 |
 |
There's a terrible film called _Event Horizon_, in which a space ship sent through a hole in reality to get to the other side of the galaxy disappears completely, then reappears years later haunted by an unspeakable demonic presence. In that film, the realm of the ab-surd - outside conventional physics, normal space and time - is quite definitely a realm of PURE CHAOS AND EVIL, as the scary techno music soundtrack reminds us at every turn when we're not actually being confronted with characters clawing their own eyes out in horror. It's an awful movie, and I don't recommend actually watching it, but for some reason it stuck in my mind. Possibly Joely Richardson. She seems quite intelligent, but my goodness she's been in some stinkers. How could a realm of PURE CHAOS be EVIL, you ask? At least, you do if you're used to magic systems in which CHAOS is orthogonal to GOOD and EVIL and a mage can as easily be CHAOTIC GOOD as LAWFUL EVIL. Rest assured that the film does not in any way attempt to resolve this conundrum. But Sam Neill is pretty good as the demonically possessed Doctor Weir. I don't really want to go to Gitmo, but since it came up I would comment that nonsense can be an assault on sense - on the senses - and that both malicious and benevolent uses of the non sequitur to shock and destabilize are documented. Zen koans are I suppose benevolent examples. Most of the nonsensical opinion pieces I read in the Guardian nowadays strike me as malevolent, in a castrated sort of way. Edward Lear? Harmless, charming, also ever so slightly subversive although it's hard to say just how or why. In a way it's the harmlessness that's so subversive: the Pobble Who Had No Toes has also no axe to grind. Compare Spike Milligan, whom I've never found terribly funny (this would be a generational thing, I guess: Chris Morris is more to my taste) but who emits a distinct *hwaet!* of grinding axes even at his silliest. Dominic