DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
The Talk of Creatures
HTML https://rzforum.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: RZ Project Talk
*****************************************************
#Post#: 235--------------------------------------------------
THE BUNNY BOY (Project of the Week for 16th of January)
By: moleshow Date: January 16, 2017, 1:30 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
this can be the webseries, the album, the tour, or all of the
above. much fun will be had, it seems.
go wild.
#Post#: 242--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (16th of January): THE BUNNY BOY
By: moleshow Date: January 20, 2017, 6:20 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
this project is probably one of the most difficult ones for me
to discuss, simply because it is so complex. there are so many
layers to it as a whole that it leaves me feeling unsure of
where to start. it is difficult and perhaps unsavory to separate
the album, the webseries, and the tour (and of course, the odds
and ends of the whole thing like Is Anybody Out There?, Ozark
and the comic). this is primarily due to the fact that they are
deeply entwined.
the album explains the existence of the webseries, which
explains the contents of the album... and both of those made way
for the tour. one gripe i have about this is that the importance
of Ozark in the album-webseries relation isn't/wasn't adequately
stressed. there is material on there that i feel shouldn't have
been left out, since they enforce a connection between all three
main pieces. certain bits of Ozark are referenced in the
webseries by Roger singing them in his little quiet way. but of
course, i can do nothing about this. moving on...
i suppose the best place to start would be the project as a
whole. and i must say, it is downright fascinating. it oozes
mystery, symbolism and innovation. plus, the album has some
really danceable songs, which i find deliciously strange. its
place in the era of storytelling from The Rz is sort of like it
is a full manifestation of the ideas that had all been brewing
since Animal Lover. Voice of Midnight signals to me that they
were rapidly approaching a project such as this (thematically),
while River of Crime implies an intent on that Kool Internet
Innovation. pursuing neat new mediums and all. the concept of a
Residents project where The Resident are observers who actively
interact with our unreliable narrator. they become characters.
at times, they seem to do more harm than good to our narrator.
the viewer/listener/reader could almost feel encouraged to take
a side. wild.
onto the webseries. it oozes symbolism. juggling that and the
mystery that is Harvey along with the tidbits that we get about
his life... it makes the whole affair sort of strange. but i
might as well start with the reality of the situation. Roger is
a man with a problem that he wants to solve. he is unable to do
this alone, so he turn to the internet to search for someone who
can help him.
and because internet, he is inevitably confronted with
information in wild quantities. information that all comes with
a motivation... and as viewers, we observe. i wasn't around
while all the fun stuff was happening, but the first
40-something episodes were pre-recorded. so as viewers, even the
emails sent couldn't do much. it enforces the residents-viewer
relationship in a different way, if only to the extent that the
medium changes. and we watch as his life twists and turns, as he
is further isolated from people who are unable to cope with the
Roger that exists at that point in time, simply because of how
he used to be. this aspect of the story leaves me feeling quite
sad, since one wonders to what extent Hilda and Harvey's
daughter tried to help him, and how. but the people who do try
to "help" him, all seem to want to exploit his confusion. the
ones that don't, don't offer solutions that Roger feels will
help him.
so we watch as he tries to put the pieces together, but all
over, there are little clues that imply that what he is looking
for is himself. simply put, aspects of him are missing in such a
way that many blanks are left. Harvey personifies those blanks.
Roger deals with this by putting them both at different extreme
ends of a spectrum. good luck and bad luck. he puts his current
life as the basis for what he must assume anything that he
cannot remember is similar to. and in his life, or what we see
of it, there is a lot of misfortune and isolation, and he can
only assume that this was the consistent theme of everything he
cannot remember. there are parts where extreme misfortune are
transferred to Harvey, since Roger believes there to be someone
else relating to the shells of memories that he had.
of course, The Residents throw us a curve ball at the end, where
a section of Roger's beliefs are verified. but perhaps in going
through with his plan, he came to some conclusion about Harvey.
he accepted the inability to find the missing pieces of his
self. his finding and subsequent defeat of The Beast concluded
his adventure in a way that drew The Residents distinctly into
an area where reality and fiction blurred, into a space where
they could move out from again. so that was nice.
i also noticed how a lot of the projects proceeding this one
were thematically similar to this one, in some way or another.
Voice of Midnight gave me the impression as a conceptual buildup
to it, while River of Crime implied to me that they were gearing
up to pursue new media.
so that's somethin'.
#Post#: 245--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (16th of January): THE BUNNY BOY
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: January 21, 2017, 7:39 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The Bunny Boy is complex. Not simply because it was transmedia -
spanning internet video streaming, email, some elements of live
chat, a live and touring show across continents, multiple CD and
or downloads; but, because it took place across space and time.
There is no definitive "The Bunny Boy" Experience.
The reality of The Bunny Boy is that it ceased being created by
The Residents very soon after they provided what is, in fact,
the raw material for something much stranger than a narrative
about Roger brother of Harvey. Have you ever noticed the
recurring theme of twinned people - from Vileness Fats to
Tweedles to God in Three Persons in varying ways and in complex
configurations.
[quote=Max Ernst]
“If you close your eyes and you look into your inner world, and
I believe the best to do is to have one eye closed and to look
inside, and this is the inner eye, and with your other eye you
have it fixed on reality, what is going on in the world. If you
can make a kind of a synthesis of these two important worlds,
you come to a result which can be considered as a synthesis of
objective and subjective life.”
[/quote]
Which makes sense: Roger is the inner world and Harvey -
wherever he be - the outer. In the grand alchemical tradition of
surrealism and Twentieth Century Art. Yet, Roger is visible and
Harvey invisible. Like the Rabbits in Harvey
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_(film)
and Who Framed Roger
Rabbit
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Framed_Roger_Rabbit
there is a
distinct relationship that nobody is quite privy to. Except we
do find hints - in Episode 29 Online - that Harvey and Roger
might well be the brothers of Tweedles. Roger does tell us that
Harvey was always The Golden Boy. The Theory runs, rapidly, out
of steam when Roger reveals Harvey married Shania the
Cheerleader. Everywhere the story is messy, inconclusive and
filled with exceptions.
Despite the apparent chaos of his life, Roger is a centre of
calm in the whole of The Bunny Boy. The chaos channels through
him without really stopping. The chaos is the raw material the
Residents have channelled across space and time. Through the
inner eye and the outer eye. Which ensures that the Audience
never really sees inside the Secret Room except through the
lense of Igor from the Russian Meat Store. Like a diligent
documentary film maker, Igor never intervenes. Although, by the
time Roger is departing to Arkansas, Igor has ceased to be the
roving viewer.
Unlike a real story, The Bunny Boy does not have a beginning,
middle and end. The Bunny Boy has a flow. For those frequenting
the Residents Website in the latter half of 2008 it was the flow
of anticipation and interpretation that goes with a serial. Like
the Saturday Morning Film Show of the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s
where the juvenile audience would watch, aghast, as aliens were
defeated or Fantomas struck again. Although, to be clear,
Fantomas was more adult and more French; but, closer to The
Bunny Boy than the Flash Gordon type serials. After the Cinema
disgorged the Juvenile Horde, they would replay the action.
Which might well have happened across the Known World from
Shibuya to San Francisco to Liverpool and Kentish Town.
Although, who would really want to reenact the drama of head
injury, delusion, mental chaos and the collapse of their own
life purely to emulate the Residents' Web Serial? Roger was a
centre of calm but only in the sense that his entire energy was
consumed in channelling the chaos. Roger's role began as the
centre of a Hurricane, gradually became a Mirror. As is the
nature of being the eye of the storm, Roger was utterly calm.
Not in the traditional sense of placid calm but in the sense of
being the one place in The Bunny Boy where you could experience
the utter purity of the work: find Harvey.
The theme music to each episode had the quality of a Van Der
Graaf Generator discharging. Like Electroconvulsive therapy for
the Internet. It no longer has that quality. The passage of time
has subtly altered everything about The Bunny Boy. Not exactly
wearing it smooth or taking away any of the details but becoming
something of a folk memory; and, memory is very much a
constructed phenomena.
Which is why my memory of The Bunny Boy is that the part of
Roger was taken by Harry Lagoussis. Harry is a Greek Film Maker
whose interests are diversely intriguing. Obviously, he
disguised himself as Roger. That was some time before The Bunny
Boy began on the Web. Harry had created
This
HTML https://youtu.be/xp3lgwF7_NM
and was, therefore, an obvious collaborator of the Residents.
Not only that but Harry would, quite obviously know all about
Patmos. The Cave of The Apocalypse and the Trapping the Beast in
Mirrors thing. Not only that but Harry knew something about
Rabbits. Jokes about rabbit holes that went over my head.
At the time of Bunny Boy, I was recovering from a head injury.
For various reasons, I was never really clear if the injury took
place in 2004 or 2006 or even 2007. What I do know is that it
was an incredibly vivid period of my life. For a while I was
colour blind in one half of my right eye. Which was interesting.
But it was this kind of semi-permanently delusional state that
made The Bunny Boy incredibly interesting. When it came to the
Tour, I know I went because a friend went with me. I suspect
doing things like that helped me to recover better than I would
have done if I had simply sat on my arse. I associate it with
being unable to think about something for more than five minutes
without it becoming an incredibly vivid and detailed fantasy or
fading into utter confusion; and being quite paranoid. Paranoia
is not a pleasant experience but it is actually quite
comforting. Which is something I seemed to have in common with
Roger.
I also had zero competence to drive a car but managed to go from
Liverpool (via Leeds, Cambridge, Blackpool, in that order) to
London to see a Show that I cannot really remember because it is
too confused with the Bunny Boy Videos. So when I recall
something happening at the show it might actually have happened
in a video. Rewatching the Videos was a strange experience.
Despite the fact that the Videos were made in Roger's Secret
Room I was absolutely convinced that had happened in London. On
Stage. Regardless of how that can be explained, I really have no
desire to believe anything other than the ridiculous
construction I am calling my memory.
Should you ever have a choice of major organ trauma, go with a
mild to moderate head injury. Moderate to severe head injuries
are a bit too excessive and life limiting. Avoid them. Mild is
probably better. Certainly better than a punctured lung or the
chronic pain of arthritis - with the associated progressive
failure of immune mechanisms. A mild head injury is a lottery.
It can turn you into a sociopath for life or someone whose
language skills disappear and then reappear. The alternative on
not having a head injury: that is probably the one to go for.
Things like Roger talking about his Aunt Circe. Mythologically
Circe was renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs
and transforming enemies, and those who offended her, into
animals. Roger may simply have been cursed by an Aunt; or,
Harvey starting a website, PetVids.com that failed. Which,
should you venture into the internet may not actually exist. But
probably did. Which makes Roger's delusions ever more difficult
to pin down. Which were delusional and which were not.
The idea that Harry Lagoussis would simply give up his existence
as a Film Maker to portray a friend of the Residents who
suddenly turns up with Boxes and Boxes of notes and papers
explaining some catastrophe. On the basis of And I Was Alone I
convinced myself that Harry was wearing a false beard and -
which makes little sense - a fake pregnancy belly and thus
became Roger. Because Roger could not possibly exist. Something
that was verified by the final Web Video. When ]The Bunny Boy
was replaced by the new and improved version.
The most difficult part was, realistically, where did the music
fit in? On the M65 Between Leeds and Blackpool I listened to
Secret Message and Patmos and I'm Not Crazy on a loop. Which was
not because they were some skeleton key to understanding. I had
simply done something to lock the CD player into a loop. Which
is a recurrent theme of The Bunny Boy: a kind of acknowledgement
of the rituals of Technology and the Internet being, somehow,
reiterations of the Rituals of Religions. Ritual might well be
the only reason to suspend disbelieve about Roger. But it is a
good reason.
Because Roger manages to involve an audience. The email strand
was interesting and had quite a number of responses. I wrote to
Roger a few times. Sometimes he would respond and others not.
When the Tour and the Web series wound down I sent a mail on 16
April 2009 saying, "I'm rather saddenned that you disappeared."
to which Roger replied on 22 September 2015 WELL NOTHIN LAS
FOREVER. BUNNY. Which has always made me feel as though Roger is
somewhere out in the world travelling around different Patmos's
seeking Harvey. Which made sense. Like a latter day Senada
seeking out some new kind of jar of artic air.
#Post#: 377--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (16th of January): THE BUNNY BOY
By: moleshow Date: April 20, 2017, 12:23 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
OLD TALK ^
---
NEW TALK v
*****************************************************