the NachtKabarett

All Writing & Content © Nick Kushner Unless Noted Otherwise
In collaboration with Gilles R. Maurice

 

Click thumbnails above for each element of The High End Of Low era's MarilynManson.com.

On the evening of Sunday October 4th 2009, at approximately 6pm MarilynManson.com was relaunched with its most dramatic and intricate incarnation to date. Significantly to note, this coincided with Manson's tour embarkment in Australia, which is a minimum of 12 hours ahead of all US time zones. Meaning, to all extents and purposes, and for Manson, the new site was launched October 5 aka 10/5 aka 10 + 5 = 15.

The site was laden with symbolism and intricacies much more in-depth than any previous incarnation, embodying the symbolism and ethos representing Marilyn Manson since he unleashed his vision unto the world in 1989.

The site hearkens back heavily toward the prematurely aborted "Celebritarian Era" MarilynManson.com, insomuch as the direct imagery is concerned. As fans undoubtedly recall, the infamous era which had not yet fully blossomed into fruition had been sidestepped pave the way for the Eat Me, Drink Me era to take form in early 2007. Much of the imagery leading up to this point had taken up a reexploration of "unfinished business", per se, of the 2000's Holy Wood.

Notably the telltale signification of Celebritarianism's reemergence is the prominent usage of the Celebritarian Double Cross / Cross of Lorraine which is contained throughout and as part of the main splash page of the site. Manson's concept of Celebritarianism had never been fully placed on the backburner, as evidenced by imagery which has appeared throughout Manson's art since Eat Me, Drink Me, but rather increased in subtley rather than it manifesting as a full fledged era or movement. The theatrics throughout the entirety of 2007 / 2008's Rape Of The World Tour in support of Eat Me, Drink Me relied heavily on visual incorporations of the Celebritarian cross as aspect of the stage projections, keyboard stands and more. One would presume that with Twiggy as Manson's right-hand partner once again, the pair who co-wrote and conceptualized the magnum opus Holy Wood and the Triptych as a whole, would undoubtedly partake in fully resuming where they had last left off when both had parted ways to pursue their respective musical and visual directions in 2002.

 

The High End Of Low incarnation of MarilynManson.com, as noted previously, is laden with intricate imagery that many of which are reexhumed explorations of occult symbolism that has been evoked throughout Marilyn Manson's past works. The opening image of the site is no small exception and is known as the seven pointed Star Of Babalon, variations of which have found their way into album, website and t-shirt artwork since 2000's Holy Wood. Paralell to this, the Official Marilyn Manson messageboard, which is part of The NACHTKABARETT, is as well named BABALON and uses this symbol as its logo.

The Sevenfold Star Of Babalon is a symbol used in both the A .·. A .·. (or Silver Star, a magickal group founded by Aleister Crowley) and the O.T.O. It's a symbol which was first evoked prominently by Manson within the album and website imagery for Holy Wood, such as the site map above for the Holy Wood era design of MarilynManson.com, illustrating Manson within the Seven Pointed Star. The star which coincides with the seven elements of Alchemy which a jawless Manson also stands in front of on the back cover of Holy Wood.

One of the first usages of the seven pointed star occurred within the backcover album artwork of Holy Wood, as part of the Sigillum Dei Æmeth, an occult symbol used for scrying in Enochian, or "angel" magic, an ancient form of magic developed by John Dee and Edward Kelly within the Sixteenth Century. Its purpose, namely, is for evoking the powers of influence governed by angels to accomplish an act of will or desire. A theme which was prevalent throughout Antichrist Svperstar, in which was employed as a method of bringing about the apocalypse.

After a several year hiatus of using imagery stemming from non-occult sources, the star, along with a host of new and such imagery reemerged in mid 2005 with the announcement of Manson's Celebritarian Corporation as being the next phase of his artistic evolution.

During this time period emerged two new t-shirts. One being the Celebritarian Emblem Tee, first previewed in October 2005 and released during the first quarter of 2006, as well as the "Circle 7 Tee", which surfaced in October 2006, and also shows the Celebritarian seal within a similar star. Notably the "Circle 7" tee contains the phrase "Do not seek death, seek destruction" which later found its way into the lyrics of Running To The Edge Of The World on The High End Of Low.

Still frames from the Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon video. The podium, banners, microphones, and drums in the video are all emblazoned with the $ symbol, serving as a substitute swastika / shock symbol. The logo is also featured as loading icons in the art gallery and video presentation as well as the new favicon (right). For a full examination of the video and related imagery see the Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon & Pretty As A $ article.

 

 

In keeping with The High End Of Low MarilynManson.com all-inclusively representing the imagery and ethos of the band, the loading screen which appears between each page of new Official site is a juxtaposition which dates back to 1989, as the very first logo used to represent the concept and direction of Marilyn Manson, except the photographic closeups are replaced by an association of videos. We can clearly distinguish the swastika on Charles Manson's forhead, as a deeper exploration of the theme "Pretty as a Swastika" and a conclusion to the numerous occurences of this symbol during the era.

The resulting montage, which seems to present 3D properties, is a complex and animated version of the very first Marilyn Manson logo and hearkens back to the band's fundamental message and philosophical ethos, in the best way possible to reinforce the direction : a hypnotic TV screen background...

The very first Marilyn Manson logos ; literally representing Marilyn and Manson conjoined into one unified artistic statement. The eyes close-up association, variations of which also appeared on flyers back in the band's early years, had recently resurfaced in the MarilynManson.com Introduction from 2006 to 2009.

The radiating shape encircling the Marilyn & Manson juxtaposition, which is decomposed into a series of sharp swords spearing out, is actually a reexploration of Manson's Celebritarian Corportation masthead image which first appeared in late 2005 on MarilynManson.com. The negative of an engraving that originates from "Les Devises Héroiques", also known as "The Heroicall Devises of M. Claudius Paradin", illustrated by Bernard Salomon and first printed in Lyon, 1551.

The book is a reunion of tales and illustrations created for the point of relaying kernels of moral wisdom through fables (in many ways quite similar to Aesop), with a particular issue covered on each page. While to a certain extent, the positioning of the swords is similar to the thorns which Christ was crowned with prior to the crucifixion, the text accompanying the original source of the image seems to describe its purpose well enough on its own:

Left; The Celebritarian Corporation masthead from MarilynManson.com, 2006, displaying a rotating 'crown of thorns' around Manson's head. Right; The hidden white hare which lies in its center, revealing the true meaning of this graphic element, and acting as a manifestation of the White Rabbit which leads back to Alice in Wonderland, Phantasmagoria and later Eat Me, Drink Me. Visit the Celebritarian emblem article for more on this symbol's signification and origins.

Left; The TV static of the above loading screen should be noted, in tandem with the fact that the site by default is viewed in full-screen mode. A parallel to Manson's first examinations by of the subliminal and godlike influence television has over impressionable minds. Represented within the cover artwork to Get Your Gunn, the very first Marilyn Manson single. In this depiction, Manson is within the TV seeming to incite the child (actually Twiggy Ramirez's younger half brother) to wear lipstick such as Manson himself and brandish a gun, a la the song's title. Right; still frame from the single's video.

Left; Still frame from the 'The Nobodies' video. Right; Still frame from David Lynch's movie 'Lost Highway'.

Many examples of the TV screen can be found in Marilyn Manson's imagery from the band's beginnings, the most spectacular being the Jodorowsky-esque TV Cross from the I Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me) video and Mechanical Animals tour, which echoed the lyrics "God is in the TV" & "Kill your God, Kill your TV". However, the 2009 MarilynManson.com loading screen is also reminiscent in shape to the TV screen displaying snuff-like segments in David Lynch's Lost Highway (one of which featuring Manson and Twiggy). A plausible reference considering the flourishing allusions to Lynch during High End Of Low 2009 tour, which can relate additionally to the theme of "I Want To Kill You Like They Do In The Movies".

Left; the Mechanical Christ's TV Cross. Center; detail of 2006 MarilynManson.com main page. Right; still frames from the 1998 Apple Of Sodom video directed by Joseph Cultice, which had never surfaced publically until November 2009 and was soon after displayed in the site's news section.

 

 

By entering the site we land once again between Manson's disfigured bedroom walls from the previous site incarnation, with more emphasis on the enlightened scriptures : "Exit Now. Unsaved changes will be lost." progressively appears in a pixellized shape at the page's opening, a nod to the computer-related origins of this phrase well-known to Mac users as can be seen in 'The Nines' as previously discussed within The NACHTKABARETT. Though the phrase is evoked moreso in a context of "running away from a murder scene" and the general theme of 'loss' prevalent throughout the album. It appears particularly apropos in the context of the myriad references to the band's pre-'Eat Me, Drink Me' imagery ; essentially the restoration/recovery of Marilyn Manson's anterior versions. An example of this, the 'first news item' evidence fragment shown at left being derived directly from one of the elements resurrected from 2006 as shown below : "Todays News - The opininion you will inevitably agree with..."

Left; still frame from The Nines with the familiar Mac exit alert. Visit The High End Of Low page for more on the wall inscriptions and correspondences with 'The Nines'. Right; news section from the late 2006 MarilynManson.com, from which derives the "Todays News" header and its propagandesque baseline.

 

Manson's frightening blackface hiding in the shadows or emerging from darkness and emitting inaudibly haunting whispers, will be familiar to fans from its first appearance from his Golden Age Of Grotesque collaboration with Gottfried Helnwein, and was briefly used as an alternate background of MarilynManson.com in 2006.

The blurred images briefly flashing with a harrowing thunder when hovering the face, are all Manson face portraits from both The Golden Age and The High End Of Low eras confirming correspondences between both albums (notably black vs light or the iron teeth). Six of them were actually previously unseen alternate shots of known closeup portraits from both eras (Thanks to Babalon user IRefuseToDie for the discovery and material extraction):

3 unseen shots from the collaboration with Helnwein, which never appeared in the artist's gallery, and seem to have underwent additional treatment.

Three unseen shots from the High End Of Low, the right one with the cinema clapperboard as cutting device being an alternate shot of the booklet's back cover.

Left; News article display, featuring a ghostly mask silhouette slowly moving in circles over the blank paper. Right; the stylized Manson-esque face obtained through the inversion of the same image.

The phantomatic face shadow haunting the News article pages (which also bears the Celebritarian baseline) can be interpreted as a direct evocation of the 'Wight Spider' lyrics, and alternatively of an effect of retinal persistence ; the dark spots which appear after watching a luminous source for too long. Only obtaining a negative can reveal the ghost's face and its subtleties, as well as its similarity with Manson. The result is also reminiscent of the Shroud of Turin, or rather Veronica's Veil, two items bearing the image of Christ's face printed by blood, chemical reactions, holy radiations or faith... The technique is similar to the famous depiction of Christ that appears in negative as a background projection in the Personal Jesus video.

 

 

The tour page layout consists in a complex, multi-layered montage featuring a recent portrait by Delaney Bishop with Manson's glove partly unveils Satan's grin from his tattoo, and a black and white video background of a scene from Phantasmagoria, or rather a teaser which was presented in Berlin back in 2006 and at the time of the site's launch has still not seen the light of day to the public.

The video is a montage of fast moving scenes of a dual between Manson's interpretations of the Tweedles from Alice, played by the Porcelain Twinz behind spooky doll masks, fighting naked with knives and strangling each other in front of a projection of the Hindenburg Disaster. The back and forth camera movements and forward/rewind effects likens them to contorted dolls abandonning themselves to a hypnotic danse of a sublimated beauty and horror, and it seems the sequence was filmed simultaneously with multiple cameras. And likewise a grainy VHS in reflection of TV screen theme of the site.

Left; still frame from the extracted video originally used as a background. Right; a shorter segment of the same video, this time in color, was already appearing on the splash page of MarilynManson.com in 2006 when hovering the 'Cinema' link.

Left; still frame from the 2006 Introduction to MarilynManson.com which featured images from Phantasmagoria, including this picture of the Twins in front of the same Hindenburg disaster projection. The video was also projected behind Manson during the 2007 Rape Of The World Tour.

This rather unexpected method of presenting this new/unseen material can only confirm Manson's resolute determination for the film's future and his skills as a filmmaker coinciding with the era's theme of movies. In both cases, the implied duality, coupled with the Celebritarian dramatic scene behind, perfectly represents the ethos of Marilyn Manson. It is moreover a mise en abîme, or story-within-a-story, of some sort as a projection in the background of a video scene serving itself as the background of a photography, itself behind a white torn paper sheet...

Left; the first ever shown image of Phantasmagoria which surfaced as a flash sequence on MarilynManson.com on February 5th, 2006. Right; an alternate version of the tour page, using a Manson portrait which is more contemporary to the video background, could be seen by visitors when the site opened or through alternate urls (which is also the case for the artworks page, though both alternate pages were never fully functional).

 

 

The Cinema page montage reveals another portrait by Delaney Bishop, of a veiled Manson with red gloves and metal teeth, and a brilliant work on transparency. A clever parallel with the imagery of Sweet Dreams with the wedding veil, and Running To The Edge Of The World where Manson hides from his crime scene behind the veiled curtain during his painful reflection upon his acts, creating an incredible continuity in the nearly exhaustive collection of presented videos.

Left; Manson hiding from his crime scene behind veiled curtains in the "Running To The Edge Of The World" video. Right; a terrifying vision from the 'Sweet Dreams' video shooting where Manson similarly dons a wedding veil that hides his predatory grin.

The Biblical nature of the shroud should not be disregarded either, considering the album's thematics, but the main signification is probably its phantomatic aspect which is emphasized by the foggy apparition of the figure at page opening, in a windy noise that carries the file name 'cinema_reveal.mp3'...

Left; negative detail of the wall inscriptions. Center; detail from the album's artwork. Right; detail of a photo from Delaney Bishop's website.

Manson is in effect haunting his home, if considering the negative background of his dark bedroom's walls, identifiable by the lyrics of "Into The Fire" which stand out when reverting the picture back as seen above. The effect is reminiscent of the night vision of a beast, a parallel etheric dimension, or the beatific state of Coma White attained through isolation, reflexion and meditation, the use of drugs, or asphyxia...

 

The new Artwork page is a display of Manson's watercolors which also appear randomly as background enlargements in a TV screen-like pattern, in an atmosphere of whispers. Manson's ($) logo makes a prominent apparition here under the form of loading image icons appearing in the manner of the site's intro of what can be interpreted as an obvious pun of the commercialization of Art. An alternate version of the page captured through an alternate URL, like the tour dates page above, revealed that a picture of Manson in a black shroud from his collaboration with Gottfried Helnwein was originally intended to be used. The pose evokes the ecstasy of Saint Theresa, much like was done by Cindy Sherman or Helnwein himself, except the colors evoke an inversion, an anti-Saint / (S)AINT as descriptive of the state of being at the High End Of Low. And also related to Celebritarianism, as today's dead stars are like 'saints', venerated in death. Note that the Paypal Account for orders is registered to THE CELEBRITARIAN CORPORATION.

Left; detail from the alternate version of the page, here titled 'Gallery'. Right; the ($) loading icons. Notice how the association of the two gives occult resonance to the dollar sign, just like with the site's Babalon Star intro.

 

 

In the vein of its past Celebritarian incarnations, the site's audio is made up of mysterious loops of sounds, the most identifiable being a recording of the 'Swedish Rhapsody', a German Numbers Station. Shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin like this one are present around the world and continuously broadcast artificially generated voices repeating strings of numbers, words, letters, tunes or Morse code, purportedly used to transmit spies encrypted messages.

The Swedish Rhapsody, which owes its name to the eponymous tune serving as an interval signal on this station, is probably most enigmatic and disturbing because of the female child's voice that can be heard. Part of the arrangement including the melody could already be heard in the sound arrangements of MarilynManson.com splash pages in 2006 : the Celebritarian flash emblem and its following, full launch incarnation. Its source had remained unidentified though, and is now hinted at in the sample's filename : 'swedish.mp3',. The exact copy of a recording provided by The Conet Project, a collection of Number Stations recordings, with the exact same length.

The document, in which attenuated whispers are also perceivable, can be decomposed as follows:

Though number streams imply secret messages, it's safe to assume the sequence countains no code from Manson himself, as it's strictly identical to the original recording. However its combination with the other sound files of the site, some of which would soon hide secret messages, likens the site's overall soundtrack to Manson's own functionnal number station as a tool of communication with his spies/fans. The method is reminiscent of what was initiated during the whole Celebritarian era with hidden number sequences made of 0, 1, 3 and 5s disseminated everywhere in MarilynManson.com source documents, file names, site layout and programmed codes, and implements Mar1lyn Man5on's renewed allusions to numerology as a whole.

The message "WE ARE WATCHING YOU" as was found in the source code, and was removed on October 8th after its discovery, as to taunt fans and viewers that their discoveries within the site's intricacies were being enthusiastically and vigilantly monitored.

 

The first significant change in the site's audio occured on October 9th, when a Morse code became distinguishable on top of the cacophony of sounds, to reveal an even more enigmatic message (click to hear the Morse code as recorded by [god]speed via microphone as the corresponding file was impossible to locate) :

 

Another big sound change was first reported on October 13th, when the file 'heartbeat.mp3', originally presenting the sound of a heartbeat, was replaced with a new arrangement of bells, ascending buzzing sound, distorted laughs rythmed by a louder Morse code (click to hear the louder Morse code in the modified heartbeat.mp3 file as extracted by Babalon user hauwnted). The message, which was deciphered once again by Jeremy as follows, consists in a sequel of numbers :

Translate the obtained numbers by the corresponding letters of the alphabet:

On October 19th the sound on 'heartbeat.mp3' was reverted back to the original sound of a heartbeat.

Additionally, one of the whispers that can be heard on the Artworks page even when the sound is on 'mute', and goes by the title whispers_2.mp3, seems to be intelligible but hasn't been effectively deciphered so far.

 

So I think this record, instead of being desperate, is about redemption so much as it does danger.

Marilyn Manson, interview for Elegy, May 2009.

Left; "Beatific message" news item announcing the upcoming 'Running To The Edge Of THe World' video. Right; one of the images from the video shooting which was unveiled on Manson's Myspace album 'still frames from the future' prior to the video release.

In the evening of October 8th, 2009, a familiar message appeared where stands news item: "On this, the Day of Souls, the celebrations of death end with an offering. Only by prayer and the sacrifices of the masses may the dead be cleansed from sin and attain the beatific cally acclaimed music video..." Immediately the fans concluded to the release date for the "Running To The Edge Of The World" video, on All Soul's Day / November 2nd, 2009. A very apropos date given this celebration, principally observed in the Catholic Church, commemorates the faithful departed while the video puts the viewer directly in presence of a celebration of death, on camera. As another element which aids in understanding the text, this celebration is based on the belief that the souls of the faithful which, at death, have not been cleansed from sin, cannot attain the beatific vision (Heaven) and that they may be helped to pass the Purgatory by prayer and by the sacrifice of the Mass. Here instead, the beatific vision IS a celebration of death. Additionally Manson described several times 'The High End Of Low' as being about redemption.

I'd die for your sins / if you don't kill me while I'm trying, baby

Pretty As A Swastika

The message, which had also been seen very briefly by a few visitors when the site first opened, disappeared one day after this longer apparition, on October 9th, and was also accessible at the same url than the alternate art gallery and tour dates pages above until October 13th.

During the night of November 2nd, promises held, a few priviledged fans were patient enough to discover the video, made available during a few minutes and titled as TEST1. On November 5th, the video was fully launched precisely at 6:19 as documented in Rudy Coby's announcement below, another numerological occurrence of the number 15 and its variations during The High End Of Low which echoes the lyrics of "If I Was Your Vampire."

Rudy Coby's announcement on Marilyn Manson's Official Messageboard BABALON.

 

A very similar message had already surfaced on MarilynManson.com, Lest We Forget Era, to announce the release of the banned (s)AINT video in its unedited version directly on Manson's site, back on November 2nd, 2005. This similarity in presentation and dates reinforce the numerous parallels that can be drawn between both videos. Also note that November 5th was the date the late 2006 MarilynManson.com was launched.

Left; 'Uncut, Unedited, Unforgiving. (s)AINT', screencapture of the 2005 news item announcing Manson's special gift on All Souls' Day. Right; still frame from the video's page, emblazoned with the, then new Double-Cross of Celebritarianism as a back button.