Hogan’s Heroes:

Inside the line, the POW camp.
All for espionage and surveillance, stand up and holler!
When, like Gilligan’s Island, no one escapes, the SS get suspicious.
Don’t tell the guard—it’s fake.

The Interpretation of Dreams:

Klimt, Gödel, Möbius strip in a Bösch heaven hell.
Code for plumbing—Javert, instead, pursuing Dupin through the sewer.
Sue her yourself—trade secret. No talking, no telling. Government poster.
Lacan reads Poe—“The Purloined Letter.” Quite a word, “purloined.”
Schnitzler sits opposite the sofa. Analysis, its goldleaf lace lacy silver royal blue purple, Klimt Madonna. Middle class: Wein/Vienna.

The Robbing of the Bride:

—By Max Ernst?—Yes, the feather masks. Human birds. Quetzalcoatl. High-society. Always requires good music. Reminds me. I went to see The Story of O at the Inwood in Dallas—up front, a sleeping infant. —At an X-rated flick? Legal?—I hardly would have noticed and never would have thought to bring a child to a porno out of some lurid a need to watch until, of course, its mother turned to give me a stern look for laughing out loud. Then, I noticed the baby. You think she could have been the babysitter?—Your wife?—Yeah, well, maybe in another life. I think the situation that cracked me up was the general tone in combination with the labia piercing, one ring in each lip, a two-ring and chain contraption, a chastity belt. I don’t remember if there was a lock. Probably was. Subtitles too.—Arty porno?—Well, the treatment here was clinical French. Not titillating—well, not very. Well, except for a few close-ups. But slightly silly, at least I thought. Certainly not what I would expect in a high-art porno where everything has the bright-light feel of mayonnaise and the sets have the look of a furniture store—too much

Rococo.—Realpolitik porno?—Of course, the high heels, the big hair, the face too much make-up were there in the high-society scenes. But unlike lavish-set high art, this film had its Realpolitik.—Outside the ridiculous situation of husband-pimp/wife-whore?—I guess.—You weren’t scandalized?—At the time, confused. I realized some years later—after reading slave narratives—that this behavior was not that uncommon. The movie experience, of course, was made ridiculous by a babysitter without a babysitter—if I throw in La Femme Nikita for effect—getting her instructions in a movie theatre—I’m giving added meaning to my experience by way of inserting a conspiracy where one really is not necessary.—But not for me to fathom, that evil look from the overburdened, stressed-out babysitter, parent, film student—whatever you want to call her.— Conversation in my head.—Don’t wake the baby up?—You brought a baby to watch this?—Interruption: “Do you still love me?”—the husband/wife interruption of the movie. –Not boyfriend/grilfriend?—Better as husband wife. It is a marriage.—Maybe you have it wrong.—Whatever.—By the way, did you see that film Police with Gérard Depardieu? The French got to Vietnam from the inside—perhaps that is a bad analogy since the US inherited that legacy. Perhaps it’s not so bad an analogy. The Police thematic: Muslims, dope, corruption, compromise. –No, and I don’t really want to segue to the situation in Iraq. We’d have to talk about the recent killing of Vincent van Gogh’s –what was he—great-nephew? Theo? and a whole host of European films.— What would have made The Story of O better? Heavy breathing?—Sex in place of another French exposition on social order. Something truly sexy, erotic. Maybe the superaddition of a movie like Race With the Devil.— Race With the Devil?—Yes, in terms of the cultus, Stepford Wives too if we’re going that route. What I’ll call the domestic-slave narrative.

Dangerous Liaisons:

The coin on the sofa—someone said something in Eyes Wide Shut:
That is, i.e., the secret society, i.e., Eyes Wide Shut, i.e., i.e., Clockwork Orange:
The Kult, cultus. Eastern front.

Rabelais and His World:

La Femme Nikita, Alias. Valjean.
The surface, the front, enveloping the secret.
Joy asks, “How about a little tune-up?”
Javert, instead, pursues the Phantom.
— Someone said something in the sewer.

The Executioner’s Song:

Down in the belly, in the underground—
Don DeLillo.
The coin on the sofa—the prostitute sleeping, Manet knows something.
Emily Dickinson.
Opera.

Unterwelt:

Randall Jarrell. Panurge. IBM. Rollerball. The Texas Rangers.
The Madness of King George in a Bösch heaven hell—Breughel.