Goupil...On Instagram?

Declassified now by the government after his death, some amusing anecdotes were found in Goupil's life, one of which was an Instagram account where he openly talked of being an international assassin. Knowing he wouldn't be believed, this allowed him the freedom to express himself that other outlets could not provide.

Here is a sample of a typical posting where Goupil interacts with the general public. His forced isolation no doubt played a part in this odd behavior for a wanted criminal. Perhaps this proves the need to be human trumps all else.

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Only caught after part of last year’s Otsukimi moon viewing festival as I was lamenting fact I was on the run as wanted international assassin. But got all of this one. Was ridiculously hot and muggy. Writing haiku is part of tradition so I scribble this:

Dallas Autumn sweat,
Escaping boredom’s prison,
Chasing Fall’s last moon.

Commenter [Names redacted of the commenters]: Wow! Didn't know international assassins like Japanese festivals!

Goupil: It not festival that first attract me. It was dispersing crowd at night. Knew I be safe there, very hard to track. Had to track someone like that one time, was very difficult.

Commenter: Oh, Had you just killed someone??

Goupil: Nothing like that. Was alone and with pain, paranoid man. Seeking safe place. Always looking over shoulder, just running, not killing anymore.

Commenter: Why are they after you so bad, G?

Goupil: This will sound crazy with all this news that come out, but was Russia job that send everything downhill. Had to cover up connection between oligarch and American senator. Then found out I to be killed after!

Commenter: Dang! Hate it when that happens!

Goupil: Me too! Those Russians are devils! Never do business with them. Use mob seductress in bar to throw you off, make you easy kill. Take all my power to resist. She even haunt dreams later on.

Commenter: Sounds hawt!

Goupil: Not hawt when she plan to tie you up so men with guns can break in and shoot. I barely get out but nothing same after that. Too easy to get caught in France so America I come.

Commenter: Why go to France anyway?

Goupil: France is home. Actually, no place home now. This planet not for me.

Commenter: Are they still hard on your tail, Goupil?

Goupil: Not like before, no. Your idiot president save me. He turn all attention to him like eye of Sauron. This will stop one day but I think after not be like before. American FBI forever to be damaged. They see now they can be attacked but no one stand with them.

Commenter: Never thought of it like that but I see your point.

Goupil: If you being chased you think of it! But other things chasing me too.

Commenter: You mean other governments or Russian mob or...

Goupil: I mean things inside I cannot escape. Times feel short.

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Goupil suspected his demise was coming even if not at the hands of law enforcement officials. His later implosion and subsequent suicide proved his past could not be escaped.

Tama's Sitting Stone

In the year 1763 of the Western calendar on the ninth day of the tenth month, Tama was found by early morning villagers sitting on this stone and staring into the tree in front of him. He did not respond when accosted or questioned. He did not move when little children threw acorns at his head. Even an afternoon cloudburst could not sway him. He simply sat and stared.

During this time deep into the Edo era, Japan suffered political and technological stagnation due its chosen isolation and the central government's ceaseless quest for ever-increasing power over the provincial governors. It would be yet another hundred years before Japan would rejoin the world and the ruling samurai overthrown in a fit of rage and resentment. But in Tama's time there were no grand causes to die for or calls to greatness to advance the nation. In the far distant air of the capital city life was thick with political intrigues and self-absorbed interests.

By dusk, Tama was still frozen as a statue. Sometime in the darkness he left as he was not there the following morning. Later, it was found out his wife had died. (It was also later Tama realized a tree was in front of him as that was not the object of his interest.) A few months afterwards a haiku monk passed through the village and heard this story. He scribbled this poem before leaving.

Tama's sitting stone;

In the village, lightning strikes;

His world is his own

The Strelnikov Papers

"The battle within

Begins again -

And there I must begin."
February, 1919

"This is the time of glorious hate, when indecision has been cast away like yesterday's newspaper. I slyly silently mock those who still struggle. Their lives are open books to me as my eyes pierce their every encroaching fear and last remaining hopes. Praise be to the power of certainty! The lost and the confused and the stranded look to me longingly for direction. I appear as a spirit of divine authority: their greatest wish.

"I am Strelnikov, beacon of the revolution's light. I have been given the power of life and death as I bathe in the unaccountable rule of Man's deemed righteousness. I've turned my back on the selfish and indulgent endeavors of personal relations. Those are for inferior times. All around me I'm surrounded by the blazing white light of destiny's fight, filling me with purpose and awe. My guns are instruments of God and my will is directed by His purpose alone."

Strelnikov was at one with the vast expanse of the cold childless Russian sky above him, unleashed by the chaos of the October revolution, the same sky that spawned the endless white mirror of the sunlit snow reaching the horizon. The liberation of being death's master skyrocketed him to infamous fame among the countryside peasants. His soldiers worshiped his overpowering conviction, seduced by the same passions that torment every empty aching life. A soul like Strelnikov, who orders a village burned then sleeps like a child, is a man to die for.

Yet not someone for whom to live.

Like a baby struggling to find reason in refusing mother's milk, Strelnikov and his men twist their minds in dark pursuit of an impossible ideal. How to create life from death? Each valiantly decries his unworthiness of love - Strelnikov the most by far - and thus they fought and died so that others more "worthy" may live. This war - like every war - though called revolutionary and historic and world-changing was still like any other: it starts with self-deception.

The madman's train terrorized the Urals in search of pure love: love for the revolution, love for the state, love for Strelnikov - and to relentlessly stamp out love judged to be illicit as one would an emerging fire. Those in his domain feared a doom worse than death: to stand before Strelnikov's examining gaze which spotlights your soul before heaven itself. Better to die alone in the dark by his blind dog soldiers than to face his public crucifixion. In time, his name was not even dared to be whispered and life with him became an accepted common understanding as like the coming of the seasons. No matter how horrific, one must endure it.

But every evil has a shelf life. Once Strelnikov's masters had extracted what they wanted from him he was tossed aside like the peel of a squeezed orange. Alas, a loser like him must be hunted down to be denied and destroyed before any association is made (for his masters were even greater losers). He returned to his village to find nothing but black ashes blowing across the icy snow, another pointless sacrifice to the ambition of men. Strelnikov took in a breath but this time the cold inhaled him.

He had hoped his madness would deliver him to paradise as sobriety never had, that cheering crowds would thank him for his service; the selfless hero. His family had fled at the prospect of facing such a monster as one would an oncoming tornado. Strelnikov, hero of the devolution, was the most alone man in the world. Too late he realized his self-betrayal by the flowing plaudits from the self-appointed state, his knees dropping in despair into the hardened snow. No man may judge himself  - or another - unworthy of love; this the origin of war. He was a creature unwanted by every living being - including himself.

He who lives by the bullet dies by the anguished broken heart.

"The Wife", A Review

There are hints all the way through "The Wife". "Your story is a cliché." "You can do better." "A good start." "You need to go deeper." "I didn't buy your characters." In a film about writing, we hear these criticisms about pieces written by characters in the film. But since self-expression is the single greatest drive in human existence, the writer of this film gave away her own thoughts on her own writing.

"Your story is a cliché."
A woman ghost writes her husband's novels because in the dark ages of the 1960's no one is going to publish a novel by a girl. Cover up ensues while husband receives accolades but in the end she "can't do this anymore". Well, duh. Living a lie is hell for anyone. Doing a cliché story is OK if you do something original and insightful (honest) with it. If not, it comes off as a bad TV episode.

"You need to go deeper."
"I understand: feeling guilty." That line was not in the film - but should have been. I can't stand Christian Slater but when I read he played a contemptible character I gave him a pass and sure enough he was spot on and actually the least muddled of the characters. In the end, when The Wife decides she's going to permanently perpetuate the public cover-up after her husband's death, I'd given anything had the Slater character uttered that to add a much greater complexity both to him and the film as opposed to his just slinking away.

"I didn't buy your characters."
Pryce and Close gave it their all in their parts. But when he asks her, "Why did you marry me if I'm such a worthless fuck?" Her literal reply is, "I don't know." I don't know either why they were married. It starts off as a classic student crush on a teacher and that's all we get. We can infer she's seduced by the success she gets from re-writing her husband's work but we're not given that sense of seduction by the film.

"You can do better."
This is supposed to be a feminist film but the agenda gets in the way. Now, I do think there's a woeful lack of female voices out there in the art world and I am starved to hear them and there's great satisfaction when we do. And there's no doubt some men feel threatened in their place by a competent female voice. But if there's a conspiracy to keep women quiet it's done by the women themselves. It's always easier not to rock the boat and risk whatever deal you have. Being crucified for speaking the truth is most certainly not gender limited, though.

"A good start."
In a film about re-writing it's a film that needs re-writing. Don't be so safe! Show how decades of deceit rot a marriage. Or better yet, she stifles her own (better) words while her husband publishes mediocre novels. Then show us how that saps her soul in order to keep the safety of her marriage. The film asks questions - and that's a good start - but simply asking without answering is not enough.

In the end this is another case of what a film aspires to be vastly differing from what it is. I love, love, love the idea of the untold story of a silent wife coming to light but I did not get that here. The only reason we have the Close character say she's not a victim is because the film is based on the idea she is (but doesn't want to come off that way). One thing the film got right is stating that writing is agony. That it most certainly is - at least without Emily.

Apostle Creed

The professor asked which contemporaneous follower of Jesus wrote this:

"Being with Jesus is the most wonderful feeling in the world. All your defenses melt and the claws of the world drop from your heart. You lose that perpetual feeling of needing to explain. He knows. He understands. What a relief!

"You keep thinking it's too good to be true but the feeling never proves false. He is the embodiment of the land of milk and honey, forever nurturing. His presence is the center of the world. Hearts gravitate towards the shining love as if answering a long yearned for call. Nagging doubts run like roaches from his light.

"Even in his absence I am content having the knowledge he is somewhere on this earth. This feeling of trust he weaves brings forth a hope never before known. Thank the dear Lord we have been given this gift! You can see the dawning of a consciousness that we can live with each other not just at each other. It's the beginning of a new era and if things keep going the way they are (and I don't know why they wouldn't!) the whole world will be turned upside down.

"It's hard to think of what Mankind has done to deserve this. The Roman yoke is the nightmare of all nightmares. What a glorious moment it will be when the Roman overlords see the wisdom of the New Way and lay down their weapons evermore. Peace is like a flower. It cannot be mandated, it can only be allowed to grow. Yes, if we are to have a future, our friend and guide Jesus must be preserved at all costs."

The class called out the usual suspects in reply to the professor, going through the entire list of New Testament characters. But no one got it right. Only Andy, the class malcontent who sat in the back, had not offered a suggestion.

"Andy, would you care to hazard a guess."

"I know who it is: Judas Iscariot."

The class gasped and some even shot Andy an angry look of betrayal. "You are correct. Tell us how you know this, Andy. Is it because everyone else has been guessed?"

"No, it's because whoever wrote that was co-dependent, he doesn't do his own thinking. And co-dependents will betray you in the end every time. Believe me, I know - I've done it."