Titus Maccius Plautus: Menaechmi ('The Identical Twins,' circa 200 B.C.)

Pompeii mural, Villa of Mysteries

Titus Maccius Plautus (circa 254-184 B.C.): Menaechmi (The Identical Twins, circa 200 B.C.).

In this Roman comedy, identical twins are engulfed in confusion, forming the basis for William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors (circa 1595, first published in 1623).

To make a long story short, in the set-up for Menaechmi, two identical twins are accidentally separated at age seven, and their father dies within days of this mishap. A grandfather renames the boy he can find the same name as the still missing (and presumed dead) boy, as an honor. Years later, the former, after traveling far and wide and always hoping to find his long lost twin brother, stumbles into said twin's town and a delicate situation involving Matrona (twin's wife) and Erotium (twin's paramour), exacerbated by various in-betweens. 

In the case of Plautus, adapting from a similar Greek play, his tale of identical twins works. The basic groundwork is laid for all sorts of similar -- and similarly ludicrous, comic, or horror-filled -- storylines.

Thinking you know someone and discovering an alien presence can be quite disconcerting. Hence, the ever-enduring fear and dread of zombies, vampires, alien or demonic possessions, clones and reprogrammed memories, pretender-imposters and dementia.  

Such Doppelgänger-type stories that have always impressed me include Nikolai Gogol's Нос / "The Nose" (1836) and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Двойник / The Double (1846, 1866). All inspiration for The Twilight Zone, no doubt. 

Identical twins as a device have been exploited in many soap operas, a fine example being Stuart and Adam Chandler (David Canary) on All My Children. Great way to squeeze new arcs out of the same actors. The phantom twin can be haunting and unsettling, too: such as Elvis Aaron Presley's twin brother Jesse Garon, who was stillborn.

Today's Rune: Protection.  

Catherine Wheel: 'Like Cats and Dogs'

Catherine Wheel's Like Cats and Dogs (1996): 77 minutes of trippy Pink Floydesque music parsed into thirteen tracks of various dimensions: ambient, eerie, haunting -- reflected in the front cover of the CD.  

Not only does some of Catherine Wheel's music sound like Pink Floyd, but check out track number 2: their own version of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." Track 13 is "hidden."

Now that I've given this anthology another listen and am posting about it, time to say thanks and let go: "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun. . ."

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

In the Port of Amsterdam -- or Copenhagen

If cameras serve as visual "recording angels," here's a mystery along the lines of Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup / aka Blow-Up (1966). It imprints the possibilities of a story or some sort of reconstructed memory. 

Resurrecting images from a scanned negative, even though I snapped this picture there's only a twin-trickster memory of such an interior -- Amsterdam and Copenhagen / København. 1980s. An intense examination would yield results -- there's lettering visible in this cropped blowup, for example. But for now, it remains a mystery of sorts. More will be revealed -- or not.

Here the setup looks sort of like the final scene in The Sopranos.

And here we pull back to the beginning image. What is this place?

In corresponding textual memory of Amsterdam and Copenhagen, I remember locales such as the Melkweg / Milky Way, Zorba the Buddha, Musikcaféen and the Texas Saloon, plus certain international hostels. Could this be a small antechamber attached to one of them?  

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.   

La double vie de Véronique

If you're feeling time move too fast and want to slow things down for a while, watching this will do the trick: Krzysztof Kieślowski's La double vie de Véronique / Podwójne życie Weroniki / The Double Life of Véronique (1991).

The lush, gorgeous and reflective cinematography by Sławomir Idziak is worth the whole shebang. The film's dazzling consideration of color and light, translucent and transparent surfaces, distortion and shadow is central to the story of two women who could be identical twins, one Polish (Weroniki), the other French (Véronique). So is the ethereal soundtrack, puppetry and various memorable inside/outside settings. All done at a s-l-o-w pace.

If identical twins are separated at birth, how might their lives be similar and how will they be different? And more eerily, why (and how) are certain people (not just twins) deeply connected in ways we can't really understand?

Today's Rune: The Self.

The Double

We run across strangers resembling friends, family. We feel a tingle, a shock of recognition. What is happening here? Yesterday I was getting something framed and a man in his seventies stumbled onto the scene and asked if I was in the military, reminding him of somebody. I asked if he served on the ship advertised on a hat he was donning. No, his father had been on that ship in the Pacific in 1945 when it was hit by kamikaze planes.

There's a woman in graphics who is also, like the man whose father died in WW2, in her seventies; every time we cross paths she says, "Wally!" She says -- every time -- how much I remind her of Wally from Milwaukee, a dude she dated fifty years ago.

Resemblences, twins, shadow doubles, Doppelgängers, archetypes: what's it all about, Alfie?




















Hitting twin nails on the head: Gogol, The Nose / нос (1835/36); Dostoevsky, The Double: A Petersburg Poem / Dvoynik: Peterburgskaya poema / Двойник: Петербургская поэма (1846).

Today's Rune: Signals.  

Phantom Brothers

Kerouac lost his brother Gérard, Johnny Cash his brother Jack, and Elvis his twin brother Jesse.  All three survivors were troubled, though Johnny probably dealt with his deck of existential cards best, in part because of June Carter and maybe luck -- certainly he lived the longest of these fraternal combinations.  A salute to them all, and happy birthday, Elvis Aaron Presley. 

Today's Rune: Signals.  

The Three Faces of Eve

In The Three Faces of Eve (1957), a school teacher, wife and mother of one in early 1950s Georgia suffers from headaches at first and then, the rotation of full-blown multiple personalities (aka dissociative identity disorder). Joanne Woodward won an Academy Award for her performance, based on the real case of Chris Costner Sizemore (b. 1927).

This topic is explored in many books, movies, series and soap operas and remains fluid in interpretation. Also makes me think of some of the weird complexities of twins.

In The Three Faces of Eve, the husband (nicely played by Michigander David Wayne) is irritated and skeptical, even angered by his wife's behavior. When Eve Black, the "bad" girl alter ego of Eve White, brings home a pile of glitzy clothes, hubby goes ballistic. In a similar scene in HBO's Hung (2009), hubby Ronnie is equally irritated when his wife Jessie brings home glitzy clothes at the urging of her new life coach Lenore, who backs her up to his face. Times have changed, even during an economic downturn. Showtime's United States of Tara (2009; conceived by Diablo Cody of Juno fame) goes even beyond this: Tara's husband Max (played by John Corbett) provides complete support, though her sister is more skeptical.

Are multiple personality disorders social constructs, coping mechanisms, or something eerily deeper? Remember Flip Wilson playing Geraldine? "The Devil made me do it!"

Today's Rune: Partnership. See also Flip Wilson's album, The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress! (1970).

Sequels and Prequels

Diane Arbus: Identical Twins (1967).


Marcy Dermansky, Twins: A Novel (William Morrow, 2005). Competing twins in school -- tattoos, experimentation, and infighting between identical twins Chloe and Sue.


Both covers are creepy -- this second version evokes Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides (1999 film based on the 1993 novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, set in Grosse Pointe and Detroit in the mid-1970s). And let's not forget the Stanley Kubrick version of The Shining (1980) below, which hearkens back to Diane Arbus's photo above.

[Note: removing the inbed, as it seems to be causing a crash].

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Twin Stars Spinning Round

I remember as a kid being creeped out by Tom Tryon's The Other (1972), one of those horror stories involving depraved children, like The Omen (1976).

Identical twins bring things to a whole different level of weirdness and possibility.

Having encountered several sets of twins in the last decade, I tend to keep an eye out for books on the topic out of sheer curiousity. Some years ago, I came upon Marjorie Wallace's The Silent Twins (1986), about Jennifer and June, real life twins in the UK. Here's a small sampling from Jennifer's diary (p. 150):

"I wonder what June is doing now? Who is really mad? -- June or me? Is June possessed by a demon? There must be a spirit that won't leave me alone. All my life it has been with me . . ."

The tale of Jennifer and June is far stranger than any soap opera plot.

As Wallace puts it early on (p. 6): two human beings who love and hate each other with such intensity that they can neither live together nor apart. Like twin stars, they are caught in the gravitational field between them, doomed to spin round each other forever.

So the girls devised games and strategies and rules to maintain this equilibrium . . . Such games and rituals can lead the players into the darker side of life. . .

Jennifer and June got into a heap of trouble with the law and in mental institutions. Upon final release in 1993, Jennifer dropped dead at age thirty. Apparently they had a pact for one to outlive the other and be set free from their weird bipolar system. Creepy, eh?

All of the identical twins I've known in Detroit have been referred to simply as "The Twins."

Fertility drugs seem to have increased the number of twins among us. Far better than mutiple cloning, I guess, but still plenty strange.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Phantom Twins and Double Trouble

When an artist is haunted by a phantom twin, the sense of loss must feel overpowering and certainly must influence perception, output and life choices. So it seems, at least, with Elvis Aaron Presley and his phantom twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley. "Return to Sender," "Teddy Bear," etc.

Or consider Philip K. Dick and his phantom sister, Jane: A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Or Thornton Wilder's phantom brother, Theophilus: Our Town, The Bridge of San Luis Rey.


Then there's the double trouble of dual living and competing twins.

Caroline Knapp barely mentions her twin sister, but she's there somewhere: Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs; Drinking: A Love Story; Alice K's Guide to Life; Appetites: Why Women Want; The Merry Recluse.

How about Pauline "Popo" Esther Friedman (Dear Abby) and her sister Esther "Eppie" Pauline Friedman (Ann Landers)? Rather eerily, they had a dual wedding.

Finally, consider Anthony Shaffer (Sleuth, The Wicker Man, 1973) and Peter Shaffer (Equus, Amadeus).

Twins are wild, ain't they?

Today's Rune: Defense.

Whole Wide World

A definite winner for anyone who can relate to the 1970s and early 1980s punk and New Age music milieu: Sandra Goldbacher's (b. 1960) Me Without You / Meine beste Freundin (2001). On one level a kind of chick flick, Me Without You also probes the idea of a much too heavily freighted friendship ("like Siamese Twins") that intrudes into almost everything, features evocative New Wave and other period pop, and stars Anna Friel, Michelle Williams, and Trudie Styler. Oh, and it's British.

Soundtrack features The Clash, "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" and "White Riot;" Depeche Mode, "Just Can't Get Enough;" Echo & the Bunnymen, "The Cutter;" The Normal,
"Warm Leatherette;" Wreckless Eric, "Whole Wide World;" The Only Ones, "Another Girl, Another Planet;" and others. As a British girlfriend used to say, "FanTAStic!" Party on, Debbie Harry! And let's not forget Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" . . . . .

Runes (Thursday-today): Opening, Gateway, Partnership.

Go Pistons!

By Leaps and Bounds

On this strange Leap Day, though I'm glad it's not my birthday, it's as good a time as any to consider dialects and word usage. Personally, I speak a mishmash of coastal (East), Pennsylvania borderland, and North Carolina Piedmont. Though I've lived for a spell in the Chicago area and the Twin Cities (St. Paul), and for quite a little while in Detroit, I'm resistant to Mid-Westernisms like "pop" (for soda), K-Marts, Chryslers, and Krogers (like G.W. Bush saying "internets," some white Detroiters add an extra "s" to these names for good measure). Nor do I pronounce "wash" like "worsh," like some old timers do (they also say, "Worshington" for DC). Regardless of my own preferences, listening to people talk is endlessly gripping -- even if I sometimes get distracted from the intended meaning.

Detroit has quite a farrago, with clear linguistic influences from parts of the American South (and distinctions between black and white lingo, but with some of the same food references) and East, plus additions from various ESL infusions. In a word, it's groovy. I dig. And I pick up/use certain expressions and phrases from other people just for the hell of it. One is lifted (probably) from John Lee Hooker, a man with no formal education originally from Delta Mississippi who settled in Detroit for quite a little while . . .



Today's Rune: Partnership.

Rocket 88 No More

Ike Turner's passed on to the other side -- a salute to "Rocket 88" and his rough and tumble career. And to Tina Turner's TNT, for that matter, and to Led Zeppelin's resurrection. It's TNT -- it's Dyn-O-Mite!


Also, a salute to Frank Sinatra, birthday dude (1915-1998), here with Ava Gardner -- quite a couple while they lasted.


Happy birthday to Regina Hall, too -- among the living (37 today).


And to Jennifer Connelly, here with a haunting look and also 37.


And finally, happy birthday to Mädchen Amick of Twin Peaks and beyond, 38.

Today's Rune: Flow. Yesterday's: Fertility.

Happy Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe! The weekend is almost upon us!

Living in the Twin Cities

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Beth in Atlanta asked about Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography (HarperCollins, 2007) by David Michaelis. Well, I'm on page 151 and Charles Schulz is waiting to be shipped home from Germany at the end of the Second World War and so far, this is a terrific book, as good as an epic novel (566 pages, plus meticulously assembled end matters): from Minnesota to Needles and back, the death of Sparky's mother, off to the war and soon to launch Peanuts. Michaelis matches stories from the life of Schulz with cartoon panels and shows how closely they relate without stripping away the ineffable Charlie Brown/Snoopy mystery. It's impressive.

I remember living in St. Paul, up in Mendota Heights actually, walking around as a little kid, seeing otters play in a creek, Fort Snelling, eleven cent chocolate milkshakes at Target, the history of the Sioux Uprising and family fun at Diamond Jim's restaurant. I remember snowbanks as tall as a house and hoping the yellow school bus would pass by so we could play all day, poplar trees in the back yard and ice tunnels and the NASA Moon program.

Today, a thanks for new blogger friends and acquaintances, for Peanuts, for old and in between friends, for still intact family and for the experiences of a lifetime.


Today's Rune: Fertility.

Ciao!

This Perfect Day

Tapping into primal fears, Ira Levin (1929-2007) gave the world stark glimpses of evil. His works, many of them adapted into movies, leave a particularly creepy impression. And they're scarily entertaining. In Levin's tales, there's usually something sinister going on beneath the surface, and often the protagonist has to scramble to figure out what the hell is really going on. Consider Rosemary's Baby (1967), not exactly a rosy Summer of Love story. The protagonist begins to believe she's carrying the Devil's son. . . . . Is she crazy or right on?


This Perfect Day (1970). Dystopian future. Jonestown gone global and well-refined before the actual Jonestown.

The Stepford Wives (1972). Novella -- woman slowly comes to discover the truth about Stepford. Title enters the parlance of our times.

Veronica's Room (1974). A play in two acts. If the title feels sinister, that's because it is.

Coincidentally, it's Veronica Lake's birthday (1922-1973). Married four times, she died tragically at fifty. Blondes don't always have more fun.

Ira Levin's The Boys From Brazil (1976) -- just in time for the US Bicentennial. Creepy tale of Nazis in South America who've cloned Hitler and are planning a comeback. Added creep factor: Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi "Angel of Death" who enjoyed experimenting with and torturing twins during WWII, plays a major role. In real life, Mengele (1911-1979) was never caught and died in Brazil a free man. Creepola.

On a happier note, it's Edyta Górniak's birthday (b. 1972). Here, the Polish singer inexplicably poses in a bamboo hut. Better than a stick in the eye, I guess!

Today's Rune: Protection.

When Then Was Now: Meg White Before The White Stripes

I love digging around for Detroit-based clues, and am perpetually on the trail of Jack Kerouac and Edie Kerouac-Parker, Joyce Carol Oates, Joni Mitchell, Jeffrey Eugenides, Mary Gaitskill, and various other artists. Today came White Stripes finds, or rather shots of Meg White before she became famous.

The above shot is of an angel created by Tara Duditch for "Heavenly Creatures," the theme of Meg White's senior class in high school for Spirit Week, which apparently also included homages to Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, and John Lennon.


Meg White went formally by Megan White, or even more formally, as Megan Martha White. This is her senior portrait shot for the Grosse Pointe North High School's 1993 yearbook Valhalla. The overall theme for Valhalla in 1992-1993 was "That Was Then / This Is Now." Several seniors are quoted predicting where they'd be in 25 years -- but not Meg.


This is from an informal section written with/by a long term friend under the heading "Thelma and Louise." In it there are quips about various activities, including a trip to Italy, and "chameleon hair." Here she is just being playful. Thelma & Louise the movie came out in 1991.


This is a cropped close-up of Meg/Megan White as part of the Art Guild, 1992-1993. Here she looks like she might be coming from the set of Twin Peaks. Not sure yet if she went on to college, but she reportedly met Jack (aka John Anthony) Gillis while working at Memphis Smoke in Royal Oak (Main Street just below Eleven Mile Road); they got married on September 21, 1996, and she only subsequently began playing the drums. They divorced on March 24, 2000. Jack kept his married name to keep things lively (and mysterious). Indeed, they played themselves off as brother and sister.

I'm giving birthdays a rest today -- Meg White, though, was born on December 10, 1974, in Metro Detroit. Sagittarius, then.

As for the "Meg White sex tape," it's probably real, but shot covertly without her knowledge of it at the time.

Today's Rune: Warrior.

Out of the Past

Otis Redding (1941-1967), yet another blockbusting Virgo who came to a tragic end. If you've seen footage of him performing, you've probably glimpsed some of the gusto he put into his singing. He and most of the Bar-Keys (his backing band) died when their small plane crashed into Lake Monona, Wisconsin, on the way to Madison in December, 1967. I swam in that lake at night about twenty years later -- it was an eerie experience.



Above: Jane Greer (1924-2001) playing femme fatale to the hilt in Out of the Past (1947), with Robert Mitchum. One of my film noir favorites, with a great -- and bleak -- ending. Some of Ms. Greer's last performances -- in the 1990s -- can be seen on Twin Peaks.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

Birthdays: Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu/Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu, William Bligh (Mutiny on the Bounty), Leo Tolstoy (Gregorian calendar), Adelaide Crapsey, Paul Goodman, “Jimmy the Greek” Snyder (b. Dimetrios Georgios Synodinos), Manolis Glezos, Jane Greer, Cliff Robertson, Elvin Jones (b. Pontiac, Michigan), Otis Redding, Michael Keaton (Douglas), Hugh Grant, Michelle Williams.

Secrets & Surprises

Peyton Place, the 1956 novel by Grace Metalious, blew the lid off of everywhere USA. So, even in small towns there are secrets and surprises? The novel inspired a 1957 movie and a 1960s TV series. Poor Grace died of alcoholism at age forty in 1964, hated by many but read by millions.


Peter Sellers' birthday. The Life & Death of Peter Sellers (2004) reveals many secrets and surprises about the man. A genius in many ways, Sellers was also -- certainly one will think so after seeing this excellent biopic -- a beast. Cool soundtrack to this, and colorful style.


Patsy Cline, poor thing. Such a hauntingly memorable voice, such bad luck -- after surviving two bad car crashes, she died in a small plane crash in Tennessee. Thirty years old (1932-1963).


Zooey Deschanel. Though it's not her birthday, it is Pink's, and they're both connected to Penelope Spheeris' The Gospel According to Janis (ca. 2008). Deschanel will play Janis Joplin; Pink apparently bowed out. I first noticed her in The Good Girl (2002) and imagine she'll be very good as Joplin. A breakout role for her, hopefully. Mary Jo Deschanel, Zooey's mother, played a supporting role in Twin Peaks.

Today's Rune: Growth.

Birthdays: Antonín Dvořák, Siegfried Sassoon, Jimmie Rodgers, Sid Caesar, Mimi Parent, Grace Metalious (b. Marie Grace de Repentigny), Peter Sellers, Patsy Cline (b. Virginia Patterson Hensley), Ann Beattie, Pink (Alecia Moore).

Breathless

John Peel (1939-2004): music enthusiast, entrepreneur and BBC-Radio One helmsman DJ. Margrave of the Marshes looks to be a nifty memoir. A slew of his famous Peel Sessions are available in digital format. Tony Wilson (1950-2007), who played a similar role in the Madchester scene and is showcased in the excellent 24 Hour Party People, died on August 10th.


Joan Blondell (1906-1979) starred in movies before the uptight Hollywood Code put a chill on things. The exuberant Miss Dallas carries many a scene on the silver screen. She's terrific in Gold Diggers of 1933, one of my favorites, along with Ruby Keeler, Aline McMahon and Ginger Rogers. The Code was an unfortunate development, but Blondell and friends soldiered on -- with more clothes on, usually.

The Mod Squad (1968-1973): "One White, One Black, One Blonde." Even as a kid, I thought the idea was better than the actual show. Admittedly, Peggy Lipton helped hold my interest.

Peggy Lipton (b. 1946) turned 61 today. Breathing Out, her assisted memoir, was published a couple of years ago. Along her wild arc toward the present, she hooked up with Paul McCartney, Elvis (the Elvis), and Sammy Davis, Jr., and also married Quincy Jones, with whom she had kids. Lipton played Norma Jennings of Double-R Diner fame on Twin Peaks.

Anita Garibaldi (1821-1849), Brazilian revolutionary, died in Italy campaigning with the Garibaldi Legion.

Today's Rune: Possessions.

Birthdays: Jacques-Louis David, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley, Ana/Anita Maria de Jesus Ribeiro da Silva di Garibaldi, Huey Long, Raymond Massey, Shirley Booth (Marjory Ford), John Gunther, Joan Blondell, Fred MacMurray, Ted Williams, Kitty Wells (b. Ellen Muriel Deason), Warren Buffett, John Peel (John Robert Parker Ravenscroft), Elizabeth Ashley, Ben Jones, Robert Crumb, Jean-Claude Killy, Molly Ivins, Peggy Lipton, Lewis Black (UNC-Chapel Hill), Timothy Bottoms, David Paymer, Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya, Michael Chiklis, Cameron Michelle Diaz, Lisa Ling, Tavia Yeung.

Ciao, Detroit Grand Prix!