#Dean's soul in the Bardo

[drsilverfish]

1x07 Reflections - Dean Picks “As Time Goes By” and “Can’t Find My Way Home”

To reflect is both to mirror and to meditate/ think upon. 

Dean, Dean, Dean... this story continues to be filled with reflections in Holy Ghost Narrator Dean’s mind, about matters of his own heart.

Honestly, when read on this level, The Winchesters is the most bittersweet of meditations.

Firstly, the characters keep saying all the emotionally meaningful stuff to each other which Dean himself needed to hear or to say:

Notice how we can read this as a reflection for Dean’s relationship with his own father (remember when he knew Azazel was possessing John, because the demon told him it was proud of him in in 1x22 Devil’s Trap, whereas his Dad would have “torn him a new one”), AND we can read it as a reflection of the moment Dean lost Castiel for the last time. Henry, like Cas in 15x18, is saying “I love you” here, as he fades out, back to another dimension. AND we can read it as a reflection of Dean telling Sam he loved him and was proud of him, whilst he lay dying on the rebar in the barn in 15x20. Henry speaks both to a lover (Millie) and to a son (John) allowing all these subtextual reflections (Dean-John, Dean-Cas, Dean-Sam). 

The music Dean picks this week is all about love and longing.

Can’t Find My Way Home can be read as Dean’s reflections on his soul leaving his own body in death, with the lyrics singing to his beloved, Castiel, about how much he wants to find his way back to him, but he can’t find him (because he’s lost in The Empty): 

Can’t Find My Way Home

Come down off your throne and leave your body alone Somebody must change You are the reason I've been waiting so long Somebody holds the key [Chorus] But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home [Verse 2] Come down on your own and leave your body alone Somebody must change You are the reason I've been waiting all these years Somebody holds the key

But I'm near the end and I just ain't got the time And I'm wasted and I can't find my way home [Outro] But I can't find my way home

We could read a Dean-longing-for-Sam reflection here too, although all the other reflections in the SPNWin 1x07 narrative point to Cas (John and Mary’s situation locked in the room with no way out, as the Akrida bear down on them, prompting John to declare his feelings with a kiss, being a strong reflection for Dean and Cas locked in the bunker with no way out, and Billie bearing down on them in 15x18 Despair, prompting Cas to declare his feelings). 

As Time Goes By, Millie and Henry’s love song, is a classic made famous because of its role in the wartime star-crossed lovers story Casablanca (1942) 

And Millie and Henry’s back-story, wherein we learn this week they fought a lot, because Henry was always leaving (and keeping Millie in the dark about his MoL work) because he was trying to protect her and young John, has echoes of the many times Cas left Dean (often to protect him, e.g. in Purgatory) when all Dean wanted was for him to stay. 

And John was so angry he broke the musical box which played the love song. Sad echoes here, of the Dean/ Cas break-up.

“You must remember this A kiss is just a kiss A sigh is just a sigh The fundamental things apply As time goes byAnd when two lovers woo They still say "I love you" On that you can rely No matter what the future brings As time goes by”   

Holy Ghost Narrator Dean sure is dreaming of a kiss:

[johnmurphysreddit]

osleyakomwonkru replied to your post “All this ossurary and bardo stuff has me worried. If they go for the...”

I wasn't thrilled with the last season of LOST, but they weren't dead the whole time.

TBH my interest in LOST dropped sharply after Charlie’s death.  The only points of the final season I remember are establishing characters that are canonically magically/supernaturally immortals / gods and ending in a church where the dead were risen with hearts full of love because destiny, souls, and some such nonsense.  I also remember a whole lot of people on the internet going “what did I just watch” and the showrunner having to do a media blitz to try to explain his finale.  It was a disaster.  

IMO, if you’re going to have canon supernatural events / characters as opposed to really, really, really stretched science you need to establish that early and clearly.  Otherwise you have broken covenant with your viewers.  It’s the same as inviting someone over for a party and then trying to draft them for an MLM.  It’s bad faith. Shady. Tacky.  And building up to it for YEARS before dropping the bomb means I’ll never watch any of your work again because you aren’t to be trusted with my time.  

I used to love horror novels and someone suggested if I should try Dean Koontz.  400 pages in it was revealed that the whole thing was Revelations and if the characters had been right with American Christian Jesus they would have been raptured instead of running around trying to survive.  I haven’t read a Koontz since.  

Rothenberg has a way with plot even if he needs some growth in worldbuilding  consistency and characterization.  If I was interested in the premise I’d watch another show of his because I don’t think he’s intentionally breaking faith with his viewers, he’s just not very good at some things.  Any sort of canon supernatural event/character in season seven will put him on my hard no list. 

[stevefoxe]

Everything I Read in 2016

For the third year in a row, I logged every novel, short story collection, poetry compilation, graphic novel, and collected edition of monthly comics I read, excluding individual monthly comics (on which I continued to fall catastrophically behind) and anything I read (and reread, and reread again) for my day job. My only big change? A lot of these books were read on my iPad Mini. And a good number were for my gay book club (you can guess which ones). 

If you don’t yet keep track of your reading, you should start in 2017. It’s your best bet for hitting a reading goal, and for folks like me who read a ton, it’s a nice way to recall books that otherwise departed your memory.

For the tl;dr crowd, here are my Top 13 for the year, in the order in which I read them:

On Writing, Stephen King

Binti, Nnedi Okorafor

The Girls, Emma Cline

I Am a Hero Vol. 1 & Vol. 2, Kengo Hanazawa

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz

The Hero: Book Two, David Rubín

Night Sky With Exit Wounds, Ocean Vuong

Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders (I read an ARC)

A Choir of Ill Children, Tom Piccirilli

Habitat, Simon Roy

Prez Vol. 1, Mark Russell, Ben Caldwell, Domo Stanton

Bones of the Coast, edited by Shannon Campbell, Jeff Ellis, Kathleen Jacques

(New X-Men Omnibus was a re-read, or it would be up here.)

The rest is below the jump!

I don’t really feel like dumping on anything this year. I definitely got burnt out on comic anthologies, and I hated A Little Life, but the good outweighs the bad. Below is the full list, divided by month, followed by a few statistics and an evaluation of my 2016 reading goals as established last January. 

[A note on comics: I feel guilty that I’ve left off colorists and inkers, as they contribute so much to a book, but I defaulted to cover credits while logging my reading and don’t have most of these books on-hand to fix it now.]

January

The Amazing World of Gumball: Fairy Tale Trouble, Megan Brennan, Katy Farina, Jeremy Lawson

Adventure Time: Masked Mayhem, Kate Leth, Bridget Underwood, Drew Green, Vaughn Pinpin, Meredith McClaren

Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder: The Mysteries of Unland, Kim Newman, Maura McHugh, Tyler Crook

On Writing, Stephen King

Binti, Nnedi Okorafor

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016, edited by John Joseph Adams & Joe Hill

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, Kai Ashante Wilson

February

Planet Hulk, Sam Humphries & Marc Laming

Future Imperfect, Peter David & Greg Land

Hail Hydra, Rick Remender & Roland Boschi

House of M, Dennis Hopeless & Marco Failla

Marvel Zombies, Si Spurrier & Kev Walker

Old Man Logan, Brian Michael Bendis & Andrea Sorrentino

The Girls, Emma Cline

The Gilded Razor, Sam Lansky

March

Civil War, Charles Soule & Leinil Francis Yu

New X-Men Omnibus, Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, Phil Jimenez, Ethan Van Sciver, Igor Kordey, Marc Silvestri, Keron Grant, Chris Bachalo, John Paul Leon, Bill Sienkiewicz, Leinil Francis Yu

The Eye of the Cat, Elejandro Jodorowsky & Moebius

All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders

Beyond Anthology, edited by Sfé Monster & Taneka Scott

A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara

Balloon Pop Outlaw Black, Patricia Lockwood

April

 I Am a Hero Vol. 1, Kengo Hanazawa

The Nameless City Vol. 1, Faith Erin Hicks

Ody-C Vol. 1, Matt Fraction & Christian Ward

Lovecraft Country, Matt Ruff

Husk, Rachel Autumn Deering

New World: An Anthology of Sci-Fi & Fantasy, edited by C. Spike Trotman

Chainmail Bikini: An Anthology of Women Gamers, edited by Hazel Newlevant

Broken Frontier, edited by Frederik Hautain & Tyler Chin-Tanner

Love in All Forms: The Big Book of Growing Up Queer, edited by Serafina Dwyer

Wonder Woman: Earth One Vol. 1, Grant Morrison & Yanick Paquette

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz

The Hero: Book Two, David Rubín

The Girl With All the Gifts, M. R. Carey

Regular Show: Noir Means Noir, Buddy, Rachel Connor, Robert Luckett, Wook Jin Clark

Night Air, Ben Sears

Revenger: Children of the Damned, Charles Forsman

Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link

May

Dark Engine Vol. 1, Ryan Burton & John Bivens

Disney Kingdoms: Seekers of the Weird, Brandon Seifert, Karl Moline, Filipe Andrade

The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Aimee Bender

Every Heart a Doorway, Seanan McGuire

Mr. Splitfoot, Samantha Hunt

Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Charles M. Blow

Revival Vol. 1, Tim Seeley & Mike Norton

The Fireman, Joe Hill

Colder: Toss the Bones, Paul Tobin & Juan Ferreyra

The Fly: Outbreak, Brandon Seifert & Menton3

Faker, Mike Carey & Jock

What If? Infinity, Joshua Williamson, Mike Henderson, Riley Rossmo, Mike Norton, Jason Copeland, Goran Sudžuka

June

Hawkeye vs. Deadpool, Gerry Duggan, Matteo Lolli, Jacopo Camagni

Outcast Vol. 3, Robert Kirkman & Paul Azaceta

Lady Killer Vol. 1, Joelle Jones & Jamie S. Rich

The Fiction, Curt Pires & David Rubín

The Amazing World of Gumball Vol. 2, Frank Gibson, Tyson Hesse, Paulina Ganucheau

Arcadia, Alex Paknadel & Eric Scott Pfeiffer

Black Market, Frank J. Barbiere & Victor Santos

Dream Thief Vol. 2, Jai Nitz, Greg Smallwood, Todd Galusha

Contest of Champions Vol.1, Al Ewing & Paco Medina

The Infinity Gauntlet, Dustin Weaver & Gerry Duggan

The Amulet, Michael McDowell

The Dark Half, Stephen King

The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Steve Moncuse & Art Adams

Steven Universe: Too Cool for School, Ian Jones-Quartey, Jeremy Sorese, Asia Kendrick-Horton, Rachel Dukes, Josceline Fenton

Bob’s Burgers: Medium Rare, overseen by Loren Bouchard

Bob’s Burgers: Well Done, overseen by Loren Bouchard

Zombie, Joyce Carol Oates

Kare-Kare Komiks, Andrew Drilon

Night Sky With Exit Wounds, Ocean Vuong

The Witcher: House of Glass, Paul Tobin & Joe Querio

X-Men: No More Humans, Mike Carey & Salvador Larroca

Cold Moon Over Babylon, Michael McDowell

July

Black Hand Comics, Wes Craig

Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, Paul Tremblay

B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth: The Devil’s Wings, John Arcudi, Mike Mignola, Lawrence Campbell, Joe Querio, Tyler Crook

B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth: Flesh & Stone, John Arcudi, Mike Mignola, James Harren

Abe Sapien: Sacred Places, Mike Mignola, Scott Allie, Sebastian Fiumara, Max Fiumara

Abe Sapien: A Darkness So Great, Mike Mignola, Scott Allie, Sebastian Fuimara, Max Fiumara

Hellboy & the B.P.R.D. 1952, Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, Alex Maleev

Lobster Johnson: Get the Lobster!, Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, Tonči Zonjić

Green River Killer: A True Detective Story, Jeff Jensen & Jonathan Case

The Witcher: Fox Children, Paul Tobin & Joe Querio

Children of the Night, John Blackburn

Frankenstein Underground, Mike Mignola & Ben Stenbeck

My Best Friend’s Exorcism, Grady Hendrix

August

The Well, Jack Cady

Angel Catbird Vol. 1, Margaret Atwood & Johnnie Christmas

Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders

September

Fellside, M. R. Carey

The Twilight Children, Gilbert Hernandez & Darwyn Cooke

Veil, Greg Rucka & Toni Fejzula

Negative Space, Ryan K. Lindsey & Owen Geini

Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight Vol. 1, Alex De Campi, Chris Peterson, Simon Fraser

Bitch Planet Vol. 1, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro, Robert Wilson IV

Ody-C Vol. 2, Matt Fraction & Christian Ward

Tampa, Alissa Nutting

Clive Barker’s A-Z of Horror, compiled by Stephen Jones

The Missing, Sarah Langan

Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight Vol. 2, Alex De Campi, Federica Manfredi, Gary Erskine

Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight Vol. 3, Alex De Campi, R.M. Guera, Chris Peterson

Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight Vol. 4, Alex De Campi, Mulele Jarvis, John Lucas

Audition, Ryu Murakami

Mr. Arashi’s Amazing Freak Show, Suehiro Maruo

In the Miso Soup, Ryu Murakami

October

Ghosts, Raina Telgemeier

Anya’s Ghost, Vera Brosgol

One Week in the Library, W. Maxwell Prince & John Amor

A Choir of Ill Children, Tom Piccirilli

The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter

I Am a Hero Vol. 2, Kengo Hanazawa

The Beauty Vol. 1, Jeremy Haun & Jason A. Hurley

The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo Vol. 1, Drew Weing

November

Gerald’s Game, Stephen King

Call Me By Your Name, André Aciman

Invisible Republic Vol. 1, Gabriel Hardman & Corinne Bechko

Roche Limit Vol. 1, Michael Moreci & Vic Malhorta

What Belongs to You, Garth Greenwell

Roche Limit Vol. 2, Michael Moreci & Kyle Charles

Roche Limit Vol. 3, Michael Moreci & Kyle Charles

One-Punch Man Vol. 9, ONE & Yusuke Murata

One-Punch Man Vol. 10, ONE & Yusuke Murata

Habitat, Simon Roy

December

Beowulf, Santiago García & David Rubín

The Oath, edited by Audrey Redpath

Star Wars: Tales From the Far, Far Away, Michael Moreci, Tim Daniel, Ryan Cady, Phillip Sevy, etc.

Prelude to Bruise, Saeed Jones

Grief is the Thing With Feathers, Max Porter

Tomie Deluxe Edition, Junji Ito

Krampus!, Brian Jones & Dean Kotz

Fantasy Sports Vol. 2, Sam Bosma

The Beauty Vol. 2, Jeremy Haun, Jason A. Hurley, Mike Huddleston, Brett Weldele, Stephen Green

Prez Vol. 1, Mark Russell, Ben Caldwell, Domo Stanton

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe, Ryan Q. North & Erica Henderson

Love is Love, edited by Marc Andreyko

Joe Golem Vol. 1, Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Patric Reynolds

Baltimore: Cult of the Red King, Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Peter Bergting

Abe Sapien: The Burning Fire, Mike Mignola, Scott Allie, Max Fiumara, Sebastian Fiumara, Tyler Crook

Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire, Neil Gaiman & Shane Oakley

Bones of the Coast, edited by Shannon Campbell, Jeff Ellis, Kathleen Jacques

Total: 

140 Books (up from 128 in 2015 and 87 in 2014)

Breakdown:

39 Novels or short story collections (down from 43 in 2015 and 44 in 2014)

98 Graphic novels/collected editions of comics (up from 84 in 2015 and a measly 42 in 2014)

3 Books of poetry (triple the 2015 and 2014 counts!)

About 35 Books written or edited by female authors (up from 20 in 2015 and 16 in 2014; note that I’m only counting writers and editors, not artists, and I’m counting books, not unique authors)

Roughly 19 books by (known-to-be) non-white authors (down from 30 last year but up from 9 in 2014...but both this year and last were inflated by multiple entries from manga creators)

...and at least 16 books written or edited by queer and trans authors. 

So...any suggestions for 2017?

[dkehoe]

  I have always enjoyed Holly’s book reviews, they are insightful, fun and make great points about the books she’s reviewing, but I really became a fan of Holly when she went to school overseas and started writing her Holly Goes Abroad posts. There’s nothing like seeing and experiencing different cultures through another persons eyes. It’s why we read books, isn’t it? If you haven’t checked out Holly’s blog Nut Free Nerd, please click on the link below and check it out. She is worth your time, I promise!

Holly @ Nut Free Nerd

Here are Holly’s answers to my 10 questions.

Blogging is universal and even though we inhabit the same community, we don’t always live in the same country. What country do you live in? 

I live in New England in the United States. I love where I live–it’s woodsy and pretty, yet close enough to cities, the beach, and the mountains. What more could you want?

What is the view outside your front door? 

The first thing I see when I look out my front door is my mom’s lovely garden. She’s been maintaining this garden since we first moved in nearly twenty years ago, so at this point it’s bursting with a plethora of pretty flowers in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

Most blogs have a quirky name and a fun story of origin. Please share the story behind your blog’s name? 

My blog’s name is Nut Free Nerd, which accurately describes me in two ways: 1) I’m nerdy and 2) I’m severely allergic to nuts. I also adore alliteration (see what I did there?!) so when I first thought of this name years ago I was immediately hooked. It has stuck with me ever since!

Describe where you write your blog. 

When I’m home for summer or winter break, I usually write my blog posts at my dining room table. If I’m at college, then I most often write them at the desk in my room while eating breakfast in the morning. Blogging is definitely one of my favorite breakfast activities!

Most of us have a stack of books sitting next to our couch or bed waiting to be read. What books are in your stack? 

The current stack next to my bed is made entirely of library books that I recently checked out: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul. Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

DAY ONE: THE NAME OF THE WIND

My name is Kvothe.   I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.   You may have heard of me.

So begins a tale unequaled in fantasy literature—the story of a hero told in his own voice. It is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man’s search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love’s absence. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean, and read by thousands as the book that brought Oprah’s Book Club back, East of Eden has remained vitally present in American culture for over half a century.

If you have had a bad day and want to spend an hour reading a book, what is your go to genre or favorite book that will lift your mood? 

My go-to book for any problem (homesickness, stress, heartache, etc.) is always The Hobbit or part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. These books always remind me of when I first read them in middle school, making them the perfect pieces of nostalgia to cheer me up when I most need it.

  When you aren’t blogging, how do you spend your time? Work, play, school? 

During the summer months I work at a local non-profit writing grant applications, which I love. The rest of the year you can usually find me writing essays and reading articles at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, where I attend university as an English major/Spanish minor. In my free time I love to write, knit, tap dance, and watch old Star Trek reruns.

What is your favorite blog post you’ve ever written? 

Oooh, such a difficult question! I think I’m going to cheat and say that my favorite KIND of post I’ve ever written are my Classic Couple posts, where I pair up classic and contemporary novels. It sparks such great discussions! Post:

https://nutfreenerd.com/category/classic-couple/

  Have you ever met one of your favorite authors? If so, what did you say to them? Looking back, what do you wish you had said instead? 

Yes! When I was in high school my best friend and I met Michael Grant, author of the Gone series. I asked him if he knew how he was going to finish the series, and he replied something like, “Not like how Lost ends.” I wouldn’t change anything about my question because I love his answer; not only is it cleverly vague, but it also involves one of my favorite TV series.

If you could sit down with an author for a slice of cake and a question, who is the author, what kind of cake would you serve, and what is the first question you’d ask? 

  So many amazing authors to choose from! I think my answer to this is going to have to be William Faulkner because I feel as though I have an endless stream of questions for him. I would hand him a slice of cheese cake and ask, “What is the point of ABSALOM, ABSALOM!?”

Thanks so much Holly! I myself was an English major and a lot of what you said brings back memories. I also had to read Absalom, Absalom and I remember scratching my head over that one! LOL.

I hope you all enjoyed learning a little bit more about Holly, and more importantly will go check out her blog if you haven’t already.

Thanks for reading Blogger to Blogger!

Deb

Blogger to Blogger Series: An Interview with Holly from Nut Free Nerd I have always enjoyed Holly's book reviews, they are insightful, fun and make great points about the books she's reviewing, but I really became a fan of Holly when she went to school overseas and started writing her Holly Goes Abroad posts.

[hannahsalvidgephotography-blog]

Photographing the Invisible

Spirit photography

Haunted media

Tom Gunning - ‘phantom images and modern manifestations’

communication with the dead was connected to religious belief in the 1800s = modern spiritualism

William Mumler, Mrs Conant and her brother Charles h. Crowell, c. 1868- claimed to have captured the first spirit photograph.

the return of the dead relatives captured through spirit photography was thought to have given comfort and certainty to people about their own lif=ves after death.

the camera was considered to be capturing a reality not visible through human sight

Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders (Bardo meaning the space between life and death).

Robertson’s Phantasmagoria, Paris, 1797

Frederick A. Hudson

Georgiana Houghson, Spirit drawing, ca. 1860s - 1870s - a form of abstraction before it was formally developed as part of Modernism.

Edouard Buguet - photographic studio taking on religious rituals

Psychology plays a key role within spirit photography

William Mumler and Edouard Buguet were both eventually prosecuted for fraud. However, the spiritualist belief was often so ingrained in their customers that they refused to believe it was fraud and still genuinely believed they were seeing their dead relatives in these spirit photographs.

Clement Cheroux - Ghost Dialectics: Spirit Photography in Entertainment and Belief

Photographing the invisible - James Coates - Dead bodies emit radiation that only the camera can pick up

Dr Hippolyte Baraduc - claimed to capture emanations of the human soul

Louis Darget - claimed to capture mental emanations

Spiritualism and mediums flourished around WW1 as people couldn’t understand why so many people were being slaughtered at war. Spiritualism (and spirit photography) became a coping mechanism for bereavement and grief and people just wanted to make contact with lost relatives.

However, spirit photography soon died out again soon after WW1 ended as new ways of commemorating and grieving the loss of relatives were found, e.g. the Cenotaph.Ada Deane - went to the Armistice Day ceremony to capture spirit photographs when the spirits returned during the moment of remembrance.

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida - ‘a micro version of death’. ‘The photograph is literally an emanation of the referent’ (pages 14,80 and 88).

William Hope

It was thought that spirit photographs were possibly being made using ‘ghost stamps’

Part 2: Photography, ‘haunted media’ and the Paranormal

An attempt to visualise the spiritual realm

Frantisek Kupka - Influenced by spirit photography / art / spiritualism and the idea of forces appearing from another realm.

The idea of the ‘fourth dimension’

A mixture of science and spiritual belief was taken up by artists.

1924 - the emergence of Surrealism

Interested in the body and ideas about psychology and the unconscious

The idea that the unconscious and dreams to transform reality

Conscious control and tapping into the authentic inner self - not interested in the dead or spiritualism.

Paul Nouge - animated objects, fears, powers, invisible objects etc

The photograph embodies the person - e.g. cutting, scratching, ripping a photograph will damage the people in the image. 

Ectoplasm - extension of the range of mysterious phenomena around WW1.

Albert Von Schrenk-Notzing - traveled aroumd Europe exploring paranormal phenomena, extensively using photography. - e.g. Stanislava P. with ectoplasmic substance, 1913.

Seances

Francesca Woodman, self-portrait, talking to Vince, ca. 1975-78 - possible connection between ectoplasmic images.

Clare strand - has created work drawn directly spirit photography/ectoplasm.

Thomas Demand - poltergeist-like image - levitation, mediumistic activity, invisible beings.

Hans Richter - ghosts before breakfast (film). 1927 - early modernist movement

Jeffrey Sconce - Haunted media

e.g. the TV being haunted, being watched by machines, schizophrenia, paranoia

- connections with the unconscious

Psychogeography - places having certain atmospheres

Link to symptoms of Schizophrenia - fear of being watched by machines (link to surveillance?) - Victor Tausk, ‘The influencing machine’. 1919 (see article by Christopher Turner on blackboard powerpoint) - psychodynamics, pathological forms.

Thomson and Craighead - Obituary

Susan Hiller -

midnight series, oxford circus, 1987 - photobooth as a form of automotism

Auras: Homage to Marcel Duchamp, 2008

[drsilverfish]

Dean’s Soul in the Bardo -   The Art of Dying 1x06 The Winchesters

Catching up British-time, so a bit late to the party as usual, and coming to it fresh, as I like to do, without jumping into the time-line first. 

Screeches a bit because I am overwhelmed.

This episode suggests that, on one level, we can read every character in The Winchesters as manifestations of Dean’s consciousness, as he hovers in the “bardo”, the liminal realm in Tibetan Buddhism, between death and reincarnation. 

Mary - the leader and hunter who wants to get out of hunting; John - filled with wounded rage, Daddy-issues and violence; Carlos - the fabulous bisexual who dares to get into therapy and to go after the men he wants; Lata - the abused child who manages to chose love over violence - ALL OF THESE ARE ASPECTS OF DEAN WINCHESTER’S being, his experience/ soul/ desires <sobs a little because it’s beautiful>. 

Now I’m back on my meta, I’ve previously mused on The Winchesters as a reparative narrative told by Holy Ghost Dean Winchester; a counter-point to the traumatic narrative of Supernatural.

1x06 The Art of Dying offers further illumination and elaboration on that concept, namely:

The episode title, “The Art of Dying” is a George Harrison song, the right time-period for The Winchesters (1970), from his album All Things Must Pass. 

The Beatles, in keeping with the hippie counterculturalism of the time, were interested in Eastern spirituality, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, and this Harrison song was inspired by his reading of Timothy Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1964). 

Harrison’s lyrics are about the religious philosophy of perfecting the soul through cycles of reincarnation:

“There'll come a time when all of us must leave here There's nothing Sister Mary can do, will keep me here with you As nothing in this life that I've been trying Can equal or surpass the Art of Dying....

There'll come a time when most of us return here Brought back by our desire to be a perfect entity Living through a million years of crying Until you realize the Art of Dying “

A theme which fits well with the Ouroboros (serpent swallowing it’s own tail as it ascends) narrative of latter-day Supernatural, which drew on Jung and esoteric alchemy to manifest the Winchesters’ journey as the journey of the soul towards God.  

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is the Bardo Thodol, which means “liberation through hearing in the intermediate state”. It is a 14thC esoteric text (or possibly older but that’s when the written text we have dates from).

John, Mary, Lata and Losy all struggle with pain, parent-induced and violence-induced and hunting-induced trauma, but they are able to communicate their feelings to one another in a way which is strikingly and remarkably different from the enormous struggles with emotional articulation which animated Supernatural, which we watched Dean suffer with throught his life. 

So we can read The Winchesters as Dean’s revelatory hallucinations in the liminal state between death and liberation (or rebirth) - his revelatory sexual and emotional healing soul-dreams (in which, and what could be more Freudian, he returns to the scene of his parents).

And look, Lata is teaching John, who surived being possessed by the vengeful spirit of abused-as-a-child and violently out-of-control Mac, how to meditate and achieve higher consciousness (with an image of a globe in the background):

And isn’t it interesting that the rare type of vampire which Mac’s vengeful spirit first possesses is called a “soucouyant”, which means (incongrously, one would think) “carefree” in French. But not so incongruous if The Winchesters is about the journey of Dean’s soul to liberation, to bliss, to being “carefree”...

[drsilverfish]

Taking a Closer Look at 1x06 Art of Dying as Dean’s Subconscious (The Winchesters)

This episode feels like a really significant one, so I went and had a re-watch, this time specifically to take a closer look at the set-dressing (hello set-dressing narrative, my old friend).

There’s so much in there which speaks to Narrator-Dean’s subconscious and (significantly, given the episode’s title) to Dean’s own death.

The barn (a barn was, of course, the mise-en-scène of Dean’s death):

The shots of skulls (twice - one in Losy’s van, and the other in the background as Carlos sews up John’s shoulder):

The Soucouyant is a type of vampire, just like the vampires were the monsters at the scene of Dean’s death. But the Soucouyant-vampire here itself is (double?) dead. It’s only animated because it is being possessed by Mac’s vengeful spirit (layers and layers of correspondences and death and spirit symbolism). 

The claw of the Soucouyant and the bloody wound this double-dead vampire makes in John’s shoulder recall (in the way in which, in dreams, objects symbolise other objects) the cursed rebar at the scene of Dean’s own death:

Then there’s the beautiful, slow sequence of Darla’s hunter’s funeral with Judy Collin’s “Joan of Arc” (1971) (written by Leonard Cohen) playing in the background. We don’t know Darla, but the funeral is given great emotional depth. Her body is prepared, and she is wrapped in white and tied with yellow cord. The scene is shot in golden light, with long lingering sorrow. And the song, about Joan of Arc’s death, is couched in the metaphor of a marriage:

"Then fire, make your body cold, I'm going to give you mine to hold," saying this she climbed inside to be his one, to be his only bride. And deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and high above the wedding guests he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.“

And what has Narrator-Dean already explicitly told us? He’s picking the music. 

This funeral really recalls the funeral for Castiel in SPN 13x01 Lost and Found - the way Dean prepared Castiel’s body, wrapping it in white and tying it with the torn yellow curtains. In his heart, it was a funeral for his husband; that’s what The Winchesters’ Narrator-Dean’s song choice here suggests (as if we didn’t already know, Dean):

And oh look, there is a freaking (Soucouyant) hand-print on the barn door to the right of Tracy!

Which of course recalls the significance of Castiel’s own death hand-print on Dean in SPN 15x18 Despair:

And in this episode, Losy is wearing a necklace that says “Love” in 1960s lettering (recalling Cas’ dying “I love you” confession to Dean). But (hello wish-fulfillment for Dean’s subconscious) Carlos manages to get a date with his crush, Anton, (not a funeral):

And is that a statue of Michael and Lucifer locked in combat on the left there by the window?!?! Why, yes, yes it is, Dean’s subconscious:

There’s an Ankh symbol on the chest behind John in the post-possession talk he has with Mary. The Ankh is the Egyptian hieroglyph known as the “key of life” which had enormous significance for the passage of the soul after death to eternal afterlife:

There is also a triquetra symbol in Tracy’s house. The triquetra is a Celtic symbol which is sometimes understood to symbolise the cycle of birth, death and rebirth:

These symbols of life after death, and of life, death and rebirth, fit with my earlier 1x06 meta musing on Narrator-Dean as being in the liminal state between dying and rebirth (known as the Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism).  

All of which is to say, that one way we can read The Winchesters is as a dream-like sequence where God-Narrator Dean re-mixes things of deep emotional significance to him. And this episode, read that way, seems to be a re-mix in particular of the scene of Dean’s own death in 15x20, and his painful experiences of Castiel’s deaths in 13x01 and 15x18.

NB: This reading does not promise a Dean/ Cas reunion - this level of The Winchesters’ narrative is subtextual (no surprises there - hello subtext my old friend) and will probably remain there.  

But isn’t it heartbreaking and beautiful?

[drsilverfish]

Murph’s Silver Cross in The Winchesters

That’s some pretty striking symbology; John Winchester lost his best buddy (lover?) Murph (Hank Murphy) in Vietnam when he was blown to bits after stepping on a landmine, and shrapnel from Murph’s sliver cross necklace ended up embedded in John’s arm (so John literally carried Murph with him).

We see in John’s flashback, Murph kissing the cross just before his ill-fated break for it:

 “I think I’m being haunted,” John tells Mary in SPNWin 1x01 Pilot:

Others have already mentioned the way in which Dean’s Purgatory One journey mirrors John’s Vietnam. Dean returned with his vampire buddy (lover?) Benny’s essence embedded in his arm (8x01 We Need to Talk About Kevin):

and he was haunted by his visions of (his beloved) Castiel, whom he’d left behind there (8x07 A Little Slice of Kevin);

John digs Murph’s cross shrapnel out of his arm to use its silver properties to fight the Men of Letters Watchdog Loup Garou (werewolf) in SPNWin 1x01 Pilot.

However, it’s not gone from haunting his consciousness.

In SPNWin 1x04 Masters of War we meet the cross again, when WW2 veteran “Patches” (killed by the God Mars-Neto) has a similar silver cross on his body, which gives John Vietnam flash-backs (here he is, holding it in the hospital morgue):

Interestingly, the lore on Mars-Neto in the same episode says this (about his amphora):

Of course, the cross is a symbolic item for Christians, linked to Christ’s immortaility (his sacrifice and return from the dead). 

The cross has been associated with Castiel at various points in the set-dressing narrative of Supernatural, perhaps most famously in the reunion scene here in 13x06 Tombstone when Cas returns from The Empty:

If The Winchesters is all taking place in Narrator-Dean’s mind (Dean’s soul in the Bardo - the liminal state between dying and rebirth) he is remixing his own loss and longing with his father’s.