I've been traveling a lot the last couple weeks - France last week, back in Pennsylvania for a couple days and now in western Canada for a friend's wedding. Between the time zones and work thoughts I can't really tell whether I'm coming or going; without downtime to meditate on anything in particular I've been taking things more at face value, navigating life one moment at a time. Which is nice. Travel is about the closest thing I've found to true therapy for my affliction, because whenever I can take my daily situation for granted I immediately do; once stimulus is down I give my thoughts permission to wander off in richer pastures of their own. Which is also likely why I seek stressful work - it keeps me present. But with travel, all this travel - it also means a lot of airport and train time, and in those interstitial moments I've been fully enmeshed in the mythology, careening haphazardly through it as it touches off of bits of the landscape fleeting by the train window. I'm so deep in it right now that I couldn't even encapsulate it without signing a three-season sixty-episode contract, so I'll focus instead on something a little less indulgent (at least a tiny bit less indulgent).
My thoughts have still been swarming around the idea of a TV show, a serialized story about people in an office and the weird things that happen to them. The show takes place at an indeterminable point in the future, and though it starts innocently enough it invariably ends (about three seasons later, mind you) with one man at the center of the earth confronted with the controls to the planet. But I haven't been focusing on the whole arc recently, just the initial setup, the first few tactical movements that get the plot moving in an engaging direction, making it familiar-but-captivating enough that my hypothetical audience will track its inevitable path into weirder territory.
I'm going to get into the non-indulgent part in a minute, but first, how's this for a setup? In the intitial half-hour we establish that this show takes place some time in the future (when exactly isn't clear, nor is it vital), and that there are interesting, normal-seeming characters working together at the large and ambiguously motivated Spigot Corporation in some big city. Some are more motivated than others, more entrenched in the office politics of making and selling competitive and cutting edge hand-held electronics, worried about the overseas and youth demographics, worried about streamlining the interfaces and functionality of devices so that they can create a seamless work experience for the consumer, etc. Others are more focused on making their colleague's lives less pleasant and/or finding love in the cubicle across the aisle. Others still are hotly debating the course of government, worried about the larger scale issues of the world that can't be immediately felt in the daily grind of the office. This is normal life in the twenty-first (?) century. And then, suddenly, there are explosions, and lights going off and on, and network-tv sparks flying from computer monitors. People are running around and screaming and hitting their heads on the fluorescent lamps, and when everything finally settles down we find out that everyone is basically okay, but they are now trapped in the building. What's going on outside is unclear - it's political and societal, but by and large it's out there, and in here the lights are still purring and the walls are still intact. And for at least the first season, the Spigot Corporation's employees remain trapped in their sprawling work complex, living together and eventually even continuing their work. And the tensions of close-quarters relationships ensure enough melodrama for at least a 35% crossover audience with Grey's Anatomy, while I slip weirdly mythological science fiction material into the B-plot (and eventually the A-plot) of each episode. I could sell that, right?
But here's the deal. I'm not concerned with the structural padding of the show, only the themes that I'm able to introduce along the way. Among these are all the things I've mentioned earlier in this blog and countless more - the jungle, Internet spirituality, the forms, time travel, all of it. Even a space-adventure TV show fabricated from the unconscious workings of one employee's mind (though help me, I'd never explain it like that). And with all of these things, I'm completely convinced that I've hit upon original ideas never before imagined by the unsuspecting TV audience. While I know statistically that there really are no original ideas left (and philosophically, that original ideas aren't even a desirable goal), I still can't shake this obsession, firmly attached to the mythology that it is, that these characters and settings and plot-points are my own and no one else's. I don't think the ideas behind them are, or even the general themes, but there's still an undercurrent of elitism here that I would just as soon nip in the bud and get on with getting over myself.
So with that in mind, I'd like to introduce you to a couple protagonists from the show, and then tell you about the blatant literary influences that informed their creation in my mind.
The main character - let's call him Jack, because he's played in my mind by the same actor who plays Jack in Lost (whose season finale I'm pretty friggin pumped about). Jack's a higher-up middle manager at the corporation, in charge of overseeing the activity of many divisions. His mind is torn in so many directions by his work that he can no longer keep track of the chronological narrative of his life. Like the protagonist of Quantum Leap he wakes up every morning in a bed in some strange city and tries to piece his life together by the commitments on his schedule and the meetings he's reminded to attend. The only fabric holding him together is his own internal narrative of relationships and personal themes; otherwise he's one of the first true victims of post-time, moving back and forth through the time line of his life according to the dictates of his mind, and oblivious to the essential problems or exploitable opportunities of such a skill. I have all kinds of justifications for how this works, but none as evocative as the absence of justification in Slaughterhouse V. For all extents and purposes, Jack has become unstuck in time. So it goes.
Then there's the "other" main character - let's call him Locke, for the same reasons listed above. He works in the coding pit, exploring and defining algorithms of wireless connectivity and intuitive usability. His job is to make devices that will work the way that people expect them to, and even intuit what the consumer will want before they know they want it. According to the statutes of network TV stereotyping, this means that Locke is really into math and patterns (but unlike the statues of network stereotyping, he's more casually philosophical than humorously nerdy). In the course of his duties he's recently hit upon a very specific pattern that's been coming up repeatedly. It comes up especially whenever he's been able to distill certain complex functions (such as, "what people want") down to their basic formulas. Yes, just like the protagonist of Pi, Locke has discovered the "ultimate sequence" that holds within it the secret to life. And yes, just like in Lost, it can probably be expressed in a series of numbers, or at least some kind of wave pattern, that occurs repeatedly throughout the show.
I've also been thinking about a kind of "other world" that the characters of the show discover and explore through most of the first season. It's kind of like a virtual reality, kind of like the Matrix, kind of like a culmination of the Internet's potential, kind of like a half-dozen episodes of Red Dwarf, kind of like the spiritual world, kind of like a lot of things that probably aren't as connected as they are in my head.
Showing posts with label Red Dwarf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red Dwarf. Show all posts
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
On Helmut Kravitz, Briefly
I just realized something about the mythology that I misspoke about before. For the sake of full disclosure, I feel these sorts of little details are important. I've been talking about the Undigestible Man as though he spawned the mythology, but that isn't entirely the case. There is another character who predates the Undigestible Man, who has been around far longer - long enough, in fact, to have retired from the mythological spotlight long ago; long enough to have been relegated to a chapter or two (and many footnotes) in the mythology's own history textbooks about itself.
His name is Helmut Kravitz. Helmut is my mythology's own Dostoevsky, the Soviet-born political dissident who thwarted his oppressors and flaunted his demons by producing a long-running satirical comic strip called "The Penguin Republic." The Penguin Republic has an entire world unto itself, and has logged many hours of obsession in my brain. The previously mentioned bizarre website project deals mostly with this world (www.thepenguinrepublic.com), but it's also taken more extreme measures, including 3/4 of a 1980's era video game that I toiled over one long summer (this is actually the one aspect of the mythology that might have traction with other people outside of my own mind - I passed a demo of the game around my dorm a couple years ago, and still get requests fairly often for its completion).
But Helmut existed before the Penguin Republic needed an author. His first appearance was in eighth grade, the tragic figure of an ill-conceived novel I tried to write for an English class final project. The story itself was pretty weak, and even then was dominated by the unhealthy fascination with Jungian psychology that has persisted throughout the mythology's tenure. There is a planet of mysterious origin dangling nearby the Earth, hidden just behind the moon. It was actually created by the military (or something), as a psychological weapon of mass effect (I guess?). The hook: its terrain is psychologically malleable, capable of manifesting a person's subconscious thoughts into reality (sound familiar? I could probably rename this blog "Improbable Manifestations of the Jungian Subconscious," and perhaps I will yet). And yes, as expected, the people who created the planet did not anticipate the full repercussions of its powers.
I can't remember now what it was called, and I only wrote the first fourty or so pages, mostly involving the landing party facing hideous parades of their worst fears in city squares. Come to think of it, there were also blob-like human things that were meant to just be thoughts - always milling around in marketplaces and along busy thoroughfares. I never connected them to their shadow-people counterparts until now. Anyway, I got stuck pretty quickly, because I was mostly concerned with building up to the awesome ending: after facing wave after wave of Jungian foe, driving most of the crew to isolation or suicide, there are only two characters left: the hero, who I don't remember (his name might have been Jonathan), and Helmut Kravitz, the sole survivor of the previous expedition to the planet. Helmut is kind of the prototype of the Undigestible Man here, having endured enough in life to be unaffectable and perpetually unaffected. Except that he is not undigestible, but precisely the opposite: deciding at last to confront the enemy directly, Helmut is actually consumed by the planet, and by giving his life saves that of the hero (who is instantly forgettable).
(To be totally honest, I think the whole premise of the novel was unintentionally ripped off of an episode of Red Dwarf, in which the same exact thing happens, minus the ending. This feels good to admit; I think this is therapeutic.)
I liked the name alot, and so Helmut Kravitz has persisted through the mythology's many iterations. In times where I've tried to think about a world with less profoundly depressing conclusions, Helmut often serves as the thankless character who bears the brunt of dark thoughts for everyone else. For example, I've often thought that the crew of the Remote Fishing Resort were obsessed with Helmut Kravitz's work. There is a shack floating out at sea, far away from the resort, where one crewman at a time is isolated for several weeks, only interacting occasionally with ambitious guests who've gone too far out of the bay and need more bait or gasoline (this was an actual function at the fishing resort I worked at). The big dare while whittling away the endless hours in the outpost, already fragile and alone, is to read Helmut Kravitz's The Life and Times of the Undigestible Man, which tells of the titular character's descent to the center of the world, where he finds the controls to the planet and drives the Earth into the sun.
I promise that there are not-dark aspects of the mythology as well, but these are the things I'm the most anxious to let go and finally be rid of. Sometime soon I will get into the Fast Food Ambassador, and then I'm likely to ramble on about Time until I'm out of it.
His name is Helmut Kravitz. Helmut is my mythology's own Dostoevsky, the Soviet-born political dissident who thwarted his oppressors and flaunted his demons by producing a long-running satirical comic strip called "The Penguin Republic." The Penguin Republic has an entire world unto itself, and has logged many hours of obsession in my brain. The previously mentioned bizarre website project deals mostly with this world (www.thepenguinrepublic.com), but it's also taken more extreme measures, including 3/4 of a 1980's era video game that I toiled over one long summer (this is actually the one aspect of the mythology that might have traction with other people outside of my own mind - I passed a demo of the game around my dorm a couple years ago, and still get requests fairly often for its completion).
But Helmut existed before the Penguin Republic needed an author. His first appearance was in eighth grade, the tragic figure of an ill-conceived novel I tried to write for an English class final project. The story itself was pretty weak, and even then was dominated by the unhealthy fascination with Jungian psychology that has persisted throughout the mythology's tenure. There is a planet of mysterious origin dangling nearby the Earth, hidden just behind the moon. It was actually created by the military (or something), as a psychological weapon of mass effect (I guess?). The hook: its terrain is psychologically malleable, capable of manifesting a person's subconscious thoughts into reality (sound familiar? I could probably rename this blog "Improbable Manifestations of the Jungian Subconscious," and perhaps I will yet). And yes, as expected, the people who created the planet did not anticipate the full repercussions of its powers.
I can't remember now what it was called, and I only wrote the first fourty or so pages, mostly involving the landing party facing hideous parades of their worst fears in city squares. Come to think of it, there were also blob-like human things that were meant to just be thoughts - always milling around in marketplaces and along busy thoroughfares. I never connected them to their shadow-people counterparts until now. Anyway, I got stuck pretty quickly, because I was mostly concerned with building up to the awesome ending: after facing wave after wave of Jungian foe, driving most of the crew to isolation or suicide, there are only two characters left: the hero, who I don't remember (his name might have been Jonathan), and Helmut Kravitz, the sole survivor of the previous expedition to the planet. Helmut is kind of the prototype of the Undigestible Man here, having endured enough in life to be unaffectable and perpetually unaffected. Except that he is not undigestible, but precisely the opposite: deciding at last to confront the enemy directly, Helmut is actually consumed by the planet, and by giving his life saves that of the hero (who is instantly forgettable).
(To be totally honest, I think the whole premise of the novel was unintentionally ripped off of an episode of Red Dwarf, in which the same exact thing happens, minus the ending. This feels good to admit; I think this is therapeutic.)
I liked the name alot, and so Helmut Kravitz has persisted through the mythology's many iterations. In times where I've tried to think about a world with less profoundly depressing conclusions, Helmut often serves as the thankless character who bears the brunt of dark thoughts for everyone else. For example, I've often thought that the crew of the Remote Fishing Resort were obsessed with Helmut Kravitz's work. There is a shack floating out at sea, far away from the resort, where one crewman at a time is isolated for several weeks, only interacting occasionally with ambitious guests who've gone too far out of the bay and need more bait or gasoline (this was an actual function at the fishing resort I worked at). The big dare while whittling away the endless hours in the outpost, already fragile and alone, is to read Helmut Kravitz's The Life and Times of the Undigestible Man, which tells of the titular character's descent to the center of the world, where he finds the controls to the planet and drives the Earth into the sun.
I promise that there are not-dark aspects of the mythology as well, but these are the things I'm the most anxious to let go and finally be rid of. Sometime soon I will get into the Fast Food Ambassador, and then I'm likely to ramble on about Time until I'm out of it.
Monday, April 7, 2008
The Beginning of the End
Enough is enough.
As far as I know, there's no twelve-step group for pathological mythologizers, so I'm forced to ad lib my own therapeutic treatment. It sounds like a joke, which is honestly kind of the appeal, but realistically I have to do something about this 'habit' of mine before it makes my life unbearable. It's a thing I've always done, a thing I've always allowed my brain to do. Not content just to watch cartoons as a kid, I filled lined notebooks with short stories, poems and activities based on Darkwing Duck and Ghostbusters (and who exactly was going to ever complete my Inspector Gadget connect-the-dots, I'll never know). I would include my own series with the already established ones, referencing characters and themes that might just as well have existed so far as I was concerned. I think the "Lemon Brothers" had a space ship laid out like a maze to disorient boarding enemies. The "Vegetable Patrol" was a much earlier work from my pre-literate days. Even back then the schema of the cast was pretty solid - Tomato Man threw tomato bombs, Carrot man had some kind of carrot gun, etc. Maybe not a full mythology there, but at least a decent line of toys.
This persisted throughout my adolescence in various forms. There were fake newspapers for all the video game characters I cared about (Kings Quest, anyone?), and text adventures made in QBASIC for the sole purpose of flushing out an unnecessary spoof universe of Star Trek. I would watch the BBC space sitcom Red Dwarf and make lists of all the different permutations of the four main characters throughout the show's run. These were all very nerdy things, obviously, but even when I became less nerdy for a while the basic theme of mythologizing persisted. I wasn't interested in stories or characters or philosophies as much as I was obsessed with entire fictional worlds. Mythological systems. Volumes and sets of stories and characters and philosophies. I wanted to hug the entire universe of the shows and games and books that I loved, and in the process dynamically create my own.
And then, around the age of eighteen, my mythologizing mind gave birth to The Undigestible Man. I had finally grown out of sharing other people's already well-trademarked worlds, and was ready to really forge my own, a journey of obsession that would inform my background mental activity for at least the next five years of my life. This really gets to the heart of this blog, the beastly mess that I need to get out of my brain before it takes up any more space. In five years of constant churning, the mythology of The Undigestible Man has changed forms many times. Tone, genre, setting and backstory have undergone countless iterations, but there are certain names and themes and scenes that persist. These have been building on each other, based loosely on experiences I've had, people and situations that have had lasting impressions on me. New experiences often introduce new puzzle pieces to the world, and these new bits will do their best to fit in with the rest, some succeeding more than others. Several times I've recast the whole mythology from the ground up, maybe even aiming to think about something totally different. And yet, inevitably, the Undigestible Man sneaks back in there, followed closely by his persistent chain of associates, clamoring always for a place in my thoughts.
The funny thing about this is that I never really talk about this world that I spend so much of my time in. I'll mention bits and pieces of it to people at various times, but it's already too big and complex to get into in casual conversation, like trying to talk about what's happening in book nine of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (I'd imagine, anyway - I haven't read it), or trying to explain to someone who's never seen the show what's going on in season 4 of Lost. My world is big, and it's getting bigger every day, and not even my girlfriend is privy to its wide and nuanced corridors. And for what? I couldn't say. It's just something that my brain does, feeding and nurturing this massive beast of a mythology that I can't seem to let go of even if I try (and I haven't honestly tried that hard - I spend a lot of time in this place, and it means a lot to me).
So, to make a long story long (and most likely ward off potential readers of this blog), I'd like to lay it all out, as I understand it. Get it out there, excise it from my brain. I'm hot on the heels of another effort to do this; I recently fashioned a complex website where the mythology might express itself on its own terms (www.thepenguinrepublic.com). But that mostly confirmed for me that this world is not particularly inviting or accessible to anyone other than myself. It's a fantasy suited only to me, and as such is not worth this continued incubation time, because even if I could spend three life times bringing it to life, I would end up both hopelessly unsatisfied and pointlessly alone. I can't seem to kill it, so, maybe I can deflate it.
It all started with the Undigestible Man, and no matter what form the mythology takes, be it a movie, TV series, video game, novel, graphic novel or bizarro website, it always seems to end the same way. After everything that happens to him (which is quite a lot), the Undigestible Man eventually finds his way to the center of the earth. Here he discovers the controls to the planet, and we realize that the entire story has been narrated from his point of view, as he carefully meditates on what to do next. Unfortunately (both for him and my own mental state), the Undigestible Man then decides (usually) to steer the planet out of its orbit, and drives it straight into the sun.
And this is why I need help.
As far as I know, there's no twelve-step group for pathological mythologizers, so I'm forced to ad lib my own therapeutic treatment. It sounds like a joke, which is honestly kind of the appeal, but realistically I have to do something about this 'habit' of mine before it makes my life unbearable. It's a thing I've always done, a thing I've always allowed my brain to do. Not content just to watch cartoons as a kid, I filled lined notebooks with short stories, poems and activities based on Darkwing Duck and Ghostbusters (and who exactly was going to ever complete my Inspector Gadget connect-the-dots, I'll never know). I would include my own series with the already established ones, referencing characters and themes that might just as well have existed so far as I was concerned. I think the "Lemon Brothers" had a space ship laid out like a maze to disorient boarding enemies. The "Vegetable Patrol" was a much earlier work from my pre-literate days. Even back then the schema of the cast was pretty solid - Tomato Man threw tomato bombs, Carrot man had some kind of carrot gun, etc. Maybe not a full mythology there, but at least a decent line of toys.
This persisted throughout my adolescence in various forms. There were fake newspapers for all the video game characters I cared about (Kings Quest, anyone?), and text adventures made in QBASIC for the sole purpose of flushing out an unnecessary spoof universe of Star Trek. I would watch the BBC space sitcom Red Dwarf and make lists of all the different permutations of the four main characters throughout the show's run. These were all very nerdy things, obviously, but even when I became less nerdy for a while the basic theme of mythologizing persisted. I wasn't interested in stories or characters or philosophies as much as I was obsessed with entire fictional worlds. Mythological systems. Volumes and sets of stories and characters and philosophies. I wanted to hug the entire universe of the shows and games and books that I loved, and in the process dynamically create my own.
And then, around the age of eighteen, my mythologizing mind gave birth to The Undigestible Man. I had finally grown out of sharing other people's already well-trademarked worlds, and was ready to really forge my own, a journey of obsession that would inform my background mental activity for at least the next five years of my life. This really gets to the heart of this blog, the beastly mess that I need to get out of my brain before it takes up any more space. In five years of constant churning, the mythology of The Undigestible Man has changed forms many times. Tone, genre, setting and backstory have undergone countless iterations, but there are certain names and themes and scenes that persist. These have been building on each other, based loosely on experiences I've had, people and situations that have had lasting impressions on me. New experiences often introduce new puzzle pieces to the world, and these new bits will do their best to fit in with the rest, some succeeding more than others. Several times I've recast the whole mythology from the ground up, maybe even aiming to think about something totally different. And yet, inevitably, the Undigestible Man sneaks back in there, followed closely by his persistent chain of associates, clamoring always for a place in my thoughts.
The funny thing about this is that I never really talk about this world that I spend so much of my time in. I'll mention bits and pieces of it to people at various times, but it's already too big and complex to get into in casual conversation, like trying to talk about what's happening in book nine of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (I'd imagine, anyway - I haven't read it), or trying to explain to someone who's never seen the show what's going on in season 4 of Lost. My world is big, and it's getting bigger every day, and not even my girlfriend is privy to its wide and nuanced corridors. And for what? I couldn't say. It's just something that my brain does, feeding and nurturing this massive beast of a mythology that I can't seem to let go of even if I try (and I haven't honestly tried that hard - I spend a lot of time in this place, and it means a lot to me).
So, to make a long story long (and most likely ward off potential readers of this blog), I'd like to lay it all out, as I understand it. Get it out there, excise it from my brain. I'm hot on the heels of another effort to do this; I recently fashioned a complex website where the mythology might express itself on its own terms (www.thepenguinrepublic.com). But that mostly confirmed for me that this world is not particularly inviting or accessible to anyone other than myself. It's a fantasy suited only to me, and as such is not worth this continued incubation time, because even if I could spend three life times bringing it to life, I would end up both hopelessly unsatisfied and pointlessly alone. I can't seem to kill it, so, maybe I can deflate it.
It all started with the Undigestible Man, and no matter what form the mythology takes, be it a movie, TV series, video game, novel, graphic novel or bizarro website, it always seems to end the same way. After everything that happens to him (which is quite a lot), the Undigestible Man eventually finds his way to the center of the earth. Here he discovers the controls to the planet, and we realize that the entire story has been narrated from his point of view, as he carefully meditates on what to do next. Unfortunately (both for him and my own mental state), the Undigestible Man then decides (usually) to steer the planet out of its orbit, and drives it straight into the sun.
And this is why I need help.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)