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D. Harlan Wilson |
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ANTIFACE ". . . experiences a sense of Kierkegaardian dread. Neo has the freedom to jack himself back into the matrix at his leisure but he is afraid of that freedom. Why is he afraid of that freedom? Because of his recently acquired knowledge of it, of course. Thus we are faced with a power-knowledge structure that operates, in Foucault's words, as a (quote) matrix of transformation (unquote). The pun on matrix here is in need of some attention, but we will come back to it in due course. For now, let's turn to the aforementioned clip in which Neo is about to discover, in Gibson's words now, the (quote) consensual hallucination that is the matrix (unquote) for the first time. Neo has just taken a pill that will disrupt his input-output signal and switch his sensory perception from matrix-spacetime to real-spacetime. He is sitting in a chair with various trodes attached to his extremities. Next to him is a cracked mirror--and mirrors, as we know, often signify schizophrenia in film, especially if they are cracked. At any rate Neo fixes his gaze on the mirror and looks on as the cracks collapse in upon themselves and disappear, rendering the mirror perfectly smooth. Pay special attention to the expression on the reflection of Neo's face. Also note the manner in which the expression fluctuates after Neo sticks his finger into the mirror, which has become aqueous." Visiting Professor Paynstake bends over and begins fumbling with the VCR sitting on a little chair next to the television. One by one he pushes all of the buttons on the control panel, but none of them seem to be the right one, so he starts pushing with more enthusiasm. "This fucking thing," he mumbles. He mumbles some more things and the more he mumbles the more his profound belly jiggles and heaves and rolls and sways back and forth . . . It is not long before the back of Visiting Professor Paynstake's dress shirt comes loose and exposes the tip of an ass crack. Out of the ass crack shoots an angry tuft of gray hair. A few of the professors and graduate students that have been listening to Visiting Professor Paynstake's paper wince at this virtually scatological display, but most of them remain plain-faced and overlook it since the paper has turned out to be interesting enough so far, if for nothing else than the paper is a theoretically-oriented analysis of a kung-fu science fiction film. Graduate Student Deviation, on the other hand, neither winces nor remains plain-faced. He doesn't grimace either, nor does he scowl or frown. Instead he makes a face that might best be described as an antiface, a face that is undoubtedly a face, yes, but that is also not a face at all, is so far from being a face that it is absurd to even speak or think the word "face" in its immediate presence. And when Graduate Student Deviation makes this antiface, Full Professor O'Darkness, the chair of Pseudofolliculitis State University's English department and the spitting image of Henry David Thoreau (albeit Full Professor O'Darkness is a good foot and a half taller than the lilliputian Thoreau and has the physique of Schwarzenegger in his muscular prime), spots him right away. His stony face turns purple with fury, his nostrils flare to the size of half dollars, veins pop out of his skin in droves. He springs to his feet like a hoe that's been stepped on. Eyes round as golf balls, he raises an arm and a extends a rage-filled finger. "You, sir!" he says. "YOU!!!" The lecture hall in which Visiting Professor Paynstake is presenting his paper is not big. It has a fifty person capacity but there are only about thirty professors and graduate students in attendance, and when Full Professor O'Darkness, standing in the front row, points his finger at and accuses Graduate Student Deviation, sitting in the back row, everybody immediately turns around and glues their eyes to the accused, except Visiting Professor Paynstake. Visiting Professor Paynstake is so preoccupied by his failure to negotiate the VCR he hears nothing but the sound of his own obscene muttering. When Graduate Student Deviation's fellow graduate students see that Graduate Student Deviation is making an antiface, most of them blush and begin fidgeting uncomfortably in their seats, and Graduate Students Hiddenlip and Frood urinate in their pants, and Graduate Student Realthing implodes in shame. When Full Professor O'Darkness's fellow professors see that Graduate Student Deviation is making an antiface, most of them go white in the face and rigid as tree stumps in their seats, and Associate Professors Kulminate and Blinkman stand and mimic Full Professor O'Darkness's indicting posture, and Assistant Professor Zarathustra, following in Graduate Student Realthing's footsteps (and well aware of the irony of a professor following in a graduate student's footsteps), implodes in shame. "Young man," continues Full Professor O'Darkness, "you are embarrassing us in front of Visiting Professor Paynstake. Embarrassing us! Granted, the man has clearly exposed himself to us in a less than becoming fashion. Yes, there is an ass crack"--he points at it--"and yes, there is a disgusting-looking tuft of hair sticking out of that ass crack"--points at it--"but that is no reason for you"--pointing at Graduate Student Deviation again--"to lose your composure. Control yourself! I don't care if Visiting Professor Paynstake drops his trousers, moons us and a ground hog leaps out of his backside, this is no way to react! Put that away, sir. I say, put that antiface away before I come over there and put it away for you. You are denigrating the good name of this English department--nay, of this entire institution! Do you hear me Graduate Student Deviation? Graduate Student Deviation--I implore you to desist!" Graduate Student Deviation--does not desist. He continues to make his antiface. Oblivious to Full Professor O'Darkness's invective, and to Graduate Student Deviation's antiface, and to everybody's reaction to Graduate Student Deviation's antiface, Visiting Professor Paynstake picks up the VCR and begins strangling it. It is a pathetic display but at least, when he stands erect, his ass is concealed by the crinkled tail of his dress shirt. And yet Graduate Student Deviation goes on making an antiface. Why? wonders Full Professor O'Darkness, lowering his finger but remaining purple-faced and flared in the nostrils (Associate Professors Kulminate and Blinkman do the same). Is he mad? Everybody's looking at him, everybody's clearly embarrassed for and by him. Does that please him? Does he take some kind of sadistic pleasure in embarrassing people? Does he take some kind of masochistic pleasure in embarrassing himself? Perhaps he's sadomasochistic in that he enjoys embarrassing other people while at the same time embarrassing himself. Or perhaps he's not embarrassed at all. Does this graduate student have the psychological stamina to make a fool out of himself in public and feel nothing, nothing at all? I envy him if that's the case. But whatever the case, whether he's embarrassed or not--is this a simple matter of cause and effect, or does Graduate Student Deviation have a conscious motive? Was the sudden emergence of this antiface a direct result of the sudden emergence of Professor Paynstake's exposed ass and ass hair or was the emergence of the antiface premeditated? That is to say, did Graduate Student Deviation plan to come in here this afternoon and at some point or another make that antiface? If so, why? To undermine my authority? To make me look like a total idiot in front of Visiting Professor Paynstake, who will no doubt return to his home institution, the University of Tetracycline, and say to his colleagues there, "Full Professor O'Darkness is a total idiot!" Why would Graduate Student Deviation want to do that to me? I don't even know Graduate Student Deviation very well. In fact, I've only had one conversation with him, on the phone, before he had even applied to the English graduate program here at Pseudofolliculitis State. Does he resent me for not having another phone conversation since then? What does he expect me to do, call him on the phone all the time? If only I had rejected his application! But I didn't reject him, I accepted him. And now he's making me pay for it. The thanks I get. I'm never accepting another graduate student into this program again, no matter how well they score on the G.R.E. Never . . . Little does Full Professor O'Darkness know that Graduate Student Deviation's antiface has nothing to do with Visiting Professor Paynstake's crass exhibition. The thing is, Graduate Student Deviation, who as a graduate student is required to attend roughly eight visiting professor paper presentations a semester, has grave difficulty concentrating on orally transmitted pieces of critical writing. No matter how provocative, engaging and lucid the subject matter, despite his efforts he just can't keep his mind from wandering. Typically his mind begins to wander after this or that presenter has read the first few sentences of his or her paper, and while he fights the urge to give in to his mind, by the third page of the paper he is almost always occupied by an intense daydream. The intensity of this afternoon's daydream was, for reasons unknown to Graduate Student Deviation, unlike any he had had before, and the only way his body knew how to respond to the daydream was by making an antiface. It just so happened that the emergence of the antiface coincided with the emergence of Visiting Professor Paynstake's ass hair--the event was pure coincidence. Moreover, Graduate Student Deviation was so captivated by the intensity of his daydream, his antiface persisted throughout the course of Full Professor O'Darkness's invective, which he didn't hear or see, and the antiface is still going strong right now. But Full Professor O'Darkness, or anybody else for that matter, have no way of knowing Graduate Student Deviation is having the daydream to end all daydreams. Nobody can blame Full Professor O'Darkness for wanting to destroy this antiface maker. For all he knows, Graduate Student Deviation is out to get him. "And he who is out to get me," seethes Full Professor O'Darkness, "is going to get me all right. He's going to get me like a motherfuckin' FREIGHT TRAIN!!!" Full Professor O'Darkness is about to leap across the lecture hall, tackle Graduate Student Deviation and hammer his antiface back into a normal face. But just as he clenches his fists and squats, Graduate Student Deviation's daydream unexpectedly and abruptly decreases in intensity, like a sprinter that in mid-sprint steps in a hole in the ground and twists his ankle, and so Graduate Student Deviation's antiface disappears, dissolves back into a normal face--just as Visiting Professor Paynstake, by means of strangulation, manages to get the VCR to play! Another amazing coincidence. And as Visiting Professor Paynstake places the VCR back down on its chair, Full Professor O'Darkness, still paranoid, still incensed, still pulsing with veins, but in control of himself, forces himself back into his seat, and Associate Professors Kulminate and Blinkman, as always, follow his lead. Then, in one smooth motion, everybody (except the recently imploded Assistant Professor Zarathustra and Graduate Student Realthing, of course) rotates their necks and their gazes shift from Graduate Student Deviation's now blank, ordinary, anesthetized-looking face to Visiting Professor Paynstake--who, making a face, says, "Don't look at me! Look at the goddamn clip, you monkeys!" |