[Eccles]

I know some are wondering where is our dear friend Eccles. Do not worry, he is well, I saw his post on Deadwood crowd forum, Kokoo's Nest. Hope he would be able to stop by someday...

A question. What do you think have happened (grammar?) with Shaun in "Cincinnati"?

It is nice to be thought of. I've been busy and also have been away on vacation in Atlantic Canada. I'm heading back to work on Monday.

I don't know what David Milch had in mind by "Cincinnati." My guess would be that it refers to a nondual state in which we awaken to the realization of our essential unity and oneness ... type of thing. Whatever "Cincinnati" represents, it seems to be beyond discursiveness and the division of subject-object: Shaun remembers to say things but he doesn't remember his experience. John tells us that we "hear" his fathers words but we do not "remember" them as something from the past because they do not belong in the past but are always and only heard in the present. My guess.

Then again, for "True Blood" fans out there, maybe the fairies have taken Sookie to their version of "Cincinnati." After all, she was offered a "peanut butter and butter sandwich" shortly before leaving.

Must run.

[Waxon]

Indeed she was, Eccles!  I, myself, have never had one - but I believe I will tomorrow.  It appears to be the rage.

As for Cincinnati, some great thoughts, Eccles.  It seems so random that it could just be anywhere other than here - meaning outside of our world - or at least, our world of understanding.   Or as you suggested, but its name is irrelevant.  All Shaun seems to remember about it is that "there were some good ones".

Continuing on that thought... John and Link in Ep 10:

Link: If you are the end, then I am near you?
John: Yes, Link


Can anyone explain this line to me?  ( I think, somehow, it speaks to what Cincinnati is)

[Eccles]

Indeed she was, Eccles!  I, myself, have never had one - but I believe I will tomorrow.  It appears to be the rage.

As for Cincinnati, some great thoughts, Eccles.  It seems so random that it could just be anywhere other than here - meaning outside of our world - or at least, our world of understanding.   Or as you suggested, but its name is irrelevant.  All Shaun seems to remember about it is that "there were some good ones".

Continuing on that thought... John and Link in Ep 10:

Link: If you are the end, then I am near you?
John: Yes, Link


Can anyone explain this line to me?  ( I think, somehow, it speaks to what Cincinnati is)

Perhaps a clue is to be found in John's "surname." That a "monad" represents oneness, the unity prior to all division, is I think the case in Greek philosophy, gnosticism, and in the thought of Kant and Leibniz. I believe David Milch had the latter in mind. In Leibnizian thinking the attempt to move beyond Cartesian dualism led to the postulating of a "preestablished harmony." I think that John Monad, who arrives among a family and community divided in a seemingly hopeless way, represents the unity which all things flow out from and back to, like waves, as it were.  I think Milch believes that thinking of ourselves as separate from everything and everyone else is essentially an egoic illusion which has left its mark in all sorts of unpleasant ways throughout human history. In his mind (presumably) any future hope for us is in overcoming the illusion of separateness and isolation in the realization that we are all one family, or even "one body" in the language of St. Paul which he (Milch) employed so powerfully in "Deadwood." John, for whom doors remained a mystery (rather funnily) throughout the series, seems to see things in a unitive way from the perspective of the preestablished harmony. In this view the eventual return to that harmony would be our end, as in our "telos," or purpose.

"Must I say 'for me'? Isn't 'for me' understood?"

[Sven2]

Thank you, Eccles, the answer gives plenty.
And raises the question if such an end might be worked on and reached as a result of an intentional act, or is it a simple perpetual dissolution like that of grass turning into humus and rocks ground by wind and water into sands. Or societies and civilizations that disappear completing some learning - successfully or not - to be replaced by new generations, again as naive as newborns.

We all wish you'd stop by more often.

[Sven2]

That is a question that was posted on some IMDB board on October 5. I am not sure what is the right answer, so please, give it a thought.
The poster deserves our attention, doesn't he?

"In the second episode during the surf competition {in JFC} and all events surrounding it, there is some really smooth, chill background music playing continuously in the background (bass, drums, keyboard ambiance). Does this track have a title at all, or is it just score written specifically for the episode? I would love to obtain a copy of this track if it exists.."

I will post the answer we'd agree upon on the IMDB,  together with the link to this site. Any interest in JFC has to be encouraged.

[Eccles]

"Mother of God Cass/Kai."

Maybe it's the season but I've been thinking about the above quote. I think in this case at least David Milch might have been having some fun with the various "Marys" in the Bible known as those who bear the word.

Kai was a word-bearer insofar as she cared for and looked after the Yost family for all those years. She kept Butchie's boards safe and secure all those years until he might use them again. Cass, whose job according to her boss, Link, was to distract Mitch, takes on a new role as a word-bearer. Those who are watching and waiting first learn of Shaun's safe arrival from "Cincinnati" through her camera which observes it all as a faithful witness.

[ZenOnMars]

Wow, a whole LOT of good discussion in this thread!   :)

I do recall David Milch saying that he picked 2014 as John's return year because 7 was a mystic, spiritual number.  At some point, I would like to share with you all my craziest theories about the phenomenon we call "John From Cincinnati", but that will probably require a thread all it's own.

I was thrilled to hear John say that, "WE are coming 9 11 14!!!"

Even in 2007 I was aware of the Mayan calender end date of 2012, and for any of you who brush up to any of the edgy new age "gobbledigook", you might know about the predictions about December 21st, 2012:  they range from armeggedon to Man's ascension to the next dimensional octave.  So I was delighted at the notion of "big and huge" changes coming in that time zone.  :)

[Sven2]

Zen, please, feel free to share your thoughts and ideas, take over the whole thread if you wish.
May I, however, point to a contradiction in your Mayan "end of the days"? How late would be John and his team if they were coming here after the cataclysm in 2012, almost two years after? 

I don't know, Department of Motor Vehicles doesn't seem to acknowledge the coming Apocalypse, issuing drivers licenses valid through 2015 now. Naive and nearsighted, huh?  :D

[ZenOnMars]

Lol  Ever spend time in the black hole called Motor Vehicles???  You might go in 2012, and leave in 2015!   :D

Yes, I prefer to think the "New Era" begins near and around the 2012 date, and I am not a doomsayer.  I am pathetically optimistic about Mankind's future.  Don't know why.  I also intuit that evolution isn't always a painfully long, drawn-out affair taking thousands and thousands of years.  Sometimes, I would guess, evolution happens in very fast spurts (also possibly painful  8) ).

Yep.  In a nutshell, I think there is a reason all of us here got swept up by JFC so quickly - something more than it being unique and wonderful television.  But in order to keep from being viewed as "certifiable", I will need to lay out a bit of groundwork.  

Promise to do this soon.  :)

[ZenOnMars]

Alright.  Here goes. 

It is my contention that John From Cincinnati was (is) more than an unusual TV series loaded with rare and new (for TV) human characters, and dialog which borders on poetry.
 
It is all of that, of course. We all got hooked by that first episode, where Milch told us more about these characters in a one hour episode, than most TV shows pull off in an entire season! And, episode by episode, I was STUNNED!!!  :)  It felt like the Universe had made an HBO TV series JUST FOR ME!!!  I couldn't believe it!  And it escalated weekly!

I remember posting on the HBO JFC BBs, after the Dream Sequence, that "John" had just jumped up an entire dimensional level.  And we all knew it, huh?  We were not in Kansas any more!!  :)

Looking back on that summer, I am drawn to memories:  me repeating dialog in front of family and friends, who finally quit asking what the hell I was saying!

lol ... memories like the moon in that episode where John and Cass go walking out by the Radar Installation, and John shouts at the tiki head "Stare me down?"  Remember that moon?  It was EXACTLY the same phase and appearance outside my home that very night!

So that is how it all went down:  I was absorbed into JFC, obsessed with re-watching every new episode, and still stunned that someone had made a TV show that seemed tailor made for me!

And then I met all of you.  :)

I wasn't alone.  This show impressed a whole lot of other folks.  Ever notice that John either grabbed you completely, or you were absolutely revolted by it?

Let's face it, there were a lot of folks who just couldn't wrap their heads around it.  Others were "dug in" at spiritual levels that made John seem
sacriligeous.  Many others just were not ready for it on any level.  And I was OK with those folks.  This was MY show... lol.

But I came to see this entire "work" as something more than a Milch effort that got gutted early due to internal HBO politics.  I began to see it as a "channeled" offering of Grace.  I began to see it truely coming from "Cincinnati", whether Milch and crew realized it or not. 

Which is apt to get me committed, or certainly ignored, and maybe even laughed at. ;)  I mean, this wasn't like Trekkies dressed up like Spock. 
I really started to think this was all MEANT to be.  So, committed, right?

'Cept I got some evidence.   A little science to aid my argument.  Fringe stuff, I will admit, but enough to keep ME happy at least.  And this is what I will be presenting here, for your perusal. For instance, ever hear of the Princeton Eggs?  :)
 
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

More about that soon.

[OceanFlower]

If I may play Advocatus Diaboli for a moment and ask a question: why is it the show itself didn't last but one season and other HBO shows about vampires and gay werewolves sustain? Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Also (and I've mentioned this before) the show itself in both character and story line resembles a little known flick entitled Brother From Another Planet, (a black humanoid alien crashes on planet Earth) the novel Stranger In A Strange Land (the Martian born human Michael Valentine Smith returns to Earth) and even to some degree The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original 50s b&w film). No surfing in any of those but the parallels are remarkable if you ask me. Just throwing that out there.

[ZenOnMars]

OceanFlower:  "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

Lol...    :)

Well, I am not sure about "Brother", but "Day the Earth Stood Still" is near and dear to my heart.  As for John getting cancelled, it is, I suppose, what I said above.  Only a certain percentage of us were ready for it.  I don't think surfing had anything to do with it.  It called us to at least look at ourselves, and realize how much help we really need from each other.  THAT's not what we Americans expect television to make us think about!  We expect television to make us FORGET about our problems.  We expect television to tell us how to feel.

John threw that crap in the garbage.  It said, here you are, Americans:    pretty broken, hurting, and hateful.  JFC asked us, ready to change that?   NOW?  In 9 days?

[Sven2]

Thank you, Len, for providing such interesting link, it surely deserves attention. Would you tell more about your ideas?

[OceanFlower]

Lest we forget: one of the main themes of the show at least for me was Mitch's levitating and unlike his surfing ability, he seemed to have no control over it.

Mitch was right all along. He should've never bent to the will of Cissy and Butchie and let Shaunie go corporate with Stinkweed.  His rejection of corporate surfing was absolutely correct. The art of catching a wave whether on the water or in time is pure religion, it's not about the shirts or sandals or shorts the surfer wears, or the board the surfer rides or the car the surfer drives it's about The Wave. Mitch wasn't so much levitating as he was actually surfing on a wave of time and space and he didn't even know it, not until the Grand Alpha Moment when we all see God, the Mother of God.

E=MC2 will now be replaced by the mathematical description for the propagation of an ocean wave:

A wave is produced when a vibrating source periodically disturbs the first particle of a medium. This creates a wave pattern that begins to travel along the medium from particle to particle. The frequency at which each individual particle vibrates is equal to the frequency at which the source vibrates. Similarly, the period of vibration of each individual particle in the medium is equal to the period of vibration of the source. In one period, the source is able to displace the first particle upwards from rest, back to rest, downwards from rest, and finally back to rest. This complete back-and-forth movement constitutes one complete wave cycle. 

In other words: Surf's up brah!

Shaka!

[ZenOnMars]

OceanFlower:   :)  "The wave LIFTS them up!"

Sven 2:  Here's a more concise version of that vast weblink I posted.

There has been an ongoing project at Princeton University, nicknamed the "Princeton Eggs".  I will give you a short layman's version:

This University research team wanted to test the theory that the "nothingness" between matter , the "empty vacuum" of outer space and the space between the smallest atomic particles might actually be filled with the old Alchemical idea of the Aether -- a liquid-like, intelligent, conscious energy that connects all things in the universe, not only physically, but also emotionally and intellectually and consciously.

I know that's a mouthful.  Let's break it down.  Ever see 200 birds take off all at the exact same moment?  Ever know who was about to call you a moment before the phone rang?  Is it ALL coincidence?  Or is something greater at play?

The research team placed "random number generators" around the globe.  These computer boxes, all connected back to Princeton University, do nothing all day but generate random numbers: white noise, essentially.  They churn and churn and churn out random numbers and continuously report them back home.

What this research team has discovered, is that if enough humans on planet Earth all concentrate on the same thing, with intense emotion, the "eggs" generate much less random numbers.  And the non-randomness of these numbers can be graphed, like a siesmic chart. Soooo.....

Guess what spiked HUGE during Princess Dianna's funeral?

And I can't EVEN begin to tell you what happened when the planes hit the WTC towers on the morning of 9-11.  Go to the link above if you care to see for yourself.  Somewhat unexplained, is how the Egg charts started spiking an hour BEFORE the first plane hit the Trade Center!  That may go to the notion of time disolving when we get to these higher levels of conscious awareness. 

Anyway, there certainly seems to be a non-physical link between us humans and the Universe we find ourselves living in, and, at a certain maximum density a link between all of us individuals.  From the Princeton page comes this: 

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/story.html

Tell me that when you read this, you are not able to think of John From Cincinnati? 

"Someday after mastering winds, waves, tides and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will discover fire."