Thursday, April 03, 2008

The Ka of Hathor: Riding the Pipe

I don't know how I could have forgotten one of the all-time greatest Hathors of the silver screen, the legendary Catherine Deneuve. It's hard to imagine a role more semiotically charged than her masterful portrayal of Miriam ("Beloved of Amun") Blaylock, the seductive, pansexual vampiress in The Hunger.

You've got a story written by alien contactee Whitley Strieber about an ancient Egyptian queen whose backstory sounds very much like one of the Nephilim ("Miriam Blaylock is in Thailand, looking to find a mate at the Asian conclave of Keepers. She is a Keeper, and Keepers are vampires, ancient extraterrestrials who cultivated humans for sustenance"). You've also got occult initiate David Bowie, goth gods Bauhaus and one of the greatest love scenes in the history of cinema.

  Speaking of the Nephilim, Hathor was also a character on the Stargate SG-1 series. Not quite my idea of a personification of the goddess (I'd prefer someone a little darker) but don't most rituals have something of a perfunctory air to them? We just needed an explicit Stargate resonator and now we have it.

Speaking of science fiction, Scientology queen Ka-Hathor-Ein Holmes debuted her new, androgynous hairdo to general astonishment and dismay. Wags were agog wondering why she needed to be the mirror image of her husband. I'm a little more concerned about her gaunt appearance, especially considering rumors she's trying to get pregnant again. 

A little too Mrs. Woodhouse for my liking.


Speaking of bad Rosemary's Baby remakes, I just remembered that the Hathor Graham stinker Blessed featured my old stomping grounds, One Penn Plaza, in a portentious establishing shot. My first job as a professional cartoonist was in this building, which now features an odd conjoined 11 in its logo. The character in Blessed had twins, which may explain the symbolism, though I'm hesitant to assign such sophistication to that film's producers.

 Nephilim and Stargate buffs will be interested to know that Aleister Crowley's first contact with Lam took place a literal stone's throw from One Penn Plaza. Apparently, Lam's number was 71, the inverse of the magic number 17. I very much doubt Blessed's makers were aware of that fact either. 

I kind of get the feeling that they were borrowing someone's apartment for the shot and that's the best they could do.

  Cate Blanchett and her exquisite cheekbones will next be seen in Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's latest symbolic search for Annunaki artifacts. Cate looks almost exactly like Joe's friend Andrea Grant in this photo, only Andrea is six feet tall.
 

Hollywood's latest Eloah-Isis Lane, the miscast Kate Bosworth, first came to my attention with Blue Crush, a film I never saw but whose advertising campaign made a big impression on me. But all that aside, I was extremely amused to find this panel below featuring the real Eloah-Isis Lane surfing...

...or "riding the pipe." 

I'm not sure who the artist was on this but he sure drew these characters looking very boyish (or ladyboyish). But I suppose ritual androgyny needs to express itself somehow, and we'll be returning to this image soon in another context altogether.