I've got a major obsession with the circus and Commedia dell'arte. It started back in elementary school when I would come home from school and watch BTAS. I really identified with Bruce Timm's and Paul Dini's interpretation of the Joker and their creation, Harley Quinn. The toxicity of the relationship dynamic also appealed to me because she just never gave up on him and for me, even knowing she was deluded at that age, it was kind of romantic the idea of not only being in love with psychopath who could never love her back but the fact that he looked the way he did. You get this almost stiff, cartoonish impression about the Joker as a thing rather than a person, but all of a sudden, he is given depth by her adoration. Not only that but in a lot of her imaginings in the Bruce Timm comics like the Mad Love issue in particular, she envisions this future of a domestic life with this thing and it makes him look not only very appealing, through her delusional idolatry but it also presents him as an actual person. With her credentials as an educated woman, upbeat and lively, so much to give, so much going for her, you feel inclined to believe her that there IS something there to love. So, I started watching and looking at the Joker and clowns in general differently, while growing fascinated with jesters because of the way her costume was.
Commedia dell'arte is like a balance between life and theater. All the things I love about theater without the things I hate, and all the things I love about reality and life without the things I hate. Spontaneous, unscripted, the roles mostly remaining the same, bare bones stories and masks hiding the features so that all emotions are articulated through the language of the body and the voice. The core characters inspired a lot of the devil and clown imagery we have today, hitting some primal notes with the comedy and stories they tell. This extends to my love of the circus. It's a weird thing to be obsessed with but I love the vagabond, uprooted nature of them, the escapism of the acts, and of course, the darkness in humanity represented by the clowns. I get really awestruck and spiritual when talking about these things in particular, especially in regards to my "bible" The Circus of the Earth and the Air by Steve Brooks. Something about that book, it still has a hold over me to this day and will forever be my most treasured possession.
Other obsessions I still carry torches for:
- Boogey Man aka monsters under the bed/in the closet/attic/basement. Ever since I was very little, I have been plagued by fear of creatures of this nature. I never had a name for them but ever since watching Wes Craven's film of the same name, I've referred to these monsters as They. Lots of imagery and stories link back to this primal fear in children and we all eventually grow out of it. I'm just obsessed with the idea of creatures that hunt children and only affect children for some reason. So, a lot of those similar stories and lore regarding child snatchers are of interest as well. I've read up on it, the relationship between archetypes, the psychology of breaking into independence and actualization from the mother being the true struggle behind the shadows, that these creatures represent integral parts of ourselves that we fear coming into the light and "consuming us" whether the desire to bow to mother's will, her unquestionable and suffocating love or to overcome the darkness, make a friend of it, and become our own people as adults. The struggle and the supernatural element get to me and I know a lot about the subject plus will pretty much watch/read anything with these themes(Little Monsters, Monsters Inc. , They, The Babadook, etc.) even when they suck. Because even when they suck, often what they get right is the lore and I still find it very interesting.
- Birds, corvids in particular. Per my gothic phase in high school, I became obsessed with symbols of death and came away from it finding out that crows and ravens are actually pretty fucking neat birds. They have their own cultures, pass on information to each other through generations - if you attack a nest, they remember your fucking face and will often attack or treat you badly if you continue to threaten them; not only that but if you really piss them off, not only will their children and their children's children remember your fucking face but if you visit another area, sometimes those crows will know you as well. Because they fucking pass that shit along. Plus all the experiments they've done with these birds in particular performing tasks to get to objects, not only figuring out cognitive solutions but fucking remembering them AND passing on that information to other crows they interact with. Parrots and love birds and parakeets and budgies also just tickle a soft spot inside me. It is really weird how attractive I find these birds while not having any interest whatsoever in owning one.
- Cephalopods. Same thing as with the crows, when in HS, I had Oceanography as a class and we watched a video with some divers testing the abilities of a giant octopus by giving it a closed jar with a crab inside. The octopus, within minutes of struggling with the thing found out how to open it and climbed inside the jug to claim its prize. It hit a button and i started doing research on them and all of the cephalopods possess this sort of alien intelligence, right down to the squids and cuttlefish which glow or make different skin colors and patterns to communicate with each other. There was an experiment done with a cuttlefish that they had in the lab in a tank and they put a tv right up next to the glass and played recordings of a cuttlefish doing its pattern thing. The cuttlefish in the tank did patterns back, communicating or copying it or something. Also, giant octopuses are smart little shits. They have a hard time keeping them captive because the only bones they have are their beaks. So, even the smallest crack in the tank and they can squeeze out and since they can travel outside of water for a short time, they can get pretty far before needing to be put back into water. There was this one funny story of an aquarium having to constantly refill the crab tank or something because they kept on finding the dead remains left behind in the tank. they set up a video camera and caught the octopus in one of their exhibits escaping from it's own tank and climbing into the other exhibit to eat the crab in there before returning back to its home. They're just awesome and wonderful creatures.
- Death/The Grim Reaper, tombstones, Ouija boards/spirit boards. Like I said, was goth in HS but not for the music and not for the depression. I was actually pretty peppy for someone in love with Death. I think it started with Beetlejuice, a tantalizing romance of finding the figure Beetlejuice sexually appealing but also Tim Burton's style of fantasy horror. So, I was immersed in that imagery for a while, during it's heyday with the Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, and Big Fish; before he became mainstream and oversaturated. Then Cartoon Network made The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and suddenly the Grim Reaper wasn't this silent, hooded picture, he was a person with a sympathetic character. And I began looking for other depictions of Death, the hooded skeleton, as a personality rather than just a vague concept. One of my favorites is from the tv mini series Hogfather. I used to have dreams about having sex with him, being penetrated by his "boner" and such. Along with that, I also used to visit a lot of graveyards and still do, looking for the imagery on the stones and doing rubbings to see the eroded messages placed upon them. It's not so much that it's sexual but I feel a deeper connections than just emotional. And it's not about death as in dying but the romanticization of the process, the glorification of it in these images and symbols.
Myriad interests that have come and gone but I still know a lot about them: the 80's, albinism, poisonous plants, numerology, astrology, etymology, dreams and dream symbolism.
Animals that freak me out but I am weirdly obsessed with: horses, pigs, sharks. Occasionally, during really dramatic and life-altering changes going on in my life, I will have nightmares about horses trying to kill me. One time, it was just carnivorous horses, chasing me down and eating me, tearing me apart. Another time, it was actual murder mystery, psycho killer hunting me, horse, plotting my downfall and cornering me - which is the most bizarre and pussifying thing to try to describe but you do not know the impact it had and the over all tone of the dream. I can't stop thinking about them and yet they terrify me.
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