Lately, I’ve been stepping uninvited into Alfred Hitchcock’s movies, a time-traveling interloper, a Camusian stranger, a streetblown rando. And for my impertinence, I’ve been menaced by seagulls, had a gun pushed in my face and dropped from Lady Liberty’s own hand. Sure, it’s all been via special effects—and yet, like NXNW’s Roger Thornhill exclaimed after staging his own fake murder, “I’ve never felt more alive.”

Taking an active role in his films like this—timing my dialogue with his actors, resetting for different camera angles—has drawn me into his own creative process. It’s made me more sensitive to how other directors might treat similar material. (Check out my friend Norman Buckley’s riff on Saboteur’s Statue of Liberty scene.)

I feel more able to step in—and out—of the Matrix, examining the operating system of film, but also of life, and I’ll tell ya, it’s yielded some epiphanies. I’ll leave it to you, dear Patron, to determine their worth.

In this next installment in our ongoing series, I take a closer look at one of the most astonishing stories Poe ever wrote—and of which you might’ve never heard. You could say it’s Poe’s take on the Matrix. This is the ground zero, the singularity I’ve promised. From here, we’ll build back up to our central thesis: Alfred Hitchcock—Master of the Surreal.