Both alive and dead
This hobby dates back as far my memories can take me. My earliest memory is of me sitting in a high-chair smearing spaghetti-o's all over my face while my family watched and smiled. We lived in a small apartment, second floor, and were all huddled close in the dinning room. I was too young to speak, or eat properly for that matter, but for some reason that experience was burned into my brain. As I later learned, I wasn't even a year old at the time and most people don't have memories of that age. What significance does that brief memory hold? You can assign pretty much everything in life to some purpose, which invariably leads to procreation or, at the very least, personal well being. It is our programming.
As I grew older, this memory stayed with me, often appearing in flickers of sudden recollection brought on for no apparent reason. A random invasion of pointless remembrance. Sometime, I would even lose sleep over it. I am sure some of the details have been lost to time and my imagination has filled in the blanks, but why would remembering that help me or the human race in any way? That is just one example, I have thousands more.
Mostly, these Flicker Cogitations come from something that I experienced only briefly, such as a song on the radio that I never forget after only one listen, or a picture I glanced at in passing, a story I heard a piece of, and on and on. The weird part is that at the time of the experience these events hold almost no meaning to me. We are witness to hundreds of pointless things everyday, why do some stay with us? Maybe I don't understand their importance until later? Maybe I am a compulsive completionist? Whatever the case, they can haunt me. Once they haunt me, they interfere with my dreams, and that aggravates me to no end. My dreams are my castle and I don't want anything to bother that realm.
Once this downward spiral begins I feel compelled to reverse it. I have to trace the memories, rediscover them, rewind time, and confront them. I always do, though, I never find out why they are special to me. They remain utterly pointless. On the other hand, once each thread of Flicker Cogitation has been followed to its conclusion, I feel a sense of relief and gratification. Why? I gave up on trying to understand why. No answer has felt satisfactory to me, so who cares? I just roll with it. Whatever. Sometimes its fun to fish with simulacrum instead of worms. Whoa, that is a wicked cool band name: Simulacrum of Worms.
My latest series of FC adventures have involved movies.
The year was 1987, I was bouncing around the house, like any six-year-old, and a commercial came on television for a movie. This movie trailer depicted only a few things that I can remember: a man with a mustache, a girl jumping into a mirror, and a priest throwing a fire-ax. For some reason those images stayed with me all the way to 2009.
Recently, I was at my place of employment, asking co-workers if they had seen any movies that featured those scenes; no one had any clue what I was talking about, probably attributing my silly questions to pizza dementia. It's real. Google it.
A few days later, I was at Wal-Mart buying a video game when I noticed a $15 collection of four John Carpenter (one of my fave directors) movies packaged together in one two-disc DVD set. I flipped the box around to examine the back and beheld a picture of a black dude looking into a mirror. The same freaking mirror from that movie trailer twenty two years ago! Crap my pants! Dead cats rejoice; it took me twenty two years to figure it out. I bought the DVD collection and did a happy-dance...when no one was looking.
The movie is : Prince of Darkness. Check it out, it is awesome.
So good.
1988: a slightly older Smiley was bouncing around the house while the family prepared to enjoy a movie I had no interest in. While I was playing with some toys, I noticed my folks complain about those newfangled contrivances all state-of-the-art VHS tapes began including before each feature presentation: movie trailers. Oh no. Not again.
My father, being a man fond of technological advance, saw the previews as a good opportunity to use the new wireless remote control. It probably impressed everyone when infrared signals were transmitted from the couch to the VCR (the space age is here!) and prompted the hasty procession of magnetic tape, but I was too busy wrapping my mind around that fragment of a trailer that was now gone, never to return. It featured a young British girl, a simple two-story house in a meadow, a child drawing something with crayons, and a man trying to kill everyone with a hammer. I managed to gather, from the voice over, that the house and the man with the hammer were brought into being by the little girl's drawings. Awesome!
2009: I was watching Prince of Darkness tonight, feeling awful swell that I managed to solve a thread of FC when I became stricken by another. The movie trailer from 1988. What the heck movie was it?! Why have I not been able to let it go, this frequent nemesis of day dreams and reason, for the majority of my life? Bah!
After hours of demented Google searching, message board masochism, and Blog comment section eye-assault I arrived at:
Bingo! El Dorado!
Paperhouse. I now know it is possible to cry, cackle, fart, and leap simultaneously. This is a historic day. For some reason this movie struck me harder than most other FC. I don't care to know why. I am just happy that one more will be quiet. Unfortunately, the movie was never pressed to Region 1 DVD here in the USA, so I had to buy it in European Region 2 DVD form and a new DVD player, as well, that can play all formats in order to see it. Thanks internet!
So, I just spent $90 on a movie that I have never seen in order to put to rest one more frequent bout of disquieting Flicker Cogitation. It is a good day.
Another heavy Flicker Cogitation from my childhood is that of a mouse detective who drinks grapejuice in order to find a key at the bottom of a jug. It's a book. With pictures. I MUST KNOW!
Visit the cat in your head from time to time. For no reason whatsoever. Apparently.
Love,
Smiley Grimm
No comments:
Post a Comment