the mask of god: 16 reasons why . . . this is the girl

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by 12 outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before - and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters....

Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop, where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost - how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers... to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age [16] when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash....

There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss - maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her. When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

Arcadia opens in the late 1960s with a group of young idealists forming a commune in western New York State. Into this group is born Bit, who grows into a quiet, distant man. Over the course of 50 years, Bit witnesses the utopia crumble and the world change in unimaginable ways.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail - and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

Jennifer is put against the wall along with some cases of Laserdisc, CDs, there is shredded paper, and silicone. Someone has also spray-painted on the wall "Class of 16".

Doc: Then leave, come back here and wait for me. Don't talk to anyone, don't touch anything, don't do anything, don't interact with anyone and try not to look at anything.

Marty: I don't get it. I thought you said this had something to do with my kids.

The Decameron

This collection of tales is set in 1348, the year of the Black Death. Florence is a dying, corrupt city, described plainly in all of its horrors. Seven ladies and three gentlemen meet in a church and decide to escape from the charnel house of reality by staying in the hills of Fiesole; there they pass the time telling stories for 10 days.

They set up a working arrangement whereby each would be king or queen for a day; each day the ruler commanded a story be told following certain stipulations. Their existence is that of the enchanted medieval dreamworld: a paradise of flowers, ever-flowing fountains, shade trees, soft breezes, where all luxuries of food and drink abound. Virtue reigns along with medieval gentilesse in its finest sense.

The stories they weave, however, differ from their own idyllic sojourn. They tell tales about ordinary people, tales marked by intense realism in a world where dreams and enchanted gardens have little place. Boccaccio draws on the actual geography of the region to bring the stories alive; different social classes are portrayed with their own language and clothing. Within the stories told by his 10 refugees from Florence, the satire often bites deep, Boccaccio's comic mood embracing evil and holiness alike with sympathy and tolerance. Like Chaucer, he is indulgent, exposing moral and social corruption but leaving guilty characters to condemn themselves. In its frank, open-minded treatment of flesh as flesh, its use of paradox, cynicism, and realistic handling of character, this work transcends the medieval period and, going beyond the Renaissance, takes its place as universal art.

(P)1998 Blackstone Audio Inc.

So, I guess it's up to you 16 . . .

to save us.

(obligatory Labyrinth reference)

According to Henson, Connelly was chosen as she "could act that kind of dawn-twilight time between childhood and womanhood."^[14] Connelly moved to England in February 1985 in advance of the film's rehearsals, which began in March.^[12] Discussing her understanding of her role with Elle, Connelly said that the film is about "a young girl growing out of her childhood, who is just now becoming aware of the responsibilities that come with growing up."

enter.

. . .

The Path of Glory

Paths of Glory is based loosely on the true story of four French soldiers during World War I, under General Géraud Réveilhac, executed for mutiny in Souain, France; their families sued, and while the executions were ruled unfair, two of the families received one franc each, while the others received nothing. The novel is about the French execution of innocent men to strengthen others' resolve to fight. The French Army did carry out military executions for cowardice, as did all the other major participants. However, a significant point in the film is the practice of selecting individuals at random and executing them as a punishment for the sins of the whole group. This is similar to the Roman practice of decimation, which was rarely used by the French Army in World War I.

The Girl on Fire

Sagittarius means the Archer; and the card is (in its simplest and most primitive form) a picture of Diana the Huntress. Diana is primarily one of the lunar goddesses, though the Romans rather degraded her from the Greek “virgin Artemis”, who is also the Great Mother of Fertility, Diana of the Ephesians, Many-Breasted. (A form of Isis-see Atu II and III.)

The connection between the Moon and the Huntress is shewn by the shape of the bow, and the occult significance of Sagittarius is the arrow piercing the rainbow; the last three paths of the Tree of Life make the word Qesheth, a rainbow, and Sagittarius bears the arrow which pierces the rainbow, for his path leads from the Moon of Yesod to the Sun of Tiphareth. . . .

This card represents the Consummation of the Royal Marriage which took place in Atu VI. (AC)

(The Empire Never Ended)

Stanley Tucci:

The Wizard?

Stan?

The Mask of God

Welcome to the dollhouse

Mancini?

Light . . .

. . . and Dark

Penelope calls Odysseus

(Girl detectives)

Peter Cellars (Pan's Labyrinth)

Horn-rimmed glasses

Give Lo the Director's horns

Philip K. Dick, Exegesis

Jennifer is Sophia is JC
(The 12th Aeon born on 12/12)

"Plutarch (also a late source) tells us that no man was allowed to enter her temple, a tradition also reported for the women's mysteries of Bona Dea."

Captain NEMO

"No man hath beheld the face of my Father. Therefore he that hath beheld it is called NEMO."

"[T]he priesthood of Diana at Nemi was held by a person who obtained that honour by slaying the prior incumbent in a trial by combat, and who could remain at the post only so long as he successfully defended his position against all challengers."

None shall pass by me except he slay me, and this is his curse, that, having slain me, he must take my office and become the maker of Illusions, the great deceiver, the setter of snares; he who baffleth even them that have understanding. For I stand on every path, and turn them aside from the truth by my words, and by my magick arts.

And this is the horror that was shown by the lake that was nigh unto the City of the Seven Hills, and this is the Mystery of the great prophets that have come unto mankind. Moses, and Buddha, and Lao Tan, and Krishna, and Jesus, and Osiris, and Mohammed; for all these attained unto the grade of Magus, and therefore were they bound with the curse of Thoth. But, being guardians of the truth, they have taught nothing but falsehood, except unto such as understood; for the truth may not pass the Gate of the Abyss. ("The Cry of the 6th Aethyr")

"There he became king and devoted a precinct to Artemis, where down to my time the prize for the victor in single combat was the priesthood of the goddess. . . ."

"By the time Caligula interfered in the succession of priest-kings, the murder-succession had devolved into a gladiatorial combat before an audience."

"I knew you were going to be crucified but I felt no sympathy for you."

The way things are going . . .

. . . Between two thieves

The Goat God Pan

Ram horns (Kubrick42.tumblr.com)

(The priesthood of Artemis)

(Once Kirk Douglas defeats the Devil in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory, he has to take his job--herein is the nature of the Curse.)

(Kirk Douglas = Spartacus = Clare Quilty = Stanley Kubrick?)

(James Mason must now dethrone the old Rex Nemorensis and take his place . . .)

"The contest was open to no freeman, but only to slaves who had run away from their masters."

Hunger Games

Hieros Gamos

Star Cross

The hand of the princess

(postscript)

TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have an earnest

desire to save the world. Apply in person.

Hello There

I think it's pretty lousy to wake up at age sixteen and realize you've already been screwed. Not that there's anything terrifically unusual about getting screwed at this age. It seems like everyone inside fifty miles is bent on doing you in. But not many sixteen-year-olds get screwed this way.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

16 reasons why . . . this is the girl