Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Human skull on the ground, turn around

The upcoming total eclipse of the sun has been in the sync-stream of late, which is probably what put Bonnie Tyler's 1983 song "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in my head.



That in turn made me think of the audition scene from the 2010 movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid, where the sing the intro to the Tyler song, with the repeated line "Turn around":


That led to the Tyler song being replaced in my head by "Turn Around" (1992) by They Might Be Giants, which is about turning around and seeing a human skull:

Turn around, turn around
There's a thing there that can be found
Turn around, turn around
It's a human skull on the ground
Human skull on the ground
Turn around


This train of thought occurred while I was on the road, and while I was thinking about the human skull on the ground, I saw this on the back of the jacket of the motorcyclist in front of me:


This reinforced the skull theme, and I found myself thinking about the scene in Hamlet where he addresses the skull and trying to remember the lines: "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times . . . ." And that was about as much as I could remember; I've only read Hamlet a couple of times.

Hamlet was borne on the back of Yorick, who is now a skull -- and now a skull was borne on the back of a motorcyclist.

After posting "Booby trap," which ends with a meme of a cat saying, "It's a booby trap!" I had a vague memory of having seen a meme years ago involving a cat and the Admiral Ackbar "It's a trap!" line. I couldn't remember any details, but I ran an image search for admiral ackbar cat just to see what would turn up. I didn't find what I was looking for, but among the search results was this old New Yorker cartoon:


I liked the drawing style, so I forgot about Admiral Ackbar and cats and just searched for benjamin schwartz cartoon. One of the results immediately got my attention:


That's the iconic Hamlet scene I had just been thinking of, with the twist that the prince is turning around.

On a whim, I searched for skull solar eclipse, and the first result was this T-shirt, about the very eclipse that started this whole train of thought:


The date of the eclipse is written as 04.08. In Hamlet, the next scene after Act 4, Scene 7, is the scene with the skull.

Searching for bonnie tyler skull also turned up "Total Eclipse of the Heart":

8 comments:

William Wright (WW) said...

I had to look up that song and video, because the video was so disturbing.

Vampires, including spiders, have come up quite a bit as well, and that is what "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is about. The songwriter, Jim Steinman (Stone-man!), said that he wrote the song originally for a musical he was writing based on Nosferatu, but never finished.

He actually did end up including it later in a 1997 musical called "Dance of the Vampires". Here is what Steinman said about including it in that musical:

“With 'Total Eclipse of the Heart,' I was trying to come up with a love song and I remembered I actually wrote that to be a vampire love song. Its original title was 'Vampires in Love' because I was working on a musical of `Nosferatu,' the other great vampire story.
If anyone listens to the lyrics, they're really like vampire lines. It's all about the darkness, the power of darkness and love's place in dark."

Listing to the song (and watching the video, which was shot at an insane asylum) while understanding those vampire roots, perhaps also more sense of the skull imagery and the booby traps. Traps are something that both spiders and vampires use to catch their prey.

William Wright (WW) said...

After writing this comment, I had Frodo and Sam's confrontation with Shelob in her lair come to mind.

When they first saw Shelob's eyes, it was because they reflected back the light of the Phial of Galadriel, though Tolkien also described the eyes as starting to glow with with their own evil fire:

"The radiance of the star-glass was broken and thrown back from their thousand facets, but behind the glitter a pale deadly fire began to steadily glow within, a flame kindled in some deep pit of evil thought. Monstrous and abominable eyes they were, bestial and yet filled with purpose and with hideous delight, gloating over their prey trapped beyond all hope of escape".

Caught in the trap, they first turn and run, but Frodo realizes it is no use, and turns back around to confront Shelob. It is then her turn to 'turn around':

"Then holding the star aloft and the bright sword advanced, Frodo, hobbit of the Shire, walked steadily down to meet the eyes.

"They wavered. Doubt came into them as the light approached. One by one they dimmed, and slowly they drew back. No brightness so deadly had ever afflicted them before . . . One by one they all went dark; they turned away..."

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Interesting links. I wasn’t aware of the backstory to the Tyler song.

“Pale fire” is Shakespeare: “The moon’s an arrant thief, and her pale fire she snatches from the sun.” He means that moonlight is reflected sunlight, but it’s also an apt description of the “new moon shining” at a solar eclipse.

The motorcyclist’s jacket shows a star (like the sun) being eclipsed by a dead white object (like the moon).

And speaking of vampires in love, isn’t one of the Twilight sequels called Eclipse?

William Wright (WW) said...

Twilight was written by a Mormon, no less.

Ra1119bee said...


William,

Speaking of moons, cows, cats and car-toons.. ( i.e. a little nonsense now and then),
after my previous comment a few days ago connecting the eclipse, the red heifer, Easter/Ishtar, Obama, Where the Wild Things Are, cats, Lions and Bears ( OH MY!)… out of blue today, the children's nursery rhyme, Hey Diddle- Diddle popped into my head.

The title of the nursery rhyme is interesting given the fact that Diddle-Diddle
have 2 sets of 3 D's (Doorways, Daleth)…plus 2 EL's.

From Wiki:
"A version of the rhyme is:

Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
The rhyme is the source of the English expression "over the moon", meaning "delighted, thrilled, extremely happy".
~~~~~~~~~
I thought it interesting about the Cow (Red Heifer) and my many comments (and links)
about the Red Heifer and the Third Temple.

Case in point is the illustration of the Cow (Bovine)
jumping over the moon on Wiki
(see link). The 'cow'in the illustration is of a Bull (TAURUS).

The illustration drawn by William Wallace Denslow,
(who collaborated on several projects with author L. Frank Baum)
depicts a rust(REDish)- brown Cow, and the illustration of the moon
is a deep ORANGE.
Recall my comments about the significance of the color orange.

Also according to Wiki, I found this:
"Still other theories refer to Hathor worship; various constellations
such as Leo the cat, Lyra the fiddle, Taurus the cow,
Canis Minor the little dog, and Great Bear and Little Bear
(the Big and Little Dippers, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor)
which align with the Moon around the winter solstice;"
~~~~~~~~~~~
The reference to Hator of course caught by eye, being she
(and this according to Wiki)" was often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal
and celestial aspect, although her most common form was a woman wearing
a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She could also be represented as a lioness, a cobra, or a sycamore tree."
~~~~
Do recall a previous comment I made about a year or so ago about my strange experience
at the Serpent Mound with a sycamore tree, which that strange
experience happened a decade or so ago.

Also Hator's association with the Egyptian Deity RA.
RA, being the suffix of my name DebRA. (the bees said to be the tears of RA).
In the wiki descriptions about the constellations, interesting this reference:
"various constellations such as Leo the cat".

Do recall my previous comment about my dream of Obama transforming into a
black and white cat, and Obama (we are 'told') being born on Aug 4 which in
astrology makes him a LEO.

What's interesting regarding Aug, is my mother passed over into spirit Aug 4
and Marshall's and my cousin's birthday is Aug 11.

Recall my comments about my 2011 Fama Fraternitatis dream
as far as the connection to Lions.





Ra1119bee said...


Part 2
And speaking of Obama, and the reference to Lyra the fiddle,
( in the wiki description about Hey Diddle—Diddle), I found the connection
to Lyra, the Harp and Fiddle, and instruments played with a bow
having the 'power to sooth and more importantly to ENCHANT very interesting
indeed.

Consider this thought-provoking post as far as
who, what and why , The Fiddler. ( link below )

Copy and Paste: (asterisk mine)
"The Fiddler’ is a realistic nineteenth-century Victorian short story penned in 1854 by American novelist, short story writer, and poet Herman Melville
‘The Fiddler’ is a story about Hautboy a fiddler who could ***enchant*** a person
even if he played familiar layman tunes.
~~~~~~
This author also makes reference to Obama concerning charisma and writes this:
” I have read about people with charisma, but a recent book I read of a charismatic person was about former President Barack Obama. The book’s title is To Obama: With Love, Joy, Hate, and Despair by Jeanne Marie Laskas."
~~~~~~~~~~~
Another interesting 'fiddler' connection is from the 2000 movie The Gift
staring Cate Blanchett as the protagonist who has the gift of foresight.
In the movie clip below of the Fiddler scene, note the white lilies.

And speaking of lilies,
do recall my many commentaries about my 2008 Suzy dream.
In Hebrew Shushan (Susanna/Susan/Suzy means Rose/Liliy.
Recall my connecting the lilies to the Golden Gate at the Temple Mount
also known as The Shushan Gate (see link)

The Golden Gate in Jerusalem being of an ORANGE color, much
like the Golden Gate in San Franciso.

Also interestingly in the Wiki article the reference to Taurus the Bull constellation.
According to Wiki (see link )
“In early Mesopotamian art, the Bull of Heaven was closely associated with Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare.
~~~~
I just commented about my perspective regarding the significant connection to
Inanna/Ishtar, in my previous post about Bugs and the Eclipse.


Ra1119bee said...


William,

Part 3

Also interestingly this copy and paste from Wiki about Susa and Inanna/Ishtar
asterisk mine. ( see link )

"Susa was one of the most important cities of the Ancient Near East.
In historic literature, Susa appears in the very earliest Sumerian records:
for example, it is described as one of the places obedient to **Inanna**,
patron deity of Uruk, in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta."
~~~~~~~~~~
Ain't it interesting how everything just somehow connects?
No joke, eh?...;-))

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Diddle_Diddle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._W._Denslow
https://nightlightastrology.com/bull-from-heaven-or-minotaur-below-the-castle-taurus-mythology-for-the-lunar-eclipse/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hathor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(constellation)
https://www.insaneowl.com/the-fiddler-by-herman-melville-short-story-analysis/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyre

Ra1119bee said...


William,

I forgot to add the movie clip of The Gift which features
the Fiddler scene. Note the white lilies.


The Gift (2000) Fiddle Player Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j4U9Yl7vEU

Happy birthday, Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir

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