Daily Archives: January 21, 2014

Steptoe Series 04

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A second, smaller Danny-head suddenly appears from the back of his first head, turning the opposite way.

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What we have here in this 4 part collage animation is a meshing of several separate scenes from The Shining. The Danny related images — head, arm, dart, extra head — come from early in the film, when he first directly encounters the Grady Twins while playing darts in the game room of hotel the family’s just arrived at. Danny throws 3 darts at the board, scores no points apparently, (missing the scoring area each time) and then goes up to the board and pulls 2 of the 3 darts out before being “alerted” to the presence of the twins behind him. We’ve also spoken about how the board in front of him would have a backwards 2-3-7 in alternating numbers (culled from Kearns’ research once more). The last dart he pulled was right below the 3 in the center, reinforcing this. There’s no doubt, to me, that the character Danny sees all this, and attaches the dartboard with Room 237 later on in the film. He’s a bright boy — he “shines” even. 🙂

Why is Danny then throwing a dart at Steptoe Butte, and at a giant ear no less? We’ve identified the ear as that of Michael Stipe, lead singer of the REMs. Michael Stipe has been translated, through the not-to-be-underestimated power of Carrcass-1, into the variant Steptoe Butte (same name as the mountain), heading a variant band known as Murmur (in “our” reality, the name of the 1st album of REM). The giant ear seems to be about their music, since it is Stipe’s. I’ve already speculated, I believe, (writing this several weeks after the last collage interpretation) that this is more about the belittled early single “Shiny Happy People”. And this brings us directly to the second, major section of The Shining indicated in Collage 04 images: the Jack-Lloyd bar scene. Or actually scenes plural, since Jack visits the time warp bar on two separate occasions while living in the hotel. From the bar scenes, we have Jack’s head, Lloyd’s head, and the lighted top of the bar itself between them. In a two tier process, these second Shining elements emerge from behind the first (Danny-dart throwing). And in Collage 04c, we have an interesting transformation of Danny’s dart into what appears to be a cigarette or maybe a cigar. But perhaps it is a marijuana cigarette instead — a joint? Anyway, it certainly also doubles as a lighted fuse if so, and in Collage 04d, the final permutation, the background Jack-Lloyd stuff disappears in a flash of white hot light, taking Danny’s arm and transformed dart with it, and also the inverted VW bug (blue) rushing toward the mountain in 04a, 04b, and 04c. I suppose that would be another, different aspect of The Shining to figure in here — Jack driving the VW bug up to the hotel at the beginning of the movie, and then again (plural scenes once more), when taking wife Wendy and son Danny to the hotel after procuring the winter caretaker position. The VW has reversed position and color (yellow to blue) from Collage 03 before this. I believe it represents a switch from emphasis on Tom’s Petty High (Tom Petty variant band) to Murmur (REM variant band) in Carrcass-1, per the colors demonstrated in Collage 00, 01, and 02 already (red = Story Room, yellow = Tom’s Petty High, blue = Murmur). That Danny’s head rests atop Stipe’s torso and Stipe’s ear projects from Steptoe Butte in Collage 04 reinforces this interpretation.

Bull’s eye becomes Bull’s ear — what does this mean, then? We’ve all heard the expression eye for an eye (and tooth for tooth), which means retributions will equal damages done. The ear is on top of Steptoe Butte, and Stipe has become the same as Steptoe in variant terms… so the mountain’s top represents *his* top (or head — ears included). That Stipe’s *eye* shows up on Danny’s bigger head in Collage 04d is telling… as the ear disappears at the same time after being present in 04a, 04b, and 04c. I believe that the spirit of Danny has quote unquote possessed the head of Stipe, or Stipe allowed this takeover — for the purposes of enacting the collage animation. When the process ends, i.e., the Jack-Lloyd elements have been manifested and then destroyed, in effect, then Danny can allow Stipe to repossess the head, eye returned (and perhaps the rest of the head’s elements shortly). The smaller Danny head then emerges from the back of the larger Danny head, which is being returned to Stipe, we’ll say. This smaller head then becomes the true Danny-head after this. The head turns around from the position of the first. In The Shining, this is when Danny turns his head away from the dartboard to view the Grady Twins. The dart game appears to be over, just as the Jack-Lloyd bar elements of Collage 04 and the Steptoe collage series as a whole have ended.

Moving on for now: what happens in Collage 05?

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Well, The twins are also seen there (!), but in a grassy meadow and not in the game room. We’re still near Steptoe Butte with this picture’s background, so one can imagine the smaller and now truer Danny-head actually sees this collage when turning around from Steptoe Butte itself. He sees the twins, but he also sees Jack from the very end of The Shining movie, positioned like The Devil in his namesake tarot card as also already talked about quite a lot in this blog. I’ve also seen discussion about the Grady Twins being identified with The Twins card (card 6 of the Major Arcana, as The Devil is card 15), and there’s actually a degraded version of what appears to be these same twins in card 15, now loosely chained to the devil itself and not free.

And there’s yet another tarot card more obviously present in Collage 05: The World, its final (21st) trump card. Behind the first physical appearance of the Grady Twins in the movie is a controversial poster seeming to depict, in a lower resolution capture, some kind of horned being surrounded by what might be an ourobouros image, or a snake swallowing its tail. To me, it seemed very similar to the circular wreath of “The World” card, and earlier in this blog I made an attempt to overlap the two and discuss the results. Through Collage 05, I’ve now more successfully integrated the two, and also incorporated Jack’s image as the devil. How is this done? Through the bull pictured on The World Card, which lies in the lower left corner to us. Simply put, I substituted the bull’s head of the card with Jack’s, or, more accurately, superimposed Jack’s head atop the bull’s. The bull represents Taurus in the card, one of the four fixed signs of astrology along with Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. Each of these signs are represented in the card by figures: bull for Taurus as spoken about, lion for Leo, eagle for Scorpio, and man for Aquarius.

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“The World” tarot card.

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Danny first sees the Grady Twins, w/ controversial poster under discussion highlighted.

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Steptoe Series 03

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bb:

As usual, Hucka D., I’m rushed for time, even though I should have a bunch of time.

Hucka D.:

Too many projects. Too many project reviews. That’s good!

bb:

So I’m enlisting your help again.

Hucka D.:

No. You can do it.

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This is Collage 4 of the Steptoe collage series, which is in four parts of an animation. We’ll call these 04a, 04b, 04c, 04d. The above is 04a. Hucka D. wants me to do this alone. We have Jack’s VW bug, but reversed in color from yellow to blue, and heading the opposite way from the previous collage (Collage 03) already reviewed. Jack’s son Danny from The Shining also re-emerges here, or at least his head and arm. He’s already appeared the Steptoe series in Collage 02, also an animation, and taking place in the midst of a small Washington state cemetery named Stipe (variant name: McConnell). Collage 03 also takes place in the same general vicinity, or at the entrance to the same cemetery. In Collage 04, we also haven’t moved far away, staying in the area to visit Steptoe Butte about 10 miles to the nw of the cemetery. The butte is a very prominent landmark, rising about 1000 feet from the surrounding, flatter terrain. It can probably be spied from the cemetery itself. So what is happening in the 4 part Collage 04 animation? The figure of 04a has Danny’s head, true, but a different body. It’s that of REM lead singer Michael Stipe, culled from an earlier Jan. blog post. Danny, with his own hand, is playing a game of darts not with a dartboard but Steptoe Butte itself, with the traditional board’s bullseye being replaced by an ear. Eye for an ear. It is then a bull’s ear. So what does *this* mean? Hucka D. is still not going to help me. The ear is that of Michael Stipe again, severed from the head and placed near the top of the butte. As Stipe is a musician, we might assume this has to do with hearing or listening to his music. And I think the particular song inferred here is “Shiny Happy People”, as will become evident during the animation’s progression. So here we have ear substituted for eye; Michael Stipe’s body substituted for Danny’s; and Jack’s VW car and car shadow reversed. Keep in mind as well that Steptoe Butte has become a variant name of Michael Stipe himself — Michael and this standalone mtn. have become one and the same in the collage series. As Stipe/Steptoe Butte have been assoc. with the color blue through the cube topped Story Room figure, it seems that the change in Jack’s VW color signifies that we have moved into REM territory and away from Tom Petty’s yellow.

Tom Petty’s signature song of Carrcass-10 is “Running Down a Dream”, dubbing the very first part of the movie where we have the golden bug navigating through huge Montana Colorado mountains. If we run with the current theory, then the REMs’ primary or significant song is “Shiny Happy People”, although their later hit “Stand” is also included in Carrcass-10 (as Petty’s “Don’t Come Around Here No More” represents his own second and last entry in C-10). The reason I believe this is that pictorial elements dubbed by this song in The Shining begin to appear in Collage 04b, which would be the Jack-Lloyd scenes at the bar of the hotel’s Gold Room.

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The dart and the ear are still there, true, but behind them is now the head of Jack and Lloyd respectively. Also significant is that the lighted bar glass appears in the road below them, a seeming continuation of the white trailing VW from 04a. The original photo I took all 3 of these Gold Room elements from is this one.

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In Collage 04c, the held dart and target ear have vanished altogether, leaving us with a plain view of Jack and Lloyd the bartenders’ heads. The inverted blue VW has reappeared, but further away and on Steptoe Butte itself now, forming a tight pyramid-type triangle with the 2 aforementioned heads.

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This is a continuation of the animation of 04a (car with light shadow) and 04b (lighted bar top), and now it can be inferred that the bar itself is one with this inverted VW and its shadow. The road leading to Steptoe Butte gives the appearance of a runway (related to Petty’s “Runaway”??), and I think back to the Barry-Shin(i)n(g) 03 post and the close proximity of Barry, Minnesota with a Stanley Field airstrip.

Danny’s dart also seems to have transformed into a cigarette, losing its red tail in the process. A wiff of smoke emerging from the point opposite Jack gives the illusion that he’s smoking this “cig”. I believe this particular drug vice is substituting for the Jack Daniels drink that Jack actually partakes of at this bar, as poured by Lloyd the bartenter. Smoking a cigarette equates with drinking the Jack Daniels in a glass.

*But*, in reference to the next and last part of the 4 part Collage 04, the cigarette also infers a lighted fuse that, when burned down, will *explode* Jack and also his bartender, his inverted VW heading right for him, and even Danny’s arm holding the cigarette/fuse.

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Notes

Should be able to finish analyzing the little Steptoe collage series this week. Excited about producing such a series in so short a time. Probably need to talk about how the collage production has “evolved”. Eventually I would like to produce animations, but I’m going to ease into all that at a natural pace. But “Steptoe” seems to represent another step in that direction.

Shining research: Don’t really know where to take this next except to go back over and refine material already put out here on the blog. Feel like I’m onto some original research now, but… I think the Steptoe analysis will be a next phase in this, actually. There are some more interesting things coming up about Murmur’s “Shiny Happy People” and its use in The Shining.

The “cigarette” that Jack seems to smoke in Bull’s Ear, Part 3 represents a vice, like the actual Jack Daniels he’s drinking in the related Shining scene. One vice for another. But it’s also like the now lit fuse of a bomb, exploding and killing him. He becomes part of the motel, then. Danny kills Jack in the maze, and the fuse represents this. It is retracing one’s steps.

Need to look at Juli Kearns’ research on the 90 degree turns of The Shining, and how things seem to disappear or are affected by what in essence is an extra dimension implied in the film. Fascinating.

Must decide soon about my Second Lyfe land in Rubi. Given that virtual land value is dropping for some reason, am tempted to abandon half the land. Another option is just to sell the whole piece at once, and “live” in Philodoria where I still have 2048+ square meters. I can study the Rubi Forest from afar. Well, I have about a week to decide all that. Spring hiking season coming up in the not too distant future! What will the focus be this year?? Can hike in Mythopolis until the end of March or so as well. Would like to visit Redlands soon, and was tempted to go down this weekend, but resisted.

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