Jeff Bernstein

GENIUS MOVE : EMILY BRONTË & WUTHERING HEIGHTS The first three chapters, an initial structural unit, of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) is not so different, style-wise, from MULTI Natural Born Killers (1994). These three opening chapters are written in a whirlwind of genres; say, JANE AUSTEN to COMIC NOVEL to GOTHIC NOVEL to FULL-ON HORROR . . . examples ☞ COMIC : the cutesy scenario of a house visitor besieged by family animals : half-a-dozen four-footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the common centre. I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault . . . ☞ GOTHIC : The narrator discovers the dusty diary of Catherine Earnshaw, then Heathcliff stands darkly emotional at the window : He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. ‘Come in! come in!’ he sobbed. ‘Cathy, do come. Oh, do—once more! Oh! my heart’s darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!’ ☞ FULL-ON HORROR : the narrator spends the snowstormy night at Heathcliff’s and dreams : the branch of a fir-tree . . . rattled its dry cones against the panes. . . . Stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch . . . my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, ‘Let me in—let me in!’ . . . I discerned, obscurely, a child’s face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, ‘Let me in!’ GENIUS MOVE After this stylistically virtuoso Situation of shifting vibes, E.B. concludes the first three chapters with a SIMULTANEOUS FUSION OF GENRES—the GENIUS MOVE : the humorous Gothic novel. —At the end of chapter three, completing the initial structural unit of the novel, the narrator returns home following the long night’s turbulent snow storm, and finds there : My human fixture and her satellites [ the house manager and the staff of servants ] rushed to welcome me; exclaiming, tumultuously, they had completely given me up: everybody conjectured that I perished last night; and they were wondering how they must set about the search for my remains. So the spooky Situation of a search party scouring the deep snow for a lost soul is joined to the comic Situation of that same lost soul very much alive and bumbling onto his own search party—which is composed of newly-acquired domestic servants whom the narrator, a fussy, Austenesque character, condescends to (e.g., “human fixture”) from his lofty self-superiority. (Good reader, please recall the phrase “Furniture Girls” in Soylent Green (1973).) All this is COMIC HORROR and also CRINGEWORTHY. ☞ This droll Situation is a species of Mark Twain’s “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” * E.B., inspired by Shelley & friends, often approaches her prose in these initial three chapters as if it were poetry; e.g. his attitude at the door appeared to demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure, and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience previous to inspecting the penetralium. & I confess it with shame—[ I ] shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. & Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward. I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright. Please note that the appearance of the letters y and z intensify, unconsciously, the threat of an ending. * E.B. writing for intelligent readers— ‘What the devil, indeed!’ I muttered. ‘The herd of possessed swine could have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir. . . .’ An allusion to Homer’s Odyssey.

OPENING EMILY BRONTË, WUTHERING HEIGHTS ¶ 1 1801.— I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist’s heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name. I have just returned The Reader’s passage out of the ordinary world and into the dreamworld of Wuthering Heights. I have just returned from a visit to my landlord LANDLORD as symbolic expression of (all forms of) oppression. Art is the escape from the LANDLORD OF OPPRESSION. the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with is the book of words in my hands, Wuthering Heights. This is certainly a beautiful country! Art is the freedom of the breath of fresh air. In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. Yes, E.B., we agree; it is a one-on-one, private and intimate Situation, the activity of READING. A perfect misanthropist’s heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. (Can an entire essay be written on this one line? Good reader, let's move on.) ¶ misanthropist The reader, E.B. imagines, is intelligent—misanthropist as, so to speak, a synonym of praise for THE WITH-IT READER c.1847; misanthropist as RESPONSIBLE SCEPTICISM (i.e., THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT). misanthropist That is to say : AI OVERVIEW : Emily Brontë was heavily influenced by Percy Bysshe Shelley's poetry and themes, with critics describing her work as a creative continuation of his “post-Shelleyan” vision. Now everybody—

THE TRAGIC MAY QUEEN Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2007 “Sarabande” “April is the cruellest month . . . mixing memory and desire . . .”

Good friends! An early section of the charming Aucassin and Nicolette begins with high activity featuring some lexical grace notes. ☛ The intensity of the CHARMING vibe of the original 1200s story is lost in translation. (It is a “chantefable” meant to be performed aloud by an exuberant storyteller with intermittent musical accompaniment.) Scrooby, as usual, is scrupulous in transmitting to cinematography.com as efficiently as possible particular storytelling techniques that can be applied throughout various storytelling forms. The story at the moment : cf. Brad Pitt in full racing regalia mounting the aerodynamic seat of his high-performance vehicle : Aucassins fu armés sor son ceval, si con vos avés oï et entendu. Dix! con li sist li escus au col et li hiaumes u cief et li renge de s'espee sor le senestre hance! Et li vallés fu grans et fors et biax et gens et bien fornis, et li cevaus sor quoi il sist rades et corans, et li vallés l'ot bien adrecié par mi la porte. ☛ What follows is a translation—but the point of this post is not the story action transmitted in the following but the grace notes in the original. We shall return to the Old French to recognise a number of these grace notes. Aucassin was armed on his horse, as you have heard and listened. Wowie! The way his shield sat on his neck, the helmet on his head and the display of his sword on his left hip! The young noble was grand and strong and gorgeous and well-built, and the horse he sat on was vigorous and seemly, and the boy addressed himself well through the gate. * oï et entendu. as you have heard and listened. This is a Homeric formula. However, let us move on from that and contemplate one point only : how this expression acts as a cue for the diction of the storyteller. In the translated passage, the scene-setting of a grand heroic moment begins calmly. Why does Scrooby say “calmly”? Because it seems reasonable to imagine that there is no way to convincingly belt out the phrase as you have heard and listened except in a measured, so-called intimate, manner. (BTW, the employment of words within a text that act as cues for recital recalls to us our extended study here of the Elizabethan theatre some years back.) To return—the storyteller of Aucassin and Nicolette has presently drawn us in with a deceptively calm move. Suddenly comes a rhetorical blast. Dix! The joie de vivre of the colloquial is strong here. We’re speaking heart-to-heart among friends. Dix! means “God!” A resplendent Situation has just broken into our concentration. Good reader, please imagine any colloquial phrase of heightened passion belted out in the heat of a moment. sist Here is a fine Grace Note—con li sist li escus au col. The word sist syncs with seoir, and is related to the Latin sedere. (For this phrase Scrooby provided the translation, The way his shield sat on his neck.) In the original Old French text we contemplate the Situation of the shape of the shield “agreeing” in geometrical aplomb with the splendour of Aucassin’s shape, “settled” there, as if all the elements were born to be fitted together; he is all of a piece, with all points in place like a Hollywood Star at full radiance. This sense of “he wears it well”—call it a fashion statement—recalls, later, si vesti un bliaut de drap de soie que ele avoit molt bon. So she rose and draped herself in silk that became her so well. In the middle of Nicolette’s breathless escape from captivity in a tower, the narrator finds the time to mention a fashion point. The concept of storytelling CHARM recalls the “Ovidian note”, the sweet vibe suffusing the Metamorphoses. A fine example is 2.192. The young Phaeton has recklessly taken control of the Chariot of the Sun, and its horses are running riot through the sky. During the galloping chaos, which Ovid draws out at comic length, the following aside appears : nec nomina novit equorum. and he doesn’t even know the horses’ names. et li cevaus sor quoi il sist rades et corans—“the horse he sat on was vigorous and seemly". The enjambment of sist rades has colloquial oomph—the narrator is getting into it. Scrooby now translates to preserve the enjambment and its abrupt quality : “and the horse on which he sat (sist)—(rades) fast. The last grace note for this post is et li vallés l'ot bien adrecié par mi la porte. “and the boy addressed himself well through the gate.” This is an antique sense of “address”, having a meaning of an elegance of self-possession; cf. OED, “To direct one's course, make one's way; to betake oneself.” Obsolete

Recalling, say, “Pragmatic”/“Pragmatic”—Oppenheimer (2023) [ Illicit (1932) ] AI OVERVIEW : Techne (τέχνη) is an ancient Greek term for art, skill, craft, or technical expertise. A memory of the world τέχνη lives in Old French, in words such as enteciés and teces. Ah, good readers! A charming use of τέχνη appears in SCENE 1 of Aucassin and Nicolette, a beautiful story written in Old French from the 1200s. In SCENE 1, as we the Reader are initially coming to know the character of Aucassin, he is described, among his other comely traits, with these words, by the artful narrator : et si estoit enteciés de bones teces and well-made in everything he’s made (i.e., every part of him is superlative and well put together.) Then, Good Reader, at the end of SCENE 1, Aucassin himself speaks, celebrating out loud the love of his life, Nicolette. Praising her comely traits, Aucassin describes Nicolette in the following manner; and these are the last words of the scene; and the synchronicity transmits the sweetest charm. [ so noble is she, and pleasant and kind ] [ tant est france et cortoise et debonaire ] et entecie de toutes bones teces.

The following post observes VERY COOL attributes of four lines of Seneca, Oedipus. These four lines (106–109), spoken to wife-mother Jocasta by husband-child Oedipus, end the intimate first scene of the play. Ille, ille dirus callidi monstri cinis in nos rebellat, illa nunc Thebas lues perempta perdit, una iam superest salus, si quam salutis Phoebus ostendit viam. VERY COOL is the foundation of callidi—‘shrewd’, ‘adroit’, ‘ingenious’, ‘dexterous’. The concept here is that the monstrous Sphinx is so crafty, so cunning, so artful and sly that returning after death as a threat even as death-dust has been engineered into the original creature; and there’s a Senecan sense that the Sphinx, though long-dead, may still have a conscious investment to some degree in the machinations of its ashes. Ille, ille idiomatic Latin-specific spoken anxiety, e.g., say, like, “now! now!”, transmitting a Heavy Present Situation. (Nowadays : “Oh, f—k!”) dirus ill-omened, unlucky, abominable. monstri a monster, a divine omen indicating misfortune cinis corpse ashes. “Aw, s—t, the thing is so f—d up its ashes have come back to hurt us.” * Ille, ille dirus callidi monstri cinis in nos rebellat, illa nunc Thebas lues perempta perdit, una iam superest salus, si quam salutis Phoebus ostendit viam. viam road, way. To recap, Good Reader, the first scene of Seneca’s Oedipus ends with a word recalling one of the heaviest situations in the Οἰδίπους Τύραννος of Sophocles—τριπλαῖς ἁμαξιτοῖς (730), the place where three roads meet. BTW : τριπλαῖς ἁμαξιτοῖς is equivalent to, say, a Room 237. In what context does Seneca’s Oedipus cite this most HEAVY METAL of places? “If there’s any hope left, maybe healing Apollo will show us the way.” But Apollo is in on the problem. So yeah, the first scene ends with Oedipus tumbling deeper into inescapable horror, with, perversely, his own words haunting him;—the use of viam is an application of FAMOUS LAST WORDS. * The first scene of Seneca’s Oedipus is wondrous. In an intimate bedroom conversation, the topic being the present darkness of the times, the character of Oedipus acts sometimes strong (a husband) and sometimes weak (a child); and Jocasta transmits a flavour of motherliness among her bedroom traits. (Eww.) viam—the final note of the Triple Tone in the first scene of the Oedipus of Seneca. * Tireless reader! Grand thinker! Remember μαντείᾳ σποδῷ in Sophocles?—the VERY COOL concept of “prophetic ashes” in Οἰδίπους Τύραννος (21). There, in that way, something dead can communicate with the living. Scrooby spoke of μαντείᾳ σποδῷ some years back on cinematography.com with regard to Phantom Thread—“Most probably turned to ashes by now.” * “F—k. The past is not through with us.”

SCROOBY’S UNABOMBER a. 2014 SABRINA Okay, so, I guess I should say something like, “This is the interview with Doctor Ted Kaczynski, and we’re going to start the interview now.” TED (Ted remains silent.) SABRINA We now on earth are experiencing grave emergency—a planetary destruction due to technological progress. A despair, frustration, and rage, emerging as many mental illnesses, exemplify the disastrous impact of industrial society on us. A new Revolutionary movement is required before it’s too late, dedicated to the eliminating of technological society. To save our planet and humanity, you, Ted, chose direct action, sending bombs from a cabin in a remote wilderness, sixteen bombs between 1978 and 1995, killing three men. But how does a celebrated genius of mathematics become a recluse in Montana mountains in the first place? TED Pure mathematics research is useless from a practical point of view, and that is what I studied. Even at its best, mathematics was only a game for me; I was increasingly nagged by a sense of purposelessness in my work. Having proven the theorem, I would sit back and think, “So what?” I got bored with mathematics. I wanted purposeful activity in the real world. Ever since childhood I was attracted to the woods, to living in nature, independent of society. By the time I was fourteen years old I was already beginning to take a dim view of “progress” and the future of society. I thought we were heading to a place where we would face an absence of individual freedom. It was at twenty-seven I retired from teaching and withdrew, as I had dreamed of doing. SABRINA You lived rough there for over twenty years, without running water or electricity, in a tiny cabin hidden from the world. Was it hard for you to leave people behind? TED I almost always succeeded in avoiding meeting people in the woods. I would keep off the trails. I would travel the most isolated parts. So, I had these old dirty ragged clothes on, and a baseball cap, and I buttoned a neck cloth to it on both sides, and this covered the lower part of my face. This way I kept to myself. People who knew me knew to leave me be. SABRINA You didn’t miss leaving anyone behind? TED I didn’t leave anyone behind me. In grade school I got along with people, but in fifth grade I suffered the misfortune to be snared by a guidance counsellor, an old maid by the name of Vera Frye. It seems, as a matter of routine, I was given certain tests, like reading— achievements and so on—and my scores were very high. Vera Frye the guidance counsellor was unaware how ready my mother was to receive such information, because it coincided with her own dreams. My mother immediately called up our relatives to brag about the news. It was decided I would skip sixth grade. And then again I skipped eleventh grade. This was disastrous for any chance I might have had with girls. A large segment of the student body looked askance at me as an outcast and freak, as a ‘sickie’. After one disastrous attempt I never made advances to any girl ever again in four years at high school. So it seems obvious that these events, my skipping of sixth and eleventh grades, led to my fate as a social cripple, and deprived me of sex, love, and marriage. At age sixteen, in 1958, I went to Harvard, and it was the same. (One reason was my lack of confidence. It’s something that’s always puzzled me— I’ve never been able to figure out whether I am or am not attractive to women.) I wanted badly to have a girlfriend, but never got a girlfriend —or even one date—at Harvard. Meanwhile, I still lacked the social courage to break away, though I found modern life increasingly hopeless, and I felt trapped in my pattern of life. There’s a huge gulf between dreaming and doing. Finally I crossed that barrier, I made progress against psychological obstacles. There are only two girls whose memory calls up a special echo inside me— a bittersweet feeling of what I missed. One of these girls was named Arlene Curley; and the other girl was Carol Wolman, whom I knew when I was 16–18. (Since getting on in age I’ve begun to enjoy reminiscing about my past life. A sign of ageing, I suppose.) There was something about Carol Wolman and especially about her smile that gave an impression of wildness; an indefinable kind of romance. She seemed a beautiful wild animal. Not that there was anything about her ‘coarse’ or ‘animal’ in a negative sense. To me she had the air of one on whom civilization had not yet clamped tight its vices of artificial restraints. Even today, when I think of Carol I get a little echo of what I once felt for her. In recent years I’ve even dreamed about her a few times. SABRINA That’s sweet. TED On the other hand it is possible that if I had never skipped the sixth grade I’d never have broken from society and taken to the woods; and possibly, no matter how much love I might have had, and a wonderful marriage, with children I loved, I think I would have ultimately felt my life as unsatisfactory and empty. But this is just conjecture. Who knows what course my life would have taken? SABRINA May we review the way your life has taken? You’re known as the “Favorite Terrorist on the Internet”. The long history of activism has put many people in prison, but unlike them, you’re famous. In 1995 the New York Times printed your 35,000-word document (call it “philosophy”, “manifesto”) Industrial Society and Its Future. Its opening words are now much-quoted and iconic : “The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” What followed was an intricate critique of modern technology. Now you have what the Internet calls an “Unending Fifteen Minutes of Fame”. Scholarly books have been published on your thought, such as The Philosophy of Ted Kaczynski. Articles about you are everywhere : “Why the Unabomber’s Manifesto is Essential Reading” is one such work. Even the Chicago Tribune published the following headline in 2017 : “The iPhone X Proves the Unabomber was Right”. The books you’ve written in prison are in university libraries worldwide. Academics classify your thinking on civil disobedience as in the genre of sociopolitical criticism, recalling idealist Henry Thoreau. Now, as of the year 2014, the Michigan University Archives holds the Ted Kaczynski Papers, a large collection—48 linear feet, also 96 manuscript boxes. You write letters to major newspapers, magazines, journals, and they publish you, and people wonder, “What if he is right?” TED The present situation is so urgent that revolutionary action is demanded. The big problem is that people don’t believe a revolution is possible, and it’s not possible because they don’t believe it’s possible. SABRINA In the 1970s, direct action in activism utilized peaceful methods in confrontation. Such as, say, radical environmentalism used tree spiking, powerline sabotage, banner hangs, flash mobs, leafleting, that stuff. TED In order to get our message before the public with any chance of making an impression, we’ve had to kill people. SABRINA Because times change; the disaster is now; so many contemporary activists go towards Malcolm X : It is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he’s the constant victim of attacks. TED Sometimes non-violence is very nearly the equivalent of self-suicide. SABRINA What was your favourite wild food out there? TED Probably the tastiest wild food in my area was partridge berries. They were so tiny that it’d take an hour to pick a cupful. SABRINA Will living in prison for the rest of your life drive you crazy, do you think? TED No, it won’t drive me crazy. What worries me is that I might adapt, become comfortable and not resent it. But they are not going to break my spirit. SABRINA Am I correct in reporting that you keep up a correspondence with over four hundred people? And many of these pen-friends are women hoping to marry you? TED Yes, and they send me pictures of themselves, and tell me about their personal feelings, things like that. The sordid stuff I ignore. But I’ve met a lovely woman named Joy. An honest-to-goodness angel, is Joy. SABRINA What now? TED Never lose hope. Be patient, be stubborn, never give up. Many instances exist in history where apparent losers turn out to be winners unexpectedly. You should never think that all hope is lost. b. Summer, 1978 TED I swore I’d break free of law and order. What’s the time? Three p.m. Two hours yet. Sit calmly in her car, waiting for her to get off work and come this way, careless, happy to have the freedom of the night to relax as she will; so the bitch thinks. When she sees me here she won’t be afraid. She won’t notice this paper bag with me. I loved that damn bitch. She knew my feelings for her and did her best to lead me on and because she’s some sexual sadist she willfully humiliated me. In high school and college, when I hated someone it was a matter of prudence not to express that hatred openly. I suppose I can attribute that fear to all the anticrime propaganda which I was subjected to in all ways. But now you’ve worked up the nerve. No more chickening out. I’ve felt this way once before. Remember? At college, a psychiatric counsellor. Waiting in the waiting room, as the time drew to my appointment—it was my first— I felt a great revulsion setting in. So when I went inside I transmitted a bull$%@! story, and as I walked away from the building afterwards, I hated that psychiatrist—violently so. I wanted to kill that person because my future looked utterly empty to me. My hopelessness had liberated me. Not caring about living or dying, who cared about consequences? What was new then, and then again new now, is the fact that I really felt I had the courage to behave “irresponsibly”. All those thoughts I had, that great change in me, that liberation and breath of freedom, passed through my head as I left the office in the length of a quarter of a mile. In that short space I gained a bright new hope, a vicious kind of determination, and high morale. As I sit here calmly, it’s as if that time of life has come back, and I’m at school again. END. [ 5 March – 12 March 2026 ]

S O O N SCROOBY’S UNABOMBER “Anyone who makes great efforts on account of social issues has some powerful personal motive, even if they persuade themselves that they are actuated by pure altruism.” “I believe in nothing. I act merely from a desire for revenge.”

Daedalus, weary of his tedious exile, yearned to go home, but the sea shut him in. “All these waves may hinder my escape,” he said, “but the open sky is a way to go.” “All this Island Crete King Minos possesses, and he owns the waves around it; but he doesn’t own the air.” Thus said Daedalus, who then turned his mind to unfamiliar arts. He arranged birds’ feathers from the smallest down to the longest; and one could imagine to see in the pattern a subtle curve, as if it conformed to a gentle slope. In just this way were the ancient pan-pipes made, hollow tubes rising sequentially higher. He bound it all with thread and wax, preserving that subtle curve resembling actual birds’ wings. Icarus stood by, his son. The boy was unaware of any danger. He chased after and snatched at the feathers, and pressed his thumb into the golden wax, happily imitating his father, and for all this slowing his father’s work. When the last touches were done to the work Daedalus placed his wings on his shoulders. He rose from the ground, hovering in place at speed in the midst of the open air. And then he prepared the wings for his son. “Icarus,” he said, “fly down the middle.” “Icarus, if you fly up too high your wings will fail you, and you will fall.” Daedalus gave instructions to his son while binding the wings to his shoulders. During his work and warnings the old man worked with trembling hands, and his cheeks were wet. He would not kiss his son a second time. Icarius went up on feather plumes. Then his father went, flying in great fear ahead; just as little ones, one’s babies, are led up and out of the nest and into open air. Daedalus flapped his wings. He kept looking back, and encouraging Icarius. Now while the fishing-rod quivered with the captured fish, the fisherman watched; as did the ploughman on his plough-handles; and, bent on his walking stick, the shepherd saw. And they were amazed to see that whoever was navigating the air must be gods. So the pair left the island behind them, and the daring child began to rejoice in flying. He left his leader behind and aimed up eagerly to the Heavens. Yes, he made his way up to high heaven, while the vehement heat from the sun slowly melted away the golden wax on the wings of the child. And he lost all momentum, Icarius. He felt the air under his feet, and he beat his naked arms but would never get hold on the air again. His lips cried out his father’s name. Miserable Daedalus! “Icarius!” he said. “Icarius! Where are you? Into what dark place down there should I look for you?” He was unable to bury his boy, but there where his wings were floating a legend began, the Mare Icarium. [ Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.183–235. ] [ 9 January 2026 ]

Before the eccentric poker game in House of Games (1987) . . .

KUBRICK & ERNEST HALLER—again. cf. Full Metal Jacket, "Tough break for HJ."

"Mustard?!" The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941) LOCATION DEEP FOCUS

“I can't do her hair, man. You know that? I don't know how to do her hair right.” “Don't go dark on me, Bob.”