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REDRUM ROAD – ROUND ONE – SKIP TO A PAGE
COME TOGETHER ⎔ SOMETHING ⎔ MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER ⎔ OH! DARLING ⎔ OCTOPUS’S GARDEN ⎔ I WANT YOU ⎔ HERE COMES THE SUN ⎔ BECAUSE ⎔ YOU NEVER GIVE ME YOUR MONEY ⎔ SUN KING ⎔ MEAN MR. MUSTARD ⎔ POLYTHENE PAM ⎔ SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW ⎔ GOLDEN SLUMBERS ⎔ CARRY THAT WEIGHT ⎔ THE END
ROUND TWO START ⎔ ROUND THREE START ⎔ SPECIAL: STORY ROOM
- Right at the start of this track, on the first drum roll and crash, Jack’s typewriter appears, and the speed at which the forward zoom out and the backward left pan move is approximately the same speed, which gives a lovely feeling of “Right then. Moving on.”
- “Mean Mr. Mustard sleeps in the park, shaves in the dark, tryin’ to save paper” – First shot of Jack’s typewriter, with the blank paper in it, which has a yellow tone, which, when we see Wendy rifling through the All Work pages in a second will seem even more like mustard.
- Also, the German typewriter, in the WWII context, functions like a symbol of meanness, not to mention the Marlboro’s, which, as discussed, bore the phrase Veni, Vidi, Vici on every pack. I came, I saw, I conquered. Was Caesar a mean guy? Well, he was a conqueror, and his friends had a mind to assassinate him. Also, Jack is hurling the (yellow-green) ball at the indigenous art. Also, we’ll soon get the mirror image of Wendy flipping through all the wasted paper in the All Work pages. So, was Mr. Mustard actually trying to save paper? His writer’s block was trying to save paper…
- “His sister Pam works in a shop, she never stops, she’s a go-getter” – Starts on the image of Wendy chasing Danny into the labyrinth. So she’s saying, “I’m gonna getcha!” right about the “go-getter” line. Also, “works in a shop, she never stops” is happening over “All work and no play”.
- “Takes him out to look at the queen/Only place that he’s ever been” – Right on “look at the queen” the image of the maze map rolls up. Jack is about to wander up to this same image in the lobby, in the form of the model map. I like this, because I have a growing sense that the hotel and its appendages, like the labyrinth, are meant to have a feminine quality.
- Also, Wendy’s going into the labyrinth at this point, which functions like a mirror of the hotel’s nature. It changes, transforms, and if you only use the map that you see, you won’t defeat it; you need to understand it on a deeper level than all that, as Danny will do.
- And Jack is told in the gold room that he’s “always been the caretaker” of the hotel, and Jack freezes to death out in the labyrinth. So there’s a duality in this “only place that he’s ever been” concept.
- There’s also a strong sense that the maze metaphor doesn’t end with the labyrinth and the hotel. There’s two postcards, which Danny and Wendy just ran past, in the maze kiosk. One of these repeats in the radio room where Wendy first calls for help (the hotel’s kiosk), and one of the ones in that room repeats in the US Forest Service office (the kiosk of the natural world? the kiosk of the forest?). So these postcards mark the entry point to at least two mazes. What’s the chance that third one isn’t what I’m suggesting? So if the natural world is what the maze and the hotel are symbols of, then, yes, Jack and Grady have “always” in a sense been the Jeevesy and the caretaker.
- “Always shouts out something obscene” – In a sense, the All Work pages are obscene. And right on this line Wendy’s seeing the densest of those pages. Forward Wendy is telling Danny to take her hand, which is like something you do when you’re passing by a scary person.
Click here to continue on to Redrum Road: Polythene Pam – Round 1
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EYE SCREAM 