Category Archives: Carrcass Artists

January 28, 2014 · 4:34 am

65th

Jacks sabotages the ham radio located in Ullman’s Office, completely blocking the hotel from the outside world.

While he’s prizing off the top, his head grazes a portion of the Colorado map on the wall. At first I thought there was an *extra county* Kubrick fabricated for the map that Jack’s head indicated, the 65th of the state beyond the actual real and present 64. But, if so, it doesn’t appear on the blu-ray version (Did I say here we purchased a blu-ray player for the first time? And I have The Shining on blu-ray!), so I’m just going to assume it’s a trick of the eyes. But this doesn’t discount that Jack’s head rests *right above* a plateau in northern Hinsdale County called *Canibal or Cannibal*. There’s a reason for this, I quickly found out, and it has to do with a man named Alferd Packer, famous in Colorado parts, and one of the most noted of all cannibals. Never mind that I hadn’t heard of him, and you probably haven’t either. His story from wikipedia…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alferd_Packer

Old Hinsdale County map where I first came across “Canibal Plateau”, above the county seat of Lake City.

Detail of the plateau. I was also curious to note the presence of both a Devil’s Creek and a Fourth of July Creek flowing near its northern side here. The final photo of The Shining supposedly comes from a 1921 Fourth of July celebration, where Jack is obviously posed as the tarot’s Baphomet, better known as *The Devil*. There’s also a Devil’s Lake, Devil’s Canyon and Inferno Creek nearby to reinforce the association. Again: quite bizarre seeming.

http://www.mytopo.com/products/quad.cfm?code=o38107a2

Strongest evidence that Kubrick wanted to highlight Alferd Packer’s story here? It just so happens that Jack and his family discuss another famous cannibal story as they wind their way through the mountains toward the hotel on closing day. I’ll just insert the related dialog below. It concerns the Donner Party.

Here’s a thought: did Kubrick slyly indicate in all this that Jack not only wished to kill his family at the end but to *consume them*? I believe this is a strong possibility, given the evidence at hand.

So let’s return to shot 98 once more — touched upon in a blog post just before this one for something totally unrelated seeming — and pick up right after Wendy yawns…

DANNY: Dad.

JACK: Yes?

DANNY: I’m hungry.

JACK (irritated): Well, you should have eaten your breakfast.

But isn’t this a scene played out in countless cars on countless trips in countless families, so there’s no reason for the audience to count this against Jack. Still, another question mark as to his character is tabulated.

WENDY: We’ll get you something as soon as we get to the hotel.

DANNY: Okay, mom.

Speaking of getting something to eat…

WENDY: Hey, wasn’t it around here where the Donner party got snowbound?

And we remember Jack telling Ullman of her interest in horror stories.

JACK: I think that was farther west in the Sierras.

DANNY: What was the Donner Party?

JACK: They were a party of settlers in covered wagon times. They got snow bound one winter in the mountains and they had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.

DANNY: You mean they ate each other up?

JACK: They had to in order to survive.

Wendy interrupts, reproving.

WENDY: Jack…

And of course we see it as an ill foreboding.

DANNY: Don’t worry, mom. I know all about cannibalism, I saw it on TV.

Raising his eyebrows, Jack contemptuously mocks.

JACK: See, it’s okay, he saw it on the television.

Video of this scene:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-y0UTtmJnhbbbJ/the_shining_1980_driving/

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January 26, 2014 · 10:30 am

Lights, Discolorations

Shot 249: fleck of white under bed. No light on refrigerator.

Near end of shot: 1 frame light on refrigerator — again, toggle back and forth between the 2 pictures if you wish to get the effect. This appears to be the last frame of the shot as well. I felt the need to note this even if it is a continuity error, since the red car in the bathroom window behind Jack is an important element in this and other posts of my blog. It is directly associated to the similar red trapezoid shape on the CH O KING posters we’ll be introduced to shortly in the boiler room. It’s very possible that the presence of the red car here represents “choking” itself. A distinct possibility, perhaps even a probability. The window also acts as Danny’s escape hatch from axe-wielding Jack later, as he squirms through it and slides down a huge pyramid-shaped snow drift to temporary safety. But for now the way is “blocked” by the red car, perhaps. Also keep in mind here that Danny has only come up to the room and risked disturbance of his supposedly sleeping father to retrieve a red firetruck toy. The vehicle on the bathroom ledge doesn’t appear to be a firetruck, but certainly an association can be made.

Next up we have a 1 frame “glowing footprint” when Grady takes Jack back to the bathroom to clean off the advocaat (a rich and creamy liqueur made from eggs, sugar and brandy) he just spilt on him by accident.

Grady steps on the location of the future glow…

… then the glow or aftereffect occurs when he lifts his foot for the next step.

A perhaps even more pecuiliar effect takes place soon after Jack and Grady enter the bathroom. Just as Grady sets down his tray on the sink, a conspicuous discoloration or flaw appears on the entrance door reflected in a mirror to his right, a mirrored door we have just observed Grady and Jack open to enter the bathroom. I don’t see how this could be an accident — talking purposeful Kubrick film manipulation here again — and goes in line with other, similar one frame film flaws occurring at sounds we’ve noted elsewhere.

Next frame: discoloration gone. Once more, toggle back and forth between these 2 screen captures.

The next scene I wish to review for these kind of flaws is shot 109, where Jack and Wendy are shown their humble living quarters in the hotel by manager Ullman. As Kearns notes below, Wendy is obviously disappointed at staying in the staff wing of the hotel and not one of the guest rooms.

http://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/shining_closing_day.htm

STUART: This is the staff wing of the hotel.

As if in excuse for lodging the Torrances in the decidedly not-very-elegant staff portion of the lodge, he adds…

STUART: None of the other bedrooms are heated during the winter.

WENDY: Oh.

Wendy, who had been cheery up until now, realizing that this wing is where is their home for the winter, is quietly shattered, her face falling.

In reviewing this section, I noticed a more prominent film flaw to Wendy’s left as she scans the modest bedroom. I soon realized it points directly to the bathroom mirror that will soon be exposed from behind her as she continues to walk toward it.

And as soon as we get a good, square look at the mirror between Jack and Wendy here, another prominent discoloration, a large green splotch, appears on the wall beside the window. I’ve not seen a green discoloration before this, just as I’ve seen mention of only one yellow discoloration or seeming film flaw in The Shining — taking place on this very same mirror.

See here for details or a review:

https://bakerbloch.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/keys-01/

A white speck appears on the frame after this, and then, 1 or 2 frames later, 2 brown spots. Together, these closely timed aspects seem to form a triangle. I’ve created a composite photo of the effects below. While it may be nothing, I’m trying to be a completist here as much as I dare.

Jack and Wendy then walk into the bathroom to end shot 109. Two more dark specks appear to the right of the prioritized mirror in this particular frame.

Jack: Cozy.

We first see Wendy’s brown flower at the beginning of the “Closing Day” section, when they are driving through the mountains to the hotel.

Cut to the interior of the car, Jack driving, no one looking too cheery. Wendy, wearing a wilted brown flower decoration on her brown jacket, as if an expression of summer’s end, yawns sleepily.

WENDY: Boy, we must really be high up. The air feels so different.

Which is just fact, the higher you go the more rarefied the air, but reminds me of a switch in states of awareness or consciousness and of Danny’s lapsing into trance which he will tell Dick Hallorann is like sleep. Also brought to my mind is the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, the boy who who was sent hungry to bed as he traded the family’s cow for magic beans rather than money, who had the next day climbed high into the cloud on the magic beanstalk which sprouted out of those beans, to the castle of the cannibal giant who possessed gold and a golden harp and the golden goose. And here we have the family moving from Boulder, high into the mountains, to this gigantic hotel where they expect to share in a small taste of a beautiful, luxurious, resort lifestyle.

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January 25, 2014 · 4:49 pm

Kubrick was a collage artist.

I’m convinced of this now. Except he collaged together different elements of his films, including segues between shots. Else you can’t explain why Jack’s light colored t-shirt aligns so perfectly with the white edges of the typewriter here in the crossfade between shots 171 and 172. The t-shirt advertises Stovington High (a name taken directly from the Steven King source book) and their mascot, the eagle. The typewriter we crossfade to here is an Adler, which means “eagle” in German. There’s also a more stylized eagle emblem on the typewriter above the brand name. Jack’s t-shirt, in the fade, begins to say A D L E R instead of STOVINGTON as his arm moves in front of the latter. There’s no doubt about it: Kubrick wanted the Stovington Eagles and the Adler typewriter and its eagle emblem to be *directly* connected. Second eagle replaces the first.

While I have shot 172 loaded in my DVD player, I’ll show you something else about it that others have spotted. Instead of working on his story in the shot, Jack is throwing that yellow ball against the Indian mural above the hearth. At one point, he assumes the position of the an upside down version of the Tarot’s Hanged Man, the 12th card of the pack’s Major Arcana.

And there’s the monkey shaped driftwood again beside him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hanged_Man_%28Tarot_card%29

This event is also actually synched in Carrcass-10, where the REMs (or *Murmur* now) sing, “Your feet are going to be on the ground,” a verse from their “Stand” single. Jack’s feet, however, very briefly leave the ground while he assumes the reversed hangman position.

Interestingly, the Hanged Man card appears in Steven King’s Dark Tower series, begun several years after the release of The Shining. The Hanged Man wikipedia article specifically earmarks the Gunslinger novel, the first of the long series, where it symbolizes the main character Roland and his quest.

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Image

Gray (S)adler 04

(continued from)

There are a number of other very interesting towns around Red Cross besides nearby Level Cross already discussed in “Gray (S)adler 03.” Note first that Red Cross is near Climax, just over the northern Randolph County line in Guilford, and also lies within the Climax topographic map. Julian also seems meaningful, but I’ll have to get back to that if so. And then we have both a Grays Chapel and a Whites Chapel not far south of Red Cross (!). Lineberry (Linberry?) may reinforce, for us, the 2 needed lines to form a cross. Then there’s Melanchton a couple of miles to Red Cross’ southwest, the only US population place that begins with the letters “melanch”, like “melancholia”. I pretty strongly believe, however impossible it seems once more, that this is referring to Durer’s very famous 16th Century print “Melencholia I”, the first of a series planned on the subject of melancholia in general according to some sources. For now, I’ll say it has to do with the 4×4 Magic Square of the picture — I’ll study more about the print this weekend.

The topographic maps covering Randolph County could be a reinterpretation of the 4×4 square given the presence of MELACHton within (Grays Chapel topo map).

A 4×4 square appears above the CH O KING poster. In the movie, I believe Kubrick wants an association to be made between it and the 4 washers in the neighboring room, as already discussed as well in “Gray (S)adler 03”. I now think it can also be associated with Randolph County, NC, even though this is something that Kubrick in all likelihood *didn’t* plan. We have wandered off his map, if so.

The position of Red Cross is marked with a red cross. If The Shining’s 4×4 paper and Randolph County’s topo maps are aligned this way, the 2 “red crosses” are basically directly north and south of each other. The folded back corner of one the pieces of the “map” indicates the position of Red Cross, and also Level Cross directly above it, in turn (again if we turn the map sideways).

Some more on Randolph County:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_County,_North_Carolina

Randolph County is located in the center of North Carolina & the city of Asheboro (located in Randolph County) is the center point of North Carolina.

In 1911, a new county called Piedmont County was proposed, with High Point as its county seat, to be created from Guilford, Davidson and Randolph Counties. Many people appeared at the Guilford County courthouse to oppose the plan, vowing to go to the state legislature to protest. The state legislature voted down the plan in February 1911.[7][8]

Durer’s “Melancolia I” and its well known 4×4 square, also called the Magic Square of Jupiter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melencolia_I

Even if he didn’t plan it, don’t you think Kubrick would like the alignment of 2 maps called Climax and Erect on either side of Randolph County?!

X marks the spot again.

(Continued in)

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January 24, 2014 · 3:12 pm

January 24, 2014 · 5:42 am

Gray (S)adler 03

(continued from)

At 58:42, Wendy acquires “Rudolf nose” as her head begins to eclipse the red cross on the bulletin board.

The crown of her head passes directly beneath the turned up corner of the paper above the bulletin board precisely above the red cross. Simultaneously she starts to look up at the approaching boiler — her head *bends* with the line of the curve.

Another red nose effect quickly takes place — Wendy has encountered the eastern edge of the all important CH O KING poster. She now looks directly at KING.

She seems to balance the “O” on her nose at one position. Like a seal and its ball?

Her mouth aligns with red, middle region at the western edge of the poster, as if she is eating it in reverse (?)

After pushing some boiler buttons and hearing Jack grunt in seeming reaction, Wendy looks directly at the camera as her head realigns with the “O” of CH O KING, with the KING clearly visible again. And just to remind, we have that mysterious red sparkle appearing right when she then sets her clipboard down on the table, as she starts to move toward Jack in the Colorado Lounge to see what’s going on.

The 2nd CH O KING poster again in the adjacent utility room, which Wendy trots past on her way to Jack. We see that the paper with the red cross is once more beside it, but to its left instead of the former right. In the screen capture, Wendy’s head is centered in the “X”, maybe a direct counterpart to the poster’s median “O”? It’s also a possibility that it relates to the much smaller red cross just beside it here.

The red cross represents a *level* or horizontal cross, while the “X” represents a cross on a diagonal, in effect. Level Cross, North Carolina is the birthplace of NASCAR legend Richard *Petty*, who was known as “The KING” because he was at the top of his game when driving. Level Cross, NC happens to be directly west of a village named Red Cross. I’ll get back to that line of thought in a moment.*

Short theory here: I believe Kubrick wanted to parallel the 4 green washers *below* this second CH O KING poster to 4×4 paper *above* the first seen one. Starting at the left, both identical posters appear carefully aligned between the 1st and 2nd “columns” of paper and bank of washers respectively. The switching of the red cross from right to left indicates that we are dealing with an inversion, and that also top should be seen as bottom now. The washer furthest from Wendy here is slightly out of line with the others, just as one of the 4 columns in the 4×4 paper has a slightly bent corner, the one where Wendy begins to *bend* her head at to face the poster right as she passes beneath it. It’s not a calendar, however, since this would be 4×3 (for the 12 months). I believes it’s the washers or the washers are it. Each of the 4 washers turned on their primary axis would present 4 rectangles to the viewer — a top, a bottom and 2 sides, front and back. Likewise each of the 4 columns of the paper contains 4 rectangles.

We run smack into the same question again and again: why would *Kubrick go to so much trouble to do this*?!

(continued in)

—–
* Level Cross has recently been in the news.
http://www.autoweek.com/article/20131105/nascar01/131109924

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January 24, 2014 · 4:25 am

Gray (S)adler 02

(continued from)

http://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/shining_wednesday_1.htm

There is above the lamp in the entry to the inner apartment of 237 a picture and at its bottom one of the shadowy forms occasionally seen in the photographs of the lodge instead of the usual chronicle of faces arranged about a table. One has here a sense of something like the abyss, and a great question mark concerning the figure staring across that great desert–though the picture appears to be of a lake. The image blends with other background paintings in the hotel that are instead wastes of snow. Knowing that later Jack will come up to Room 237 to inspect it, the silhouette presence in the image imparts the impression of it being Jack.

Kearns points out a very interesting, apparent transformation of this silhouette figure into a boiler switch in the subsequent crossfade. I’ve captured some screen shots to show the effect. When I first read about this, I thought that maybe Juli was looking too deep at this particular aspect, and seeing too much.

I believe I’ve changed my mind, given that the switch is red, and the very next scene transition, a cut this time, has almost directly overlapping red rectangles. Toggle back and forth between successive frames around this cut pictured below to see the effect. How much did Kubrick plan?? I haven’t even begun to reach the depth.

Red rectangle at bottom of safety poster…

… transforms into rectangular red bottom of pack of Marlboro cigarettes.

So let’s back up and see what Juli has to say about that boiler switch/painting silhouette match. I’ll focus on the provided pictures:

Fig. 17 – The silhouette in the painting at the entry of Room 237.

Fig. 18 – The silhouette in the painting at the entry of Room 237 begins to overlay the boiler in the basement.

Fig. 19 – The silhouette in the painting at the entry of Room 237 seems to reverse orientation, when it is instead a switch on the boiler becoming more prominent.

Fig. 20 – The switch on the boiler in the basement.

As the silhouette from the painting fully merges into the hardware on the boiler, and the crossfade ends, Wendy leans to the right so that the lean of her posture mimics the silhouette/hardware. We will see this kind of side-leaning mimicry again when Jack knocks a number of objects to the ground on his way to the Gold Room, in the scene where he comes upon all the balloons. In that scene, the side-lean will be observed also in a poster beyond Jack.

Here’s the leaning Wendy, seeming to mimic the angle of the red and black boiler switch in question to her left.

Again, I now think Ms. Kearns is definitely on to something here. So let’s look again at the chOking poster also displayed not once but twice in this particular Shining shot… this is shot 263 of the film according to Kearns’ counting. Quoting her again…

The unique CH O KING poster has the 0 slightly truncating the red form of the pyramid or plane below, which reminds of Wendy’s action of operating the can opener over a crossfade of the mountain in the Tuesday section which results in a sort of truncation of the mountain so it is concealed from view for the remainder of the movie.

We will learn in a little while that a “crazy woman” has attempted to strangle Danny in the bathroom of room 237. The crossfade from room 237 to Wendy in the boiler room when Danny asks if she’s in there, and the presence of the CH O KING poster and the pinups of the nudes could place Wendy in Room 237 symbolically if not literally, or are simply revealing to us the story of what is happening to Danny at this very moment.

She then provides this close up of the poster, which I’ve already displayed in the 1st post of this little series just below. Here it is again.

Continuing…

No two ways about it, we’ve no ordinary safety poster here giving instruction on what to do in the case of choking. The lettering is hand done and has the feel of 1950s/1960s horror film movie poster lettering. We see above the truncated pyramid, in the O, what appears to be a human face, mouth open in a large O. A depiction of a choking individual? The Blu-Ray’s colors are more intense and one wonders what is that red field down below the mouth? It doesn’t appear red in the DVD, and there are some scenes in the Blu-Ray where the colors are so completely wrong it’s a travesty. Can we take this as an image of Danny being choked? We also can glean here the image of Danny screaming in horror of Dick’s being killed.

Keep in mind we see *2* CH O KING posters in shot 263, one in the boiler room, and another in the utility room just outside, with the washers and dryers. We’ve also already seen this in a photo above, (far left center) representing the very last frame of the shot. The 2 posters appear identical; twinned.

Green and gold Wendy runs between green washers and golden dryers to end shot 263.

(continued in)

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January 23, 2014 · 4:05 pm

Monkeys (Hey Hey!)

TEXT SOON.

http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=205856&page=33

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January 23, 2014 · 2:09 pm

Gray (S)adler

http://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/shining_tuesday.htm

208 MS Jack. (45:47)

Wendy exiting, as she reaches the end of the rainbow painting, cut back to Jack from the angle of where she had been standing. As we hear her footsteps continuing across the floor, Jack returns to work. The scrapbook shows different images and paper is already in the carriage. This shot of Jack appears out of joint with the others, his temperament and face dramatically different, no hint of rage there, but Kubrick has styled the shot so that Wendy’s departing footsteps heard over it tie the cuts together aurally.

The door beyond is now hidden by the lamp. Jack’s position conceals whether or not the table and chair, which were there then gone then returned, are there or not.

Juli contends this is the *real* (or realer) Jack typing the horror story based on the scrapbook he found in the Boiler Room (in King’s book; not shown in or edited out of Kubrick’s film, however, as discussed previously). The typewriter has changed colors from white to gray in the meantime.

Later on in her “Tuesday” section, Juli reveals her “base plan” starting with the above photo…

Jack’s expression is so different here, I really do feel like this is one of the few “real” shots in the film (there are a couple of others), and that the rest are only Kubrick allegory world and mental scenes from Jack working away on his novel. None of this really happens. It is a story. And that’s all right. After all, it’s only a story anyway. It’s fiction from beginning to end.

The film is full of impossibilities from beginning to end, and I have said repeatedly that one can’t approach this realistically. I really do think we have two stories, that of the writer who is at a lodge typing out his story, perhaps one a lot like Stephen King, an alcoholic with anger problems, and the story is inspired by this and a working out of it. And the story is also an allegory, a vehicle for the story Kubrick is intending to tell.

I’ve already discussed this idea of a story within a story (within a story) as well, most likely inspired by an earlier study of Kearns’ massive Shining document. Back to the Base Plan… Juli gives a list of some of the movie’s perceived “90 degree turns” and inexplicable, attached disappearances. She then states…

Fig. 48 – Pyramid and pyramidal trapezoid, monolith, vanishing point and single point perspective, all wrapped up in one, but the apex (and, hence, the vanishing point, the pyramid, the angle of convergence) is obscured.

An expresion for these 90 degree/right angle turns and the disappearances and appearances that seem to be associated with them I again find in the “vanishing point” (angle of convergence) of the trapezoid pyramid shape that is repeated throughout the film. Again, when one views this not as just a trapezoid but a rectangle viewed from an extreme perspective we find in it the disappearing angle of the vanishing point.

Kubrick consistently expresses the trapezoidal pyramid shape in the film with a circle above as if obscuring the angle of convergence. Take a look at the sconce on the wall above Jack’s head and how we have this expressed even in the shadow created by the light and the bottom of the sconce being what obscures the angle of convergence. This is an example of what I’m talking about. A simple expression of light and shadow and geometry.

We see the same later in the peculiar choking poster.

We see it implied in the Colorado flag.

She goes on to give several other examples of this vanishing point, including a corner of the hotel related scrapbook in one shot that appears to be altered by Kubrick to represent this. I personally think Kearns is on to something. She concludes her “Tuesday” section with the following, directly connected to the scrapbook’s sudden, unexplained appearance in the film…

Up to this point in The Shining, things had been going fairly well for Wendy and Danny and Jack at the Overlook, in as much as he hadn’t entered his crisis yet, that state of obsession in which he types over and over again the one phrase, “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” But that has now changed. The shift has been made.

Things could even said to be heading *south* from this point on.

(continued?)

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Tagged as MONOLITH

January 22, 2014 · 4:35 am

Reversed: Danny strangles Jack!

http://www.synchromysticismforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=602&start=60

Brought to you by the makers of “What’s Up Doc?”.

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January 21, 2014 · 5:04 pm

Steptoe Series 04

(continued from)

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.