The F-word and I are rewatching The Sopranos. I'm glad. Not only because I'd forgotten pretty much all of it since I was high the first time through, but because I'm seeing it in a new light now. Being high all the time had helped me not notice the plot holes, which are now apparent, and I'm no longer wrapped up in thinking this is somehow perfectly crafted story television in the traditional sense. But things that left me utterly cold enough last time to have completely forgotten in the interim, like the "Isabella" episode, now seem like pure literature.
There are probably a few reasons for this, like not being high, and having spent a few years letting my own years of psychoanalysis settle and process, and gaining a family of cautionary tale Italian descendant in-laws in the Livia vein, but in the case of "Isabella" I guess the big one is now being a mother myself. Having a different relationship with the idea of a mother as the force that drives the child, and the damage a mother can do. Also having a different relationship with the whore/madonna dichotomy, which in my case isn't so much of a dichotomy as two utterly necessary stages of life, but in a generalized sense from a male perspective I appreciate now probably has a lot more than I'd understood to do with revenge and insecurity.
What sort of man will I make Godzilla into? The question has been there since years before he was conceived, which is part of the reason I got my man-hating ass into psychoanalysis in the first place, but until we saw his whang on the ultrasound it was a fairly academic question. And the "Isabella" episode helped me get it into a somewhat more coherent form. I don't know what sort of man I'll make Godzilla into. I suppose the best I can hope for is that it's a secure one who won't hurt himself and other people too much seeking to replace me or to make up for my shortfalls or to get his own back on me when he goes looking for a partner. A man who won't have extended hallucinations while having a depressive episode about some sort of idealized trogladyte infant existence with no luxuries but with a mother who loved him and made him feel safe.
Fuck, that was a good episode.
There are probably a few reasons for this, like not being high, and having spent a few years letting my own years of psychoanalysis settle and process, and gaining a family of cautionary tale Italian descendant in-laws in the Livia vein, but in the case of "Isabella" I guess the big one is now being a mother myself. Having a different relationship with the idea of a mother as the force that drives the child, and the damage a mother can do. Also having a different relationship with the whore/madonna dichotomy, which in my case isn't so much of a dichotomy as two utterly necessary stages of life, but in a generalized sense from a male perspective I appreciate now probably has a lot more than I'd understood to do with revenge and insecurity.
What sort of man will I make Godzilla into? The question has been there since years before he was conceived, which is part of the reason I got my man-hating ass into psychoanalysis in the first place, but until we saw his whang on the ultrasound it was a fairly academic question. And the "Isabella" episode helped me get it into a somewhat more coherent form. I don't know what sort of man I'll make Godzilla into. I suppose the best I can hope for is that it's a secure one who won't hurt himself and other people too much seeking to replace me or to make up for my shortfalls or to get his own back on me when he goes looking for a partner. A man who won't have extended hallucinations while having a depressive episode about some sort of idealized trogladyte infant existence with no luxuries but with a mother who loved him and made him feel safe.
Fuck, that was a good episode.
