The Model

I just spent $10 to see a really bad event in the performance space at Thorne's Market. (Here's the story in the Hampshire Gazette that lured me in: http://www.gazettenet.com/03132003/entertai/4229.htm) I won't even call it a show, because it wasn't. The flyer has an attractive young woman on it and a slogan: "... not just another fashion statement" In fact, however, that is just exactly what it is. The man of the one man show, Lee Ross, came out and gave an informal lecture for an hour. He talked as if he was just chatting for a bit before actually doing the show that we had paid to see, all the while telling us about his performances with Cirque Du Soleil, trips to New Zealand and Australia, street performing in Boulder CO and writing screen plays which are apparently being optioned in Hollywood. He has seen and been very impressed by the Matrix (he gives a half-assed rendition of Morpheus explaining the Matrix to Neo) and believes that there can be a better form of media out there, something more interactive than whatever exists today. How it would work, what good it would be, who it would serve, what it would be like, and how it would really be better he doesn't actually say beyond a few vague notions literally sketched on a sheet of paper. He does offer some homespun jargon for contemporary media culture (none of which was memorable, interesting, or useful) and he makes really pathetic attempts to explain the golden mean and the pythagorean or regular solids. He didn't relate them to anything else and as far as I could tell he didn't really understand any of the concepts he referred to. After subjecting us to his pseudo-intellectualism for an hour, string us along before getting whatever his point was, he stopped. In the end, it was all a big load of empty nothing, a complete waste of time and money.

There was more to hate than this, actually. Mr. Ross also took time out to display his enormous cynicism and grubbiness of soul by mocking the pretentions and mannerisms of various entertainment executives whose only apparent fault has been to a willingness to hire Mr. Ross. Indeed, he made a point of contrasting himself to their superficiality, their naked willingness to exploit others. Having spent an hour observing Mr. Ross while fruitlessly waiting for him to perform the advertised performance, I am at a loss to perceive any difference. Certainly, he never actually entertained me. Sydneycat is going to ask for our money back tomorrow from the Northampton Box Office.

Hmmm. Syd opined that the 'show' felt like a pitch for a timeshare in the Berkshires. After checking out the website on the flyer (http://www.applywithin.com/index.html) I have discovered that, in fact, the show IS a marketing pitch. So, it's official: Lee Ross is a whore, a fraud and a swindler. May he rot in the Hollywood hell he claims to hate.

Thinkin bout the Matrix

Other than pissing me off, the Model did have one effect on me: it made me really want to watch the Matrix again. Millari and Syd were both amenable, though as it worked out they both dozed off and I effectively watched it alone. Anyway, I had a bit of a revelation while watching it concerning the motivations and history of Cipher, the traitor.

We know a few things that now make more sense to me:

1) he's been out of the Matrix for nine years

2) Trinity, who is younger, has been out longer. Cipher doesn't remember her ever bringing him dinner.

3) Morpheus tells Neo that they have a rule--never free a mind once it's past a certain age because it has trouble adjusting to the new reality.

4) Morpheus broke that rule in Neo's case because he felt he had to, because Neo was the one.

5) There is some room for doubt, some reason to question, Morpheus's assertion of Neo's One-hood.


So, basically, I think I better understand why Cipher betrays them all. I think he was freed (perhaps by Morpheus, perhaps by someone else) past that mandated age because that someone thought Cipher was the one. Thus, Cipher is bitter because has pulled out of the comfortable life that he knew and put into a dark, grubby, hunted existence (with rotten food) because they wanted him to save them all. And he couldn't do it. And the hot chick that he's met won't sleep with him. And this obnoxious guy keeps bossing him around. And the agents that they hoped he could defeat are beyond him, too, and so he has to run like mad and skulk around in fear, just as they do.

Let this bitter disillusionment and disappointment simmer for nine years, and then stir in a cute but slightly clueless looking new kid...who turns out to be just what everyone else was looking for in you. And this kid hasn't done anything to earn it--he just IS whatever it is. And the hot chick is clearly falling for him.

So, treachery has a number of advantages: revenge on the guy who lured you out of the Matrix with false hopes, bitterness at the girl who doesn't love you and has fallen for the cute new guy, and a desire to prove that his (Cipher's) failures--the reason he doesn't measure up--is because their expectations are pipe-dreams, and not because he, Cipher, just isn't cool enough. He hasn't failed, they have, has been his constant consolation. Now, Neo threatens all of that. Hence, a deal with the devils....