Nietzsche-Palooza As 'God Is Dead' Song Released On Superman's Birthday

Considering the events of the last week, this song seems both appropriate and inappropriate: "God Is Dead?" by Black Sabbath -- the first single released from their album called "13".

The art for the single depicts a mushroom cloud and a portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche. Where else have we seen a mushroom cloud today?

That's right: the recent devastating explosion in Waco Texas. (the whole Waco Explosion/Waco Branch Davidian 20th anniversary/Patriot's Day/Boston thing has to be a separate post, as it gets quite complex)

But there is another significant connection today to the Black Sabbath single art: it's Superman's 75th anniversary. And Nietzsche originated the term Übermensch -- translated as "overman", "super-human" or "superman."

Nietzsche taught that after God dies, the Übermensch will take over:

"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?... All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughing stock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to overman: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape... The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth... Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss ... what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end."

In the upcoming movie "Man of Steel," Superman is clearly presented as a secular God/Jesus type figure -- here to replace the "God" that seems to be nowhere, unable to stop the many tragedies that have befallen humanity. The Übermensch philosophy is also quite evident in the Transhumanism movement.

Nietzsche rocks today's Twitter trends 

The Black Sabbath song itself is pretty good, if a bit on the commercial side. Again, very depressing to listen to, taking into account the Boston and Waco tragedies this week. Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne also seems to have his own current personal hell at the moment, with recent revelations that he fell off the wagon with drugs & split from his wife; which all brings the song an extra bit of urgency and pain.

Other songs on "13" include "End of the Beginning," "Zeitgeist," and "Live Forever." The band will also be guest-starring on an upcoming episode of CSI, which features a series of murders based on "Dante's Inferno" (which sounds a lot like the plot of the TV show "The Following" to me -- a series that, in a future post, I will show does quite encapsulate issues facing the current era).

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"Escape From Planet Earth" Finally Released as Asteroids & Meteors Buzz The Planet

Zeitgeist Anxiety: "Must Get Offworld!"

In development since 2007, the animated movie "Escape From Planet Earth" is finally set to be released in American theatres today -- on the same day a meteor crashes down in Russia, and the so-called "largest close-call" asteroid buzzes by the planet. Escape from planet Earth, indeed.

The movie involves the all the usual tropes regarding extraterrestrial visitors -- lovable wise-cracking aliens (from a NASA parody called BASA) that seem Disney-ready for stuffed animals and video games, Area 51 shenanigans, The Evil CIA/NASA/Mr. Smith dude with the suit, and the idea that all of our current technology (including iPhones) have been re-engineered from off-world creations.

I just love the synchronicity of imagery here...by an incredible coincidence, this movie, held in legal limbo for over a decade, finally makes it to the big screen the same day all this cosmic flotsam and jetsam impacts our planet.

From "Escape From Planet Earth":


Dialogue: "I thought this movie was supposed to be in 3-D" (then the flying object crashes through the screen)

From today's Drudge Report:

Drudge Report headline for 2/15

Also, there is simply the stark relevance of the title: "Escape From Planet Earth" -- during a news cycle filled to the brim of stories wondering what we will do in the event of a real asteroid emergency or other somesuch galactic emergency. As I've written in a previous post, this push for "offworld" exploration and colonization will dominate the pop-culture and overall media landscape for many years to come.

Read also: "Starseeds, Star Wars, and Krypton Found: The New Space Narrative"

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Sync Watch: Is Red Mask Symbolism Heralding A New Plague?

"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all" --Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque Of The Red Death

I noticed a lot of "red mask" symbolism last week -- probably at least one a day, either in news stories or movies I watched. There's also been a lot of talk of flu epidemics, "norovirus" epidemics, and elder celebrities suddenly finding themselves sick and in the ICU.

So here's a little "sync carnival" I put together entitled, "The Red Masque of Captain Chaos."

I'm sure it's not heralding some sort of age of pestilence, or something.

From "Drudge Report," 1/25/13





" The rap titan sported a red makeshift mask similar to the one worn by the superhero in Paris yesterday. "
-- The Sun, 1/24/13

Cover of the comic book "Red Hood & The Outlaws" #16, which hit stands 1/23/13

Jack Of  Diamonds from "Seven Psychopaths"

Dom DeLuise's alter-ego Captain Chaos from "Cannibal Run"

Burt Reynolds in ICU with flu; 1/26/13

Gawker, 1/27/13

Burt Reynolds and Barbara Walters, circa 1980



 





The Atlantic, 1/25/13





"And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise — then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust. In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood — and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror."

--Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque Of The Red Death

Red Shirt = Death

Jack of Diamonds

 

Red Death reads the cards...



...as does the Joker...



..."Diamond" Jack...






...who started his career as "The Red Hood"





1/30 UPDATE: two more news stories hitting today that carry the red mask/plague theme

From The Atlantic:

And from Drudge (note red mask & red hood):

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Sync Webs: Lincoln, Obama, and The Amazing Spider-Man

The current hot political meme buzzing through the news outlets at the moment is Lincoln/Obama, as exemplified by this Drudge Report headline:

Google Obama + Lincoln right now, and it's in every news article: "Is this Obama's Lincoln moment?"

This connection has been going on pretty much since before his presidency, but has taken a sharp uptick since the last election, and especially over the last several days or so -- weeks before Obama's inauguration ceremony. Of course, the shadow of Steven Spielberg's current "Lincoln" movie hangs over the entire thing. And it's a connection that the Obama administration and press team themselves have cultivated (much like the Superman/Obama meme).

This reflects the current zeitgeist gripping the U.S. right now -- A Nation Divided, and states wanting to secede. But you'd also have to be pretty blind to see the other subtext about this connection.

And that makes me nervous.

The Drudge Report, one of the all-time masters of matching primal symbology with headlines to subliminally influence readers and get away with the otherwise taboo, is currently running this headline:

This image/word combination can be unpacked as follows:

1. Inflame already inflamed gun-owners currently terrified about losing their guns due to tragedies like Newtown.

2. Use the iconography of the Revolutionary War to stir up the Tea Party crowd. Obama's name linked to the image of the Redcoats, enemy of the "Patriots."

3. Use the even deeper subconscious imagery of people shooting weapons + the word "Obama" + "There Will Be Resistance."

It's my belief that such image/word combinations get "shuffled" within the brains of already unstable people. It's a similar situation to the "Dark Knight Rises" phenomenon and that business with James Holmes.

Also, from a metaphysical standpoint, such a deep identification with another public figure with such a tragic story is not a good idea. While Abraham Lincoln is a potent and much-beloved icon, the fact that he was assassinated makes purposely associating with him -- especially when you are already getting regular death threats on a regular basis -- dicey.

As an added passel of syncs, a writer in the comic book community who has recently "killed" Peter Parker/Spider-Man has also been on the receiving end of an unprecidented amount of death threats, leading to him essentially going into hiding and comparing himself to Salman Rushdie:

Let's recall this recent viral photo of Obama and Spidey:

...and also this famous comic from several years ago:

The Peter Parker of a different Marvel Comics "Earth" was killed off last year, replaced with a young Spider-Man of color -- setting off another mind 'splosion among certain groups of people (some of whom claimed this was all part of a sinister "plot" by Obama):

From "The Drudge Report"

Of course, in this particular Marvel Universe this year, their President Obama analogue has perished -- along with a good chunk of Washington D.C.:

This leads to a storyline in which first some sort of education official or someone similarly down the chain of command is made president (mirroring "Battlestar Galactica"), finally to be replaced by Captain America himself in a "special election" (a.k.a. not really any election):

Lastly, let's return to the death of another icon who has been connected with Obama -- Superman. That event "happened" in 1992, at which time that George H.W. Bush was president. It was a death of a comic book hero that, like the current Spider-Man story, made national news:

Bush Senior was recently at death's door, followed by the death of his Commander of U.S. Central Command during the Gulf War, Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr.:

So we currently have weird parallels to both the U.S. Civil War era, and the early 1990s/Gulf War era.

Is there one more sync or resonance I can squeeze out of all these elements? Here's just a few comic-related images:

Well, here's covers featuring Spider-Man's fellow superhero Deadpool, in a story about him fighting a zombie version of Abraham Lincoln:

This comic that will be released on January 16, about 5 days before the U.S. presidential inauguration.

And just for shits and giggles, here's a shot of Deadpool capturing Osama Bin Laden:



...and here's Obama doing the same thing in the Comics:





Here's the mutant super-group "X-Presidents," inclusing Bush Senior, fighting the menace of Communism, robots, and Reptillians:



Obama resonator Lincoln appears with both Obama resonator Spider-Man and "Obama Replacement" (in the "Ultimate" Marvel Universe) Captain America in this special Presidents Day comic:



And lastly, since I have an obsession with Astronaut iconography, I'll leave you with this:

Because icons never really die.

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