the groundhog day project

That’s from The Sandman —Morpheus sentences the guy who imprisoned him to recurring awakening. Basically, he’s constantly under the impression he has just woken from a nightmare only to find himself in a new one. It’s like Jungian false awakening (Celia Green’s version thereof, especially) taken in a very dark direction. I’ve linked Groundhog Day to dreams before , of course. I’ve had a note since working through Benesh’s (2011) dissertation on Groundhog Day to get into false awakening as a topic, but in the modern parlance, I just wasn’t feeling it. Then, today, I was watching the latest episodes of Louie and there’s this surreal quality of late, with bizarre news reports— (For example: “Ten people died in the Bronx last night due to a fire that killed ten people in the Bronx last night during a fire.”) —and just as Louie’s new relationship is about to come to an end, there’s a hurricane coming into New York City. And then, suddenly, the hurricane, and the woman, are gone. ...

1973, Richard Lupoff publishes "12:01 P.M." in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction . In it, Myron Castleman is trapped in a time loop that lasts only an hour. It and the 1990 short film based on it are rather bleak because, well--SPOILERS (even though the story is four decades old and I've written about it in this blog before )--Myron doesn't escape the time loop. Actually, I should call it a time bounce when talking about "12:01 P.M." Three years ago, Lupoff published the first of two sequels to the story. I've got a few responses--and there will be SPOILERS obviously. First, the little things: I don't like that Lupoff (and by extension, Castleman) doesn't call the repeated days "resumptions" in the new story. I liked that word. I've used that word since reading "12:01 P.M." in my discussions of Groundhog Day . I actually had a weird moment of cognitive dissonance when I realized the new story, "12:02 P...

There's a force in the universe that makes things happen. All you have to do is get in touch with it. Stop thinking. Let things happen and be... the ball... Find your center. Hear nothing. Feel nothing. That's Chevy Chase as Ty Webb in Caddyshack . I get the impression from quotations in articles or interview clips that Harold Ramis was a bit zen like Webb. He didn't "want to be the Buddha," though, he told Perry Garfinkel of Shambhala Sun . "I just want to admire him." Brett Martin, writing for GQ in 2009, calls Ramis a "sympathetic, though nonpracticing, Buddhist." With that one character in Caddyshack , with his own understated performance as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters , and most obviously with the entirety of his cinematic masterpiece Groundhog Day , Ramis infused his films with a relaxed sort of zaniness that makes them hold up quite well long after the fact of their releases. Despite his success, he didn't particularly buy in...

On the one hand, I've got nothing in particular to write about tonight. Phil has just figured out that he can take advantage of the time loop on my TV, and just punched Ned. I got back from hanging out at a speech tournament less than an hour ago (and it's 11:21 PM right now), and I've been out most of the day. (I wasn't judging, and didn't snag any sheet of impromptu topics, either, so I won't be connecting Groundhog Day to a bunch of random quotations.) On the other hand, I've been meaning to get back to critiquing Benesh and I've still got a handful of Groundhog Day -related articles nearby that I could write about or in response to. In particular, the manila folder that holds articles I haven't stuck in one of my Groundhog Day Project binders, is open to " Seeing the Shadow " by Dairyu Michael Wenger Sensei. It's a Buddhist piece. I was thinking about writing about the Buddhist take on Groundhog Day again. I didn't end up...

Late Sunday night in Woodstock, with no plans to head into the square again before driving to the airport Monday morning, I realized I had neglected a location marked on my downtown map… this one: See it on the right. I had briefly walked past the spot where Phil steps in front of the moving truck but that was on the trek to Cherry Street during the second tour, and that particular spot is not part of the tour, and I didn’t even notice where we were… at the time. Realized it later but neglected to get back. So, late Sunday night, I knew I was headed into the square one more time before I left. Monday morning, I got shots in both directions (north and south) at that corner. Also, I parked right where Larry parked the van. Aside from the library photos, today’s post should exhaust, finally, my collection of photos from Woodstock. First, some random stuff (a couple of which did get on Twitter but haven’t been in this blog yet… I don’t think). First, the Groundhog Day pin ma...

Yesterday , I started the latest war here at The Groundhog Day Project . I've already had my one-sided arguments with Daughton (1996), Faust (2013), Bacha (1998) and Foley (2004). My latest target is Benesh (2011). Julie Ellen Benesh wrote her doctoral dissertation on Groundhog Day . It's entitled "Becoming Punxsutawney Phil: Symbols and Metaphors of Transformation in Groundhog Day ." You can purchase your own copy on Amazon . (Or buy me a nice bound copy to replace this two pages per sheet printout I've got, though if you've got $62 burning a whole in your pocket with my name on it, I'll take the cash at the end of the month to get some cool stuff in Woodstock.) For the record, I haven't read "Becoming Punxsutawney Phil" yet, at least not from front to back. I have been avoiding it because I want this project and my master's thesis next year to share a topic (in some way, at least) and I didn't want Benesh's research or evalu...

So, Phil is a bodhisattva. In Buddhism, the bodhisattva is a human (sattva) who has achieved enlightenment (bodhi) and now carries out altruistic acts. Unless one wants to argue that Phil is still selfish at the end of the time loop, then whether we take the film as a Buddhist treatise or not, Phil still qualifies under the umbrella of the bodhisattva. Soka Gakkai International tells us, "Compassion, an empathetic sharing of the sufferings of others, is the bodhisattva's greatest characteristic." Phil demonstrates his compassion even before we see him attempting to save O'Reilly or performing any of his good deeds on the last resumption of the time loop. His inspirational interaction with Chubby Man, his bringing pastries for Larry and Rita--these are already signs that Phil has learned to have compassion where before he would make fun of someone before he's ever consider trying to relate in any genuine fashion. Mrs. Lancaster is nothing but nice to Phil but...