The Concavity Cabinet and the Clipperton legend — "GENTLE HAS COMPLETELY LOST MIND, CLAIMS…"
GENTLE HAS COMPLETELY LOST MIND, CLAIMS CONFIDANT, O.U.S. CHIEF TINE AT PRESS CONFERENCE: THREATENS TO DETONATE UPSIDE-DOWN MISSILES IN U.S. SILOS, IRRADIATE CANADA W/ AID OF ATHSCME HELL-FANS—Header; ‘WILLING TO ELIMINATE OWN MAP OUT OF SHEER PIQUE’ IF CANADA NIXES RECONFIGURATIVE TRANSFER OF ‘AESTHETICALLY UNACCEPTABLE’ TERRAIN—Pretty Obviously Homemade Subheader.
Context
Mario's puppet-film montage capstone, and the suicide idiom at its political register: a head of state threatening to eliminate his own (literal, cartographic) map out of pique. Suicide-blackmail scaled to a continent — which is exactly why the film reads to E.T.A.'s audience as a puppet-à-clef for Clipperton.