(continued)
bb:
Hucka D., I may call on your help tonight. The Steptoe series is a tough one to analyze.
Hucka D.:
Not really. So in Collage 03 (above) we have the actual start of The Shining film depicted. Jack’s yellow Volkswagen is heading up the Going to the Sun Road in Montana — that’s where it’s shot. But the road has been replaced by the dirt road to Stipe Cemetery in Washington state.
bb:
I could have said that!
Hucka D.:
Yes but you didn’t. And now I’m here. So just listen [ basically]. Baker Bloch is front center in the collage. The collage is separated into 2 basic parts, the left side being the entrance to the Stipe Cemetery, and the right the field to its immediate west. There we have a mashup of Jack’s body with Hallorann’s, the African-American person he murdered in the movie (but didn’t in the source novel). And also Danny, don’t you think? That’s Danny’s head that Jack is holding, in effect.
bb:
It’s not but it is.
Hucka D.:
Yes. So this mashup of figures deals with all the confusions of The Shining, and Jack as abusing Danny, and Hallorann and Danny’s special shine bonding — an arm appears like a foot. It’s all the confusions of The Shining in one composite. A kind of mess, in a manner. The image started as just Hallorann lying in this field. Then he acquires Jack’s head, and Danny’s head along with it. Danny’s arm subs for one of Hallorann’s legs. It speaks of the intertwined destiny of these 3 characters: Jack is bound to axed Hallorann to death, and Danny is bound to then kill Jack in the maze. It’s all set up beforehand, like a play… like a movie of course. So the right hand side is all this, and the left hand side is the beginning of the movie, all lean and clean and cleared of confusion. Do you know what this is, then?
bb:
It’s the beginning of Carrcass-10, the trimmed down version of the film. Clean and lean, or cleaner and leaner.
Hucka D.:
Yes. It’s the same start as the movie visually — Jack Torrance’s yellow bug driving through the huge mountains to the lodge. But it’s — what do you call them?
bb:
What?
Hucka D.:
The variant band that plays here.
bb:
Oh. Tom’s Petty High. That’s Tom Petty’s variant band.
Hucka D.:
So it’s playing here instead. Just let, as you said I believe, the first of the music fall on the first frame of the film, where we see little Wild Goose Island. So cute. So mirrored. So the yellow bug accompanied by Tom’s Petty Band soundtrack now, a new, different music — not better…
bb:
No. Just different. Variant.
Hucka D.:
Yes. That now takes us up to the lodge and Jack’s interview. In your Carrcass-10, you still have part of the interview, the crucial part describing the past axe murders several years back in the hotel. Then you have the start of Story Room.
bb:
So the yellow ball Danny finds in the cemetery is the same as his father’s yellow VW bug.
Hucka D.:
Yes. A reinterpretation. A repurposing.
bb:
It’s the yellow bug at the hotel, which is the same as this cemetery, going back to the fact that the hotel was built on an Indian burial ground, perhaps.
Hucka D.:
The cemetery is the hotel. And that’s where we first pick up the Shining-Steptoe resonance.
bb:
So getting back to Collage 03, we have golfer Tom Kite, who is probably still playing on the senior circuit but who was more famous back in the 80s, I suppose.
Hucka D.:
About the same time as The Shining movie, yes.
bb:
He’s center as well, directly in front of Baker Bloch. He’s swinging a club. There’s an odd(er) object in the sky, an “i” shape. Perhaps the golf ball he hits is represented by this.
Hucka D.:
Yes. The golf ball is light.
bb:
Hmm.
Hucka D.:
We should… go ahead. You go.
bb:
We should probably state that McConnell Cemetery on the sign behind him is the same as Stipe Cemetery. Another variant name?
Hucka D.:
Perhaps. So another Tom — and the Kite part of his name refers to the expression, “high as a kite”. This has to do, then, with Tom’s Petty High again. The song is a drug song. Tom was flying in the car, singing his little Runaway Beach song.
bb (ignoring wrong title of song):
So Tom and the car are inextricably tied together. The golf ball or whatever that is in the sky, is high. The scene on the right, Hucka D., may represent the past of Jack, Danny, and Hallorann, before the events of The Shining movie take place. Jack and Danny already have a history in Boulder and before. Hallorann’s been shining since he was a kid. Jack himself could make a clean start as winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. It was a beautiful day and the sun shone down. Everything is flying, clean, different. He’s going to the sun.
Hucka D.:
Good. So we have a new start. Old problems left behind, hopefully. The “i” points up instead of down. But the right part of this collage also speaks of the inevitable doom that lays ahead. Jack-Danny-Hallorann, all bound up with each other in the end. So he’s carrying all this with him, like an impossibly large amount of luggage packed in this little car.
bb:
Baker Bloch is attached to the car because it is his Carrcass-10, through me his user.
(continue)
Sunklands 