THE FULL LIE
1st April 2022
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Hi everyone! Welcome to The Full Lid!
OR IS IT?
Yup, it's April Fool's. We're celebrating because what are writers, if not liars given an audience?
But it's also 2022, a year where well, it's not officially been declared a misinformation war, but we're all drowning in the ever higher costs of maintaining critical faculties. It's exhausting, not to mention our timelines being filed with the never-ending Discourse about how art and humor and culture interact.
We don't want to contribute to the noise to signal ratio, so this year we've prepared a special Full Lid issue about perception and its manipulation, along with ways you can recharge your bullshit detectors and spot when you're being played.
All with a healthy dose of upbeat and inclusive positivity, of course, alongside the return of the fictional Signal Boosts.
But first, contents!
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Contents
Broadcast Signal Intrusion
In and of Itself
Signal Boost
Where You Can Find Me This Week
The Department of Received Esoteric Print Goods
Signing Off / Playing Out
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Broadcast Signal Intrusion
Editor's note: spoilers. Broadcast Signal Intrusion (2021) is rated UK 15, with content warnings for stalking and suicide.
Thirty minutes into Phil Drinkwater and Tim Woodall's Broadcast Signal Intrusion, a character uses the phrase 'A Warning to the Curious'. It's a small detail, but an easter egg for lovers of horror fiction, being the title of a short story by M.R. James that finishes with the hero swallowed up by dread supernatural forces and the item that has wreaked havoc being quietly forgotten about. Protagonist James ( Harry Shum Jr) is not quite that unlucky, but it's a close run thing; M.R. James' fondness for characters being broken by dreadful supernatural pressure as the world moves blissfully onward is the movie's gentle backing hum.
James is a video editor and engineer in the late '90s, drawn to the case of three broadcast signal intrusions, mysterious transmissions that overrode local television. Each one seems to be a message. Each seems to correspond to the disappearance of a woman. One of them corresponds to the disappearance of his wife. |
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James digs in, along the way encountering an FCC scientist who may Know Too Much ( Steve Pringle) and Alice, a hacker / theorist who knows less than she wants to ( Kelley Mack). But as James gets closer to the source of the intrusions, they begin to overwrite his personality, and the difference between truth and lies, reality and fantasy, stops working long before he notices.
Gentry's visual wit comes into play in the repeated scenes of James leaving work, each becoming gradually more feverish and skewed. Even better, Ben Lovett's soundtrack is classic noir jazz, cluing us in early to the sort of story James is telling himself. As time goes by the movie stops noticing time go by: a death in daylight is escaped at night, impressionistic police lights painting the scene. A car journey is taken in snapshot postcards of differently lit motion. A final, catastrophic moment is closed with a hint of static, a whisper of distortion. James is grieving and telling himself the story of his grieving. Removed from his own perception by his trauma, he becomes easy prey for the intrusions memetic gravity well and their tantalizing, nightmarish meaning.
Truth doesn't exist here, perception is just a TV tuned to the right channel the same way a buffalo drinks from the same watering hole as the lion that will kill it. Unease is a constant, reality and truth rare and protean.
The key to Broadcast Signal Intrusion is Shum Jr.'s willingness to commit to a brittle, increasingly disturbing leading role. The story James is telling himself is not the story he's living, nor the one the audience views, and Shum Jr carries the weight of that reveal with grace and care. At one point he cheerfully admits to friend Alice that he can't remember his life prior to investigating the intrusions. At another, despite someone clearly either trapped or moving around in the room above them, he refuses to acknowledge it. It plays a lot like a very deliberate riff and mirror image to a similar sequence from Zodiac. The killer is right, there but our protagonist can't see them because instead of writing the story, they're starring in it. |
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Harry Shum Jr's a consistently interesting, fun leading man who's done nothing but put the work in for years now. He'll next be seen in Everything Everywhere All At Once and we will absolutely be talking about that movie.
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Chris Sullivan as the first big 'break' in the case is going to be the other cast member who stays with you. A person of size and quiet intelligence, delivering a straight down the line monologue about alienation and how sometimes a weird signal is just a weird signal, Sullivan evokes Charles Fleischer in Zodiac by way of Donald Sutherland in JFK and that is high praise.
Drinkwater and Woodall take us through the near-fetishization of both the grieving process and the hard-bitten dedicated truthseeker, slowly revealing their truer natures. Shum Jr is absolutely up to the task, his clean-cut, inherently likable screen presence weaponized. James' closure is punctuated by an almost entirely off-screen fight, as terrifying for what we don't see as what we do. His moment of final vengeance a spade tapping down a last piece of earth. And his final scene will confound many, as static gouges across the face of the planet and his narrative shatters, though whether its something reaching out to drag him back -- or him snapping under the pressure of his own narrative -- is up for debate.
Its interesting that Gentry has talked about Under The Silver Lake, a mystery movie where at one point the hero is told 'There's nothing to solve, you know?' For James there is something to solve, but in doing so he also unwrites his own reality. He becomes an intrusion into his own broadcast, and that recursion will confound as many audience members as it delights. I'm pretty sure you can tell which camp I fall into.
Broadcast Signal Intrusion makes nothing easy. It's a spiky, queasy shot of profound unease that kicks the cathode door in and demands the attention you fear to give it. Fans of Archive 81 and The Maltese Falcon will find lots to love.
Broadcast Signal Intrusion is available on steaming services and in shiny disc form now.
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Swindled is a fiercely well researched investigative podcast that breaks down the worst contemporary cons.
Video description: A Youtube video illustrating the episode of the Swindled podcast on the Flint Water crisis.
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Derek Delgaudio's In & Of Itself
Editor's note: spoilers; rated US V-MA, with content warnings for discussion of hatred towards gay people.
Dertek Delgaudio uses lies the way an archaeologist uses a brush, to slowly and painstakingly uncover the truth. An illusionist and writer, Delgaudio and artist collaborator Glenn Kaino's work sits in the spaces between philosophical and psychological practice, stage magic and mentalism. In & Of Itself, the film version of which is directed by no less than Frank Oz, is a remarkable next step in this exploration and progression of stage performance.
The show consists of six vignettes, each echoing one another and all nested inside the story of the Rouletista, a man who defied the odds playing Russian Roulette again and again. Maquettes and dioramas, built into six chambers in the wall behind Delgaudio provide both structure and its subversion as he tells stories of painful personal truths and the sacrifices made to transform from a gifted, troubled, clever child into a gifted, troubled, clever storyteller.
Every single word could be a lie. Ten minutes in, once Delgaudio's gentle tones and rolling patter has you hooked, he says 'It's easy to lie on stage. Hell it's even easier to lie on film.' He says this in voiceover as, on stage, he makes an origami sailboat and places it inside a whiskey bottle with no possible means of doing so. The image is an apt metaphor for Delgaudio's stage presence: whimsy wrapped in glass, joy darkened but not diminished by time and experience. The first time we see it, it feels like Delgaudio is telling us this story for the first time, even though the first thing we see is a title card explaining the show was performed 552 times.
Lies and truth, sharing a stage.
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Delgaudio's stage presence fascinates me. He laughs three times in the show, each as transformative as the illusions, turning this crumpled, mournful Rod Serling-esque figure into a sun that illuminates everyone else on stage. Or is that the point?
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Every single word rings true because of that conflict. None more starkly reflected then in the way Delgaudio seems to have a visible unease with being on stage and a visceral refusal to leave it. As the show continues he prowls the audience, constantly looking back at the stage as if trying to gain distance from the very events he is there to present, the structure, both physical and narrative, that confines him.
Every night of the show, he asked for a volunteer. That volunteer is told to leave early, write an account of everything they'd seen in the show's logbook and, crucially, add an ending. All on the condition they return the following night and read the ending aloud to that night's audience. This way, Delgaudio explains, the story never quite ends. This way the story becomes the escape artist, shifting perspective and refusing to be confined in the same way its author tries to, is bound to.
It's echoed in Oz's direction, each audience both made of individuals and part of The Audience, a body of spectators that transcends individual performance even as Delgaudio does. Sometimes he's playing to an empty theatre. Sometimes it's packed. Explanations and stories slide between filmed nights. The one truth is The Story or rather the size of it, its shape, created and carried by this odd, electric figure and his platonic ideal of benevolent co-conspirators.
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DelGaudio and Oz
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This is the crux of the show: the idea of something more than we see. It's an elemental component of stories, of illusions, of people and Delgaudio manipulates it with the same care he shows the cards and the compassion of the walking wounded.
The show's most powerful moments are about a brick. A brick that represents the hate his gay mother received, buried under a house of cards and then teleported to a different street corner every night. Each audience member picks a card as they come in, with I AM printed on one half, a term that most closely defines them on the other. The show's second half becomes all about exploring and exploding that notion. One section has Delgaudio present an audience member with a letter that's been on stage throughout the show, but, somehow, is from a friend or family member. Another has Delgaudio list every single choice to an increasingly stunned, increasingly moved audience.
From a technical point of view, this is the easiest illusion to pull off. From a personal point of view, a magician too clever for his own good and cursed with perspective and self-knowledge, using that skill set to teach everyone they're more than they think they are and doing so with the crumpled, careful compassion of someone who has seen some shit? If this hit any closer to home we'd be roommates. It resonates with anyone who's ever built something. He hugs one audience member and whispers their identifier to them. Someone identified as Nobody gets a long, long look from Delgaudio before he reluctantly identifies them. An older lady with short hair gets a similar stare, a careful smile, a 'hey mom' and a deep hug. Which is the point where I started crying; the audience had already started.
In & Of Itself is magic and illusion at its most personal and powerful. It reminded me of Suzy Mckenzie's story about legendary magician, martial artist and actor Ricky Jay (whose path intersected with Delgaudio's) producing a block of ice from apparent thin air. Jay is a whole other article, but that sense of wonder, dread, and emotional response is absolutely present in Delgaudio's work.
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DelGaudio's six stories escape the theatre even as the illusionist cannot. Until this vast, roiling tidal wave of illusion and perception, humour and tragedy, kindness and exhaustion crashes down into a single universal truth, one expressed through magic, words, and narrative.
We're all more than we think we are. Even the Rouletista.
In & Of Itself honors and builds upon the long evolution of stage magic, like nothing that's gone before. It echoes the raw emotional honesty and intellectual deconstruction of comedy of pioneered by Hannah Gadsby, applying to a parallel discipline a series of lenses which may not be lenses at all. DelGaudio presents a series of incredibly personal stories, none of which may be true, all of which orbit universal truths, melding in the twilight zone between entertainment and art, wonder and terror to deliver a remarkable achievement on the other side of veracity. The Rouletista defies the odds, we can't look away, and by the end we learn why we're glad we didn't.
In & Of Itself is on Disney Plus now and you should absolutely make time for it. Massive thanks to Friend of the Lid Brendon Connelly for recommending the show.
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The greatest Master incarnation we have yet to enjoy, Brown is a wonderfully eloquent, fiercely talented, and deeply principled performer who uses the concepts of illusion to inform and equip his audience to debunk scams.
Also he uses an aerobie, but that's another story.
Video description: Derren Brown flips a coin and gets heads ten times in a row. It takes NINE HOURS.
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New reader? Looking for a back issue?
Buy me a coffee?
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Signal Boost
Featured Boost
- The perrenial April Fool's joke at the Escape Artists' podcasts has become reality! Monthly episodes of cat-centric speculative audio fiction, available via Patreon where supporters get early access, additional episodes, and more. Meet the crew and check out the trailer wherever you get your podcasts. The first episode releases later today.
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Editor's note: Like last year, for this special Signal Boost we asked friends across the creative spectrum to lie in an inspirational and uplifting fashion and share with us their dream accomplishment or audacious truth. Enjoy!
People, Places, Things
- Paul Weimer is delighted to announce acceptance of another photography residence, this time in Wakanda. "Visions of Wakanda, Peoples, Places, and Power" is a sponsored photography residence based in Wakanda's capital, where Paul will take photos of landscapes, people, the city and the Royal Family, starting in December 2022.
- Mushroom Diplomat Sarah Gailey announces their appointment to the supplemental role of Special Liaison to Billionaires. "I look forward to giving the wealthiest people in the world a glimpse into the vibrant universe of accelerated decay," Gailey said in a statement to the press, speaking from their office inside the largest rotting log in North America. "Truly, this will be a meeting of the minds," they added, barely containing a strangely damp-sounding laugh. Gailey declined to speak on the matter of safety.
- In a follow up interview after his purchase of MegaBots, Jake Bible expressed dismay that he has since exhausted all Earthly targets worth punching with giant metal fists. Says Mr. Bible, "Space. I'm looking to space now. We have transport lined up, now I just need to get up there and start punching some aliens!"
Movie Magic
- Kit Power closes his My Life in Horror article series with the shock revelation that The Lost Boys is a better film than Robocop!!
Comics
- Rich Johnston's hugely successful, globally branded comics and gossip website Bleeding Cool will be merging with Joel Meadows' well respected comics and genre website and print magazine, Tripwire. "We just thought that it made sense to pool our resources," Tripwire's editor-in-chief Meadows commented. The merged site launches this summer.
- As part of the Magic of Myths season 3 launch later this year, creators Corey Brotherson and Sergio Calvet have teamed up with Marvel for a Magic of Myths / Black Panther crossover!
Podcasting
- Author and journalist Brock Wilbur has won dozens of awards in the last two years. But most importantly, he sincerely believes that he will record a second episode of his podcast CARING INTO THE VOID with Alasdair Stuart. When? Only God can say.
- In an interesting departure from the format, it has been leaked that season 2 of Neighbourly will be set, not on Little Street, but in a particularly rocky and disused field devoid of human or animal life, let alone houses. No one from the Neighbourly team confirmed this, but when asked about it they said "Who told you?" in unison and began muttering darkly amongst themselves. When asked why this might hypothetically be the case for season 2, showrunner Matthew OK Smith replied: "People are problems."
Food, Glorious Food
- David Steffen, best known for his work on the Submission Grinder website for writers, is branching out with a new venture: a writing themed sandwich restaurant! The menus are inspired by the oft-given "Show, Don't Tell" advice and will have no words, only a single poorly-lit photo of a sandwich depicting vague and disquieting shapes in the bread.
That's it for this week's special edition of Signal Boost!
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Snopes is a fantastic website dedicated to tirelessly debunking the eternal firehose of bullshit we all have to navigate in our digital lives. Their excellent newsletter this week features resources for International Fact-Checking Day.
Video description: A Youtube video of Snopes' exploration of whether Sandfalls are an actual phenomenon.
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Where You Can Find Me This Week
In The Booth
Twitch
- Its the end of the world as we know it. Again. We dive deeper into the staggering Outer Wilds and among the game's many mysteries discover a terrifying hollow planet and an existentially scary rock.
- And this week we spent a positively delightful hour with Evil Sky Grandad, the Podfather himself Karim Kronfli! We're looking forward to his eventual memoir 'Karim Can You'.
Coming Soon
- We'll be guests at Archivecon in June! Registration is open now for this free online podcast fandom convention, and it's not too late to submit panel ideas! Marguerite's going to give a presentation on a legal topic, and we even have a panel together, which I'm sure won't go entirely sideways at all.
- Also these were announcements, not obituaries. No need for panic. Though it would be very like us to commit to presenting at a convention even if we were dead.
All Things Fiction
Podcast Land
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Writer Beware's staff may be actual superheroes, tirelessly warning the author community about terrible guidelines, bad contracts, vanity publishers and more.
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Department of Received
Esoteric Print Goods
Editor's note: No misinformation here, folks - just fantastic indie RPGs and 'zines.
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Really excited to dig into The Last Sol by EstragonHelmer, a 'push-your-luck dice and decision TTRPG where you'll play a spaceship captain crashed on a small unnamed planetoid'.
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Signing Off / Playing Out
Thanks for reading, folks! I hope the week was good and you enjoyed our tour around the precincts of deceit. Just don't exit through the gift shop, trust us.
By the way, here's your wallet back.
TFL returns next week. Check my Carrd for all the places you can find me, including the Twitters, where those 'do a thing a day' games finally got me GOOD with Framed. Follow us on Twitch to be notified when we go live.
TFL is a free weekly newsletter. Here's how you can support it and me:
And thank you!
Playing us out this week is the magnificent Joseph LoDuca's theme to the equally magnificent Leverage: Redemption. So remember, Hardison dies in Plan M and this?
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is a Full Lid.
Video Description: The credits for Leverage: Redemption introduce us to Leverage Inc.'s new team.
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