My first real animation, modest as it is. Based upon the Otoe series collages, and the way they work best with each other in my mind. Created in Windows Live Movie Maker; excited about this (!)
Category Archives: collages 2d
“Story Room” Animation (!)
Filed under animation, Carrcass Artists, collages 2d, MAPS, Murmur, Qbrick, Stanley, Shining, The, Story Room, Washington
The Story Room-ish Invasion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Grief,_Idaho
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Grief,_Charlie_Brown:_A_Tribute_to_Charles_Schulz
Good Grief!
Filed under Beetles, The, collages 2d, Idaho, MAPS, Story Room
Shining Pepper Project 03
Collage 07?
Collage 08 TEST:
COLLAGE 09:
COLLAGE 10 TEST (animation):
Filed under Beetles, The, collages 2d, Maine, MAPS, Qbrick, Stanley, Shining, The
Steptoe Series 05
bb:
So we’re at Collage 05, which is not an animation. Like Collage 01, Collage 03. Unlike Collage 02, Collage 04. I’m not sure if Hucka D. is going to help me with today’s installment of a Steptoe collage series interpretation. We’ve discussed the relation of The World tarot card with the poster behind the Grady Twins appearing to Danny in the game room of the Overlook Hotel. We superimpose Jack as The Devil (Tarot card #15), replacing The World card’s bull (Taurus) in the lower left corner. Horned bull becomes horned Devil, and also Danny is playing a game of darts when he sees the Twins, with a *bull’s eye* at the center of the dartboard.
I’ve just talked about how Jack’s shiny eye pupil, near the very end of The Shining, briefly acts as a ring for a woman behind him in the photo. I’ve called her, for this reasons, the “Ring Woman”, and I believe she’s attached in mysterious, synchy ways to Ringo Starr, who also wears a prominent ring in the movie Help, and which gets him in a lot of trouble. This Ring Woman’s right eye also becomes, again briefly in a crossfade, a very prominent and easily noticable “3rd eye” of yet another person in the photo, a male this time, and further back in the crowd than even Ring Woman, who is in turn behind Jack at the front.
If we scrub out the faces of the 4 front and present Beatles on the Sgt. Pepper album (as opposed to the b&w “past” Beatles to their right), and then superimpose Ring Woman’s face on Ringo’s to center the now backing Shining photo, the following occurs. It’s perhaps interesting that in the translation both John and George’s faces become half black and half white, with John’s face almost exactly halved (black side: right; white side: left), and George’s quartered (black to sw and ne; white to se and nw). Paul’s face becomes one-eyed, very much like that of Johnny Weissmuller to his right. Just a note here.
Back to the Steptoe collage series analysis: Jack’s hand.
Jack’s hand in Collage 05 has been replaced by The Devil’s hand from the tarot’s 15th trump or Major Arcana card. The devil’s hand from this card appears scarred, just as Jack might wear a bandaid in the Shining’s July 4th ball photograph. It also could relate to palmistry and the various lines of the hand such as heart, head, and life or health. Recall, if you will, that the subject of palmistry and the hand has come up in connection with Herman Park’s Sharieland from the past fall, and that some of its major features have been identified with palmistry ones.
In what is perhaps the last collage of the Steptoe series — Collage 07 — we have the return of this same hand, but with “1.25” written underneath it in blue, like a caption for a picture.
0.125 is 1/8th of 1. Chapter 125 of the Tibetian Book of the Dead is where we find a description of the “weighing of the heart” judgment, also probably attached to this final Shining image. The Subliminal Synchrosphere blog talks about it here…
http://subliminalsynchrosphere.blogspot.com/2012/09/kubricks-shining-2001-aso.html
…you can see Jack seems to be tendering a piece of paper (a message) to the heavens (above) or to us….yet a man behind him seems to be trying to restrain him from doing so or is he attempting to correct/level the scales!?
Now look at the woman in the photo….look at the single feather & the heart. I think she is referencing the Feather of Maat.
http://www.egyptianmyths.net/feather.htm%5Dhttp://www.egyptianmyths.net/feather.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maat%5Dhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaatA great judgement…isn’t it?
The 20th card of the Tarot ‘major arcana’. The ‘horn of judgement’…that doubles as a prop to denote a New Years party and midnight.
Re: The synch…now if you have the music playing from 2001 : ASO (Thus Spake Zarathustar/the world riddle) and The Shining together…you’ll hear the very loud ‘brass’ sound of horns when we see this picture and the man with the party blower…denoting the horn of judgement blowing! (i only used the sound from The Shining, this time…so as not to confuse things too much, but it is important to realise the aforementioned ‘horn’ music!
In the Duat, the Egyptian underworld, the hearts of the dead were said to be weighed against her single “Feather of Ma’at”, symbolically representing the concept of Maat, in the Hall of Two Truths (Overlook lobby hall). A heart which was unworthy was devoured by the goddess Ammit (Amemet/Cyncocephalus) and its owner condemned to remain in the Duat (earthly plane). The heart was considered the location of the soul by ancient Egyptians. Those people with good and pure hearts were sent on to Aaru (afterlife, ascendence).
Arms….Jack looks like a ‘tipped’ set of scales….unfortunately for him, it denotes that his heart is heavy with sin! He is destined for the Duat or earthly plane, again!!! Heart on the right and feather on our left, as it is in the Egyptian references. Is the man with his hand on Jack’s arm also a reference to him trying to rebalance the scales…a possiblity to consider?
So in the 1921 pic he is both ‘baphomet’ (sodomy god, the beast instinct, above & below, microcosm & macrocosm) and the ‘scales’…double layering.
So I think the 1.25 is referencing this Chapter 125 and also the fraction 1/8th (more soon on the latter?). What of the rainbow shaped pattern of yellow balls in the background of Collage 07 here? I believe it represents a return to the beginning of the series and Collage 01. I imagine the location of Stipe Cememtery to be in the general vicinity of the illuminated “eye-ball” at the bottom of this rainbow, the pot at the end, if you will, but also at the beginning. We return here to Story Room and the central figure of Tom’s Petty High, also a golden triangle.
Collage 01: return from Steptoe Butte back to the Stipe Cemetery area.
Filed under collages 2d, MAPS, Qbrick, Stanley, Shining, The, Washington
Steptoe Series 04
A second, smaller Danny-head suddenly appears from the back of his first head, turning the opposite way.
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?
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.
“The World” tarot card.
Danny first sees the Grady Twins, w/ controversial poster under discussion highlighted.
Filed under collages 2d, MAPS, Murmur, Qbrick, Stanley, Shining, The, Washington
Steptoe Series 03
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.
—–
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.
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.
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.
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.
Filed under collages 2d, MAPS, Qbrick, Stanley, Shining, The, Washington
Steptoe Series 02
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.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, collages 2d, MAPS, Qbrick, Stanley, Shining, The, Washington
Steptoe Series 01
The little collage series I’m presently calling Steptoe, forming *very* quickly in the last couple of days, could be over and done with except for polishing up some of the pictures. I’m going to start analyzing the results.
Collage 01
This is supposedly the band Story Room in their geometric masks, posing on a Washington state road with Steptoe Butte in the distance. Hucka D. also states that Steptoe Butte is the name of the sometimes lead singer of the band, which is a kind of play on Michael Stipe of the REMs, who figure into Carrcass-10. Already confused? I sorta am too so bear with me. The three band members of Story Room also don different colored disguises… but what I’m initially confused about is as follows. The yellow figure is most strongly established, representing Tom’s Petty High, a variant band of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers used in Carrcass-10. So let’s back up again to a *Collage 00*.
This particular collage, the actual first such creation of the new series if expanded this way, is a cartoon-ish representation of a scene in The Shining where Danny is playing with his toy vehicles on a geometric Overlook Hotel rug. Suddenly a yellow ball rolls in from the bottom of the screen (depicted as yellow-green in the cartoon). Where did it come from? Danny calls for his mother, thinking or hoping she is playing with him. The door to Room 237 down the hall, formerly locked, stands open and ready for entry. So that’s the center of the collage — Danny playing with his toys and the (yellow) ball rolling in, perhaps originating from the ultra-mysterious Room 237 itself.
But what of the tiled circle of squares and triangles surrounding this inner rug area? This has become a symbol of Carrcass-10 itself, enclosing and fixing the spacio-temporal essence of The Shining in a new way. As the movie The Shining takes as its base Stephen King’s source novel of the same name and elaborates upon it, so too does C-10 for the movie. It is a new movie in essence, smaller and leaner and cleaner perhaps. You lose something but you also gain something. This is *not* a replacement for The Shining movie, but an alternate way of looking at it.
We begin the new work, then, with not Wendy Carlos’ “Dies Irae”, a reinterpretation of a Hector Berlioz movement from his essential Symphonie Fantastique, but Petty’s “Running Down a Dream”, a popular late 1980s rock single. The opening visuals remain exactly the same, however: Jack’s yellow VW bug navigating the windy mountain roads leading to the Overlook Hotel. For the beginning of Carrcass-10, we’ve then simply substituted the original soundtrack in the movie for a different “soundtrack”. Does it work? Very much so!
Why the name change from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to a different, “variant” name? the reader might ask here. It’s just part of the process: every artist used in a carrcass — and these number now not only the negative valued 10 but many more *positive* valued ones — can earn a variant name as repurposed. They’re allowed that option and also maybe one could call it even an “honor”. Sometimes variant names take a while to develop. Story Room is a recent development, and one that goes so far as to mask even the original band it’s based upon. Story Room and Carrcass-10 are most linked. Story Room is represented by the red of the tiled circle in the above picture. The red aspect most defines the circle — the blue and yellow squares/triangles merely enhance an original idea. So we’re back to the beginning again: who is Story Room?
Story Room is the red figure with the sphere topped body. He’s the boss. He calls the shots. *From* him (or her) emerges two more figures: the yellow, tetahedron masked being we’ve identified with Tom’s Petty High (variant of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), and then the blue cube topped figure identifed with REM (variant name pending) and lead singer Steptoe Butte (Michael Stipe variant). The new little collage series, also named “Steptoe”, seems to be more about attempting to structure a variant name for REM/Michael Stipe, to follow up on the seeming success of the transformation of Tom Petty and the HB to Tom’s Petty High. The chosen name for Stipe is, first and last name, Steptoe Butte. This comes directly from a very interesting landscape feature of the same name in eastern Washington state, depicted in the distance in the first collage above. Why Steptoe for Michael? Okay, so this was the lead-in: in looking up Stipe in a geographic database, only a handful of entries came up. One was Stipe Cemetery very near Steptoe Butte. So it was examining Stipe Cemetery on maps and photos that led me quickly to this butte. I found it interesting that if you replace the “o” with an “i” in the “Steptoe”, you’d have an anagram of “Stipe”.
Collage 02:
So what happens in Collage 02 of the series is that we move into Stipe Cemetery itself, prompted by a blurb on Michael Stipe uncovered in a search for “Stipe Cemetery” images? I link to this article and the related picture in this blog post below (“Stipe”). Elements of this particular image of Stipe will show up a little later in the series.
Danny of The Shining reappears on the edge of this cemetery. He’s discovered the top of the yellow figure in the preceding collage, hopefully just the tetrahedronal mask and not his whole, mostly buried body (!) Collage 02 actually comes in two parts. As Danny is staring at the golden tetrahedron, it changes, in the resulting animation, into his yellow ball from Collage 00, the one that rolls up to him apparently from the now open Room 237 and seeming to invite him into that sinister lair. What’s this ball now doing in Stipe Cemetery in Washington state?
It seems to have something to do with the fact that in the Shining movie, the hotel manager tells Jack and Wendy at one point that the hotel is built on an old Indian burial ground. In this way, the Washington cemetery of this collage becomes the grounds of the hotel itself, and Danny’s geometric rug transforms into the cemetery’s grassy turf.
The other two members of Story Room look on, blue and red. We’ve already identified the blue being more with Michael Stipe and his REMs, and so perhaps that’s why he comes to the forefront more in a collage based in Stipe Cemetery.
It’s a strange thing, but I realized early on in this collage generating that collages 01, 02, 03 actually run backwards in time, with Collage 03 representing the actual beginning of Carrcass-10/The Shining with Jack’s yellow VW, and Collage 02 a later scene with Danny and the yellow ball and the open Room 237. The two yellow objects, car and ball, become one in the process. Tom’s Petty High takes on the yellow hue because their music is playing now the whole time we see the yellow car driving through the mtns. to the hotel. Danny playing with his toy vehicles later on in the hotel and the yellow ball rolling up (after Jack is awarded the winter caretaker position during the interview he drives to), is a microcosm of the opening — toy vehicles replacing the real ones parked in the hotel lot, and of course, the yellow ball represents the arriving yellow bug or yellow VW.
So in Collage 02, the ball is the VW and the cemetery is the hotel due to the Indian burial ground reference. Why is this Stipe cemetery? Well, it’s because Stipe/REM will factor in two additional tiles of Carrcass-10, just like Tom’s Petty High “before” it. And through this usage, Stipe transforms into Steptoe, a variant name. Clear as mud now, eh?
Filed under collages 2d, Murmur, Story Room, Tom's Petty High
Steptoe
Filed under collages 2d, MAPS, Qbrick, Stanley, Shining, The, Washington
Sunklands 
