the gray

the gray metal looks like fog in the predawn glow. i feel my luck could change. slow down.

in an interstellar burst...

born again (welcome to my diegesis)

some cycles are so long they can only be seen from space,
but let's not forget it -- everything is a circle
if you walk long enough;

if you walk long enough you'll wear down the earth,
and that's the thing about circles -- you can be reborn
into a redundant footprint;

into a redundant footprint i am born again,
or i birth myself again -- am i my own mother
and is this really a circle?

or just a really small dot?

December

Not everyone in late December, 1963 could have been a young, happy person.

Perhaps in fifty years, some just-graduated college kid will nostalgically idealize what it must have been like to be young and happy in 2005 or something.

I don't exactly feel old, because whenever I get close to that feeling, I think about how I'm 22 years old, and how most people would just laugh derisively if I said I felt old.

But I do feel weird. Like I'm nobody, nothing at all. Nowhere man. Maybe Blink 182 got it right. Nobody likes you when you're 23. Could juvenile third-wave punk-rock revival from the late 90s really guide my thoughts now? Combined with the Beatles, it seems that way from what I've just written. I can't tell if this is gracious and wise of me, or just sad.

Hello? Is this thing on?

Testing, testing, one two, testing testing, one two.

Is this blog on?

I have been struggling. My addictive personality keeps me overly occupied with work. Am I making up for my slacker-attitude in college by trying, rather uselessly, to be an over-achiever on Wall St.? And if so, why now? Really, why? Do I really have the constitution to be Warren Buffet?

I do a lot of reading these days, but not the kind that helps. I feel so different today than when I last wrote in this blog, I'm afraid to post again. It's like this blog belongs to someone else, and I should just go get my own, less colorful, less interesting blog. It feels like I'm trespassing in a creaky, abandoned colonial-era house, or wiping my feet on a grave in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Changes

My Firefox has a new homepage. It's no longer PennPortal. It is now Google News. I have no use for PennPortal anymore. Some of my other bookmarks have been deleted, too. No need to check Blackboard, for instance. These are the kinds of changes that make me sad. Also, I will miss many of you. Off you go, to D.C., to Boston, St. Louis, Alabama, Florida, Canada, the West Coast. Or staying in Philadelphia, Texas, Los Angeles. Halfway around the world.

I hear from so-called "New Yorkers" that New York is the central nexus of the universe. If this is true, I hope you will all stop in and say hello. Otherwise, I will have to escape like Russell.

Today

Today I ate eggplant beef from Yue Kee's food truck with Anni. It was really good, and kind of spicy. I also played basketball at Pottruck with Vimarth, John, Viraj, and Ant. We didn't win any games, and I shot the ball poorly. I ate dinner with Eric at Qdoba, nachos and a tortilla soup. It was very satisfying. Later I watched some NBA playoff basketball and drank beer with Sam. We got a beer called Pyramid which was apricot-flavored. It was good. I also had two cigarettes and some hookah. I'm going to shower and probably go to sleep now. I guess it was an OK day.

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

So it goes.

A great man died yesterday. His name was Kurt Vonnegut. So it goes.

April Fool

If the fact that my thesis is due on Tuesday turns out to be an April Fool's joke, I'll be equal-parts elated and angry. Is this simultaneity possible? I think so. I can't believe I just spelled "simultaneity" correctly on my first try, by the way. Sweet!

Everything should be a collaborative process, even writing -- the traditionally "solitary loner" practice. OK, so not "everything" everything. Collaborating on going to the bathroom would be pretty awkward.

Goddamnit, I need to work on my thesis...

Ode to Old Amsterdam

City of canals and coffeeshops and cobblestone
Smartshops and smut
Museum amusement
Fried food vended
The Leidseplein that never sleeps
Towering Dutchmen on two wheels
British weekenders and
Obnoxious Americans

City of practicality and patience
Colonial triumphs and contemporary trials
Tiny little houses with tiny little windows
Cats and dogs, whores and patrons
Pigeons trained to swarm at the drop of a frite
Covered in mayo

City of dreams and nightmares
The lost, the found, the still waiting
Water, water, water
Untroubled under trams and bridges
People, people, people
Undulating like the brushstrokes of a van Gogh
Or the faces of a Munch
Rembrandt nobles still live in castles

City of memories and songs and celebration
And life and death and dams
And damns and curses and blessings

Old Amsterdam was once new
But now a mother, a grandmother
Watching all her children and laughing

The Long-Faced French-Canadian, Pt. 1

She was one of those typically long-faced French-Canadian women with dark curly hair and a nose like a polished rock. The only reason I bring her up now is because the story she told me was unlike any I had ever encountered, then or since. Even after I found out that the whole story was made up -- false -- a lie -- the story has made such a strong impression on me that I almost believe in it more than the truth. Almost.

She walked into my office like so many other women before me, seeking help. Except I could tell immediately that something wasn't entirely normal about her. Her tone was all wrong. You see, normally, a first-meeting will go something like this: woman walks in with a heartbreaking story about man, some lover, whom she can't let go of for whatever reason (love, money, etc.), but man has disappeared (murder? cold-feet? another woman?), and she has to know the answer.

I look for answers. Maybe I sleep with her in-between, maybe not. Curiously, that always depends entirely on how well the case is going, nothing to do with her or me. She could profess all the undying love in the world for this man I'm supposed to find, but if the case is going well and it seems like we have a good shot at some kind of reunification, she will sleep with me. She could be as furious as scorned women can get -- I hear it's like hell -- at the man, but if it looks like he's gone for good, I usually get nothing. Women are indeed curious creatures, I have learned this much. Men? They just barely make a little more sense, I think (running away is a natural and understandable animal response, isn't it?), but I suspect that I feel this way entirely based on my own bias. Perhaps men and women are both equally crazy.

Anyway, this French-Canadian woman's tone was completely wrong. I don't travel much, so I don't know that much about Canada, or Quebec, or French-Canadian culture, or French-Canadian women, so maybe there was nothing with her tone at all. But I still felt like something was amiss. This is what happened.

"Hello, detective."

"Have a seat."

"Merci. I have never done anything like this before. Please tell me how to begin."

"The beginning works."

A smile. "Oui, the beginning. When I was born, my father was an architect in Europe --"

"Hold on, hold on. I didn't mean THAT beginning. I meant the beginning of what brings you here."

"But monsieur, I only know of this beginning, and no other. This beginning and this beginning only could have brought me to you."

An interesting perspective on things. "OK, continue."

"My father was an architect in Europe, designing football stadiums. He was kind of obsessed with them. Naturally, he had no idea how to relate to me, a little baby girl. I was probably like a bewildering alien creature to him when I was born. He tried to be a good father, I think, but I don't think he was capable of it. Baby daughters can be difficult for certain men, I believe. Do you have any children?"

I wanted her to cut to the chase already. I wasn't used to long David-Copperfield expositions from my clients. They usually get right down to the emotional whallop of how they got hurt, first thing. This woman was slowly, deliberately, methodically building me up.

"No children. No time for them."

"Of course. Well, my mother worked just as hard as my father, two jobs, doing phones during the day and waitressing on weekend evenings. Yet I found she always seemed to have time for me in a way my father didn't."

"Stop right there. If your dad was a commercial architect, he probably could support all three of you with no problem. Why did your mom have to work so hard?"

"I see I have found the right man for the job. You are very keen. Yes, it was entirely unnecessary for my mother to be working two, even one job. I believe she did it because she wanted to set an example for me, on how to be a strong woman independent of a man. More than that, I know she believed in this principle for her own life because her father, my grandfather, never supported her in any way. He was an alcoholic and a philanderer and he died when my mother was still young."

"Typical boozer-schmoozer, huh?"

"Do you like to drink, monsieur?"

"Yeah, sure, I enjoy a scotch every now and then."

"Do you like women, monsieur? I am not asking if you are a homosexual. I know you are not, because your secretary is very pretty. But do you like women?"

"Only in very controlled doses."

Another smile. "You are an interesting man."

Warehouse 5 Treatment

LOGLINE:

Trapped in a mysterious warehouse containing all of time and the history of existence, a lonely video store clerk discovers meaning and meaninglessness in the universe and his own life.

SYNOPSIS:

David, who has just turned 33, works at a rundown, hole-in-the-wall video store which doesn’t even carry DVDs, only VHS tapes. He and his co-workers, Artie and Jon, take pride in their indie hipster cred while bickering about classic and obscure cinema. However, David secretly harbors longtime desires of becoming a great filmmaker one day, leading to his perpetual unhappiness. This malaise is manifested in his ambivalent relationship with longtime friend, Hannah.

Skeptical of coincidences and the other vagaries and mysteries of life and unable to relate to the world through any other lens besides the films he worships, David one day stumbles upon a strange warehouse he has never seen before, with a large red hand-painted “5” on the side. He steps inside to discover a lobby with a receptionist, Virginia, waiting.

Virginia explains to David the nature of this mysterious place: it is a warehouse that contains all of time and existence, from the beginning of the universe to the end of the universe. She brings David through a maze of clean, white hallways before they arrive at one infinitely long hallway, with black door after black door. She tells David that the length of this hallway represents his entire life, and that each door represents a moment in his life. The rest of the warehouse similarly houses every other moment in time, from the Big Bang wing to the 42-billion-years-later endpoint of the universe’s existence. Finally, she tells him that he is free to explore the whole place as extensively as he wishes, in all time for all time. There are only two restrictions: he can never leave, and he must never enter one special door in the very center of the warehouse, the door of the Present, or his mind and soul will be ripped to shreds. She then hands him a brochure highlighting popular Warehouse 5 destinations and points of interest, replete with alien civilizations and visually spectacular cosmic phenomena, before disappearing down a hallway.

David begins by checking out the room of his death, which is utterly normal. Hannah and Jon cry. Moving words are said. No wife, no children. David can’t even concentrate on this pitiful, unwatchable, utterly unspectacular scene. He decides to follow the more exciting tour itinerary in the brochure.

After exploring everything in the brochure, David can’t figure out what to do next. He seeks Virginia for guidance, asking her if he must remain a space-time tourist his whole life, and she tells him that all people inevitably end up in the same place, which is the room in their own lives where they were the happiest, the most content, without a worry or desire in the world. She tells him that finding this room is like finding home.

David proceeds to examine room after room, trying to find his perfect moment, but as each room fails the test, he finally discovers that he has never had a completely happy moment in his entire life, that something has always been not-quite-right. Lost in the ultimate existential quandary, he mentally breaks down, choosing to relive painful memories and even reverting to the room of his infancy for a period of time. As he obsessively, psychotically relives his birth over and over, he suddenly snaps out of his condition, resolving to put an end to everything once and for all.

He marches nervously toward the room of the Present, glancing around to make sure Virginia isn’t around to catch him. He figures this suicide will be more honorable than the cosmic limbo he currently lives, and boldly opens the door and steps in. The room plunges him into total darkness. He waits. Nothing happens. Confused, he opens the door again and comes out. Everything is still there, nothing seems different. He goes back in tries again. Darkness. Nothing. He comes back out again.

Bewildered, he looks for Virginia, to ask her why the room doesn’t do anything. When he finds her, however, she wears a different hairstyle, and doesn’t recognize him. After trying some rooms, he realizes that the contents of his life have changed entirely. He returns to the room of the Present and tries it again, and discovers that his life is once again completely different. David believes he has discovered the true nature of the Present, as a variable “t” which unlocks the sole portal to an infinite array of alternate parallel universes, an infinite number of warehouses, from Warehouse 1, 2, 3, … and so on, each one housing a different set of choices and random outcomes, resulting in a unique universe. Here, he can find the perfect room in the perfect hallway of his life of the perfect warehouse, where he is a world-famous, critically-acclaimed film director. He happily enjoys many moments, from a dream-like wedding with a beautiful actress to winning Sundance and the Oscars in the same year.

However, as he encounters as many different Virginias as universes, none of them can fathom how he is able to accomplish this feat, when so many others before him have died, simply removed from existence for this transgression. The Virginia of David’s happiest universe continues to question and pester David on this mystery, and eventually comes to believe that David has achieved some kind of godhead or transcendent nirvana state. Where others like her only have omniscience, insofar as knowing the unchangeable past and future, David can move through the present, affecting the choices individuals make and the outcomes of random variables. In short, David has omnipotence as well as omniscience, the ultimate director, God himself.

Virginia posits this theory to David, who cannot begin to understand what he should do if she is correct. There is no direct way he can intervene in people’s lives and help people with this power, yet there is no way he can simply go back to living his happy director life with the knowledge that he could be a deity. He asks Virginia for help, but she has no answers. She, too, has never witnessed such an occurrence. But she has faith that as God, David will by nature make the right decision, and she begins to study his words and behavior as a model of moral rightness, in effect worshipping him as God. Still unsure of what to do with another new plane of existence at the lonely top, Virginia beseeches him to just go with his gut.

David decides that his purpose can only be to accumulate all the wisdom of time and existence and life in the pursuit of having that one perfect moment in one’s life, which he had never had. He commits himself to the study of happy moments all across the universes, determining this to be the meaning of life. To be sad that a loved one has died is silly when one realizes that this beloved is also happy, alive, and well a few rooms down the hall, in his perfect room. The meaning of life, he concludes, is the creation, pursuit, and experience of that one happy room to call home, which can only be achieved by living in the present. David forms this doctrine and resolves to spread it across the universe.

the edge of the world

when columbus was a boy
they told him never to go beyond
the edge of the world
where monsters lay, and dragons
today we say, "the world is not flat!"
but we are still boys
and the edge of the world eludes us
always

stream surfing

this hallway i run through
runs by me
flashing dark light
dark light dark light dark light
like a film strip and

i am an inverted projector
inside my own movie
that i am exhibiting
the wheels are spinning

i am the wheel
and the film
and the light

so it begins.
so it goes.

2007

Resolution #1: Read and write more.
Resolution #2: Get an agent. Sell a screenplay.

So it goes.

Happy New Year!

The Other People

I look at all the Other People. The Other People are the People we rarely notice, the People who were designed to go unnoticed. The People that actually make sure things work, but invisibly. The People you aren't supposed to meet face-to-face, but you sometimes do anyway. That small old man with the push broom at the fancy hotel, for example. I look at him, and I want to say hello. Do not mistake, I don't want to say thanks -- not a cursory, socially-obligated thanks, anyway. I want to say hello. I want to ask him his name. You see, he doesn't get a name-tag like the lady at the front desk. I want to let him know that he shouldn't act like he's supposed to be invisible. I want to tell him to go trip patrons with his broom. Go sweep right next to the front door, not when the lobby's empty, but when it's full. Go under tables that are being occupied. Take the gold-gilded elevator like everyone else, not the cold concrete stairs. Say hello to people as they pass, don't hang your hand and grip your broom. Why? Because I look at all the Other People. And they don't belong in the woods. They belong in town, like everybody else. All the People. Laughing.

Plano, Texas

I live in Plano, Texas.

Plano is bigger than Jersey City, New Jersey (the second-largest city in NJ behind Newark); Lincoln, Nebraska; Greensboro, North Carolina; Norfolk, Virginia; Birmingham, Alabama; Madison, Wisconsin; Orlando, Florida; Rochester, New York; and Reno, Nevada.

Plano is over 78% white. Next are Asians and Latinos at 10% each. Black people are around 5%. These numbers add up to more than 100%, because about 3% reported two or more races.

Plano is the highest income place in the United States for cities over 130,000 people. It also has the lowest poverty rate of 6.3%, making it the richest city in the United States with a population over 250,000. Plano is also located in Collin County, the richest county in Texas and part of the richest 1% of counties in the United States. The four wealthy zip codes of Plano that contribute to the county's affluence are (in descending order of median household income/year): 75093, 75024, 75025, and 75094. I live in 75025.

64.3% of households are married couples living together.

Plano is also home to many large corporate headquarters, including Electronic Data Systems, JCPenney, Cadbury Schweppes/Dr. Pepper/Seven Up, Frito Lay, and Neiman Marcus.

Plano students achieved notoriety following a cluster of nine suicides in 1983 that raised national awareness about suburban teenage depression and drug abuse. The drug specifically cited by many was heroin. This heroin problem resurfaced in the late 1990s, culminating in coverage by several major news outlets such as NBC's Dateline. Heroin use in Plano eventually led to over a dozen overdose deaths of teenagers and young adults. Many more Plano heroin users suffered from overdoses that did not result in death.

I live in Plano, Texas, but I will never be from here.

Love

Love, love, love
All you need is love
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
Love is all you nee--
Love is all you nee--
Love is all you nee--
Love is all you need
Back on top in June
I said THAT'S LIFE!
I want to hold your hand
With a love like that
You know it can't be bad
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Oh, yeah, I tell you something
It's easy!

Top 10 Albums of 2006

I haven't listened to a lot of albums I should have this year, so any objections to this list are probably correct. However, this list does accurately reflect the soundtrack of my life in 2006, which is all any year-end top 10 list is good for, anyway.

10. Straight Outta Lynwood ("Weird Al" Yankovic)
9. Modern Times (Bob Dylan)
8. LOVE (The Beatles)
7. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (Arctic Monkeys)
6. At War with the Mystics (The Flaming Lips)
5. The Crane Wife (The Decemberists)
4. Destroyer's Rubies (Destroyer)
3. Everything All the Time (Band of Horses)
2. We are the Pipettes (The Pipettes)
1. The Life Pursuit (Belle & Sebastian)

And, uh, also the Top 2 Concerts of 2006:

2. The Raconteurs/Bob Dylan
1. The New Pornographers/Belle & Sebastian

And, uh, also the Top 1 Festival of 2006:

1. Pitchfork - Union Park, Chicago

2006 was a pretty good year for music!

The Character of HAL 9000

This is the third installment of a multi-part series in which I post the best college papers ever written in the entire history of the universe... by me. Voila!

I. Introduction/Disclaimer

The difficulties that arise from examining the “character” of HAL 9000, or any other element of the narrative in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, are hazardous and abundant. 2001 is a film whose plot is constructed in a deliberately opaque manner, defying most, if not all, of the classical Hollywood conventions. Temporally, it “spans infinity rather than days or years”; spatially, it “embodies a kind of ultimate cinematic universe” without the assurances of a “normal perspective”; in short, it is a “frontal assault on the traditional conventions of Hollywood filmmaking” (Nelson 110). Out of 160 minutes of film, only 40 minutes of footage contain dialogue, most of which does little to further the audience’s understanding of the story (Fry 333). Kubrick himself stated that he “intended the film to be an intensely subjective experience that reaches the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does; to ‘explain’ a Beethoven symphony would be to emasculate it by erecting an artificial barrier between conception and appreciation” (Fry 333). Basically, Kubrick never meant for this story to be put into words, never meant it to be explained, verbalized, or articulated; rather, he meant it to be experienced, seen visually and heard musically, and only inwardly appreciated.

Indeed, this poses a problem in trying to pin down anything coherent about a purposefully enigmatic narrative in twelve pages, but despite this challenge, an attempt will be made to elucidate the narrative function of the HAL 9000 character.

II. Introduction/Thesis

Philosophers, scientists, theists, and atheists throughout human history have spent their entire lives musing on the eternal question, “Why?” Why man? Why earth? Why the universe? Why anything? It is this self-consciousness, perhaps, that separates us from any other living thing known to mankind -- it is, perhaps, the only thing that makes us special. If this is true, then what does one make of an artificially created conscious, invented and molded by the hands of man, HAL 9000? Most viewers of the film agree that HAL is more than just an action prop with an electronic voice, more than just a machine; he (not it) is a full-fledged character in the narrative. But as the pinnacle of man’s creativity and technological achievement, what kind of character is he? How human is he? Is he a hero or villain?

On a smaller, more literal level, HAL is unquestionably human, and perhaps a tragic villain in the vein of Mary Shelley’s monster in Frankenstein. However, as a symbol for what technology means in relation to man, and as the pinnacle of what technology can achieve, a tool that replicates all the complexities of the human mind, HAL 9000 is a character that transcends the question of humanity and the paradigm of good and evil to achieve a more cosmically significant status in the narrative, not as a representation of man’s follies, but as simply another stepping stone to walk over in man’s evolution.

III. HAL’s Humanity

Even before HAL 9000 ever enters the narrative, the notion of latent humanity being buried or constructed within man’s technological creations is explored. Various images or objects suggest the idea that technology, something most people view as cold, mechanical, and inhuman, is actually a very human, even organic thing.

During the “Dawn of Man” section, in fact, the first tool, the first technological idea for man, is a bone, part of something that used to be alive. Bones are something very vital to higher life forms such as mammals, and the fact that the first ape-man uses this object that was once alive as a tool, as a technology, inextricably ties life and technology together, from technology’s very birth onward. The notion that technology is also tied to death, by way of violence, is also suggested by the use of a dead bone from a dead animal, but this idea will be explored more thoroughly later in the paper.

This idea doesn’t die when the technologies become more complex, as the famous match cut that brings us from bone to space ship suggests. Ships float through space elegantly, enhanced by the classical music soundtrack, and their graceful movements seem to have a life of their own. The spaceships movements have been described by others as anywhere from “ballet” to “a cosmic, coital dance,” and regardless of one’s interpretation, they are all human descriptions, and certainly not simple mechanical motions (Verniere 2). One particular spaceship, in fact, is a round, planet-like sphere, which we see descending into a station; it looks exactly like a human head, complete with lights for eyes. Clearly in this shot, the face of technology is human.

When the film reaches the “Jupiter Mission” section, and we are introduced to HAL 9000 for the first time, we see just exactly how human that face is. The face is actually just one big red luminous circle, like an unblinking eye that watches everything. HAL’s “eye” seems almost more human than the human crew’s eyes; the three in hibernation are virtually frozen dead bodies that don’t even get to participate in the distinctly human activity of dreaming, and the two conscious ones, Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, have extremely expressionless, blank, robotic faces, with dull eyes that do not shine with nearly as much life and vitality as HAL’s red light.

During a BBC interview with the two astronauts, much is revealed about how human HAL actually is. We are told by the interviewer, “The crew of Discovery 1 consists of five men and one of the latest generation of the HAL 9000 computers,” and it is interesting that he is even considered a component of the crew, normally understood to be a human grouping; indeed, he is more part of the “crew” of the ship than any one human, as he runs every aspect of ship operations. One particular shot from the interview frames the two astronauts side by side, with HAL right in the middle between them, as if he were not just part of the crew, but captain of the crew. In fact, it is interesting that he is even referred to as “he” at all, instead of “it.” HAL’s humanity is so inherently intuitive, that it is basically automatic to assume to call him a “he,” and not once is he ever referred to as “it.” Even when you call him by his name, you are supposed to say “Hal,” like the human name, and not say the letters “H-A-L.”

Granted, the question arises as to whether HAL can actually feel real human emotions, if he indeed is actually a replication, not just a synthetic mimicry, of the human brain. However, even in the content and manner in which HAL speaks, there seems to be a whole well full of motivations derived from truly human emotions. He states, “I enjoy working with people,” a response grounded by emotion (“enjoy”) rather than logic or mechanics. After Frank views a birthday message from his family, HAL chimes in with a, “Happy birthday, Frank,” which seems to come out of nowhere, completely unmotivated, and therefore unusually genuine. When HAL tries to persuade Dave that there’s nothing wrong, even after HAL has murdered Frank, he tries to appeal to Dave on a basic human level, citing distinctly human traits when he says, “I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission.” Also, it’s noteworthy that he says “still got,” as if he’s lost everything else -- the logic, the computational abilities, the rationality -- and all that’s left deep down, at his core, is his inherent humanity, his “enthusiasm and confidence.” Even if phrases like that are just well-calculated moves to get Dave to stop his attempt at dismantling him, they reveal a deep, urgent need for self preservation that goes beyond the programmed parameters of completing this mission.

Finally, if HAL’s positive attributes do not point to his humanity, then the manner in which he contrasts with “real humans” certainly does. The “banality of Bowman and Poole… makes it possible for HAL… to appear… ‘more human than human’” (Verniere 3). HAL’s closest human analog would be Mission Control based on earth, and the difference between them is overt. Although Mission Control is a human speaking to Dave and Frank, the voice is filtered through radio technology, and sounds much flatter, thinner, and more electrical than HAL’s voice, which has an enveloping, deeply resonant tone. The content of their speech also differs. HAL speaks like a normal human being as he “gives counsel, shows curiosity, awards praise” (Nelson 186). Mission Control speaks in “Technish” that sounds infinitely more like the speech of a computer or machine: “X-ray-Delta-One, this is Mission Control, roger your two-zero-one-three… Roger your plan to go E-V-A and replace Alpha-Echo-three-five unit prior to failure” (Nelson 318).

IV. HAL as Tragic Villain

If HAL is indeed established to be, if not downright human, then virtually human, what kind of character does he have? What sort of human is he? The most common and immediate reaction is that he is an evil, intelligent, calculating villain. The American Film Institute listed him as the #13 villain in their “100 Years… 100 Heroes and Villains” best-of list in 2003. His voice has been described as “bland, neutral, reassuring,” but also “ambiguous, sinister, untrustworthy” (Walker 185). His actions, strictly speaking, are certainly heinous, as he murders Frank Poole in cold blood, as well as the helpless, hibernating crew members, before intentionally leaving Dave outside the ship to die. However, is this distinction so easy? Certainly, HAL’s actions are unforgivable in a sense, but there are complexities to the straight-villain claim that texture HAL’s character as more of the tragic villain type than the purely evil villain type.

First and foremost, HAL was created by man and given the gift of some form of intelligence, and in fact, consciousness. In this sense, he is a pretty clear descendent of the Frankensteinian monsters of which Mary Shelley first gave seminal vision (Kozlovic 347). These types of villains are indelibly tragic, as they were created without ever asking to be created, and always with some sort of fatal flaw that seems like a gross oversight on the part of the creator that causes the monster to suffer in some unjust way. This notion goes as far back as God’s creation of Adam only to have him expelled from Eden, as explored by John Milton in Paradise Lost, and thus suggests something inherently human about these tragic Frankensteinian monsters.

HAL’s tragic flaw, in a sense, is that he is too human. The programmers who created him did too good of a job in turning this machine into a man, full of human flaws, especially hubris. The interviewer remarks that he can detect a small bit of pride, even arrogance, in HAL’s proclamations of the 9000 series computers’ infallibility. It has been said that “HAL’s biggest crime” was not his “murderous deeds,” but his “conceit” with “claims like, ‘No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake.’ This is more than just arrogant, more than just false; it is the antithesis of realism” (Kozlovic 358). Indeed, it is this hubris that drives him to commit his villainous murders, either to cover up the possible mistake he made about the faulty part, or as a consequence of his doubts and suspicions about the mission, in which case, his hubris extends to the idea that he, as the most powerful and knowledgeable component of the mission, is above the mission. And the tragedy of that is that this was the way he was created; he was designed to be that powerful and that knowledgeable, that perfect, and in an imperfect world, this was the most cruel thing man ever did to machine -- to give it consciousness without the natural human limitations we have that rein in our arrogances every day. Another take on this idea states that “once programmed to be ‘human,’ HAL loses the machine purity that, no doubt, his Earth twin still possesses. He becomes imbued with a consciousness of his own autonomy and denies his function as a tool,” thereby compromising his “infallibility as a machine and benevolence as a deity” (Nelson 128).

The camera also provides viewers with more subjective viewpoints that underline a certain amount of empathy for HAL. The first shot of HAL we see shows the red circular eye apparently watching Poole shadowboxing around the ship. HAL’s electronic gaze, as it reflects the moving, exercising body of Poole, gives the impression that HAL is jealous of Poole’s movement, his body, his physical manifestation. HAL is only the brain and central nervous system of the ship, an electronic, digital manifestation with no body whatsoever. This, too, was part of his design, fairly or unfairly, and may have mixed dangerously with his arrogance. In any case, the viewer sees both Poole’s limitless potential for movement and action reflected in the glassy eye of HAL’s digitally tied down brain, a mind held prisoner within motionless, muscle-less circuit boards, and can feel a small bit of empathy for this brilliant, intelligent, trapped mind. In fact, “many of the images of Bowman and Poole at work are subjective camera shots from HAL’s various vantage points throughout the spaceship” (Rasmussen 83). When Dave and Frank plot to disconnect HAL, Kubrick

frames the two astronauts, facing each other, inside the oval window of a space pod, where they have retreated so as to discuss HAL’s irrational behavior without, they believe, having the computer overhear them. We see their lips move silently behind the armored glass. The shot is from HAL’s point of view; and we realize the computer is lip-reading Bowman and Poole! (Walker 187)

Knowing that they are discussing what more or less comes down to HAL’s murder, the camera pans back and forth between Dave and Frank’s lips in a panicked motion, indicating HAL’s fear of being disconnected. These point of view shots from HAL’s electronic eyes are what some have called “his distorted, subjective point of view” (Nelson 127). Thus, HAL’s pre-emptive murders are a product of survival instincts and a desire for self-preservation. Indeed, when he wields the pod to cut Frank’s oxygen tube and kill him, it becomes like “his bone club, wielded against the creator who threatens his existence” (Rasmussen 89). HAL can only be blamed insofar as his creators can be blamed for his violent acts. His limitations are man’s limitations, and thus, there must be a certain level of empathy for HAL’s confusions and flaws.

When HAL is finally being dismantled, he reveals eerily human traits. His pleas for Dave to stop are chilling and pathetic as he delivers in monotone, “Stop, Dave. I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave.” He keeps going back to feelings and emotions, even as those programmed features are supposedly being removed one by one by Dave: “My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a… fraid.” He then does a very human thing near death, which is to revert back to his own infancy, in a moment much like his entire life flashing before his eyes, as he introduces himself and asks if Dave would like to hear a song his instructor taught him when he first became operational. In a sign of shared empathy or humanity, Dave significantly speaks for the first time during this gruesome operation, telling HAL to sing the song, as if to distract HAL from the pain of death. This moment is so poignant, and points to even Dave’s recognition of his own sympathy for HAL, that HAL’s death, despite his own deeds, becomes that of a truly tragic villain.

V. HAL Beyond the Infinite

Beyond just being a pivotal character in the narrative, whether human or non-human, tragic or evil, HAL also transcends these common paradigms of character to play a more cosmically important role as the stepping stone of man from dawn to maturity. This take on HAL acknowledges what is impossible to ignore: that 2001 as a whole is a film that begins before time, reveals the universe and even existence itself coming into existence, and then relates the history of man’s evolutionary development, from ape-man to some future transcendent stage as a Star Child. HAL merely represents the final step in this transformative process.

To begin with, critics commonly structure the film into four major sections, three of them subtitled by Kubrick:

1. The Dawn of Man
• A primeval ape man makes a breakthrough - becoming endowed with intelligence after experiencing a mysterious black monolith
2. The lunar journey in the year 2000 (untitled)
• Eons later, a similar monolith is discovered on the lunar surface in the 21st century, sending its signals to Jupiter
3. Jupiter Mission, 18 Months Later
• A futuristic, 18-month journey to Jupiter, featuring HAL 9000
4. Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite
• A mystical experience in another time and dimension (Dirks)

The separation between “The Dawn of Man” section and the untitled lunar journey is often thought to be obvious, as it is marked by the famous match cut from bone to spaceship, a cut that spans eons of time and countless technological improvements and discoveries. When the audience sees the cut, the “illusion of progress encourages us to accept this shift with little resistance,” but it is more interesting (and more correct) to assume that Kubrick chose to not separate the lunar journey segment with a subtitle for a reason, that it should actually be included as a continuation of “The Dawn of Man” (Castle). The evidence for this view is strong, as this longer dawn is marked by “two signposts” on the perimeter:

the monoliths. One has been placed in the ape’s encampment; the other, buried on the moon. Man’s ‘dawn’ has occurred not in a single bound to a smarter ape but within the whole space of four million years. This time marks a prelude to the journey to Jupiter, which will change man’s relation to the technological universe (Castle).

In other words, the entire first section introduces man as he develops pathetically through the utilization of technology, tied inextricably to the capacity for violence. The entire second section, centered around HAL, is the turning point, in which the culmination and pinnacle of what technology can achieve ultimately proves to be nothing more than a bigger, fancier expression of man’s capacity for technologically enabled violence. It is the last, final moment of apes bludgeoning themselves with levers, after which, in the third and final act, man is reborn into a higher form, beyond technology, and therefore, optimistically, beyond violence.

Exploring this grand, beginning-of-time-until-the-end-of-man narrative structure of the film would involve several papers’ worth of ideas, so this paper will focus on the middle section, HAL’s section, as a transitional “birthing period” for the emergence of this “new” man. This perspective simply underlines the point that HAL is not a mere character in this story, but, as the culmination of current man’s limitations vis-à-vis his dependence on technology vis-à-vis expressions of violence, overcoming and moving beyond HAL is an evolutionary step in the process of reaching the Star Child.

Images involving the process of birth abound in this section. The very first shot is of the Discovery 1 spaceship, which is shaped very much like a sperm cell, with a large head in front and a long, thin tail with rocket boosters in the back powering the ship’s movement. Indeed, this mission is very much like a sperm swimming through space, looking for a cosmic ovum to conceive a “new man” with. At this point, HAL is working on the ship in conjunction with, not against, this goal.

However, it is when HAL turns on humans that he actually truly propels them forward, pushing Dave to the next level, forcing him to overcome the still dawning man’s vestigial reliance on technology, to transcend that limiting human trait and evolve into a superior state. Humans “retain more immature traits longer than any other vertebrate on the planet” (Westfahl 103), and technology has simply been one of those immature traits that have endured over man’s four billion year long dawning, and now must be shed on the way to greater biological glory.

The sex-and-birth-related imagery continues to enhance the showdown between Dave and HAL, between man and his own technology. When Dave finds himself inside a pod, without a space helmet, locked outside of the spaceship by HAL, there seems to be no escape, and HAL seems to have triumphed in stifling -- suffocating -- man’s evolution. However, in a triumph of distinctly human ingenuity over mechanical logic, Dave forces his own re-entry into Discovery 1 with explosive bolts from his little pod, bolts which “were originally designed to help astronauts escape out of a malfunctioning pod, not into a malfunctioning Discovery” (Rasmussen 96). Dave sets the emergency bolts ready to explode the door open, and kneels down in front of it, crouching in a fetal-like position before shutting his eyes, looking for all the world like a baby preparing to enter the birth canal. The shots of his forced re-entry are more like a rape. His body bursts into the blood red air chamber, a womb, along with a cloud of white, semen-like smoke. After this moment, a reborn Dave stalks through the ship towards the room that houses HAL’s brain, “tracked by a hand-held camera attuned to his erratic breathing,” the film now fully taking on an unstable, but human perspective, the perspective of the victor. Before this, the camera moved in controlled, mechanical pans or simply remained stationary, implicitly assuming the perspective of a machine-dominated world. This victory, then, becomes a validation of man over machine, anointing and signaling his rebirth as he enters HAL’s Logic Memory Center and unscrews his brain-cards, and overtaking control.

HAL’s “death” climaxes the film’s treatment of humanity as Tool-Maker and provides a necessary step toward the symbolic implications of […] the birth of the Star Child. Visually, […] the use of subjective camera devices and disorienting angles signifies the presence of an important internal struggle. Images of circles and corridors convert the interior of Discovery into a well-lit womb of death where hibernators are aborted, and one character, from the darkness of space, gains re-entry to destroy the tool […] and begin a new evolutionary cycle” (Nelson 123).

HAL, for all his humanity or inhumanity, for all his tragedy or evil, was thus a necessity, because “HAL’s ‘humanity’ (his madness) forces Bowman to rediscover his own,” ultimately “[stimulating] growth” (Nelson 142). Put another way, technology’s flaws of inherent violence thus force man to rediscover a new humanity, and a new path of higher consciousness.

VI. Conclusion

Any method of reading Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey becomes reductive or problematic in some way. As one critic put it, “Screwing with audiences’ heads was Stanley Kubrick’s favorite hobby outside of chess” and this film “remains Kubrick’s crowning, confounding achievement” (Verniere 1). HAL himself will always remain a mysterious black box filled with questions, questions about exactly what technology means to man, questions about where the lines are drawn, if any can be, between mimicking and recreating human emotions… questions about the future. In one interesting, small piece of dialogue while Frank and Dave discuss the option of disconnecting HAL, Dave says, “Well, I’m not so sure what he’d think of it.” Neither are we, but the line suggests that “at some emotional level, [he] cares about HAL’s existence” (Nofz 40). Perhaps that is all man can be expected to do -- care about, if not fully comprehend -- the existence and purpose of technology.