identity of Aeon Flux

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The real Aeon flux is dead and a clon of her is alive and doing the same thing as the "real" one????

-- lucia avila (aeonflux_ar@yahoo.com), October 10, 2001

Answers

The revealing of an artist's intentions is not necessarily the same as removing another individual's interpretation of the same work. Recently I have been forced to acknowledge men and women are not the same they do think differently and Trevor seems to be the quintessential male. Although a devastating lover he is a dangerous lover. I can't say I blame her. How delightful to read it put so perfectly "to satisfy her own desire to give in to her emotions...in the end she chooses not to betray her original self".

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo9@cs.com), October 17, 2001.

Incredible, isn't it.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 11, 2001.

I wonder sometimes if it an allegorical for the fact that MTV wouldn't allow Peter Chung complete free reign hence Aeon was not the truest Aeon...with previous eps being corrupted replicas of his original ideal.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 11, 2001.

Barb, are you talking in esperanto or something?

-- Victor (victor_mancini@excite.com), October 13, 2001.

in that case, aeon's clone is the corrupted replica created by the decision making bods at mtv and the original aeon, that was engaging in a happily-ever-after romance with mr goodchild, would be peter chungs ideal. sounds wrong somehow...

-- Victor (victor_mancini@excite.com), October 13, 2001.


It's true: All episodes subsequent to "A Last Time For Everything" are only the adventures of Flux's "copy;" she knew she couldn't live with herself after that gig.

This conclusion is, however, qualified by the fact that EP's 1-10 are not ordered in series, but in parallax. There is no "chronology" to their episodic arrangement; continuity between life and art is an insidious contrivance perpetrated surreptitiously for the sake of convention or even convenience; so, between life and TV, go figure!

I mean, why would anyone ever presum

-- DANGERBOY (artian@earthlink.net), October 13, 2001.


No. Peter said once on this forum that some of his best ideas never made it past MTV's censor's. Aeon had been 'toned' down by them anyhow. They felt the scripts were too 'confusing' or in other words the character's were not one dimensional enough. After all the audience of Aeon had to 'think' and decide for themselves why the character was sometimes doing things that appeared to be incorrect morally and sometimes she was vain and even clumsy. The scripts were difficult to fathom at first sitting and didn't 'hand feed' you the meanings.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 13, 2001.

And I just found out MTV cancelled "Downtown" as well - wtf is with them? They just buy the rights to excellent and original animations and cancel them after a couple of seasons or so, so that no one else can enjoy them? BOYCOTT MTV

-- HPG (hpgareck@msn.com), October 13, 2001.

oh yeah, Barb, I know all about the censor machine and Aeons re- gurgitive dealings with it, just your analogising with 'A Last Time for Everything' is loose and tangential. in fact it detracts from the level of thinking that the episode requires to imprint the political wrangling of the shows evolution onto its frame.

-- Victor (victor_mancini@excite.com), October 14, 2001.

When Van Gogh did the portrait of Dr. Gachet the subject reflected the artists own inner feelings. The subject matter for a script sometimes might unconsciously touch on the artist's feelings while the details of a plot might not.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 14, 2001.


sometimes i wonder if your all actually speakin english.... not like i would know either way, *sigh*

-- Dann (Slims01@juno.com), October 14, 2001.

Even though this probably my favorite episode, it has always bothered me. Part of it is undoubtedly the genuine emotion displayed by both Aeon and Trevor at the end, but I think it is also the fact that what Aeon did was just incredibly fucked up. I realize her whole persona revolves around the unpredictable, but it is seriously disturbing to think that someone would sacrifice themself for no greater cause than giving someone they seem to love a deep emotional scar. I mean my god, is a little love really that bad. On a side note, while there doesn't seem to be very much chronological consistency in the series, there are some rare occasions where one episode might referrence another episode. For instance, I think she mentions Rorty's name in Chronophasia. But then you have episodes like Chronophasia and Ether Drift Theory where she seems to die. I think maybe the writers weren't too concerned about episodal consistency since the series began with her dying in every episode. Even so, I've always thought of End Sinister as being the last episode.

-- Logo (vosepherus@aol.com), October 15, 2001.

Your sentiments are mine.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 15, 2001.

Well, part of the reason we love Aeon is cause she's so certifiably insane.

-- The Artist Formerly known as the Artist fromerly known as Frostbite, now just known as Frostbite (krooks@agnesscott.edu), October 15, 2001.

(sets down bottle of whiskey) Only a madman could take on a thousand Breens and live...

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), October 15, 2001.


*hiccup*

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), October 15, 2001.

Logo,

It's true that Aeon's stated motive was to make Trevor hurt. But the main reason for her undertaking the mission was to satisfy her own desire to let herself give in to her emotions-- though she may not be willing to admit it. She would never allow herself to do that because she knows how the experience would affect, even change, her permanently. She knew going in that the price of tasting the forbidden fruit had to be death, and in the end, she chooses not to betray her original self.

Perhaps the only way to penetrate the defenses of someone as powerful as Trevor is to use suicide tactics. In this episode, she is a...... terrorist.

While we're on the subject of hopeless love, I've posted some thoughts on Mulholland Drive on Mat Rebholz's The Art of Film forum. Only read them if you've seen the film. And to those who haven't yet...what the hell are you waiting for?!

The Art of Film

-- Peter Chung (neo830holy@orgio.net), October 16, 2001.


Is this just me being wacky, or is the premise of this episode subtley sexist? It kind of implies that Trevor can fall in love and still remain his old self, while Aeon must "surrender" to him in order to fall in love. What's up with that?

-- Frostbite (krooks@agnesscott.edu), October 16, 2001.

Kristine, On the contrary, it's precisely because of Aeon's intent to gain the edge on Trevor that she undertakes the mission. She knows that Trevor's psyche will forever bear the scars of having loved and lost her. Her surviving self, however, remains untainted. If Trevor were immune from lasting emotional pain, then yes, your criticism would be valid. But, this is not how the episode plays out.

In spite of what is usually held as conventional wisdom, in my own experience, men are just as susceptible to the traumas of love as women. Often more so, in fact. They just don't want to admit it.

-- Peter Chung (neo830holy@orgio.net), October 16, 2001.


On further reflection, I think you raise an interesting point. There IS a discrepancy between Trevor's willingness to openly profess love and Aeon's. But I would phrase it in a subtler way. In Aeon's case, she's guarded because she's conscious of the consequences. So she takes the precaution of planning the erasure of the experience by agreeing to let the "tainted" copy die. Trevor, on the other hand goes into the affair blind, confident of his ability to remain unaffected. Aeon is actually counting on this arrogance (male arrogance, if you prefer) to strike him at his weakest point.

-- Peter Chung (neo830holy@orgio.net), October 17, 2001.

What happened to the Peter Chung who was far more open to the interpretaion of the fans and who would offer directions for the viewer to think in? doesn't even sound like the same person...

-- Victor (victor_mancini@excite.com), October 17, 2001.

Victor, Paul and maybe others here,

There seems to be a tendency to draw the conclusion that because I've said that I encourage alternate interpretations based on the viewer's individual perception that this means that any and all interpreted meanings are equally valid. This is emphatically NOT what I'm saying. Bear with me, this is going to seem pedantic, but I want to state my view as clearly as I can.

I try to interpret works of art by approaching them with as little prejudice as possible. I try to glean meanings first from the spontaneous response they evoke in me without trying to second-guess the artist's intentions. In this way, one makes the experience "real". What I mean by this is that the way I derive meaning from art is much like how I derive meaning from actual events in my life. As I've said, real life events do not arrive with little curator's labels or publicist's notes telling you what they mean. It's up to the individual to make sense of them, based on awareness of context, some discourse with others who are connected to the events, pattern recognition, gut feeling. Looking at current world events, we can see this process going into overdrive. Each political group, religious group, business interest, philosopher, sociologist, soldier and peasant is putting his own spin on what is happening. Many of these views contradict each other. Many are based on prejudice more than fact. Is there a singular, "true" interpretation, one absolute meaning that is going to be equally valid to all people? I doubt it.

However, there are many interpretations that are simply wrong because they are unsupported by reality. As examples, I have no problem dismissing the Jerry Falwell interpretation, nor the widely believed view among some Arabs that the terrorist attacks were a conspiracy by the Israeli Mossad to turn world sentiment against Muslims. I'm sorry to be sounding so high-falutin', but this is the best example that comes to mind.

Any interpretation of a work of art, to be valid, must be supported by argument pertaining to what is actually contained in that work. I can't tell you how many times people have come to me and said things like "hey, I really like your Aeon Flux episodes... they don't have a story, but I like them anyway", or "are you going to write a script next time?". They've obviously concluded that I simply animate whatever pops into my head without any logical reason. I have no problem personally dismissing these interpretations because they have no factual basis. I'll usually not argue with these people, though, realizing how hopeless that would be.

Finally, I will freely admit faults, inconsistencies, signs of political incorrectness and plain bad aesthetic judgment contained in my work-- and I believe I have done so in the past. In this case, though, I thought Kristine was a bit off the mark, and I chose not to let her criticism stand without a challenge. Plus it just makes for livelier discourse.

-- Peter Chung (neo830holy@orgio.net), October 17, 2001.


Everybody,

I just realized that my post may seem like overkill in response to Victor's brief comment. I should explain that a related debate has been ongoing on The Art of Film forum. Since I'm guessing that Victor is also referencing my comments there, I thought I'd address both Victor and Paul in one shot.

-- Peter Chung (neo830holy@orgio.net), October 17, 2001.


God damn! I stop checking the forum for a day and of course that's the day Peter Chung comes for a visit. Anyway, regarding my earlier comment, I realize that Aeon's other objective was to live a little for once, to let herself go, but it still seems incredible to me that she would sacrifice herself. Perhaps I'm being a bit naive here, never having been in love myself, but it seems odd to think of love as a weakness. In this episode it is the cold, calculating, emotionless Aeon that is "untainted" whereas the one in love is treated as if afflicted with some dread disease and has to be destroyed. That's just twisted (but also one of the reaons I like this episode so much). It may be true that the Aeon in love would be in conlict with the old Aeon's ideals, but is that so terrible? What makes those ideals so superior and so precious that they should take precedence over love? And would those old ideals even remain valid assuming that Trevor would be equally "afflicted?" After all, Aeon and Trevor define each other. If Trevor's values are changed through love along with Aeon's, then the old Aeon would no longer have a purpose. In effect, Aeon succeded in stifling change whithin herself which is very unAeon. But then, I guess the kind of shiny-happy- touchy-feely ending I imagine would have been pretty dull and unremarkable.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), October 17, 2001.

Aeon under love's spell is no longer in command of her own destiny. Don't you think this conflicts with her "nobody can make me be anything" philosophy? Also, to be in love is to trust that person to return that love completely. Can Trevor Goodchild be trusted?

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 17, 2001.

Despite what people might think, no one is ever completely in command of their own destiny (of course no one is ever completely subject to fate either). That point aside however, when she kills herself she conflicts with her philosophy by forcing herself to continue her existence as a subversive force in the world. Sure she takes command of her destiny, but she also stultifies her claim to being so all embracing to change. If she had just let matters flow and embraced the love (I know that sounds korny) she would be treading in unchartered territory, she would be growing or at least changing, and I think that is what her philosophy is all about. Embracing change, natural change. As for the matter of trust, I think Trevor and Aeon do trust each other. They demonstrate a certain degree of trust through out the entire series. In any case, to be in love also means taking a chance. Clearly they are both affected by the experience and so I don't think we should just dismiss the possibility that Trevor could have changed. Certainly Aeon did. Enough to make her kill herself for fear that she would undermine her cause. She could have taken a chance on Trevor, but she didn't. Why?

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), October 17, 2001.

The paradox Aeon has exposed within herself is that it is not possible to perpetually embrace change and be a subversive force in the world. In order to be such a force you just stop change within yourself. And if you continue to embrace change within yourself, you must naturally accept some things and cease to be perpetually subversive. We see this process all the time in art and politics. The subversive and revolutionary forces of today become tomorrow's new world order.

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), October 17, 2001.

Peter,

I don't assume all interpretations are equally valid. But their validity is really beside the point, if we're talking about the viewer's experience. What an individual viewer derives from art depends mostly on their own perception; they could get it all wrong and still gain a lot of insight from it. Some of my favorite movies are actually not all that well executed (Dune, for example)... but in their own clumsy way, they lit a fire in me and provoked thought. And if the film in question is a real Z-grade howler, I can honestly say I got more out of it than the director ever intended!

Now with a "good" film, I might miss the intended point entirely; but if I find *a* point to it, what difference does it make? And if I fail to find any point in an intelligent work (as the L.A. Times did with Lost Highway) then I have only myself to blame. I don't trash films for being obtuse or inaccessible... IMHO, neither should film critics. That said, I still can't make a division between "relevant" and "irrelevant" data; if it affects me, it is relevant.

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), October 18, 2001.


BTW, I see your point in approaching art spontaneously... in the past, spontaneity has been a condition imposed by authority figures (parents, teachers) and I grew to resent it. It's something I'd like to cultivate, though; as I get older, I find I have more to "unlearn".

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), October 18, 2001.

Paul,

Ha ha ha... I'm loving the sprawling reach of this discussion. Starting from one forum, dipping in and out of private emails, and ending up at the bottom of a totally unrelated topic on another forum.

Yes, I more or less agree with every point you make (except for your claim that Dune is not well executed). (Oh, and getting picky, it was the L.A. Weekly that dissed Lost Highway,-- although in all likelihood, so did the L.A. Times).

Regarding relevant vs. irrelevant elements, what I meant by irrelevant may have been better served by the word "arbitrary". The black book is a "Macguffin", an element in a film that serves only to put characters in motion. It could just as easily be a piece of jewelry, a wad of money or a photograph. Just as the question of how long the aliens were stranded in the AF episode "Leisure" is irrelevant to the meaning of that story, I do maintain the need to use judgment in ascribing significance to arbitrary elements. Just as a detective should filter through significant and insignificant bits of evidence in making a case.

-- Peter Chung (neo830holy@orgio.net), October 18, 2001.


Speaking of arbitrary elements, what's with that tooth in "War?"

-- Logo (Vosepherus@aol.com), October 18, 2001.

*Rolls this over in her head, trying to find something wrong with it* Okay, you got me.

To Barb - I still think there aren't any fundamental differences in the way men and women act. We just interpret them differently. Like how Trevor's actions are attributed to arrogance, but if a female did the exact same thing it would be called vanity.

-- Frostbite (krooks@agnesscott.edu), October 18, 2001.


Frostbite (you're not a Krook) don't get me wrong. Aeon is every bit as arrogant as Trevor. That's not what I meant when I said they think differently. Aeon's interest in loving Trevor is based in real honesty of her emotions. Trevor sought immediate sexual gratification to remain in control of his emotions and sidestep the 'issue' that is so difficult: love. Why else would he have made the copies and entertained them group fashion. He knew it was Aeon he really wanted all along. This copy idea was his way of lying to himself just as Aeon lied to herself when she opened Pandora's box, (hmmm, I refrain from the obvious...) and came up with her plan to let herself experience her 'real' feelings for him. She decided to show him that a thousand copies can't hold a candle to the real thing, (again, love). She did.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 18, 2001.

Re: gender equality - it helps that both Aeon and Trevor are brimming over with testoterone ^_^

OK, I have the day off, so I'll add a couple things to my last post... when LH came out, the L.A. Times wrote a review (essentially) saying that it was an excuse for gratitious sex and violence; "it exists only for the sake of it's provocative moments", or some rubbish like that. That hack-job intrigued me so much, I wound up catching it on cable the next year - needless to say, I loved it, and was dumbstruck that so many reviewers could call it "pointless". As for Dune, well yes, it is a lovely film, well-shot, scripted and acted on almost all accounts. EXCEPT, the clash between Dino Delaurentiis and David Lynch nearly ruined it. I hate when directors, even Lynch, decide to chop up a film; Dune works so much better as a three-hour-plus, extended meditation. Even there, it has problems (the clunky narration, for example)... but that's just me being pedantic. Take my comments with a grain of salt, Peter; it's because I love these films that I harp on them. It was fun to spar with a black belt for a change, we must do this again sometime :-)

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), October 18, 2001.


P.S. Ever see Liquid Sky? The UFO is a porta-light, and the score done on a rented synthesizer... but man! Could those people act!

-- Inukko (nadisrec@worldnet.att.net), October 18, 2001.

Frostbite,

Not to belabor the point, (okay, just a little) I guess I should have pointed out the exchange between Aeon and her copy:

"Crush his soul."

"Impale him on his own ego."

-- Peter Chung (neo830holy@orgio.net), October 18, 2001.


Since the question has just been asked again, and I'm told it's okay to announce it, I'll let you know what I've been up to. The project's title is "Animatrix". It's a compilation DVD made up of short episodes by different animation directors, each doing their own stories that take place in the "Matrix" universe. Yes, as in the Keanu Reeves movie. The Wachowski Brothers are fans of Japanese animation (easy to tell from their movie) and have commissioned the episodes from some of the top directors in the field. Madhouse studio is doing two episodes, most of the rest are being done at Studio 4 Degrees C.

I'm being given the freedom to write my own script and design my segment in my own style. My script has been approved and I'm currently in the design and storyboard phase. My episode will run about 6-7 minutes. Each episode is self-contained and relates somehow to the ideas presented in the movie, though not using those characters. The DVD will probably be released sometime late in 2002. A short preview of "Animatrix" will be included on the "Matrix Revisited" DVD coming out in November. My segment will not be previewed, since I've only just started working on it.

In the meantime, I've set aside work on T.V. commercials (thank God) and the development of my independent feature project, which is ongoing. It's just going to be a longer wait on that one.

This is all I can say now, so please don't ask me questions on it. You can read more about it here:

Originally called "Matrix Anime", the title has since been changed to "Animatrix". You'll see both being used.

Matrix Anime

http://www.upcomingmovies.com/matrixanime.html

Here's a shot of the "Matrix Revisited" DVD with info on that:

http://www3.thematrixonline.com/docs/4393.html

Oh, and nobody tell Attrox...

-- Peter Chung (neo830holy@orgio.net), October 19, 2001.


*head explodes*

-- Frostbite (krooks@agnesscott.edu), October 19, 2001.

I miss a week and things start to happen, I have some catching up to do ^_^

-- William (stateofflux@yahoo.com), October 19, 2001.

This could be left to intepretation if anyone (old enough to remember when MTV played videos more than BS) Aeon Flux was a short segment on Liquid television they all were silent and each episode aeon was killed in one way or another

-- Arashikage (Stormshadow5150@hotmail.com), October 20, 2001.

Peter, this is so cool. We've seen what you can do with 6 to 7 minutes. Mind boggling. Gotcha, silent around Attrox.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), October 20, 2001.

um, yeah look: Aeobn's incentive to see herself dispatched with extreme prejudice is not so friggin' oblique. Now we're tawkin' abat a motherfucker who probably has wrestled for too way long with the inner dilemma of Goodchild as a political target of unqualified imperative - yet who simultaneously represents also for her an undeniable personal investment who might not be requited at a personal level without, somehow, arrangements to be implemented directly to the hypothetical occasion (of her ever consummating her own personal imperative to force the personal rasa incognita between her and Goodchild, that is) sufficient to secure provision for such unprofessionable, insupportable and remiss an idiot and wanton contingency by the only solution sufficient to reconcile the entire picture for her: to check out. Furthermore, it should evince the magnitude of her own appreciation for just how important to her pursuit of realization in self an episode of personal closure, however prearranged or even preemptive or abrupt such a scenario would really be, even given the emergence of such a hypothetical scenario, so highly unlikely as it were. We are interpreting the totality of internal motivations in a particular individual whose whole life has precipitataed a career in an absolutist pursuit of a certain political objective, defined of an ideological interior disposition arranged of necessity immediately and direclt against what monstrous Breen designs upon society at-large and without discretion whatsoever in respect to the real-time actuality of the body politic as a whole that were rightfully of some realistic appreciation for what is in reality a relentless, interminable and runaway interstitiated gordian knot of two intertangled, irreconcilable utopian praxes, both essential and absolute in their respective empirical theories. (For example, Bregna's official position in regards to Monica not only fails to recognize the latter, but in fact for sake of philosophical consistency actually is compelled so far as to introduce a prerogative conceptual injunction that supposedly rectifies any possible subsequent instances of what possible Defense-Condition "critical frictionS' may otherwiseever discover the chance occasion to achieve - a sort of "cosmological constant", an arbitrary normative parameter introduced to give a virtual manageability of all conceivably emergent, "metainteractual" situation or contingency. This so-called normative arbitrator as it is applied is known as "omniform (or omnilateral) disrecogntiation" and is more commonly inferred from occasional emergency alert warnings that may be inadvertantly encountered at any more-sensitive or less objectively or clearly-defined subsection of the continuous though wrested and impracticably twisted and hyperconvoluted Breen Border. Introduction of such an abstract calculational enabler however does achieve for Bregna's own purposes a kind of quck-fix and temporary assessment of any incidental territorial contingency ( autoidentificatial continuity Border security isoform condition White).

As a result of this solution to a fictive, arbitrant, hypothetical mathematical 9implement of the SocioCultural Constant (and its subseq

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 09, 2001.


Anyhow I accidentally struck an esc key and clipped off the train of psychic transmission!!!

That was getting so weird! So anyway, of course the interpersonal relationship / intervolvement dynamic which is itself but a hypothetical analog only peripheral, ulterior, implied, inferred, deferred in perpetuity, requited only in theory

Has got to in all eventuality realize a (quasi)manifestation as its own, irreducible, insolvent emotional impasse for Aeon in particular at least by some point along the way.

As it happens, Goodchild has engaged a private experimental industrial lab-operation to test and evaluate corporeal/somatic facsimiles ("Copies). It is at this juncture Aeon recognizes the possibility of at least some possible resolution to be arrived at vis-avis her own dilemma about Trevor. How would you feel if the antiobject for your own reason for being as identified in the person or exponent of the Chairman who epitomizes (symbolically, strategically, ideologically, politically and even now at last, personally) everything that has ever interpreted you as a moot, null, anomalous, non-sequitur unreal number to reconcile a universalized regime of absolute, zero tolerance denial - totalateral and universal, impervious and vulcan, empirical and without any conceivable avail unto any recourse; whose curfew of exclusion against you whether in general (Monican) or in particular (say, Aeon; or Sybil for that matter, or ...) is simultaneously the hour of your own internalized vacuous extinguishing in asphyxiation of self; theory of fatal quarantine unto horror of some vulcan, dominant-culture figment of its own ontological conclusions or its own incandescent singularity a soul aglaze in Vaseline and vacuous asepses extrudes the existential instrument ex nihilo each nor any relational vector refractive of all imaginary un- or real-number, Whose Order Ur- Allegiance applies by any way of wrongful sheer brute fiat of circuitous loophole logics ... law unto itself as only so insinuated into "existence" (!) by way of every clever and directly and immediately impeachable but for one still perfect instant this diabolical parlor-trick of cloak and dagger exclusion cosmic bait&switch - in universal antidentiation, of Absolute Antideation - could be disengaged, or simply cross-evaluated or examined !

It isn't that I'm not a person within or without you (, Mr. Ur-rReferent...) . It's that my life, mine own manifest of self, has known it never in Nature ought as such or ere were I :

Were I interminable, immutable - whence mine own hand and signature as it were interperate all only of a telltale wave whose only function never be made registered herein

So - for your perpetual parallel vanishing point a spell all eternal fascination ever toward forever yonder locus of convergence where forever after aeons all unknown or yet unnumbered suspension soon stitches insubstantiate - disbursement; long dark decline down one straining sparing line of sight threads along one yawning curve of spacetime.

Now where I will find you runaway identified against no stake of claim nor space of self - conjured spacetime quantum lens to illuse one errant object - invertant negatiate interiron.

All cosmologies reserve ulterior interiorized reversions; an Ur-Inertiae ushered into further finitudes inevitable ineffable or fatal lo now looming refractive, unillumined A diaphragmmatic crushing cathexis now silence silence hush rush forever rush unseen and soon unseeing singularity implosion -

At the point where I know I've always lived with this one nattering paralysis of a frustrated personal imperative to at any point no matter how if only you could see resolved at least one particular paradox of circumstance unique to your own individual situation, a paradox which has in fact dominated the background recedant far behind all your ever loving longing foreverlorn horizons...he, Nemesis, my own and only opposite number whose other half a realm entire would to gaze ere e'er transfixed upon mine crystal ball inviolate and shining...

Yes, I would - sure, I'd do it. If I could secure a control group of my life to be as should proceed apace though soon without me - That so now should I endeavor To ascertain at last To try the naked measure of mine own and only heart of hearts E'en now, as yet untried, prevaricating, vexing To try mine heart that is to say, against that of mine foe And thus to see plain naked, unguilded, unbeguiled To see for just for once - To see, once and for all.

And then you may imagine it would be no great stretch for Flux to recognize that to consider seriously the idea of actually attempting to perform this bourgeois goosechase - where would she go from there, say best-case?

You can't just abandon your life's vocation for the sake of what you ought to do to just retire, be happy and fuck the world, God damn it all to hell because it's my turn now. I mean, no not if you were Aeon fucking Flux.

But now you've got a copy of yourself to cover whichever other road to follow you're able to now cover both. If nothing goes wrong. What if the copy goes to secure the fatal conquest (Trevor) and she (original) should select to continue along her same undiverted path, business as usual? Would she suffer her friggin' clone TANGENT:I use that phrase advisedly; Peter I remember reeling in brooding static thunderheads of terse invective and rashes of blaring alarum: "This actually is a point of order regards anybody referring to the Copies as "clones," or whatever; I keep having to reiterate what I've demarkated as an iron-rule, overarbitrary and pro-active demand that these actually are, per se, Copies, you should please remain overparticularly clear, Mark, so as to effect a certain oversevere and rigid observance of their being "Copies" as an official convention as per all matters with especially this script, in grave particular."

"Acknowledged. Shit...."

"Okay??"

"Yeh!Yeh!"

suffer OK her friggin' Copy I'm sayen to twaddle amok th' tuilleries with TREVOR! Kill her her own self FUCK THAT. So of course this same token would in all or any eventuality play itself out to like upshot if played out the other way, and just the same. She therefore would be fool to expect that her own Copy should fail to take just so drastic an exception to herself when, as herself (orig,) she should even think for one beat that she could somehow strain the situation to support any thought of its remaining in permanent effect.

So actually I believe that, though of course it came up about if the object of this mission of hers was to excoriate Trevor emotionally / psychologically (by her getting in there and then committing suicide for his benefit), our eventual solution was only to see the latter circumstance really, if anything, materialize at the end only as the icing on the cake - and rather indecorously applied besides its rather flatted application as well. This is, apropos of everything, directly and appropriately (and blisteringly) because- as per how indeed the emotional tension and interpersonal dynamics of the main characters are given to play out - we come to appreciate, I should be pleased to believe, that after all the stakes involved and the magnitude and volatility to come to irrupt upon the final outplaying as it finally all barrels down toward a pretty wrenching, seemingly-unpredictable, and I reflect even now today, believable or emotionally/psychologically credible even to soundly sustain the culminating current of the tension through to episode's finis.

So for me the whole upshot of this particular episode is the recognition for all individuals involved of how ill-prepared are we in our way of often setting up some of the worst-laid plots for the sake of seeking to concert some manipulating scheme of some sort, how articulate and severe the outcome of some of these foolish improvisations we may attempt to implement upon our other unwitting significant others - who after all as it should somehow ever hope to arrive to our attention, are actually these real other people who really are individuals in their own right and not so immediately reducible, as such, to our own often very self-centered and short-sighted or shallow and perhaps less-than-penetrating personal emotional or psychic "cartoon" - and accordingly also unsympathetic, facile, insincere - misapprehensions of ourselves or others when we should have hazarded, if anything, not the clever "2nd-guessing", the shrewd canny dissembling, nor the "duplicitous" dazzle of "double- entendre," no chickenshit tapdance already but just even some honest straight up show me some what it is FACE.

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 10, 2001.


"HE, NEMESIS, MY OWN AND ONLY OPPOSITE NUMBER WHOSE OTHER HALF A REALM ENTIRE WOULD TO GAZE ERE E'RE TRANSFIXED UPON MINE CRYSTAL BALL INVIOLATE AND SHINING...TO ASCERTAIN AT LAST. TO TRY THE NAKED MEASURE OF MINE OWN AND ONLY HEART OF HEARTS...TO SEE FOR JUST FOR ONCE. TO SEE, ONCE AND FOR ALL..." Mark Mars on Last Time for Everything. The center of the vortex! I can't fathom it all on my own, brighter minds of Fluxology are needed here. Untangle it with me, the beauty of the content is what drew us to her. Lee and Poirier were geniuses.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), November 10, 2001.

If I follow this correctly: Aeon being 'clever'in using the copy in order to abandon her life's vocation, (assassin on a mission for Monica's right to exist) allowed herself to be 'duped' so to speak, to 'twaddle amok the tulleries with Trever' as you so charmingly put it, and instead betrayed herself. Believing she could leave her life's work and yet set in motion the copy to accomplish that work instead. But how can one with such strong commitment to personal ethics fall in love with one of such opposite beliefs? One who in reality would crush her right to individual existence or reduce her to a mere pawn? The question is what is the exact nature of the 'love'? I don't believe it was physical, Trevor obviously was not beautiful to look at, or was it of his power? Admiration of his strength that matched hers? What was in that crystal ball inviolate and shining that she wished to finally see. Pandora's box beheld demons, what were Aeon's personal demons that led her to crave Trevor and he she.

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), November 10, 2001.

Yes Barb but woo no look at what I got myself into now ! I be getting myself in some big big trouble ! What to do now me gone out and posting many all or sundry them crazy freakshow and them Ur-teleologies outta me Radio Bowie with me psyche incognita - oh mama me now be woo awl trippin Japanese n gadda go feeeed me haed!!?

woo woo...

But whaddoo I dOO? I'm actually apt to - you know - go off on a blazing streak of some crazy shit! So now I'm, shit - gonna go hafta like, run inta friggin' now I th fok dunnno WHOO and say something disingenuous (or in fact of high improbability, then therefore committing insul to their intelligence upon top of brainbruised injurious sed Posts): "Whu-uuu?? HOO, MEEE...? Flux Boolean Bat? WHAT bat! Sheeeet. Huh, yaw, OH-kay huh they gadda AD-dresss....?"

I bet I'll run into you, or Logo or some out there juju shit - run into Eric Singer ... he's a Leo I HATE FRIGGIN' LEO's! My DAD's a Leo!!

What to do!

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 10, 2001.


Okay, back to work:

I was imagining Flux' own supposed self-disparagement at the thought of droppin it all for Goodchild.

Which she did, but permanently - not so as to save face either - "Twaddle among the Tuilleries" it's funny I admit but thankfully not so simple). I never thought either that say "Hmmm...well, we're all, y'know, sometimes really in CONNNNflict about um thiiiings in our liiiives..." And shit if I have to run into HER...get th gun. fuck that.

Now none of this is me reading into your questios - it makes me stop and consider the situation is all and this is fucking great!!

I overplayed some of my poetic allusion to Trevor's control-issues (if applicable) in last night's posts (among other things oh gaaaawd...). I wonder in fact how matters should have eventuated themselved between the two of them had there been more time. The two scorpions finally together in the same bottle! I mean, check me on this I think but the way those two's respective profiles were rendered it was pretty long-term endurance time hardball going while we were milling over the minute degree of private interpersonal contact the two at last ever had to show for it as it is. It was watching this chesswork automatically resetting-up from either side to proceed toward a deeper and deeper mutual safety zone. We discovered they liked one another - and if we hadn't, do you know, I really think we'd have run right off with that, alternatively, but thankfully it wasn't the case, in fact the idea of that I don't think ever crossed my mind until this moment, but yes I still wonder how the two of them would have carried on the affair because Trevor's not a heedless or even emotionally-irresponsible coward for the sandbox when shit gets down to it either. I fucking hate preadolescent guy types like that with an unlovely passion...I mean at the moment when it was put up or put out or fuck it you're out of the car dude he was good ok but more there was a whole self sound in Trevor for her to match nerve of vulnerablity with of her own I mean they nowhere near had bottomed out. Jeez this brings back a lot of stuff, me I'm sorry too they canned the whole motherfucker. But you figure that we really were bringing to the table sensibilities after those of your '60s foreign film ala Antonioni/Fellini/Godard - you know the drill....

Anyway, too the thing about this episode is that we don't know what she'd have had herself do once discovering a plausibility of an inner life with someone until she or he too had had a real time to honestly assess any sincere, no-baggage picture of what of all thing s any relationship thing should find any moment's thought to ever be like! And her Copy, of course, would have no information at all, only because the Copy had been committed before her (orig.) and Trevor ever came toe to toe about what the fuck about this, what's with this 'us two' gig. HUH!?

WHAT? Okay, sure, I mean what the hell -

"Really! Hello! This is The Chairman: Might we avail our people in Creative Development of some serious screen-writers on this fecklessfracasmorass within the next several and highly-charged emotional moments, here, or are we left here without choice but to gear up another wretched misguided and exorbitant holocaust or three, or -- borne now yet again of - violin please - thank you - a modern, well-meaning industrialized nation's naive and woefully misguided and unfortunate, indeed, sympathetic and poignant political misapprehensions or WHAT. Um, yes, um-hm yes, you make it a three, then!! WAIT: You can make that DOUBLE, in fact; I happen to be in a heat of heavy negotiation, immediately, here with an important -- wait and hold that order, just one moment, please. Pardon me, my dear, I'm rather thoughtless - ah, this is Defense Industrial Security Command on the line. Would you desire to Executive Order, here, darling...? Excuse me, I guess I had better be getting dressed..."

Now let's see..."Personal Ethics/Opposite (apposite?) Beliefs..." This sounds maybe like some bag'ho cop-out line but I'm serious about all of this, at bottom, and I really am. But, you realize and the two of them have to time or no time out: There's too much else at stake in terms of potential involvement that already is at play in the background of an new territory of its own which were their mutual interpersonal relationship busy constructing itself, to turn off right there and imagine just shrugging it off. Besides, they both know (and they both know they both know or anyway should reasonably suspect of one another) that to bring it all over here to this jump-thru-hoopset right over here in this corner ladies & germs we're just right now going to crowbar a roll-bar slapstick wipe-out digression into the quick sidebar lite filler fluff stuff of Political Theory: A Brief Discourse Between Two Antithetical Utopian Societies, would appear (and really only amount to - without maybe having a month or three into the dialogue you know like after the honeymoon, right here - amount to a cowardly conversational maneuver to duck and cover under subterfuge of these important political issues going on here, Trevor/Aeon> And some of that stuff last night with the crystal ball , I really appreciate anyone's gracious tolerance for my propensity to go off open mike time like that, I really do, but I'm totally new to the Net so I swear it's a stage I'll be getting over like real real quick (oh boy...).

Excellent questions; I appreciate the opportunity to respond. Over --



-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 10, 2001.


I've always considered "Last time" to be great literature. That relationship of Aeon/Trevor is as doomed as Cathy/Heathcliff (Bronte's Wuthering Heights) for the great relationship choices made by all four. Trevor could have said the same words to Aeon when she lay dying in his arms as Heathcliff said to Cathy when she lay dying in Heathcliff's arms, Heathcliff: "Oh Cathy, I never broke your heart. You broke it! Cathy! Cathy! You loved me! What right to throw love away for the poor fancy thing you felt...for a handful of worthiness. Misery and death and all the evils that God and man could have ever done would never have parted us. You wandered off like a wanton greedy child to break your heart and mine".

-- Barb e. (Suesuebeo9@cs.com), November 11, 2001.

It's all true! And the one about Sybil&Onan...? Whad WE did, cos all we did there waz we jus waz kappin offa "You Got Male" th mo/v but we had disrecognized space instead of cyberspace un lik THAT, that's how we did that yeah you know we trying to be ret- retro - resonance - an - uhm...jus with it what's going on you know contemporaneously or like that. Yeah. Yeah, you know?

-- dangerboy (artian@earthlink.net), November 11, 2001.

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