We're All Trapped In Our Coffins

Aka Baby Jenks (Bruce’s next victim) is the one who ends up killing him instead. In the books , after she was turned, she mowed people down with an axe. And if anyone deserved to kill Bruce, it would be her . It’d be more empowering that someone paralleled to Claudia , down to the nickname (baby jenks/lulu) , ended Bruce once and for all. One of Bruce’s victims being the one to stop him - and thus preventing more Claudia’s in the process would be a more impactful narrative beat. Kind of like how Claudia prevented Madeline from being assaulted by those men.

Not to mention, Louis has a habit of using grand gestures to try and absolve himself of guilt. That's why Claudia was turned in the first place. Having Louis not get that catharsis could be an interesting area for character exploration. Because at the end of the day: Claudia is gone , and when she finally opened up to him about Bruce (she was met with silence).

They could of course go the more 'obvious route'. But, even if Louis does kill Bruce , it wouldn't nullify his pain or guilt over Claudia’s fate (just like how killing the Parisian coven didn’t do so ). Arguably , maybe that'll be the point (there wasn't character progression ). In s2 he kills a coven, and in s3 he kills a coven, but once again he doesn't feel any better . Because there's no easy or quick solution to absolve his guilt and grief regarding Claudia.

Maybe it’ll parallel the seance scene too . In the books Louis did a seance to talk to Claudia . But in the show it may be Lestat. And (spoiler alert) : she pretty much said he only called her to absolve his own guilt and to feel better about himself , not for her sake.

You could argue Louis revenge plan and lestat’s (possible) seance will just prove Claudia right : “it was never about her (but them feeling better about how they wronged her ).”

IWTVL S3 Musings: POSTHUMOUS AUCTION?! 👀

AMC thought they were reeeeal cute with all those props auctions, huh. 🤦‍♂️🤣

"Lestat's narrative, similar to Louis' in IWTV, is the story within the story--told via recordings at a posthumous auction of the golden-haired vampire's belongings. But very little about what's going on in the present is revealed until later on in the series, which gives priority to its narrator's enchanting, if unreliable, account."

This is a FASCINATING premise. Now it makes sense why the journalists were saying S3 would be non-linear; and why Rolin Jones hemmed & hawwed so much about Lestat's mortality. etc.

Ok, so I'm assuming that S3 is basically already in the post-QotD timeline, a la the books, where the public thought Lestat had "died" after his disastrous concert in Death Valley when Akasha showed up.

But there's also something else I think is going on, too:

Cuz I have a niggling suspicion that Lestat's music sucks at first because he's being unreliable AF (high/drunk, mad/sad, dishonest & avoidant & ducking accountability, etc). But the more he looks inward & faces the ghosts of his past failures, instead of processing it healthily, he internalizes the guilt & self-loathing and IS "trying to end it," as Rolin Jones said--a la book!Lestat's suicide attempt(s) in TotBT. Esp. if all his music's really amounted to was unleashing a literal horror onto the world by waking Akasha up--another thing Lestat hates himself for.

But ofc like Sam Reid said, Lestat's already drunk so much of Akasha's blood that he CAN'T die in the sunlight--"he'll just get a tan."

So are the recordings auctioned off while Lestat's laid up somewhere already burned (& healing) but knowing that his career's over because he CANNOT be redeemed thru his music? 🤔 So he sells his recordings & memorabilia off as his final bow? (Will Memnoch visit him as he convalesces?)

Is Akasha already dead, OR is she just getting started (so she's holding him hostage while this auction takes place)? 👀 (My main suspicion is that it's Akasha's voice we're hearing on The Failures, and that she's lying to him & controlling the narrative more than HE is.)

So while it would make total sense that the humans all think Lestat's dead & gone--what do the VAMPS think? 👀

Main question: How many coats does Louis own? 🤔

Cuz I assumed that was Louis with the cane at the auction, and yeah, apparently he IS there:

In 3x1 "the dynamic between [Armand, Daniel, & Louis], who are all attending the auction of Lestat's recordings, is unclear."

So my question's just if Louis' wearing the same coat in multiple different scenes / points in the timeline--before & after the auction? (I would truly hate it if it's all different times in the same coat, that's so boring, costume department-wise. Give that man different fits! 😭) Cuz we definitely see him WITH Lestat in some of those scenes, in what looks like the same dang coat? So, WHEN? 🤔

So Louis and Armand have this giant wall, in their living room. The wall is given a lot of screen-time, and a lot of importance. And I think that this wall (and what's hanging on it) says a LOT about Louis' mental state, Armand's mental state, and the state of their relationship.

So this is the very first shot we get of the inside of the penthouse, it's our intro into Daniel in Louis & Armand's world.

We've got those three red pantings, called out in dialog as "the Bacon triptych" "Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion," and "The Three Furies." Which I think we're meant to read as a visual representation of Louis' pain.

First, Francis Bacon is specifically riffing off this altarpiece:

and you can absolutely see him subtly using the iconography and shapes of (from left to right) - John the Apostle, the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist

the left one has John's red hair and red wrap, the center has mary's white veil/headscarf, and Bacon leans into the way it kinda looks like a blindfold (the shape of Mary Magdalene has been simplified into that table/tripod thing.) And the one on the right is the general shape of John the Baptist, with the lamb represented as that furry carpet.

The most important painting is the center "Virgin Mary" one, the one that frames Daniel. And the most OBVIOUS meaning here (other than the catholic of it all, which is very Louis) is -- death of a child. Mary is watching Jesus die. It's a painting of his Claudia pain.

BUT these are also the three "furies," the goddesses of vengeance (so ALSO very Louis) who come down especially hard on liars and oath breakers. And the remaining liar/oath breaker? Armand, and arguably Lestat. Louis doesn't know the extent of Armand betrayal, but he DOES know that he sold them out to the Paris coven because of his "cowardice." These are the two main sources of his current pain. Daniel is here to help them process them, and that's why Daniel's sitting right in the middle of them. His head is literally in the game.

BUT Armand (in his Rashid persona, and that doesn't feel like a good omen, putting on a false face in front of the furies) is blocking the one on the right almost completely. HE wants to sell the Bacon Triptych, take it down off the wall. That's because... Armand doesn't WANT Louis' pain front and center. The last thing we hear him say to Louis is "One night, 70 years ago. You are over this, Louis! The pain of it has left you (...) You have forgiven me for what part I played in her death!"

After he successfully sells the triptych, Louis and Armand have this conversation in front of the blank wall:

ARMAND: The two Barcelos would fit. LOUIS: If we replaced the couch. ARMAND: I assumed we would. LOUIS: The couch, then the table, then the Antieau Javelina, then, then, then, then. ARMAND: How about the Ai Weiwei wallpaper with the Hockney lemons? LOUIS: Like we're a Firmdale hotel lobby? ARMAND: Okay, what do you think we should do with the wall? LOUIS: What about a selection of Fred Steins, tastefully framed? They've been sitting in my albums all this time, seems a waste. Or better not to have so tangible a reminder of Paris up on our walls? ARMAND: An interview about Paris is a more tangible reminder of Paris than a few photographs. LOUIS: Huh. Leave it bare then. Wait for revelation to enter the room.

It's unclear what Armand means by "the two Barcelos" so I get to speculate. I think we're talking about Miquel Barceló, and I also think we're talking about his sculptures rather than his paintings, because of the reference to moving the couch. Which you would DEFINITELY do if you were moving in sculptures, but probably not if you were hanging a painting. Especially since it's a really neutral, charcoal grey couch.

Also, the fact that it's TWO Barcelos mean that I'm looking for sculptures that are part of set, and the famous Barcelo sculpture series is "Metamorphosis."

And I dunno. This seems pretty Armand coded to me. Metamorphosis as a concept is very Armand, with all his shifting identities, but I'm also getting *hunger* from this, I'm getting *damage,* I'm getting shaky foundation... and the shaky foundation, it's built out of corrupted Roman pillars (cough marius de romanus cough.) So, if the Bacon triptych symbolizes Louis' pain, maybe this symbolizes Armand's pain (and his interiority, his backstory.) It's his first pick after all.

But Louis says no, shuts it down. Armand's next suggestion is pretty straightforward. The Ai Weiwei "Wallpaper" piece is all about imprisonment and surveillance.

And David Hockney, important figure of post-war pop art, painted mid-century American scenes that at first glance seem to be bright, clean, and happy... but have a sort of melancholy, suburban malaise underneath the surface. He's really famous for his paintings of swimming pools.

But he also painted a lot of lemons. I think it's because we've got that bright yellow on the outside, hiding an underlying bitterness.

So, this pair of artworks is Armand saying "can we continue as we have been?" (me keeping you superficially happy in my "prison of empathy.") And Louis says no, because he's recovered his memories at this point, he's getting wise to Armand's deceptions.

Then Louis suggests (a little sarcastically) that they should hang the Fred Stein photographs that Armand has been slipping into his portfolio. We're never explicitly told WHY Armand is doing this - pretty weird thing, but I think it's got to do with memory, and the David Hockney superficial happiness of it all. Armand wants Louis to remember a Paris that was better than it was, more romantic than it was (where Louis was a better photographer than he was...) But that story isn't reflected in Louis' photographs, so Armand... fixes it. 'Cleans up the mess' (the way he always does.)

So, Louis wanting to put that 'Fred Stein' lie front and center is a call out. He's saying that he wants to focus on Paris (with Daniel) and remind himself of Armand's lie. So, a way to interpret this conversation is Armand saying "can we focus on my damage/past/interiority/pain," Louis saying no. Then Armand saying "can we keep things status quo?" and Louis saying no. Then Louis says "can we focus on the truth of Paris." And Armand says no. At which point, Louis says he wants to wait for "revelation to enter the room." AND - we cut to this shot.

Revelation HAS entered the room (its name is Daniel Molloy.) Because Daniel of course breaks the case wide open, exposes Armand, and helps Louis process the pain he's had since that first shot.

Pictured - Louis processing pain. By throwing Armand at the living room wall.

The NEXT time we see the wall, it looks like this --

Louis has introduced color back into his life (also lot of yellow. which is a very *Claudia* color.)

The new painting is "Shelter" by contemporary artist Peter Jerrod Macon, and it's of a mother embracing a child. (confirmed by production designer Mara LePere Schloop.) SO - Louis is no longer defined by his pain like he was at the beginning of season one, when he the Virgin Mary watching a child die. Now he's defined by the *love* he feels for his child.

short answer? kind of yes. people rationalizing away/getting upset/dooming over assad's "i'm going to break you" comments, i'm totally with you that that's not the whole story, but i also think it's 1000% correct and in character. that said, DONT WORRY. devil's minion is not in danger

i've actually been meaning to talk about this and now i have the perfect opportunity! especially since assad's comments support where i've always thought armand's head was at with daniel's turning :)

i've spoken at length as recently as yesterday about the domestic side of daniel and armand's relationship, and i really do believe with my entire heart that they are good for each other and that their relationship will eventually stabilize. that said, i've also talked about how rocky the road to getting there is. this is where many of my personal gripes about people sanitizing the dm relationship come in. armand is a fucking mess. he's extraordinarily traumatized. he has been systematically stripped of any opportunity to learn how to love and be loved. he has extreme, largely unaddressed cptsd, which traps your brain in a state of hyperarousal. from armand's perspective, on a subconscious level, every bad thing that has ever happened to him is still happening. he's stuck. this is also the essence of the anne rice vampirism/trauma allegory. my girl is crazy! i say this with all the love and empathy in my heart because i am unfortunately also crazy lol

these things set armand up for failure when he approaches his relationships, and they strip him of any ability to feel secure in literally any situation. think about how cloudy your head gets when you're completely overwhelmed by fear. that's his default decision making state! the idea that it's fundamentally unsafe to exercise his autonomy or try to address his own needs has been literally tortured into him over the years and so, because those things are unavoidable parts of life, the perceived danger of approaching them can make armand impulsive and childish at times. this isn't even touching his insanely warped world view and complete lack identity, or the fact that pretty much every survival strategy he's had to learn over the past 500 years ranges from unhelpful to completely antithetical to building a stable, loving, egalitarian partnership. again, my girl is crazy. devils minion may be sweet and loving and domestic, but it will never be sustainable until some of these issues start getting excavated and addressed, and holy shit is that an infected, festering wound. excavation is going to hurt like hell.

armand's refusal to make another vampire sits at the very center of that wound, and i think his revulsion at the thought of turning anyone goes even deeper than most people realize. not only is it the single act of autonomy he's been able to maintain for the past 500 years, not only does he think that anyone he could turn would come to hate and leave him, he really truly does believe that it's the worst thing that can be done to another person.

the name of the game when it comes to armand is repression. he's a character who hides everything from himself. the weight of everything that's been done to him is unendurable, so he doesn't endure it. he seals it behind a brick wall inside of himself and tries so so desperately hard to forget it's there, but it's always going to leak through the cracks. even worse, all these things that he won't let himself think or feel mutate and metastasize inside him while he refuses to look at them. in particular, armand still loves marius, and he still doesn't really have the tools to understand what's been done to him. marius also deliberately cuts him off at the pass in tva by outright telling him he might not remember their relationship in a good light later in life and making him promise to remember that they were in love and armand chose their relationship (from page 69-70 in the mass market paperpack, i just spent twenty years trying to find it):

"—and when you think back on this time, when in half-sleep at night you remember me as your eyes close on your pillow, these moments might seem corrupt and most strange. They'll seem like sorcery and the antics of the mad, and this warm place might become the lost chamber of dark secrets and this might bring you pain." "I won't go." "Remember then that it was love," he said. "That this indeed was the school of love in which you healed your wounds..."

what that amounts to is that all the violation armand feels from years of grooming and sexual abuse, all the fear and pain he won't allow himself to access from his time with marius, gets sublimated into his feelings about his own turning. the mostly-buried resentment he feels toward marius is resentment over condemning him to this horrible life as a vampire, surely. and surely, because amadeo wanted so badly to be a vampire and to be with marius and now he's so desperately miserable, it's an impossible thing for anyone to consent to. put that all together and armand basically ends up with this subconscious conflation of rape and vampire turning, which really just manifests as an overwhelming revulsion toward the idea of turning anyone. and the thing about armand is that he's terrified to his core of hurting the people he loves the same way he was hurt, so he is completely repelled by the idea of turning daniel in a way he hasn't truly examined and can't put language to.

at the end of 2.08, armand is drowning in a super volatile and complicated sea of emotion. many many people—from devils minion truthers saying armand turned daniel out of love to tv only fans thinking it was uncomplicated spite—don't tend to take into account just how messy and fucked up and contradictory armand's feelings in that moment were. yes, armand loves daniel and is terrified of the prospect of watching him die and living in a world without him. armand also can't stand the thought of being alone and hardcore panics when louis leaves. and whose fault is that? daniel's. daniel, who armand made the biggest sacrifice of his life for. daniel, who armand broke his own heart setting free, and when he did it he went crawling back to louis, who is a source of stability and who he does love, albeit in an incredibly self-serving way. and now daniel comes back just to destroy the one life raft armand was clinging to in his absence. how dare he? how dare he do that to armand, who he always claimed to love? despite i think partially (subconsciously, again) approaching the interview as an opportunity for daniel to set him free from his marriage, armand is feeling deeply, deeply betrayed, and i think that's the thing that pushes him over the edge into turning daniel. besides, daniel hates him now. daniel sees him and knows how awful and disgusting and unworthy he is and he showed louis too and so it doesn't matter if he hates him a little more. it's all over. armand has completely and totally lost both louis and daniel. he's at rock fucking bottom in that moment and doesn't think he has anything else to lose.

i want to stress again that in absolutely no world is armand sitting there and actually thinking through any of this. no, armand is hit with all of these feelings at once like a sixteen car pileup and then he acts with that same fear-driven impulse we discussed above. while i don't think there's a world in which armand would have been able to let daniel die, i also don't think he had come to terms with turning him yet and daniel isn't dying as imminently as he was in qotd, so spite/resentment/betrayal is an important part of tipping armand into action in the tv show. and then after that, because turning someone is so monstrous to armand, because he lashed out and did the unforgivable to daniel, i imagine he is pretty much instantly overwhelmed by a crippling degree of guilt and shame, so he runs away. and then stays gone. because he just did the worst thing imaginable to the person he loves the most, and because daniel surely hates him, and because all is completely and entirely lost.

LOOK AT THE LOGOS

Daniel’s in-universe book is published by Roman Weiss? Same as his own memoir???!!

And yeah, Marius' Maker, Teskhamen, was one of the three founders of The Talamasca. Something that, in the books, Marius himself didn't learn about his Maker until over two millennia later.

So it looks like the show might be tying Marius, Armand, and Daniel all much more into The Talamasca and whatever storyline the show is doing with them, and very likely because of something to do with Teskhamen IMO.

And if Bianca is involved with this, too, this involvement with the Talamasca just might extend to everyone in Marius' (and therefore Teskhamen's) bloodline.

i literally started shrieking when “enduring for guido” happened bc it hit me all at once that THE ENTIRE PREMISE of iwtv with older daniel has been a nod to krapp’s last tape since day one. the box of tapes on his table! listening to recordings of his younger self! the fact that he has to dig out a BOOMBOX, an outdated piece of technology in the streaming era, to even be able to access these memories! recording digitally in dubai and playing that back alongside the previous analogue recordings! the fact that krapp is both physically disabled & that it gradually becomes apparent krapp fails to remember the original moment is recording is recounting, he can only recall listening to the recording of it post-event! everything is a metaphor for post-traumatic memory and it is chef’s kiss

i have ptsd & one of the ongoing symptoms is memory problems (forgetfulness, not being able to consciously remember traumatic episodes but re-embodying them, etc) and i am fascianted by this!! i did my masters thesis on failures of memory & autobiography in theatre performance, with a particular focus on analogue sound technology as a way of representing those failures of memory in autobiographical performance narratives on sexual trauma. Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape was a huge inspiration on the piece i created for my thesis.

if you are unfamiliar with Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, here is an excerpt of a review from a 2018 production by canadian theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck for the globe and mail (caveat to say I haven’t seen this production):

Krapp's Last Tape concerns a man who has recorded an audio diary on his reel-to-reel tape recorder every year on his birthday. On his 69th birthday, Krapp (Bob Nasmith) first listens to a recording he made when he was 39; on it, his younger self talks about listening to a tape he made in his late 20s. "Hard to believe I was ever that young whelp," the 39-year-old Krapp says – and he and the 69-year-old Krapp laugh in unison. Is the older Krapp laughing in agreement with his younger self about his even-younger self? Or is he laughing at how his younger self thought he was no longer young? What's important to realize is that when Beckett's play premiered at the Royal Court in London 60 years ago, this was all science fiction. Personal recording technology hadn't been around that long – and, indeed, Beckett was speculating, as he wrote in his stage directions, about "a late evening in the future." […] The shade of regret that Krapp subjects himself to each year on his birthday is one that now colours our day-to-day lives. Social media has flattened time – and people, images, sounds and video from our past now pop up in front of us whether we want to relive them or not. Beckett dramatized the dystopian bittersweetness of how technology would affect memory long before "Facebook memories" existed.

i am especially obssesed with John Hurt’s portrayal of Krapp. he’s performed the role both in 1999 and in 2011. the 2011 production USES THE TAPES HE RECORDED AS YOUNG KRAPP FROM THE 1999 PRODUCTION. this is so insane!!!! where else does this exist?? where else could it possibly exist other than the THEATRE?? i’m so

mark fisher’s the weird and the eerie talks abt the stone tape and physical tape recordings as a kind of ghost/haunting. haunting is also an idea that comes up in svetlana boym’s essay on nostalgic technologies. louis is haunted by lestat & claudia, but daniel, arguably, is haunted through these tapes BY HIS YOUNGER SELF that (ought to have) died in 1973. schrödinger’s haunting by your dead-not dead self. god!!!!!! truly nobody is doing it like them (the iwtv writing team)

(digression to say i am currently obsessed w/two productions that have this idea of failures of memory & technological haunting. (1) autopsy of an archive by tedd robinson (2020) — fun fact robinson studied under Lyndsay Kemp who also taught mime & dance to David Bowie & Kate Bush. (2) this is memorial device directed/adapted by Graham Eatough, adapted from the book by david keenan (2022). foaming at the mouth after seeing both productions. i bring them up in conversation at minimum once a month).

to add a layer on top of all of this, i am obsessed with is the concept of RELIVING SOMEONE’S MEMORIES VIA BLOOD DRINKING. like wow, they really did pop off with that one for me, specifically. i am obsessed with the fact that within the iwtv canon daniel molloy has already written his memoir Hate and Ashbury!!! this is someone with traumatic memory loss ENGAGING IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY — a thing that should be paradoxical!! and he says as much — my ex-wife told me i never owned a buick, etc. this is the central conceit of the show, of louis’ story, of the unreliable narrators and conflicting viewpoints!! the possibility of possessing an objective truth within the show is void, the past is a different country, the odyssey of recollection!!

this could be an essay unto itself, but a daniel/claudia parallel i am obsessed with is the implications of louis & armand as the archivist-curators of claudia’s diaries & the parallels b/t the diaries and the recordings as Memorial Devices. ripping out the pages of her diaries to redact her assault makes me physical ill — on top of the assault, this is ANOTHER violation, this time of her agency as a survivor to craft the narrative of what she experienced. louis (and to a certain extent, armand) deny her even that!!

i am obsessed with how, in 1973, Armand is like “oh, is it my turn for an interview?” and starts listing his memories in chronological order and then stalls out at memory #2. i am obsessed with armand’s ability to wipe memories!! particularly as someone whose traumatic memory loss is so integral to who they are as a character & their lack of self-determination. i think that a lot of ppl want a simple, straightforward answer that armand wiped louis’/daniel’s memories (1973 & others) but like for me, i feel like that would fundamentally undercut that this show is about profound trauma and one of the inevitable consequences of profound trauma is going to be memories that are both too present & too absent.

i am obsessed with the s2 cliffhanger that reveals armand as daniel’s “maker”. in my head, when daniel gets bitten, daniel 100% thinks he is about to die and does not expect to be turned (we see him say earlier he does not want to outlive his daughters, etc). and like we saw with madeleine’s turning, there is this (somewhat dubiously consensual) intimacy of EXPERIENCING THE MEMORIES OF THAT PERSON. (oops, blood’s haunted). i think there is an incredibly potent je ne sais quoi to the kind of person who candidly writes a memoir abt their period of traumatic substance abuse (substance abuse which was accelerated by the assault in 1973) & who is also piqued by the Dubai-era non-consensual mind reading violation/transgression that Louis & Armand do as a powerplay. daniel (as is his right) wants to share on his terms — and having his blood drank rly does not seem like that would be one of those consensual autobiography-sharing times (which like, good storytelling!!! traumatise that old man!!!) now there is someone out there in the world who profoundly Knows Him for what he is, (perhaps EVEN BETTER THAN HIMSELF), who is AVOIDING HIM (“have you heard from my maker?” god)

but really, armand (by saving daniel from louis, and louis saving daniel from armand) has always been daniel’s maker. in a sense, daniel is to louis & armand what claudia is to louis & lestat. louis finds both of them, brings them home, drinks from both of them, and then has his partner turn them. claudia’s sequence of events is much more expedient, but daniel’s is structurally the same, just over the course of fifty years. 1973 is a rupture, a puncture for daniel — everything prior has been about what gets him through that door in 1973, everything after has been about what happened in that room. everything that happened in that room begins that domino effect of what gets him through that penthouse door in dubai 2022 as a medically vulnerable disabled person in a global pandemic. he can’t remember and that un-remembered trauma is informing every bit of who he is these past 50 years. armand may have turned him in 2022, but he made him in 1973 (and isn’t that romantic??)

(interlude here where if i were more self-indulgent i would write a thousand words about being an investigative reporter and dedicating yr life to the TRUTH as someone with memory loss around a specific traumatic event, and then you get all these tapes are yr like, well fuck i guess i better go to the one thing im good at aka get to the bottom of things)

bibliography i haven’t yet shoehorned into this but im also very influenced by and think more people should check out:

Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History by Cathy Caruth

“The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma” bessel van der kolk and onno van der hart’s chapter on post-traumatic memory and narrative structure in Cathy Caruth’s edited volume Trauma: Explorations in Memory

Karen Jürs-Munby on post-traumatic theatre and post-dramatic performance aesthetics/structure

Roger Luckhurst’s The Trauma Question

Trauma-Tragedy: Symptoms of Contemporary Performance by Patrick Duggan

Performance Theatre and the Poetics of Failure by Sara Jane Bailes

Hauntological Dramaturgy: Affects, Archives, Ethics by Glenn D’Cruz

Performing Mourning: Laments in Contemporary Art by Guy Cools

his death was disrupted in 1973 and now he’ll never die!! he was dying of parkinson’s and now he’s undead!! he’s always been dying, he’s always been dead, and god said faggot! you will live forever

some choice quotes from cathy caruth’s unclaimed experience:

Is the trauma the encounter with death, or the ongoing experience of having survived it? At the core of these stories, I would suggest, is thus a kind of double telling, the oscillation between a crisis of death and the correlative crisis of life: between the story of the unbearable nature of an event and the story of the unbearable nature of its survival (Caruth 7).

in 2022, in a co-op in Brooklyn, daniel molloy is sitting at his table with a box of cassette tapes, and on those tapes is the voice of a younger self that he logically knows is his, but he cannot fully remember the events of 1973 on the recording itself:

What returns to haunt the victim, these stories tell us, is not only the reality of the violent event but also the reality of the way that its violence has not yet been fully known (Caruth 6).

these ferric tapes consisting of nothing but blather will haunt your ass!!!

What causes, trauma, then, is a shock that appears to work very much like a bodily threat but is in fact a break in the mind’s experience of time (Caruth 61).

for daniel it is always 1973 and never 1973, it is always 2022 and never 2022, it always — (“he was rescued from a brothel when he was fifteen, named… named arun then, i think” / “being run down by slavers in dehli — [404 not found]”)

It is not simply, that is, the literal threatening of bodily life, but the fact that the threat is recognized as such by the mind one moment too late. The shock of the mind’s relation to the threat of death is thus not the direct experience of the threat, but precisely the missing of this experience, the fact that, not being experienced in time, it has not yet been fully known. And it is this lack of direct experience that, paradoxically, becomes the basis of the repetition of the nightmare (Caruth 62).

an easeful death in a room with floor that slants to the north — the fact that daniel thinks, initially, that it is ONE fucked up night in san francisco & the bone deep horror of realising, that from the watergate hearings (??) on tv he’s been trapped in the apartment for six days — time in the context of his own memories of the events is all wonky — non-linear narratives vs. a fragmentation of time and memory itself

The return of the traumatic experience in the dream is not the signal of the direct experience but, rather, of the attempt to escape overcome the fact that it was not direct, to attempt to master what was never fully grasped in the first place. Not having truly known the threat of death in the past, the survivor is forced, continually, to confront it over and over again. For consciousness then, the act of survival, as the experience of trauma, is the repeated confrontation with the necessity and impossibility of grasping the threat to one’s own life. It is because the mind cannot confront the possibility of its death directly that survival becomes for the human being, paradoxically, an endless testimony to the impossibility of living (Caruth 62).

possession as a mode of haunting! repetition of the not-death experience!! schrödinger’s haunting, where your past self is both dead and alive at the same time!!! the living death of the author

the young man i once was: