We are un-plugging the Hitchcockian apparatus." This is a map of the flows of desire moving through the Vermont soil. Harry is not a character; Harry is a Body without Organs—a smooth surface upon which the villagers project their molar anxieties and territorial impulses.

In this session, we track:

The Desiring-Machine of the Shovel: How the repetitive burial/exhumation cycle creates a rhythmic production of guilt and joy that bypasses the State-form (The Law).

Territorialization of the Corpse: The struggle to claim Harry's space vs. the nomadic flight of Jennifer and the Captain.

The Aesthetic Glitch: Why the Technicolor saturation acts as a "line of flight" from the grey reality of 1950s domesticity.

Break the frame. Stop interpreting. Start plumbing the connections. The corpse is a catalyst for the deterritorialization of the nuclear family.

References:

Copjec, J. (1994). Read my desire: Lacan against the historicists. MIT Press.

Deleuze, G. (1985). Cinema 2: The time-image (H. Tomlinson & R. Galeta, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (R. Hurley, M. Seem, & H. R. Lane, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.

Modleski, T. (1988). The women who knew too much: Hitchcock and feminist theory. Routledge.

Wood, R. (2002). Hitchcock’s films revisited. Columbia University Press.

Žižek, S. (1992). Everything you always wanted to know about Lacan (but were afraid to ask Hitchcock). Verso.

Keywords: Desiring-production, Hitchcock-machine, Lines of Flight, Nomad-Thought.

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A cross-country trip into the heart of the American shadow. This week, we dissect the 1993 cult classic Kalifornia, exploring the distance between academic fascination with violence and its visceral, chaotic reality.

"I'm interested in the why. The social conditions, the childhood trauma, the fracture points that make a person kill."

In this transmission, we follow Brian and Carrie’s cross-country "murder tour" as they pick up a pair of hitchhikers who happen to be the very thing they are studying. Kalifornia (1993) isn’t just a road movie; it’s a collision of worlds—the detached, intellectualized curiosity of the urban elite versus the raw, uncalculated nihilism of the rural "Other."

Key themes explored in this episode:

The Tourist of Trauma: How Brian (David Duchovny) treats serial murder as a map to be followed, and why that distance collapses when Early Grayce (Brad Pitt) enters the car.

The Visual Language of Decay: Analyzing the cinematography that transforms the American landscape into a gothic wasteland.

Class and Performance: The contrast between Carrie’s photography—trying to capture "truth"—and Adele’s heartbreaking attempts to perform "normalcy" amidst abuse.

The Collapse of Logic: Why the film remains a vital critique of the true-crime obsession that has only grown more pervasive since the 90s.

Transmission Personnel: Hosted by squidxiii.

Film: Kalifornia (1993), Dir. Dominic Sena.

References

Baudrillard, J. (1988). America (C. Turner, Trans.). Verso.

Davis, M. (1998). Ecology of fear: Los Angeles and the imagination of disaster. Metropolitan Books.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.

Foucault, M. (1977). Language, counter-memory, practice: Selected essays and interviews (D. F. Bouchard, Ed.). Cornell University Press.

Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality, Volume 1: An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Random House.

Plant, S. (1997). Zeros and ones: Digital women and the new technoculture. Doubleday.

U.S. Department of Defense. (1991). Base realignment and closure report. U.S. Government Printing Office.

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