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The goal was to commodify something, repeat it, sell them, these the most intimate of human drives. It meant turning people’s basic humanity into something that could be bought and sold. From fast food to porn, this was power.
“the Wilhelm scream.” It was a man’s scream first recorded in 1951 for a film titled Distant Drums. In one scene, soldiers wade through an alligator-infested swamp, hence the scream’s formal title, Man, Getting Bit by Alligator, and He Screamed.
The second most famous scream, for example, is titled Man, Gut-Wrenching Scream and Fall into Distance.
Every evening was a choice between reading a classic book or going out to an industry event. In brief: whether to spend her time with smart dead people or alive idiots.
The blonde wore a strapless gown so wired and boned that it made her breasts look like something being served on a tray. Her lashes were so loaded with mascara that her eyes looked like two Venus flytraps.
After people had been fed so many lies they’ll never swallow anything as the truth.
The deal with dating conceited men like him was that she’d hoped some of his excess self-esteem would rub off. Women always secretly hoped this: that dating a narcissist would give them confidence by osmosis. It never worked.
“You’re the worst kind of victim: a victim who thinks she’s a villain.”
“Remember I told you how a siren makes dogs howl?” The needle exited, pulling a few seconds of string through her hand. “A siren triggers a pack instinct in all dogs,” continued the doctor. “It’s a primal scream dogs must share in.”
“Imagine if there was some human equivalent. A cry like Walt Whitman’s barbaric yawp that would evoke the primal scream of everyone who heard it.”
The tribes who believed a photograph would steal a person’s soul. It would, and it did. So did an audio recording, as did video. Our greatest creation is our selves. The way we cultivate our appearance and behavior. And nowhere is our artwork more apparent than in our minds. The way we each have an idea of self. The one perfect self we’ve chosen by rejecting all other options.
We are each our own best effort. And we’re satisfied until we see a photograph or hear a recording of our voice. All the worse is the torture of video, to witness the squawking, gawky monster we’ve created. The you that you’ve chosen from all possible yous to create. The one life you’ve been given, and you’ve dedicated it to perfecting this staggering yammering artificial Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from the traits of other people. Anything original, anything innately you, it’s long ago been discarded.
