Harrowing Visions of Hell

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 24 June 2014.

You are often referencing how secular types are constantly being converted by Arthur.

An illustration of Dante's Inferno by Gustave Doré

At times, I have not quite grasped why that would happen. I mean, sure, we can make reference to his prodigious powers and the sweetness of his vision, but it seems somewhat irrational that hardened skeptics would come around to this message. I've been wondering if, in addition to the "Sweet World" visions, Arthur has also been given harrowing visions of Hell.

I've been reading Hell by Fr. F.X. Schouppe, SJ from time to time and it is filled with terrifying true stories of how the incredulous are converted after having seen a vision of Hell or of the damned. With all the talk of volcanos, the underworld, subterranean beasts, devils, etc. it makes sense that these visions might be occurring.

Plus, I spend a lot of time talking about Hell, especially on Farthington's voicemail.

This is one of the subjects that has largely disappeared from the modern Christian/Catholic imagination and discourse. And the modern psyche is paradoxically so open to the concept, as evidenced by our horror movies, which usually hinge on pretty traditional notions of guilt and punishment.

I also like the idea because it has been such a rich subject for artists and writers down through the years. Not sure if this is a good thing, but Hell seems so much more exciting artistically to everyone from Dante to Giotto to Bosch. I think it's good to spend some imaginative powers on Heaven, but Hell seems to be a more tried and true Catholic topic down through the ages.

And it seems that many modern profligates, skeptics, and atheists have experienced profound conversion due to such a vision.

Farthington's Voicemail: The Element that is kinda taking over

A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has recently been made available to the blog.  At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense.  We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.



7/2/14 6:23 AM 4 days ago

So if we agreed that he said is is The Element that is kinda taking over that is the emblem of this time in life. And you know that just does not quite right. Even effort, not saying that there was anything special. A or appropriate together that would necessarily be a good thing to open up the volcanos in the midst. Hello of life land where someone has certain obligations. And Responsibilities get into. It is the ice. Doesn't seem, right HI there, and I think that that The question that's the big question comes up around this time, appliances, do I want to persist in this frozen. States For the remainder of my life. And a lot of the other option still seem that great. You know, I mean if we go along with Arthur whites understanding allies for that ice. Linda is made of entirely device. That would mean The that the volcanos 4 2. A rock all of that we can mail back at the ocean, and and you know that sense of identity, of nation hood of sovereign T would be lost. Now. The Volcano put maybe service, and and reach the surface of the ocean and create new land You know, but I think that that's one of the things that as the people tried to ask questions about during this time period of One of the things that they're asking is, and my men to persist in this frozen state For the remainder my wife. Because, certainly. That looks like. It's That's where it's headed and in the answers that People, put out there some of the opportunities that are available for people to the states. The ones that I'm most familiar with our would be University your retrieved or your Whatever sort of transformational courses that you can take it. I think they tried to answer that question. Okay guys, you can't. Just, destroy everything that's been created. Here, but you feel, froze and you feel paralyzed you feel like you can't do anything you can.

Farthington's Voicemail: so ready to get rid of guns

A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has recently been made available to the blog.  At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense.  We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.



7/2/14 6:19 AM 3 days ago

And that it so continuing on just opening that back up and and allowing that force to return the one's life and and to see what happened and You know it's it's a pretty hard thing to do, but if you look at it, anything that people do around this stage of life, the, too have something of that fact. We really does require opening up something It is not going to be controlled that now just gotten to the stage where You know, control and and knowing where one stands is, is if you could just not providing the same kind of satisfaction. And that you at You know at the same time. I'll be getting to see the value of that turbulence one. Experienced in. You know, with so ready to get rid of guns already done. I forget about and move on from in freeze over so that we could actually maybe accomplish a couple of things in life, and and I've really enjoyed. Being able to hook up with some things in life. You know even even musically even creatively. I feel like I've been able to accomplish more without having to do massive course corrections just huge episodes of turbulence that kinda made it mean that I had to come back to the news. I news thesis, before I could make any sort of forward progress, personally or create a plea or otherwise. So, I really have appreciated that in feel like I've got a lot of benefit out of that. But, I. I do think that the metaphor I'm freezing, okay. Nelson, allowing him 2 or wrapped allowing him 2 no longer beat dormant is meaningful to me is not too on the level of the story, but on the level of my personal life. But. Is there anyway to do that because because because that makes sense is ice some how. You know, the more appropriate elements and it's not really an element of water you know. Water is the element of frozen water You know that if we if we think that there.

Farthington's Voicemail: At the suburbs, and being able to

A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has recently been made available to the blog.  At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense.  We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.



7/2/14 6:14 AM 47 hours ago

IN to me that was. That was the welcome. Development, and some of that. Wow. Bye, so to speak, started settling down and You know the Volcano went dormant. And yet Still getting. Some of the benefits. I think of that infusion of energy and excitement in being able to bring that too. The early years of adult life, but also experiencing some stability in not. Having to have countless at the cell. It's. You Know dramatic overly. A motion. All, turbulent, corid. At the suburbs, and being able to. I kinda have some focus and benefit from that. And And I think you know at a certain point people wake up and say, okay. You know, that's kinda like a little bit under control on. Hey, I can function on a daily basis so I don't need change course, come. Paul simply are anything like that. I kind of settled in the something that That works. It allows me to get certain things done. But then, you can. You know you start wondering, and and maybe start missing some of the things that have been lost and you start seeing some of the some of the down side. I've not having that fire and one's life anymore. And not having that bubble up within one wife, you know, causing so much. Tribulus E S but at the same time. Doing some other good thing, like. You Know You Create, new cool actually hold new Island issues that you maybe maybe that's part of the way so important in the other person's life is test You know create that sense of identity, but it has to come from that HI more deal, dangerous uncontrollable part of the self and and then You know you're pretty much settled in, but then you Then you have whatever. Once. Once that stopped you have that that is. That's where you live. That's your identity. That's the limits. And there somewhat attractive the idea of maybe being able to open it up again And.

Farthington's Voicemail: crapola

A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has recently been made available to the blog.  At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense.  We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.



7/2/14 6:06 AM 23 minutes ago

So I'm just trying to get a few things up the chest here following up on some of the calls about. The nature of the excellent song and sweet, and concert. Whatever You know, I think there's some question. I whether or not. This is a good idea. This is definitely very reminiscent certain things that i think i crapola says We have shows and and You know we consider. Opening up. This, past and and bringing it into the present bringing it into the limelight bring it in 2 our consciousness again. Is is a little bit like stalling something that is been frozen over. And And I don't know if I really want to go the whole direction, that You know that When you become an adult. And when you start taking on responsibilities, that that is tantamount 2 freezing over. All those things that You know, use to the bubble up inside of you and You know, kind of made your life. Pretty turbulent and crazy but that also. You know, you kind of had a Well, spring of. A motion and inspiration from which to drop You know that's kind of a tired old cliche, but I think that there is some truth to that and I think that that is working its way in 2 This. This metaphor, maybe even symbol of any of you believe this. Any of the stuff is happening and That. There is a liberal reality to end this, which is somewhat suspect as to whether or not there's any truth to it. But At any rate. That does seem to be. Those those seem to be some of the figured of meetings are going up teens and twenties. When rock and roll. Usually flourish is You know they are, poor a. This turbulent periods in a person's life a lot of times and You know, certainly there sources of turbulence in the middle aged twice but I. I do think that it's accurate to say that some of those aspects, 7 frozen over and and then things began to 3 use. When you think about liquid.

Farthington's Voicemail: Nothing is pretentious OR spacious

A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has recently been made available to the blog.  At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense.  We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.



5/30/14 11:41 PM 4 weeks ago

Okay, so maybe one more hopefully that's all the on the it is that's what's left. And. And you know it's kind of creating some mystery and some making it a little bit excited. I can an exciting and adventurous and you know all these things kind of a flimsy counterfeit replacement for all those ideas and aspirations that we gave up. And so, were left with this ludicrous and You know it's even less believable you know far less believable, far more requiring of so P D is a few kids of You know some enormous leap of faith to even make it even make it believable. And so. That's what we're left with. And that's what concert for iPhones, is about is You know it's meant to be very pretentious because you know we've kind of said that Nothing is pretentious OR spacious. 4 suggested of, of some metaphysical world breaking in on ours. And so, we kind of pan. All those hopes. ON this. Not metaphysical basic ingredient. So, but you know they're kind of mixed up. In such a way. That the P. Com. If you know that. They're all and cons Mollett sheet, is, is what ends up happening so That's, that's what it's about. There's some I mean, there's so many of these aspirations if they could. Have they are true. I object. Would be right now and I mean. They would be exactly what they should be and in the at 18 when they go away from that object, from You know the true I object that we'll satisfy we're left with us and.

Farthington's Voicemail: Because knology. Is is what's being.

A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has recently been made available to the blog.  At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense.  We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.



5/30/14 11:37 PM 4 weeks ago

I just want to finish up here and and just say, That's something interesting worth mentioning is, is that this Is that the worldly. Because knology. Is is what's being. I was the did here. That You Know. We've done away with this sort of trained send in to comprise in that no longer. And yet We have all these empty roles, but I need to be still hold. And, and so the dinosaur kind of place. The role of God for us. You know it's it's kind of a topic a believe. In this song and and you know there's this opportunity to maybe encounter that Scott. You know that God Of of the world that Subject, but I thought that I object of our believe. In person and and that the that's always kind of a possibility or a Tennessee that's held on 2 some other things. That I would mention is well, ohh. Is it you know if if if there is. No Union, with Scott. 2 attained. And there's no You know, getting to that getting to the center of Dean. In Christ, and and you know, the father putting in Christ enough being Craig third Christ being in the father that whole thing, kind of. I think it is in spite time. Chapter 14 worked You know everyone's in one another. That sort of reality. If that doesn't exist and that's not possible then. Where'd a week, totally kind of maybe go to the center of the error. You know if you're earth is our only refuge. Then we might entertain some kind of. Hi Dee, Yeah kind of replacement idea, that going to the center of the earth. Is where we might find refuge and you know of course. There is some and I'll guess things there as well that You know, it's, it's very hot and we're gonna have lots of things burned away in that process. You know, and then it starts to break now. You know, but I mean. It's kind of like we tried this put all prop all these other things up in place of the transcend and Ideas, and. And, yes, they.

Farthington's Voicemail: Shh, Shh, Shh, Shh

A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has recently been made available to the blog.  At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense.  We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.




5/30/14 11:29 PM 4 weeks ago

And I'm tied up all that. I think you know the dinosaur is is a pretty interesting, metaphor for so many different things. Yes, one thing is This thing that is Ben spelled over for so long. It is it. It has so many different associations. With the Don of time. You know, with very primitive prime ordeal times and Also, I think calling tonight and some some Ideas of the Garden of Eden and creation, probably talk to you okay hey. Shh, Shh, Shh, Shh, okay check. Yeah, I can't talk too long ago. You know some other things. Also our You know this is really been sort of a cornerstone for a certain kind of a tia's. I think in recent times and and in some ways the dinosaur is the God I was a Tia's you know. It's just such a punk see. Okay bridge, kacoos or who 6 You know the dinosaur is is kind of is taking that place and to save the You know they never existed. But You know it gets into this. Interesting thing where we've no one's ever seen one. Let me see lots of skills and them. It's a really kind of amazing thing to think about or even imagine the, dinosaur could've fixes stating that the dinosaur could still exists in that it's not just the police. I am, are you know about that incident. Ohh. I'm going to look at it took. I got to leave so bye hello. I had to go over there and called your, and. That is no longer a police the reality are alright because we're being on. I think that alright alright. You're going to get that guy. This way sweet dreams.

Farthington's Voicemail: The Prime ordeal

A treasure trove of Carlton Farthington's voicemails has recently been made available to the blog.  At the request of researchers, enthusiasts, law enforcement agencies, and other followers of the project, voice-to-text transcriptions have been published as-is rather than edited for sense.  We hope that this will better capture the texture of the spoken word, rendering it more accessible and/or flexible for the diverse purposes of our audience.



5/30/14 11:25 PM 3 weeks ago

I'll talk a little bit about on the phone. But I'm working on HI Science, which I think is. Kinda be pretty central to. The Story. Obviously hey you know I. I think what we're talking about here is trying to get back in touch with some sort of prime ordeal reality, something that's been lost and In some ways 5 intend, although he. Although you You know are not terribly concerned about any of this. You are absolutely right. That You Know. Something has been lost something has been lost. And And that we need to. Goes searching for that thing and we need to. You know give up. Some of the certain keys that we've kind of snowed. Over. The Prime ordeal swamped frozen it paved over at so as to not have to deal with it anymore. And that frozen within that our dinosaurs and that yet. We need to allow all that sauce and and in that process. Yes, the dinosaurs will. Steve released but. Then we also can begin our product progress yet and and also actually One of the precipitated events of all this is gonna be the explosion of a volcano that has been snowed. Over. But you can never be snort over permanently. And so. The explosion of the volcano the melting of the ice other leasing of these dinosaurs these are all necessary things and and then you know once that happens, and ice cold water flows down into these volcanic tunnels, and we can proceed, safely into the center of the earth. So we can remain there, until the turbulent rehearsals have occurred where we can be safe, from all those things. And so, in some ways. There is a reality. At the core of all this even though It is seen through your distorted disorder, viewpoint. So that's kind of some of the things that I'm working on the song.

The History of Arthur White: Felix Culpa

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 2 January 2013.

Will sees the brass ring of Arthur's rockstardom right as Arthur sees the brass ring of sainthood.

Unfortunately, Arthur has no interest in being a rockstar and Will has no interest in Arthur's being a saint. Arthur can't even appreciate the huge gravity of Will's selling the family business to Anthony in order to fund the second recording and deal with further lawsuits (the record company refused an advance after the first Brand New Life masters disappeared). Brand New Life starts to unravel as Fr. Bernie is given a new placement and most of the group feels too uncomfortable about dealing with Arthur's mysticism and Will's tyranny toward Arthur.

Present-day Will trying really hard

Only Joe Lazarus stays with Arthur, plotting with him to sneak away to his friend's place in Colorado where they can make the album Arthur is called to make without Will's interference. Unfortunately, Will, who senses that desperate measures are needed to get his brother back on track, commits Arthur and has a series of electroshock treatments administered to him. Joe doesn't understand why Arthur doesn't show up at the rendezvous point, and he drifts away, brokenhearted, feeling like his divine purpose was taken away from him, and dies after years of touring in various groups, a failed marriage that produced a child, and stints in rehab until his death in a drunk driving accident.

The ECT has a few unexpected effects.

One is that Arthur is fried so badly that he can't make music for years.Will wanted control over Arthur, and what he got was total control: dependency from a helpless brother. Will dealt with that by institutionalizing Arthur, but after a while, he couldn't afford to anymore, and his girlfriend Linda convinced him to move Arthur to their home in Lansing. Even then, Will just let Linda, a nurse, care for Arthur and spent as little time as he could with him. He just couldn't deal with the anger or the guilt. As Linda spent time healing Arthur, though, she had a mystical experience through him and left Will to become a missionary sister, which meant Will had to take care of Arthur.

He now blames Arthur for driving away Linda.

After years of taking care of Arthur, Will's feelings have mellowed, and some days, Will even wonders about the goals he chased, the damage he did to his brother, and the emptiness of what he thought was the American Dream.

Other days, he convinces himself that he was right.

He's defensive about feeling like a failure, especially as far as his vow to his mother is concerned.  He tries to hide his own aging, paradoxically, by dressing like his heroes from the sixties. His main sense of dignity, these days, comes from the fact that he has always taken care of his brother.

Arthur, on the other hand, has healed far more than Will knows, although he will never fully recover. Will never got the mystical side of Arthur. The ECT severed Arthur's ability to discern the difference between mystical reality and reality as most people perceive it, chronological time and Kairos, memory and history, etc. The result was an overwhelming flood of truth and beauty through the Sweet World that Arthur has slowly been sorting out through daily mass, mortification, and obsessive prayer (especially the rosary, which helps him know he's talking to Mary).

He has made very slow progress, but, over the course of thirty years, he has come to remember his calling to make the last album and to deliver it to Joe Lazarus. Over the past year, he has been making music again and Will has come to enjoy it; he even has a little drumset set up by the organ just in case Arthur stumbles on something worthwhile. What Will doesn't know is that Arthur is recording songs to send to Joe Lazarus. Arthur doesn't know Joe is dead, but Joe Jr. will get them in the mail and begin his quest to understand his father, shoot his student film, and resuscitate the career of Arthur White.

And ultimately, we have the story of a felix culpa: Arthur makes the album he was called to make, Joe finds peace and meaning through a return to the Church, and Will repents and finds God.

Plus, the audience is transformed through the story, told through a decade of amazing music, and through their own roles in bringing the story to life.

The History of Arthur White: Brand New Life

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 2 January 2013.

Will moved Arthur back into the family home and spent a few months nursing Arthur back to health.

He saw Arthur's downfall as his own fault and decided that he would do a better job this time around fulfilling his promise to their mother. He went to their local parish and got the name of Fr. Bernard, a priest with a counseling degree who was an accomplished musician and started bringing him by the house to counsel Arthur. Fr. B also spent a lot of time talking with Will and helped him realize the mistakes he had made with the Sweet World. Will decided that if he helped Arthur put a band together with people he liked who were living good, Catholic lives, and if he held back the pressures of touring and recording, Arthur would be able to become the person he was meant to be. Arthur loved the idea and named the group Brand New Life, which Will modified to Arthur White's Brand New Life.

The early days of Brand New Life were some of the best Will and Arthur had together. Will rented a home in the country and moved the whole band in together. Everyone, even Will, went to daily mass. Everyone played music, cooked meals, did chores. After a while, Agniesczka even visited with the children. Will was able to keep an eye on the company, which helped resolve some tensions with Anthony, who was still angry that Will completely dropped out of the picture during The Sweet World days. Arthur especially bonded with Joe Lazarus, a guitar player and recovering drug addict. The two of them became accountability partners and, for the first time, Arthur had a male friend he could trust other than his brother. He and Arthur both took to their therapy of praying while making felt banners, and together they made the album cover for the first Brand New Life album. The band played softball with the Rockets and other Detroit bands, which Will loved because it gave him a chance to goof around with his old buddy Johnny Bee Badanjek.

The success of Brand New Life was a complicated blessing. Arthur's therapy and prayer life helped him so much that he not only regained his ability to return to the Sweet World almost at will, but he realized that the woman was the Virgin Mary and her child was the baby Jesus! Arthur's channel to the divine reopened, and this time around, Arthur could enter it as a healthy adult. The result was that by the time Arthur was supposed to make the second Brand New Life album, he was ready to make an album of prophecy about Christ's redemption of a fallen America--not at all the sort of record Will wanted the group to make. Will was like most Catholic Americans: he believed in a happy medium of heaven and earth in which heaven is the optional cherry on top of the sundae of a productive life. He was like parents who get their kids Catholic educations to get them into college--not heaven. Will would see Kierkegaard's ethical sphere as the highest acceptable sphere of existence, but the religious sphere is just nuts.

Somehow, he never once had an experience of God that disrupted his concrete view of reality even for a moment.

The History of Arthur White: Tokyo Nights

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 2 January 2013.

The Sweet World master tapes disappeared. Agniesczka got tired of Arthur's flightiness and divorced him.

A bootleg of the master tapes had surfaced in Japan and become a huge seller, so Will decided to travel to Japan to tour and sue, with the thought that even if they couldn't win the lawsuit, they could record the second album and have a built-in audience hungry for it. He used this quest to get a little leverage with the record company, who wanted the case of their missing tape solved and wanted their advance and lost potential profits recouped.

The group began a tour of Japan. The hard work over the past two years had kept Arthur from mass except on Sundays. One night, a waitress said she was a huge fan and asked if he'd like to go sightseeing. She ended up introducing him to members of her cult, although Arthur didn't understand that at the time. The more time he spent with them, the more free he felt.

They encouraged him to relinquish all of the baggage and burdens that were causing him trouble. Arthur decided to make a break with the Sweet World, stranding them in Japan and creating a grudge that lasts to this very day. Arthur brought cult member Silent Rick with him to do a BBC television special, then announced on TV that he was leaving the Sweet World and launching a new band with his new friends from Japan.

When they returned to Japan, the cult kept Arthur in hiding so Will couldn't get to him. Will had to give up his lawsuit in order to figure out how to get The Sweet World home with no money. Arthur had given it all to the cult.

Inside the cult, Arthur formed Apotheosis. The cult also convinced him to give them the master tapes and rights to his old songs as a way of breaking with his tortured past.

After a while, Arthur asked why the cult asked him to renounce so much, but never filled the emptiness with any substance. They responded by teaching him an arcane meditation technique. Arthur began meditating and promptly saw the woman from the Sweet World, whose baby was now crying. She showed him the true nature of the cult, which had been stealing his music, keeping him from mass, breaking up his family, and siphoning his spiritual powers. She warned him to leave immediately and showed him a vision of a freighter docking twenty miles down the main road.

Arthur snuck out of the compound, walked all night, and boarded the freighter that morning. The freighter eventually brought him through the Panama Canal to New York, where customs officials contacted Will about the starving, passportless stowaway.

Will drove out and brought Arthur back home.

Epic Finale (Part 2 of 2)

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 19 June 2014.

Now, fast forwarding past the pilot program, past Iceland, past the tunnels, out to the house out on Topsail Island... I imagine this is the place Steffi and/or Farthington choose to fully enter the waters.

Possibly inside the house there is a hole dug down through the floor of the inner room with a huge, water-filled hollow in the sand below. The implication is that whatever was dwelling in this house has become some kind of monster, entering the waters offshore.

Attacks on human beings would be good at this point and a hunt for a rogue great white might commence. Perhaps they succeed in tagging the beast, which is something a lot worse than a great white. It would be fun to see where and how fast the beast swims. Does it suddenly disappear from the tracker, having dove too deep, and then suddenly reappear directly beneath the boat, headed toward the surface at some ridiculous speed?

Farthington could return at this point with much fanfare (why not?!), claiming to have the skills and knowledge necessary to combat the beast. I've always wanted him to have a submarine, sort of like L. Ron Hubbard had a fleet of ships. The name of his submarine is the Ericsson--Google Voice's mis-transcription of something in my calls, but also significant because it is seemingly a failed attempt to render Leif Erikson's (or Ericson or Eriksson) name, who I say is the progenitor of the American Dream.

He had originally wanted to use the submarine to bring up some kind of glowing lodestone that had been launched into the ocean (or into orbit) by the volcano blast. This could be what the both of them are now after. A critical idea at this point is that there is a beast underground and a beast underwater--I don't know what the significance of that is, but we can't drop the ball with that. Similarly, the lodestone, which was originally in the heart of the volcano, is now in the waters (or in orbit). There, you've got your 4 elements again! What I like is that this lodestone--so primordial, pagan, and nefarious--is the true power behind the American Dream, that it has surfaced in other contexts and epochs in history, threatening the beauty of humanity and creation with utter destruction.

Heck, anything could happen at this point!

Aliens could come back to get the lodestone too and Armageddon break out with angels and archangels battling aliens and devils. And maybe some lone figure standing on the rim of the volcano playing an acoustic guitar. A funny ending would be him/her finishing the song, then launching the guitar into the caldera--all in slo-mo of course, suggesting that this is somehow going to bring an end to the chaos--but then have it land and sink into the lava and nothing happen. Then, you could have a whole succession of things get thrown into the caldera: the tapes, drivers licenses, everyone's clothes, a couple self-sacrificial characters, etc. Maybe something finally works. Maybe the whole earth blows up. The end.

Whether any of this sticks, I like workshopping some ideas that might be going on in Arthur White's head. In our interview with Scott, I liked how Will and Art were always in separate realities, always pulling in separate directions.

If nothing else, I'd like to get some of this material out in an interview at some point. Maybe that's the only way we hear about the buried worker, the beast, the jawless Steffi or Farthington, the lodestone, the submarine, the apocalyptic battle. Kind of like Narnia is in one sense a child's imagination trying to come to grips with the terrors of war and the reality of evil. This story is a mentally destroyed man's way of making sense of what has happened to himself and to the world.

You could use the deus ex machina that all of this happened in the short span of time during which Arthur was being zapped, sort of like Tobias Wolff's story "Bullet in the Brain."

Epic Finale (Part 1 of 2)

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 19 June 2014.

Some further ideas about Steffi.

Glaucus and Scylla

She needs to start out very young and innocent seeming, so I don't see her clawing her way to the top at an earlier part of her life. She was an undergraduate from Oberlin at the time of the pilot program, but didn't know (or seemed not to know) what she had signed up for. Overall, she affects a Midwestern sensibility and is the last one you would expect to become a sea devil. But the same could be said about Scylla, who just happened to be loved by Glaucus, who was in turn was loved by the witch, Circe.

Could she show up as an ostensibly naive and wide-eyed girl at an event for Arthur White and express a lot of interest in and admiration for Will and/or Arthur?

It may or may not be known at that moment that she is a Farthington student/cult member. Will lets down his guard thinking that this is some know-nothing groupie and maybe they end up going home, but, at the moment of anagnorisis, Will realizes that she was the one who took something essential (what, I don't know). And why did she take that critical thing? One of two reasons: (1) Farthington put her up to it or (2) she had already resolved to supplant Farthington and was now making moves of her own. In either case, she does supplant Farthington (maybe--I like your idea of him faking his death or disappearance regularly).

I like that moment in the tunnels being unclear, because the whole Schrödinger's cat/mascot suit thing depends on it.

But at least a couple episodes will pass with us not suspecting her at all, just thinking, "Wow, how weird that Will had this random encounter with a Farthington follower." I like that you are confused at this point, because one of the interpretations of the "turbulent reversals" is that everything becomes ambiguous, all narrators become untrustworthy, and the "many worlds interpretation" of Schrödinger's cat kicks in. That's officially the moment at which your exacting explanations cease to make sense and my crazy ones start seeming sensible!

I do like the jawless Steffi and/or Farthington, but I'm not sure how we find that out.

I find it much more terrifying to never see the actual carnage, but to hear about it in one or more ways. By the time one or both of them resurface, it is inside the mascot suit, so we have no idea what the situation is. I like the idea that, at some point, someone has another chance to shoot Steffi or Farthington encountering her/him clad in the mascot suit. I like having to shoot without knowing who is inside the suit. Then, the shooter gets to remove the mask and we get to decide who is in there. I think it would be really cool to see the blood slowly diffusing through the foam face. I like it being someone relatively insignificant, perhaps the worker who supposedly was buried in the cement while building the Chrysler Freeway, which, by the way, Detroit is thinking of rebuilding or ripping out.

Now, going way back, it may turn out that Steffi was not just a young co-ed who got corrupted and then destroyed her master, consuming and assuming his powers in the process. Again, could it be that "hers is the hand that holds the apple" and that, as she siphons away Farthington's powers, she has to prop him up, splicing into his lectures material from her own childhood, a childhood that included killing her own grandparents with apples.

A Cute Deus Ex Machina for a Light-Hearted Musical

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 19 June 2014.

Will enters the tunnels intending to shoot Farthington

Somehow I blanked on the idea of Will shooting Steffi!

Okay, here are some brainstorms. I'm not attached to any:

1. Maybe Steffi is also a foil to Will. Maybe she was in the record industry, clawing her way to the top, and she and Will had an affair that resulted in the destruction of one of Arthur's albums and a total betrayal of Arthur.  Years later, she surfaces in the cult (seems typical for Hollywood types) and claws her way to the top of that.
2. Maybe Will enters the tunnels intending to shoot Farthington, but while he is pointing the gun at him, Farthington is shot in the back and falls, revealing Steffi, and Will shoots her.
3. Maybe it's ambiguous who gets shot. Maybe in the present day, we find that Steffi is unharmed but that Farthington is a prisoner in her home.  He's on life support, but the machinery could just as well be sucking life out of him and feeding it to her. There would be a parallel here with Farthington and Arthur.
4. Maybe Steffi isn't such a siren when Will and Steffi have the original affair. Maybe she tries to advance Arthur's career through the cult in a way that parallels what Will tried to do for him through the Detroit scene and subsequent move to L.A. Maybe when Will shoots Farthington, he has no idea that she is standing behind him, and he shoots both of them with one bullet. If she is the woman behind the sea devil's mask, she is bent on destroying Will.

At any rate, when Will shuts down the Lazarus/White project, he does so in part to protect himself. He needs to go off the grid and can only do that if he pulls Arthur off the grid. Also, he's just resigned to the idea that Arthur cannot be made a star.

Will's gone from being a hard-working son of an immigrant who finds hope in the American dream to a monster. Also, one of his big hesitations about supporting Arthur's comeback in the present day is that some cult members might reemerge and come after him or expose him. When he finally goes for it, his is proven right: Farthington (or whoever is behind the sea devil's mask) reemerges.

I really don't know where that story line goes!

I think I had a vision at one point about Will thinking he had killed Farthington, going to trial for it, and then several other victims of Farthington who thought that they had killed him coming forward. We find out that Farthington's M.O. is to make people think that he died, then he comes back with a new name and re-runs the scam with newly-named cults. If he goes to jail, he has to sign back all the rights to everything.

That seems kind of stupid right now, though, and Steffi nullifies that ending, anyway.  It's a cute deus et machina for a light-hearted musical, which I think was the original context.

Who knows! Originally, Will was the closest thing the story had to a major villain. Then it was Farthington. Now it's Steffi. So we have three major villains; really more like 2 and 1/2, since Will is a tragic hero ready to repent and seek redemption in his old age, and an honorable son working hard to help his brother in his early life. Farthington has always been a vacuum, a black hole.  Steffi could change over time as in Scenario #4, or she could just be the siren of Scenario #1.

Speaking of Campbellian ways of viewing women...

Tragic Hero is the Best Option Left

Leda, Zeus, Helen, Clytemnestra, Castor, and Pollux

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 16 June 2014.

As you know, I have the same problem as you do.

I want to convince you of one difference: we have made that tendency of ours part of the project itself. Please read this post by Bob Lefsetz. I can't help but think we are the exact people he is describing here.

Now, no one wants to be the one who goes on one of those singing shows and finds out for the first time in their lives this shocking fact: "I am not only not going to make it but I am also absolutely terrible. The difference between that and us is the total lack of consciousness. Consciousness does seem to be a prerequisite for art, although there may be some counterexamples, like Neil Young for instance.

Of course, all this rationalization is the kind of thing that the protagonist does before being dragged back down into the chorus, back into the primordial, dithyrambic dance. Maybe we have nothing that individuates us from this formless mass of wannabes who refuse to accept their role as "consumers as opposed to creators" (Lefsetz).

We've been talking a lot about Death of a Salesman lately. While not my all-time favorite, the play (and its companion editorial for the New York Times!) is somewhat prophetic of this era in which virtual reality becomes more real than real reality (cf. McLuhan and Baudrillard).

Imagine if Willy had all the tools of the virtual age at his disposal; how much more quickly might he lose touch with reality and plunge headlong toward his demise!

For better or worse, ours is an age where the common man is seized more than ever with a "total compulsion to evaluate himself justly" (Miller). Rightly or wrongly, many in our society believe they have greatness within them, that they must be famous. We have huge, outsized ideas of ourselves and our place in the larger scheme of things.

But before we despair of our quixotic ambitions, consider that this is the very heroism that Arthur Miller thought should be accessible to the common man.

Arthur Miller describes the hero's tragic flaw as "his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status." As I drill into my students ad nauseam, Willy Loman is the hero of Death of a Salesman, not Charlie or Bernard as they often think! Many of them are stuck in a medieval morality play paradigm wherein a character's downfall = punishment for sin. Not so!

As Miller continues, "Only the passive, only those who accept their lot without active retaliation, are 'flawless.' Most of us are in that category."

So back to our little project. Do I need to explain to you the artistic imperative of building castles in the air (cf. The Master Builder, Thoreau)? We are using these electronic tools in the proper way: to achieve tragic status in the quickest possible way! C'mon now! What would Hilda Wangel say?!

Now, I want to assure you that I am working on the songs. I don't want you to think that there is no substance at all. But I'm intrigued with this idea of NOT building from the ground up. Starting on the ground is a challenge to my dignity. I start with the "image of my rightful status" and go from there!

And, no, this doesn't end well.

But I would much rather end up a tragic hero than a coward or villain or member of the chorus. I guess if I could have my druthers, I'd be an epic hero but, according to Hesiod, Zeus put an end to that age with Helen. Or maybe he already had the idea in mind with Leda.

Tragic hero is the best option left.

This Creepy Nihilistic Thing

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 29 May 2014.

Plot-wise, I feel like the Farthington stuff is really coming together.

Thief starring James Caan and Tuesday Weld

The problem I'm seeing is that it has in some ways crowded out the stories of Joe Lazarus, Arthur White's Brand New Life, and Will Witkowski. I don't want to undo any of the Farthington stuff; it's really good. I just want to figure out how to revise and reinsert a few things it has eclipsed.

Originally (and I think we disagreed on this one a bit), I really loved the idea that at some point, Arthur came really close to making the sort of music he was born to make. I saw Brand New Life being the first step in that process and an escape with Joe Lazarus being the closest he came to fulfilling it. Before Farthington, Will was the nemesis who crushed Arthur right when he was about to become the artist he was supposed to become.

The Farthington plot eclipses all that in a lot of ways, so we've got to figure out how to give its impact back. I really don't want to lose the idea that, at some point, Arthur almost became the artist he could have been. He won't stand up as a protagonist if we never feel that he could have been great. At the same time, that feeling we develop is something to make suspect, as the bit of heaven Arthur can show people on earth is only a faint glimmer of what heaven has in store for us. We should be torn between the idea of loving the bit of heaven we see through Arthur and the lesser thing rooted in the American Dream, lamenting that Arthur could have "made it."

So, I don't want to touch the Farthington plotline.

I just want to make room for an Arthur who almost made it and wasn't just a victim; a Joe Lazarus who almost saved Arthur and was dashed by failure; a Will who is the flawed but protective brother who tries to save Arthur from Carlton Farthington; and a Brand New Life that for a period sets Arthur on a positive path.

Reasserting these ideas may complicate the story a bit, but if we're thinking of five TV seasons, we need several ups and downs and some squirminess in terms of how the audience reads the characters.

I don't yet have a clear picture of how to reintegrate these pieces, but my hunch is that after Will rescues Arthur from Farthington and gets him his first treatment, Joe Lazarus helps bring Arthur back to his true form; Will then works with Joe to put Brand New Life together; Will sees the initial success and starts doing a bunch of dumb commercial stuff in his eagerness to make Arthur a star; and the tension that creates between Will and Joe drives Arthur back into the predatory hands of Farthington, who validates Arthur's vision and lures him into the heroic quest to save Iceland.

Maybe after Will kills Farthington, we think he's a good guy looking out for his brother. But then he has Arthur committed until the money runs out, at which points he dumps him on Linda. So maybe what looks like Will's heroic quest actually ends up being this creepy nihilistic thing...more like the end of Thief starring James Caan and Tuesday Weld.

So Opposite of Facebook

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 29 May 2014.

I got caught up on the blog and I've enjoyed seeing it mixed up a little more with email excerpts, phone calls, and music.

"so antagonistic to the default settings of Facebook"

I like the idea of using fame as a way of protecting our stuff, but things like lists and memes are mostly what get reposted on Facebook. I'm happy to promote the blog on Facebook; that's super easy for me and I've done it a few times. But it doesn't have an easy point of entry for anybody trying to learn about the project. There's so much you need to know in order to follow any of it. That makes it ideal for elitist hipsters and intellectuals, but bad for drawing most people into the project.

That's not a criticism. I like the blog as it is, but that's because it's targeted to the three of us! I see it as being most useful as a chapbook, a repository of our ideas.

If we want it to be a tool that draws people into the project, we've got to simplify it and make it easy for people to enter the background of the story. That's not super appealing to me, though; it runs us into the problem of putting a lot of effort into things that aren't about developing the story. Right now, I see the best use of our time as developing the TV show and the music. The blog as it stands really helps me with the TV show by creating a type of greatest hits of our communications. I'll work at promoting it, though, because I'd love to see what happens with something so antagonistic to the default settings of Facebook. Maybe it's so opposite of Facebook that there's a place for it.

Fame could be a strategy to protect our content, but I'd like to still use some old fashioned legal approaches. I have a long tradition of half-writing pilots and movies and then either deciding they stink or solving all the problems in my head and losing interest.

In other words, huge dreams and very little attention to practical reality.

Catholic Art That Doesn't Suck (Part 2 of 2)

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 4 August 2012.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

I totally agree with your feelings about the project. I have remarked to Sarah that something is providential about us meeting and things clicking so well. There's something here that seems sacramental, an outward sign of an inward grace. I'm pretty much sure of it, even if the project itself goes down in flames!

I also am intrigued about the possibility for postmodern Catholic art. I have a near total revulsion to Christian music. About the last Catholic thing I like is Gerard Manley Hopkins.

I do have thoughts about reconciling the complexity and I think you're hitting on it somewhat. Will is the one pushing the trashy, by-any-means-necessary approach--very much how some of Marvin Gaye's handlers were pushing him.

But, as in Marvin Gaye's situation, one of two things happened:

1. He wrote the desired style of song or album but somehow infused all the sex/disco/partying with transcendence/profundity or
2. He refused and wrote transcendent/profound music

Marvin Gaye

So, even the "woman" in the more sexy songs becomes like Petrarch's Laura or Dante's Beatrice, even rising to the level of a Song of Songs or the lover described at the beginning of St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul.  That is straight-up Catholic: bloody, sensual, sexual--in a word, incarnational. You won't find this on Christian radio.

I like the morality play idea, but I also think that these things play out more like an Aristotelian tragedy, with a hero--not a sinner--being the one who gets crushed. Maybe the sinner gets crushed too for good measure, but not in a way that is merely "edifying" for the observer.

Of course, the Christian world view brings a different dimension to this reality that Greeks first intuited. But the Greeks were more willing to let it be an ineffable, horror-inspiring experience, eschewing the pat "moral of the story" or last-minute deus ex machina in favor of speechless awe in the face of an inscrutable universe.

I think Catholics and Christians need to let God be ineffable and irreducible if we are to rise above the insipidity and irrelevance we've fallen into.  I can point to Catholic elements in just about all of the songs, mostly alloyed with the mundane and profane.  But, as a Catholic, I tend to be more okay with that than non-Catholic Christians, probably because we tend to be more in touch with the utter scandal of the Incarnation.

What I'm saying here may be heresy and I will recant it if shown the error of my ways. But I do think this is getting to the heart of what it would take to make Catholic music in the postmodern age.

Catholic Art That Doesn't Suck (Part 1 of 2)

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 4 August 2012.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much need there is for great Catholic art in this century.

For years I've been brainstorming band projects that are really morality plays. I think this project is much more complex than a morality play, but I do think we've got a chance at filling a huge void in the art world by doing something that uses the tropes of postmodernism in service of Catholicism.

I don't think any art critics realize that Catholic art is still happening.

I'm not sure there is much contemporary Catholic art that doesn't suck. I think a lot of it makes people who are ready to return to the Church run screaming. The 70's and 80's were a bad time for church and retreat center design, I tells ya.

We might actually be groundbreakers doing Catholic conceptual/performance art.  I know you've said in the past your art hasn't consistently been particularly Catholic, and neither has mine, but what are the odds that two devout Catholics, who are both teachers, artists, and alumni of the same university, would start collaborating when we did?

We had a thousand chances to make music together in college and it didn't happen once. And now it does? And why didn't all this incredible music you've been stockpiling for years take off earlier? It's certainly amazing stuff. It feels like we're being offered some grace here, and I feel like making the most of it.

I'm not saying let's be as obvious and abrasive as morality plays are. I think there's a universal appeal to the story. But I think the story does confront the problems of existence in the postmodern age and especially critiques the problem of American Catholics attempting to serve both secular society and the Kingdom of God. Arthur White probably would have found instant sainthood if he lived in the Middle Ages.

Maybe we can help reshape our culture to encourage sainthood. Maybe that's the whole idea behind getting everybody to contribute to this music.