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62 A Body of Vision symbol, and its sneeze, its coming, as jewels—diamonds, "a girl's best friend," as the antiquated saying goes. By reason of this identification, the image presented along with this text is a rather peculiar shot of male thighs, moving back and forth; the phallic connotation of their shape is reinforced by a visual rhyme with a subsequent shot of fingers, photographed so that their onscreen size is similar to that of the thighs. Furthermore, while the creature the text refers to is male, its power devolves upon its mastoid bone. The mastoid bone, as it happens, is a bone in the ear, but Barker probably used the word here for its root meaning. The word "mastoid" refers to anything that has breast-shaped form, as the mastoid bone does. Thus, this male beast's mastery depends upon a breast-shaped bone, its phallic erection, which condensation identifies with the breast. There is, then, considerable sexual ambiguity to the images in this passage . The suggestion of sexual ambivalence this ambiguity offers is developed further by the other relations the film draws. The reference to the mastoid bone on the soundtrack appears when the image on screen displays someone's shoulder area, with a peculiar breast-shaped protrusion. The terms "mastoid bone" and "mastery" also play on the sound of Williard Maas's name. "Mastery" is a masculine idea, and Williard Maas was a male, but the mastoid bone is breast-shaped (i.e., female). This sexual ambiguity again suggests sexual bivalence and the homosexual character of the passage. It also elicits the fantasy of the androgynous body, and The Geography of the Body, as we noted, is partly a film about androgyny,for it strives to fuse two male bodies and a female body. The aural resemblance between "Maas" and "mastery" invokes the name of the poet's lover. The allusion to the poinsettias , exoticized by Barker's reference to Mexico, continues the play of sexual bivalence. A similar sexual ambiguity (and a similar suggestion of sexual bivalence ) characterize the images, for hairy flesh (which we take as that of a male) is shown to possess curves (and so seems to be that ofa female). The narration goes on to elaborate on the themes of the dual sexual character of humans and androgyny: "Who heard the word that Achilles shouted as the mistletoe entered his tendon? Those cordite rocks, among which the tyrannosaurus rex once dominated, who has put his foot upon them without a temporary sense of wonder?" The allusion to Achilles continues the play on sexual ambiguity. According to myth, Achilles' death at Troy was foretold. To prevent his death, Thetis took the boy to Scyros, where she raised him to wear female dress for disguise. The reference to mistletoe (which the film uses to justify presenting a shot of toes) is without any basis in myth. Its purpose is to call up the idea of kissing and to incorporate that idea into the allusion to the fatal shaft's entering Achilles' heel. By importing that idea, Williard Maas: The Geographyof the Body 63 Barker suggests the danger inherent in sexual desire—a notion central to the passage immediately above. In referring to Homer's Iliad and, specifically to Achilles, Barker alludes to Achilles' character: Achilles personifies the glorious, but dangerous, beast. The plot-action of the Iliad turns on Achilles ungovernable anger, yet his friendship with Patroclus, which endures through the whole poem, is a thing of generosity. He is, in sum, afigure of noble passions, but an unregulated barbarian—just the sort with whom one might want to have a fling, as dangerous as that might be. The poem's reference to the tyrannosaurus rex picks up the theme ofgrandiosity, for the poem tells us that these rocks, and we must take them as exotically situated flesh rocks, were once presided over by a great beast. Their exotic grandeur is cause forwonder. And then her kiss, as she drew at my lyre lips as a calf at an udder. I took the liberty of looking into her eyes. Through those glittering shadows, the shape of her sun shall retreat in joy and horror from the ferocious tree of Eden. The vehicle of the metaphor that Barker uses here describes the fusion of two lovers—she draws at his lips as he stares into her eyes, and sees there her sun retreating. Wecan associate her sun's retreating with the phallus becoming...

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