Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

The Virgin Suicides

Narrator: Given Lux’s failure to make curfew everyone expected a crackdown, but few anticipated it would be so drastic. The girls were taken out of school, and Mrs. Lisbon turned the house into a maximum-security prison.

Like there was any other, uh, viable option?

Narrator: This was about the time we began to see Lux making love on the roof with random boys and men.

A sign perhaps?

Narrator: We would never be sure of the sequence of events. Most likely Bonnie had hung herself while we were waiting in the living room…dreaming of highways. Mary put her head in the oven shortly thereafter. Therese, stuffed with sleeping pills, was gone by the time we got there. Lux was the last to go, sitting in a car in the garage filled with gas exhaust.

Though she'll show up later -- stark naked -- in Melancholia.

Mrs. Lisbon [voiceover]: None of my daughters lacked for any love. There was plenty of love in our house. I never understood why…

Really, she didn’t. They almost never do.

Narrator: In the end we had pieces of the puzzle, but no matter how we put them together, gaps remained. Oddly shaped emptiness mapped by what surrounded them, like countries we couldn’t name. What lingered after them was not life, but the most trivial list of mundane facts. A clock ticking on the wall, a room dim at noon, the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself.

I suspect it puzzles me a lot less than it puzzles...you?

Narrator: We began the impossible process of trying to forget them. Our parents seemed better able to do this, returning to their tennis foursomes and cocktail cruises as though they’d seen this all before. It was full-fledged summer again, over a year since Cecilia had slit her wrists, spreading the poison in the air. A spill at the plant increased the phosphates in the lake and produced a scum of algae so thick that the swamp smell filled the air, infiltrating the genteel mansions. Debutantes cried over the misfortune of coming out in a season everyone would remember for its bad smell. The O’Conners, however, came up with the ingenious solution of making the theme of their daughter Alice’s debutante party “Asphyxiation”

And then eventually Covid and Trump.

Narrator: So much has been said about the girls over the years. But we have never found an answer. It didn’t matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls but only that we had loved them and that they hadn’t heard us calling…still do not hear us calling them from out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time; and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.

There never was a sequel with them all gone.

[iambiguous]

The authoritarian mind.

And cults. There are hundreds and hundreds of them. And they all revolve around the same thing: rooting “I” in the Whole Truth. Spreading the Gospel of the One True Path. Here on earth and then later [for most] after “I” dies. It’s not what you believe that counts nearly as much as that you believe. In something, the one thing said to be really true.

Especially in the modern world. Here “I” is tossed and turned, yanked about, drawn and quartered…sent tumbling about in so many conflicting directions. Give it something to make that vertigo go away and the weakest of minds will almost always jump at it. Here virtually every aspect of your life is ritualized. You do what you do because it is necessary in order to be connected to the Whole Truth.

The “leaders” of course can have many motives: money, sex, power…or even actual “spirituality”.

This one is just particularly bizarre. And bursting at the seams with subtexts.

On the other hand: Lots of these folks are very intelligent. And they have insights into human psychology that is not entirely irrelevent regarding anyone. Oh, and some have motives that are, well, ulterior.

And then there’s the end of the film. What the fuck are we to make of that?! It’ll blow your mind. Well, it blew mine. I just don’t know if it enchanted me more than it pissed me off.

"With Lorna's help Peter arranges for Maggie to meet the student in public, at the Labrea Tar Pits, during a class field trip. When Maggie meets the little girl, Peter is amazed to see them wordlessly perform the cult's intricate handshake. Abigail asks Maggie how she knew her secret handshake, and Maggie reverently responds: "You taught it to me." wiki

After all, what if she was the "real deal"?



Sound of My Voice

Timothy: Be thorough with the soap.

In particular, when scrubbing your mind.

Klaus: Now, let me say a few words to you new folk. No sudden movements. And no questions for tonight. The first night is always the most difficult. But as our other members can attest an unforgettable experience.

If not a ridiculous one.

Maggie: Open your eyes I want to show you something. You see, the anchor is the sign of the traveler. And the number 54 refers to where I come from. You see, I come from 54. 2054. Your future.

Probably not mine I suspect.

Peter: What’s the matter?
Lorna: Nothing.
Peter: You’re, like, shaking.
Lorna: I’m not shaking, Peter. I’m a little racy.
Peter: It’s just a bunch of crap, Lorna. They’re weak and they’re looking for meaning. You know, those people are suckers. That’s it.
Lorna: But what if she is?
Peter: What? From the future? Nobody is from the future.
Lorna: Well, then who is she?
Peter: She’s a con artist. She’s dangerous. That’s why we are making this film. We have to expose her before she has all those people killing themselves.

Unless, of course...?

Narrator: Peter Aitken likes math, reason, himself. Things he can count on. When Peter was 12, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. A longtime member of a New Age Cult she believed that modern medicine shouldn’t intervene in her faith. She died on the eve of Peter’s birthday, while they were both asleep. Peter awoke 13 and motherless.

In other words, like all the rest of us, Peter's sense of reality is, in many crucial respects, rooted existentially in dasein.

Peter [into a recording device]: Maggie says that the future is already written and that her members are the chosen ones.

Already written, but we are still no less in possession of free will?

[iambiguous]

Sound of My Voice

Narrator: Lorna Michalson. Lorna was left to an unchaperoned adolescence of movie premiers and club openings. Lorna had her first hangover at 12, her first intervention at 16. By 23 she was burnt out, tired of playing entourage. So Lorna cleaned up her act. Tequila shots replaced with wheatgrass shots. But in the end, it was one addiction traded for another.

In other words, like all the rest of us, Lorna's sense of reality is, in many crucial respects, rooted existentialy in dasein.

Maggie: Do you know what’s in that apple? Logic. Bitterness. It’s intellectual bullshit. You’ve already eaten the apple. That’s what it means to grow up. The question is: How much of it can you get rid of? How can we purge ourselves of shame, of self-hatred…and rise to our callings as chosen ones?

Peter: Uh-oh.

Maggie [of Peter]: Do you want to know what I see? An anal-retentive p****. Who can’t dance, who can’t breathe. Probably can’t make his girlfriend come because he’s so self-involved.

Let's just say he retrieves it.

Maggie [to Peter]: Who took you’re power away from you? Who made you feel so powerless you’ve become obsessed with control? With thinking everything through instead of feeling anything. Who? Who hurt you so much you never wanna feel that way again? Was it your father? Was it your mother?
Peter [fiercely]: Shut up! Shut up you fucking ****!
[Maggie doesn’t flinch]
Maggie: What are you hiding from me, Peter? Did she abandon you? She leave you to start another family? Was she a whore?
Peter: I’ll hit you. I’ll hit you in the face.
Maggie: What did she do to make you so angry?
Peter: Shut up. This is so stupid.
Maggie: What did she do to you.
Peter: She gave up. She died. I was a kid. She gave up. She died. Everybody happy?
[Again, Maggie doesn’t flinch]
Maggie: What happened next.

Then she claws all the way down to the bone. Or does she?

Lorna: I guess I’ve never seen you cry.
Peter: Those weren’t real tears.
Lorna: But they weren’t fake.
Peter: Yes, they were. They were fake tears. She’s a megalomaniac, Lorna.
Lorna: She knew things about you.
Peter: No. She didn’t know anything about me. She asked questions about me. She wanted to be right and I let her think she was.
Lorna: So all that stuff was…?
Peter: It was not true. Come on, of course it wasn’t true. I’m Sorry. I’m sorry if I scared you but I had to do what I had to do to get us out of there.

Now you are not quite sure where this is going.

Maggie: I just need to see Abigail Pritchett.
Peter: Why?
Maggie: Bring her to me and stay, or don’t and go.
Peter: You are asking me to kidnap an 8 year old child. I need to know why.
Maggie: She’s important.
Peter: How?
[long pause]
Maggie: She’s a very bright little girl.
Peter: What do you want with her?
Maggie: Just to see her.
Peter: For what?
Maggie: Because I need to.
Peter: Need to? Who is she?
Maggie: Abigail Pritchett is my mother.

Trust me: Abigail is a very strange little girl. I’m thinking: Uh, oh, is this heading down into the realm of the supernatural?

[iambiguous]

Slavoj Žižek

...the pandemic shook what we (thought we) knew that we knew; it made us aware of what we didn’t know that we didn’t know; and, in the way we confronted it, we relied on what we didn’t know that we know (all our presumptions and prejudices that determine our actions although we are not even aware of them). We are not dealing here with the simple passage from not-knowing to knowing but with the much more subtle passage from not-knowing to knowing what we don’t know—our positive knowing remains the same in this passage, but we gain a free space for action.

Yo, Rummy!

Science remains caught in the hermeneutic circle, i.e., the space of what it discovers remains predetermined by its approach.

Next up: a deontological approach to morality.

Oppression (the brutal exercise of power) is not repression: oppression is directly experienced as such, but we are not aware of repression (in the Freudian sense). When I am oppressed, what is often repressed is the way I enjoy this oppression...

Start here: https://www.amazon.com/Irrational-Polit ... 0910618240

In the Trump era, the United States was in a de facto state of ideologico-political civil war between the populist new Right and the liberal-democratic center, with even occasional threats of physical violence. Now that Trump’s authoritarian populism has been defeated, is there a chance for a new “democracy reborn” in the United States?

Sure, why not?

...sexual difference is ultimately the one between becoming and being, and this is how one can also read Lacan’s claim that the woman doesn’t exist: man exists, woman is becoming. Which also means: man is object, woman is subject.

Let's translate this into "ordinary language philosophy".

Between the two extremes of liberty and freedom there is a tension between the universality of Law and its species in the sense that particular species function as attempts to formulate the exception to the universal law—this exception can also be conceived as a space of freedom.

Let's translate this into "ordinary language philosophy".

[iambiguous]

Sound of My Voice

Lorna: How did they even know that she worked at the school?..I think we should go to the police.
Peter [pretending to be talking on the phone]: “Hello, Officier Randall, I’d like to report a time-traveler living in a basement somewhere. I don’t know where exactly…”
Lorna: They want you to bring them an 8 year old girl. That’s kidnapping.

On the other hand, can one kidnap their own mother?

Lorna: Let me get this straight. You’re actually considering bringing them the girl?
Peter: No, No. But it’s a test. If we don’t do this, they’re gonna kick us out.
Lorna: Are you listening to yourself?

In other words...

Lorna: Maggie. I see the way you look at her, Peter.
Peter: You’re kidding right? Are you really jealous of that fraud.
Lorna: Why not? She’s beautiful. Mesmerizing. In 15 minutes she brought you to an emotional orgasm that I have never seen in 3 years, Peter.
Peter: “Emotional orgasm”. What the fuck is that?
Lorna: You tell me.

He certainly had one whatever it is.

Lorna: You know what I think, Peter? I think it’s you who is the fuckup. You haven’t logged tapes or captured any fucking footage in weeks. Yeah. You don’t give a shit about making this documentary. This is about Maggie. You’re now willing to do anything for her.

Then out of the blue...Carol. The Fed.

Carol: Lorna?
Lorna [startled]: How do you know my name?
Carol: I think I can help you restore Peter to his senses.
Carol [after giving Lorna a photo to look at]: You know her as Maggie. Her real name is Shelly Whipple.
Lorna: And who are you?
Carol: Carol Briggs. I’m with the Justice Department. Maggie is wanted in Sacramento for armed robbery and in Fresno for arson.

Okay, I never saw that coming.

Lorna: I’m not walking back into a smakepit.
Carol: All you have to do is help us lure the snake out.
Lorna: I’m sorry. I am done.
Carol: Have they asked for a kid?
Lorna [startled again]: Yeah, a little girl.
Carol: That’s part of their con. Did they say what they wanted her for?

A mother and child reunion?

Carol: Can you keep a secret from Peter? Then I’ll tell you what they really want her for.

By now, I'm more or less befuddled.

Abigail: Who is she?

Yeah, exactly.
Of course, those who believe all this stuff is for real will be especially enthusiastic about the ending.

[iambiguous]

Time

“You never know ahead of time what something's really going to be like.” Katherine Paterson

Not counting objectivists reacting to me here of course.

“Time was such an odd thing. One moment you could talk to someone, then suddenly, they were gone.” Patricia Briggs

To Heaven, right?

“There is no loss, if you cannot remember what you have lost.” Claire North

Next up: you sort of remember.

“The work of memory collapses time.” Walter Benjamin

Into what, he wondered?

“Lies 1: There is only the present and nothing to remember.
Lies 2: Time is a straight line.
Lies 3: The difference between the past and the future is that one has happened while the other has not.
Lies 4: We can only be in one place at a time.
Lies 5: Any proposition that contains the word 'finite' (the world, the universe, experience, ourselves...)
Lies 6: Reality as something which can be agreed upon.
Lies 7: Reality is truth.” Jeanette Winterson

Now, let's put them in the right order.

“Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Or, instead, click, one great big ontological conundrum.

[iambiguous]

This guy is big. Really big. And it’s all muscle. If synthetic. But there’s a reason for that.

He’s used to getting his way. And you’ll get used to it too. There are guys like this everywhere. And a lot closer than you think. But there are also guys that he is afraid of too. After all, being big doesn’t mean much to a bullet.

What, you don’t think the world works this way? Well, there is the part that is legal and the part that is illegal. And the part that is illegal can be considerably more amoral. Dangerous, in other words. Fortunately, as close as most of us will get to it is here.

All the way through this film is a truly ominous sense of forboding. And sometimes, let’s face it, we are just completely and utterly lost in each other’s worlds.

"According to Michael Roskam, his inspiration for the film was based on a crime scene in Belgium known as the Belgium Hormone Mafia." IMDb

This: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-17041056



Bullhead

Narrated: Sometimes in a man’s life, stuff happens that makes everyone so quiet…so quiet that no one even dares to talk about it. Not to anyone, not even to themselves. Not in their head and not out loud. Not a fucking word. 'Cause everything has somehow gotten stuck. There, deep in the fields, under the trees and leaves, year after year. Then suddenly it all comes back, just like that, from one day to the next. No matter how long ago it was, there will always be someone to bring it all back. Because no matter what you think or do, one thing is for sure—you’re always fucked. Now, tomorrow, next week, or next year, until the end of time, fucked.

Define "fucked"?

Jacky: What’s this I’ve been hearing? You’re refusing to have our cows? It’s a bit late for that. You don’t have a say in it anymore. [slaps him] You do what we tell you to do. You use our products when we say so. [slaps him] You take your animals to my uncle when we say so. [slaps him] You’re lucky that your father knew my father, pal! When I get home, I wanna hear that you’ve called Uncle Eddy. Got it? [thumps him in the chest] You got that? You will only sell your bulls to him, and at his price.

Thugocracy.

Jacky as a boy: Are they getting more injections again?
Father: Yes, we need to make them stronger. The water in the bottles is called DES: Dietylstiboestrol. It’s a growth hormone. Everything in the body is regulated by various substances. And hormones are the most important ones. But sometimes we need to lend nature a helping hand.

And, for Jacky, then some.

Bruno: Hold his legs down. Get me a brick.
[To Jacky]
I’m going to make your balls ache. I’m gonna smash your balls.
[All the boys gather around]
Boys chanting: Smash his balls! Smash his balls! Smash his balls!

And that’s what he does. Over and over again with the brick. And you just know this has followed him into adulthood.

Doctor: The important thing now, Irene, is that Jacky develops secondary sexual characteristics. Beard growth, chest development, stronger muscles, the voice changing, penis development, erections – becoming a man – and ejaculations. Now, he may recover. But you absolutely must give him testosterone.
Father: I’m not injecting my boy with that.
Doctor: But Jacky no longer has any testicles. So we need to give him extra testosterone now during puberty so that he can develop normally. Otherwise, he’ll never be a man.
Mother [bewildered]: Is you going to be gay?

Heaven forbid!

Lucia: My friend Daphne dragged me along because she has a crush on the boss.
Jacky: The n*****?
Lucia: We say “black guy.”

Woke?

[iambiguous]

Bullhead

Jacky: Wanna know what it’s like?
Diederik: Come on, Jack.
Jacky: You’ll never know. You’ll never know what it’s like.

Lots of things like that, of course.

Stevie: Are you aware of everything I’ve done for you? I was always there for you. Do you remember when you turned 30? I stopped them from making fun of you for still being single at thirty. Thanks to me, no one says, “That bastard’s got no balls.”
[Jacky grabs him by the throat]
Jacky: Shut your face.
Stevie: Go on, then. Beat me up. I’m the only one left. You’re own blood.

Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

Drug supplier: This is Sustanon. The real thing. Not a cheap derivative from Poland or Russia. How much? 250 mg. Intermuscular injection, okay? Testoviron. That’s what you asked for, right? Mestanoline. Very aggressive stuff. I’ve got some derivatives, too, like DHT. Mestanoline, 10 to 30 mg oer day. 30 mg maximum. And no alcohol. Absolutely none. Otherwise your liver will be destroyed within one week.
Jacky: What’s that?
Drug supplier: That’s Methyltestoserone. Have you heard of it? It’s what we call “high caliber.” Bazooka. Very, very dangerous. I don’t give this to just anyone. I’m taking a risk here, okay?

Okay and then some.

Lucia: I think I’ve seen him, Mom. That kid. His dad brought him over about 20 years ago. I can’t stop thinking about him. I’m sure he’s the one.
Mother: Did he threaten you?
Lucia: No.
Mother: Because it was an accident.
Lucia: Yes, Mom. We know all about Bruno and his “accidents.”

Here the past is just as intriguing as the present. Let's call it dasein on steroids.

Jacky [to Diederik]: My whole life, I’ve known nothing but animals. I’ve always felt just like these bulls here. Never knowing what it’s like to protect someone. Calves, a herd, like a wife, children. Really having to protect them, 'cause you have to and it’s in your nature. I haven’t got what I’m supposed to have.

The balls?

Jacko: What are you doing here?
Diederik: Jack, listen. Get your family and everyone out of here.
Jacko: Why?
Diederik: There’s a big chance a SWAT team will show up here in a few hours.
Jacko: I don’t understand.
Diederik: The cops!

Do or die.

Jacky: You’re not a faggot, are you?
Diederik: Me? No way!

One of those places where, let's say, that makes all the difference in the world.

Jacky: He attacked me. I didn’t do anything. I am not an animal.
Lucia: I don’t understand you. If you go now you can still get away.
Jacky: The bathroom…

We know what that means.

[iambiguous]

Here’s how it works. There’s you here and there’s eveybody else in the world. And you can make contact with any one of them if you only know the right combination of 6 – or sometimes less – people to contact. Simple.

Only it’s not [for most of them] because you have no idea which combination of folks it is.

Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degre ... evin_Bacon

This is a very strange movie. Or it is for me. I’m not sure when I am or am not being put on. Is it meant to convey meaning in layers or is it layer upon layer of irony. It’s got a great big heart at the end of it and a great big mystery that will never be solved. But is all this just, “wink, wink”?

That you want it to be “real” is a testiment to how the film is able to draw you in below the surface. Or, again, some of us.
Then there are the trials and the travails of the upper middle class. And their shitbag kids.

Or maybe this is all just a surreal remake of My Fair Lady—with Will Smith as Eliza Doolittle?


Six Degrees of Separation

Flan: My God!
Ouisa: Is anything gone?
Flan: How can I look, I’m shaking!
Ouisa: I want to know if anything’s gone!
Flan: Calm down.
Ouisa: We could have been killed! Oh, my God! The Kandinsky!
Flan: The Kandinsky!
Ouisa: It’s gone, oh my God! Call the police!
Flan: Oh, no, there it is. Oh! The silver Victorian inkwell!
Ouisa: How can you think of that thing?
Flan: Here’s the inkwell.
Ouisa: We could have been murdered!
Flan: A silver Jaguar. Why?
Ouisa: Slashed. Throat slashed.
Flan: There’s the Degas.
Ouisa: To go to bed at night happy and then murdered. Would we have woken up?
Flan: We’re alive.

It's just getting started.

Ouisa: Chaos, control. Chaos, control…

Kadinsky as I recall.

Flan: Having a rich friend is like drowning and your friend makes lifeboats.

Or you think he does.

Geoffrey: I wish you’d visit.
Ouisa: Oh, but we’d visit you and sit in your gorgeous house, planning visits to the townships, demanding to see the poorest of the poor. “Are you sure they’re the worst off? I mean, we’ve come all this way.”

Rich folks just kidding around this time.

Flan: Blunt question. What’s he like?
Ouisa: Oh, let’s not be star-fuckers.
Flan: I’m not a star- fucker!
Paul: Well, you know my father. He’s perfect.

Or was perfect. He just died a couple of years ago.

Paul: A teacher out on Long lsland was dropped from his job for fighting with a student. Weeks later, he returned to the classroom, shot the student - unsuccessfully, held the class hostage, and then shot himself - successfully. This fact caught my eye. Last sentence, Times - “A neighbour described the teacher as a nice boy, always reading Catcher in the Rye.” This nitwit Chapman, who shot John Lennon, said he did it to draw the attention of the world to Catcher in the Rye, and the reading of this book would be his defence. Young Hinckley, the whiz kid who shot Reagan and his press secretary, said: “If you want my defence, all you have to do is read Catcher in the Rye.”

Let's explain that.

[iambiguous]

Six Degrees of Separation

Paul: What alarms me about the book - not the book so much as the aura about it - is this. The book is primarily about paralysis. The boy can’t function. At the end, before he can run away and start a new life, it starts to rain. He folds. There’s nothing wrong in writing about emotional and intellectual paralysis. It may, thanks to Chekhov and Samuel Beckett, be the great modern theme. The extraordinary last lines of Waiting for Godot.; “Let’s go.” “Yes.” “Let’s go.” Stage directions: “They do not move.” The aura around Salinger’s book - which, perhaps, should be read by everyone but young men - is this. It mirrors like a fun-house mirror, and amplifies like a distorted speaker one of the great tragedies of our times - the death of the imagination. Because what else is paralysis? The imagination has moved out of the realm of being our link, our most personal link, with our inner lives and the world outside that world, this world we share. What is schizophrenia but a horrifying state where what’s in here doesn’t match what’s out there? Why has imagination become a synonym for style? I believe the imagination is the passport that we create to help take us into the real world. I believe the imagination is merely another phrase for what is most uniquely us.

After all, this is being created in an imaginary world.

Flan: I want to get down on my knees and thank God. Money!
Ouisa: Who said “When artists dream, they dream of money”?

Now we're talking.
Though some walk the talk more effectively than others.

Flan: When you see your little sister, don’t tell her that Paul and the hustler used her bed.
Tess: You put him in that bed!

The hustler?!

Shitbag son: You gave a complete stranger who happens to mention my name the keys to our house?! Dad, sometimes it’s so obvious to me why Mom left. I’m so embarrassed to know you! You gave the keys to a stranger who shows up at your office?! Mom told me you beat her, and you drank so much your body smelt of cheap wine. Mom said sleeping with you was like sleeping with a salad with bad dressing! Why did you bring me into this world?! You’re an idiot! You’re an idiot!

Kids!

Woody [another shitbag son]: You gave him my pink shirt? You gave a complete stranger my pink shirt? That shirt was a Christmas present from you! I treasured that shirt, I loved that shirt! My collar had grown a full size from weightlifting, you saw that my arms had grown, you saw that my neck had grown and you bought me that shirt for my new body! I loved that shirt! My first shirt for my new body and you gave that shirt away? I can’t believe you! I hate this life and I hate you!

Kids!

Trent: When rich people do something nice for you, you give 'em a pot of jam.

Good to know?

[iambiguous]

God

“By Hays' reasoning, penetrating a rectum with a penis is a violation of how God meant humans to function. However, penetrating a human body with a sword, a common way to kill people in biblical times, is acceptable. Apparently human bodies were designed to be penetrated by metal implements, but not by flesh.” Hector Avalos

Next up: penetrating the rectrum with a...gerbil?

“God will never disappoint us… If deep in our hearts we suspect that God does not love us and cannot manage our affairs as well as we can, we certainly will not submit to His discipline…To the unbeliever the fact of suffering only convinces him that God is not to be trusted, does not love us. To the believer, the opposite is true.” Elisabeth Elliot

See how it works? Either way, it's all about God.

“When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience have been able to produce in millions of years. I really cannot believe it. Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists? Moreover, if you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is a stage in the decay of the solar system; at a certain stage of decay you get the sort of conditions of temperature and so forth which are suitable to protoplasm, and there is life for a short time in the life of the whole solar system. You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending -- something dead, cold, and lifeless.” Bertrand Russell

Burn, Bertrand, burn!

“I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked whether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further.” Richard Dawkins

Yeah, what about that?

“New struggles. After Buddha was dead, they still showed his shadow in a cave for centuries -- a colossal, horrible shadow. God is dead, but given the way people are, there may still be caves for millennia in which his shadow is displayed. -- And we -- we must still defeat his shadow as well!” Friedrich Nietzsche

Take that, Immanuel Can!

“I think God is a callous bitch not making me a lesbian. I'm deeply disappointed by my sexual interest in men.” Diamanda Galás

Wake up, God!

[iambiguous]

Six Degrees of Separation

Ouisa: I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it extremely comforting that we’re so close. I also find it like Chinese water torture, that we’re so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection…I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people.

Next up: all the other planets.

Elizabeth: “Quality of mercy is not strained”? Well, fuck you, quality of mercy!

Though not always, of course.

Paul [on the phone to Ouisa]: That night was the happiest night I ever had.
Ouisa [to Flan]: That was the happiest night he ever had.
Flan [to Ouisa]: Oh, please. I’m not a bullshitter, but never bullshit a bullshitter.

We know where this is going.

Ouisa: Paul…We love you.

Well, she does.

Ouisa: I read today that a young man committed suicide in Rikers lsland prison, and tied a shirt around his neck and hanged himself. Was it the pink shirt?

Was it Paul's?

Ouisa: And we turn him into an anecdote, with no teeth, and a punchline you’ll tell for years to come: “Oh, that reminds me of the time the imposter came into our house.” “Oh! Tell the one about that boy.” And we become these human jukeboxes spitting out these anecdotes to dine out on like we’re doing right now. Well I will not turn him into an anecdote, it was an experience. How do we hold onto the experience?

Uh, subjectively?

Flan: What kind of behavior is this?
Ouisa: Tell me Flan, how much of your life can you account for?
Flan: Are you drunk? What’s the matter with you? Don’t you realize how important she is? What are you unhappy about? The Cezanne sale went through, the Matisse went through, we’re rich! Rich enough. Next month there’s a Bonnard.
Ouisa: These are the times I could take a knife and dig out your heart! Answer me! How much of your life…
Flan: My life can I account for? All of it!
[pause]
Flan: I am a gambler.
Ouisa: We’re a terrible match.

A happy ending at least.

[iambiguous]

Science

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.” Stephen Hawking

Sure, take that as far as you can.

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” Christopher Hitchens

Uh, that which goes around comes around? Though here mostly in a world of words.

“Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand.” Dan Brown

You first.

“In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.” Terry Pratchett

Into this something of all things.

“Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.” Albert Einstein

Let alone simplistic.

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” Charles Darwin

Anyone wasting it here?

[iambiguous]

Travis Bickle. Is he more haplessly naive or hopelessly whacko? My pick: up and down, some of both. And so naive at times it’s almost unbearable to watch.

Where the hell did he come from? Why the hell does he do these things? What a narrative that must be. Maybe he picked it up in the Marines.

But this aside, all the stuff that disgusted him is no less still here, right? But always hidden now from the rest of us. You know, as the country drifts closer and closer to “friendly fascism”. We can still go there though. As entertainment, for example.

And all that controversy about the ending is just bullshit to me. The point is not whether he is a hero or a villian but a depiction of the complex manner in which human motivation is rooted in a point of view. And in intentions. The ending is bursting at the seams with irony. Just as it was [less explosively] in King Of Comedy.

Interesting note: Robert DeNiro was paid $35,000 to play the part of Travis Bickle.



Taxi Driver

Travis [voiceover]: All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take 'em to Harlem. I don’t care. Don’t make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won’t even take spooks. Don’t make no difference to me.

Of course, that's all scripted.
From real life for example.

Travis [voiceover]: Each night when I return the cab to the garage, I have to clean the cum off the back seat. Some nights, I clean off the blood.

Don't they all?

Palantine: What is the one thing about this country that bugs you the most?
Travis: I don’t know. I don’t follow political issues that closely.
Palantine: There must be something.
Travis: Well, whatever it is, he should clean up this city here…because this city is like an open sewer, it’s full of filth and scum. Sometimes I can hardly take it. Whoever becomes the president should just…really clean it up, know what I mean? Sometimes I go out and I smell it. I get headaches, it’s so bad. It’s like–They never go away. It’s like the president should clean up this whole mess here. He should flush it down the fucking toilet.

Well, he asked, right?

Betsy: Travis, I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone quite like you.

On the other hand…

Betsy: Taking me to a place like this is about as exciting as saying to me “Let’s fuck.”

He gets her in the end though. After she thinks she gets him.

Travis [to Besty at Palantine campaign headquarters]: You’re in a hell, and you’re gonna die in a hell like the rest of them!

She still hasn't figured him out though.

[iambiguous]

Taxi Driver

Passenger [to Travis]: You see that window with the light? The one closet to the edge of the building? You know who lives there? Of course you don’t know who lives there, but I’m saying “Do you know who lives there?” A n***** lives there, and that isn’t my apartment. My wife is in there and…I’m gonna kill her. I’m gonna kill her with a .44 Magnum.

And he's the director.

Travis: June 8th. My life has taken another turn again. The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next. A long continuous chain. Then suddenly, there is a change.

Most still don't get that, do they?

Easy Andy [after selling Travis an arsenal]: How 'bout dope? Grass, hash, coke…mescaline, downers, Nembutal, toluol, chloral hydrates? How 'bout uppers, amphetamines? I can get you crystal meth. Nitrous oxide. How 'bout that? I can get you a brand-new Cadillac with the pink slip for two grand.

Nope, not interested.

Travis: You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talking…you talking to me? Well I’m the only one here.

Literally as it were.

Travis: Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is someone who stood up.

Got a few of them here, don't we?

Sport: Hey, go back to your fuckin’ tribe before you get hurt, huh man. Do me a favor, I don’t want no trouble, huh. Okay?
Travis: You got a gun?
Sport: Get the fuck outta here, man.
[Flicks his cigarette at him]
Sport: Get outta here
[Sport kicks him]
Travis: Suck on this.
[he shoots him]

That's just the first time.

Iris: God, you’re square.
Travis Bickle: Hey, I’m not square, you’re the one that’s square. You’re full of shit, man. What are you talking about? You walk out with those fuckin’ creeps and low-lifes and degenerates out on the streets and you sell your little pussy for peanuts, man? For some low-life pimp who stands in the hall? And I’m square? You’re the one that’s square, man. I don’t go screwing fuck with a bunch of killers and junkies like you do. You call that bein’ hip? What world are you from?
Iris: Sport never killed nobody.
Travis: He killed somebody.
Iris: He’s a Libra. I’m a Libra, too. That’s why we get along so well. I think that Cancers make the best lovers…but, God, my whole family are earth signs.

In one ear and out the other. Both of them.
It was in the stars, let's say.

Narrated [over newspaper article about Travis tacked to the wall]: “Dear Mr. Bickle, I can’t say how happy Mrs. Steensma and I were… to hear that you are well and recuperating. We tried to visit you at the hospital… when we were in New York to pick up Iris. But you were still in a coma. There is no way we can repay you for returning our Iris to us. We thought we had lost her… and now our lives are full again. Needless to say…you are something of a hero around this household. I’m sure you want to know about Iris. She’s back in school and working hard. The transition has been very hard for her, as you can well imagine. We have taken steps to see… she has never cause to run away again. In conclusion, Mrs. Steensma and l…would like to again thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to come to New York again…to thank you in person, or we surely would. But if you should ever come to Pittsburgh…you would find yourself a most welcome guest in our home. Our deepest thanks. Burt and Ivy Steensma.”

All's well that ends well, let's say.

Betsy [in cab]: Hello, Travis.
Travis: Hello. I hear Palantine got the nomination.
Betsy: Yeah. Won’t be long now. Seventeen days.
Tavis: I hope he wins.
Betsy: I read about you in the papers. How are you?
Travis: It was nothing, really. I got over that. Papers always blow these things up. Just a little stiffness, that’s all.
Betsy: Travis…I’m...
Travis: So long.

What, no pornos?