It seems to me to me that "white noise" is relevant to college life on at
least three levels. No, not the movie “White Noise”, (That would be only
one of the levels: #3 below), but the phrase "white noise". It denotes 3
distinct cultural artifacts, and I will list them for you in the order of
decreasing importance and briefly review them all.
1. White noise qua white noise: Possibly the best solution, (outside of
pure trust in God and relinquishing your anxieties for a time), to the
problem of getting a good night's sleep in college is white noise. White
noise blocks out annoying background sounds much better than ear plugs!
But, and take it from me, don't fiddle with trying to find “pure” white
noise between radio stations either on the AM or FM dials. There is no
such thing as pure white noise on the radio. Get a white noise machine.
I tried the radio approach myself but, inevitably, what happens is that
the voice of Art Bell or some equivalent fades in through the static a
little past 2:00 AM, and you find yourself in a half-wake state conjecturing
about the meaning of some obscure Nostradamus quatraine, or
wondering if it's really true that the person who claims to be Pope is
really a Mason/Templar/Rosicrucian member of the Tri-lateral Commission
whose sir name actually means, "Son of the Rockefeller Widow”
Incidentally, my personal white noise machine, which I purchased
specifically for a semester of student teaching in college back in 1989,
sold itself to me with some slogan about creating a “zone of calm". Two
words: Wow, and did it ever!. It still does on occasion too. As a
bonus, you can/will use your own machine throughout those child-rearing
years, (if that is your vocation), as the little gurgles and slurps of
babies, (which are, in fact, all just so many variations on the theme,
"Prelude to a Wail"), will drive you positively insane unless you drown
those insomniatic tones in the sound of a white-noise waterfall. Or tide.
Or a rocky crick.
2. The novel White Noise by Don Delillo: I read the book this summer
based on the recommendation of a student, Janine O'Dea, who was reading it
for Humanities. Janine is a great gal, (she plays the harp), and I
appreciated the recommendation. The book’s funny, eerily prophetic, and
it can even give you some humorous, critical distance from campus life.
The main character is this professor who finds himself in the fortunate
position of heading up one of those new, trendy, interdisciplinary
departments at Universities that fleece students and the public for
pseudo-knowledge, (in this case, “Hitler Studies”), and he cannot even
read German! That’s parody!
Ultimately, however, the characters did not seem real, which, for me, is a
failure in fiction, so the book was a little bit of a disappointment.
Actual things in fiction don't have to be real, of course. Just think of
what we learn from Mark Twain's talking horses for example, or the
Martian's in Stephen Vizinczey's "El Hombre Del Toque Magico”. I’m just
a died-in-the-wool fan of human nature I guess, and love when it (human
nature) is portrayed in 3D, which it is not in White Noise. [By the way,
some guy named Bill Slocum from Norwalk CT, "USA", writing a review of the
book on Amazon.com, agrees with me that the characters did not seem real.
Go Bill! I went to Amazon to see how to spell "Delillo", and just
happened upon Bill and his insights. I love this guy.]
3. Finally, you have White Noise the big movie which is the original
subject of this review, and which I did not see. I generally like Michael
Keaton however, but have to wonder if he had been sniffing some "white
powder" before he made that bomb of a flick, Jack Frost, which I saw this
past Thanksgiving. Now I've personally always thought that the
anti-Christ would look like a clown, because clowns scare the willies out of me.
Today I'm convinced, however, and thanks to the fine folks that
brought us Jack Frost, that the anti-Christ will come as a snowman. The
movie came across to me as a blend between one of the Chuckie movies and
something like The Velveteen Rabbit.
White Noise, however, may very well be Keaton in his best element. I, for
one, just don’t know. But here are some talking points I would use if I
was discussing the movie in front of college students, (like some
character in a Don Delillo novel).
**It seems like a plausible premise for a movie based on what I know about
the paranormal, and with what I've experienced in my 1994 Dodge Caravan
which has a radio that does not work, but that occasionally comes on and
plays the sound coming from the TV show, "The Price is Right”. And this,
no matter what station I try to bring in, or even if I turn the radio off!
I honestly cannot turn off “The Price is Right” when this happens. (I
want to tape record the radio when this happens and see if there is
anything going on in the background, you know, behind Bob Barker’s
voice.).
**My understanding is that the movie tanks early on and never recovers.
One guy I heard on the radio, who was intrigued by the whole phenomenon
but was bored senseless by the movie, asked, "Why don't the spirits of the
dead just talk to us in the sound of bells or warm breezes, etc.". I
think that can be answered and will answer it below.
**TV and radio fuzz would seem a good place for what is, essentially, a
residual, and maniacal, electric phenomenon of human earthly life that is here
for a while, until it is freed, or for whatever reason it refuses to
dissipate or leave this realm in the normal period of time, (“Normal” is
approximately 3 days.).
**The word 'mania' is important here since that the most knowledgeable Catholic
tradition claims that you are most likely to find these phenomenon
associated with a person who, in their earthly life, had an obsession of
sorts, a single passion, a fixed idea, etc., as a strong part of their
personality. That's why the language that is most often associated with
this type of ghostly phenomenon is usually repetitive and maniacal. The
popular ghost, slang phrase, "Get out!", in other words, could be the
electrical manifestation of a lady (or man) who gave her whole personality
over to an obsessive cleaning of her house and fear of contamination. She
never wanted anybody messing up her parlor in life, and that fixation
remains after her death. Seriously. This is also a motive for leading an
integrated, examined life. (I hate being a nag to my kids but surely don’t
want to continue to be a nag after I die)
**According to the best occult sources in my little world, this white
noise phenomena would be the same phenomenon that crazy college students
(and others) attempt to engage with Quija Boards and the like. It's a
maniacal electrical force, a psychic crystallization, that has a
pseudo-personality, (more like an anti-personality), and will proffer
clever answers in order to keep a replenished supply of energy which comes
from the attention of people, and upon which it depends. (Sounds a lot like
some narcissists I know.). The technical term for these occult
manifestations is egrigore and they do not come from the fallen angelic
realm but are real creations of people's psyches, both single and group.
Tibetan Buddhists refer to these same egrigores by the name “tulpas”.
You can read about them under that name as well.
**My advice: Stay away from them. This is not, (repeat), this is not the
soul of a departed one. There is nothing to gain by messing with this,
unless, like groovy John Edwards of the TV show Crossing Over, you want to play on the
10% of what we actually know about this world and 90% people's gullibility
in order gain fame and make money. If you want to connect with a deceased
person in the afterlife, your best bet is to pray for them and even ask
God in Christ to send you a sign, but only if it would be to your benefit.
And then the most you could generally hope for would be those pregnant
sounds of bells or feelings of a soft breeze that many of us would prefer
in the first place.
**And finally, if you want to get rid of them (these egrigores), free
them, etc., which is a good thing….
a. Try praying. They are said not to like that atmosphere created by prayer.
b. Also know that the energy of these ghosts becomes weakened with time if
they are not 'fed'. Like annoying little brothers, ignore them and they
will most often go away.
c. I suppose the Church ritual of exorcism comes into play here at times
too, if it’s a real problem.
d. Finally, and this is the coolest piece of information, it has been
handed down that these ghosts can be dissipated by an act of breathing
them in and holding the entity until you get a pretty sizeable electric
shock in your insides. I imagine this takes courage. Even better is the
related wisdom that, if you do this, (breath it in and let it spark), you
will receive an especially vivid dream from the actual departed one
thanking you and giving you inner assurance that what you have done is
good.
That’s it. If you are interested in the phenomenon or in other areas of
esoteric or occult Catholic knowledge, write to me and I can recommend
some good sources that have recommendations by leaders in the Church.
Also, though the basic existence of the supernatural world might be
considered as part of the deposit of Faith, what I have offered here is
just my understanding of what constitutes the best knowledge we have in
this area. It is not against Catholic teaching but it is certainly not
official Catholic teaching and is open to dispute. Some people may find
it interesting, that’s all.
Maid in Manhattan (Or, Cinderella without a True Prince
is Not a Fairy Tale. It's Propaganda.)
This reviewer would like it to be known, in advance, that his screening of
this movie took place when many of his kids were sick and he, himself, was
tired and possibly even a little bit grumpy. Let me also say, initially,
I have nothing against romantic comedies in general. "Green Card" comes
to mind as a goodie. And there was that one with Robert Downey in Italy
that I thought was alright. "When Harry Met Sally", which started the
Renaissance of this whole thing, did not stay with me, though I think it
deserves a second viewing because it, (the genre), has become so
important, especially for ladies. I just found myself, (back to the
sickness), when watching this flick, becoming increasing focused on a
theme that, because of my sickness, made me a little more angry than
normal.
"So they really think we buy this garbage?"
"Do they honestly think we are this stupid?"
That was my mood.
Anyhow, the movie was ok. The kid was a decent actor and Jennifer Lopez
is, as they say, easy on the eyes. In the midst of this
seemingly harmless take on Cinderella, however, there is an interesting
question relating to government that we have to note and register if we
are not going to grow up simply to be toadies and slaves. Presumably,
the makers of this movie do quite ok by the current regime and want to
bolster their position "on the inside", in big media, by serving up a
comforting lie to those of us who consume their product, and who might
possibly struggle a little bit more with the current regime and the way
things are.
In other words, If I were looking at this as propaganda for the current overclass,
I would point out the repeated absurdity offered to us in this dish of American Pie;
Namely, that the politicians who run this country and our lives are really people
who are good to the core, and they would if they could throw a whole election, for example,
right as they are almost on the threshold of power, in order to do right by some poor
lady and her kid.
If only is wasn't for their campaign advisors!
No, they don't really hunger for power, these politicians. That's the message we get.
They are just forced to act as if they did by the mechanics of the dreaded system.
This is kind of West Wing, light. Wouldn't it be nice to think, for example,
that if either Bush or Kerry had their druthers, they would have gladly thrown
the presidential race a week before election day in order to spend time
in a park with some single mother and her child. Again, If it only weren't for
those mean-spirited campaign advisors!
Seen positively, and assuming the producers expected us to judge the Ralph
Fiennes character for the absurdity it is, we could take this movie as an
object lesson in the relative merits of monarchy. Despite what I learned
in my quality high school social studies education, monarchy would seem
to have some benefits. Power is so corrupting. Maybe it is not
completely insane to devise a system where the person(s) at the top are,
at least theoretically, removed from temptations to corruption.
Oh, I don't know. Maybe I am just putting too much on this poor movie.
1. White noise qua white noise: Possibly the best solution, (outside of
pure trust in God and relinquishing your anxieties for a time), to the
problem of getting a good night's sleep in college is white noise. White
noise blocks out annoying background sounds much better than ear plugs!
But, and take it from me, don't fiddle with trying to find “pure” white
noise between radio stations either on the AM or FM dials. There is no
such thing as pure white noise on the radio. Get a white noise machine.
I tried the radio approach myself but, inevitably, what happens is that
the voice of Art Bell or some equivalent fades in through the static a
little past 2:00 AM, and you find yourself in a half-wake state conjecturing
about the meaning of some obscure Nostradamus quatraine, or
wondering if it's really true that the person who claims to be Pope is
really a Mason/Templar/Rosicrucian member of the Tri-lateral Commission
whose sir name actually means, "Son of the Rockefeller Widow”
Incidentally, my personal white noise machine, which I purchased
specifically for a semester of student teaching in college back in 1989,
sold itself to me with some slogan about creating a “zone of calm". Two
words: Wow, and did it ever!. It still does on occasion too. As a
bonus, you can/will use your own machine throughout those child-rearing
years, (if that is your vocation), as the little gurgles and slurps of
babies, (which are, in fact, all just so many variations on the theme,
"Prelude to a Wail"), will drive you positively insane unless you drown
those insomniatic tones in the sound of a white-noise waterfall. Or tide.
Or a rocky crick.
2. The novel White Noise by Don Delillo: I read the book this summer
based on the recommendation of a student, Janine O'Dea, who was reading it
for Humanities. Janine is a great gal, (she plays the harp), and I
appreciated the recommendation. The book’s funny, eerily prophetic, and
it can even give you some humorous, critical distance from campus life.
The main character is this professor who finds himself in the fortunate
position of heading up one of those new, trendy, interdisciplinary
departments at Universities that fleece students and the public for
pseudo-knowledge, (in this case, “Hitler Studies”), and he cannot even
read German! That’s parody!
Ultimately, however, the characters did not seem real, which, for me, is a
failure in fiction, so the book was a little bit of a disappointment.
Actual things in fiction don't have to be real, of course. Just think of
what we learn from Mark Twain's talking horses for example, or the
Martian's in Stephen Vizinczey's "El Hombre Del Toque Magico”. I’m just
a died-in-the-wool fan of human nature I guess, and love when it (human
nature) is portrayed in 3D, which it is not in White Noise. [By the way,
some guy named Bill Slocum from Norwalk CT, "USA", writing a review of the
book on Amazon.com, agrees with me that the characters did not seem real.
Go Bill! I went to Amazon to see how to spell "Delillo", and just
happened upon Bill and his insights. I love this guy.]
3. Finally, you have White Noise the big movie which is the original
subject of this review, and which I did not see. I generally like Michael
Keaton however, but have to wonder if he had been sniffing some "white
powder" before he made that bomb of a flick, Jack Frost, which I saw this
past Thanksgiving. Now I've personally always thought that the
anti-Christ would look like a clown, because clowns scare the willies out of me.
Today I'm convinced, however, and thanks to the fine folks that
brought us Jack Frost, that the anti-Christ will come as a snowman. The
movie came across to me as a blend between one of the Chuckie movies and
something like The Velveteen Rabbit.
White Noise, however, may very well be Keaton in his best element. I, for
one, just don’t know. But here are some talking points I would use if I
was discussing the movie in front of college students, (like some
character in a Don Delillo novel).
**It seems like a plausible premise for a movie based on what I know about
the paranormal, and with what I've experienced in my 1994 Dodge Caravan
which has a radio that does not work, but that occasionally comes on and
plays the sound coming from the TV show, "The Price is Right”. And this,
no matter what station I try to bring in, or even if I turn the radio off!
I honestly cannot turn off “The Price is Right” when this happens. (I
want to tape record the radio when this happens and see if there is
anything going on in the background, you know, behind Bob Barker’s
voice.).
**My understanding is that the movie tanks early on and never recovers.
One guy I heard on the radio, who was intrigued by the whole phenomenon
but was bored senseless by the movie, asked, "Why don't the spirits of the
dead just talk to us in the sound of bells or warm breezes, etc.". I
think that can be answered and will answer it below.
**TV and radio fuzz would seem a good place for what is, essentially, a
residual, and maniacal, electric phenomenon of human earthly life that is here
for a while, until it is freed, or for whatever reason it refuses to
dissipate or leave this realm in the normal period of time, (“Normal” is
approximately 3 days.).
**The word 'mania' is important here since that the most knowledgeable Catholic
tradition claims that you are most likely to find these phenomenon
associated with a person who, in their earthly life, had an obsession of
sorts, a single passion, a fixed idea, etc., as a strong part of their
personality. That's why the language that is most often associated with
this type of ghostly phenomenon is usually repetitive and maniacal. The
popular ghost, slang phrase, "Get out!", in other words, could be the
electrical manifestation of a lady (or man) who gave her whole personality
over to an obsessive cleaning of her house and fear of contamination. She
never wanted anybody messing up her parlor in life, and that fixation
remains after her death. Seriously. This is also a motive for leading an
integrated, examined life. (I hate being a nag to my kids but surely don’t
want to continue to be a nag after I die)
**According to the best occult sources in my little world, this white
noise phenomena would be the same phenomenon that crazy college students
(and others) attempt to engage with Quija Boards and the like. It's a
maniacal electrical force, a psychic crystallization, that has a
pseudo-personality, (more like an anti-personality), and will proffer
clever answers in order to keep a replenished supply of energy which comes
from the attention of people, and upon which it depends. (Sounds a lot like
some narcissists I know.). The technical term for these occult
manifestations is egrigore and they do not come from the fallen angelic
realm but are real creations of people's psyches, both single and group.
Tibetan Buddhists refer to these same egrigores by the name “tulpas”.
You can read about them under that name as well.
**My advice: Stay away from them. This is not, (repeat), this is not the
soul of a departed one. There is nothing to gain by messing with this,
unless, like groovy John Edwards of the TV show Crossing Over, you want to play on the
10% of what we actually know about this world and 90% people's gullibility
in order gain fame and make money. If you want to connect with a deceased
person in the afterlife, your best bet is to pray for them and even ask
God in Christ to send you a sign, but only if it would be to your benefit.
And then the most you could generally hope for would be those pregnant
sounds of bells or feelings of a soft breeze that many of us would prefer
in the first place.
**And finally, if you want to get rid of them (these egrigores), free
them, etc., which is a good thing….
a. Try praying. They are said not to like that atmosphere created by prayer.
b. Also know that the energy of these ghosts becomes weakened with time if
they are not 'fed'. Like annoying little brothers, ignore them and they
will most often go away.
c. I suppose the Church ritual of exorcism comes into play here at times
too, if it’s a real problem.
d. Finally, and this is the coolest piece of information, it has been
handed down that these ghosts can be dissipated by an act of breathing
them in and holding the entity until you get a pretty sizeable electric
shock in your insides. I imagine this takes courage. Even better is the
related wisdom that, if you do this, (breath it in and let it spark), you
will receive an especially vivid dream from the actual departed one
thanking you and giving you inner assurance that what you have done is
good.
That’s it. If you are interested in the phenomenon or in other areas of
esoteric or occult Catholic knowledge, write to me and I can recommend
some good sources that have recommendations by leaders in the Church.
Also, though the basic existence of the supernatural world might be
considered as part of the deposit of Faith, what I have offered here is
just my understanding of what constitutes the best knowledge we have in
this area. It is not against Catholic teaching but it is certainly not
official Catholic teaching and is open to dispute. Some people may find
it interesting, that’s all.
