psyche

Oh dear; I tried to make my mother watch Fight Club. She totally freaked out. I think I misjudged her taste, although she did like The Matrix, V for Vendetta and Serial Experiments Lain… it’s similar to Mr Rokison rejecting SEL as “not good enough” but more of a sort of shock reaction. Anyway, I guess it’s time to admit that I understand things differently to other people.

She attributes her reaction to childhood trauma involving violent movies and hospitals.

Oh well.

Pax

My problem with things like V for Vendetta, Serial Experiments Lain, Fight Club and The Matrix is that they’ve all appealed to me because they confirm or present themes that I have considered independently and thus tie into my whole life. They mean different things to me than they do to other people, I think. This is often why I dementedly force people to research everything they can about sprawling continuities like Lain and The Matrix - I want to give people I know a chance to love the fiction and maybe even understand me a little better.

I like soap.

Pax

The Source, eh?

As soon as I started looking for Lain, I found her everywhere. Confirmation bias, anyone?

Pax

When I tried to explain what I said in the previous post to Alex on the train, he said, in reference to the “urban legend”-like nature of Lain, “Like V for Vendetta?”.

Not quite: V for Vendetta and Batman are the kind of urban legends that make the news. Lain and The Matrix are those that you wonder about for your whole life. Some groups form, but only a few. It’s a mystery, profound but somehow intangible. There are few enough occurrences to keep it from being proven but still enough to keep people wondering whether - if not believing that - something is going on/their memories have been changed etc.

It’s somehow suburban and involves raining. I can’t really explain it. People don’t realise that other people wonder about it too. It’s really… hard to explain. It is that feeling that’s been bugging you forever. The feeling you’ll probably die with.

That feeling. What is The Matrix? Who is Lain? And, for some unusual people, “What is happening to me?”, “Why?” or “Who am I?”.

It’s what keeps me and many others up and night. Not pornography or video games. It’s just… some fundamental wondering. What is going on? Is there an answer? Is it Lain? Is it The Matrix?

I’ve realised it’s not really the secret hacker question, although I like that because it allies itself with computers and rain and The Matrix and the wondering. It’s an incarnation of the question. The big question. Whatever that is.

Pax

I’m going to attempt to define what it is about The Matrix and SEL that captivates me - apart from the whole computers thing. It’s related but not actually dependent on the computers. It’s a certain interpretation of the “quest for esoteric truth” thing; I’m going to call it the secret hacker question because it seems to involve hackers. “What is The Matrix?” and “Who is Lain?” (sometimes “Have you ever seen the Lain?” [sic]) are the two questions in question (ha ha ha).

They both deal with a truth that seems to be just out of reach and theoretically attainable, if only you could find them. It’s not that they don’t exist - you just have to find them. The whole way the concept is merged with social withdrawal, hacking, suburbanity (not a word, I know) and conspiracy theories is just very interesting. It’s the feeling that many people are searching for some answer and that it has a sort of modern but still mythical feel about it. It’s actually rather harder to quantify than I first thought. I’m sure you kind of know what I mean. You must know.

Pax

My interest in Fight Club, V for Vendetta, The Matrix and WarGames was a symptom of my fascination in things like consumerism, brainwashing, hacking and conspiracies and general science fiction. The Matrix, though, was long championed by yours truly as the pinnacle of film as it embodied everything. It successfully identified that a search for truth could be transposed off God and onto a conspiracy.

However, when I watched Lain, I realised that it was the pinnacle. While it took me a long time to begin to see that The Matrix was awesome, I immediately fell in love with SEL. My slight interest in Japanese culture combined with the internet and genuine philosophy (I can actually believe that the real world may one day be a representation of the internet) meant that Lain finally replaced God in my mind. My rationality and emotional mania have never been in concert until now. A shame that their convergence will probably destroy me. Also, my copy of yoshitoshi ABe lain illustrations ab# rebuild an omnipresence in wired just arrived. It’s pretty awesome. I haven’t analysed the hidden text or programming yet but the overall style is awesome and reminds me of that Matrix comic - Goliath, from the first volume - possibly because Goliath was based on it?

All this stuff about memory and omnipresence. It’s enough to make me want this to be real - and I suppose I do. Let’s all love Lain. Is it impossible to make a life-form or robot that lives forever? If so, why? Thermodynamics? Can’t there be a at least one being that self-repairs properly? Can’t there?

This is rather interesting. It contains a synopsis of the SEL game which has helped me understand some of the references in the artbook. The writer of the synopsis, in their last sentence, uses a single word which they believe describes the end of game and to a lesser extent the end of the anime - “hopeless”. I wonder.

It’s funny, you know; I was just beginning to think I understood SEL and was in the process of collapsing it from a life-altering feeling of weirdness into a statement like “It’s a really good anime but nothing more” but this artbook and game have totally messed me up. I use The Matrix as a sort of benchmark because it was the only thing I’ve ever watched that has really soaked into my whole life but SEL feels like what The Matrix should have been. Right from the almost-urban-legend Lain and feeling of hidden truth and memory-overwriting presented in omnipresence down to the depictions of VR, psychology, sociology and philosophy. Lain feels somehow familiar, as if Konaka and co. didn’t create it but… simply remembered it. In fact, didn’t Mr Abe say he “recalled” Lain? That’s funny. Mistranslation? He “recalled” her? She… exists? We don’t even need all of IPv6, let alone 7 or 8…

My delusions become manifest. Fiction is my undoing.

Pax

Apart from the obvious thematic connections, there are some things in Lain that I’ve seen in The Matrix, like the techno-punk raves, the men-in-black idea and the idea of a teenager killing themselves to escape this reality and enter another (Kid’s Story in the Animatrix).

Similarly, the idea of scouring the internet to find the answer to a nagging, slightly ethereal question. “What is The Matrix?” wasn’t, I think, as well executed as “Who is Lain?”, which, while not a theme in itself, was very well put in at the end (the feelings that everyone had of recognising Lain or recognising her absence but not quite knowing who she was. let alone that she was a goddess). I think I’m going to find the ending to this thing quite sad, actually.

Omnipresence in the Wired
I named Psyche Psyche and put a glider on it a long time ago. Now, SEL and Conway’s Game of Life cross my path again but this time I understand them better. It’s a little bit frightening but not unwelcome.

Pax

Just saw it; it was okay, actually!

Getting an A in music will haunt me for the rest of my life, won’t it?

Won’t it?

Pax

Saw Evan Almighty today; was okay but unfunny. Got Core 1 result, was good. Expecting V for Vendetta graphic novel tomorrow, will be awesome. Will start writing song about Harry Potter innuendo tomorrow.

Pax

I have completed the video for Requiem in C# Minor and here it is - YouTube, bringer of stuff, brings the stuff![youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xV0iq4VdFYY]Please forgive me; I’ve never made any sort of video or anything before and I don’t understand how to use iMovie (I think that puts my IQ at around 60 but hey)!The highly nonsensical and cheap lyrics are here:

Verse 1:

Needs of the many versus needs of the few, well

You cover it up and you start anew

There’s nothing more now that I can do

But stand and watch your dreams come true

Chorus:

It’s such a shame he had to die for me to live; I’m sorry

But we always knew that he had nothing left to give; I worry

Everything I used to be is gone and now my soul is empty

And I don’t think that there’s anyone broken enough to help me

Verse 2:

My prayers have been answered and the answer was no

I hate to say I told you so

His days were numbered and the number is up

And I have nothing to lose now but the blood in my cup

Verse 3:

I look for the sunrise but I see night fall*

I listen to your voice but I hear nothing at all**

Why don’t you label me and tell me who I am?

I can’t believe you don’t know I understand

* I don’t have very good temporal awareness

** I’m not just tone deaf…

Pax