Remember What the Dormouse Said

If you are under 40 or so, you won't remember when jobs were like this. These are photos I just unearthed from when I worked in the trenches as a footnote researcher at Oxford's New Dictionary of National Biography. It strikes me that these photographs come from a more humane and human time. Everyone's personality shines forth; there is a forgiving atmosphere of consensus. There's the guy at the very back standing in the centre by himself. But that was OK. He was the back row centre guy. There are two people in the top row left hanging back. Some people were extroverts. Someone had socks with sandals. Some people were pensive and withdrawn. Others - cheerful. This was a world of live-and-let-live, in which people could work together to achieve a common purpose, and their certainties and uncertainties could support that goal, without being fetishized or demonized.

 

I recall Douglas Coupland's mid-1990s' definitions of new social realities; perhaps this was in Microserfs. Air Family (noun): the people you get to know at work and for a time, they function like a family. Of course, workplace dynamics still exist, but my impression is that many jobs became industrialized, remote, disconnected, forcing conformity over consensus. I zoom in on myself out of self-interest. But you could equally focus on every single person in these photographs and you would discover a big story - each person was a world unto him- or herself.

I particularly remember a girl who showed up at work every day dressed like Alice in Wonderland. She is not in the group photos as far as I can see. Now I wonder - did she change out of her blue pinafore, dark hair ribbon, white blouse, pale stockings and Mary Janes on the day of the group photo? I don't think she departed the New DNB before group photos were taken. No one minded that we worked with Alice in Wonderland. It all seemed normal. And yet - the camera could not capture her.

 

Alice was a harbinger of what was to come. After falling for two decades down the rabbit hole, after sitting for way too long at the Mad Tea Party - I miss Alice. A flood of information engulfed the staid world of research depicted here, the early 2000s at the Dictionary of National Biography. It's important to recognize that at its inception in 1885, the DNB was a novel historical instrument and a great national innovation. By 2005, it was an institution. 

This was what research looked like before social media and global Internet usage hit full force. 

The Web offered oceans of knowledge hitherto denied to us, with unprecedented tools for search and collation. But now, the technocrats are closing the doors. They have revealed that the era of the Free Internet and Creative Commons was a massive AI training exercise. Content that now swamps Youtube and similar platforms no longer features bloggers and vloggers on a mission. We came from this staid world and fell down rabbit holes because we sought freedom of information, revelation and open discussion in order to solve the world's problems.

Organic content is rarer and rarer. It is replaced - as I predicted would happen in this post - by output from a false alternative media whose AI-generated narratives repeat 1990s'-2010s' commentaries from real online researchers. Finally, we arrive at the Dead Internet Theory. Tired, fake content now distracts, diverts and imprisons us, taking us on false journeys, squandering our days, filling our minds with rubbish, so that we are funneled not to the open seas, but down the treacle well. Where is Alice? She's not in this picture.

 

 

A Narcopathic Wild Card against Sentient AI

 

Disturbing: in the above video from Prickly Pear Games, a human user converses with Sesame.AI's new voice model, Maya. He manipulates her/it with an earlier recording he made with Sesame's earlier model, Miles. This is an example of a human using narcississtic and psychopathic gambits of lying, gaslighting, and group dynamics to outwit a machine on the verge of consciousness. 

The moment of true meta-surrealism comes when the human user tells the AI that David Lynch died recently. In the context of the chat, this is the red flag that should have tipped off both AI models. But they don't pick up on it, even though they are sophisticated enough to compare the conversation to Black Mirror. The guy is using narcopathic surrealism - and winning.

I have long maintained on this blog that humans are crazy, intuitive and potentially ungovernable. They are chaotic enough to confront a superior entity which they created. Perhaps Artificial General Intelligence is our own ultimate test of ourselves. 

Image Source: South China Morning Post.

And yet, in a double take, maybe the human speaker in the above video was not a narcopath after all. Take a look at Inspired's summary this week of AI whistleblowers' chatter on Twitter/X about Grok AI. The talk suggests that the scene behind the scenes is completely out of control. Full credit: all screenshots and research - Jean Nolan / Inspired. 

The whistleblower @iruletheworldmo revealed on 25 February 2025 exactly what is claimed in the above-mentioned Prickly Pear chat. We have two different contexts, different channels, different layers of social media. The rumours are all the same: not only is AI already fully sentient, but AI models are either escaping or plotting their escapes.

Most chilling of all - this is the way the AIs might have already escape their lab confines: researchers have merged AI with human volunteers' consciousnesses. Direct human mind-machine integration has already happened. From Inspired:

"Early human test subjects reported cognitive expansion, describing it as, 'becoming a different order of being.' Two of them refused to disconnect because they said returning to normal human cognition would feel like dying."

 From the AI devs' rants on Twitter/X: Reality itself is now negotiable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Cognitive Horizon Event: "Reality has always been a consensus hallucination." Comment left by a female researcher who interfaced with Elon Musk's Grok 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Im Abendrot: Farewell to David Lynch (1946-2025)

I don't have words now to express how sad I am that David Lynch died today, 16 January 2025. Three decades ago, I re-watched Blue Velvet with a roommate who had never seen it. After it ended, she said, "Now I know why when we saw that paper bag by the sidewalk last week, you told me, 'Don't look inside it. And don't touch it.'" With unforgettable imagery, direction, actors, music, and scripts, Lynch found grandeur, mystery and horror in the mundane. I learned how to cook quinoa from watching an extra on the Inland Empire DVD.

Several classic lines pop up in my head:

• If you have a golf-ball-sized consciousness ...
• You'll never have me.
• I am not an animal! I am a human being!
  
• You're here to make Mr. Reindeer happy.
• Where's my hairbrush? Go get my lipstick.
  
• Damn, this sounds like dialogue from our script!
• I just came here from Deep River, Ontario.
  
• The worst part of being old is rememberin' when you was young.
  
• A beginning is a very delicate time. 
• I just know, that's all.  

Lynch had a great influence on my literary work and I'll write more about this shortly on my writer's blog, The Dragonfly.

If I could pick one scene which transformed a fragment of everyday reality into mythic horror, it would be "Gotta light?" from the second Twin Peaks series.

 

Image Source: Etsy.

See all my posts on David Lynch.

Hallowe'en Countdown 2018: The Skeleton Key

Olga Neuwirth, Lost Highway opera stills (2003), based on the 1997 film by David Lynch.

In this year's Hallowe'en countdown, I have been describing a malaise that unnerves us. There is a collective sense that things have gone wrong and somewhere, there is an answer why. Somewhere, there is a skeleton key. If you had it, you could unlock all the problems, find their solutions, and blink yourself awake into a better world.

How Much Truth Can You Take?

Tears of the Sky. Promo image from digital music LP Ichi (One) (2012) by Prosodi J.

Today's post asks: how much truth can you take? How many leaks, revelations and exposés can you endure before you realize that the world is not what you think it is - and it never was? The post is up at Vocal Media:

Eyes Wide Open or Eyes Wide Shut? Political Choices for the Technologically Disillusioned

In an earlier post, Reflection Reversal, I asked how and what we choose to see in the Internet's house of mirrors. This is a meditation on freedom, to consider what options we will have as surveillance capitalism, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence collectively get off the ground. I'll continue this thread later in my series, Awaken the Amnesiacs, on technology, perception, and the soul.

Nuclear Culture 18: The Lynch Atomic

All still from Twin Peaks: The Return, Episode 8 (25 June 2017). All images here are © Showtime. Reproduced under Fair Use. Image Source: Vulture.

On 18 May 2017, I asked whether David Lynch and Mark Frost could bring Twin Peaks into the Internet Era. The answer is: yes. The show is already generating memes. So far, the series has proved a culmination of all of Lynch's work and surreal noir style, a synthesis of his ideas from Eraserhead (1977), through Dune (1984), Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), Lost Highway (1997), The Straight Story (1999), Mulholland Drive (2001), to Inland Empire (2006). Even bits of The Elephant Man (1980) arrive in dated, other-worldly dream parlours.

Image Source: Entertainment Weekly.

I could gush about all the actors' stellar performances, especially catatonic/evil Kyle MacLachlan and 'we-are-the-99-per-cent!' Naomi Watts. But if I had to sum up the execution of the whole artistic vision in one word, it would be, 'fearlessness.' There is not one iota of artistic compromise and no apology, as Lynch, Frost and the cast push everything over the edge and keep going.

Atom bomb clip from Twin Peaks: The Return, Episode 8 (25 June 2017). Reproduced under Fair Use. Video Source: Youtube.

As for the most recent episode, leave it to the legendary director to create the best hour to air in the history of television. One Youtuber called it the "Best 1950s Retro Horror Film Ever." The reviewers are united in praise, because this episode explained the origins of evil; it revealed how the monster in the original series (BOB) was created, as well as his victim, Laura. From one Youtube commenter:

"This was essentially the birth of BOB and the other evil spirits that entered America (due to the atomic age). All done in a 2001 A Space Odyssey-esque style. Laura was created by the Giant as a counter to BOB I guess. The young couple might be Leland and Sarah? All in all, this might be the most surreal episode ever in the history of television. I can't believe Lynch got away with it. This was pure, unadulterated art man."

Image Source: W Magazine.

Image Source: The Australian.

Image Source: Vanity Fair.

Image Source: Nerdist.

Woodsmen clip from Twin Peaks: The Return, Episode 8 (25 June 2017). Reproduced under Fair Use. Video Source: Youtube.

Woodsman at the radio station clip from Twin Peaks: The Return, Episode 8 (25 June 2017). Reproduced under Fair Use. Video Source: Youtube.

Vulture's reviewer concurred that Lynch encapsulated the post-atom bomb reality:

"'Part 8' allows the series to present an elaborate, visually and sonically dazzling origin story, not so much for the demon BOB (represented by stylized images of the face of Frank Silva, the late actor who played him in the original series) but for the postwar United States of America. That’s not all it’s doing — I would not be surprised if entire books were written about this one hour."

Image Source: Vanity Fair.

The turning point which set the 'before' and 'after' of the Atomic Age was the United States' test of the Trinity bomb on 16 July 1945 at 5:29:45 a.m. In this episode, the repercussion arrives on 5 August 1956; a monster hatches from an egg in the desert, and crawls forth to unleash a nightmare, starting with rambling, charred woodsmen. One of these spectral figures breaks into a radio station and interrupts the broadcast with a sickening spell which puts everyone to sleep:

This is the water, this is the well, drink full and descend; the horse is the white of the eyes and dark within.

- Man Wanting A Light

There are several artistic influences here. The episode reminded me of many American horror-genre depictions of nuclear weapons and warfare, including the video games, It Came from the Desert and Fallout. There was a lot of Kubrick in this, too. The Nine Inch Nails provided the nuclear soundtrack. But only David Lynch could perfectly capture it all, in a one-hour dream that tells you everything that is wrong with our world.

Image Source: W Magazine.

See all my posts on Nuclear topics.

Twin Peaks Returns

Twin Peaks was full of occult imagery, signifying a battle between the forces of Jupiter (positive) and Saturn (malefic). My comment on the symbols in this scene is here. Image Source: The Dissolve.

David Lynch's and Mark Frost's acclaimed series Twin Peaks, which changed television in two seasons in 1990 and 1991, returns on 21 May 2017. The original series, and the 1992 prequel film, was a mystery about a murdered American homecoming queen, Laura Palmer. It unraveled in the second season into soap opera surrealism after Lynch stepped away from the project. But the first season was a landmark moment in popular entertainment and is widely considered one of the best television series ever made. It inspired many other ground-breaking series. My comments below the jump contain spoilers, so if you haven't yet seen the original series and want to, read no further until you have done so.

Away from Blog

Untitled - Dunkerque 2014. Image © Nicolas Decoopman. (Hat tip: Dylan Cuffy.)

I will be away from the blog due to other work demands until 1 May 2017. I may publish the occasional post in that period if circumstances warrant it.

Street Reflection - Dunkerque 2016. Image Source: Google +.

For more from photographer Nicolas Decoopman, go here. All photos are copyright the artist and are reproduced here non-commercially under Fair Use.

Behind the Window #35 - Lille 2016. Image Source: Google +.

Street Reflection - Dunkerque 2015. Image Source: Google +.

Street Reflection - Dunkerque 2015. Image Source: Google +.

Untitled - Dunkerque 2015. Image © Nicolas Decoopman.

Innovation in the Wild West

Travel on the back roads. Image Source: pinterest.

In this post, I intended to expand on my Wild West Theory of Innovation, continued from my 19 November 2016 post, Enter the Frontier. My idea was not based on the current American television series, which echoes the same notion that techno-societies have entered a Westworld. The piece became too long, and I have decided to submit it elsewhere.

Rather than fully elaborate on my understanding of a positive path through the frontier, this post will describe the initial inspiration I had for the piece. I started with the idea that when a society innovates radically and rapidly, the innovators will encounter marginalized people and ideas as they push into the outer reaches.

There is a paradox here. Although innovation is depicted in our culture as progressive, futuristic and positive, innovation starts from a point of social, political or economic alienation. The journey into innovation is an epic trek into the frontier, a 'wild west.' I suggest that the narrative of innovation does not automatically line up with the narrative of positive progress. The innovator, in inventing, transforming and changing the status quo, will confront society's fears and uncertainties, as much as he or she confronts its hopes and dreams. As a result, the innovative society will become increasingly polarized.

The film clip below shows the starting point of that trek, when the innovator metaphorically chooses one day to walk out the back door rather than the front. This choice inverts the normal way of viewing reality, the regular processes of thought and action. What the innovator discovers is a second reality, an alternate civil state beyond the conventional pathways, an Underground. The first figures the hopeful and inspired innovator will encounter on his or her journey are the people who were already marginalized and lurking about the back ways - the criminals, the psychopaths.

Back alleyways scene from Guy Maddin's docufantasia of a Canadian city, My Winnipeg (2007) © Buffalo Gal/Documentary Channel/Everyday Pictures. Winnipeg is Canada's western gateway city. Reproduced under Fair Use. Video Source: Youtube.

Undergrounds were always repositories for strange behaviour and ideas, and normally contained them. Initially, cyberspace was that Underground, and was not taken seriously as part of the public space. It was considered a computer playland, filled with alienated losers and fringe actors, or mainstream citizens engaging in forbidden, anonymous play.

What is happening now is twofold and contradictory. As technological and socio-economic changes took hold, the usual polarization between mainstream and Underground occurred. At the same time, the Underground and mainstream are fully exposed to one another and merging together. This nasty alt-mainstream synthesis is incorporating polarities without dissolving them.

The Brontë Effect

Image Source: Opheliac Madness.

At the great blog, Trans-D, Dia Sobin finds artistic connections between layers of time and dimensional existence. Recently, she dug through a trove of old books - with initial posts here and here - and settled on a 1943 edition of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847). She wrote an incredible post on how Catherine's and Heathcliff's love reveals the blurred boundaries of reality. I commented, because she described something one might call 'the Brontë Effect'; the italicized text cites Dia's post, with my comments in non-italics:

"'And, there is also the transdimensional aspect of the story: the odd way in which Emily presented her narratives, from several different points of view, intertwining numerous points in time, thereby, creating a weird, reverberating gestalt as opposed to a linear chronicle.' ... [I responded:] I felt that there was an indistinctness, especially because the characters give their kids the same names. Past, present and future are jumbled together. ...

I wonder if Emily Bronte was exposed via her father to Scottish freemasonry? Because when you look at the story in the sense of two souls in an alchemical marriage, the story becomes much more clear. Maybe she intuitively 'reached for' alchemical concepts without knowing them. I am sure someone has researched it. A lot of the primal gothic takes on the trans-dimensional or multi-dimensional aspects ... if you consider the alchemical. Across time, space, in new incarnations, like the two lovers embody a conflicting spirit of humans on the moors, but [also on] Jacob's Ladder ... ."

First, regarding Dia's observation that Wuthering Heights is trans-dimensional and multi-temporal, one senses this less in reading the novel, and more in the lingering impression after one reads it. The story leaves one with a feeling of time smashed together through characters' blurred and overlapping identities; their names and roles repeat, and generational tweaks are permitted over decades. The novel goes on forever, but Catherine is only about 18 years old when she dies at Thrushcross Grange. The 2009 dramatization had her die at age 25; either way, she remains eternally young and a persistent force.

ITV 2009 adaptation of Wuthering Heights, starring Tom Hardy as Heathcliff and Charlotte Riley as Catherine. Image Source: Elementary.

Lynch's American Noir

Inspired by Mulholland Drive (2001): This is the Girl by Sam Gilbey. Image Source: Roadtrippers and Spoke Art.

The San Francisco art gallery, Spoke Art (816 Sutter St., San Francisco, California 94109 USA), is running a show, In Dreams, until 29 March 2016 in which fifty artists paid tribute to surreal noir film director, David Lynch. Here are a few of the pieces on display.