doppelgangers

[STN]

Reading a Paul Auster novel is never necessary, imo.

You can borrow my copy of The Erasers, should you so choose.

 

[IdleRich]

You can borrow my copy of The Erasers, should you so choose.

Do you know what? I was hoping you would say that. Yes please.
Also, do you still want to borrow Deadlock? My friend has it at the moment but if you pm me your address I will send it over when I get it back. Nothing really happens but it's still worth seeing.

 

[jenks]

Also, as mentioned a long time ago on the Lit thread - Confessions fo a Justifed Sinner by Hogg.

Strange Meeting - Wilfred Owen - not quite a sinister doppleganger but an idea of an other who is and is not you

just off top of my head

 

[empty mirror]

patty duke show
identical cousins, one is apollinian (Cathy adores minuet, ballet russes, day), the other dionysian (Patty loves rock & roll, loses control over hot dogs, night)

identical cousins also featured in Twin Peaks
laura palmer would be the patty to madeleine's cathy.

i read a blog post about david lynch being a remixer of themes
he was saying DePalma's Body Double was a jump-off point for Lynch's Mulholland Drive

 

[IdleRich]

"patty duke show
identical cousins, one is apollinian (Cathy adores minuet, ballet russes, day), the other dionysian (Patty loves rock & roll, loses control over hot dogs, night)"

Which one is which in the picture?

If I remember correctly the first scene in Dracula is when someone is dreaming and the dream features the main character in a horse drawn carriage being blocked in the road by an identical carriage which makes precisely the same movements as his own. I think the implication is that the carriage is being driven by some kind of evil double. Am I thinking of the right book?

 

[empty mirror]

L to R
Cathy, Patty
light, dark
sun, dark sun?
control, frenzy
lyre, drums

uh... i don't really buy into dualities but it does seem to be echoed in eastern/western thought (heh)

Which one is which in the picture?

If I remember correctly the first scene in Dracula is when someone is dreaming and the dream features the main character in a horse drawn carriage being blocked in the road by an identical carriage which makes precisely the same movements as his own. I think the implication is that the carriage is being driven by some kind of evil double. Am I thinking of the right book?

 

[Ness Rowlah]

there's also the doppelgänger's close cousin, our own Norse "vardøg", basically the ghost of yourself, but slightly ahead in time of the real you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardøger
"a spirit with the subject's footsteps, voice, scent, or appearance and overall demeanor precedes them in a location or activity, resulting in witnesses believing they've seen or heard the actual person, before the person physically arrives".

 

[mms]

there's also the doppelgänger's close cousin, our own Norse "vardøg", basically the ghost of yourself, but slightly ahead in time of the real you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardøger
"a spirit with the subject's footsteps, voice, scent, or appearance and overall demeanor precedes them in a location or activity, resulting in witnesses believing they've seen or heard the actual person, before the person physically arrives".

amazing!
this is a brilliant thread.
i'm suprised no ones mentioned maya derens films yet, she's the original film maker obsessed by dopplegangers, non linear time and alternate 'worlds' i would guess.

ritual in transfigured time

a friend saw a doppleganger of me at a club in vancover and took a photo too.

are dopplgangers about a split in time, or like alan moore's idea in 'from hell' a kind of non linear rupture.

 

[you]

Doppelgangers and Doubles are perhaps rather nifty tools for raising pretty fundamental questions of existence and identities..... Self doubt and Cartesian spirals etc can follow and coagulate with paranoid fearsome emotions, fear of the double, doubt of ones self, anger and resentment for the self/facade/identity that has been stolen/questioned.... I feel Lynchian concepts cloud the issue somewhat by involving them with parallel universes and his concepts of duality - light dark / good and bad etc. However The Double by Dostoevsky is an excellent example of a 'straighter' play on these themes.....

I find the Apollonian and Dionysian concepts raised to be slightly separate from the issues raised in The Double.... Jekyll & Hyde dualities found in Superheros and Horror themes can be explored without the notions of self doubt or existential anguish being raised - however often there is an interplay between concepts the two are not exclusive to one another.... I just think Doppelgangers often raise quite specific philosophical questions but Appolonian & Dionysian , J & K and more widely still themes of Duality, Double Identities and Split Personalities can be independently concerned with separate issues however often contain an innate tendency to encroach upon the questions and philosophical facets intrinsic to Doppelgangers.

Im surprised the acutely ( although not exclusive ) doppelgangian themes are not raised more in modern fiction - social networking, forums and the plethora of media we inhabit would really lend themselves to being a vehicle for fleshing out these notions.

 

[IdleRich]

"i'm suprised no ones mentioned maya derens films yet, she's the original film maker obsessed by dopplegangers, non linear time and alternate 'worlds' i would guess."

I've seen a few of her short films but I obviously don't remember them that well.

 

[STN]

I've seen a few of her short films but I obviously don't remember them that well.

Off topic. Her voodoo documentary is ace.

I watched the Schizoid Man episode of The Prisoner over the weekend, in which they try to convince Number 6 that he is Number 12, an agent sent to impersonate Number 6. Chilling stuff.

I haven't watched all of The Prisoner, so don't make any refs to how it ends or I will track you down and shut you in a model village for the rest of your life.

 

[massrock]

That's possibly the best Prisoner episode.

I've seen the series several times and somehow always managed not to see the last episode so I actually still don't know how it ends.

Was there a film or a remake or something or did I imagine that?

 

[STN]

Definitely the best one I've seen. It's being remade for TV with Ian McKellen, I think.

 

[empty mirror]

i get the feeling that a lot of doppelgangerism springs from person-in-society duplicity

maybe there is a self that is concealed by one's societal mask
and perhaps the doppelganger is that inner self unbound and running amok
the person that one has to be to function in society is perhaps at odds with the darker inner self----too much friction between the mask and the wearer can cause ruptures

this brings to mind Pirandello's One No One One Hundred Thousand. not explicit doppelgangerism but it deals with the one hundred thousand persons that are projected on our shell by the persons we encounter; and yet that one shell perhaps contains no one. something to that effect anyway.

also, i like the idea of ruptures in time/space and parallelism that someone earlier mentioned in connection with Alan Moore's From Hell. this is also borgesian territory-----where all possible outcomes do happen, though along different planes. maybe we see our doppelganger when these alternate planes intersect.

speaking of the intersection of planes that should not meet-----La Jetee. meeting your doppelganger through time travel. does this happen in one of the back to the future flicks? can't remember.

 

[STN]

speaking of the intersection of planes that should not meet-----La Jetee. meeting your doppelganger through time travel. does this happen in one of the back to the future flicks? can't remember.

In most science fiction involving time travel, encountering your past self is the worst thing you can do. Does this parrallel the doppelganger as harbinger of death in folklore, or is it simply a plot device to stop the hero from just approaching their past self and instructing it on what to do?

 

[empty mirror]

^ touching yourself causes blindness----> thus annihilating the image of the doppelganger



Onanism as psychic self defense

 

[empty mirror]

maybe there is a self that is concealed by one's societal mask
and perhaps the doppelganger is that inner self unbound and running amok
the person that one has to be to function in society is perhaps at odds with the darker inner self----too much friction between the mask and the wearer can cause ruptures

man i am always reinventing the wheel
pretty much describing carl jung's Shadow here
not up on jungian wordplay - sounds interesting enough
at least he doesn't seem to masquerade as a scientist (my main gripe with psychology)

 

[empty mirror]

from Killing Bono: I was Bono's Doppelganger by Neil McCormick:

"The problem with knowing you is that you've done everything I ever wanted to," Neil once complained to his famous friend. "I'm your doppelganger," Bono replied. "If you want your life back, you'll have to kill me."

yeah, and so i was watching the original Star Trek series and i happened upon maybe the best episode i've ever seen called "the enemy within"------the transporter gets fucked up, creating doppelgangers of captain kirk. his evil twin immediately goes to sick bay to get a bottle of brandy, then tries to rape his yeoman (honestly). the "real kirk" it turns out, is lacking his evil aspect, and turns into some kind of milquetoast. oh and the evil kirk wears mascara...

the long and the short, it turns out---according to mister spock----is that it is kirk's unseen evil aspect that gives him the power/strength to lead.

 

[empty mirror]

wow. just watched Possession.

 

[IdleRich]

"yeah, and so i was watching the original Star Trek series and i happened upon maybe the best episode i've ever seen called "the enemy within"------the transporter gets fucked up, creating doppelgangers of captain kirk."

I've seen that I think or maybe (weirdly) I've read the book, can't remember much about it though.

"wow. just watched Possession."

So.... what the fuck do you reckon that was about then?