September 21, 2012 [The Master]

I was bingeing Star Treks, and my oh my so many Black Holes to fall into, the Universe’s abandoned wells—where you pop out the other side spaghettified into something no longer a “character” but some living entity, an infinitely thin flesh-and-bone ghost of the man who isn't there—because a new one has taken his place, craggy and bent, but as strong as mad conviction.

I roam around the American Century and see P.T. Barnums everywhere, one born every minute, a country full of hucksters huckstering everyone, including themselves, from vibrating swamis to Dianetic spacemen floating in optimistic mysticism, from Ayn Rand Objectivists slavering for upward mobility but ending up as extras in King of Kings to middle-class mysterious Reike thought-priests barely touching the surface of healing, hands-on and always looking.
—And they look so long, so deeply, that they pass through fakery into faith—and all of it American-New, shining in certainty. Oh, it all may have started in antique dimness, incense floating, indistinct glyphs on stone walls, blood on the altars; but as we propel ourselves into consumption and re-invention, we look everywhere for new minds, new bodies, and a New World we can carry around in our heads.

I find myself walking alongside Joaquin/Andy in desperate circular portage, back and forth, back and forth, exercising muscles filled with booze and loss—and violence, making me afraid not of but for us; how far can we go until we’re so far gone we can't come back?—and so here I am, another sucker on the vine, conned by spiritual healing, Joaquin's restless hands placed just so on my eyes until I see only what he shows me. The movie fades from my view, sinks into confusion and obscurity—but his face remains, his eyes especially, looking past me toward whatever Master compels him to go that far.