Interrogating Ideology With A Chainsaw

What do the people gain if their very condition of civil tranquility is one of hardship? This is peace in dungeons but is that enough to make dungeons desirable? To speak of man giving himself in return for nothing is so to speak absurd, unthinkable; such an action would be illegitimate, void, if only because no one who did it would be in his right mind. To say the same of a whole people is to conjure up a nation of lunatics; and right cannot rest on madness. - Rousseau  Why would the seemingly ordinary man choose to renounce his former self and commit to savagery? If we are to follow Rousseau, beneath the thin veneer of societies social contracts lies humanities true nature. A nature rich with violence, chaos and a war on all to acquire substance. We are only freed from this savagery by the often arbitrary but mostly utilitarian social agreements between people. Over time this grew from small communities to large cityscapes kept in check by an enforcement of societal contracts throu…

Little Cthulhu has had quite a crazy year. A strange human boxed up all her toys put her in a box and drove her across the world. It snows every day, but at least I am well fed! Check out some of Cthulhu's greatest photos from 2017.

Trash Fire centers around a couple and an impossibility fulfillment. On first look, it may appear that Owen and Isabel's relationship is flawed due to incompatibility. Competing expectations about what it means to be in a relationship. Or some conscious decision to avoid empathizing. But I argue that there is something else going on. That the pair shows an intentionality which targets the other's expectations and perceived flaws. A kind of evil badgering that maintains continuity.
Isabel, you voiced a concern about Owen's drinking. - Do you still have an issue with that? - BOTH: No. Because I told him I'd cut his dick off, and he knew that, and I meant it. She did tell me she'd cut off my dick... ...and I did know it, but I wasn't particularly concerned on account... ...of the fact that I don't use it for much except pissing. In fact, I'd love to see it go... ...because all I do is look at it every day and it reminds me of better times. Now when I brough…

I think this is the right point in my life to move on. I've been harboring old demons and allowing them to crush my mood. 

I am having a problem today. I feel self-conscious about writing to the point that I feel stuck. In this post, I am going to gather what I've learned about watching a movie like a philosopher. In hopes that, I will find a new path. Fostering my inspiration has become tricky. I am overcome with thoughts that I am not reading enough to write. But I am reading. Maybe I'm not reading enough of the right books. Something to rattle me, and knock loose some creativity. Other times I feel like my biggest problem is making the time to write. Over the years, I've planned and schemed to try and find the best method keep the content flowing but nothing has worked for very long. I start, I stop and I start again. I'd like to try a new angle because I think there may be something wrong that is unrelated to my intellectual prep work but in the way, I am watching movies.


1. Make a decision
Problem: One of the more nauseating and seemingly simple obstacles to watching a movie is picking…

Resident Evil is a missed opportunity. For those of you who grew up playing the games on that little gray PlayStation, you know what I'm talking about. The awe the first time the zombie turned its head and shambled towards you. The fright when the dogs jumped through the window and you frantically tried to shoot the little fuckers as they ran circles around you. The puzzle of the mansion. The labyrinth of raccoon city and the police station. The gleeful satisfaction of finally finding a way to open a door you've passed by for hours. Resident Evil at its core was about exploration, the threat of death and restarting from a safe, and persevering the puzzle with limited resources. These tropes became quickly became solidified as Survival Horror.  The films, on the other hand, took a different path. All style and no content. The moment, lost faith was the moment when the horrors became set pieces for bullet ballet. A celebration of the superficial. I'd argue that the films bo…

I have a vivid image in my mind of the first image that scared me. A little girl shambling towards the camera. A white nightgown contrasted against blood. At the time I was under ten and was flipping between channels. News, sports, sitcoms and a zombie pacing methodically pacing towards a mother. A mother froze by the realization that her daughter was something more than dead, and that she was not on the menu. At the time, I hadn't begun watching scary movies and was not able to place the film. Years later I stumbled on the remake of Night of the Living Dead (1990). 

The scene which once froze my little mind was not a cause for cheering. The undead proletariat proved the fallacy of the self-preservation basement logic. A cause for celebration! Transformation! Transubstantiation! But what changed? The obvious answer is that between the 10 years between the two viewings I ingested a whole library of film and philosophy. 
The sensation changed from what I remember. Terror was replace…