[UA] Gaston's cryptophage

[Gaston Phillips]

on 6/28/01 12:52 PM, Royal Minister of Stuff at yokeltania at yahoo.com wrote:

> I think the Cryptophage should always talk in sound
> bites and clips from nearby media.  He should never
> appear "in person," only as an image on the TV or a
> poster or a newspaper article.  You can get notes from
> the Cryptophage, you can find personal ads from it
> which are quite undeniably addressed to you -without
> using your name.  You know the Cryptophage is there
> and you know he's stalking you, growing stronger from
> your secrets and, one day, he may even assume your
> identity.  The Cryptophage takes every bad thing
> you've done and reminds you why it HAS to remain a
> secret, it tries to turn your entire existence into an
> unknown and it gives you lots of reasons to do so.
> Like a Con Artist in the Blow-Off stage, it keeps you
> from going out, from contacting anyone who knows you,
> from expressing your existence.
> 
> Then it eats you.
> 

Ah, dude - hell, yeah.  If you've read _American Gods_, there's a similar
scene... hell, I'll write it up in a few minutes.

I love the idea of a being that appears only as corrupted media - signs on
the sides of buses, flashing highway information signs, overheard radio
lyrics that are slightly wrong, and sitcoms whose plotlines just can't be
right.

Yes - I absolutely like that.  But, also, shouldn't there be certain
patterns that repeat?  Like "Time is on my side" from Fallen, or something -
some tune or phrase or something that means it's the cryptophage and not
someone/something else.

Here's the appropriate stuff from American Gods:

"   ...He turned on the TV for company, pressed the sleep button on the
remote three times, which would make the TV set turn off automatically in
fourty-five minutes.  It was a quarter to midnight.
    The picture was motel-fuzzy, and the colors swam across the screen.  He
flipped from late show to late show in the televisual wasteland, unable to
focus.  Someone was demonstrating something that did something in the
kitchen, and replaced a dozen other kitchen utensils, none of which Shadow
possessed.  Flip.  A man in a suit explained that these were the end times
and that Jesus - a four or five-syllable word the way the man pronounced it
- would make Shadow's business prosper and thrive if Shadow sent him money.
Flip.  An episode of M*A*S*H ended and a Dick Van Dyke show began.
    Shadow hadn't seen an episode of The Dick Van Dyke show for years, but
there was something comforting about the 1965 black-and-white world it
painted, and he put the channel changer down beside the bed, and turned off
the bedside light.  He watched the show, eyes slowly closing, aware that
something was odd.  He had not seen many episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show,
so he was not surprised that it was an episode he could not remember seeing
before.  What he found strange was the tone.
    All the regulars were concerned about Rob's drinking.  He was missing
days at work.  They wenrt to his home: he had locked himself in the bedroom,
and had to be persuaded to come out.  He was staggering drunk, but still
pretty funny.  His friends, played by Maury Amsterdam and Rose Marie, left
after getting some good gags in.  Then, when Rob's wide went to remonstrate
with him, he hit her, hard, in the face.  She sat down on the floor and
began to cry, not in that famous Mary Tyler Moore wail, but in small,
helpless sobs, hugging herself and whispering, "Don't hit me, please, I'll
do anything, just don't hit me anymore."
    "What the fuck is this?" said Shadow, aloud.
    The picture dissolved into phosphor-dot fuzz.  When it came back, The
Dick Van Dyke show had, inexplicably, become I Love Lucy.  Lucy was trying
to persuade Ricky to let her replace their old icebox with a new
refrigerator.  When he left, however, she walked over to the couch and sat
down, crossing her ankles, resting her hjands in her lap, and staring out
patiently in blackj and white across the years.
    "Shadow?" she said.  "We need to talk."
    Shadow said nothing.  She opened her purse and took out a cigarette, lit
it with an expensive silver lighter, put the lighter away.  "I'm talking to
you," she said.  "Well?"
    "This is crazy," said Shadow.
    "Like the rest of your life is sane?  Give me a fucking break."
    "Whatever.  Lucille Ball talking to me from the TV is weirder by several
orders of magnitude than anything that's happened to me so far," said
Shadow.
    "It's not Lucille Ball.  It's Lucy Ricardo.  And you know something -
I'm not even her.  It's just an easy way to look, given the context.  That's
all."  She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa.
    "Who are you?" asked SHadow.
    "Okay," she said.  "Good question.  I'm the idiot box.  I'm the TV.  I'm
teh all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray.  I'm the tube.  I'm the
little shrine the family gathers to adore."
    "You're the television?  Or someone in the television?"
    "The TV's the altar.  I'm what people are sacrificing to."
    'What do they sacrifice?" asked Shadow.
    "Their time, mostly," said Lucy.  "Sometimes each other."  She raised
two fingers, blew imaginary gunsmoke from the tips.  Then she winked, a big
old I Love Lucy wink." (AG, 135-136)

I imagine the cryptophage working like that, sort of.  More with the
demented TDVDS episode than the un-subtle ILL stuff.  I would, ideally, like
his appearances to be absolutely unmistakeable, and yet at the same tiume
totally subtle.  The person he's hunting knows that The Cryptophage is near,
but anyone they explain it to is going to dismiss it as councidence,
hallucination, and paranoia.

gaston


_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua