Dick Tales

More to it than that. PKD had a mystical experience in which the metaphysical source code unfolded. His "Exegesis" of that epiphany ran X typewritten pages.

But this worldview saturates Dick's writing. The fake half-world of Ubik. Jory, feeding on souls with the grinding teeth of a sheep. The entropic kipple of his original "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The fakes, simulacra, knockoffs, masks and cheap copies running through EVERY novel like the details of a massive Ponzi scheme. 

Gnosticism is the ultimate conspiracy theory. We're living in a fake reality. It's not the "Maya" of Hinduism. This ain't no illusion—it's a deliberate deception. A con. The store where you milk the rubes. The sheep pen where you convinve the trusting little bleaters you're the "Good Shepherd" until the day comes when you cut their throats, chop them to bits, roast and eat them, with a little mint jelly.

This isn't the Borges airless NeoPlatonism. Dick's devils sink their teeth in you. We're living in a hell realm. Cannibalism is the rule. Or its polite disguise: exploitation.

But a good screenwriter is never a passive conduit.

Decartes said reality can't be a dream. 


Because God (by definition) is good and he wouldn't f*** with us, QED. Gnosticism says "The entity you call 'God' is a pretender. He isn't good. And he's definitely f***ing with us."

Decartes said reality can't be a dream. 


Because God (by definition) is good and he wouldn't f*** with us, QED. Gnosticism says "The entity you call 'God' is a pretender. He isn't good. And he's definitely f***ing with us."

Finnegans Fall

After discussing the, er, erection of Finnegan's undeniably phallic Tower of Babel-esque skyscraper in the dawn of protohistory, the narrator explains why Finnegan fell --

Heed! Heed ! It may half been a missfired brick, as some say, or it mought have been due to a collupsus of his back promises, as others looked at it. (There extand by now one thousand and one stories, all told, of the same). But so sore did abe ite ivvy’s holired abbles, (what with the wallhall’s horrors of rollsrights, carhacks, stonengens, kisstvanes, tramtrees, fargobawlers, autokinotons, hippohobbilies, streetfleets, tournintaxes, megaphoggs, circuses and wardsmoats and basilikerks and aeropagods and the hoyse and the jollybrool and the peeler in the coat and the mecklenburk bitch bite at his ear and the merlinburrow burrocks and his fore old porecourts, the bore the more, and his blightblack workingstacks at twelvepins a dozen and the noobibusses sleighding along Safetyfirst Street and the derryjellybies snooping around Tell-No-Tailors’ Corner and the fumes and the hopes and the strupithump of his ville’s indigenous romekeepers, homesweepers, domecreepers, thurum and thurum in fancymud murumd and all the uproor from all the aufroofs, a roof for may and a reef for hugh butt under his bridge suits tony) wan warning Phill filt tippling full. His howd feeled heavy, his hoddit did shake. (There was a wall of course in erection) Dimb! He stottered from the latter. Damb! he was dud. Dumb! Mastabatoom, mastabadtomm, when a mon merries his lute is all long. For whole the world to see.

It's a vision of dense complexity. City life, and its multitudinous technology was just too much for the poor guy.

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Cruise Control

INT, CREEPY PENTHOUSE APARTMENT.
Walls of glass reveal the grid of light and ambiguity of LA at night. An apartment very much like the Comedian's apartment in "The Watchmen." But, you  know, different.

The Bald Guy watches the Academy Awards credits roll on a wall-mounted flat screen TV. Then raises a remote -- and kills the TV.

A smug look of satisfaction distorts his generic face.

This cell phone rings. He whips it out.

David! (listens) Oh definitely. The SPs will never come back from this. Every PTS in town will think twice. Hollywood is ours now! If Elron was alive he'd ... (listens) I feel the same way, David.  (beat) You know I do. Nighty-night.

The Bald Guy ends the call, puts cell phone in his pocket.

He smiles, stands up, and begins dancing ...

And we see he's really ...

Ohmygod he's really ....

Agghhhhhhhh!

Matt Damon

Damon: (whirling around) F** you and your f**ing candy. (grabs candy, randomly throws it) That Oscar's mine, you f*** p***! I said I'd f***ing take it and I'm taking it! Any of you motherf**ing a**holes has a problem with that, you tell me to my f***ing face.


Sitting in the chair to Damon's left, Casey Afleck mumbles something.

Damon: Man, I have no idea what you should just said.

Marlee Maitlin supplies her input from the chair to Damon's right.

Matlin: (speaking and signing) He says you can take the Oscar and shove it up ...

Damon: My ass. That's wicked funny, Casey.

Casey: (mumbles something) 

Tray Parker: (OS -- mentally challenged voice) Matt Damon.

Damon: Not funny, Parker. Wasn't the first time.

Tray Parker: (OS) Matt Damon.

Damon: Parker. I swear to f*** Christ you say that one more time I'll f*** kill you.

Tray Parker: (OS ) Matt Damon.

Damon: Motherf***!

He leaps over chair.

Pathetic apology

Sorry about the FBI warning label, but I have to put it in. It's legally stipulated under Article 29 and the force majeur doctrine, though we all know saying it's "legal" won't save our collective ass if this goes sideways. Obviously, don't discuss this hot mess outside the need-to-know cell-structure. Don't tell your husband, wife, kids, friends, dog, or talk to yourself in the mirror. Playing dumb is the smart thing to do. And being smart is probably dumb. Something tells me Hamlet had a file on Claudius just like this. We all know what happened to him. I think we all know what we have to do, but analysis is so much easier. I know I'm being kinda wordy, but I hate the drive home at night. A mere 17 miles from Langleuy to Silver Springs, but I never think I'll get there. OK, I'll shut up now. Just read this shit.

Warning

THIS MATERIAL DESIGNATED SECURITY LEVEL ULTRA. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS WILL RESULT IN SEVERE PENALTIES. EYES ONLY. DO NOT PRINT, COPY OR UPLOAD. AVAILABLE CIA STANDALONE SERVER ONLY. IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON THE INTERNET, OR ANY OTHER DIGITAL DEVICE OR IN PRINTED FORM, ACCESS IS UNAUTHORIZED. DESTROY DOCUMENT OR DEVICE AND REPORT TO CIA STATION CHIEF IMMEDIATELY.

Heaven or Someplace Like It

The show gives us glimpses of the afterlife, the interlife, the region between, or whatever the hell they call it.

"Heaven" doesn't resemble those Sunday School picture book illustrations. No golden streets, pearly gates, or angelic choirs hanging around on clouds and playing their harps. 

In her interludes between death and rebirth, Prairie pops into a three dimensional X-Y-Z grid of light . This cordinate system divides the blackness of space. Tiny galaxies drift by at infinitesimal scale. (and furiously accelerated time scale too. A second = a million years, or thereabouts.) The galaxies float through Prairie and her Sprit guide. Which implies this is place is no place. It's more of a user interface. An inter dimensional operating system,.

Did the angels build this place or do they just work here? Who are they working for?

If there's somebody upstairs, they aren't mentioned.

This isn't so much a spiritual realm as a physical realm in higher dimensions. More like the wormhole timey-wimey subway system in Doctor Who, and It only looks like religion, folks. But it's really science. Quantum physics and the something universe theory.