Melville the Master, The Whiteness of the Whale, Words to Explain the Unexplainable

"What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid.

Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught."

                                                   - Moby Dick, Chapter 42, by Herman Melville

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed, Shelley's imperfect poetry

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.' 

                                                       -Ozymandias, Percy Shelley

Ode To Kafka

                                                                                            - From the television series, Home movies

David Lynch, Rabbits, and movies in movies

If you like these you should watch inland empire. It's a movie about the making of a remake of a movie informed by a myth about the making of the original movie which was based on an old russian myth, with episodes of these rabbit fellas spliced in throughout it. And if you weren't confused yet, Inland Empire is kind of a remake, or rather a re do (not acknowledged by lynch) of lynch's idea for another movie he made, mulholand drive, except when he made that he was held back a bit by studio and corporate constraints. But it's still awesome and is more conventional in form and structure, and it kind of acts as a key (at least it did for me) to understanding Inland, or at least part of it... So the relation between the movie they're remaking in inland and its original is kind of mirrored by the relationship of Inland Empire itself and Lynch's other movie Mulholland Drive... In summation, Lynch is crazy, and awesome, and you should watch all his movies if you haven't already...

A Message from Kafka

"The Emperor, so a parable runs, has sent a message to you, the humble subject, the insignificant shadow cowering in the remotest distance before the imperial sun; the Emperor from his deathbed has sent a message to you alone. He has commanded the messenger to kneel down by the bed, and has whispered the message to him; so much store did he lay on it that he ordered the messenger to whisper it back into his ear again. Then by a nod of the head he has confirmed that it is right. Yes, before the assembled spectators of his death--all the obstructing walls have been broken down, and on the spacious and loftily mounting open staircases stand in a ring the great princes of the Empire--before all these he has delivered his message. The messenger immediately sets out on his journey; a powerful, an indefatigable man; now pushing with his right arm, now with his left, he cleaves a way for himself through the throng; if he encounters resistance he points to his breast, where the symbol of the sun glitters; the way is made easier for him than it would be for any other man. But the multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open fields how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcoming hammering of his fists on your door. But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; he must next fight his way down the stair; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after the courts the second outer palace; and once more stairs and courts; and once more another palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through the outermost gate--but never, never can that happen--the imperial capital would lie before him, the center of the world, crammed to bursting with its own sediment. Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself."

                     
                                                                                -An Imperial Message, Franz Kafka