spoiler: a suggestive zombie short

I am amazed at this wonderful short film.  a year ago a short teaser to the game dead island came out, guarenteed to make one lose one's shit.  it did not do that.  (that a little girl will become a zombie is, at this point, such a commonplace that anyone surprised at it never heard of night of the living dead.) this short, however, in its unbearable denuement, made me lose my shit, despite my knowing--or rather, on 1st watching, my being certain of--the ending.  the premise is that, after a zombie outbreak has been dealt with, life will go on, with modifications that include ruthless extermination of potential re-outbreaks.  that makes a great deal of sense.

I'm fascinated by the horror tropes of zombies and vampires because of the suggestion that each is a step between being alive and being dead.  (thomas merton, in an essay on an unrelated point, refers to this existence as being in purgatory, which is a "place" between the 2 states.)  the religious possibilities of what it would mean if something like a vampire or zombie outbreak occured would be enormous.  think on this:  if the supernatural origins of either were true, what kind of god would foist insatiable hunger on someone?  would that be a punishment or, in the case of starving nations, some odd blessing?  and in that latter case, if the infected took their toll on the wealthiest nations, would that be a punishment of the policies of those nations?  if zombies were real, would it suggest that voudon or santeria were the "true" religions?  if vampires were real, would they be worshiped as intermediaries between people and god, sort of angels, and would infection by them be welcomed?

in the case of spoiler, what would a post-infected religion look like?  would infection prove to most survivors that god is a fiction?  would it suggest the truth of a belligerant, angry, spiteful god?  there are suggestions in the short that there is more than 1 type of infection.  would different types suggest different divine intervention?  (that there is more than 1 type is, I think, a sly captip to the incredible diversity of zombie films.)  if someone is responsible for putting down one's spouse or child or mother, how does one reconcile one's place in the world afterward?  to what hope does someone like spoiler's protagonist cling?   is there hope in such a world?  what we see of people's lives in this post-infection world suggests that they go on with their otherwise ordinary lives with grim acceptance that it all could happen again.  in the face of constant fear of a repetition of infection, can there be hope beyond simply living through the day?

pennsylvania has a state smell

I've already come to the conclusion that my best strategy to make it through my time here is to treat it like jack kerouac did his stint on desolation mountain: simply to be here and take each day as it comes without noticing it much. as with every state, pennsylvania has a state bird and state flower and so on, but it also has a state smell, and on this edge of the thick it's burning garbage. fire regulations are laxer here--when we took my mother's leftover medications, several bags of prescriptions and vitamins and over-the-counter meds, to the pharmacy to have them disposed of they simply said, "burn 'em"--and it seems everyone takes a shift to burn something nettling. the smell too is thick here.

I'd forgotten my father's syntax which has also gotten thicker as he's aged: nearly every sentence has some variation of the king james phrase "took and went." "I took and went to the store." "I'll take and bring this over." "we'll take and send this in the mail." also, his use of the word "thing" as a synonym for any noun. "your sister and ken went to the thing." "jayne is in the bathroom cleaning the things." "I'll take and walk this thing over to my sister's for the thing." these may be symptoms of alzheimer's or they may simply be an extension of the way he's always talked.

my mother collected cherub paraphenalia and it's hard to turn around without bumping into a plaster statue or wall hanging or photo holder. her theology was simple--one acted in accordance with the wishes of god, although telling what those wishes are might be hard to decipher, and then one went to heaven where one spent eternity doing pleasurable things--and it was understood there was a heaven and a hell (although like universalists she didn't think god was much of one to actually damn anyone for eternity, just until he or she shaped up) and there was a god who could be known through christ and who operated supernaturally. she was a big one for the supernatural, both religious and secular. cherubs, angels, ghosts, poltergeists, spirits, premonitions, dreams, messages, visitations--all were on equal footing to her. she was an early and enthusiastic subscriber to fate magazine and read everything about edgar cayce as well as being a believer in whatever the weekly world news printed. what she was in addition to gullible was a beleiver in believing, and to the extent that belivers are also people who hope, we have that in common.