Rival camps

Some things keep you up at night. In the universe of Kubrick, and more specifically, the world of Eyes Wide Shut, we are bound to comes across more than a few such examples. Not that the detail in question actually keeps me up at night, or ever did, it being more of a metaphor for the feeling of an unexplored detail whose overall importance in the narrative could be considered more than marginal. 

The scene in question occurs during the "day-in-the-life" montage, which shows Bill going to work, and Alice and Helena going about their daily routine (this includes grooming, wrapping presents, eating breakfast, etc). Alice is guiding Helena as a mother would be expected to do. It could be assumed that Helena is on holiday break from school, given the Christmastime theme. But, we should reconsider a word I just used: grooming. I.e., grooming is what they are doing, but, it is also what Alice is doing to Helena. This meaning of the word also has a darker connotation which, as we can currently see, the media tends to ignore or, hold in ironic contempt - as if such things really happened. But sadly, they do. Or, simply, "they do." As the world saw (or didn't see) with Epstein, and later, Maxwell, there can be no question of the dark powers preying on the wealthiest individuals in the world. Kubrick and Eyes deep-divers are surely already well-acquainted with speculation about Alice's dark-horse dynamic. This may shed light on the exegesis that follows. 

Alice and Helena are seated at the dinette table; Alice is reading a newspaper, and Helena is eating breakfast and watching Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales. I began to fixate on the question of which newspaper Alice was reading. This scene happens twenty-one minutes into the film, at the beginning of what I dub the "Rockwellian" montage (after Norman Rockwell's twin works Day in the Life of a Little Girl, and, Day in the Life of a Boy, c. 1952). I think of this artist and his particular work for a few reasons: first, because Kubrick is also commenting on traditional roles of men and women; second, because he is subtly inverting these roles; third, because the routine of their daughter Helena bridges the gap between child and adult, and speculates about modern theories like nature vs. nurture. Also, it registers at a personal level: one wall of a doctor's waiting room in childhood was furnished with reproductions of this modern diptych. There was something somber about it. This mood, I think, connects to Bill's office and waiting room, both of which are furnished with reproductions of expressionist, impressionist, and academic art works. This sets a strange and maybe ironic tone. 

There's also a storybook-ish, fantastical, and fantastically-deceptive atmosphere which characterizes the film as a whole. This fits with the linear, idealized Day in the Life tableaux. But Kubrick uses this only to the end that it can be inverted, not to mention that its chronological location is dubious. This "montage" enters the film after twenty minutes of footage which surely could lead us to doubt whether Bill and Alice are truly in love. In fact, the montage would seemingly make for a good overall introduction to a different kind of movie entirely. There's a "recut" trailer which imagines a PG version of the film on Youtube, and Shostakovich's "Waltz No. 2" provides a similar feeling. 

Kubrick employs the same trickery when Ziegler, coded via Sydney Pollack to be Jewish, says "Merry Christmas!" Are Bill and Alice Christians? Are the Zieglers? Is the party in any way celebrating Christmas? As atheists and other critics would point out: Christians appropriated a Pagan tradition some time in the Middle Ages. This is partly true. But, similarly, the atheists and critics would be wise to criticize a commercial, consumerist culture which appropriated the tradition of gift-giving which dates from St. Nicholas, the 3rd century Greek bishop who gave presents to orphans (and later became appropriated as Sinterklaas/"Santa Claus"). Considering the "star of Ishtar" wreaths at Ziegler's mansion that couldn't be more pregnant with notions of pagan worship, scandal, and sacrilege (even in the context of orthodox Jewish belief, as Baal, Ashtoreth/Ishtar, and Moloch are false and foreign idols that insult Yahweh), we have a subtle inversion of Christmas, Holiday, and Worship.

But, back to the topic at hand. The montage (which also breaks the cinematic rules of "montage" and is in itself an inversion of "filler," offering us vital clues to the narrative) feels cold and out of place. The montage is comprised of eleven shots, the last of which transitions back into the film's "real" or "lived" time.

Bill exits the elevator and enters the office. The scene cuts to Alice reading the newspaper with Helena at the table. Maybe this is gender neutral. But I tend to read this actually as masculine - not to make this whole thing about that dreadful word, "gender:" Alice seems more like a tired father who puts the kids in front of the TV so that he doesn't have to engage with them. Yet Alice is reading, or appearing to read, while Helena is entertained with a small television playing Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales. Consider, again, the dissonance of the Jewish-founded Warner Bros. (also Kubrick's main production company) catering to a majority white Anglo-Saxon Protestant audience. Or, the title itself, "Looney Christmas Tales," which might reflect a cynicism and mockery of Christian belief. None of this can be ruled out, though it isn't central to the topic at hand.

So I delved deeper into the very short clip during the "montage" and was able to identify the article title seen above. "Rival Camps Hold Rallies In Serbia." The article (from the Associated Press) appeared in the Friday, November 1, 1996 issue of the New York Times. My guess is this scene was shot in 1996 around the time of November or December. Regrettably, I paid for a trial subscription of NYT to read the contents of the article. But all was not lost: I was also able to scour the entire paper, just for fun. 

One interesting and maybe obvious thing to note before going too far into this exegesis is that the paper Alice is reading is not visible from the screen. I was able to verify via the NYT archive that the pages on the table are accurate. The "Rival Camps" article is on page A3. This page is facing out, so, Alice is looking at A4, on the opposite side. This is interesting, given that it is difficult to make out the page that is visible to us, as if concealing something which is already concealed. 

The bulk of A3 is seen above, and A4 is pictured below. The large article on A3 concerns Scottish independence. It's difficult to not imagine a possible allusion to the Scottish Rite and Freemasonry. Alice seems to be reading the article on A4, "Writer's Message to Those Who Trashed His Work." This article is about the Indonesian dissident writer, Pramoedya Ananta Toer. His library was burned after Suharto's military dictatorship ascended in the 1960s, purging the country of communists and suspected communists alike. Toer was imprisoned for much of his adult life. I have some thoughts about this: first, the title of this article obviously mirrors the subject of Kubrick and his work. A Clockwork Orange was banned in the UK shortly after it played in theaters. Full Metal Jacket was deeply subversive. Eyes Wide Shut was no box office hit (and clearly, has inspired skeptics for more than two decades). Kubrick was not to live to see the response to Eyes as he died shortly after completing the film. Some articles I've found in the summer 1999 issues of the NYT mention controversy over allowing the film to be considered "R" rating without removing or altering some of the explicit orgy scene. One article mentions the controversial material is only sixty-five seconds of footage. 

The bottom article, "Nepal Storm Hampers Search for a U.S. Couple" talks about a couple hiking in Nepal at Shey Phoksundo National Park. The bodies of Philip Fialkow, who was dean of University of Washington School of Medicine, his wife, and three sherpas were indeed later found. This disappearance maybe mirrors Nick Nightingale's disappearance - Fialkow and Nick are both from Seattle. The patterns seems to spell danger for Nick. 

Finally, we should consider the title phrase that enabled my search: "Rival Camps Hold Rallies In Serbia."

 

Slodoban Milosevic, president of Serbia and later, Yugoslavia, was accused of war crimes in 2002 for his killings of Bosnian muslims, Croats, and Kosovar people. He was actually exonerated in 2016, ten years after his death in prison. Here's the smoking gun for this entire post: Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, was called the "Red Witch" and "Lady Macbeth" by her many opponents. It is thought her devotion to Communism largely influenced Milosevic's actions as president. It happens that Alice and Helena both have strawberry blonde, "ginger" hair, as well as Domino, Sally, and Mandy. We have a possible reference to a woman (and/or women) pulling the strings of her husband. We also see a strange red figure on the wall above the TV in this scene.

What else? Well, obviously, there is a parallel between "Red Cloak" and "Red Witch." The Red Cloak at Somerton is male, while the "witch" is female. Red Cloak seems to be in charge of the activities at Somerton. We can say Red Cloak is powerful, or, at least appears powerful. The double-headed eagle on Red Cloak's throne ties back to Freemasonry, to Russia, to Germany, Albania, to the Byzantine Empire, to the ancient Hittites. The ubiquity of the symbol amplifies its mysterious character. 

Similarly, The Red Witch seems to have been powerful. Threats are issued at Somerton, just as atrocities were committed under Milosevic/Markovic's watch. I've written about the Stalker character at the end of the film. He is also seen at the jazz club where Nick's band is playing. This connection between "jazz" and the "stalker" also may point to Shostakovich's "Jazz Suite No. 2," which plays at the introduction, during the montage, and at the final credits. The Russian composer narrowly escaped exile and persecution - God knows why - when so many other artists in Stalin's Soviet Union were shown no mercy. It is said the composer was paranoid throughout his life. The piece used in Eyes is hardly representative of the composer's trademark dissonance. Listen to his fifteen string quartets, or fifteen symphonies, for textbook examples of discord, polyphony, and a general mood of anxiety and angst. Anyways. This, merely to suggest that Markovic's later exile in Russia paints a picture of deep Russian-Communist ties. It is well-known that all Communist parties across the world ultimately take their directives from Moscow. 

The second half of the article also holds some interesting clues 

That the USA and Germany were considered by Milosevic to be "the world's darkest powers" sheds light on Kubrick the man, his German wife, and his films. Of course, Milosevic is also to be understood as a warmonger and Communist propagandist, whose words foreshadow those of deceptive autocrat Putin. Entering the KGB in 1975, Putin transitioned to politics in the 1990s, serving over eighteen years (four terms) as president, not to mention two single-year terms as prime minister. The civil war in Ukraine exemplifies the Janus-headed nature of Russian foreign policy, invading and waging war on innocent civilians on the one hand, while maintaining that it is Russians who are under attack, on the other. As for Kubrick's pictures, Paths of Glory is set in France during the First World War, when Russia, Italy, Japan, the UK, France, and the US were allied. In the wake of the Second World War, it's interesting to consider the geopolitical changes: an independent Austria is annexed by Nazi Germany (also called "Anschluss"); Poland is dominated by Germany and Russia; Hungary and other Eastern European countries are lured into fascism; Fascist Italy and Japan stand with Germany; France, the UK, and Nordic countries resist Nazi invasion; etc., there are probably books about all of this. And then, with Nazi Germany demolished, the US and Russia become engaged in a Cold War. 

The Shining features symbolism with clear links to Nazi Germany (the meat cooler; Adler typewriter), while also suggesting the American elite to be corrupt. Full Metal Jacket all but condemns the US military, particularly in relation to the Vietnam War. As for Eyes Wide Shut, Schnitzler's novella was written in German; the USPS "eagle" appears many times begging the question of dubious origins. Furthermore, Eyes showcases New York as a symbol of America, with Bill as the symbol of American men, and his name as an obvious reference to the dollar bill. "Dollar," in fact, comes from the German "daler" or "thaler," dating to the 16th century. 

Austria-Hungary wanted to destroy Serbia, and Germany provided the empire with financial backing. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo, in nearby Bosnia. The Rainbow costume shop owner, Milich, is played by Rade Serbedzija, who is Serbian, and the character seems to be coded as "Eastern European." The music playing at Somerton was taken from a Romanian Orthodox liturgy and played in reverse (by Jocelyn Pook) to demonic effect. We could also mention that the mythical vampire hails from Transylvania, in Eastern Europe, and that many other vampire myths have existed in the Balkans. Elizabeth Bathory herself was a Hungarian noblewoman whose alleged deeds are chilling. 

Eyes Wide Crossed

Jokes aside, I created a diagram a few years ago when I started seriously analyzing Eyes Wide Shut. It helped me visualize the narrative arc of the film, which I realized was chiastic in form. I also considered the "arc" to be inverted; the climax is actually a descent. More on this later. It took me probably seven or eight viewings to grasp the fact that Bill re-visits many specific places in the second half of the film. It isn't perfectly symmetrical or anything, but it is more rather than less. Kubrick masterfully disguises or cloaks the scenes in familiarity, confusing the viewer. Clearly, as the Kubrick obsessives well know, the Rainbow is across the street from the Sonata Cafe, creating a bizarre time/story hole when Bill takes a taxi to the costume shop. It is too glaring to be considered accidental. An alternate explanation might have something to do with quantum physics and single entities existing in disparate locations. But that's as far as I'll go here. Far more significant is the basic contradictoriness of the Rainbow being "there" and "not there," because the same storefront is altered and disguised for other sequences in the film. In a way, this one city block is where "it all happens." 

Anyways, the fact remains that, to a large extent, Eyes Wide Shut follows a chiastic structure. This is what this post was intended to discuss. "Chiasmus" means "crossing." Chiasmus is used not infrequently in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments. The general idea is that if I say "1, 2, 3," then I must finish my statement by saying "3, 2, 1." In other words, the elements are symmetrical. In poetry, this may mean certain words or certain concepts are mirrored, beginning, middle, climax, and end. In film, and in Eyes especially, we see this in myriad ways. Analyzing the chiastic structure in the film is something I have largely abandoned due to time constraints and competing critical perspectives of greater interest. This analysis would probably take years. Unlike films such as Memento, that seem to follow a reverse chronological narrative and probably chiastic structuring, and seem to be made to be picked apart by critics, Eyes is deceptively simple to the point of being opaque or dull. It answers its own questions and leaves the viewer withdrawn and excluded. Until you start watching it. 

I did manage to begin one spreadsheet which attempted to note the major chiastic scenes, and their beginning and end times. From this point, the problems start. Where to begin? Consider: colors, words, sounds, tempos, settings, character emotions, etc. There is no simple way to categorize the artistic variables which are potentially mirrored in chiastic structure in Eyes Wide Shut. Shot by shot analyses such as those from Kearns are invaluable tools. But offering a neat or clean symmetrical, chiastic analysis is bordering on impossibly complex. Insert: Charliekellypepesilviameme.jpg. I can only imagine that Kubrick was the kind of mad genius who thought about these things and actually made great use of them. Below is the not totally accurate diagram.

 

For one, I decided to add an additional pair of scenes when working in the spreadsheet: Bill and Alice in bed. The couple in their bedroom is repeated twice, if not more. But, this depends on the idea of shot vs scene. Kubrick sometimes makes a scene out of dozens of shots, such as in the billiards room scene. Or, he may use a tracking shot or simple pivots to capture an otherwise significant scene. I wanted to take a "macro" view if possible, and note the general setting, since the specifics can be mesmerizing.  

So, whereas the first picture has only eight paired scenes, meaning sixteen total, a more accurate reading suggests nine paired scenes and eighteen in total. I admit I am biased towards the numbers 9 and 18, as both appear in Eyes as well as 2001, and possibly in others. But I would challenge the critic to find other major pairs or doubles. Once you start looking for doubles, they tend to multiply. Scenes that don't seem to have obvious doubles I've numbered as ".5," suggesting they are fractions within the "whole" order of scenes which have perfect doubles. I.e., the pairing of Bill and Domino and Bill and Sally is a great example of obvious duality, the former occurring before the midpoint, and the latter occurring after. The "singular" scenes I also numbered past 9, up to 15. Bill sitting in Sharky's cafe drinking a cappuccino doesn't have a double, unless we count Bill sitting in Gillespie's cafe, drinking coffee. The problem here is that this "doubling" occurs after the midpoint of the film, which creates the problem of asymmetry. Maybe this isn't a problem, though. It could, I admit, be read as a fraction within a fraction. I.e., like trying to measure a shoreline. One has to measure the rocks, and then account for the tide, etc. There's no absolute perimeter of an island, just as there is no absolute circumference of a bagel. A more accurate measurement relies on more accurate data. When you measure more accurate data, you gather more metadata. The initial measurement then becomes obscured by the fact of metadata and subsequent meta-metadata, casting great doubt on the notion of "measurement." The logical conclusion of this is probably relativism. Big numbers speak to small things, and small numbers to big things. Natura maxima miranda in minims, I was reading: nature is the greatest in the smallest things.

If Zeno's thought were any help, it might suggest that Bill "started" in the film like Achilles, trying to overtake the hare, only to realize that each moment moving forward created a new distance making it impossible to "overtake" the hare. The "hare" would be many things: Ziegler, Somerton, Alice, Nick, Domino, Sally, the Rainbow, etc. Bill seems to be racing against the entire world. While I wouldn't conclude that motion is impossible because of our necessarily traveling "infinite" spaces every time we take a step, I would say to the contrary that we cannot accurately quantify our own movements, that we cannot quantify time, and that these are interdependent entities. The arrow traveling through space does occupy a certain space-time, but, we cannot know what it is to be an arrow. We can only observe. Maybe the arrow possesses an experience of space-time, or maybe not. Maybe nature experiences space-time, or maybe not. These are theological and metaphysical issues, not scientific issues. Therefore we make abstract generalizations about its movement via language. I think it reasonable that Bill is having thoughts and memories that mirror each other, and that these are "speeding up" by the end of the film, paradoxically so, maybe. But this, too, is speculation. A good critic would look at the evolution of the false "flashback" imagining of Alice and the Sailor in Cape Cod having relations. The action accelerates each time the flashback comes, and, it is shorter or longer in duration. Again, haven't looked at this in depth, but suspect that there's doubleness to be found here too. 

On the initial infographic - I haven't included pictures or completed a deep analysis of the chiastic structure yet. When I noticed it, I immediately created the graphic. The locations may be too specific; for example, Bill is at Ziegler's after the first scene. B and B2 could simply be labeled "Ziegler's" to simplify this. Ziegler's billiards room then might be a secondary specific location which mirrors Ziegler's bathroom, a secondary location in "B." But, like I said, this level of detail can only be accomplished with a spreadsheet and likely hundreds of hours of work. Which I'm not sure I want to do. One reason I might not want to is simple: consider that I placed Red Cloak/Somerton at a low point, representing evil, and the underworld. Now, this also means that Bill's "ascent" returns him only to the same "plane" he was before. Maybe it's ignorance, maybe it's his being deceived by people he knows and loves. It's uncertain whether he has learned anything. I can't help but wonder whether the chiastic structure connotes the cross and the idea of persecution. I also can't help but see that, for the viewer, Somerton should actually be at a high point, as it more or less symbolizes the climax of the film in the middle. Maybe the billiards scene is the climax, but it merely points directly back to the center of the film and hence, the conflict: Somerton. In this way, we can also elevate Somerton. 

Sadly and strangely, this reveals some clues regarding the extent to which Freemasonry (or other secret societies) is being alluded to in the film. Seen this way, literally, we have the idea of an inversion taking place. In the film, the feeling is very much linear without depth or height; the ambiguity and aesthetic tone remains very consistent. But, reading the story, considering the "depths" to which Bill falls, I think we can see the halfway point as an absolute low point. The sad irony is that, for these societies or groups, run by the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, as is suggested by Victor, this is the high point. I think of the words in Philippians 3:19: "Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things." Mostly, the last two lines speak volumes about false or idolatrous worship, about disordered devotion. 

But man is not an end in himself. Masons may disagree. Secular humanists may disagree. Atheists may disagree. Malthusians and climate hysterics may disagree. And this, too, is the point. The point is materialism. Matter as the only certainty, and this one certainty elevated irrationally to the end of deification in the setting of the occult. Yet, we have to be careful here, too. Kubrick may have shown us the occult, be he also showed us the cult. Cult is public, unlike occult, which is kept hidden. The real puzzle here is deciphering what is cult and what is occult. Unsurprisingly, this is difficult to do, as the premise of Eyes so often seems to be that the cult is actually occult, and the occult is cult! Again, this may lead us back to the idea of inversion, of high and low, "as above, so below," as certain occultists say. 

I also can't help but notice the weird black and blue shadows on the wall above the stairs. The wall basically a down-pointing triangle positioned directly above an up-pointing stairway. In the same way as my experimental diagram, we seem to have a crossing of "above" and "below." 

The masonic logo incorporates a triangle and an inverted triangle. Imagined this way, we would see a Star of David in this logo.

And in this way, unhealthy conspiracy theories could abound. On this I can't offer much more, other than that these are some very curious notions that do not simply go away with the neutralizing of narrative chiastic structure. I.e., if we supposed that the story of Eyes has no climax, no descent, no ascent, then we could unsee the triangular form. But this would be unnatural, indeed, contrary to human intuition.

If we inverted the ascent and descent, we would see the above form. Notice that the "returns" do not happen exactly in order. But, it seems that "3, 2, 1" actually do occur in that order. It is important to note that the "toy shop" is not the Harford residence. But this all depends upon what we mean by "toy shop" and "residence," and "toy," and "holiday," and "gift," and "family," "marriage," "daughter, " etc. Again, Helena wants to watch The Nutcracker at home in 1., but is shopping for Christmas presents in a toy store in 1.2. So, this is a mirror, as one can imagine the Nutcracker dolls, the Christmas theme, etc. Again, with 2., we have "Ziegler's ball," which is a tongue-in-cheek way of saying "Ziegler's pool balls" when referring to the pool table in 2.2. The billiards table itself symbolizing Somerton, and the balls symbolizing the victims of the "magic circle," we realize that this is very much symmetrical insofar as the holiday ball was full of strange people, included a near-death, lust, etc. Ziegler's bathroom as 3 also involves an interesting transformation: when Bill is in the morgue in 3.2, Mandy is dead. Mandy is simply overdosed in 3, while Ziegler is there with them. In 3.2 Mandy is dead, eyes open, while Ziegler is absent. Bill is present both times. But, shortly after Bill leaves the morgue room, he receives a call from Ziegler. It's almost as if Ziegler needs to show his face. 

And I never thought of this before: Bill is attending to Mandy's body like Marion is attending to Lou's. The difference is that Marion calls Bill, but Bill receives a call from Ziegler. A topic for another post.

Mystical Maze

 

Dick Hallorann flies to Colorado once he senses or "shines" that bad things are beginning to happen at the Overlook Hotel. Dick calls his friend, Larry, who owns a gas station and auto-shop, asking to rent a Snow Cat. The telephone dialogue includes the following exchange. 

D: Hi Larry, this is Dick, Dick Hallorann.

L: Dick, how you doing? How's the weather down there?

D: I'm not in Florida, Larry, I'm calling from the Stapleton Airport.

L: What the hell you doing down there?

At first glance, there is little unusual going on here. But, maybe we notice that regardless of whether Dick is in Florida or at the Stapleton Airport in Denver, Larry refers to Dick's location as "down." "Down" is a vernacular term. It doesn't necessarily mean "south" or "below," but conveys familiarity. I seem to remember linguist John McWhorter speaking on a podcast about the word "down" as used in American Southern Black dialects, and how it denotes familiarity. But that's enough. We could also study the words "hell," and, "down." First, though Dick is in Denver, it's a long way to Durkin's garage. He says he is five hours away. Not to get sidetracked, but, we can note the number 5 which I took a bit of a deep dive into in the previous post. In the Book of Genesis, God creates animal life on the fifth day. Animal life is distinct from humanity, or, man, which is created on the 6th day. 5 is the letter "heh" or "e" in Hebrew: ה. And we can guess what follows: the association of Dick, a black man, with the idea of "animal." From a long view, we can see Africans as the more recent ethnic group afflicted by slavery. But even the Jews suffered centuries of slavery at the hands of Pharaoh (and, essentially all other ethnic groups on all continents at one time or another). 

We also have the suggestion that Dick is five hours from Durkin's garage, at which point he will be able to get the Snow Cat and ascend to the Overlook. 5, then, also symbolizes the Overlook, or, the Snow Cat, if the snow vehicle is thought of as an animal. The Overlook is Jack's lair, so, Jack-as-beast/bull becomes reinforced again by the number five. Dick's answer to Larry seems to be unconscious and natural; five is a number (like other odd numbers) used in design to stimulate the eye and to create interesting symmetries. It is also a number that is intuited naturally, supposedly because of human anatomy - the five fingers and five toes we have on each hand and foot. 

Dick has flown from Miami and is going to rent a car to get to Durkin's garage, from which point he will use the Snow Cat to drive up the snowbound road to the Overlook. This is a treacherous voyage - an odyssey of sorts - which could very well also insinuate the idea of wandering in a maze. It may be synchronistic or uncanny to suggest, as others have, that the car Dick drives is an AMC Matador. My primary source here is Idyllopus Press and IMDCb.org. I wouldn't have known, or suspected, this, had I not begun to read Kearns's (Idyllopus P.) review of Killer's Kiss (1955), Kubrick's first non-documentary feature film. Assuming the car pictured is in fact a Matador, then we have the association of Dick Hallorann with a matador, that is, one who fights and/or slays bulls. But, five hours isn't a mere estimate: it is fate itself, a sort of countdown for Dick. Now, it could also be argued that a sort of "metamorphosis" takes place after Dick arrives at Durkin's Garage. That is, Dick "becomes" an animal when he takes the Snow Cat. Also of interest is the fact that the Overlook is pictured as a mountain. Think of sacrifices, visions, and burnt offerings in the Bible - the Binding of Isaac by Abraham on Mount Moriah, Jesus Crucified on Golgotha (literally, Skull), Elijah on Mount Carmel, the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mt. Tabor, etc. Some of the most important events occurred on high places. Symbolically, the Overlook arguably borrows from the Judeo-Christian tradition. If Dick is transformed, then Jack also becomes a beast, or minotaur, that is, half man/half beast. 

I was compelled to read Kearns's review after observing some uncanny and unsettling symbols in the film which dovetail with nearly all of Kubrick's films. For my purposes here, I'll just note that the first title card in Killer's Kiss reads "A Minotaur Production." It almost seems too good to be true: a sort of dead giveaway to what the viewer is entering into - and I don't mean the world of Killer's Kiss, but, arguably the filmic fictional universe Kubrick spent his whole life creating. But, again, this topic is best suited for another post. Returning to the (definitely not Freudian) idea of Dick's odyssey, we can see from the shots of the runway, and from Durkin's Garage, that the weather resembles a frozen hell. 

A note on the name, "Hallorann." This nine-letter name (with the unusual double "n") is a rendition of "O'Halloran," an Irish/Gaelic surname (also with nine letters; Hallorann and O'Halloran would combine to be 9+9=18). The roots of this surname trace back to County Galway as well as County Clare in Ireland. A Wiki entry suggests the name means "stranger," or, "from across the sea," as this ancient family worked importing goods. This is an interesting choice for Dick's surname for several reasons. The prefix "Hallo-" recalls "hallow," as in the word "hallow," meaning saint, or, "hallowed," meaning something that is sacred. "Halloween" is a way of saying "All Hallows Eve," which is a Pagan-adapted Christian celebration of departed saints, martyrs, and all of the dead. From this, we have the association of Dick Hallorann with something sacred or saintly. He is, after all, murdered, or martyred (interesting that these two words are near-homophones) by Jack, or, the Overlook. And, this is a minor problem: who is the killer - Jack, or, the Overlook? Grady, I think, will shed some wisdom on this matter, which I will come back to shortly.

Another note on Dick's name as it relates to Kubrick's catalog: Redmond Barry, the grifter of "low birth," as his step-son, Lord Bullingdon, notes (again, the idea of "down"), later known as Barry Lyndon, hails from Ireland. Redmond is an outsider or "stranger" who also crosses the Irish Sea and the English Channel in his journey - O'Halloran/Hallorann would fit Redmond just as well. Philip Stone, who plays Grady, the caretaker, in The Shining, also plays Graham, who manages Barry's debts in Barry Lyndon. Graham/Grady are somewhat familiar names beginning with "G," and, Graham is something of a "caretaker" for Barry's failing estate/peerage. It may be a stretch, but it could probably be suggested that, just as Grady appears in Jack's imagination, only to become "real" once Jack looks in a mirror in the red bathroom, Graham appears in the film only when Barry seems desperate to escape from reality. The narrator tells us: 

Barry was now bound up in an inextricable toil of bills and debts, of mortgages and insurances, and all of the evils attendant upon them, and Lady Lyndon's income was hampered almost irretrievably to satisfy these claims. 

After these lines the camera cuts to a frontal shot of Graham which is emotionally neutral. From this introduction of Graham, the camera cuts to a shot of Barry, son Bryan, and a Labrador retriever fishing from a small rowboat in a pastoral river - a very English take on escapism. Like countless other shots in the film, the stillness of the scene mimics that of a painting. The scene looks dreamlike, as if taken from a Constable painting. The camera slowly zooms out to capture a complete landscape. The shot is about thirty seconds long. Most impressive probably is that the dog remains mostly still for the entirety of it, and, that there's a swan in the river in the background. Lastly, its possible that the river is the "mirror" in this scene, as a reflection of the boat can be seen in the water. This ties back somewhat to Jack (in red coat) looking into the mirror in the (red) bathroom after being confronted by Grady, the double of Graham.

In The Shining, the confusion of identities, reinforced by the presence of mirrors in the red bathroom, approaches its zenith when Grady states that Jack has "always been the caretaker." Grady says "I should know sir, I've always been here." Jack is clearly looking to the right of Grady, into the mirrors. The word "here" is problematic coming from Grady (or, more accurately, Jack's concept of Grady). It could refer to the mirror in which Jack is looking. I think, at first glance, we take it that he is referring to the Overlook. And this is fine, but, we arrive at some disturbing and complex ideas when we consider that Grady is confronting Jack. If Grady has always been "here" in the mirror image of Jack, then this is a final call to violence. Grady clearly addresses Hallorann and Danny, while Jack blames Wendy. In a sense, Grady is an image projected out from the mirror. At Jack's left, this could very well suggest the idea of an immoral, evil influence. What becomes disturbing is that this confrontation only arises when Jack looks into a mirror. In this way, Jack is his own worst enemy; his greatest evils are accomplished only when he first considers himself. This is disturbing: that the mirror arouses or reignites a homicidal persecution complex in the looker - at least, when it is Jack. Note that Wendy and Danny "see murder" in mirrors, but do not will it. 

We also have a delicate layering of facts and symbols that relate to the Jack/Overlook duality I mentioned earlier. If Jack has always been the Caretaker, is this role exclusive to the Overlook? This would mean that Jack, too, has always been here, like Grady says. And, again, if Grady in this scene is a projection (or reflection?) of Jack's imagination/will, then perhaps Jack wishes to believe that he has always been at the Overlook. Interesting also is that Grady is called Charles and Delbert in the film. Are there two Gradys? This confusion may point to the idea of family and offspring, or father/son. This parallels the Jack/Danny dynamic as well, except that Danny appears to want to escape the cycle of violence. Grady-as-Jack's-worst-self positions Jack as a sort of "captain" or "director" at the helm of the Overlook. And yet, we know Jack has had a violent past - his abstaining from alcohol while at the Overlook seems to induce psychosis, whereas, his abuse of alcohol led to a rash outburst of violence against Danny. So, Jack is violent regardless of his location. Whether or not the Overlook causes violence per se is unclear.  

Yet we have another connection: Clare Quilty, the shapeshifting villain played by Peter Sellers in Kubrick's Lolita, is a third link back to Ireland, County Clare, and the idea of a "stranger." Although Clare gives the impression of being an insider, he has multiple disguises, rendering his true identity a mystery. Also, "Quilty" is the name of a fishing village in County Clare. The word "Quilty" is taken from a Gaelic word "coillte" that means "forest" or "woods." "Quilty," of course, is related to "guilty" when it comes to Lolita. The next question is the relationship between "guilt" and "woods." I think if we look at Hallorann's first name, and remember the teddy bears of The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut, we can make some Freudian connections. 

Hallorann and Clare Quilty are two very different characters, of course. The contextual information ties the different films together, suggesting that these works all share a common language. Begin listening to dialogue in Kubrick's films, and it becomes clear that many, many times, words are chosen for their symbolic and connotative power. It is difficult to imagine researching the connections in a time before the internet - researching the films, the cast, and various contextual clues would be a task far more difficult than it is today. The ease of access to information from times near and distant may distort our reading, maybe, but, it could be said that Barry Lyndon is a very modern, relatable story equal parts coming-of-age, and family drama/tragedy. Likewise, The Shining, in a less direct way, uses contemporary familiarity to frame history, particularly, American history, but also world history. 2001 features similar universal themes - imagining the future, imagining interplanetary travel, etc., but also imagining the past, and the very distant past. 

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At first, Larry thinks Dick is calling from Miami, indicating that he thinks Dick is somewhere hot. Again, we have the word "hell," which will tie back to Miami. I mean, their NBA team is the Heat. But, Dick is in Colorado. Simply put, we have the idea of "hell freezing over" when Larry learns Dick is at the Stapleton Airport. Larry seems somewhat shocked by this information. Is Colorado the symbolic frozen hell Dick has unknowingly escaped into? I tend to think so. And, is hell a maze? It could be - it doesn't hurt that Dante's vision of hell is highly complex, gruesome, and labyrinthine. 

The Overlook itself is a "maze" inside of which Dick becomes trapped. Unlike Danny who re-traces his steps and hides from Jack within the hedge maze outside, Dick is not so lucky. Dick, then, has found the "beast" within the real maze, while Danny has evaded the beast in a symbolic maze. The best clue I have to support the idea of the hedge maze's unreality is the cut from Jack looking at the model maze in his Great Hall/writing room to an aerial shot showing Wendy and Danny walking in the middle of the maze. The camera zooms slowly, convincing us that Jack has a sort of omniscient eye (or third eye - like some kind of... beast). Also, interestingly, is that a zoom shot from an aerial view leaves a considerable amount of directional ambiguity: are we going downward, or are we going into, or through? Like the "stargate sequence" in 2001, the camera is zooming toward a fixed center point, creating a one-point perspective. It's almost a cliche except that it isn't.  

This directional or spatial ambiguity brings me back to the words "hell" and "down" which Larry uses when talking to Dick. Is hell a place we descend into, or, that we move through? Hell as imagined by Dante is somewhat labyrinthine, not unlike the strange labyrinths in the works of Kafka and Borges, whose stories Kubrick had been reading during the production of The Shining. The genius of the Overlook is that it becomes a maze, or labyrinth, almost from the instant we see it. After the Gold Room and Room 237, do we really want to know what's lurking in all of the hotel's many other rooms? 

The first image below is a fade from Wendy and Danny in the maze to Jack walking in the "Great Room" of the Overlook. There's a lot more going on in this shot I won't get to here. If Danny's three-wheel journeys aren't convincing enough, this fade surely suggests symbolic continuity between the literal maze and the Overlook. 

Jack walks over to the model maze and begins to look at it.

The subsequent shots build tension with the last shot ending with a slow zoom inward, towards the center. There are many mazes at play. First is the actual hedge maze. Second, there is a map of the maze just outside the maze. Third, there is a model of the maze - noticeably different from the map - in Jack's writing room. Fourth, there is the maze in which Jack sees Wendy and Danny walking. Clearly, the maze Jack sees is not the model maze. It also does not resemble the map of the hedge maze. But it does look realistic. Assuming it is the real maze, then obviously, Jack's vision isn't possible. Yet, there it is. The paradox of Jack's omniscience endures. 

There are some minor or major problems I will also address now, to get them out of the way. 

1. If Jack can see the maze, does Jack know where Danny is hiding when he is searching for him? It might be suggested Jack only sees the real maze when he looks at the model. But the initial cut from Jack to the aerial shot of the maze suggests Jack has omniscient abilities. 

2. Does the aerial shot represent Jack's imagination? If so, what kind of imagination does Jack have? There is nothing "imaginative" about the vision. It's impersonal and robotic - as if it were actually HAL who was looking. Films often use flashbacks or stylistically embellished cuts to suggest a character is imagining something personal. This makes it easy for the audience. Kubrick doesn't do this. The steady zoom is sort of like a crosshair - not a good sign. Wendy's red coat, some critics and viewers have noted, might resemble a drop of blood while the center of the maze appears to be the top of a pyramid - indicating sacrifice. So much is going on here it can be difficult to order the layers of symbols. 

3. If Jack knows where Danny is hiding, is Jack intent on self-destruction? If Jack won't be loved by Danny, then Jack will be feared by Danny. As Machiavellian as it sounds, we see Jack offer very polarized behaviors, either deep suspicion or deep love towards Danny. If Jack knows where Danny is hiding, then his searching is just a show, or "charade" to make sure Danny remains afraid. We can recall too that Jack's conversation with Grady hints at the idea that Jack is receiving secret and important information or intelligence about a conspiracy against him. Jack does seem guilt-ridden after his dream he confesses to Wendy about killing her and Danny and cutting them up. Or, is this a play to win himself some more time? But, maybe the guilt of killing Dick drives Jack to purge himself. I'm not convinced by this, because Jack seems unconsciously blood-drunk - he isn't speaking or thinking, but groaning and howling like a beast. 

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In other news, I was recently reading up on the former Stapleton International Airport. One of the last times I watched The Shining, I realized that Dick says "Stapleton" and not, "Denver Airport," or "Denver International," etc. This cued me in to consider the history - were there two airports, or, was Stapleton older? Both are correct. The Stapleton International Airport operated from 1929-1995, and before 1944 was called the Denver Municipal Airport. Like the current Denver International Airport, Stapleton was near the top of the list for busiest airports in the world. Due to space constraints caused by suburbanization and the growth of the flight industry, the Denver International Airport was planned in the 1980s, though the history of DIA is spotty at best. The DIA is about 17 miles northeast of Stapleton, which is about 7 miles east from Downtown Denver. DIA is about 25 miles from Downtown, which means it can be a bit of a drive to and from the city. At 52 square miles, DIA is the biggest US airport, at almost twice the size of the Dallas Fort-Worth Airport, which is a very large compound. 

Stapleton was named after Benjamin Stapleton, a man who held multiple government positions including two periods (five terms) as mayor of Denver (1923-1931, and, 1935-1947), as well as State Auditor. He helped establish the VFW after the Spanish-American War, in which he fought, and later had a hand in the creation of Red Rocks Amphitheater, Denver Civic Center, Denver Mountain Parks, and of course, the municipal airport. Stapleton was also to become a member of the Denver Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920s. As the Klan helped raise funds for his mayoral campaign, Stapleton made overtures to the organization. But this unity wouldn't last: in the nineteen-teens until about 1925, the Klan had considerable influence in Colorado civics, only to dissolve after legal troubles involving local Klan elites. The western state of Colorado was overwhelmingly white and protestant, and the message of the Klan took root, specifically targeting Jews and Catholics, as traditional southern blacks were seldom found in that arid mountain state (though there are stories of "freedmen" who came to Colorado and the mountain West). The degree to which Stapleton was involved in the group is not so clear, but, it is clear that he "renounced" the group's influence after 1925. The Klan in Denver was already experiencing a decline, so it seems that Stapleton was merely playing politics. 

Stapleton was a Democrat, but this doesn't mean the Klan didn't hold sway for Republicans - Republican Senator Lawrence Phipps from Colorado benefitted from the long arm of the Klan during the same time period. There are plenty of other examples - political party was of little importance when it concerned the interests of the Klan. Which, I guess, brings us to today: Stapleton's grandson, Walker Stapleton, has been sort of pre-cancelled for trying to scrub from the records his grandfather's maybe dubious moral character. This was in 2018, when he ran unsuccessfully on the Republican bill for Governor of Colorado. Walker has also served as State Treasurer, and is a second cousin of George W. Bush. Ironically, Walker might be one of the least threatening figures on the political right.

Most politicians with known ties to the KKK, it must be noted, were southern Democrats. And, of course, Lincoln, a Midwesterner and a Republican, who is credited with enacting the Emancipation Proclamation, virtually ending (or phasing out) slavery, was rewarded with a mortal gunshot wound. The ironies remain fascinating: these liberal and progressive ideas were coming from the then "right," while restraint and caution was being exercised from the "left." Of course, then, the "right" would have been the true "left," and vice versa. At least, until we expand the notion of "white supremacy" to mean segregation, hierarchy, economic and cultural separation, "one drop" laws, etc. The South at that time, in this way, starts to appear like a vestigial remnant of the British Empire, clinging to its old hegemony. It is only ironic that places like Colorado, Washington, and Oregon are current strongholds for liberalism and progressive policy, given their historic and current high concentration of white caucasian people, exclusionary laws, and white nationalist groups. 

After the Stapleton Airport was demolished, the area was developed into the eponymously named neighborhood. After the George Floyd riots of 2020, the year of absolute, perfect hindsight, residents voted to change the name from "Stapleton" to "Central Park." A small victory, I suppose.

Progress of Flight mural

I remember hearing about the Denver International Airport conspiracy theories shortly before flying there several years ago. Numerous facts highlight the unusual nature of the airport. The footprint of the airport is vast (as stated above, 52 square miles, which, coincidentally, is the reverse of the number of miles to the city center of Denver - 25). Supposedly, five buildings were constructed - and subsequently buried - for reasons unknown, meaning there are several navigable stories underground. There is a rail system beneath the airport, as well as a light-rail connection to downtown. There are surreal, apocalyptic, revelatory paintings by Leo Tanguma, a Mayan painter, inside the airport. There are "white peaks" on the airport roof - a Masonic connection - not to mention a dedication stone which mentions Freemasonry. There is a sculpture of a blue horse with red eyes called "Blucifer" (that supposedly killed the sculptor, Luis Jimenez, while it was being constructed) visible from Pena Boulevard. Driving on 470 through an introduction to the arid plains of the Denver Basin, the white peaks - and strange horse - appear as if out of nothing. From an aerial view, there are clearly four runways that form a compass - north, south, east, and west. It also resembles a swastika, which, long before the Third Reich claimed it, was a traditional symbol of peace and harmony in myriad ancient cultures across all major continents. 

Still, after having researched the stories of DIA, Stapleton, and the Klan, I only feel a mistrust towards any speculation. I should probably also mention the story of Alan Berg, the Jewish atheist talk radio host who was murdered in cold blood in 1984 by members of David Lane's white supremacist group The Order. Berg was working at KOA, an AM talk radio station in Denver, at the time of his murder. Upon arriving home and exiting his black Volkswagen Beetle, the gunmen approached and shot him twelve times. The motivation is disturbingly simple: his killers and their leader believed that Jews were evil and needed to be eliminated. The gunmen and co-conspirators were convicted, but, surprisingly, not for homicide - much less, murder. I begin to wonder about the concepts of law, liberty, and justice, in theory and in practice. 

This incident was several years after The Shining played in theaters. The VW beetle in Stephen King's novel, and the two beetles (yellow and red) in the film, become unlikely and unintended portents of hate-driven violence. It has long been noted that Kubrick changed the color of the Torrance's VW beetle from red - as it is in the novel - to yellow. He then stages a red beetle smashed by a semi-truck on the side of the interstate during Dick's long ascent to the Overlook - possibly a subtle way of shrugging off King's authorial control. These details only frame the Berg assassination more ominously. Berg's beetle was neither red, nor yellow, but black - seemingly, the color of void, finality, death. 

All of this in mind, I would like to know whether Kubrick researched much into Colorado state history, Denver history, and the status of the Klan in America during his lifetime while working on films like The Shining. 

Columbus lives; deal with it

Every reader - every Kubrick obsessive, buff, nerd, theorist, critic, etc. - would benefit from reading about some new findings straight from a true Kubrick dilettante. What are we waiting for? 

As a Lynch-obsessive might quip, "this is it." Yep - this really is it. Or is it? The viewer will notice two numbers on the sign left of the image. The number on top is 14, and the number below is 92. The establishing shot shows the hospital Bill enters in order to visit the morgue where Mandy is being held. 

The detail comes from this main frame. Notice that the three arches of the modern, oversize hospital arcade mimic the three ornate arches at the balcony of the great hall at Somerton where Mandy appears to "save" Bill. Also, notice the taxi. Notice the "do not enter / wrong way" sign above the taxi, as if suggesting "do not enter" the hospital. Notice the "one way" signs that direct traffic left, towards "1492." We think of chronology as happening from left to right - the traffic flow tells us otherwise: as the film progresses, forward action goes from right to left, backwards in time. The roar of traffic also insinuates a sort of hunger to return to "1492." This may just be a microscopic nod to Vico's circularity of civilization - decadence leads to barbarism before civilization can flourish again.  

There are arches everywhere at Somerton (and other interiors) and I think this fact makes the choice of hospital exterior obvious. Anyways, I'll just say it's coincidence that my next point also involves the number 3. 

Christopher Columbus. Kubrick was, perhaps, merely including the marginalia of incontrovertible facts to his pictures when he selected signs like "14/92," "STOP (CMB)," "Happy Holiday," and countless others. 

The Nina, The Pinta, The Santa Maria - but not the Rage Against the Machine song, "Sleep Now in the Fire." Or, maybe, that song, too, sure. Fourteen ninety-two. 14 is two 7s, which we see in the dual rainbows, and in "ZIEGLER" vs "HARFORD." 92 is seven less 99, like 1999. One four nine two. 1+4+9+2 = 16. Sixteen is four fours, or, two eights. 8+8, or, 4+4+4+4. Numerology kaputt. 

"88" is double infinity. Conquest x infinity? 1492. Christopher Columbus. The New World. America, and/or, the Americas. Amerigo Vespucci. Remember the model ship in Ziegler's billiards room he passes before several times. 

This is speculative, but some research shows that a model of the HMS Victory bears some resemblance to the model ship in Ziegler's room. The HMS Victory was built in the late 1700s and entered into the Battle of Trafalgar. Maybe this is wishful thinking; the ship in the shot may just be a ship. Victory would obviously echo "Victor" quite well. If anything, the ship ties us back to "1492," now, not to mention the man with Columbus-esque mask at Somerton.

This has been noted before, in connection with Ziegler's ship. The "1492" sign might just be the smoking gun. Black slaves, white slaves - the slaveries of the New World are manifold, and, we might speculate, have never truly "ended." Probably one of the only black characters in the film is a hospital orderly who allows Bill into the morgue. He has no lines. 

The many female characters walk a narrow path between identification as a person or as an object. Even in death, Mandy is arguably being objectified by Bill: her eyes open, the lifeless body appears as it may have when still animate. Her being is nothing in the absence of selfish, lustful men. She doesn't exist beyond the confines of her physical body. This is a "dire" consequence of a money-and-sex-fueled commodified neoliberal West. Maybe it's an extreme view, but we never know the full story of her death, not to mention, of her life. In fact it's summed up in one word: "hooker." Victor might just be an empty symbol of manifest destiny, colonialism, and continental grand larceny. 

Cursed by the Bell

When Bill makes his return trip to the Long Island estate, Somerton, we see him pass over Manhattan Bridge, the same bridge he crossed the previous night. This time, however, by day, we see some of the hi-rises of the Lower East Side in the distance. One building of particular interest is a former New York Telephone Company building, now the Verizon Building. It isn't the Verizon Building at 140 West St., but the other Verizon Building at 375 Pearl St. Both buildings were constructed for the New York Telephone Company, the former being completed in 1927, and the latter in 1976. 

It's the latter building we see in the background to the far left of the shot. 

 

375 Pearl St. is considered one of the ugliest and most dreaded buildings in New York City. It's utterly banal concrete construction has tormented inhabitants within and without the structure for years. It wasn't until the mid-2000s that construction began on the installment of new glass windows. Note that its completion in 1976 has some symbolic power - this was the year of the American Bicentennial, a year dedicated to the celebration of two-hundred years of American Independence. 

Another thing: the Bell logo frames the entirety of the brief (five seconds) shot. The cables of the bridge fall and rise delicately in this short passage of time, hinting at uneasiness. There's an insinuation maybe of seasickness. Bill is driving a car on a bridge over the sea (or, more accurately, the East River, a tidal estuary). To a lesser extent, it reminds us of the Sopranos episode, "Remember When," when (remember?) Tony takes Paulie for a suspense-filled boat ride. The shot is mimicking a rough tide - the camera is presumably planted on the deck of the boat, capturing its response to the sea's turbulence. Likely this scene is created using camera tricks. 

There are certainly camera tricks here, too, but far subtler. This brief fall and rise of the cable also continues (rising) when the shot cuts to Bill's face in the SUV. "Rising tensions?" Sure. We also see two separate transitions (taking the exit, and, arriving at Somerton) in which the SUV is shown from opposing directions. I take this as a hint at the ambiguity of leaving vs. arriving: leaving one place is the same thing as going to another place. When Bill arrives at the Nathanson's, for example, he leaves Alice. The same goes for his entire night - his journey is shaped by negation: not at home, not with Alice. The camera helps illustrate this: arriving at Somerton is leaving Manhattan. 

On the Wiki entry of 375 Pearl St., we find that the Bell logo was removed and the Verizon logo was added in May, 2002, a year after 9/11. What is the bell, again? Well, it's one letter off from "Bill," not to mention it sounds like "Bill." So we already have some wordplay going on. As Bill drives his Range Rover, we see the building with the blue (or black) "bell" logo receding into the background. 

Bell Telephone Company, American Bell, Bell Systems, Bell Labs, etc. - all of these companies are in some way associated with Alexander Graham Bell whom history remembers as the guy who invented the telephone. They operated under AT&T which was broken up in 1984 for anti-trust violations. Basically, AT&T/Bell dominated the telephone industry for decades. This split resulted in seven "baby bell" companies. Note the number seven (or don't). The "break-up" would have been fairly recent at the time of Eyes Wide Shut. Maybe, maybe this logo points to the break-up of AT&T, and maybe foreshadows the change to the Verizon logo. And maybe this "break-up" alludes to the future of Bill and Alice's marriage. Or not.

Finally, probably the most interesting thing about this obscure detail is that it ties back to some interpretations of "CMB," namely, Cosmic Microwave Background. It was at a "horn" antenna in Holmdel, NJ, the site of a massive Bell Labs compound, that Wilson and Penzias found evidence for Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. It was also through Bell Labs that solar battery cells, fax machines, and improvements in radar and sonar were made possible. The bell is a symbol of innovation. Is it a cause for alarm? Is it Pavlovian? Is it a cryptic symbol of corporate tyranny? 

We're reminded that Wilson and Penzias relied heavily on the work of others before they were awarded their fame. Perhaps Meucci is the true creator of the telephone; what does that make A.G. Bell - a thief?