Between Time & Timbuktu

VONNEGUT satirizes the postmodern feminist Progressives and their anti-rational, inverted value system that wants to make everyone "equal" and only survives by authoritarianism and repression. In the film, the Handicapper General symbol is an eagle with a paper bag over its head.

See http://www.whitings-writings.com/diatribes/vonnegut_interview.htm

A poet-astronaut is shot through an area of space called the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum. He is duplicated into infinite copies of himself, each of whom finds himself in a bizarre situations on a different world. (These scenarios are all derived from the novels and short stories of 'Kurt Vonnegut Jr.', including Cat's Cradle, Welcome to the Monkey House, 'Harrison Bergeron', and 'Happy Birthday, Wanda June'. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068270/plotsummary
https://vimeo.com/336308131

Clip from "Between Time and Timbuktu" 1972 - from the Dr. Paul Proteus segment. Dr. Paul Proteus is the main character in Vonnegut's first novel "Player Piano". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_(novel)#Characters

From "Between Time & Timbuktu" 1972
"If you know of anyone who can do something better than you can, it is your duty to report that person at once! We want to handicap him fast so he won't make you or anybody feel inferior ever again." Diana Moonglampers, Handicapper General

Clip from "Between Time & Timbuktu" 1972 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The Handicapper General intervenes when the renegade genius, athlete, and ballet dancer Harrison Bergeron shakes off the handicaps that keep him from using his normal abilities. The vicious self-righteous Handicapper General takes care of Harrison and his pas de deux partner.

https://thebedlamfiles.com/film/between-time-and-timbuktu/
http://www.whitings-writings.com/diatribes/vonnegut_interview.htm

Clip from "Between Time and Timbuktu" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - Ethical Suicide Parlor - A comfy environment in which you might commit ethical suicide, and thereby serve society. There was a Howard Johnson's next door to every Ethical Suicide Parlor, and vice versa. The Howard Johnson's had an orange roof and the Suicide Parlor had a purple roof, but they were both the Government. Practically everything was the Government... All Hostesses were virgins. They also had to hold advanced degrees in psychology and nursing. They also had to be plump and rosy, and at least six feet tall... Their uniforms were white lipstick, heavy eye makeup, purple body stockings with nothing underneath, and black-leather boots... In a really good week, say the one before Christmas, they might put sixty people to sleep. It was done with a hypodermic syringe. (From Welcome to the Monkey House, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Published by Not known in 1958) http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1554

Clip from "Between Time and Timbuktu" 1972 - Based on Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s first novel "Player Piano" - [The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers. The widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class, the engineers and managers, who keep society running, and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines. The book uses irony and sentimentality, which were to become hallmarks developed further in Vonnegut's later works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_(novel)#Characters

Clip from "Between Time and Timbuktu" based on stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. This tale comes from "Cat's Cradle". Ice-nine is a fictional solid polymorph of water.... an alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature and acts as a seed crystal upon contact with ordinary liquid water, causing that liquid water to instantly freeze and transform into more ice-nine. As the time-traveling poet Stoney Stevenson realizes, this would kill all life on the planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Cradle

"BE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT YOU PRETEND TO BE, BECAUSE ONE DAY YOU MAY WAKE UP TO FIND THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE." Based on "Cat's Cradle" - Clip from "Between Time and Timbuktu" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - The fictionalized religion of Bokononism in Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, satirically remarks on belief systems and society as a whole. This religion confronts the “shameless untruths” that Vonnegut believes all religions to be formed upon by bringing them to the front and still having devoted followers. With this, Vonnegut humorously assaults not only the idea and truth of all religion, but also the stupidity of humanity.

Bokononism begins as nothing but a lie, but it is not this that makes it unique. The exceptionality of Bokononism is that the lies are up front and all devoted Bokononists are aware of the untruths of which they devote their lives. Bokonon himself says, "I wanted all things/ To seem to make some sense,/ So we all could be happy, yes,/ Instead of tense./ And I made up lies/ So that they all fit nice,/ And I made this sad world/ A par-a-dise" (Vonnegut 127). Bokononism is not only filled with such lies, but is founded upon them. Bokononism arose as Bokonon arrived on the desolate island of San Lorenzo and witnessed the immense difficulties that the people of the island suffered through. He remarks, "Oh a very sorry people, yes,/ Did I find here,/ Oh, they had no music,/ And they had no beer./ And, oh, everywhere/ Where they tried to perch/ Belonged to Castle Sugar, Incorporated,/ Or the Catholic Church" (Vonnegut 123). With this “calypso,” as Bokonon calls them, the destitution of the San Lorenzans is clearly illustrated as they had neither the luxuries of music and beer, nor a place to live. Through the fabrications of Bokononism, he creates a world for these impoverished people where there is a sense, however small, of hope. It is with the hope, buried beneath the lies, that Bokonon seeded that the religion grew, for "Truth was the enemy of the people, because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies" (Vonnegut 172). The lies of a better world, of a purpose, and of a group for all was exponentially better than any speck of truth in their reality.

THE CALYPSOS OF BOKONON https://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/01/the-collected-calypsos-sayings-and-songs-of-bokonon