RadixJournal - Cult Classic

00:00:00.000 Well, Frederick Kerr, welcome to the podcast. It's good to have you on. How are you?

00:00:04.800 Great. Great to be with you guys.

00:00:06.880 Great. And Hannibal is with me. Welcome back, Hannibal.

00:00:11.920 An interesting name choice, a pseudonymous name choice for this podcast, I guess.

00:00:16.220 Yes. Yeah.

00:00:18.900 Anyway, happy Halloween.

00:00:21.540 Frederick Kerr, you are a little bit older than Hannibal and myself.

00:00:27.400 So why don't you talk a little bit about the first time you saw The Wicker Man?

00:00:35.140 Did you have the chance of seeing it in a theater, or did you see it later on?

00:00:40.740 What was that like?

00:00:41.620 The film was released, at least in Britain, in 1973.

00:00:48.540 It was filmed, apparently, most of it was filmed in, actually, October 1972,

00:00:54.420 although it was supposed to be for May Day, the spring.

00:01:00.580 So you can read about the history of the making of the film.

00:01:04.220 But anyway, it was released in 1973.

00:01:06.720 But the U.S. release was very restricted.

00:01:10.780 And at the time, I was in graduate school,

00:01:14.420 and you would hear about films word of mouth.

00:01:21.420 And, of course, for example, I'm trying to remember when, for example,

00:01:26.960 the Dunwich Horror with Sandra Dee and, what was it, Dean Stockwell,

00:01:33.120 it was based on H.P. Lovecraft.

00:01:35.600 Well, that had a little larger release and was more talked about.

00:01:42.960 But, of course, pre-internet, you didn't have a way of communicating very well.

00:01:48.120 And so unless, among us who were young writers,

00:01:53.180 if National Review or the American Spectator,

00:01:56.800 when it was still being published in Bloomington, Indiana,

00:01:59.960 if they didn't draw attention to something, it could be months, even years,

00:02:06.520 before you'd hear of some underground book or much less a movie.

00:02:12.860 And a movie, you couldn't see it.

00:02:14.300 I mean, because obviously this is the day before VHS.

00:02:16.620 No, with a very limited distribution.

00:02:19.920 So I didn't see the film until it came out on VHS.

00:02:24.740 Interesting.

00:02:25.360 So that was probably in, like, the mid-'80s?

00:02:26.820 What, VHS?

00:02:30.180 When did those come out?

00:02:32.040 Because by that time, people would have heard about it.

00:02:37.220 But not until there was some distribution would have even been mentioned in passing,

00:02:43.160 and not necessarily favorably even, just because of the nature of the film.

00:02:47.520 So when you first saw it on VHS, you know, late-'80s, early-'90s, something like that,

00:02:53.520 so what was the context?

00:02:55.780 Because I'm just curious, I think, you know, when you first saw something or your first impressions,

00:03:00.580 I always like to know this about films.

00:03:02.720 Well, this was also, remember about in the early-'80s, there was Conan the Barbarian came out,

00:03:10.720 Excalibur came out.

00:03:14.840 That was, what, around 1980 or so?

00:03:17.920 And so The Wicker Man, I think it was everybody's reaction was it was the first sort of pro-pagan film,

00:03:28.220 even though Conan and the Barbarian and, of course, Excalibur's about looking for the Holy Grail,

00:03:34.720 but it was a great film.

00:03:35.720 Oh, yeah, that is definitely a traditionalist movie.

00:03:39.260 I mean, it's, yes, absolutely.

00:03:41.980 Yeah, it is interesting.

00:03:42.940 In the-'80s, you had some of these, like, glimpses, even though they were all pulpy,

00:03:48.520 you had these kind of glimpses of right-wing, even traditionalist, archaeo-futurist films.

00:03:54.780 I remember when I was a kid watching Excalibur, I loved that film,

00:03:58.500 and I would, you know, go back to the sex scene parts with Sir Lancelot and Guinevere.

00:04:04.660 Yeah, I probably wore out the VHS tape.

00:04:08.080 Interestingly, that's where, you know, The Wicker Man fits in a very interesting time for films.

00:04:14.740 You know, it's sort of a folk horror-type film from the late-'70s

00:04:18.920 that combines a lot of elements of the older counterculture,

00:04:24.180 but takes them in a, you know, weirdly traditionalist direction in a lot of ways.

00:04:30.760 Yeah, I mean, this is what I was thinking, because I, unlike you two,

00:04:34.300 I only saw this movie for the first time this year.

00:04:38.260 A couple of our friends were saying,

00:04:40.220 oh, you should do a podcast on The Wicker Man,

00:04:42.040 and I was like, oh, I've always heard of this movie,

00:04:44.280 and I've not seen this abomination, the 2006 version with Nicolas Cage,

00:04:50.040 but I've seen highlights of it on YouTube

00:04:53.040 where it just looks like the worst movie ever made.

00:04:56.320 But, so I hadn't seen it, but I had heard of it as a cult classic,

00:05:00.500 and I definitely, I mean, I love the film.

00:05:03.520 I've watched it three times now.

00:05:05.840 But one thing I was thinking about is,

00:05:08.680 and this is why I ask you, like, when you first saw it,

00:05:11.040 is the film, you don't really know what it is when you're watching it.

00:05:15.960 And if you just imagine...

00:05:16.540 Not a film I end.

00:05:17.580 Exactly.

00:05:18.380 And when you go in to, if you imagine going into the theater,

00:05:22.080 and maybe you've read, like, a one-line synopsis,

00:05:24.340 or you just passed by the movie theater,

00:05:26.380 and you saw the poster, it looked interesting,

00:05:28.460 or you, like, Christopher Lee, or whatever,

00:05:30.280 you don't know what you're watching.

00:05:31.520 And so when you go in, you, you know,

00:05:33.780 these opening scenes of this man, you know,

00:05:35.840 going on this mission, a crusade, you know,

00:05:38.760 across this amazing Scottish landscape.

00:05:42.120 And then you go in, you wonder, am I watching a comedy?

00:05:45.580 Is this a kind of counterculture 60s movie

00:05:48.780 where, you know, you have all of these sexually liberated townsfolk 0.82

00:05:53.280 and the stuffy Puritan?

00:05:55.120 So it's kind of like a post-60s pro-hippie film.

00:05:58.620 You could imagine that.

00:06:00.440 So, you know, it kind of plays with genres.

00:06:03.200 And then at the very end, you really do think that it's a comedy,

00:06:06.180 that it's, or it's, you know, a comedy of manners, 0.97

00:06:09.660 where there's this fool didn't understand what was really going on in the town. 0.93

00:06:13.500 And then when you finally see the appearance of the actual wicker man, 0.97

00:06:18.500 you're aware that you're watching something like a horror film,

00:06:21.880 and you are filled with horror.

00:06:24.380 There is something about that original image

00:06:26.560 of the first time you actually see the wicker man

00:06:29.540 and the screams of Sergeant Howie of Christ, Jesus Christ.

00:06:35.040 I mean, it's a terrifying scene.

00:06:37.220 So I do think this is a shocking film.

00:06:41.560 It definitely, like, can't really be categorized in any genre.

00:06:45.400 I mean, you have Christopher Lee, obviously a famous horror actor,

00:06:48.560 but it's much bigger than that.

00:06:52.120 And it's also a small movie, I'd also say.

00:06:54.120 I mean, it's clearly a low-budget film,

00:06:56.340 but it's also one that has, like, a lot of levels to it.

00:07:02.220 And it's one that you kind of, I don't know, it's like,

00:07:06.500 it has a lot of themes, but even those themes are fairly ambiguous

00:07:10.380 of, like, what this is really about.

00:07:14.300 Yeah, again, go into the whole theme of the film.

00:07:18.440 It's, you know, as we were talking about a little earlier, I think,

00:07:23.120 it's a confrontation of Western modernity in its full force

00:07:28.060 and its very confident Protestant, you know, Christian rational face

00:07:33.860 with the sort of archaic soul at times of a lot of European men.

00:07:40.840 You know, I think of, you know, the philosopher Haman had this line

00:07:45.120 that he looks upon logical proofs the way a well-bred girl looks upon a love letter.

00:07:49.840 And, you know, you have to think that was the sort of the smiling faces

00:07:54.200 of the island's inhabitants to Sergeant Howie throughout the entire film. 1.00

00:07:58.580 Because Howie is a fool. He doesn't get it. 1.00

00:08:01.520 And also, I was thinking about just, you know, who he is.

00:08:07.640 And I was thinking about his name itself.

00:08:10.360 It's Sergeant Howie.

00:08:11.940 So he's obviously, he's a policeman.

00:08:14.040 He's in uniform for the entire movie,

00:08:16.600 outside of a few scenes when he's in bed,

00:08:18.700 when he's about to be sacrificed.

00:08:22.160 And he is, as Lord Summerisle says,

00:08:27.020 you know, you are a representative of the king.

00:08:29.120 You're about law.

00:08:30.160 And he says it like, I care about the law.

00:08:32.220 So he's this just purely rational being.

00:08:35.500 And you can kind of see that in his last name, which is Howie.

00:08:39.880 I don't think it's a coincidence.

00:08:41.780 Perhaps it's like an unconscious coincidence.

00:08:44.140 But it's a Howie.

00:08:46.440 He's obsessed with how you do things.

00:08:48.600 He's obsessed with rationality.

00:08:51.020 He's also his name, which he reveals while he's being burned.

00:08:54.020 He says, take this, your servant, O God, kneel Howie. 0.78

00:08:57.700 He's a kneeling Howie. 0.53

00:08:59.600 So he is K-N-E-E-L. 1.00

00:09:01.920 He's kneeling before God.

00:09:03.640 And he is obsessed with reason.

00:09:06.320 That is the mechanism, the how.

00:09:08.880 You know, and I often wonder, in the last moments,

00:09:13.220 whether it's Howie or, you know,

00:09:16.660 someone who is going to be executed by the Bolsheviks or something,

00:09:20.520 at their last moments, they finally wonder,

00:09:24.220 well, you know, have I been lied to all this time?

00:09:27.380 Yeah.

00:09:28.120 Yeah, absolutely.

00:09:30.040 I think that you can tell.

00:09:32.260 I mean, that's part of the horror of it.

00:09:35.000 But so, yeah, I mean, it's an interesting thing

00:09:38.240 because oftentimes the way we look at the world, you know,

00:09:44.180 from 2016 is we look at it as kind of like Christianity is this,

00:09:49.660 oh, it's this mythical, mystical, irrational thing

00:09:54.640 that doesn't fit into the modern world.

00:09:56.680 And it's just, you know, it's a residue of an ancient time and so on.

00:10:01.380 But actually, I think The Wicker Man,

00:10:03.440 why it's like a movie for our movement is because it has the correct position.

00:10:10.240 And that is that Christianity is, it's two different things.

00:10:15.960 On the one hand, it's not a traditional, mystical religion.

00:10:20.460 The Christianity that is dominant, 1.00

00:10:22.860 particularly in the case of this Sergeant Howey figure,

00:10:26.260 is like an Apollonian rationalist religion.

00:10:29.080 It's important that he's Protestant and not a Catholic. 0.96

00:10:31.800 That's also true.

00:10:32.860 But he's lost touch with the real grounding of religion.

00:10:39.260 And he's even, might have even lost touch with things like sacrifice and so on.

00:10:44.140 And he, so he doesn't understand what religion really is.

00:10:47.260 It's this institutional, rational, you know, law-giving aspect of the state.

00:10:54.380 And he is, you know, a deductive reasoning detective.

00:10:58.180 And it's actually, so in a way like, you know,

00:11:01.620 Christianity gave birth to modernism.

00:11:04.340 And that has, that is a traditionalist view.

00:11:08.520 That's the view of Nietzsche.

00:11:09.660 That's the view of the German idealist of all stripes.

00:11:12.120 That's also the, certainly the view of Evola.

00:11:15.300 That's other things.

00:11:16.740 And so basically you have Christianity as a, as part, as part of the modern world,

00:11:23.300 the modern rationalistic world.

00:11:25.040 And it's confronting the more organic,

00:11:29.600 and it's confronting like organic ancient wisdom.

00:11:33.100 You know, it's like these townsfolk are simpler,

00:11:36.980 but they understand life better than he does.

00:11:40.460 And they're able to laugh at things, whereas he's, he's only able to cry.

00:11:45.420 Well, uh, your point is well taken because as you recall in the film,

00:11:50.460 when, when, uh, uh, Sergeant Howie is going through the, the village,

00:11:55.280 and he's interviewing the school teacher, interviewing the, the librarian,

00:12:00.700 and all he keeps reminding, even when he goes to the, to the green man, the pub, uh, he's reminding people,

00:12:09.580 well, these are the, the, these are the law, this is the law, this, and this is a,

00:12:14.960 and you are under Christian, a Christian, Christian law, and, and you're breaking it.

00:12:20.880 And this is, this is an outrage against, against the Christian institutions, 0.80

00:12:25.320 whether you believe it or not.

00:12:28.140 Yeah.

00:12:28.740 And yet, and yet there, whether, um, the, the school teacher is teaching the kids to, uh, not, you know,

00:12:36.480 not have hangups about nature and about, um, uh,

00:12:41.080 sex and fertility and, yeah, yeah, precisely, yeah.

00:12:46.400 Well, you know, I think it's worth, it's, it's worth teasing out a little bit here,

00:12:49.940 the difference between sort of the modern secular world, uh,

00:12:55.600 a sort of Protestant like Sergeant Howie confronts in the Britain of his day 0.95

00:13:00.180 versus this sort of, uh, lush and verdant paganism he stumbles into.

00:13:06.560 You know, I, I'm not, uh, I'm not, I, you know,

00:13:09.760 I don't know where to really take that completely, but, you know, it's, there,

00:13:13.440 there, there's the, there was the counterculture at the time, which was, you know,

00:13:17.620 they had talked a lot about open love, uh, free love and things like that,

00:13:21.740 but it never, it never touched in many ways to the, you know,

00:13:25.760 on the deeper sort of hierarchical consciousness of, of, of what actually embracing nature

00:13:32.340 and embracing, uh, the world sort of would be like, you know, there's.

00:13:36.960 The way I would view a lot of the hippie counterculture is probably different than the

00:13:43.840 way most right wingers do. And that is, I think, and we, like, we are, we all, we're men of the

00:13:50.300 right. We almost look at images of like Woodstock or whatever, and just be like, ah, goddamn hippie 1.00

00:13:56.880 commies, you know, we should, you know, throw them in prison. But I think to just have that 0.99

00:14:02.540 knee jerk reaction is to misunderstand them a little bit and to see that there were, there

00:14:08.920 was actually like a, to, to try to see them on their own terms and see like hippiedom or

00:14:14.960 the counterculture as to a degree as, as like a genuine attempt to get back to the real, to

00:14:22.240 some organic grounding for the social order. And it, it took terrible forms. I don't think,

00:14:28.600 you know, I don't think any of us think that polymorphous perversity or anything like that

00:14:33.940 is some, you know, positive thing, but this, this idea of not being, not having hangups

00:14:40.380 about sex, having, having a, like a proper understanding of love and death and, and the

00:14:46.240 joys of life and, and so on that they were, I think the, the hippies were kind of an understandable

00:14:52.920 and you could say perverted, kind of ironically perverted reaction, but it was actually something

00:14:58.880 genuine. It really was an attempt to reground society. And to that extent, I think there's

00:15:05.420 probably like some things that we can learn from them and, and some things that are, are,

00:15:11.320 are somewhat redeemable about them. I mean, it was the, the whole movement like went wrong.

00:15:16.580 It was connected with the left. It was connected with all sorts of craziness. It was connected

00:15:21.420 with Jewish intellectuals connected with, and the, you know, culture critique and so on,

00:15:26.100 but, but there actually was a kind of genuine organic quality to it. And, and so, um, I, yeah,

00:15:32.520 I mean, and that, that's where it's like, you kind of things kind of flip around where you,

00:15:37.040 you have this community that you could see as like a hippie commune, but at the, you know,

00:15:42.520 on, on one level and, but then on another level, it's like, it's the ultimate traditionalist

00:15:47.840 society. I mean, it's an absolute monarchy. Yeah, it is a benevolent monarchy where they

00:15:54.000 have a sense of lordship. They have a sense of high and low. They have the sense of the

00:15:57.340 perennial seasons. I think that's something that in, in like postmodern life that we've

00:16:03.140 totally lost. Well, yeah, what, what strikes me is it is really such a moral film and it's

00:16:11.620 a more highly moral community. It is a community of, of love, a community where even the Lord,

00:16:20.380 like he, the, you, you have a Lord who is above these people and station and wealth and so on,

00:16:25.760 but who actually still has a connection to his people. He loves his people and it's, and it's,

00:16:31.820 it's, it's, it's from his, his, his grandfather, uh, uh, doing that, that, uh, uh, uh, horticultural

00:16:41.300 research and, and re reestablishing and, and making this island bountiful. And, and throughout

00:16:48.260 the film, the generations respect each other and, and the scene in the school where they're passing

00:16:54.380 on, uh, the knowledge and the respect. Yeah. And it is, again, there's this like one

00:17:01.780 more layer of irony where, um, the reason why this island Sumerile became, uh, so bountiful

00:17:11.100 is because the, this Victorian gentleman, you know, used all of this new knowledge of

00:17:16.200 genetics and evolution and science. But he's described as a free thinker, you know?

00:17:19.960 Yeah, exactly. And he did that to actually restore something. So it's, again, it's this like

00:17:25.180 perennialism, uh, of something dying and being reborn and coming back and so on. I mean, it's

00:17:30.740 like, you know, there's this, what was that? Like there's that when they're around the

00:17:33.700 maypole, they're singing this song where it's like, um, you know, in the tree, there

00:17:37.700 is an egg and the egg, there's a bird and the birds, a feather and the feather becomes

00:17:41.400 a bed. And then there's a woman on the bed and a man on the, on the woman. And that has

00:17:45.280 a child. And then the child is a man and the child dies and he goes to a grave. And then

00:17:49.700 on the grave, there's a tree. And, and it's, it's just this, like the great chain of

00:17:53.480 being. Um, and you know, I, I, I do think that is something that we've just totally

00:17:59.020 lost in society where we can't really face death. Uh, you know, I, I, you know, there's

00:18:05.780 a bit of a digression, but I mean, it is kind of, if you look at like the, the, the degree

00:18:10.280 to which our, the contemporary world can't, can't, can't face death as unwilling to, you

00:18:15.120 see these kind of Silicon Valley technologists who want to live forever. And, you know, I

00:18:20.060 guess that they would, they could live in like a brain and a vat and they just be a 0.99

00:18:23.660 thinking, you know, organism that's kept, that's kept alive through electricity. And

00:18:28.500 maybe you could even digitize yourself. I mean, it's just this kind of just hyper

00:18:32.900 rationality. And then also like, if you look at so-called traditionalist in modern

00:18:37.560 American society, if we go back like 12 years to the Terry Schiavo affair, uh, where

00:18:43.000 it's like, we have a brain dead woman that we must keep her alive. We're pro-life

00:18:48.600 therefore, you know, someone who could never, never have any experience of the

00:18:52.520 world, never think again, Oh, we need to just keep pumping, pumping her lungs full 1.00

00:18:57.180 of oxygen. So she has the appearance of life. I mean, it's just, we, I think both

00:19:01.620 the, the, the left and the right, if you want to call them that have no concept of

00:19:06.440 death and rebirth and life that we're just being, you know, you know, as Heidegger

00:19:11.360 would say, you know, we have a sort of thrownness, but no being, so to speak.

00:19:18.600 Absolutely. Um, well, we should, you know, we should, we should talk about

00:19:22.940 Christopher Lee, uh, you know, the famed descendant of Charlemagne as Lord of the

00:19:26.520 Island.

00:19:28.980 Christopher Lee is related to everyone. You know, he's related to Ian Fleming

00:19:33.500 and, uh, and Charlemagne. That's a, that's an interesting, yeah. Well, yeah.

00:19:37.720 It's a small, small world.

00:19:39.920 It comes from a legitimate noble family. Uh, and yeah, you know, he's slumming it as an

00:19:45.020 actor, but, uh, here he's sort of, you know, reviving, I guess, a little bit of

00:19:49.460 his ancestral glory.

00:19:52.700 Yeah. I, it is funny because Christopher Lee, you just, you look at him, he, he does

00:19:57.020 seem noble. Uh, you know, even, even in his, even though he does have a strange look

00:20:03.080 to him, you know, he's not, he's not stereotypically handsome, but there is

00:20:07.640 something about him that seems noble, noble, but then also a little bit devilish

00:20:11.460 at the same time. Like he, he is an, an amazing figure, kind of like perfectly

00:20:15.720 cast. Uh, it's, it's hard to imagine anyone else. Um, but, uh, a heathen. Yeah.

00:20:22.720 But an enlightened one, we hope. Yes. I think one of the greatest lines at all of

00:20:28.680 cinema is that, what was it from, uh, Sergeant Howie is like, those women are 1.00

00:20:33.240 naked. He's like, well, you, you can't expect to jump through a flame with clothes

00:20:37.520 on. That would be dangerous. Uh, well, I mean, yeah, no, we should, we should talk

00:20:44.680 more about that. We should talk about the futile, futile angle of the island, uh,

00:20:49.060 especially in contrast to the, to the Britain that Howie is coming from, which

00:20:53.780 is sort of, you know, the decaying Britain of the seventies, pre-Thatcherite 1.00

00:20:57.740 Britain, uh, you know, the sad socialist isle in contrast to the, to the, to the

00:21:03.140 merry absolute monarchy of, uh, Summer Isle. I, I, I think Sergeant Howie

00:21:08.920 definitely is a representation of, of that, like, sad Britain of, of the 0.62

00:21:13.760 1970s. Um, yes. Uh, just obsessed with law, totally joyless. Uh, yeah. Um, it's

00:21:24.600 like, where would you rather live? Summer's Isle or, uh, or, uh, or, you know,

00:21:28.840 Sergeant Howie's. Yeah. And, you know, there's also the need, uh, there's, you

00:21:32.680 know, getting back to, uh, getting back to Lord Summer Isle's

00:21:36.560 grandfather, you know, he sort of recognized that people don't live by

00:21:40.580 production alone, but they, they need myths to, you know, to live by, to,

00:21:45.460 to animate themselves. They need more than mere, you know, mere bread alone. Um,

00:21:51.060 which is what you get with these people, that this is a real community. You

00:21:55.500 know, it's not just based on sort of selling their apples. Uh, you know, they,

00:22:00.080 they, they didn't sort of just, you know, they might've bought into the,

00:22:03.500 uh, restitution of the old gods at first because it was seemed to be good 0.90

00:22:08.400 for crops. But now you, you realize that there's a, there, there's a big

00:22:13.260 difference between the community of Summer Isle and, uh, sort of the

00:22:17.300 communities around us today, which are animated by, you know, mere profit or

00:22:21.840 just pleasure seeking without a higher purpose.

00:22:25.320 Oh yeah. And people in the suburbs who just, uh, they, they know members of

00:22:29.960 their own household, but none of their neighbors. And they just kind of go watch

00:22:33.480 TV in their household. Uh, yeah, it's total atomization. Whereas the, the people

00:22:38.360 of Summer Isle, like they work together, they're kind of all in on it. Uh, they have

00:22:43.200 this tradition that everyone, you know, takes literally participates in. Um, I mean,

00:22:48.740 yeah, I mean, it is, um, that's how humans are meant to live.

00:22:52.260 And, and they're not diverse. They, they, they don't, they don't, they don't, they 0.99

00:22:57.740 don't, they don't have, have, you know, Somalis brought in, uh, uh, transplanted

00:23:05.520 there. No one's wearing a burka. Uh, and, and no one's suggesting that it would be a 0.99

00:23:11.340 good thing if they did.

00:23:13.080 No, they are truly deprived.

00:23:14.880 No one's suggesting, you know, that they can make a few extra bucks by, uh, by

00:23:19.040 getting in a few Somali immigrants to pick the apples instead of villagers. 0.97

00:23:23.080 Yeah. Uh, they, they are a community in a way that, that we don't ever know. Um,

00:23:29.060 you know, another theme that, that is interesting is this kind of like dual face

00:23:34.740 of Christianity, uh, that, you know, and I think this is another, this is another way

00:23:40.460 where these themes are ambiguous and, and kind of like, once you, once you think,

00:23:45.700 you know, the movie, you could always flip things around is that, um, Sergeant

00:23:50.540 Howie, you know, he, he views Christianity as this, as effectively like a modern

00:23:57.040 rational system. Uh, but he, he certainly does take part in, in its rituals, but he

00:24:02.380 doesn't seem to ever understand them. And so, you know, you have all of these

00:24:06.820 situations where, uh, Lord Summerisle is, is kind of challenging him to be a true

00:24:12.600 Christian. Um, you know, it's like when, when women are, are jumping through the 1.00

00:24:17.240 flames, this is a fertility ritual. This, this is immaculate conception. And, uh, 0.97

00:24:23.140 and, and Summerisle reminds him, he's like, look, you know, your, your God was, uh,

00:24:28.340 you know, impregnated by a ghost. That's right. Yeah. You know, you believe in this.

00:24:32.960 And in terms of sacrifice, I mean, what, what is Christianity without the central 0.65

00:24:37.540 notion of sacrifice? Like you have to pay something. Yeah. And that basically it's

00:24:42.260 the biggest sacrifice of all. You sacrifice an actual God. I mean, that, I mean,

00:24:46.340 again, the, the fact that you, the, the, the symbol of Christianity is a crucifix

00:24:50.820 just cannot be underestimated. It's, it's not a hammer or a raven. It is a defiance

00:24:57.680 to the world. Or a moon. Uh, yeah, it, it is a, it is a, it sacrifices at the heart of it

00:25:03.420 is such an indispensable notion. I mean, um, yeah, that, that orthodox slogan, you

00:25:08.500 know, death to the world, you know, the first element you get of Sergeant Howie's

00:25:13.680 sort of defiance, you know, is when he, he knocks aside, um, a lot of the stuff on

00:25:19.160 that grave and, you know, leaves a cross there. You know, it's, he's, he's, he's

00:25:24.820 literally, actually, he's literally, uh, defying, uh, you know, defying, uh, death

00:25:29.880 there in a way. It's the sort of first intimation of his sort of primordial

00:25:34.180 Christianity.

00:25:36.520 Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and, and just to go back to even the, the, the theme of

00:25:41.700 death that, you know, it's, he's having this, uh, conversation with a school

00:25:45.040 teacher who, what, what is that actress's name? She was actually married to Sean 0.91

00:25:48.340 Connery. Uh, I'm forgetting. She's a very attractive woman, very handsome woman,

00:25:53.960 as they say. Uh, but, uh, she. Oh, it's Diane. Cilento. That was Cilento. She was

00:26:02.100 Miss Rose. And then Ingrid Pitt was, was the attractive librarian. Remember, he, he

00:26:08.620 busts into her when she's in a, in her bathtub. So we get to see another view of, of

00:26:14.460 her. She was big in, in hammer horror films. It's female vampires. She played 1.00

00:26:21.300 Elizabeth Bathory. Yeah. Interesting. There are a lot of these connections. And

00:26:25.680 then you have, you know, uh, Christopher Lee and, uh, Brett Eklund were both in the

00:26:29.960 man with a golden gun. So you have all these, there's a small acting pool, I

00:26:33.840 guess, uh, kind of connection. The man with the golden gun came out the year after

00:26:38.940 this. It probably must've just started filming right after they, uh, uh, they

00:26:43.000 finished up, uh, it was a smaller place then. Yeah, it was just the world was a

00:26:47.380 smaller place. Um, but, but, but there, there are all these other situations

00:26:51.620 where, you know, it's like, uh, the, uh, Sergeant Howie tells, uh, Summer Isle,

00:26:56.500 it's like, you're sacrificing me and for nothing. And he says, what do you mean?

00:26:59.380 You know, I'm paraphrasing, but he said, what do you mean for nothing? Like I'm

00:27:02.700 giving you the greatest achievement of Christianity. You are becoming a martyr. 0.85

00:27:06.420 Yeah. And, you know, and, and it's, it's all of these, it's all of these ways that,

00:27:11.880 that Howie, and I would say most modern Christians have just totally lost 1.00

00:27:16.760 touch with the real essence of their religion. And I mean, that, and again,

00:27:21.840 that's the dual aspect of Christianity. It's a, Christianity is an anti-religion

00:27:26.220 at some, at some point. I mean, it was a, a radically, the, the, the Christianity 0.53

00:27:30.860 that followed Paul, a Christianity for the, the, this Jewish, uh, Jesus religion 0.99

00:27:37.880 for the Gentiles, that is for everyone where, you know, Greek, there is no man, 0.98

00:27:42.920 there is no woman, there's no Greek, there's no Jew, we're all one in Christ.

00:27:45.780 This new radical new notion was, it was really kind of like an anti-religion because

00:27:50.720 you're, you're, you're separate, you're ripping out religion from a grounding in 0.99

00:27:55.740 a folk community.

00:27:56.740 Well, you know, it's, it's, it's like they say, it's not a religion, it's relationship.

00:28:03.480 Yes. I remember when I was in Texas in a small town, which is a very nice town of

00:28:08.480 Fredericksburg where they no longer speak German. They supposedly, when you would be

00:28:12.500 there, they, they were just speaking German and, you know, the, a coffee shop or a gas

00:28:16.920 station. But anyway, I remember seeing these extra large t-shirts that said,

00:28:21.360 Jesus died for me. I was thinking, geez, what a, what a waste.

00:28:28.760 You know, like this, yeah, this personal religion, that is one, definitely the personal

00:28:33.600 religion of the, of the last 25 years. It's definitely one way that Christianity has, 0.99

00:28:38.620 has evolved. But, but it's, it's an anti-religion at some point. But on the other

00:28:43.420 hand, you can't get away from the, from like the deeper perennial traditional

00:28:48.680 aspects of Christianity. I mean, it is, it is a religion about ritual sacrifice and 0.90

00:28:54.000 cannibalism.

00:28:54.640 Yeah. And again, you know, it, I don't think this movie would have worked, you know,

00:28:59.380 with Sergeant Howie being a Catholic, for instance, or, you know, or even Orthodox.

00:29:04.100 He is a Protestant in the sense, he has shorn himself of everything but the Bible, 0.98

00:29:09.560 you know, and it's, and it's word.

00:29:12.480 But the word and law.

00:29:13.640 Right. Exactly. You know, it's, you know, lacking in some of those other elements.

00:29:19.520 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's Howie. I mean, I, again, I, this might've been an

00:29:23.100 unconscious thing, but I, I, I think it, it might've been quite conscious. It's Howie.

00:29:27.660 It's, it's about the how. It's about the mechanism and the reason. It's not about

00:29:31.880 the, the what or the, or the, the, the whence or the, you know, the why and all,

00:29:37.200 all these like the grounding of something. But yeah, I mean, that, that is like the,

00:29:43.380 the, the irony of it. And, and I don't know. I mean, I think if, if Christianity is 0.59

00:29:48.200 going to survive in the 21st century, it probably will survive in, in, in a primitive

00:29:55.380 form that I think most, most Westerners would, would find embarrassing. I think it would

00:30:00.920 probably survive in this, in this kind of reduced, uh, primal emotional form that you

00:30:08.300 see, you know, it's in some places in America, you definitely see in Africa, uh, and so on.

00:30:14.680 Um, I, I think the kind of, you know, the, the, the high church Christianity, when it's,

00:30:19.140 when all it is, is about law and reason and order or something. Well, why don't you just

00:30:24.700 become a liberal? Yeah. Well, you know, cut out the middleman.

00:30:27.260 You know, it's an interesting question. I've, uh, I've talked to this, uh, with some

00:30:31.560 Christian traditionalists before. And, you know, the question becomes, you know, that

00:30:36.140 with the growth of, of Christianity in places like Africa and, uh, Asia, uh, and if you take

00:30:42.320 Christianity seriously, uh, you know, and you're convinced of its final victory. However, your, 0.86

00:30:49.880 your sort of civilizational status or your racist status doesn't really matter ultimately because,

00:30:56.700 you know, what we'll end up winning will be the spirit of all of man united, uh, united

00:31:04.360 in Christ at the end of time. So civilization and races can rise, fall and be destroyed.

00:31:11.220 But if you, if you care deeply about the West, about, you know, European-ness, uh, you know, 0.53

00:31:19.040 how do you go about preserving that in the face of all this at the same time?

00:31:22.320 Well, Christians are looking forward to the, to the end of, of this, of this earth, this 1.00

00:31:28.920 world. If they, uh, they're looking forward to it. So they don't, so, so they don't care

00:31:35.920 about, you know, uh, if they're, if they're Christians, well, we don't care if they're, if, 0.99

00:31:43.100 if all of Africa moves, moves to Western Europe or, or, uh, the Western hemisphere, if, if they're

00:31:52.340 Christians, all the better, but they're looking forward to this. Uh, so it's, uh, you can even 0.99

00:32:00.020 see this in, in cucks. And I don't, you know, I, I, you know, I, I, it's, it's interesting

00:32:06.100 because in someone like Eric Erickson, where they'll, they'll talk about these things,

00:32:10.700 like, you know, uh, if, you know, I don't want to support Donald Trump precisely because

00:32:17.820 he doesn't follow the, he doesn't follow the law. He doesn't truly believe in Christ as

00:32:22.420 I see it. And, you know, America doesn't matter to them at some level. Um, whereas, you know,

00:32:28.960 the, the real, there is something pagan to nationalism in the sense of being connected

00:32:34.700 to the soil, being connected to the people, being connected to history and a tradition

00:32:39.920 and this idea that you, you just, you defend this because it's yours. Well, I mean, we have

00:32:45.200 it's real and it's, it's not some supernatural thing. It's, it's a very, uh, people are real

00:32:51.860 nations are real. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have to remember, you know, one of the earliest

00:32:58.360 conflicts with the, uh, Christian church in the Roman state was whether or not a Christian,

00:33:04.040 you know, could just, uh, pay the sort of obligatory, um, you know, oblige to the, to

00:33:10.840 the state gods, which, you know, to, uh, to a pagan, it's just, it's, you know, sort of

00:33:16.740 a wave of the hand. Um, but to a Christian, you know, it requires a, uh, an acceptance of

00:33:22.420 something, um, of this world, which they cannot do to get back to the film. You know, maybe

00:33:27.500 we should talk a little bit about the music throughout the movie, which is just, uh, sort

00:33:32.240 of haunting in its own way. Cause this is another thing, the, uh, cause I was saying that the

00:33:37.440 film can't be categorized as genres because in another level, it's a musical. Yeah. It

00:33:43.300 has these, you know, these performances like in the, you know, in the, in the pub, uh, in

00:33:49.020 the green man in, uh, that, that where you have, you know, actor singing, it really feels

00:33:54.500 like a musical. I mean, the music is, is, you know, all throughout this movie. Um, and,

00:34:00.620 and it is like in the, in the music that you have these little bits of wisdom, like what

00:34:04.120 I was talking about, like when they were singing around the maypole, just this, this kind of,

00:34:07.540 you know, this notion of, uh, the great chain of being and rebirth and death and, and, and

00:34:12.740 so on. Um, well, the, the, when they're singing the innkeeper's daughter. Yes.

00:34:18.780 Even that I think is, is a, it's a good, it's a good song because it lacks the hangups about

00:34:27.260 sex. Like it's not, it's not about being, it's not about being totally debauched. I mean,

00:34:33.740 that's, that's in a way like the, the, the, just a photographic negative of puritanism is 0.99

00:34:39.420 to be, you know, some just polymorphous perverse, you know, lunatic who has sex with everything 0.99

00:34:45.980 and, you know, masturbates and blah, like that, that's this kind of, that's the kind 1.00

00:34:51.100 of like reverse side of puritan Christianity, which is being totally debased. Um, and, uh, 0.98

00:34:58.740 you know, and, and you can kind of, you can see this certainly, particularly in the old

00:35:02.960 Testament, there does seem to be something about this Semitic mind that, uh, imagines, uh, 0.99

00:35:09.160 a kind of sexuality that I, I think for most, uh, uh, for, for, for Europeans, 0.96

00:35:15.980 it's just totally alien and, and, and utterly, uh, disgusting and repulsive. But yeah, uh,

00:35:22.900 anyway, um, it is the innkeeper's daughter. I mean, it's, it's like, look, you know, maybe

00:35:29.320 the innkeeper's daughter isn't the most admirable person, but in every town there's an innkeeper's

00:35:35.300 daughter and, you know, she serves a certain purpose and she is in her way, a kind of goddess.

00:35:41.720 She's like a fertility goddess of sorts. And even, even the innkeeper's daughter should 0.98

00:35:48.060 be respected and, and honored in her, in her way. And I, you know, I, and I think it's

00:35:53.920 important just not to be hung up on, hung up on demanding that everyone be chased and

00:36:00.200 so on. Obviously paganism has a, a very strong place for, uh, heathen paganism is very strong

00:36:06.340 place for the family, for, uh, the social order and hierarchy and love and so on. Um,

00:36:13.140 but you know, we're human beings. I mean, you know, it's, it's like everyone has to go visit

00:36:20.200 the innkeeper's daughter once in a while, you know, remember, you know, the community has

00:36:24.100 to reproduce itself. And, you know, as, as Dr. Kerr was pointing out earlier, you know,

00:36:29.160 this is a homogenous community and within, you know, within a, within a group of your

00:36:34.720 own, you, you should be okay with, you know, uh, bring, you know, bringing on a legacy.

00:36:41.200 It's the way in which you have your own immortality in some sort of way.

00:36:46.000 Right. That, that's why like, you know, um, Rowan Morrison isn't dead. You know, she's,

00:36:52.240 she's a hair, she's in the trees, she's in the wind, you know, kind of thing. And, and

00:36:57.600 that, that might be poetic or you could say euphemistic, but it actually is, is like a

00:37:01.940 proper way of seeing life is that a tree is growing on your grave. Uh, but, uh, yeah,

00:37:11.260 I mean, like obviously sex is part of culture. I mean, it's, it's interesting that Sergeant

00:37:14.880 Howie is a virgin, um, you know, in his, I mean, the actor looks to be in his, well into

00:37:21.120 his forties. Um, I don't know if the character is supposed to be a little bit younger than that.

00:37:25.440 Well, even, even the opening scene is his, uh, where he's holding hands with his, with

00:37:31.220 his fiance and their communion. She's an, she's an older female, older looking female. She's

00:37:38.020 not a, a teen or even early twenties.

00:37:40.520 No, no. And you have to make issue. I mean, the world must be people. You, you, you can't

00:37:47.380 be saving yourself forever.

00:37:49.620 Right. Well, not only, especially for us at this late era of our people, we need

00:37:54.620 to, uh, you know, we, we, we need to, we need to, we need to people our continents.

00:38:00.760 Yeah, exactly. And, um, you know, we, we have a, uh, there is kind of like even a certain

00:38:06.180 kind of Puritanism amongst modern people where it's, uh, it's not pure sexual Puritanism

00:38:13.680 because obviously there's, we live in a hookup culture and so on. Uh, at this, it, but it

00:38:18.120 might as well be Puritanism because, but it's, yeah, it's a barren culture. It's, it's a 1.00

00:38:23.820 barren sexuality.

00:38:25.280 Yeah. It's basically people hooking up, but using condoms, uh, or, or sometimes some kind

00:38:31.220 of prophylactic, prophylactic and, and not making issue. And so you have, again, if you

00:38:36.840 ever go to New York city and you meet all these cute girls living in Williamsburg or 0.99

00:38:41.740 wherever, uh, you know, they, they're, they're, they're smart. They're often beautiful. Uh,

00:38:48.940 they're also, uh, 37 years old and they've never had a kid.

00:38:52.260 In that sense, our, our, our society today is profoundly aerotic, you know, erotic coming

00:38:58.760 from the original Greek for wholeness. Uh, we, we, we lack all, you know, we, we, we're

00:39:05.920 just barren. We're a void. We're aerotic in a lot of ways.

00:39:08.960 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's like the, the flip side of Puritanism is

00:39:14.780 not the, the green eroticism of, of paganism. The flip side of Puritanism is, is, is

00:39:21.520 perversity and debaseness where you're, you know, you're, you know, what is the, what

00:39:26.420 is the movie that comes out on, on, uh, Valentine's day this upcoming year? You

00:39:31.160 know, shades of, what is it? 15 shades of gray. Yeah. Like even darker, you know? So

00:39:36.920 it's all about totally non procreative, totally non organic and real, you know, S and M and 0.98

00:39:44.660 masturbation and just weird, you know, psychologically disturbed sex acts. Uh, it's, it's the kind 0.91

00:39:53.220 of sex that only a Puritan could love. Uh, you know, and again, you don't, you know, I, God, 0.98

00:40:00.500 sorry. I'm, I'm really, this is, this is meant to be a Halloween podcast, but it's become a

00:40:05.160 anti-Christian podcast, but it's like, there, there are many Christian ministers who are not

00:40:11.240 like this. Jerry Falwell, from what I've heard has, I've never heard major accusations of sexual

00:40:17.780 infidelity or impropriety, uh, and so on, as well as with his son, Jerry Falwell Jr., who

00:40:23.520 is supporting Trump, you know, uh, God be with him. Uh, however, are we really surprised

00:40:30.260 when we learn that this Puritanical minister was, you know, renting boys on some weird website

00:40:38.860 and doing meth? Were we really surprised? Are we really surprised when this news comes

00:40:44.000 out? It seems to be only a matter of time. And again, it's an expression of a, of a malformed

00:40:50.700 sexuality. It's not an expression of a, of a healthy flourishing sexuality like we see

00:40:57.680 in Summer's Isle. Right, right. Well, you know, I guess if we can, if we can get a little

00:41:03.880 bit to the, uh, to the, to the horror nature of, of the film, which really comes there at

00:41:08.820 the end, uh, you know, as, as the villagers are singing, you know, Summer is a coming in that,

00:41:13.960 that great old folk song. We're, you know, not just, uh, Sergeant Howie, but the viewer

00:41:21.740 is really confronted with, uh, with life and death in a way that's very different than the way they

00:41:29.780 would go about seeing it, you know, in the modern world. Uh, you're, you're all of a sudden seeing

00:41:34.920 the giant wicker man, you're seeing it burn and you're like, oh my God, this is happening.

00:41:38.820 You know, you're not expecting it throughout this entire film. And then, well, even though,

00:41:43.540 even though we know the name of the film from the outset, we don't know what the wicker man is

00:41:49.440 and we see it, the view, the viewer sees it at the same moment that Sergeant Howie does.

00:41:55.120 Yes. It's very effective. It absolutely is. That shot of him. And actually not only is that,

00:42:02.160 there's another level to it. We see the wicker man, the very moment that the act were the actor,

00:42:07.180 Edward Woodward's season. Yeah. Uh, because there's actually one, one of these, uh, little

00:42:11.820 tidbits that I was, I was, I discovered actually after Googling the wicker man is that he actually

00:42:17.540 never saw the effigy until he was dragged up the hill. And so there was like a genuine sense

00:42:25.080 of surprise and shock and horror in his face. Yeah. We, we should talk about how, uh, you know,

00:42:31.360 the, the wicker man itself as a concept comes from Caesar's Gallic war commentary, uh, you know,

00:42:38.500 where he's talking about, uh, the various Celtic tribes he's conquering and the, uh, the wicker man,

00:42:44.560 uh, in, in Caesar's commentary was where they would execute, uh, various criminals and what have you.

00:42:51.080 As justification for invading, uh, Gaul, they, they spread these, these stories that they engaged

00:43:00.280 in human sacrifice and all, and maybe they did, but, um, the Romans certainly, uh, seized upon that

00:43:08.800 as an excuse, uh, this, this feigned indignation, uh, while they were, you know, slaughtering thousands

00:43:16.880 of people in the, in the arenas and stuff, these blood sports, but they were allegedly, uh, uh,

00:43:22.600 just shocked and, and, and they had to stamp it out. Right. Yeah. You know, you think of the sort

00:43:29.560 of atrocities attributed to the Germans and world war one and the like, you know, it's just same 0.63

00:43:35.460 sort of impulse. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I'm reminded of, you know, Americans feeling that

00:43:41.720 they had to spread democracy to Iraq because of some of these tales, tales, which some of which

00:43:46.980 might've been true. I, I'm sure many of which were totally untrue. Uh, Madeline Albright saying,

00:43:51.880 oh yes, it's, it's, that, that 500,000, uh, what was it? Iraqi children or Iranian children,

00:43:59.320 whoever we had, had, had, uh, uh, uh, uh, we're boycotting. Oh yes, it's worth it.

00:44:06.840 Yeah. Well, she was making a blood sacrifice of sorts of those children. I mean, in a way that

00:44:12.100 was the symbolic content of that very famous phrase where they said, is it worth it? Are

00:44:16.160 these sanctions worth it? This is before the Iraq war. Are these sanctions worth it? If, um, we we've,

00:44:21.400 we've learned that there's starvation of, you know, some million children or something. She was like,

00:44:25.180 yes, it is worth it, which I guess she, she has to say, but on a, on a deeper symbolic level,

00:44:30.160 that was her own blood sacrifice that she was making to her wicked God. She's no Caesar. 0.70

00:44:38.060 No, no, she's not. No, I mean, that is again, another element to this culture. I think there

00:44:43.140 is this, uh, you know, Dionysian and, and Apollonian, you know, conflict in throughout history. And,

00:44:52.100 uh, you know, Nietzsche articulated in that manner, but, but you can think about it in other ways,

00:44:58.180 but in some ways the Roman world was, was the kind of great big Sergeant Howie writ large.

00:45:04.140 And, you know, it was conquering these outer, uh, outer lands, this outer wilderness. And,

00:45:11.340 you know, again, it's, it's like with Conrad, I mean, this, this too was once a dark continent. I

00:45:15.640 mean, the, the old Britain was, was something, uh, much more primitive and dark, but then also much 0.93

00:45:22.820 more rooted and, and, and organic than the, uh, the, the, the, you know, the kind of decadent

00:45:29.700 empire that Rome was becoming. Um, uh, you know, uh, obviously the, uh, the modern Britain has,

00:45:38.400 has taken on the Sergeant Howie mentality in spades to a point where he needs to have a little bit of

00:45:44.140 the more Dionysian wisdom. Oh yeah. Um, you can imagine his, uh, his, his descendants going about

00:45:50.640 shrieking, shrieking about anti PC digressions in modern Britain or doing something like we have 0.82

00:45:57.060 to ban this Richard Spencer from coming. Yeah. We have to ban racism and, and, uh, uh, yeah,

00:46:04.940 I can imagine a Sergeant Howie of 2016 going into the, you know, the traditional Britain group or

00:46:10.020 something like racist heathens. There's, there is racism in this Holy, on this Holy place.

00:46:15.720 It is being defiled. Do you not understand that you live in a politically correct culture?

00:46:21.180 You know, kind of, uh, kind of thing. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, it's, it's definitely there.

00:46:25.320 I think, I think the, the, the way I've always seen it is that you need a little bit of both.

00:46:29.600 You need some Apollonian and you need some Dionysian, uh, to be a full human being. And if you have

00:46:35.640 one or the other, you lose yourself and you've become perverted. I mean, if you, if you have no

00:46:41.120 reason, if you have no law or you, you have no, uh, you know, spirit of, of, of, uh, of, uh,

00:46:49.700 of scientific inquiry or something, then you do become, you know, the, the, the stereotype of a

00:46:55.660 hippie. You, you become too organic. You become just, you know, root too rooted. You, you, you lose

00:47:01.700 yourself in, in, in, in, you know, ignorance and imbecility and so on. At the same time, 1.00

00:47:08.900 if you totally evacuate the Dionysian from your life or from your culture, you, you also 0.98

00:47:15.700 lose that like deeper folk wisdom and that, that you, you lose that spirit that makes you

00:47:21.660 a human being. Uh, so yeah, I mean, I, I think that's, that's, uh, definitely the lesson.

00:47:28.920 You draw on that sort of horror aspect a little bit, uh, not just the horror aspect, but the sort

00:47:34.360 of, uh, strangeness you feel with the wicker man. When you're watching a lot of these scenes,

00:47:39.180 it's almost like you're, you're seeing the world around you, but everything's a little

00:47:43.380 bit off. Uh, you know, Sergeant Howie is sort of initiated into the paganism of the island

00:47:48.420 slowly in that way, but not just for Sergeant Howie, but for someone that's even a secular

00:47:55.000 humanist or someone who rejects religion altogether, the sort of world they're peering

00:47:59.580 into just seems slightly off. And, you know, you don't really understand why. And that's one of the

00:48:05.720 things that's so intriguing about this film is that there are so many moments like that. You know,

00:48:09.800 we've talked about the graves, the teacher and everything else, but you're, you're like,

00:48:14.200 you're peering into a world that's almost your own, but slightly tweaked.

00:48:18.400 Yeah. They're wearing masks. I mean, I think that's also another interesting thing where

00:48:24.140 Howie's like, take off that mask. Uh, but, uh, anyway, uh, so what are you guys doing for

00:48:33.160 Halloween? How I've noticed Halloween in modern America has become, it's, it's basically like

00:48:41.240 all holidays with maybe the exception of Christmas. They just become excuses to go

00:48:48.140 out and get drunk and maybe pick up a girl. Although the real Halloween has, I would say

00:48:53.100 a deeper meeting. Uh, it's obviously like it's a, it's a harvest festival and, and even in the kind

00:48:59.800 of Gothic aspect of Halloween, it's a way of experiencing death about, uh, and, and confronting

00:49:06.500 death in some ways. So, um, bobbing for apples is obviously like a, it's a, it's a, that, that's

00:49:12.180 some, I remember doing that as I was a kid. That's some kind of like deep connection you have

00:49:16.080 with Halloween. Yeah. But whenever I, you know, whenever I peruse Facebook or something

00:49:20.580 like that, it seems like where I, I've been in big cities for Halloween a couple of times,

00:49:24.600 it just seems to be girls, uh, dressed up like sexy versions of superheroes. That seems 0.92

00:49:31.180 to be a common theme, sexy cats.

00:49:34.100 No, uh, something, something I was thinking of because, uh, I spend a lot of time in a resort

00:49:41.480 town and, and we see lots of, uh, and, and also there are a lot of weddings here in the

00:49:48.480 summer and, and something that struck me, uh, watching the wicker man again is just the,

00:49:54.360 the physical appearance of all the people in, in, in the, the community. They were all healthy

00:50:00.980 looking, even though the aged, the, the, the elders, they were still healthy elders. Whereas

00:50:07.340 something that just struck me this summer, hiking around the marina where they have weddings,

00:50:13.680 uh, wedding parties and, and whatnot, hiking around there with my dog, seeing all these fat 0.94

00:50:21.520 people, young people, fat chicks, fat guys. And, and it struck me, you know, there's nothing 0.87

00:50:30.420 appealing about any of these folks. Yeah. And, and I thought, you know, but, but looking at the

00:50:41.800 fit, looking, looking at Summer Isle in the whole community, the various age groups, they all looked

00:50:48.340 healthy. Yes. They were appealing looking people. Um, when I was in Amsterdam a few months ago,

00:50:59.000 one of the things that, that you, you, you noticed is that the, if you see fat, fat young females, 1.00

00:51:06.980 almost without exception, they're British or American tourists. 0.85

00:51:11.000 Hmm. Uh, I, unquestionably, I, I, uh, I had the displeasure about, it's a little bit more than 10

00:51:19.540 years ago now, going to this, uh, Northern, uh, English town to, to visit a friend of mine. And,

00:51:25.740 uh, the, the, it was a Friday night and the, it really did prove that all of those images you see

00:51:34.240 on the dredge report, like it's all true. It's happening. You're just these, you're on the fat

00:51:38.960 shore. Yeah, exactly. The Jersey shore of, of, uh, of England. It was just these, these fat,

00:51:46.980 drunk women, you know, loudly screaming or like just vomiting as if you're sneezing. You know, 1.00

00:51:53.920 it's like, it's not even a problem for them, just vomiting somewhere, uh, crying, uh, acting and,

00:52:00.000 you know, acting in some just utterly vulgar manner with a, with a man, uh, dressed in just the most

00:52:06.660 appalling outfits. You could think fat women, almost like showing off their midriff. 1.00

00:52:11.740 In, in, in many, in many skirts, fat women in many, fat, fat chicks in these gauzy, uh, uh, 1.00

00:52:19.420 wedding costumes that they'll wear once, but gosh, they're just, uh, yes, it is, uh, it is, uh,

00:52:29.000 it is quite an appalling, uh, sight to behold. Um, but that's, uh, that's where we are as a culture.

00:52:35.480 Yeah. And it doesn't seem to be as bad and, and, and, you know, other parts of, uh, of the world.

00:52:42.440 Like I remember Halloween growing up, you know, I was, I was brought up, uh, as a Catholic and,

00:52:48.080 you know, go to all souls day and everything, you know, so you think about the dead a little bit,

00:52:52.840 the sort of turning of the season. I always sort of liked that aspect of it, of it all. I,

00:52:58.300 I'll probably go visit some sort of graveyard or something, uh, before the time is done,

00:53:03.840 you know, maybe, maybe drink some wine and toast to the dead while there.

00:53:10.580 I like walking through graveyards. I might have to do that this Halloween.

00:53:14.460 Yeah, no, it's, it's a weirdly, uh, comforting thing to me at least.

00:53:18.720 Yeah, absolutely. On this grave, there is a tree.

00:53:24.020 And hopefully from that tree sprouts a renewal.

00:53:28.060 Yeah, absolutely.

RadixJournal - November 02, 2016

Cult Classic

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