as a undergrad at this time). This is another example. Here, the spy works for InterZod, which is a secret company funded by the US government, which crunches numbers on birth charts, or zodiac charts, to determine people’s zodiacal potential, in effect, the fingerprint of their potential in terms of in the future doing evil or good. Very much like the power to make dreams real in The Lathe of Heaven, then, this movie posits that one’s birth, and the alignment of the stars at that moment, interjects into one a personality potential to do either good or bad in the world. This is an extreme example of essentialism, 70s style, which I argue is in compensation for lost power on the streets and in the culture as a whole. A good part of the movie is based on the fact that they found that in 1949 a man was born in India with an appallingly negative chart, so much so they suspect he will become a terrorist and cause mayhem to mankind, so they try to locate him, Kajerste, and kill him. Fine, but much more interesting is an apparent subplot, which turns out to also be part of the spy’s work, and a project, and the flip side of the search for perfect potential.

Things start out with a sort of wink toward conspiracy theory, and the glamor of the belief that the true power in the world is secret, and happens behind the scenes where the strings are pulled. We enter in by way of some pictures of the men on the moon, 1969

we focus on the shield of the man on the moon

and then it closes in, this because in that conspiracy theory universe people have found things to dispute or wonder about in this inadvertent unintended picture, always a trope in conspiracy theory world

the movie has nothing to do with this, or the moon, but it is here to simply suggest that what is under discussion is likely just as incredible, and un-believable.

Then we are talking about a biblical prophecy

and we see a moon man as if dissolve in a kind of halo, wondering, the second coming, they say, is ten days away, who will it be? and we come in on Washington DC

I am not particularly interested in this part of the movie, but will pick up on it as I stroll through. More interesting, in terms of what I guess I have to call unintentional movie making, is that there is a subplot focused on Kate, the spy’s wife, who is struggling in her new marriage. We see her come by a tarot card reader

she has become so distraught, and therefore passive, that when the reader chastises her for giving her false information about her birth date and hour, she tells her to go behind the screen, take your clothes off, and then we try to get at the truth, and…she does.

This is an interesting shot, from behind the dressing screen (which is odd, it being there). On the right, Jesus, on the left, a kind of rug that was popular at the time, you can see one in Five Easy Pieces, which featured both JFK and RFK as the bookends of the 60s which are fading away fast.

I noted of this on a post, as it is shown better when the spy comes back to ask the reader what she was up to with his wife

indeed, one reason I might be reluctant to let Sirhan Sirhan go (it was in the news) go is that his part in history was epochal and era-changing, he changed to course of history, making the assassination a “prophetic” event

“He’s an old man now, I suppose, but still a twinge. He changed American history. What if? what if Bobby had defeated Nixon in 1968*? what if Nixon-Hoover hadn’t’ve declared war on the war at home? what if there was no Watergate? what if the neutralized old left hadn’t of stepped aside, exhausted, for southern centrist Democrats for the whole next generation? what if Edward Kennedy had not had to say farewell to his aspirations (“the dream will never die”) in 1980? what if the Reagan reaction had not happened? what if, forty years later, we were not still stuck in poison politics gridlock? WHAT IF? the man altered the course of American history, but go thee thither, fade away”.

The fact of this coincidence is extra-cinematic, and cultural, in the sense that it is part of a culture of the streaming time, which nonetheless somehow echoes a bespeaking of 2021, as in 1975. But it is also a hint that the reader takes her work very seriously, and her ethos is that one’s birth chart is important. She also seems to worship personages in history who maybe had terrific or troubling birth charts, case studies proving the importance of her craft. Since both Kennedys were killed, the bookending of that, making of them the martyrs of a time stolen of its what if? potential, is an icon which proves her point, destiny counts. As such, JFK and RFK each, and then together JFKRFK becomes as if a DNA strand, a counterpart to a birth chart, twinned, as if, to suggest an evil fate, which nonetheless bespeaks the fact that such a strand of omens or chart positions can become one’s destiny. Thus, this movie places the DNA strand of selfhood, in this case one’s birth chart, and what they call, crunching it numerically, as one’s “zodiacal potential,” is the key to one self, and in effect one’s soul. Still more importantly, they exploit it, as they take it from theory into practice, and the practice part is if they find a person with a truly terrible chart, predicting that this person will unleash chaos on the world, they will want to take him out; and, likewise, they want to find and cultivate those who have an excellent chart, as more of them, people with high positive potential, could save the world. Much in the manner of contemporary CRT, a theory is immediately applied to spying in an entirely spurious way, but nonetheless bespeaking the effect of 70s movies to take everything to its end. So, this is important.

The seer, who is Indian, has a Virgin Mary behind her, and that will factor in, in the final answer

we see a glimpse of nudity, Kate seems to have no problem stripping in the room with complete strangers, this sort of surprises one, and goes against the grain of her personality as she generally presents herself. Her one nipple is hard, however, indicating that she might be turned on by this, as again she is not having sex with her husband, that is why she is here

we also see, however, she is in the real world, so there is a peeper

then the movie blacks this out, to move on

to then give us a computer-style squareletter shift, too many of these.

This fade out is curious, somehow. The fade out picture could be construed as another type of picturing, we’ll see.

I also picked up, in second viewing, that Rhav has a middle name, Reborne, or “reborn’, (this is the only movie that Alison McCarthy appeared in, I quite like her, another little detail of uniqueness)

Next up, she gets her husband worried. First, he is surprised that she agreed to take off her clothes. Why he is so antsy about that, at this point, we do not know. Also, he is concerned that by protesting that the facts of her life were false, the reader risked giving away their secret, which we also do not know at this time. The distance between them, and that there is something going on that we or she does not know about, is indicated by a strange primitive celt statue set on the floor between them.

In fact, it is a modern statue, my guess, and since it is a nude it is a sign indicating that he cant believe she got naked for a stranger, or outside of the house, that he would be interested in that, but, for some reason, he can’t be, and it also could serve as a Woman at the Fountain statue to bespeak the darker potential of her sexuality, which goes beyond the confines of the marriage as it is currently playing out, unconsummated.

In Pretty Maids All in a Row, the book, I found a good deal of strange verbiage describing the influence that being close to women had on men, in the words of the time. Pollini talks of the “warm form” of the woman, and her form in general, and that the form emits an energy, which has a sexual element, but is really a life force, a general charisma that makes one want to be around them. In the language of film this is not objectification, but it is figuralization, that is, she is seen here not as a real woman but as a figure of a sense epitomized by the statue and thus more a spirit, a dream guide, a dream figure, put in the movie to movie things here or there, without the complications of her real humanity. In this scene, it appears that Kate is this kind of figure.

The same thing happens in the next sequence. A congressman meets the spy and then is invited by him back to their private jet flying to Washington DC immediately. At this point, aboard, they meet a colleague, a very pretty and vivacious woman, Rhav, who also seems to have a charisma that outsizes her actual role in the movie. She has about her a love at first sight aspect. As such, she too is a figure, a dream guide, and not “real” in the movie. That is what accounts for the effusion of her aura off screen to the viewer. And her charisma is expressed even if all buttoned up, and completely professional. She cannot help it, because she is not “real.”

though it is amusing that when she retreats to the bedroom, and it is dormitory style, she has no trouble stripping and being found later by the congressman all spread out, deepening his smitten state.

Kate is also repeatedly made to feel marginal and not real by not being entirely filled in on what is going on. The host at this invitation to dinner, which is quaint, is unaware that she is not in the know, so when he talks of the zodiacal potential chart of the Virgin Mary, when Kate goes to the restroom, he has to be scolded, he said too much

The reference to the Virgin Mary is curious, he sounds like a mad science, if he thinks he can somehow capture that profile again. The science gets weirder at the office. Not only do they crunch the numbers and learn the zodiacal potential profile of every human being on planet earth, but they also isolate those which are outside the norm, evil or good, and those they seek out in practice to exploit. He sees this ZP graph as a sort of DNA string, the essence of a person, a key which they can eavesdrop on and exploit. The idea is reinforced by a strange picture on the office wall, in an office, some office art, in the shot

it is a variant on Durer’s Adam and Eve, a picture of the origin of human life, but of two women.

It is also strange that Kajerste practices a kind of sex magic by firepit, and what he does is pose as the Renaissance man, then ask the subject, here a woman, to strip and stand before him, point to point

and then it is as if he has “intercourse” with her by means of a kind of spirit formation of paralleling of bodies as he presses her over, we never see her breasts

and with sighting of a severed head, I think, on a post, this must entail some method of transferring of his power to her, to make her an acolyte

and then it goes black out

it strikes me as yet another example of body magic involving twisties, that is, like the extreme crucifix made by witches to be swum tying big toes to thumbs opposite handedly, that the being an extreme full-body sign of the cross, all over apotropaia, I call this extreme body magic

it could also be construed as an example of the three-stars of Orion’s belt translated into the ZP symbol

but as they are practicing 70s not 60s mad science, they have lost faith that a progeny of man and woman can result in a high zodiacal potential, in fact, almost in the manner of a neo-eugenicist, he says that most people have very average profiles and no wonder they just fade into the woodwork. What he is interested in, what makes this science fundable, is that they are looking for the zodiacally privileged

this chart then exists like a key to the self, or a type of self, he says that it is incredible important that they can look into souls, by this methodology.

these prototypes, he actually calls them, can be learned and reproduced and improve the human race because they have the models

it is therefore strongly implied that normal birthed people born of man and woman are not going to have high profiles. Therefore, a purer type of sex is needed, to produce with greater average these privileged. Though we are going to find out that the means to create the absolute most privileged forms is an extrema example of parthenogenesis, unpolluted by the randomness of sexual reproduction (just like in The Wicker Man, a small culture mad for breeding), so here (in the picture) lesbianism would be seen in the 70s as an almost supernatural means of sex, which could serve to host a kind of parthenogenesis, no? We have seen (Vampire Ecstasy), that, indeed, lesbianism, yet considered a perversion at the time, was nonetheless attracting to it a rhetoric which declared it to be transcendent. It is all but pictured as supernatural. So, in an office, this is an intercessional wish picture, pointing the way to where they will have to go with this.

Again, movies scores points with one, based on current interest. Deep summer has surprised me this year, by spilling out into days after. Indeed, for fun, I have let a certain rhetoric of essence inhabit my dream theory. I argue that if you are suspended in a state of Syngogy, as a result of a second nightmare in the Eldritch formation, that second dream will entail searching for a series of breadcrumbs all of which add up to one’s “Umwelt” (Uexhull’s term), or DNA, on the basis, then, of bringing that telesmatic discovery back to consciousness, to live in a state of “white album”. I do not believe this, technically, but poetically, in dreams. Also, my interest in the sweet spot which all artists, abled or disabled, must find, from which to generate flow and power as artists, is the practical outcome of theory. This IS on my mind, as indicated in my comments on Niki de St Phalle.

I had this idea with Senga Nengudi as well, a show she did recently at the museum level. I thought it would be better served with a progressively bootstrapped presentation, in a corridor or tunnel, released bit by bit as a series of breadcrumbs, that is, as an Umwelt. Here I call this sweet spot the perischoinismus, a roped off place, often of a lightning strike, then it is also, as per my recent treatment, a “hor-izon”, a good binding. It is also my belief that disabled artists end up working in a strictly controlled binding or hor-izon in order to enhance the possibility of them operating out of that sweet spot. So, his rhetoric echoes of the moment, the belief that one’s star chart is all but DNA, deterministically then expressed in the world, and that then exploited in a suspect practice.

For my cult, of course, that Umwelt would have to be part of my being as a sequitur, second born twin. And so I was surprised again, WHILE WATCHING THIS MOVIE, to find mention of Caroline Kent at MCA, and that she paints abstractions and sets them in milieu or incubative spaces in ways to enhance cryptophasic communication, because she is an identical twin. It would follow that for an identical twin, one’s Umwelt, or hor-ion, the special formula or equation that is one’s sweet spot, would have to be framed by twinship, and then involve cryptophasia. It then surprised me when making a quick post on her work, some other thoughts occurred to me.

Text, “Excitingly strange doings as Caroline Kent at MCA Chicago expands the scenographic to explore cryptophasic communication between identical twins. Another identical twin artist! three things wow this younger identical twin: I think I’ve been intrigued by her sculptures before, but here I see they function as what I call Cassandra statues, palladial warnings maybe unlistened too; in Victoria/Veronica not here but in 2020 show the presence of houseplants as whisper forms makes me wonder if my houseplant trope fascination have something to do with my position cryptophasically and a twin thing; I have NEVER seen a painting talk to and sotto voce through the wall it’s on before like this, ever, so have to work that out. I can’t tell if Kent is the older or younger so at present I assume she’s just trying to grasp the overall wyrd doubleness of crypto communication, which has always confused outside observers, we don’t seem to communicate at all but everything that needs to be said is, sort of. Up to April, 2022”.

“The green is at MCA, Chicago, others, Victoria/Veronica, is from 2020 (personal response, could my obsession with the “true image” (veron icon) be a twin thing? And my ongoing parsing of all the ways between the gates of horn (truth) and ivory (deception) dream statues communicate too? (Kent’s use of the word “shorthand” also reminds me, unthought of in years, I was so fascinated by my mother knowing secretarial shorthand, which I assume is obsolete now, that as a teen I taught myself how to do it. So, for these, I think I’ve been intrigued by her sculptures before, but here I see they function as what I call Cassandra statues, palladial warnings maybe unlistened too; it looks to me like her sculptures are like herms, which negotiate the crypto communication”,

is, in fact, my interest in Houseplants, and alibi formations in general, a twin thing? That is, does my sensitivity to them indicate my need to understand their unspoken communication. Is it a special sequitur skill to be able to read tropes? Certainly, my bespeaking movies, that is, other people’s work, and ferreting out by tea leaf reading hidden tacit meaning of them IS a sequitur skill. In the same way, when she mentions Veronica, is my need to map out where all these types of statues vis a vis truth are located, in a chain of “translatio” from the veron icon, to multiple copies of it, then the cultus developing, is my drive to map this out ALSO a twin thing? that is, a need to be able to interpret unspoken communication. This strongly suggests, for now, that it is in sequitur-POV cryptophasia that my ho-rion lies, and where also lies the Orion’s belt of my deepest inosculation.

I mention often the scene in Constantine (2005). So, her cryptophasia was letters fingered transparently on blown breath spots on windows. Mine would be, I have decided, the secret meanings embedded in maps, based on the game we used to play with those, then. So, for example, a map

I would then leave a message to him, by way of playing the war game, something like this,

then in a progressive map, as the next action took place, and THERE, in the battle results, I would hide a bit of information, whatever it might be (in fact I do not have much in the way of this mental capacity anymore), and that would be a clue, leading to a place, that would go on and so and on, and  THAT would map out, in the medium of our cryptophasia, my message from beyond. or something like this

Thus, an Umwelt is recorded and used to convey messages. And that cryptophasic sequitur communication would be the hor-ion of my soul and deepest truth. Then, however, getting back to the movie, we see a strange crypto form, in a painting, apparently

the image had an uncanny quality as it seemed to relate to an image in a book I was reading in the time, the geometric form in Durer’s Melancholia, this from Hoare, as the image was made use of on the original cover of Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus

and he argues that the form on the cover is the geometric device in Melancholia

with the elements of the riddle, hourglass, scales and musical notes fed in, like this

meaning that this image is a transposed involution of the above

containing in it, fate, harmony and justice, it strikes me that whoever designed the cover thought that the “building” behind the paralyzed angel is in fact the roving Rosicrucian college, not a building, but an allegorical vehicle trundling across the land of Germany

with an occult meaning. And, then, too, with three elements, all of it then transposed to a geometric star form, this is also a transposition of my concept of the horion or Umwelt or Orions’ Belt of one’s go-to signature dream form, or found of creativity in one, as noted yesterday, so, stunningly weird synchoretherrhoe coincidence.

But, now, in addition to the theory of the hor-ion, and cryptophasic communication, brings me back to the strange and unique form in Kent’s show at MCA in Chicago, which I at present have no answer to

The reality of a spirit depth to this form, of course, dismissed in a hyperallergic review by the singleton who thinks his wonderful soul is all that is required to get to the meaning of things. And following from the scene in Constantine (2005) that there is, indeed, one medium of communication by which identical twins cryptophasically speak to each other (in Weisz’s case it was finger writing on the blown breath on windows, as noted) but for me I would guess it is the Map Game we played at, which means that if I left behind a message from the grave in a cryptophasic form it would have to be some sort of progressive symbolization by way of pareidola seen in steps in conquest on a certain map, that he would relate to, something like this (though I do not have a meaning now).

More proof supporting the notion that a drawing game could lead to a style of drawing, with an element of cryptophasia from the artist Kim Jones.

In other words, Jones played a drawing game in his childhood, as did I and my brother; but, then, he developed a simple system of xs and o’s into a drawing style; which would mean that in order to recover the cryptophasia of the game I would have to go back, look at the language of marks or signs made use of in old maps of that sort, from the World Book, and then abstract and recreate them, as marks as the basis of drawings. The question is, then, are Kent’s abstract forms also derived from a cryptophasic medium origin).

hen, too, the above (the Faustus cover) is a star, but not entirely, it might also be a dreidel, no?

so, the fact that all this relates to this form, in the prologue

spun out from the face of the man in the moon, then did take an ultimate form in the movie, the maximum positive zodiacal profile

More evidence that as the 70s pulled away from 60s the popular culture began to abreact despair by displacing real hope into fictional fantasies of instant totalist solutions, after watching The Astrologer (1975) in which secret organization seeks a eugenics magic bullet to building better humans and Alexei finds out from crunching birth chart-based “zodiacal profiles” data of everyone that the “maximum positive profile,” ie, perfect human prototype, appeared only twice in history, once, in the first century for a girl who would become Mary, BVM herself, and, then, a second time, in 1953 (yes, 1953! my heart skipped a beat) which leads to one of the most curious performances of the decade by one-movie-only 1973 Playboy Model Monica Tidwell* who is utterly miffed why Alexei won’t touch her but then later when they figure it out has one of the most joyful happily naked nude scenes in all of 70s indie movies!

which may be explained in the book, to be continued

and then it all bears upon Tidwell’s performance, here effaced as the ghostly road in the painting, perhaps bespeaking the mystery about her hymen

it all relates, strangely. So, right as I am watching yet another 70s movie interested in discovering a magical theriac to solve all earth’s problems, I am converging on playing with similar ideas, this adds greatly to my viewing.

Then, after Alexei gives the congressman the talk, of the privileged few

the telescope opens up, I guess it was once used to read the stars at certain star chart moments to identify who is among the elite, and thus a certain ethos of catasterism here, meaning that the special ones are also enshrined in the stars

but then this dissolves into Kate, at home, preparing for Alexei to come home. This identifies her, in the subtext, as the one with the MPP profile, strange shot with her illuminated by the opening in the observatory

end of pt. 1,

David Altmejd and the witches of hell frozen over, David Kordansky, June, 2021, pt. 2 of 2.

rev., Jun 3-4, 2021.

Disclaimer: As I only see art virtually now, this is a thought piece and not a review.

When, when you come to the demon, approach is cautious. I believe that Altmejd or gallery staff decided to include details in the slideshow, to create the effect of an approach, and surprise, with Unicorn, this shot lets us imagine that approach from behind it, a common horror movie ploy, is plausible

then one comes around and there is something decidedly off about the head, it has become detached

but then one swings around the front, and the shocker, a full skull opening, yawning wide

this is a common play in horror. Later on, in The Unborn (2007), when Casey dreams of the footage from a mysterious film of her mother’s asylum, she comes through the guardians at the gate

to then see her mother, sitting alone, of course, in a bay, of course, and by at least three, of course, curtained, of course, windows, lost to consciousness and the world.

apprehensively she circles around

and when she gets there, she springs the trap, the maw of the dead mother opens up wide

she spills a fetus out of her (her second born twin brother Jumby)

 waking her up, to then see from her window, seemingly awake, but haunted awake

the psychopomp

indeed, it is the second, syngogic dream in a three-dream formation that usually involves nightmares of a more roaming sort, but mainly to visit the demons, and encounter them one way or another. This is nicely played out, for example, in The Nun (2018). In this movie, the formation is split, or externalized, to others, so it is Fr. Burke who dreams the first haunting. This ends him up stuck buried alive in a grave in the graveyard down the hill. It is left to Sister to hear him scream, and come looking. I remarked upon first analysis how strange it is, she walking in classic shots of gown prowl through the castle, but this is how this dream goes

then she comes upon a group of nuns apparently praying in the middle of the night, a real event,

but then it turns out it is a haunting, the demon-ghost does a walk around the perimeter of the room, the nuns gone

and then shows up as “real” in the mirror

and from in there, attacks her.

this then chases her out, down the hill, into the cemetery to find Fr Burke

but she only senses him because, set up by the prowl, and then the haunting, she has one of her episodes, a dizzy-vision attack, it distorts her face, the view

and she then digs him out, just barely

thus, this second level is the place one meets the demons, and by negotiating them you decide whether it is dream or life, but it is actually, simultaneously, both. For that reason, I place these three figures, Troll, Smoking with Onself, and The Unicorn, as encounters by way of the Green Eye of a second dreamer prowling the perimeters of one’s Umwelt, to then come upon TIND-TIRH, and live in a state uncertain if this is a dream, or really happening. It sets up the steps to the final level.

In this regard, though I think it slightly misplaced in the slideshow sequence, I consider Splitting Smurf to, in fact, be an image of the daimon overseeing frozen hell. As noted, in the third dream in an eldritch formation, one now thinks one is awake, and walking out of dream. But, in fact, you are still in a state of sleep paralysis, or dysmetropsia. Neither  require drugs. I experienced both elements in episodes in my twenties, as I have mentioned umpteen times. The core, and optimal, experience here is ophthchthony, that is, seeing down through the darkness to the truth shot. But, of course, it never always goes according to plan, so there are splats, leaps, bounce outs and the like here too. All elements of this phase I locate in epigogy, previously called opistogogy, because it happens behind the eyes, either through Heaven’s or Tannhauser Gate. On the intraphase vigilogogic level, this is where, if you are in pain, or in and out of consciousness, of undergoing a proning for covid, this is likely where one sees CEVs, as I noted in my response to the covid-suffered drawings by Jennifer Coates, opening tonight.

If, however, the dysmetropsia of it (and the Nun had her dysmetropsic episode, to allow her to see the darkness), you are bounced out through the gates, behind the eyes, into the ambient-epiogigic space, where I have spent so much time of late exploring. This is the zone of monsters, or extravagant imaginings, or wide spins, and deep rrhexient spins and dives, a deeply vertical space. Blake placed Antaeus at the gate, lifting Dante down

I place Altmejd’s Splitting Smurf

the difference being that while Antaeus was up top lifting Dante down to the place of sacrifice, or of the exhomophage figure, at the top of the cenote, Splitting Smurf sits below in Zudecca and his whole being, if not here a giant (perhaps some day), encompasses the entire ambient terrain, as graphed out in a scirpograph

he has four eyes because he has moved through the Tannhauser Gate, to Heaven’s Gate, he sees truth and lies. He sees consciousness, and vigilogogy-hypnagogy, syngogy and epigogy, he sees the core of mind, the adjunct spaces, the ambient and the sentient, he sees all. His pineal gland third eye is slowly splitting open, at present it looks vulvalike, he has no nose, his hands are raised in hear no evil, speak no evil, etc pose, to indicate a transmutation of sense to another level, to the seeing of the unseen, or the monstrous

he gazes at his hands because, like Antaeus, these are what he uses to manage the passage of dreamers in this zone, he has doubts if he can do it

the back of his head still shows last lingering signs of having once been consumed by the green slime of the Trump years, but now the “ice” of blue has formed all about him, making him more steady.

Altmejd has his own details, his face, from behind, looks like a mask, the back of his neck is marked SPLIT, indicating he might be a store dummy, momentarily invested with power

Altmejd might also see him as a bureacrat transformed, his pencils, used for test-taking, or the filling out of forms, at the side, his body in fact more like a tabletop sculpture stance, not a human body.

but he signifies, to me, crossing over into the deep spin, and into the cenote, a totally different state of imagination, way, way out and down, as as been indicated by my treatment of the”hell on earth” trope in Mandy, and other movies, and my treatment of the monsters and hallucinations in the Amityville movies, particularly 2 and 3. But the key development that came to me, in fact, right as I saw this, is that hell on earth is frozen by frozen hell, which may or may not be a good thing. The phrase, we wont see that til hell freezes over means it will be a long time, my hope is now is the time of hell freezes over, perhaps

it follows, in my reading, that other quartzite works could be construed as figures carved out of the cenote, and, as such, effulgies, or effulgence sculptures, based on a freezing of the negative space of the cenote and all of its spins, I have mentioned the monsters coming up out of the cenote as pictured in that movie

and that and that this hellhole, the very picture of the vertiginous spin down the cenote, a peripteral phantom version of the central core of consciousness in hypnagogy

resulted in a splash of water, and then a freeze, freezing the negative space as an effulgy

then that blast up through the house

to freeze the radiators

cause freezing chandeliers to fall

and even send the sailfish flying

so all of the quarzite bespeaks the same position, subordinate to the oversight of Smurf.

this effect also bounces off of the Troll,  but, again, I do not hold artists to my graphs

but, for me, and I think Splitting Smurf and The Unicorn ought to have been switched in position, Smurf is the presiding god of day

to then allow the final event, the Enlightment of the Witch, takes place in the place of sacrifice, atop the cenote, the deep fall into the deep brain, and she truly is taken apart and lifted up in a way to transcend every sheela na gig or google pic of childbirth, an effusive all-open being

The first thing you notice is that while her head and legs seem to have been generated by a kaleidopscic split, splitting her in half, but opening her up, her whole central belly as if rises up from inside her, as a second belly within belly, to then, all of it tattooed with safety sigils, give birth

The witch’s arms are behind, hold herself up, but then there are the arms of this other body on or in her, which is also being, like a placenta, birthed, opened up, and then shed like a snake skin. The head is literally a Rmmr graph of a force from below surging up through the cenote’ created by a splitting head, to open up to a new god, floating above even the place of the sacrifice, and a floating eye. This is then the witch of Frozen Hell Realized, doubts overcome

Her hands, her fingers, like in the Haunting of Hell House, Tanner’s fingers, surge with ectoplasmic visible energy

her tattooed, painted, four-breasted, and open-wombed body gives all but easy birth

with a hint of Grace Jones in her

and spread wide too

plus the polymastica goddess

and the baby crowning, amazingly, still

sent on his way, with a magic path, provided by tattoo

as if Nilotic apotropaic birth tattoos, to ensure a good birth (because they knew nothing else about it)

with Bes, of course, tattooed all over even the birthing stone

and Altmejd, of course, exploring these interiors in this way, in his own way, imagines the legs turned to wood but having to be lifted by fairies, almost out of Disney

is it “ok” for a male artist to give voice to the process of birth in a symbolic way? To the rationalists, whose intersections exist it appears only to put up barriers at, no; but a maternal universe is lived in by both men and woman, all humans are “born of woman,” it is only the spirit of it, the atmosphere, the general tenor of things which is so much less damn male egotism, that makes it advantageous. Men as well as woman worshipped the goddess, the goddess did not reign only in cult over amazons in separatist nations. Also, Freud’s argument that the birthing process for all gendered babies, the tension of resistance and curiosity, pushing and pulling one at one (which Corman used as a dramatic push-pull of his corridor crawls, changing the nature of the trope forever), allows for even the male to imagine what might the influence of that birthing be on his subsequent life. In my case, with an extraordinary birth, that is, I was a second born twin, and waited eight minutes in a womb that had already expelled one baby, I see the birthing experience as quite a bit more traumatic, fitting even for a subgenre birthing horror movie, of which there are many. For all this reason, and mostly because it is NOT rational, I am fine with Altmejd giving to the sacrifice place in epigogy the power of an enlightened witch (the opposite of the Blue Witch who has pursued me). I also take this Enlightenment of the Witch, at a time when the June Witches are invoked,  the day of the Vorhees Vortex, and Midsummer (for which I read Ritual (1967) this year), coming up, this signifies a complete release to living in frozen hell, that is, all the horrors of hell on earth faced up to, but put at bay by the power of the imagination. All in all, then, Altmejd’s work, which I have responded to with cultic affection since I saw a werewolf swipe in the wall at Andrea Rosen so many years ago, bespeaks a moment in time, as the USofA comes out of covid, hopefully to help the world beat it too.

Enlightenment, in this case, equals the white album state. That state is not easy to reach. You have to experience second-stage syngogic dreaming, and prowl out one’s dream path in hypnagogic space; you have to then encounter TIND-TIRH, him to then flip it up to then pass on that knowledge to the final phase of ophthchony, seeing through the darkness to the truth. But if that eye bounces out and thus out to the epigogic if it carries the wisdom of the Umwelt up out into conscious life fighting dragons, and that algorithm, as it were, that pathway, directs one with confidence in the world, in dealing with the treacherous monstrosities, that is living in the white album. I discerned the three-dream Eldritch formation in summer, 2018, when I unlocked the mysteries of movie hypnagogy; during lockdown, I found the psychomachia of the Corposant placed in it, and worked that out. That made me think that dream paths peculiar to oneself, as in my reading of Bosch’s Garden, could be one’s soul. By incipient impulses but then finally with my study of the Amityville movies, I decided that syngogy was a separate state of mind, and then through either the Heaven’s or Tannhauser Gates lead to the epigogic realm of monsters, including the cenote dropping deep into the brain, where hell on earth lies. And, finally, coming out of lockdown, I argue that Zudecca, frozen hell, can be a state which, aware of hell on earth, keeps it at bay by living in full agency and power of the white album, one’s dreampath made conscious in life, to lead one to afterlife existence too. It strikes me as somewhat uncanny, then, Altmejd shows up for me precisely at the right moment, when I ponder how or if, against the odds of my impairments, there is life after covid lockdown.