Sure, for a lot of people, Halloween is an excuse to dress sexy and engage in a little role-play; but for a lot of people, it’s also an excuse for kids to dress up and raid the neighborhood for candy. The fact that some people use it as an excuse to explore the darker side of their libidos - or just to try something different - doesn’t rob the holiday of its wholesome meaning for kids in the process. I don’t see a dichotomy or contradiction here: the holiday is what you make of it. Why should Christmas be any different? “The Polar Express” and “Bad Santa” can coexist side-by-side at the cineplex fine…just make sure you take your kids to the right one. ;-)

And a lot just depends on the personal beliefs of each of us. We live in a country where a major religious figure (Jerry Falwell) attacked a popular children’s character (Tinky Winky) for being gay…because he’s purple and has a triangle on his head. Tell me we don’t have some effed-up notions of sexuality in this country. :-)

I don’t think there’s anything so wholesome or sacrosanct that people can’t find a way to sexualize it or turn it into some sort of sex fantasy: from naughty nuns to repressed librarians to fairytale figures to - oh hey! - cute videogame characters. So how hard is to come up with “Jolly Ole Nick and his naughty elves” fantasies? Obviously not hard at all… :-) [One example: “Bad Santa” - talk about a black comedy Christmas movie!]

Oh, and BTW: Happy New Year!

I’m a big advocate of games being inherently post-structural. Of course, its hard enough doing structural narratives in interactive form, but I’d like to think something like Mulholland could be a game downt he line.

The think that gets me about that film and its earlier counterpart “Lost Highway” is that everything seems to happen twice, in the opposite way. Like in the first part of Mulholland theres the box with the weird blue key, in the second part the key signifies mortality. They’re really the same thing, but from different sides of the looking glass.

We go through life and think of what happens as being straight-up, like “yeah, that happened and then that happened yada yada.” Not many people consider how things could have happened, the possiblity space instead of the history. We hardly ever think of how something could have happened in an “opposite” way that would siginify the same thing we felt about the original causal chain, but this is whats happening in Lynch’s films. When you figure out the feeling the opposite chains of causality are about, which is actually very simple love and jealousy, you can appreciate all the crypticness as being very real and relevant to the characters.

Its kinda like supersymettry in string theory, like somewhere in the universe the complete opposite thing is happening, it only at a basic quantum level. Yet this opposition is what holds together the whole universe, and maybe the mind even more so.

1. Pay attention to the intro, there are two clues before the credits

2. Notice appearances of the red lampshade

3. What is the name of the film Adam Kesher is auditioning for? Is is mentioned again?

4. An accident is a terrible event, notice the location of the accident.

5. Who gives a key and why?

6. Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.

7. What is felt, realized and gathered at the club Silencio?

8. Did talent alone help Camilla?

9. Note the occurences surrounding the man behind Winkies

10. Where is Aunt Ruth?

Consider that your strategy guide, and try to think of the film as a post-structural narrative, or better yet an algorithm for how a self creates itself in idealized form.

The interaction with the film involves playing with that algorithm.