Mirth and its Relation to The Unconscious : Holding the mirror up to The Void

Mirth and its Relation to The Unconscious : Holding the mirror up to The Void

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2025 (23 October to 2 November)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

28 May

Mirth and its Relation to The Unconscious Holding the mirror up to The Void

Knock, knock !

Muffled, inappropriate laughing.

Knock knock ! !

Ditto.

Knock, knock, knock ! ! !

Sorry - if that's you, Hermann, I'll be there in two ticks... !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 28, 2026

pic.twitter.com/PnGqrMAoVq

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 28, 2026

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Bertha Strunk [sic] and Barbara Strozzi (perhaps an accreting series of Tweeets ?)

Bertha Strunk [sic] and Barbara Strozzi (perhaps an accreting series of Tweeets ?)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2025 (24 October to 2 November)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

23 May

Bertha Strunk [sic] and Barbara Strozzi (perhaps an accreting series of Tweeets ?)

In chapter 8 of Russ Hoban's Barbara Strozzi, Phil Ockerman calls Bertha Strunk¹ ('her' chapter) to say that he's suddenly off to Scotland.

¹ In an exchange, reported at the novel's start, Hoban's already excavated (i.e. had Phil do it) the pun 'Bertha's trunk'.

Yet Strunk² ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 23, 2026

When Phil tells Bertha / Barbara that that's where he was about to catch a train to, to cover an absent tutor on a writing course, he says that the person is off sick, and then gives Ken Hackett as his name.

Chapter 9 deliberately repeats that name - is it actually another pun ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 24, 2026

pic.twitter.com/tJZ5XoKkVB

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 24, 2026

The word 'strunk' also, not irrelevantly, denotes being under the simultaneous influence of drugs and drink, to both of which the text of My Tango with Barbara Strozzi alludes : skunk + drunk ?

This source claims that it's stoned : https://t.co/4rUD6oOgrK.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 24, 2026

When it does not have a hash-tag clue, the 'thought' involved is #aisplaining what it doesn't understand... pic.twitter.com/dWb9jMy8t0

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 26, 2026

If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)