Films you've seen recently and would unreservedly recommend:

IdleRich said:

I dunno if it's a great film or anything but sometimes I can really get in the mood for this kind of thing. I really loved all the stuff about cracking the maze on the cereal box or whatever it was. And the owl woman... really when she actually appears.

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IdleRich said:

And the owl woman... truly creepy when she actually appears.

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In like manner, Pynchon's novel can be described in precisely the same terms as Umberto Eco once applied to Finnegans Wake:

" ...a complex machine destined to produce infinite meanings, operating beyond the years of it's own Creator."

Both texts are perpetual meaning machines. Artesian wells of signification. What Joyce invokes with thousands of inexplicably cross-referencing, multi-linguistic puns, Pynchon summons with an over-saturation of hyperlinked symbolism and imagery.

Both authors, both engineers, have been rendered obsolete by their creations. For a perpetual motion machine is also an Artificial Intelligence. Once it overcomes, Frankenstein-style, its own creator it becomes enabled to create creators who are then equipped to create beyond themselves. A kind of singularity is the result, a singularity that works of art like the Wake and Lot 49 only mirror and prefigure in the culture at large.

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38. Keep quiet baby here: One thing that most hobos agreed upon was the protection and respect of young families. This symbol would remind hobos of their code and instruct those who saw this symbol to be quiet and not to disturb them.

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Hobo Code: The Signs and Symbols Used by Travelers of Old

The early 1900s were a time of displacement for over 500,000 people in the U.S. Many became hobos and traveled constantly in search of better things. As they traveled, they developed a code of symbols to communicate and help out fellow travelers.

owlcation.com

Those Hobo Symbols Seen on Posts and Fences Relayed Important Messages. Can You Decode Them?

These are the marks that told travelers whether a town or house was friend or foe.

www.popularmechanics.com

version said:

The hobo's guide thing is apparently real, although they seem to have tweaked the meaning of that one symbol slightly for the film.

Hobo Code: The Signs and Symbols Used by Travelers of Old

The early 1900s were a time of displacement for over 500,000 people in the U.S. Many became hobos and traveled constantly in search of better things. As they traveled, they developed a code of symbols to communicate and help out fellow travelers.

owlcation.com

Those Hobo Symbols Seen on Posts and Fences Relayed Important Messages. Can You Decode Them?

These are the marks that told travelers whether a town or house was friend or foe.

www.popularmechanics.com

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IdleRich said:

Also Lynch I suppose (inevitably) - even down to the owls.

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IdleRich said:

What is it with owls... owl service, owls are not what they seem, owl woman (edit: owl's kiss sorry) etc etc

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Since the founding of the club, the Bohemian Grove's mascot has been an owl, symbolizing wisdom. A 30-foot (9 m) hollow owl statue made of concrete over steel supports stands at the head of the lake in the Grove. This statue was designed by sculptor and two-time club president Haig Patigian. It was constructed in the late 1920s. Since 1929, the Owl Shrine has served as the backdrop of the yearly Cremation of Care ceremony.

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