Naked Lunch Notes

Red door 42
Exterminator
Exterminate all rational thought
Keruoac Ginsberg debate
Guilt vs Sin
Editing vs Stream of conciousness
Kafka
Centipedes
Green door
Blue dress Joan
Shooting up
Literary high
Feel like a bug
Guys at exterminator
Coffee, alien guy
Fluoride stuff
Glasses guy
Cops
Green walls
Headshot
Brown suits
Bring in roach/case manager
Clark Nova
12 mins in
Worked out
Cops extensions of Keruoac/Ginsberg
Future imposing itself on present
Obvious hallucination
InterZone
Kill Joan
Enemy agent
Kills bug with shoe
Runs key in the door
Home Joan
Acknowledges hallucination
Junkie
One last stash
Bug powder
Drawn to it
Sexuality of drugs
Lips kiss
Subway snatch
Lift lie centipedes
Telling stories
Benway
Drug lingo a friend
Black vs yellow
Centipede secret agent
Undercover
The addict
Kick Score
Doctor Help
Believe his own cover story
Larval state
Foreign market
Hallucination jump
New Yorkers
Centipede on stick
Brown and blue
He's in Tan
Cries sobs uncontrollably
Ginsberg reading aloud
Keruoac Joan Fucking
Ginsberg hits on Bill
Arm vs Leg
William Tell
Shoots Joan Shot Glass
The moment that sets him off as a writer
Killing the feminine
Alone single pain regret
Causes writing
We create situations to gives us pain we turn into fiction
Bill leaves
Bar, homosexual Kiki
Doesn't finish sentence
Can't admit it
Sexual ambulance did you say?
Mugwamp
Alien reptile
Mythic resonance
Hole in the forehead, sexualizing
Fetishisizing
InterZone ticket
Pawn shop
Gun for typewriter
Words as weapons
5 bullets
Ginsberg
We see the reality
Ticket is drugs
Report
Hangin man mugwump on his back
Agony symbiosis
Confession as distanced fiction
Diner
Story of Joan
Intiator Selling Black Meat
Backstory of the drug
Mixed with his life
New Yorks in arabic market
Slaughterhouse of giant centipede
Alone in his room
Hand signals for drugs
Purchasing agent
Room typewriter
Head back typewriter typing
Subconcious speaking
Roach Clark Nova
Shock
Hallucination carrying over into reality
Type out
Homosexuality is the best all around cover an agent can have
Trying to admit it to himself
Forceful massochism
Manly sexuality of power/domination
Asshole speaking
Denying self places blame on impure feelings morally and physically repulsive on body part
Blue brown
Reimagines Joan intellectually
Hans
Tom Frost
Young men
Kiki centipede
Blue darker hair up
Tan suit
Telepathic conversation
Murdered his wife
Tom as projection of himself
Slowly poisoning his wife
Fedela
Admitting his flaws on Tom
Long hand Joan
Cloakey finds him on beach
Wasted
O'Leary party
He left his conciousness to party
White suit light blue
Eve breakfast
Queer
A curse, been in our family for generations, the Lees have always been perverts. I'll never forget the unsepakable horror that frozew the lymphs in my glands when thee words seared my reeling brain. I was a homosexual. Was it possible I was one of those subhuman things? A wise old Queen taught me that I had a duty to burden for all to see.
Telling stories.
You sound as if you could use a drink.
Excuse
Foot bruised from drugs
Sentence left off at confession
Centipede bathroom kill
Mirrors Joans breathing roach kill
Joan sleeveless plaid
Humor
Presuming he wants to sleep with people
Hans arrested and deported
Hash resin almond paste
Pretzel puzzle
Martinelli
Martin reaching out
Hank confession of addiction to imaginary substance
Withdrawal
Two typewriters
Fractured soul
Screaming
Clark Nova attacking Martinelli
Him smashing it
Enemy agent
Vulnerabilities
Seduce Joan
The Almohades
Apt 4A brown wood door
Blue skirt
New York restuarant
Probably threw it on the floor
Hallucinations acknowledgement
Arabic typewriter
Sexualizing danger of writing
Hash paste erotica hair down
Sexualizing objects
Giving them sexual power
Instilling them with passion
Anus repeating poem
Sleeping with Ginsberg
Sexual torso beast
The spasmodic pulse after orgasm that reduces sex to bodies pure physical
Fedela comes and exorcises torso beast off railing
Superego imposing itself on sexual desires
Smashing typewriter
Tom &
Brown and Blue
Hallucinations
Dressing excuses
Plant roots control voodoo Fedela
Festish body items
Black fedela
Joan leaves with her penance
Bill back to typing reports
Make sense of black drug
Pressed to his neck
Programmed to kill his wife
Drunk
Fedela sent Joan to marry her
Unconcious agent is a faithful agent
Women aren't human
Different species
Tom gunpoint
Take Clark Nova
Give up run off
Martinelli rebuilt by Kiki
Sleeping on beach
Bag of drugs
Reality comes in
Keruoac and Ginsberg
Suitcase pillowcase duffel bag
Writing machine
Get book together
Finish the book
Naked Lunch
Keruaoc names book
Never saw the pages
Collosal con
A well organized cabal
Philosophy of drug use as it relates to artistic endevour
Last drug use
Leaving him at the bus stop
A different reality
All-American Interzone
America is not a young land
Evil
Stay until you finish the book
Real life and hallucination
Zone takes care of its own
Bus right to left blue and white
Drunk in alley crying
Kiki rebuilds typewriter
Vulnerable severed
Can't go home
Mugwump head new writing machine
Liquid phallic substitute
Functional writing hallucination
A hazardous trade
CIA
Giving yourself over to be a writer...
Mirror next assignment
Hungry for adventure
Cloaky
Seduce or otherwise compromise
Benway runs InterZone Inc
Black meat drug trade
Conspiracy
Affectionate with Kiki
His sexual gay side
Wonderful car
Red powerful sexual
Kiki backseat on Bill's side
Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk?
Writing zone as he faces gay side
Balance between hallucination and reality
Corporate life in North africa
Red parrot
Aggressive sexual
Go see parrots
Centipede
Gun typewriter Tom
Fourth Act
Clark Nova's dying words
Where's Joan Fedela
The dealer
All agents defect all resistors sells out
A writer lives the sad truth like anyone else, the only difference is he files a report on it.
Scarab to typewriter
Drug factory
Oral sucking drug chains
Idealized victim Joan
Rescuing feminine
All is lost all is lost
All I've ever written
Hans Benway
Mugwump gism
Switching drug recovery
Benway rips open Fedela identity
More feminine
Conspiracy that controls his life
Cigar puddle
Annexia
32 caliber
Can't write without her
Kills Joan to prove his is a writer
He must sacrifice feminine embrace the identity of homosexual to bring up the inner conflict in order to write.
Cops as guards
Evolution of his cycle, return to pain to write
Glass unbroken
The cup of magical symbology
Gun as sword

Naked Lunch Notes

Red door 42
Exterminator
Roaches
Kafka
Centipedes
Exterminator manager
Keruoac Ginsberg debate
Rewrite is to decieve
Editing due to guilt
Exterminate all rational thought

Culture Notes

Watching Tatum O'Neal as a young girl smoke a cigarette in the 1973 film Paper Noon, I think about how that would be inconcievable today. Why is this?

The idea now is that if fictional entertainment shows an impressionable character doing something less than the ideal (or rather repressing all natural unhealthy imuplses until they become obsessive dysfunction) then their children, who must be perfect, will follow suit. So the corporations that own these fictional entertainments will create outlets for these repressed impulses, taking money from consumers, so they can feast on the imagination of others. Interactively engaged rather than creatively inspired, they are being grafted to virtual experience, trusting pixels rather that light particles, flatscreen HD rather than optic nerves and retinas.

Although watching someone smoke a cigarette in a movie does make me want one. But I'm addicted.

Science vs God

And, yea, I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. And I percieved that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief. And he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. For God shall bring every work, and every secret thing into judgement, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Strange Tales Outline

Human Torch & Iceman Night Out
Mundane Day to Day in Marvel's NYC
Ghost Ride To Hell
Silver Surf The Stars
Disciples and Dating
A Dazzling Performance

It's about living in New York City, perspective on life, the deals with the devil we make to survive in urban utopias.

Job, apartment, going out to bars/clubs, damnation, salvation. Patient, therapy of the soul. Art. Bands.

Dr. Strange sends Dean on his path of self-discovery. Running errands and doing battle. Strange's disciple, the next Sorceror Supreme will be good turned evil. Intern is evil turned good.

Ground Marvel's NYC as one unified city and realistically display it.

Comicbook Marketing Notes

First problem is relevance and relatibility.
Marvel characters by themselves have become brands.
New, everyday characters who work for these larger than life celeb/gods.

Four Marvel Books, with retro name, and pulp like sensibility, sold around the city, affordable short stories. Smaller size, more graphic images and text, bridging the gap between comic and novel. Illustrated weekly novellas, collected monthly in a $5 slick packaging, and quarterly as a $10 graphic novel.

Stories will focus on everyday characters: college student, scientist, intern, receptionist, for the Marvel Empires such as Stark Industries, Shield, Fantastic Four Inc. Two major characters featured along with the main new character. We can see the Marvel Universe as it would look from our perspective.

Strange Tales - Dr. Strange & Cameo
The intern of Dr. Strange, Dean Walker, who is the pawn of mystical forces all vying for dominion over Hell. Ghost Rider helps him descend into Hell to face Mephisto, Silver Surfer carries him into the stars towards Eternity.

This book will showcase stories venturing across the Marvel Universe. It will help establish the characters that are darker, more human and flawed. Continuity-wise it will clear up matters over the Underworld and how other dimensions relate. Establishing Hell.

Tales to Astonish - the Hulk & Yellowjacket
Mad science attacks us from the future. The Leader, Kang, and Ultron all orchestrate our armageddon with their science unbound! Jim Lawson, working on his phd, can help bridge the science of Bruce Banner with Henry Pym's, to avert our annihilation!

Using real science and imagine it being twisted by mad genius and cold robotic logic. To show the limits of knowledge and how the status quo must exist to maintain balance. The Hulk representing the outward anger, Yellowjacket the inward quiet rage. Questioning science.

Tales of Suspense - Cap/Hawkeye. Iron Man/
High Adventure.
Tom Shield Recruit. "Cousin of Cap"
Kenneth Stark Intl Liason. "Jackass suckup"
Together they work together to round up rogue science experiments gone horribly wrong.

Governments and corporations, working together to stop anything that upsets their control over the world. The lies and double dealing becomes unveiled as these two see the inner workings of such powerful non-entities, from day to day office work, to battling in remote locales.

Journey Into Mystery - Thor
Mythology. For history buffs, this will include short adaptations and re-imaginings of ancient myths. Thor teams up over the ages with various heroes.

Various mythological heroes and themes explored. Sword and sorcery, barbarians, historical, Jungian archtypes battling our inner demons. Morality tales.

Tales to Astonish Notes

Science gone mad.
We must defend ourselves against the combined threat of the Leader and Ultron.
Pushing past boundaries of science, it's up to the brilliant minds (and muscle) of Bruce "the Hulk" Banner and Dr. Hank "Yellowjacket" Pym. Both unstable geniuses, their scientific solitude must end as they team up to outsmart their combined foes.

Enter: Jim Lawson. A young prodigy, our last hope, caught between the raging beast of repression who lives half a life, versus the psychopathically schizophrenic guy who gets small enough to fly into your brain.

When Ultron and Leader send their battalions of next level science, it's up to Lawson to figure out the math, Pym to piece it together, and the Hulk to keep the monsters as bay. Math, mechanical, physical sciences working together to hold the line. Scientific Advancement Spelled Sideways is Armageddon!

Comicbook Rockstar Pitches

http://chrisburnham.com/superman.jpg
http://www.minotaurstudios.net/dump/kurt/flash.jpg
http://www.arghbrain.com/Misc/strangekurt01a.jpg

The Sun Notes

Ever flowing, pulls on the mind
Opposite of the moon
Expanding universe
Speed of light

Sheet of ice
186,000,000 miles diameter
1/5 inch thick
Billionx3 watts

Prism breaks sunlight
Chemical formula
Information in nature

Ripples from supernovas
Clouds turn to stars
Gravity hydrogen
Implosion

Pieces of debris
Once part of a whole
Now scattered in a ring
Solar system

Liberates energy with first fusion
Heart - core half mass, 2% of volume
Protons hydrogen to helium
Extreme conditions
Positive and positive
High temp high pressure
15,000,000 degrees celsius

Lost mass equals energy
Energy = Mass x Speed of Light x Speed of Light

11 years cycle peak solar max
Magnetic field strength
Magnetism versus fusion

Impulse/Inertia
Cain/Able
Flash/Cobalt Blue

Stolen Identity Paranoia

The Time Machine

George Pal

MGM

1960

Oscar SFX

Clocks, ominous. Seasons, weather.

Right to left, scientists.

Clocks chime 8:00

Interruption

Flashback to earlier meeting.

Fourth dimension.

Cannot be felt or seen.

Box as 3 dimensional.

Prisoners to the moment.

5 scientists

Can future be changed?

Miniature

Cigar.

Time changes space.

Horse and carriage, right to left, backwards.

New Year wishers left to right. Time moves on.

Newspaper. Ways to show time.

Calendar.

New Years 1900

Eagerness to use invention, defy nature.

Clock and candle.

Watching life go by fast.

Perspective of patterns.

Intoxicating. Faster.

Glimpses, fashion. Mannequin, female ideal, no age.

17 years into his future.

Friends death, release from present.

23 years later. Bombing of London.

Outcome of war. House destroyed.

1966 - air raid siren, shelters.

Atomic satellite

Destruction of future.

Rock, encased. October 12, 802,701

8028th Century

Giant head, temple

Fall of another Empire

Save drowning girl.

Humans watch. Passive Eden.

Intellectually stunted.

No government or laws. No work.

Books rotted.

Machine stolen.

Girl build fire.

Pities humans.

Morlocks.

Spirit of self sacrifice.

Beyond the idea of time. Existence.

Rings, history. War, bacteria.

Some went underground, some in the sun.

acceptable losses. Shelter brainwashing.

Cannibalism.

Literally lights the fire within the earth. Lava.

Inspires humanity to fight.

Saturday Notes

Lulu.com

Indie Publishing

Hot to Make Books

By trial and error, i learned the overuse of alcohol to overcome my own shy resistances and the defenses of women. Daniel Pinchbeck

"...mad to live, mad to love, mad to be saved..."

Kerouac

"Drugs...seemed another dead end, another consumerist substitute for true feeling or communion."

Pinchbeck

Thrust Notes

Survivors of superhero battles

All memory wiped from their minds

Residual power pierces the veil

Creativity for some is life experience

Author of our own destiny

Ego blast

Rich using bodies

Reading the experience

Bodies left behind

My person was stolen from me

Embued with cosmic power

And made to do battle

The remnants, discarded

Brought back to Earth Prime

Scarred veterans of Imaginary Wars

The things I've seen

How can I go back?

Suddenly I see how they got me.

The Punisher Notes

Punisher as invisible assassin

Making sure everything goes according to book

Punisher as hipster hater

Punisher as self-hating hero

Level the playing field

Upping the ante

Making himself a martyr

Christ complex

God complex

Self above others

An ideal

Figure of death

Dealing with it

Anger over loss

Punisher idea co-opted

Untouchable

Soldier in need of a war

castle, protection

Keeping females safe

In The Mood For Love Notes

Role-playing.
Distancing their emotions
Massochism.
The push and pull, give and take of relationships
Denying yourself
Games
Each seeing the other side of things through their boss/friend.
Revenge
Spirals, flowers, mad distance between our souls
Lines, trapped, confinement, bars, control
Rain as bars, outside yet trapped
Brought them together
Sick, medication, healing
Responsibility for another
Creativity to cover pain
Reaching out despite limiting yourself to social norms
Smoke as freedom
Emotions displayed in mirrors
Horizontal in the bedroom.
Slippers as evidence.
Loneliness
Comfort
Testing boundaries
Writing alone
Repetition of scenes
Cycle, flirtation, affair, break up
What is unsaid
Real
Wanting release emotional
Stone wall shot
Ring, bound
Whispered secret

Peeping Tom Notes

Who does the looking?
Objectifying
Subject
Triangle
Reaction shots
Violent way feminine
Villains as well
Psychoanalytic
Voyeurism
Leo Marx
Footage
Disconnecting from humanity
Fetishizing control
Evil is made
Created by observation
Phallic symbols
Blind mother
Helen, writer
Celebrity death
Girl in the news shop
Lost sight because of man
Reverence to Rape
Audience to film, camera to actors, actors to each other
Showing fear to the victims. Their moment of death the final act in the father-son drama.

Joseph Campbell Notes - The Universal Round

As the consciousness of the individual rests on a sea of night into which it descends in slumber and out of which it mysteriously wakes, so, in the imagery of myth, the universe is precipitated out of, and reposes upon, a timelessness back into which it again dissolves. And as the mental and physical health of the individual depends on an oderly flow of vital forces into the field of waking day from the unconcious dark, the continuance of the cosmic order is assured only by a controlled flow of power from the source.

The cosmogenic cycle is normally represented as repeating itself, world without end. During each great round, lesser dissolutions are commonly included, as the cycle of sleep and waking revolves throughout a lifetime.

Aztec - each of four elements terminates a period of the world
Water - flood
Earth - earthquake
Air - wind
Fire - flame

Rishabhanatha
Jaina - first of 24 world saviors
72 sciences
64 accomplishments of women
100 arts
Men & women born as wedded couples, two miles tall, lived countless years.
Each generation before were twice as big, twice as happy.

Jains concieve of time as an endless round. A wheel with twelve spokes, or ages, classified in two sets of six. First set is descending (avasarpini).
Fifth age (522 BC) will last 21,000 years, no savior born.
Gradually intensifying evil.
Ascending (utsarpini). Padmanatha.

Four ages of Hindus.
Bliss, beauty, perfection - 4800 divine years (1=360)
Lesser virtue - 3600 divine years
Virtue/vice - 2400 divine years
Evil - 1200 divine years
432,000 years
Then wiped clean and held in stasis for the length of the entire process

Three planes of being
Waking experience: cognitive of facts of outer
Dream experience: cognitive of fluid interior
Deep sleep: dreamless, blissful

Instructive experiences of life, digested and assimilated, all is known unconsciously and enjoyed.

AUM
Waking consciousness, dream consciousness, deep sleep. Silence is unknown "the Fourth".

Myth remains, necessarily, within the cycle, but represents this cycle as surrounded and permeated by the silence. Myth is the revelation of a plenum of silence within and around every atom of existence. Myth is a directing of the mind and heart, by means of profoundly informed figurations, to that ultimate mystery which fills and surrounds all existences. Even in the most comical and apparently frivolous of its moments, mythology is directing the mind to this unmanifest which is just beyond the eye.

Zohar - collection of esoteric Hebrew writing, 1305, Moses de Leon
Simeon ben Yohai, Galilee, 2 AD
Hokmah or nistarah
Hidden wisdom of Moses
Esoteric lore studied by Moses in Egypt
First four Pentateuch
From which it can be extracted by a proper understanding and manipulation of the mystical number-values of the Hebrew alphabet.
Cabala. (Qabbalah - received or traditional lore)
From God to Angels to Adam to Noah to Abraham
Abraham let some slip in Egypt

Makroprosopos "the Great Face" in profile, hidden side never known, white beard, eye always open, I AM.
Uncreated uncreating.

Mikroprosopos "the Little Face" face on, blinking, black beard, GOD. Uncreated creating. Cosmogenic round.

Notes

Sharkboy & Lavagirl

Superhero carrying female form

Running to save her

Toss her into a volcano

Villain wanting to be good. The massochistic love affair with the hero.

Lex Luthor & Amazo

Supervillain Rehabilitation Center

The Flash

Mirror Master. Quicksilver/Mercury. Transmuted matter.

Villains popping out of comic fans heads. Fiction materializing through acccidental willpower leakage. ID impulses acted out by driving others to do what you won't.

The Rogues. Pied Piper.

First on scene. The Flash arrives to the scene of a powered crime. Analyzes the forensic evidence. Runs to lab, quicker way, travel sized lab/computer. Bridge between communicators and tesseracts.

Tornado Twins. Barry needs to get to know his kids. Morning commute is between time/space. Routine of his day. Lunch with his kids in the future, visiting Iris in the present, working in the Speed Hatch.

Police scientist.

Future celebrity stalker.

Jobless bank robber.

Mercenaries.

Having power and doing good with no credit.

Having power and taking what you want.

The wrestling aspect of public hero brawls.

Strange Tales

Needs a name.

In college, gets a internship with Dr. Strange. Helping heroes deal with the transformation in the new age. Jealous disciple.

Clea.

Walking by, sees her, loses train of thought, turns back to where he was going. Guess this is the spot. 177 Bleeker St. Sanctum Sanctorum.

Interns. Fire & Ice. Johnny Storm invites him out with Bobby Drake. Meet up with the X-ladies at a club.

Riding on Silver Surfer's board. Hanging off the back of Ghost Rider's motorcycle. Working out at a gym with Iron Fist and Power Man. Office of Nelson & Murdock.

Mephisto vs Dormamu

Earth/Hell/Dread Dimension

DayDreamer

Work to make it real.

DC The Flash Notes

Barry stands on the outside of a bubble. All is white void. Brightly colored beacon in a sea of nothingness. He has alternated his frequency to the point of transcending human form. Now he is just as he imagines himself to be.

Alone in the void for eternity, never aging, never getting hungry, or sick. He eventually stumbles across the silvery, primordial matter, quicksilver, the reflective ink of the cosmos. Fashioning it into a device to assist in processing information, he eventually molds an area into a hatch, complete with lab and cosmic treadmill, just to stay in shape.

With this new mercurial material he is able to view and eventually interact with the DCU, which is on a lower level of exsistence than he is. Beyond death, underworld, and the furthest reaches of space, Barry Allen sits and performs experiments on a science he must develop on his own. Trapped above all matter, standing just outside the barrier of all energy, he watches and develops a plan.

He has to get Hal's help. It was his sacrifice, his turn to evil, the acceptance of carrying the burden, the responsibility to unplug existence from the lower realms of thought. It was the only way they could help this Universe grow and expand until it could find its own equilibrium. In the meantime, they'd have to find a way to keep the fire burning.

Hal relit the sun. He repositioned the galactic center towards Earth, around us. We were reshaping everything and yet I don't think even Hal could see what was happening. But I saw the pattern. I knew how they would turn on each other, suffer each in their turn. But I saw how it would help them in the end.

I need to make sure there are Flashes around to sustain the structure of this universe of ours. So, I'll build a school. Or inspire someone to build a school.

Mercury University.

DC Superman Notes

Superman
Lex Luthor reprograms Amazo to not only counter and replicate superpowers, but the intricacies of the human mind. Lex's new role as philosopher/psychologist/sociologist allows him the opportunity to serve his fellow man.
Seemingly he tries to help by uncreating supervillains by granting them fulfillment with the risk of personal injury to themselves or others. Every villain is given exactly what they want.
And so, undoes the concept of superheroes by creating a utopia where every individual takes personal responsibility and even Lex, having started the plan with sinister intentions, is converted. Superman smiles, "About time Lex."
Inspiring the pinacle of mankind towards the betterment of his people.

Raw power, contantly held in check, under control, contained within one man. He hammers down the rough spots allowing the heights of humanity to be reached by those with mankind's best interests at heart.

Action Comics.
First punch thrown by a superhero, ripples through time, til today, dramatic dynamics displayed to process some raw angst. What is the psychological reasons behind wanting to be a superhero?

Missing father figure. Search for identity. Wanting to stand out, yet be accepted. To be praised for higher ideals and held in awe for our strength or skill. Given some matter of gift to tackle some larger concept that plagues us.

Superman. Alien. Vs. Lex Luthor. Man.
Science as utopia. Are superpowers worth losing your entire civilization?
Science as dystopia. Mad with power, greed for more, the lure of knowing more. Control.
Individual power physically vs Individual power of thought.
Masculine. Feminine. Egg ship, egg head.
Superman the internal, Lex the external.

The true joy of damage and battle. Smashing and lashing out. Release. The feeling behind every thrown punch. The joy of even receiving the punch. The status quo maintained. Both sides conflict with each other to evolve themselves. One must up the ante.

Superman's annoyance at Lex's persistance.

Both spent, Lex and Clark in the rubble.

Superpowers as infantile desires.

Man of Steel.
Everyone's so grateful despite the destruction. But something catches his ear. Someone yelling about him destroying his car. Supes fishes it out of the river, where he had tossed it at Lex, and brings it to his driveway to help him restore it. They talk about the man's life. Supes relates, but mostly just listened.

Superpowers as tools of creation.

Man of Tomorrow.
Superman realizes that what he should be doing is reaching out to people. So he schedules his day accordingly, so he knows when he's have to help stem the flow of lava at this volcano on Thurs, between 1-2pm. And that a certain experimental substance is being transported out of Metropolis tomorrow morning. He literally plans his day out one day earlier so he has enough time to sit and talk with people one on one.

Superpowers as social interest/self fulfillment.

Last Son of Krypton.
Having spoken with millions of people over a few years, Superman becomes weary, and needs to vacation. His journey winds him up at the site where Krypton stood. Here he muses over the dilemma of feeling human and thinking kryptonian. Of the rawness of humanity, the cold clinical detachment of Kryptonian. Superman's weakness is seeing others hurt. Empathy. Krypton as direct but not cold, calculated interpersonal relationships.

Superpowers as god.

Schizopolis Notes

Introduction a nod to Cecil B. DeMille's Ten Commandments
The rotating lens making us aware it's a film and alternating perception between half, full and long shots
"The delicate fabric that holds all of us together will be ripped apart unless every man, woman and child sees this film..."
No fish were harmed in the making of this film

Eventualism commercial. Scientology spoof.
Here I am now (find yourself), control your own mind (how to think), Eventualism

Waitress brings plate with act 1
Superspeed noise-rock beginning of the day. Routine as a blur of repetitive motion.

Interview with a fan of Eventualism. OCD tooth brushing.
In control.
Grainy fantasy, kisses her, spits out her tooth
Brother calls/people looking for information exposing Switters company
"How long til they find out you don't have a brother?"

First I am born. Then the trouble begins.
Fantasizes about being an orphan, tries to lose parents at July 4th celebration.
They find me.
Out of body experience during baseball.
Acute sensation that something terrible will happen to me

Cut to
Title on a crazy man's t-shirt. He is not wearing pants and is running around like a lunatic away from orderlies.
Symbolic of the movie itself. Running rampant through the viewer's mind.
Bicycle past background of an interview.
Cut to
Older man entering photo printing place. He flips through the photos and has a heart attack.
Cut to
Doctor giving a medical explanation for the heart attack.
Intercut with two people trying to resuscitate.
Cut to
Cubicle and co-worker, depressed and going on and on
Polite society, chit chat,

Masturbating in bathroom, doctor describing his condition
psycho-neurotic disorder
Mirror, making faces, different extreme emotions, altering his persona, stepping outside himself and attempting to feel

Cut to
Notepad, writing a letter, formatted as if it were a real letter, but instead it's just the letters of the alphabet
The words have lost meaning for him, and his routine has made him become detached from his reality
Throws it away and hears music as it enter the trash. Auditory hallucination.

Enter nameless numberhead man. Lester news.
Listing his vices/problems which caused his death
Grainy fantasies of him doing the same.
Eating poorly, chronic insomnia, blood pressure
Sneaking candy bars, swollen ankles, urination
No speech
Vague order talk, suggesting a conspiracy

Uncle calls, $50 grand offer for information

Back to interview
Detailed biography
Describing his condition
Detachment
Breaking the fourth wall by showing the crew messing up the filming

Cut to Schwitters Head
Enter Elmo Oxygen
Weird odd sound music
Pest control
Insects
Nameless numberhead man's wife
Unintelligible speech. So far removed from normal thought patterns, but we see that actual words are not what makes up reality but rather the action shows us.
Pan over to two agents (harlequin) God figures, finishing each other's sentences.
Smellsign

TV interview
Debunker of Schwitters
Interspliced with interviewers daydreams, nudist logging, ping pong,
My tooth, pain. Unused take.

Cut to Elmo
Jazz, noises, samples music as he wanders through the house, taking pictures of himself

NNHM comes and meets up with co-workers all standing outside
Mole/spy, paranoia, suspicion
Semantics

Elmo
Sex, stumble, fall

Boss calls munson
Gives him conflicting instructions, making it impossible
Munson's face is totally straight
delay in reaction
Edited a few seconds earlier to make it feel disjointed
Boss goes back to work, awkwardness

Elmo
Harlequin

NNHM & Munson
NNHM is bitter
Munson has an office
Superspeed drive home
White car

Abrupt cut to random conversation with neighbor
Sex with neighbor's wife
Golf ball

Generic greeting
Dad coming home, picture perfect family, with the conversation dissected to minute detail, giving us what is being conveyed rather than what is actually said.
Left to right walk into home.

Elmo, talking on phone, making a date

Dinner
Wife, daughter between, Husband
Suspicious phone call
Bear goes into the box (phallic?)

Interview
Dog, diagonal characteristics versus horizontal, night, indicating he has been there all day, marking passing of time
haven't you read my manual? Dog awakes

Munson
dinner table working on speech
tape recorder
not a cause, course, a fashion, or religion
Eventualism is a state of mind, time and again we see the reliance on a proven methodology, a methodology separate from human experience, built upon figures, not feelings, which encourages our dependence on the empirical world, a world with no room for ground rule doubles.
Generic greeting, wife leaving

Elmo on a date.
Fleshframe. Sneeze?
Goes in for it

Wife returns, generic convo
Bed, she leans in and he denies her, work stress
Enticement to agree
Staring at painting of landscape
Masturbates
Solo fantasy world exceeds reality

Cut to
Press conference
ARHADL
Race horses do not urinate more than non-racing horses
Nonsense

Cut to
Funeral for Lester
Munson hears what he wants to hear.
Aren't you glad it wasn't you?
Don't you wish you felt something?
Attraction to wife?
Amen.

Elmo moves left to right
Flowers for his wife
Harlequin, backseat, soon

NNHM
Mole paranoia
Munson debunks the paranoia
smoking, grainy fantasy of his death of smoking
Wife, thinner and thinner, flipping the idea of the typical
Boss yells, excuse

NNHM wife goes to develop film

Elmo rummaging through house
Is that any way to talk to a lady?
Sex noises
Jigsaw
Video camera, Schwitters wife, painting
Altering the format

Cut to IDEA MISSING on tree

Cut back to Elmo
Small and demented, piano music playing, he looks small in the far shot as he finally travels right to left
A bug-like sense, infesting
driving past left to right, walking right to left, conflicting ideas
Harlequin stop him and finally he talks normal and the fourth wall is once again broken by his acknowledgment of being in a movie and leaving to go with the two to do something more interesting, to fulfill his potential and step up things
Main attraction, points to cameraman and crew. A shortcut, a vehicle.
Boom mic guy, sound mixer.

Schwitters speech.
Anything that can be imagined is legitimate. Any action that can be contemplated can be taken. Eventualism isn't designed to answer all questions, it's designed to question all answers. It's not about healing pain, it's about the pain of healing.
Cut to Munson in office telling spies to go away
Bomb threats, boss yelling
NNHM man, paranoia, hit by co-worker, Munson worked up, shuts down paranoia by out-rationalizing him
Compares it to a movie. No Way Out.

Cut to Elmo's car being towed.

NNHM's wife, with alternate reality wife with glasses, tooth problems, dentist
Speak Italian. Showing off teeth. Channel 9.
Dr. Korchek. And bugs.

Interview, crew walking in front, reading from a paper
The fallacy that work under pressure results in a direct pipeline to creative genius, that divine inspiration can be conjured by anything but the most mind bending concentration, this is the world of the poseur, the pretender, the fraud.

Cut to boss ripping Munson apart.
Talk to Schwitters. Adjust the deadline. NNHM.

Wife picks up pictures.
Did they all come out okay?
They all came out, okay.

NNHM getting fired. Giant box makes him look small.
Munson reveals info about the phone calls.
He gives up. Package?

Cut to
Crazy man, pumping up tires on his bike, orderlies sneak up.
Masturbation?
Captured

NNHM, close up on intense speech, showing his version of getting fired, where he quits
Tries to make her eat, but no cut away, no response. Disjointed.
Gets up, and we connect that NNHM's wife.
Phone call.
looking through pictures. she hides them, eats chips.

Boss yelling at Munson.
Calls the spies, they already have a guy.
Bathroom, purple/red bathroom door.
Black and white striped socks, taken off in stall next door.

Explorations 1-6
Enormous expansion
The absolute and essential role
Public perception of reality
Transcendent idea of reality
Collective unsconcious
Long overdue recognition of our own significance

Repeated

Fat chick comes and visits NNHM. Documents.
Flip on seduction scene.

Candy bar, walking to car, key won't work. Identical car nearby.
Music slowly builds as he watches another version of himself, jumpsuit, running
Everything he's not. He follows. Left to right.
Advancing the plot.
But a turn makes it right to left. Flipping reality.
He goes to loon in the house, spying through the back window.
Quick cuts, showing him watching himself, then behind him, side of him, all around him, close up through the window of him closing his idea. Escape.
Wakes up in the other body. Walks out front. Only one car. He slightly smiles.

Woman fishing, whips a 2 out of the lake. Act 2.
Wood. Relaxation rather than service or job.

Picks up phone and wife comes over.
"I'm having an affair with my wife."
White blown out close ups of her face during sex.
In bed, opposite sides from earlier scene.
Talking about Fletcher.
She talks. He hears what he's like.
Videotape (suggesting porn) Sex Lies & Videotape
Why don't you leave him?
Romanticizes her. Wants to run away with her.
You say a lot of things.
Looks at painting.

Cut to: Newscast Havarti comet plunging towards Earth. Calculating odds.
Price of capturing naked crazy man $367.50
Eventual destruction of this reality.

Elmo, handheld shot, giving us a new feel for Elmo in his new role
Chasing down a guy and beating him up
"Is that good?" Asking for

Madame Rose. Palm reading. A woman will change his life. Wind chimes. Left side of the screen.
A stranger. The wife's alter-ego?
Casual elevator music in the car ride to work. Lingers in the car. jogs inside.
familiar with routine

Confident, as he seduces, pitches flossing, Florida, be true to your teeth and they won't be false to you.
Calls Greg. Fake laughs, takes picture. Comfortibility. Patient with dementia.

Courting, glasses wife alter-ego. Nervous. She wears black and white stripes under a red blazer.
Card. Jiffy Massage. Voice over, attractive woman #2, spinning camera, demented love letter, grainy fantasy of greeting her, kissing her, marrying her, playing with baby, toilet paper discussion, which way it goes, toothpaste cap. Intersplicded with him writing letter and leaving it at her apt.

Elmo busting in house and beating a couple.

Diner, NNHM and fatty, guy asking for money. Golf, and generic talk. golf ball bouncing in reverse of earlier shot, we see Munson look back at it. Placing us back a few days in time. Left to right pulling into driveway. Wife left Munson. She starts to unpack. Wearing green. He's on the left. Tells her of her new love. Semantics of feelings, falling vs sliding. She matches the green of the house. Old rag and rotting fruit. Green car. Worm.

Newscast. National debt. Rhode island sold to investors and make it a mall.

Slow long shot and music of him pulling into parking lot.
Brother, 8 hours, $15,000. Thug takes tape.

Elmo ripping tags off mattresses.

Dentist visit for debunking Tribby. Reveals info with defector. Message from brother. As dentist he's on the right. NNHM's wife. Mentions attractive woman #2.

Elmo, trailer, not money. Looking for spiritual fulfillment. Feminine side must speak. Language does not always require speech. Metaphors too complicated, wants a female. Artist, diva, fruit. Third person. Harelquin as producers.

Practicing his response to AW#2. Registered letter have to sign for.
Three lawyers, close up, reading off his letter, behind him shot as he reacts. Grainy fantasy of legal battle. She wins, he masturbates in bed. Greg has disappeared with all the money. Laughs. Thug waiting.

Cut to interviewer. Head cut off as he cleans his glasses, So we see time and again that a man can not escape his own nature. But instead he must reconcile himself to that nature. We are what we pretend to be, because we pretend to be what we really are. The act is not an act.

Thug shoots Korcheck. Munson goes back to his desk from afar, down the hall.

Woman walks to mailbox, takes out mail, and 3. Act 3.
Upbeat music, wife being interviewed, she was going to go back to work, but didn't. Female perspective.
Interview with Schwitter's wife. Interview. Lester's wife. Traveling with insurance money.
AW#2. Wife. receptionist.

title cards
Do you feel outside forces control your destiny? pg. 151
Wife with daughter, answers phone, male voice speaking Japanese.
Munson describing Lester's death and promotion

Are you one of the Haves or Have Nots? pg 12
Wife describing soap opera. Answers door. Package, video. Heavy weight honeys. Porn tape.

Are your fantasies your own? pg 91
Munson come shome, speaks Japanese in reverse of scene in act 1.

Do you believe in cause and effect? pg 227
Sneaking phone call, leaving to go out. Arriving at Korcheck's house. Italian speaking.
she comes home. Left sitting foreground, right background. Right to left leaving, left to right returning.

Do you love humanity but hate people? pg 111
Bed, from her side of the bed, His side bed, her side.

Do you wonder why you were born? pg 401
Funeral, what was really said, or her version, inspiration to leave him
Packing, neighbor convo, gold ball, look back
Her leaving him, AW#2 falling speech shot focusing on her reactions, behind him
Her dialogue minimal focusing on her reactions. He accepted job, not AW#2.

Coffee shop, imagines watching herself sitting across the room. Closes eyes, transfers bodies. Munson comes and romances her, not having his side of things prior we're trying to piece together the story with her minimal responses. Hotel room. Stroking her hair. All the people I've know, and decisions I've made coming together at this point.

Schwitters speech.
The public perception of reality before Eventualism was inadequate. Eventualism provides one with nothing less than a transcendent idea of reality. Soon it's influence will extend beyond the tangible, empirical worold and into the collective unconcious where it will become even more powerful. Eventualism is the long overdue recognition of people everywhere, of their own significance.
Turns around, thumbs up.

Wife wakes up, looks in room and smiles, downstairs, smiles as she walks over to Munson. Is it finished?
Lingering moment.

Woman has final say on every single subject. final arbiter of taste and justice. God.

Harlequin can't find Elmo.

Boss. Praises Munson. Writing his words, speaking his language. When I first got here we had a saying...
Leaves office, change, but still the same.

Schwitters kind of a jerk. Auditorium filling up. Schwitters wife video camera.
Busy writing speech.

Nonsense introduction. Backstage. Husband and wife.
Assassination by Elmo.

Plane landing. Lester's wife reading Eventualism. Interviewer next to her at airport. Pan down to striped socks.

Elmo detained and questioned.
Schwitters in bed wounded. Assistant. Boss. Tape of assassination. Meat or card replies to get well. Elmo & wife.

Disjointed language. Half nonsense/half normal.

I'm talking about perception and communication skills. Houseplant. I can make sense out of yesterday, can you understand the power of that? You will learn something from me. Crotch, look away in horror.

Reverse of dinner, answering phone, suspicious lingering on wife. Spider.

Mall, and detailed out the rest of his life. Superspeed him sitting slower.
Successfully thawed. Until then I wait.

Crazy man being taken away.

Outro. Answer questions.
Blip of credits.

Kwaidan - The Black Hair

Dye in the water
To moving shadows
Samurai leaves wife
Future seperate
Wife weaver
Cut to
Bride ceremony
Relief at her marriage
Parents to son-in-law
Cut to
Running water
Bucket, rope, well
Functioning of society
Built around her
Red umbrella
Green kimono
Pampered
voice over
New bride to new post
Good family, respect & notoriety
Village, shops, covered as a ghost
Pale faced husband
Dissolve to
Ex weaving. Sound carries over cut back to husband
New wife
Dawn, prayer, long drawn out silent, slow moving moments
Selfish and callous
All in blue
Still in love with first wife
Regret
Red dress pushed to the ground
Images of ex
Arrow striking wood
Horseback contest of skill
Missed third mark
Off angle rotate in memory
Throws off shot
Sound carrying over
Right to left
Hits targets
Slow close up, cut to weaving sounds, focus on hair
Hits target
Purple, eyebrows, yawn, throws fan
Playing game, she quits
Husband reading, passed out, hidden
Pushes her away, hits him, twice
She calles him out on living in the past and using her
Eerie clang music
Nurse and husband
Sends her back to her parents
Find Ex and make amends
Years later returns home Kyoto
Heavy shadows, all doors locked
Wife spinning wheel, turns to him
Camera swoops in opposite her turning
How did her find her in all those black rooms?
Maze, labyrinth
He professes his love, asks for forgiveness
True love, dedication, she was not worthy of him
Poverty
So happy to be together again if...
Only for a moment?
Hair monologue
Red bedspread
Letting go of sorrow, telling the past
Dawn
Bridal chamber
No sleep
Past, present, future
dream
Wakes up
Head rolls left to right to face the sun
Rolls her over, close up
Corpse!
No sound
Bird's eye view
Dragging, wood sounds, faint strings
Hair moving, he lashes out, flailing
No sound
His face paler all the time
Crashes through
Camera twists slowly as he runs
His own hair is growing long
Falls through the floor, crawls,
Water, inverted reflection, freeze frame
Sunken, rotting face

Joseph Campbell Notes - Emanations: From Psychology to Metaphysics

It is not difficult for the modern intellectual to concede that the symbolism of mythology has a psychological significance. Particularily after the work of the psychoanalysts, there can be little doubt, either that myths are of the nature of dream, or that dreams are symptomatic of the dynamics of the psyche.

According to this view it appears that through the wonder tales - which pretend to describe the lives of the legendary heroes, the powers of the divinities of nature, the spirits of the dead, and the totem ancestors of the group - symbolic expression is given to the unconscious desires, fears, and tensions that underlie the conscious patterns of human behavior. Mythology, in other words, is psychology misread as biography; history, and cosmology.

The entire spectacle is before us. We have only to read it, study its constant patterns, analyze its variations, and therewith come to an understanding of the deep forces that have shaped man's destiny and must continue to determine both our private and our public lives.

But if we are to grasp the full value of the materials, we must note that myths are not exactly comparable to dream. Their figures originate from the same sources - the unconcious wells of fantasy - and their grammar is the same, but they are not the spontaneous products of sleep. On the contrary, their patterns are conciously controlled. And thei understood function is to serve as a powerful picture language for the communication of traditional wisdom.

They link the unconcious to the field of practical action, not irrationality, in the manner of a neurotic projection, but in such fashion as to permit a mature and sobering, practical comprehension of the fact-world to play back, as a stern control, into the realms of infantile wish and fear.

And so, to grasp the full value of the mythological figures that have come down to us, we must understand that they are not only symptoms of the unconcious but also controlled and intended statements of certain spiritual principles, which have remained as constant throughout the course of human history as the form and nervous structure of the human physique itself.

Psyche life energy = libido
"On Psychic Energy" C.G. Jung
Theory of the Libido

The apprehension of the source of this undifferentiated yet everywhere particularized substratum of being is rendered frustrate by the bery organs through which the apprehension must be accomplished. The forms of sensibility and the categories of human thought, which are themselves manifestations of this power, so confine the mind that it is normally impossible not only to see, but even to concieve, beyond the colorful, fluid, infinitely various and bewildering phenomenal spectacle.

The function of ritual and myth is to make possible, and then to facilitate, the jump - by analogy. Forms and conceptions that the mind and its senses can comprehend are presented and arranged in such a way as to suggest a truth or openness beyond.

Myth is but the penultimate; the ultimate is openness - that void, or being, beyond the categories - into which the mind must plunge alone and be dissolved.

They are mere symbols to move and awaken the mind, and to call it past themselves.

This recognition of the secondary nature of the personality of whatever deity is worshipped is characteristic of most of the traditions of the world. In Christianity, Mohammedanism, and Judaism, however, the personality of the divinity is taught to be final - which makes it comparatively difficult for the members of these communions to understand how one may go beyond the limitations of their own anthropomorphic divinity. The result has been, on the one hand, a general obfuscation of the symbols, and on the other, a god-ridden bigotry such as is unmatched elsewhere in the history of religion.

Sigmund Freud "Moses and Monotheism"

The lapse of superconciousness into the state of unconciousness is precisely the meaning of the Biblical image of the Fall. The constriction of conciousness, to which we owe the fact that we see not the source of the universal power, turns superconciousness into unconciousness and, at the same instanct and by the same token, creates the world. Redemption consists in the return to superconciousness and therewith the dissolution of the world.

The hero is the one who, while still alive, knows and represents the claims of the superconciousness which throughout creation is more or less unconcious. The adventure of the hero represents the moment in his life when he achieved illumination - the nuclear moment when, while still alive, he found and opened the road to the light beyond the dark walls of our living death.

God assumes the life of man and mand releases the God within himself at the mid-point of the crossarms of the same "coincidence of opposites," the same sun door through which God descends and Man ascends - each as the other's food.

Notes

Action Comics. The first superhero punch expanding into imaginary mindspace in an evercontinuing fracturing and expanding explosion of superhuman force.

The ripples of epic violence shattering through the minds of humanity. A spear thrust straight through the serpent end of alpha male ego.

Straight through to a kid punching a bully. Action Comics #1 rolled up on the ground.

Man of Tomorrow. Scheduling Superman.

Superman as a superexample of how a man should be.

Man of Steel. Supermechanics.

Superman repairs the damage his battles cause.

Last Son of Krypton. Superhumanity.

How can they be so human? Why can't they see?

The Flash.
Speed Force. The impulse of the universe. Spark of humanity. Divine thunderbolt. Quicksilver. Mercury. Primordial energy. Velocital center.

The Universe ended. Infinite Crisis. Company versus the people. Batman is our inside man. The pull upwards of our gods forces our consciousness to expand to heights we would not reach otherwise.

Barry Allen was prepared to exist on a higher plane: the Speed Force. It was here that he was able to examine the problems of the DC Universe, or the force that guides it, it's wavelength if you will.

Examining the heroic ideal. Perfecting humanity. The scientist looking at the patterns and making connections.

Hal Jordan. He doesn't exist. But his will makes it so. So malleable was the matter of his world that he was able to remanifest himself. Order. Form. Structure.

Flame. The torch in the darkness. Giving shape by the casting of the light from the Lantern. The first tool against the unknown.

Brave and the Bold.

Hypertime x Speedforce = existence

Enjoying every instance of existence. Nirvana in slo-mo.
Time to think. Time to plan. Eternity adrift.

Power pulsating, emanating from within, down your arm, up into your fist, and fired from your ring. The Green of creation.

The Trial. A cop crosses the line. His record tarnished. He had no choice. It was all determined before he was born. It was the stuff of lightning striking.

The Sun. You unleash on your friends. You destroy your entire life. Everything that made you a hero instantly negating your entire existence. Does reigniting the dark make good?

Justice League.
Superman's reality shattering raw power. Batman's mind focusing the beam. Wonder Woman tempering it with ruthless mercy. The Flash keeping the world spinning generating a containing force. Green Lantern forges the form upon the river of hypertime.

Green Arrow shoots straight. Black Canary shows how the chicks bring it.

The Atom drops it down a notch. Martian Manhunter helps out with a hand. Hawkman barges in and demands. Aquaman acts like it doesn't matter.

Plastic Man. He needs a job.

Mercury University.
Wally West needs to settle down. Wife Linda, and supersped siblings Jai and Iris, have to act like a family. A professor position? Seems being a superhuman since you were ten gets you a little far in today's economy. What do you mean DC 1,000,000? What do you mean by 853,000 BC? The end of the Universe? On the planet Merecury? Where a school exists with a dark secret that is keeping the entire DC Universe from plunging into the final moments of entropy of the human mind?

Wow, that's a lot of info. Good thing you have such good teachers such as Coach John Fox who jogs on the cosmic treadmill before breakfast each morning. Or Dr. Jesse Chambers who teaches abstract mathematics, philosophical physics, thirteen languages (including Interlac), as well as business ethics. Professor Chunk's lecture may be agonizingly slow, but every word out of his mouth on the subject of metaphysical mechanics will blow your mind.

Wally's all set to instruct the younger generation, the hyperactive kids he's always had a bond with. Didn't he? The joke's gotten old and now it's time to grow up Wally. You got two kids after all. Jai and Iris try to make friends but with their family legacy they're either made fun of or ignored. Each copes in their own way. As does Linda. A 21st Century gal (extra-dimensional/temporally displaced mother of two) living in a superspeeding society that blurs around her like a strobelit social club.

Bart Allen. Loner. Rebel. Longhaired slowpoke. He doesn't run anymore haven't you heard? Grew up too fast that poor boy. Only lived a handful of years and look how grown up he is. He's the traitor to the bloodline. He wants to be an Allen. All he can ever hope to be is not a Thawne. Anything but that.

But at least he's got Turtle. He moves slow despite being the son of the great Flash of the 38th Century. A King of the Multiverse. All is perfection under his rule. All are content. An embarassment who can not run.

Xs at least brings in some cheer. She won't let either of these two brood for very long. She hides her heartache but racing past it all and keeping pace are not that far apart.

Max Mercury will not let him get away with this. His body may not even be his anymore, but his mind, that spark, that eventual existential moment where what you are pulses through each beat, that's where he'll hide until the moment is right. Then he'll strike.

The Rival may be the bizarro Zoom, energy altering my flesh, and Eobard may have the passion to drive this plan, and Hunter can think he's in charge. But they're all pawns.

It's Savitar. That sonofabitch. I know it's him. He thinks he's god and of course he'd find a way here. Scheme his way, play us all, just so he could get what he wanted: to peer out upon the final moment of existence and withhold the entire world from unexisting.

It's not the natural way though. And not even those thugs, mercurial mercenaries all, the Rogues, could stop the natural order from taking place. The countdown must begin. The very end of everything must begin.

Kid Eternity! is going to die. And Kid Eternity! shall live. Two opposing forces collide in this explosion of intense energy! Superhero power. Mystical heroism. Timeless travels. He might have to guide your soul to Valhalla, or perhaps unite conflicting ideals, forge concepts into functional form. Wisdom from lives lived. The ideal of that person. Memory layered over fiction, human pressed upon power, igniting the spectacle. The spark of eternal creation. The grindstone of superpowers. The rock of eternity. The flint of form.

Marvel Family. Rock. Eternity.

Superman Family. Mineral. Force.

Batman Family. Body. Discipline.

Flash Family. Knowledge. Energy.

Wonder Woman. Spirit. Mercy.

Green Lanterns. Space. Willpower.

Aquaman. Government. Tranquility.

Evolution of Language Notes

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

http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Linguistic_evolution

On Language: Descent From the Tower of Babel
Rod Mengham

http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/la1.shtml

Introduction
Humans are the only species that has evolved an advanced system of communication between individuals. Whereas other species communicate through ritualized and repetitious songs, calls, or gestures, humans have developed linguistic systems that can express a literally infinite variety of separate and distinct thoughts. This incredible evolutionary leap is what distinguished humans from all other organisms on earth.

The Evolution of Language
Language first appeared between 30,000 and 100,000 years ago in the species Homo sapiens. But how did language evolve? Currently, there are two rival answers to this question: the first and more common explanation is that language was an adaptation of some sort; the second (chiefly espoused by Stephen Jay Gould) is that language is a spandrel, a nonadaptive element arising as a byproduct of other processes. We will consider these explanations in reverse order.

Language as a Spandrel
Some people, Stephen Jay Gould most prominent among them, believe language to be the byproduct of other evolutionary processes, not a special adaptation that arose by ordinary natural selection acting on mutations. As Gould puts it, "Natural selection made the human brain big, but most of our mental properties and potentials may be spandrels - that is, nonadaptive side consequences of building a device with such structural complexity" (The Pleasures of Pluralism , p.11). In other words, our ancestors encountered environments which required the type of advanced reasoning only provided by a larger brain; however, language capability was not one of those functions for which the brain was selected. Instead, language is a result of exapting neural structures formerly used for other functions: "Many, if not most, universal behaviors [including language] are probably spandrels, often co-opted later in human history for important secondary functions" (Ibid).

This view has been reinforced by the famous linguist Noam Chomsky, who argues that the brain's language capability cannot be explained in terms of natural selection. He attempts to explain the brain not through biology or engineering principles, but instead through the effects of physical laws. According to Chomsky, there may be unexpected emergent physical properties associated with the specific structure of the brain that explain language.

Language as an Adaptation
The mainstream view is that language is an adaptation, evolved in response to some selection pressure toward improved communication between humans. This explanation is associated with many speculative possibilities and proposals for the adaptive function of language, and some (such as Steven Pinker) postulate "mental modules" that compartmentalize linguistic functions.

There are many different possible "adaptationist" explanations for the evolution of language. For instance, perhaps there was a need for improved communication between hunters at some point in the history of Homo sapiens, and oral expressions were simply the optimal way to solve the problem. More plausibly (or at least more importantly), sharing information between individuals probably conferred an extremely major advantage: groups of humans with language, or even "proto-language", could share a wealth of information about local hunting conditions, food supplies, poisonous plants, or the weather. It would be extremely beneficial to the survival of all members of the tribe if only one had to encounter a poisonous plant, rather than each member having to rediscover the fact for himself!

It is also simple to imagine a series of "oral gestures", perhaps indicating the presence of an animal to another person by imitating the animal's cries. Steven Pinker suggests in his book The Language Instinct, "Perhaps a set of quasi-referential calls . . . came under the voluntary control of the cerebral cortex [which controls language], and came to be produced in combination for complicated events; the ability to analyze combinations of calls was then applied to the parts of each call" (p. 352).

Another possible source of selection pressure towards better linguistic abilities is the social group. Social interactions between people with widely divergent or conflicting interests "make formidable and ever-escalating demands on cognition" (Ibid, p.368). Increasing cognitive ability could easily have focused on the improvement of language as well, since so many social interactions depend on effective persuasion.

Language Evolution and Memes
It is possible to imagine numerous potential scenarios by which language might have evolved as a purely biological adaptation. However, in her book The Meme Machine, Susan Blackmore reveals a different theory of language evolution: she proposes that it evolved for the sake of memes, not as an adaptation for the benefit of genes.

Blackmore explains that memes first came into existence with the advent of true imitation in humans, which allowed memes to spread through populations. Recalling that fecundity, or proudction of new copies, is essential to a replicator, she proposes that language came into existence as a mechanism for improving the fecundity of memes. Sound transmission has many advantages for the purpose - sounds can be heard by multiple listeners and can be used even at night. After sound transmission (proto-language) came into existence, the "digitalization" of language into discrete words arose as a mechanism for ensuring meme fidelity, or lack of errors in the new copies. She explains that those alterations that produce the most copies of the highest fidelity will be those that predominate, thus improving the language.

Blackmore goes on to suggest that grammar was an adaptation to improve the fecundity and fidelity of existing memes; its recursive structure then provided the framework for the development of more complex memes, which then favored the existence of more complex grammar, etc. in a self-sustaining process. Furthermore, language then began to exert pressure on the genes, creating a selection pressure toward bigger brains that are better at language. If people prefer to mate with those possessing the best or most memes, then the genes that allowed those people to be good meme-spreaders will be differentially transmitted into the next generation. This process again leads to a self-catalytic process of brain evolution that places a strong survival and reproductive advantage on those most capable of meme transmission.

Finally, Blackmore believes that language is an unavoidable result of the existence of memes, which follow naturally from the ability to imitate (an ability that is, surprisingly, realized in very few species). She states, "verbal language is almost an inevitable result of memetic selection. First, sounds are a good candidate for high-fecundity transmission of behaviour. Second, words are an obvious way to digitise the the process and so increase its fidelity. Third, grammar is a next step for increasing fidelity and fecundity yet again, and all of these will aid memorability and hence longevity" (p.105).

Looking Further: Links and References
The following links and references are useful in the study of the evolution of language.

Books
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker
Words and Rules by Steven Pinker
The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Dennett (see ch. 13)
Websites
Evolution: The Pleasures of Pluralism by Stephen Jay Gould (also available here)
'Darwinian Fundamentalism': An Exchange - discussion between Daniel C. Dennett, Robert Wright, and Stephen Jay Gould
Evolutionary Psychology: An Exchange - discussion between Stephen Jay Gould and Steven Pinker
The Gestural Origins of Language by Michael C. Corballis (from American Scientist)

Superheroes - Modern Mythology Notes

Yet the medium from which they spring - the 6x9in, 4-color comic book - continues to be a marginalized channel of communication held by many to be an irredeemably corrupt and corrupting form of discourse, or else suitable only for children and the semi-literate.

June 1938 - Superman 'Action Comics #1'
Golden Age late 1940's
World War II
Shift to crime, western, and horror comics

Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Frederic Wertham
1954 Congressional Hearings
EC Comics 'Tales From the Crypt', 'Vault of Horror'
Comics code - self-censoring ban by the publishers themselves on violence, explicit sex, gratuitous gore and the triumph of evil or antisocial behavior.

Silver Age
Flash (1956)
Green Lantern (1959)
Supergirl (1959)
JLA (1960)

Fantastic Four (1961)
Spider-Man (1963)
X-Men (1964)

Superhero Genre
Lost Parents
*the hero is marked out from society. He often reaches maturity without having a relationship with his parents

The man-god
*at least some of the superheroes will be earthbound gods in their level of powers. Other superheroes of lesser powers will consort easily with these earthbound deities.

Justice
*the hero's devotion to justice overrides even his devotion to the law.

The normal and the superpowered
*the extraordinary nature of the superhero will be contrasted with the
ordinariness of his surroundings.

The secret identity
*likewise, the extraordinary nature of the hero will be contrasted with the mundane nature of his alter-ego. Certain taboos will govern the actions of these alter-egos.

Superpowers and politics
*although ultimately above the law, superheroes can be capable of considerable patriotism and moral loyalty to the state, though not necessarily to theletter of its laws.

Science as magic
*the stories are mythical and use science and magic indiscriminately to create a sense of wonder.

Superman and the superhero emerged at the end of the Great Depression and during the run-up to the outbreak of the European war.

A new kind of popular hero had emerged: the self-reliant individualist who stands aloof from many of the humdrum concerns of society, yet is able to operate according to his own code of honor, to take on the world on his own terms, and win.

For Americans, the historical path from Munich to Pearl Harbor coincides with the emergence of Superman and Captain America - solitary but socialized heroes, who engage in battle from time to time as proxies of US foreign policy. A darker side of the Lone Wolf hero is embodied by the Batman, a hero whose motivations and emotions are turned inward against the evils within society, and even the social and psychological roots of crime itself. The tension between these two veins in the superhero tradition remains to the present day.

The mythologizing of the dangers of scientific knowledge is one of the mainstream currents of science fiction, from Frankenstein through to the famous Spock/McCoy reason/conscience conflict in Star Trek (a conflict which is spuriously resolved by the deus ex machina of Kirk's
overarching 'humanity', which embraces such contradictions and thereby resolves them.)

Langue & Parole

Superhero costumes are either sexless, denying the humanity of the hero within, or garments of great erotic significance.

Good girl art (Wonder Woman) takes the signs of pornographic discourse and integrates them into the context of non-pornographic story structures. In this way, the sign of pornography (never explicitly delivered) comes to stand in for an entire pornographic subtext, a series of blanks which readers remain free to fill in for themselves. And it is within the neo-pornographic texts of Good Girl art that the distinctions between costumed heroes and villains can first be seen to break down, a change that influenced mainstream comics.

Costume creates a community between its wearers.

All Star Comics #3 (1940)
Justice Society of America

Intertextuality forms the Marvel & DC Universes.

Serial continuity
The back-story

Hierarchical continuity
A beats B
C defeated by B
A bests C
The pressure of combat also forces from heroes the quality which sums up the moral nature of the superhero: the 'extra effort'.

Structural continuity
Serial (diachronic 'over time')
Hierarchical (synchronic 'in the moment')
Combines to produce the entire contents of the Marvel & DC Universes.
Metatext.

T.S. Eliot's 'Tradition and the Individual Talent'
"what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered..."

Clearly, intertextual and metatextual continuity create a subsidiary world in which the process of time can be kept under control.

Continuity, and above all metatextual structural continuity, is the strategy through which superhero texts most clearly operate as myths. Continuity provides the interaction with the audience which characterizes mythological discourse: myths...{are} 'machines for the
suppression of time', the contemplation of the unity being more important than any suspense engendered over the outcome.

Return of Barry Allen Notes

Costume differences
Power differences
Protecting mob boss to prevent a crime war
Amusement Park
Mirror Maze
Wally smashes through
"I prefer to get where I'm going as directly as possible"
"Putting the spirit of Barry Allen to rest was a long and painful
process. Your death left a wound that never healed."
"Once upon a time, Barry Allen sacrificed his life to save the universe.
In tribute I took his name and identity...but not his courage. That was
his alone. Now he's back...and whatever tomorrow may bring, one thing is
certain. He's the greatest hero I've ever known...and I'm proud to
follow in his footsteps."

Train derailed towards a school full of kids, speed powerless, Barry
shows to save the day. All three Flashes use vibrations to slow the
train. Using speed to stop speed. Kids ask Barry for his autograph.
"Like I'm not even there. Even I'm astounded at the attention he
commands."
"I owe everything to Uncle Barry! My powers...my identity...everything!
The man is like a god to me!"
Moving away, changing superhero identity.
"I'm the Flash. Stay used to it."
Barry returns to the scene of his ressurrection.
The Combine. High-tech crime.
Wally gets taken out, Barry snaps when the criminals say they took down
the Flash, Wally's costume rips at the top, revealing his hair ala Kid
Flash costume. "I'm the Flash!"

Origin. 10 years old. Similar costume. "Barry Allen took me under his
wing. He gave me a purpose...a direction...an identity that would
totally define my life. It was the greatest gift I ever received."
" I wanted to honor his memory...so I tried to fill his boots. Itook up
the mantle of the Flash, and did my best to further his heritage."
Johnny Quick. CEO. Max Mercury.
Shrinking force field trap.
Subway booth attendant. Max. Jay's hero.
Wally's vibrations with Barry's allows Barry to escape. "Help you? Why?
You stole my name! You tried to replace me...tried to make the world
forget about Barry Allen!"
"Forget Barry. Forget the fear. Forget everything..." "everything I do
now...who is it for?"
Press conference, Flash is dead.

"When I was a kid, I looked up to him with stars in my eyes. I thought
he was perfect...but I was just blinded by hero worship."
"How could I hold my own against the man who taught me everything I
know? He's stronger than me. He's faster than me. He's better than me.
For the first time since I was a kid, I'm just Wally West. I'm not a
hero anymore."
Construction site. Foundation. Jay hero discussion.
Jay, Max, Johnny.
Out trick him. Barry vs Max. Original superspeedster. Agility.
Wally Alley Book.
Reveals Barry's true identity.
Construction site destroyed as Barry grabs helmet.

Lessons from Johnny, mathematical formula, describing a
fourth-dimensional construct. 3x2(9YZ)4A
Draws speed from time. Positive thinking.
Max. Zen of speed.
Overthinking speed. Force Wally to confront what he doesn't want to.
Fear.
"No one can tell me that I'm afraid of speed! I love what I can do!"
"but you love your uncle Barry even more. That's why you took his name
and scotume, isn't it? In a sense, you did it so the world wouldn't
forget him...or his heroism. You keep saying you don't want to replace
Barry, but the moment you become as fast as him...that's exactly what
you'll have done."
Jay. Heart. Faith.
Wally plan trick.
Releases prisoners. Anti-Barry. Cop.
Doubt. Museum. Rubble.
Bird's eye shot, Wally small on huge symbol.
Cosmic treadmill.
Jay fights off Barry's mask. Revealing identity.
Rips off symbol. Breaks his leg.
"One true Flash!"
Eobard Thawne. Reverse Flash. Suit.

Recall in slo-mo. Origin. 25th Century. Technology has wiped out crime.
No heroes. Nostalgic for 20th Century. Heroic Age. "His was a soul pure
and noble. He, of all heroes, deserved in recompense for his sacrifice a
long and prosperous life. The tragedy of his plight had always moved me.
I worshipped him. And no matter that he'd been dead five hundred
years...I grieved for him. He was my hero. He was my friend."
Plastomorph surgery, cosmic treadmill pawn shop, fortune spent on
painful treatment giving powers.
Museum, taking in Barry's life as Flash, studying his enemies.
"We both wanted the same thing out of life, Wally...a chance to fill
Barry Allen's boots. Think about it. We're a lot alike. You might even
call us brothers."
Escape. Threatens Linda.
Acceptance. "Since Barry's death, my speed has waxed and waned. I never
thought the electric power that sparked it could ever be recaptured. I
was wrong. The power is within me. It always was."
Lightning gives edge.
Threatens to go to Thawne's childhood and terrorize him tricking him to
go back to the future.
"The ghost of Barry Allen...the one I've kept alive all these years...is
finally at rest. He no longer dominates my life...but he'll always watch
over me."
His future in the book, tosses it into water.

Superheroes: A Modern Mythology

Atonement with the Father: Superman
The roots of a superhero career - the all-important 'origin story' - go back to adolescence, and the character's development as a superhero must encompass evolving relationships with parents or substitute parental figures.

Approval by the father is witheld time and again by the absence or unavailability of the father-figure.

Sky - male, Earth - the female.

"Small events in the child's life which make him feel dissatisfied afford him provocation for beginning to criticize his parents, and for using, in order to support his critical attitude, the knowledge which he has acquired that other parents are in some respects preferable to them...the child's imagination becomes engaged in the task of getting free from the parents of whom he now has a low opinion and of replacing them by others, who, as a rule, are of a higher social standing."
Freud

Living in the new Middle Ages
A key ideological myth of the superhero comic is that the normal and everday enshrines positive values that must be defended through heroic action - and defended over and over again almost without respite against an endless battery of menaces determined to remake the world for the benefit of aliens, mutants, criminals, or sub-aqua beings from Atlantis. The normal is valuable and is constantly under attack, which means that almost by definition the superhero is battling on behalf of the status quo.

Jospeh Campbell - The Keys

The mythological hero, setting forth from his commonday hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadow presence that guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark (brother-battle, dragon-battle; offering, charm), or be slain by the opponent and descend in death (dismemberment, crucifixion). Beyond the threshold, then, the hero journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him (tests), some of which give magical aid (helpers). When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. The triumph may be represented as the hero's sexual union with the goddess-mother of the world (sacred marriage), his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement), his own divinization (apotheosis), or again - if the powers have remained unfriendly to him - his theft of the boon he came to gain (bride-theft, fire-theft); intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith of being (illumination, transfiguration, freedom). The final work is that of the return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection (emissary); if not, he flees and is pursued (transformation flight, obstacle flight). At the return threshold the transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon that he brings restores the world (elixir).

The outlines of myths and tales are subject to damage and obscuration. Archaic traits are generally eliminated or subdued. Imported materials are revised to fit local landscape, custom, or belief, and always suffer in the process. Furthermore, in the inumerable retellings of a traditional story, accidental or intentional dislocations are inevitable. To account for elements that have become, for one reason or another, meaningless, secondary interpretations are invented, often with considerable skill.

When a civilization has passed from a mythological to a secular point of view, the older images are no longer felt or quite approved. The myths were read as superhuman romances.

Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed. The living images become only remote facts of a distant time or sky.

Joseph Campbell - the Return Part 2

The Crossing of the Return Threshold
The two worlds, the divine and the human, can be pictured only as distinct from each other - different as life and death, as day and night. The hero adventures out of the land we know into darkness; there he accomplishes his adventure, or again is simply lost to us, imprisoned, or in danger; and his return is described as a coming back out of that yonder zone. Nevertheless - and here is a great key to the understanding of myth and symbol - the two kingdoms are actually one. The realm of the gods is a forgotten dimension of the world we know. And the exploration of that dimension, either willingly or unwillingly, is the whole sense of the deed of the hero. The values and distinctions that in normal life seem important disappear with the terrifying assimilation of the self into what formerly was only otherness.

How teach again, however, what has been taught correctly and incorrectly learned a thousand thousand times, throughout the milleniums of mankind's prudent folly?

The first problem of the returning hero is to accept as real, after an experience of soul-satisfying vision of fulfillment, the passing joys and sorrows, banalities and noisy obscenities of life. Why re-enter such a world? Why attempt to make plausible, or even interesting, to men and women consumed with passion, the experience of transcendental bliss?

The equating of a single year in Paradise to one hundred of earthly existence is a motif well known to myth.

Master of the Two Worlds
Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division, from the perspective of the apparitions of time to that of the causal deep and back - not contaminating the principles of the one with those of the other - is the talent of the master.

Symbols are only the vehicles of communication; they must not be mistaken for the final term, the tenor, of their reference.

The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes ripe, at last, for the great at-one-ment. His personal ambitions being totally dissolved, he no longer tries to live bt willingly relaxes to whatever may come to pass in him.

Freedom to Live.
The battlefield is symbolic of the field of life, where every creature lives on the death of another. A realization of the inevitable guilt of life may so sicken the heart that...one may refuse to go on with it. On the other hand, like most of the rest of us, one may invent a false, finally unjustified, image of oneself as an exceptional phenomenon in the world, not guilty as others are, but justified in one's inevitable sinning because one represents the good. Such self-righteousness leads to a misunderstanding, not only of oneself but of the nature of both man and the cosmos. The goal of the myth is to dispel the need for such life ignorance by effecting a reconciliation of the individual consciousness with the universal will. And this is effected through a realization of the true relationship of the passing phenomena of time to the imperishable life that lives and dies in all.

Man in the world of action loses his centering in the principle of eternity if he is anxious for the outcome of his deeds, but resting them and their fruits on the knees of the Living God he is released by them, as by a sacrifice, from the bondages of the sea of death.

The Flash Notes - Jay Garrick

Single-powered character
Reader identification
Dynamic motion versus static images
The Flash exemplifies comic book's energetic potential
Artistic expression of speed
i.e. Speed lines, blurred images, forced perspective
Flying, put them in the clouds

All-American Publications
Flash Comics # 1 (Jan. 1940)
Hard water fumes or "heavy" water vapors
College student
Father's WWI helmet redesigned as Hermes
Hawkman, Black Canary

All Star Comics (summer 1940)
Two DC Comics (Adventure & More Fun)
Two All-American (All-American & Flash)
Sandman, Hour-Man, Green Lantern, The Atom, Hawkman, Johnny Thunder,
Spectre, and Dr. Fate.

All Star Comics #3
Introduction of the Justice Society of America

All Star Comics #4 (March-April 1941)
Poll results pick Flash for solo title

All-Flash Quarterly
"Honorary" status in JSA due to editorial policy

Comic Calvacade (Winter 1943)
Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern

All Star Comics #24 (Spring 1945)
Flash returns to JSA
Series canceled at #57 (Feb/March 1951)

Four titles in Golden Age.

Most believeably written of superheroes.
Jay Garrick fought gangsters, kidnappers, racketeers, corrupt politicians, swindlers, and frauds.
Humiliation and tormenting his opponents.
Vibrating superfast he could become invisible and haunt the criminals "ghost-like".
Throwing pies and forcefeeding criminals.
Mischievous streak.

Supervillains.
The Fiddler, the Thinker, the Thorn, the Shade
Usually a villain initially triumphs before the hero discovers how to turn the tables. Jay Garrick's conflicts, however, were remarkably unchallenging, and the entertainment value of such stories relied upon the reader enjoying the villains being toyed with unmercifully before they surrendered - or in some cases, before they saw the error of their ways and reformed.

Post WWII costumed characters fell out of favor.
All-Flash cancelled with issue #32 (Dec./Jan. 1947) and the last issue of Flash comics was #104 (Feb. 1949). After Comic Calvacade #29 (Oct./Nov. 1948) became a funny animal book.

Ten years after his final JSA adventure Jay returned to DC Continuity with The Flash #123 (Sept. 1961). Gardner Fox.

The "multiverse" concept.

All-American Comics
225 Lafayette St.

Harry Lampert, artist
Gardner Fox, writer
M.C. Gaines, boss
Shelly Mayer, editor

Gaines & Mayer pulled Superman from DC slush pile. Within 18 months
Flash was third superhero to garner a second title.

Superman
Strong, invulnerable, alien

Batman
Escape artist, detective, human

Flash
Fast, scientist, superhuman

Flash Comics #1
Jay Garrick, college student, tries to get Joan, but his football skills don't impress her. Studying gases from "hard water", he separates the elements, and while taking a smoke break late night, he is too slow to catch the broken beakers. Professor Hughes finds him in the morning after he has inhaled all the fumes. After weeks in the hospital, he finally recovers and then some. Chasing after Joan, Jay realizes his speed, compared to a hurricane, a wind, a ghost. He gets books superfast for Joan from the library, who then decides to go with him to the dance if he uses his speed to play in the state game. Benched most of the game, a star player getting taken out puts Jay in the game. Leadfoot Garrick scores touchdown after touchdown, becoming a football hero. After graduation Jay heads to New York for Assistant Professorship at Coleman University. Reading in the newspaper about racketeers, Jay becomes the Flash and confronts them, never actually seen in a panel, but mentioned in the next. He feels a sense of purpose. Playing tennis against himself, no regard for secret identity, Joan recognizes Jay's powers. Her father was kidnapped, the thugs drive by shoot at Joan, but Jay catches the bullet. Sieur Satan, Serge Orloff, Duriel, all concoct a plan to find out the secret base of the atmoic bombarder. The villains keep him in a room made of mirrors, which he says are stealing his mind. They then try to get Joan's body to show him they mean business to get him to talk, the Faultless Four. Joan tells Jay of their threats to find out the secret. The Flash then charges after the car following it to the hideout. An explanation of his powers, catching a bullet, rescues Joan's father, then speeds back to listen in on the four's plans. They attach Coney Island Beach with a machine gun from a plane. Satan kills his cohorts trying to fry the Flash with an electrified room, but he speeds out. Satan tries to escape by his car but crashes.

Hard water or heavy water stops cell division, causes infertility, more dense.

Placing females on a pedestal.
Joan Williams, more than just a girlfriend, a partner, helpmate, a confidante, and a force to be reckoned with. Mayer looked at men and woman as equals.

Humor, Three Dimwits.

Flash #123 Flash of Two Worlds
Jay as comic book character
Inspiring Barry to name himself the Flash
Jay's villain Rival
Hero worship

The genius of the parallel world concept was that it promised so much more. Throughout the 1970's, more prominent alternate Earths were developed, each offering unique viewpoints and glimpses of a veritable multiverse that's begun to flower anew in 21st century DC comics.

"Elseworlds"

Doralla Kon "Lady Flash"
Flash #145 & #157

Joseph Campbell - the Return

When ther hero-quest has been accomplished, through penetration to the source, or through the grace of some male or female, human or animal, personification, the adventurer still must return with his life-transmuting trophy. The full round, the norm of the monomyth, requires that the hero shall now begin his labor of bringing the runes of wisdom, the Golden Fleece, or his sleeping princess, back into the kingdom of humanity, where the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation, the planet, or the ten thousand worlds.

Refusal of the return.
Numerous indeed are the heroes fabled to have taken up residence forever in the blessed isle of the unaging Goddess of Immortal Being.

Muchukunda, awoken by Vishnu incarnate in the person of Krishna, who defeated the demons and ruled India in Utopian peace, decimated barbarians who stumbled upon him asleep.

"My Lord God! When I lived and wrought as a man, I lived and wrought - straying restlessly; through many lives, birth after birth, I sought and suffered, nowhere knowing cease or rest. Distress I mistook for joy. Mirages appearing over the desert I mistook for refreshing waters. Delights I grasped, and what I obtained was misery. Kingly power and earthly possession, riches and might, friends and sons, wife and followers, everything that lures the senses: I wanted them all, because I believed that these would bring me beatitude. But the moment anything was mine it changed its nature, and became as a burning fire.

Then I found my way into the company of the gods, and they welcomed me as a companion. But where, still, surcease? Where rest? The creatures of this world, gods included, all are tricked, my Lord God, by your playful ruses; that is why they continue in their futile round of birth, life agony, old age, and death. Between lives, they confront the lord of the dead and are forced to endure hells of every degree of pitiless pain. And it all comes from you!

My Lord God, deluded by your playful ruses, I too was a prey of the world, wandering in a labyrinth of error, netter in the meshes of ego-consciousness. Now, therefore, I take refuge in your Presence - the boundless, the adorable - desiring only freedom from it all."

The Magic Flight.
If the hero in his triumph wins the blessing of the goddess or the god and is then explicitly commisioned to return to the world with some elixir for the restoration of society, the final stage of his adventure is supported by all the powers of his supernatural patron. On the other hand, if the trophy has been attained against the opposition of its guardian, or if the hero's wish to return to the world has been resented by the gods or demons, then the last stage of the mythological round becomes a lively, often comical, pursuit.

A popular variety of the magic flight is that in which objects are left behind to speak for the fugitive and thus delay pursuit.

Another well-known variety of the magic flight is one in which a number of delaying obstacles are tossed behind by the wildly fleeing hero.

"The incomparibly useful function of the dogmatic symbol {is that} it protects a person from a direct experience of God as long as he does not mischievously expose himself. But if...he leaves home and family, lives too long alone, and gazes too deeply into the dark mirror, then the awful event of the meeting may befall him. Yet even then the traditional symbol, come to full flower through the centuries, may operate like a healing draught and divert the fatal incursion of the living godhead into the hallowed spaces of the church."
Dr. C. Jung

Escape from the Underworld
Orpheus & Eurydice
In spite of the failure recorded, a possibility exists of a return of the lover with his lost love from beyond the terrible threshold. It is always some little fault, some slight yet critical symptom of human frailty, that makes impossible the open interrelationship between the worlds; so that one is tempted to believe, almost, that is the small, marring accident could be avoided, all would be well. The myths of failure touch us with the tragedy of life, but those of success only with their own incredibility. And yet, if the monomyth is to fulfill its promise, not human failure or superhuman success but human success is what we shall have to be shown.

Rescue From Without
Amaterasu, Japanese sun goddess
Ilat, South Arabian
Die Sonne, German
Feminine sun goddess

Shinto "Way of the Gods"
Way of devotion to the guardians of life and custom (local spirits, ancestral powers, heroes, the divine king, one's living parents, and one's living children). Preserving and cultivating purity of heart.

Butsudo "Way of the Buddha"
The powers that yield release from the round.

Eight Hundred Myraid of Gods are but differing manifestations of one unique Deity, Kuni-tokotachi-no-Kami, the Eternally Standing Divine Being of the Earth, the Great Unity of All Things in the Universe, the Primordial Being of Heaven and Earth, eternally existing from the
beginning to the end of the world.

The mirror, the sword, the tree.

The mirror, reflecting the goddess and drawing her forth from the august repose of her divine nonmanifestation, is symbolic of the world, the field of reflected glory. Therein divinity is pleased to regard its own glory, and this pleasure is itself inducement to the act of
manifestation or "creation".

The sword is the counterpart of the thunderbolt.

The tree is the World Axis in its wish-fulfilling, fruitful aspect - the same as that displayed in Christian homes at the season of the winter solstice, which is the moment of the rebirth or return from the sun, a joyous custom inherited from the Germanic paganism that has given to the modern German language its feminine Sonne.

The dance of Uzume and the uproar of the gods belong to the carnival: the world left topsy-turvy by the withdrawal of the supreme divinity, but joyous for the coming renewal.

Inanna's descent into Underworld.
Ninshubur, her messenger, ran to the gods.
Enlil, Sumerian air-god, Nanna the moon god, Enki the water god and god of wisdom.

3000 BC

Inanna three days and nights upon a stake.

Two sexless creaturesm one with "food of life" and one with "water of life", sent to sprinkle it on Inanna sixty times.

The conclusion of the poem, this valuable document of the sources of the myths and symbols of our civilization, is forever lost.

Instead of holding to and saving his ego, as in the pattern of magic flight, he loses it, and yet, through grace, is returned.

Whether rescued from without, driven from within, or gently carried along by the guiding divinities, he has yet to re-enter with his boon the long-forgotten atmosphere where men who are fractions imagine themselves to be complete. He has yet to confront society with his ego-shattering, life-redeeming elixir, and take the return blow of reasonable queries, hard resentment, and good people at a loss to comprehend.