And another thing…

The SF Indie Fest has posted their schedule!

Is anyone interested in getting together a posse to see either of the following?

MAYBE LOGIC: The Lives and Ideas of Robert Anton WilsonDocumentary on Robert Anton Wilson (“raconteur, gadfly, libertarian, former Playboy editor, conspiracist, stand-up comedian, best-selling author of Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati and the Illuminatus trilogy, Discordian Pope, Crowleyan Occultist, telepathic alien contactee, permanent occupant of the Chapel Perilous, poet, prankster, mystic and madman”) with music by Boards of Canada! From what I hear, some nerds are interested in going on Feb. 7th.

and a bio-pic about Bettie Page:
Dark Angel
Feb. 11th? Feb. 15th?

Through a mixture of obsessing over films lately (and also due to the fact that just the other day I was trying to explain to someone that I actually wrote “Dude, Where’s My Car” for a Fresno State screen writing class with professor Ed Emanuel years before Philip Stark wrote the screen play) a story I never published (written years ago mind you) called “God Forgot: The Files of Warner Herzelberger” has been on my mind…well actually just this part, where a bombastic psychiatrist publishes his analysis of Warner’s suicide:

Document 5
Psychiatric assessment of Warner Herzelberger, Dr. Romulus Scarf:
I took special interest in the case of Warner Herzelberger (or “Chef” to which he is now commonly referred) because there is something intrinsically different, yet extremely relevant about his suicide. All of the suicides reported in the past twenty years in America can be divided into four groups: the bridge-jumpers, the rope-hangers, the wrist-slitters (sometimes referred to as “bleeders” by us industry folk), and the fatal-overdosers. [For further information on this subject, see Adams’ Complete Guide to Patterns in Modern Suicide: Averages and Means by L. Ron Adams.]
Warner Herzelberger can be categorized in none of these groups. His suicide is completely other. He killed himself by jumping off a clock tower. Such a disturbing image prompts me to ask if his suicide is nostalgic in its style or completely and utterly post-modern. In this assessment of the psychosis of Warner Herzelberger, I will examine and dissect the duality of his suicide and put forth my theory of an entirely new mental illness.
I believe that Warner Herzelberger did not intentionally put himself in danger by climbing to the top of the AltGeld International building, but was mislead my his delusions of immortality. Growing up in a generation completely saturated by film and television, he had no realistic concept of the actual world (or more exactly, what Sartre called the “synthetic totality which one calls world”). Subconsciously he felt that his actions were without any serious consequence and was driven to act cinematically, for this is the only medium in which he could think. We live in a culture that is reliant on images and ideas that are already articulated for us. One could say that every member of our society born after the great invention of the brothers Lumiere must undoubtedly suffer from this film-tinged form of perception. Warner Herzelberger suffered acutely from this shaded perception, which I am the first to identify and name cinematosis. [For further reading on my theory of cinematosis, see Cinematosis: My New Theory, which appeared in the January 1998 issue of Modern Illness, also see How To Detect Cinematosis in Your Patients, an hour-long documentary that I produced in part with Steven Spielberg. This video can be ordered directly through me in NTSC, PAL, or SECAM standards, or can be rented at your neighborhood Blockbuster.]
Warner Herzelberger’s suicide is therefore both post-modern and nostalgic. The suicide is post-modern in that it was cinematically inspired, but also nostalgic in that the choreography of the suicide was solely derived from silent cinema. He hung suspended from the hands of a clock as Harold Lloyd did in his 1923 film "Safety Last" – an image that has become an icon for early film itself. A true societal conduit in death, Warner Herzelberger chose a suicide most reflexive of cinematic history.
Some say that Herzelberger might have been a social critic and his suicide demonstrated his dissatisfaction with modern society. I see him more as a helpless victim of our cinematic culture. I believe there will be an increase in this type of suicide in the near future, or at least a lot of movies will be made about the topic.


Ok, now that that is out of my system...
Today's Meditation:
This Book Belongs to XXX: Beautiful x-rated bookplates from an SF Library exhibit. Thanks Rob!