Open up and let the devil in
I'm terrified of trains.
I know that seems...silly. But, I grew up in a coal mining town. You could sneeze and hit a train track. When I went away to college to somewhere that didn't have that many trains going through it all the time, it sounded empty.
So, this means I know how often coal trains derail. It's rarely catastrophic. The wheel gets off the track sometimes. Not hard to fix.
Except that I had dreams as a child of trains derailing and continuing down the road right to my front door and I was standing with it open and it would be so close and then—
Except that when I was in middle school, a train derailed. Off an overpass. Onto the interstate below.
I'm terrified of trains.
On Sunday, I took the Amtrak down to Boston to go to the art museum once again. This time, I went with friends, which was lovely.
Except that I felt every tilt of the car and every bump in the track. I thought of our crumbling infrastructure every time we went over a bridge.
At one point during the ride, my friend and I started talking about horror movies because I had just watched two over the weekend. My friend doesn't like horror movies. She doesn't like the feeling of being anxious or scared. She doesn't get the release.
I picked at my cuticles. An anxious tic.
We both knew that some people like horror movies because they are a way of experiencing trauma and grief and fear in a controlled environment. It's like a roller coaster. It can be a way for them to work through negative experiences, even to heal trauma.
But I'm not that way.
I'm terrified of trains.
I laughed the first time I watched The Exorcist. I was in third grade. Now, of course, I don't laugh. To me, it's a perfect film. But I don't get scared. Like with The VVitch, it's not that I get scared; it's that the atmosphere affects me.
I started thinking: why do I like horror movies? They don't necessarily scare me. I don't watch them the way I would ride a roller coaster. I don't use them to work through my trauma. So what is it?
I could say that I love the artistry and creativity. Horror films are where some of the finest technical work in film happens. You still see practical effects in horror films. I could say that I love the social and political aspects. I took a course in college called "Horror films and society." My favorite part was watching the opening of Final Destination 2, where a horrific chain of accidents occurs on an interstate during morning commuter traffic. My professor pointed out all the signifiers of suburbia, like soccer mom minivans.
I think about that scene a lot, now that I commute.
I could say that I've always been a bit spooky, even as a child.
But, honestly? I don't think I have an answer. I just love them.
My friend and I had to take the green line to the museum. With every scratching hiss of the wheels on the tracks, my grip tightened on the pole to the point of my fingers turning white.
I'm terrified of trains.
✒️ What I'm writing
I promise that I write about things that aren't personal knowledge management. It's just an area I'm doing a lot of thinking in at the moment. But, I like to think I'm doing some thinking about it that others aren't.
7 Personal knowledge management could be the Modernist urge to reinforce Grand Narratives
7a Personal knowledge management can come from a state of play
My Zettelkasten workflow from start to finish
🎨 What I'm creating
Episode 060 - Secure the Bagford of librarypunk
We venerate our Patron Saint of Perverted Book Lovers, John Bagford.
📖 What I'm reading
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Could Infinite Jest be considered a horror book? In the past week, I've had to read about two suicide (or attempts). One of them was...eerily close to something I've experienced in real life. But even beyond these examples, the book touches on something that is one of my own personal fears, to the point I have trauma over it.
No, it's not trains, though the endnote that talks about the kids in Canada jumping the tracks in front of speeding trains was rough to read.
The failure to be understood. Isolation. A desperation for intimacy and communication that is always just adjacent to where you are.
"I cannot make myself understood."
Hal's situation in the first chapter, where he keeps trying to explain himself but the adults in the room misunderstand him to the point of violence, is one of my worst fears. Bad things happen when people misunderstand.
We are all near-misses to each other. Capitalism isolates us, so our own struggles are unique to the point of nobody being able to understand or help. Capitalism isolates us, so we do not learn to communicate and work together.
We are not isolated or misunderstood. Capitalism isolates us and robs us of the ability to understand each other. Capitalism sits us down in front of the TV to watch a film that kills us. Capitalism fosters the pain that drives us to self-medicate with drugs to the point of self-destruction.
Parts of Infinite Jest take place at a fictional tennis academy in Boston. Some of my favorite scenes of the book so far have been of the teens in the locker room. They talk about their pain and exhaustion, their unfulfilled lusts and desires for touch, their thoughts about coursework. They connect with each other, but ultimately, they're still all in competition with one other. They all have rankings. They don't necessarily act competitively with each other, but that fact stands in the way of complete connection.
They sacrifice their bodies and their needs for connection for the chance to go pro, to be tools in a Capitalist parade.
We learn that Hal's grandfather had been something of a tennis prodigy until he had an accident on court. The description in the book is pure body horror. Except this body horror isn't the impossible fractal flesh of Carpenter or Ito. It's real. It could happen to you or me, easily. This moment of horror robs Hal's grandfather of playing tennis at the same level ever again. This lost future haunts him, and it still haunts me. The horrors of potential, of what could have been, of what could be if you only work hard enough.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?
Bookworm 4/11/96 - Interview with David Foster Wallace
🎥 What I'm watching
This movie rules so goddamn hard. I first watched it in grad school. It's one of those "engineered in a lab just for me" movies. Body horror, goth industrial music, gender, gay shit. Chef kiss. Perfect film. 10/10 no notes.
I saw this post on tumblr that perfectly sums it up:
Another film made in a lab just for me.
What if it was the English Civil War 😳 and we were deserting a battle to go to an alehouse 😳 and we're tripping on mushrooms 😳 and you're a wizard and make me your human divining rod to lead you to treasure 😳 and we're both boys 😳 🙈 👀
Open up and let the devil in.
Why Disco Elysium Is The Most Hopeful Game I've Ever Played (Feat. Laborkyle) - Kay and Skittles
On Popular Modernism - thelitcritguy
This video links Ulysses to Disco Elysium. I'm so happy I could die.
🎶 What I'm listening to
i watched TETSUO & now i only listen to insufferable industrial music Spotify playlist
🐈⬛ Obligatory pictures of 👑 Arthur
