Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

In America

Johnny: Do you want me to lie?
Sarah: You’re the only actor in the world who can’t lie, Johnny. Not even for the sake of your kids.
Johnny: What does that mean?
Sarah: If you can’t touch somebody you created, how can you create somebody that’ll touch anybody?
Johnny [bewildered]: What are you going on about?
Sarah: Acting, Johnny. And bringing something to life, it’s the same thing. That’s why you can’t get a job acting, Johnny, because you can’t feel anything.

On the other hand, why can't he feel anything? Or perhaps he's just not feeling the right things.

Mateo: You don’t believe.
Johnny: In what? In God? I asked him a favor once. I asked him to take me instead of him. But he took both of us. And look what he put in my place.

Must be the wrong God then.

Johnny: Do you wanna be me? Do you wanna be in my place?
Mateo: I wish.
Johnny: Are you in love with her? Are you in love with her?
Mateo: No. I’m in love with you. And I’m in love with your beautiful woman. And I’m in love with your kids. And I’m even in love with your unborn child. I’m even in love with your anger! I’m in love with anything that lives!
Johnny: You’re dying
[long pause]
Johnny: I’m sorry.

He's still dying though.

Mateo: What was Frankie like?
Johnny: A warrior.
Mateo: Maselu masela.
Johnny: What does that mean?
Mateo: A warrior who is not afraid to go to the other side.
Johnny: The other side of what?

Uh, their side?

Christy [voiceover]: My mom had to go into the hospital, so I thought about using my third wish. But I had to be careful. If the baby came too soon, the baby might die, and if the baby came too late, my mom might die. You have to be careful what you wish for.

And, of course, you can never wish for more wishes.

Johnny [to himself]: “To be or not to be.” Blah, blah, blah. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to stick me head in the damn oven and end it all.

Timing. It's everything here.

Christy: What if I have it?
Johnny: Have what?
Christy: Mateo’s disease.
Johnny: That’s not possible, Christy?
Christy: How do you know that?
Johnny: God won’t let that happen to you.
Christy: You don’t believe in God.

He'll make this one exception.

Christy [voiceover]: It was as hard for Frankie to smile when the tumor was malignant as it was for my dad to cry after. But they both managed it. I’m going to switch this off now. It’s not the way I want to see Frankie any more. Do you still have a picture of me in your head? Well, that’s like the picture I want to have of Frankie. One that you can keep in your head forever. So when you go back to reality, I’ll ask Frankie to please, please let me go.

Some may never understand it.

[iambiguous]

First of all, a pet peeve of mine. Call it the Jeopardy Syndrome. When someone accummulates an extraordinary amount of knowledge about many vast and varied things we call her “smart”. Someone who solves the New York Times crossword puzzle the fastest. Someone who wins tons of money on Who Wants To be A Millionaire. They know lots and lots and lots of facts about the world around us. Or they have a phenomenal memory.

But what does this sort of knowledge have to do with figuring out things like, say, “why do millions of people still live in festering slums like the one protrayed here—and throughout the entire Third World?” Let alone in proposing possible solutions to rid the world of them.

As for the movie itself…it’s a fairy-tale. A preposterous fairy-tale probably. The same people who believe in it believe they can go on the show, become a millionaire and then live happily ever after. The whole point of movies like this may well be that all the other slum dwellers can live through them vicariously. A brief respite from the reality of their actual lives.

Slumdog Millionaire

Title Card: Jamal Malik is one question away from 20 million rupees. How did he do it?
A: He cheated
B: He’s lucky
C: He’s a genius
D: It is written

He’s incredibly lucky! Most of the questions just happen to coincide with events in his life that would allow him to know the answer. It’s called a script. It is written [in other words] in advance.

Start here: https://youtu.be/bj-m3Ddmn0E?si=l1LQGwZBzB1fYZ8x

Interrogator: A little electricity will loosen his tongue. Give him.
Srinivas: Yes sir:
Interrogator [to Jamal who has been tortured and is now hanging from the ceiling]: Okay. So, were you wired up? Mobile or pager? A coughing accomplice in the audience…or a microchip under the skin? Why don’t you save us both a lot of time and tell me how you cheated.

You know, the Third World.

Salim [holding a gun]: Maman never forgets, isn’t that right?
Maman: Oh, Maman can make an exception, huh?
Salim [pulling the trigger]: I can’t take that risk, Maman. Sorry.

You know, the Third World.

Srinivas: What if he knows the answers?
Police Inspector [whispering to him]: Doctors… Lawyers… never get past 60 thousand rupees. He’s won 10 million.
[pause]
Police Inspector: What the hell can a slumdog possibly know?
Jamal [quietly]: The answers.
[spits out blood]
Jamal [quietly and gently]: I knew the answers.

Let's call it a miracle.

Prem Kumar: If I were you, Jamal, I’d take the 16,000 rupees and run. You will never get the next one.

Then just repeat as necessary.

Jamal [to an American tourist couple after being beaten by a cop]: You wanted to see a bit of the real India?
[then angrily to the cop]
Jamal: Well, here it is!

"Modi! Modi! Modi!"

Salim: I left a message for you at work.
Jamal: There was no message.
Salim: I definitely left a mess…
Jamal: There was no message! There was no message! THERE WAS NO MESSAGE!
[looks down at Salim starting to cry a little]
Jamal: I will never forgive you!
Salim [more to himself]: I know.

Uh, do the right thing?

Salim: That… used to be our slum. Can you believe that, huh?
[pointing]
Salim: We used to live right there, man. Now, it’s all business. India is at the center of the world now, bhai. And I…I am at the center…of the center. This is all Javed bhai’s.
Jamal: Javed Khan…the gangster from our slum? You work for him?
Salim: Come on, who else do you think would save us from Maman’s guys, huh?
Jamal: What do you do for him?
Salim: Anything he asks.
[pause as Salim’s phone rings]
Salim: He’s coming. You need to go now. Take my card.
Jamal: What for?
Salim: You think I’m gonna let you out of my sights again, huh? You stay with me now, younger brother. Now, go. My place.
Jamal: Salim, where is Latika?
Salim: Still…? She’s gone, brother. Long gone. Now, go. Go to my place.

It's...complicated? The real world in other words.

Jamal: I love you.
Latika: So what?

More or less?

Prem Kumar: Final question for twenty million rupees, and he’s smiling. I guess you know the answer.
Jamal: Do you believe it, I don’t.
Prem Kumar: You don’t? So you take the ten million and walk?
Jamal: No. I’ll play.

It's in the bag.

[iambiguous]

Suzette Haden Elgin from Native Tongue

First principle: there's no such thing as reality. We make it up by perceiving stimuli from the environment - external or internal - and making statements about it. Everybody perceives stuff, everybody makes up statements about it, everybody - so far as we can tell - agrees enough to get by, so that when I say 'Hand me the coffee' you know what to hand me. And that's reality. Second principle; people get used to a certain kind of reality and come to expect it, and if what they perceive doesn't fit the set of statements everybody's agreed to, either the culture has to go through a kind of fit until it adjusts...or they just blank it out.

Ah, the objectivists among us.

We are men, and human words are all we have: even the Word of God is composed actually of the words of men.

Or, here....words and clouds.

But she would learn. Every woman was a prisoner for life; it was not some burden that she bore uniquely. She would have all the company she could ever need.

Not so much here though, right?

He stayed carefully away from the profs, he ran the data they gave him without allowing any of it to register in his memory—that’s what you have computers for, so you don’t have to put stuff in your own memory—and that was all he did.

Click.

No longer were there “doctors” of anthropology and physics and literature to offend the real doctors and confuse the public; they had put a stop to that, as they had put a stop to so many things that were unseemly and inappropriate.

Next up: the unseemly and inappropriate behaviors that were put a stop to here.

Any beginning is also an ending, you know. You can't have just the one.

Unless, perhaps, you don't know that at all.

[iambiguous]

In the corporate media there are lines the “news division” can go up to and tip-toe around. And 60 Minutes will dance around it with the best of them.

But there are some topics – crony capitalism in the corporate media, the nature of American foreign policy, the military industrial complex – which are still largely taboo. They always remain in the shadows. Even folks like Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes either play the game here, are co-opted or get bounced.

On the other hand, the tobacco industry is an easy target for liberals in the mainstream media. For one thing, they are not advertized on TV anymore.

But what happens when the President of CBS News stands to make a small fortune on the sale of CBS to Westinghouse and that sale might be jeopardized by a lawsuit against B&W?

Every once in a while [in films like this] you get to peek behind the curtain of America’s ruling class. The ending however says little or nothing about the really big lines.

And the last time I looked these very dangerous coffin nails – potent delivery devices for nicotine and carcinogens – are still perfectly legal to buy.


The Insider

Wigand: How did a radical journalist from Ramparts Magazine end up at CBS?
Bergman: I still do the tough stories. “60 Minutes” reaches a lot of people.

Ramparts magazine. Now that takes me back.

Wigand: So, what you are saying Mr. Sandefur, is it isn’t enough that you fired me. For no good reason! Now you question my integrity? On top of the humiliation of being fired? You threaten me?! You threaten my family?! It never crossed my mind not to honor my agreement…But I will tell you, Mr. Sandefur, and Brown & Williamson, too… Fuck me? Well, fuck you!!

These relationships can get tricky...in a crony capitalist way.

Wallace: Am I missing something?
John Harris: What do you mean, Mike?
Wallace: I mean, he’s got a corporate secrecy agreement - give me a break! I mean, this is a public health issue! Like an unsafe airframe on a passenger jet or some company dumping cyanide into the East River, issues like that! He can talk, we can air it! They’ve got no right to hide behind a “corporate agreement”! Pass the milk.

And the...Constitution?

Lawyer: The unlimited checkbook. That’s how Big Tobacco wins every time on everything, they spend you to death. Six hundred million a year in outside legal - Chadbourne-Park, uh, Ken Starr’s firm, Kirkland & Ellis? Listen: GM and Ford, they get nailed after eleven or twelve pickups blow up, right? These clowns have never, I mean EVER…
John Harris: Not even once.
Lawyer: ...not even with hundreds of thousands dying each year from an illness related to their product, have EVER lost a personal injury lawsuit! On this case, they’ll issue gag orders, sue for breach, anticipatory breach, enjoin him, you, us, his pet dog, the dog’s veterinarian, tie 'em up in litigation for 10 or 15 years, I’m telling you, they bat a thousand every time! He knows that, that’s why he’s not gonna talk to you.

I guess we'll have to wait for the liberals to pack the courts again.
Or the fascists?

Liane reading her husband’s computer screen: WE WILL KILL YOU. WE WILL KILL ALL OF YOU. SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Ah, the bottom line!

Agent: Do you have a history of emotional problems, Mr. Wigand?
Wigand: Yes. Yes, I do. I get extremely emotional when assholes put bullets in my mailbox!

Pick one:
1] Wall Street
2] K Street

[iambiguous]

William Golding from Lord of the Flies

He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again.

Tell us about it!

I'm scared of him, said Piggy, and that's why I know him. If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's all right really, an' then when you see him again; it's like asthma an' you can't breathe...

Let's pin down the equivalent of that here.

...the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.

On its way back to star stuff.

I believe man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature.

Help me to set them straight.

His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.

Next up: the struggling pigs here.

Ralph would treat the day's decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.

King me!

[iambiguous]

The Insider

Bergman [to FBI agent]: You’d better take a good look, because I’m getting two things: pissed off and curious.

Next up: actual options.

Wallace: You heard Mr. Sandefur say before Congress that he believed nicotine was not addictive.
Wigand: I believe Mr. Sandefur perjured himself because I watched those testimonies very carefully.
Wallace: All of us did, and it was this whole line of people, whole line of CEOs up there, all swearing.
Wigand: Part of the reason I’m here is that I felt that their representations clearly misstated - at least within Brown and Williamson’s misrepresentations - clearly misstated what is common language within the company: “We are in the nicotine delivery business.”
Wallace: And that’s what cigarettes are for.
Wigand: A delivery device for nicotine.
Wallace: A delivery device for nicotine. Put it in your mouth, light it up, and you’re gonna get your fix.
Wigand: You’re gonna get your fix.
Wallace: You’re saying that Brown and Williamson manipulates and adjusts the nicotine fix not by artificially adding nicotine but by enhancing the effect of nicotine through the use of elements such as ammonia?
Wigand: The process is known as “impact boosting”. While not spiking nicotine, they clearly manipulate it. There was extensive use of this technology known as “ammonia chemistry”. It allows for the nicotine to be more rapidly absorbed in the lung and therefore affect the brain and central nervous system. The straw that broke the camel’s back for me, and really put me in trouble with Sandefur, was a compound called coumarin. When I came on board at B. and W., they had tried the transition from coumarin to a similar flavor that would give the same taste, and had been unsuccessful. I wanted out immediately. I was told that it could affect sales, so I should mind my own business. I constructed a memo to Mr. Sandefur indicating I could not in conscience continue with coumarin, a product we now know and we had documentation was similar to coumarin, a lung-specific carcinogen.
Wallace: And you sent the documents to Sandefur?
Wigand: I sent the documents forward to Sandefur. I was told that we would continue to work on a substitute but we weren’t going to remove it as it would impact sales, and that was his decision.
Wallace: In other words, you were charging Sandefur and Brown and Williamson with ignoring health considerations consciously?
Wigand: Most certainly.
Wallace: And on March 24th, Thomas Sandefur, CEO of Brown and Williamson, had you fired. And the reason he gave you?
Wigand: “Poor communication skills.”
Wallace: And you wish you hadn’t come forward? You wish you hadn’t blown the whistle?
Wigand: Yeah, at times I wish I hadn’t done it. There were times I felt compelled to do it. If you ask me would I do it again, do I think it’s worth it? Yeah, I think it’s worth it.

On the other hand, what's it worth to the other side? For example, on their trips to the bank.

Wigand: How does one…“go…to…jail?” What does my family do? Go on welfare? If my wife has to work? Who’s going to look after the kids? Put food on the table? My children need me. If I’m not teaching…there’s no medical…no medical…even on co-pay, that’s like…Tuition…

Look, you're either a rugged individualist or you're not.

Scruggs (low, personal): In the Navy I flew A-6’s off carriers… In combat, events have a duration of seconds, sometimes minutes… But what you’re going through goes on day in and day out. Whether you’re ready for it or not, week in, week out… Month after month after month. Whether you’re up or whether you’re down. You’re assaulted psychologically. You’re assaulted financially, which is its own special kind of violence. Because it’s directed at your kids…what school can you afford… How will that affect their lives. You’re asking yourself: Will that limit what they may become? You feel your whole family’s future’s compromised…held hostage…
[pause]
Scruggs: I do know how it is.

The much dreaded "System".
Well. unless you own and operate it.

Caperelli: Well, with tortious interference, I’m afraid…the greater the truth, the greater the damage.
Bergman: Come again?
Caperelli: They own the information he’s disclosing. The truer it is, the greater the damage to them. If he lied, he didn’t disclose their information. And the damages are smaller.
Bergman: Is this “Alice in Wonderland”?

Show them the money, Alice!

Bergman [to Caperelli]: Is CBS corporate telling CBS News do not go to air with this story?

Next up: the ruling class and...Joe Biden?

[iambiguous]

The Insider

Bergman [after Kluster demands that Wigand’s interview be censored into an alternate version]: I’m not touching my film.
Eric Kluster: I’m afraid you are.
Bergman: No, I’m not.
Eric Kluster: We’re doing this with or without you, Lowell. If you like, I can sign another producer to edit your show.
Bergman: Uh, since when has the paragon of investigative journalism allowed LAWYERS to determine the news content on 60 minutes?

Well, at least CBS didn't go back again to advertising cigarettes.

Bergman: Before you go…I discovered this SEC filing…For the sale of the CBS Corporation to Westinghouse Corporation.
Wallace: What?
Hewitt: Yeah, I heard rumors.
Bergman: It’s not a rumor. It’s a sale. If Tisch can unload CBS for $81 a share to Westinghouse and then is suddenly threatened with a multibillion-dollar lawsuit from Brown & Williamson, that could screw up the sale, could it not?
Kluster: (serene) And what are you implying?
Bergman: I’m not implying. I’m quoting. More vested interests…(reading from SEC filing) “Persons Who Will Profit From This Merger… (pause) Ms. Helen Caperelli, General Counsel of CBS News, 3.9 million. Mr. Eric Kluster, President of CBS News, 1.4 million…”
Hewitt: Are you suggesting that she and Eric are influenced by money?
Bergman: Oh, no, of course they’re not influenced by money. They work for free. And you are a Volunteer Executive Producer.
Hewitt: CBS does not do that. And, you’re questioning our journalistic integrity?!
Bergman: No, I’m questioning your hearing! You hear “reasonable” and “tortious interference.” I hear… “Potential Brown & Williamson lawsuit jeopardizing the sale of CBS to Westinghouse.” I hear… “Shut the segment down. Cut Wigand loose. Obey orders. And fuck off…!” That’s what I hear.

Anyone here profit from it?

Hewitt: You are a fanatic. An anarchist. You know that? If we can’t have a whole show, then I want half a show rather than no show. But oh, no, not you. You won’t be satisfied unless you’re putting the company at risk!
Bergman: C’mon, what are you? And are you a businessman? Or are you a newsman?! Because that happens to be what Mike and I do for a living…
Wallace: Lowell…
Bergman: “Put the corporation at risk”…? Give me a fucking break!
Wallace: Lowell…
Bergman: These people are putting our whole reason for doing what we do…on the line!
Wallace: Lowell!
Bergman: What?
Wallace: I’m with Don on this.

Pick one:
1] Mike plays the game
2] Mike was co-opted
3] A slice of bread is better than no loaf at all

Wallace [to Bergman]: Do me a favor, will you - spare me, for God’s sake, get in the real world, what do you think? I’m going to resign in protest? To force it on the air? The answer’s “no”. I don’t plan to spend the end of my days wandering in the wilderness of National Public Radio. That decision I’ve already made.

Also, in the real world the Mike Wallaces's are worth many, many millions of dollars.

Then this part...

Wallace [after watching a preview of the “60 Minutes” Wigand interview that has been edited]: Where’s the rest? Where the hell’s the rest? [to Eric Kluster] You cut it! You cut the guts out of what I SAID!
Kluster: It was a time consideration, Mike.
Wallace: Time? Bullshit! You corporate lackey! Who told you your incompetent little fingers had the requisite skills to edit me! I’m trying to band-aid a situation, here, and you’re too dim to…
[Wallace is interrupted by Helen Caperelli, who walks up to him and Kluster]
Caperelli: Mike… Mike… Mike…
Wallace [ Caperelli]: Mike? Mike!
[there is a long pause]
Wallace: Mike? Try Mr. Wallace. We work in the same corporation doesn’t mean we work in the same profession. What are you gonna do now? You gonna finesse me? Lawyer me some more? I’ve been in this profession FIFTY FUCKING YEARS! You and the people you work for are destroying the most-respected, the highest-rated, the most-profitable show on this network!

Me? No less fractured and fragmented.

Wigand [to Bergman]: You fought for me? You manipulated me into where I am now - staring at the Brown and Williamson Building. It’s all dark except the tenth floor. That’s the legal department, where they fuck with my life!

Another look "inside": https://youtu.be/9FmcrpMO72Q?si=NY8ii2YOIZXNuT0i

Wigand: I’m just a commodity to you, aren’t I? I could be anything. Right? Anything worth putting on between commercials.

Try to get outside of that.

Wallace: In the real world, when you get to where I am, there are other considerations.
Bergman: Like what? Corporate responsibility? What, are we talking celebrity here?
Wallace: I’m not talking celebrity, vanity, CBS. I’m talking about when you’re nearer the end of your life than the beginning. Now, what do you think you think about then? The future? In the future I’m going to do this? Become that? What future? No. What you think is “How will I be regarded in the end?” After I’m gone. Now, along the way I suppose I made some minor impact. I did Iran-Gate and the Ayatollah, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Saddam, Sadat, etcetera, etcetera. I showed them thieves in suits. I’ve spent a lifetime building all that. But history only remembers most what you did last. And should that be fronting a segment that allowed a tobacco giant to crash this network? Does it give someone at my time of life pause? Yeah.

Fuck you, Mike?
Can't quite go that far myself though.

Bergman: This news division has been villified by the New York Times! In print, on television, for caving to corporate interests!
Hewitt: New York Times ran a blow by blow of what we talked about behind closed doors! You fucked us!
Bergman: No, you fucked you! Don’t invert stuff! Big Tobacco tried to smear Wigand, you bought it. The Wall Street Journal, here: not exactly a bastion of anti-capitalist sentiment, refutes Big Tobacco’s smear campaign as the lowest form of character assassination! And now, even now, when every word of what Wigand has said on our show is printed, the entire deposition of his testimony in a court of law in the State of Mississippi, the cat totally out of the bag, you’re still standing here debating! Don, what the hell else do you need?
Hewitt: Mike, you tell him.
Wallace: You fucked up, Don.

Of course, all that has changed now. It's much worse.

Bergman: I quit, Mike.
Wallace: Bullshit.
[Bergman shakes his head]
Wallace: C’mon, it all worked out. You came out okay in the end…
Bergman: I did? What do I tell a source on the next tough story? Hang in with us. You’ll be fine…maybe? What got broken here…doesn’t go back together again.

Maybe after Trump is back in office.

[iambiguous]

The whole thing is just made up. A fairy-tale. A fantasy. And once you start with that how do you go about fitting it into the actual facts of history? The Nazis. The Holocaust. The Second World War. About as far removed from a fantasy as the human condition gets.

If I were a Jew, how might my reaction to it be different? But since Jews are no less the embodiment of dasein that will always only be more or less relevant.

Still, some will put it up along side inventions like Maus and complain this is what the Jews should have done. That, in other words, they more or less just let it all happen to them. As though creating something like the Basterds was really all there was to turning the tide.

I don’t know what Tarantino’s reaction to that is. But it must be a whole lot easier to kill the Nazis when all you have to do is script it.

Then there are those who complain he doesn’t take Nietzsche’s warning about becoming a monster seriously enough. Brutes going after brutes. The end justifying the means. Any means.


Inglourious Basterds

Col. Landa: Now if one were to determine what attribute the German people share with a beast, it would be the cunning and the predatory instinct of a hawk. But if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat. If a rat were to walk in here right now as I’m talking, would you treat it to a saucer of your delicious milk?
Perrier LaPadite: Probably not.
Col. Landa: I didn’t think so. You don’t like them. You don’t really know why you don’t like them. All you know is you find them repulsive. Consequently, a German soldier conducts a search of a house suspected of hiding Jews. Where does the hawk look? He looks in the barn, he looks in the attic, he looks in the cellar, he looks everywhere he would hide, but there’s so many places it would never occur to a hawk to hide. However, the reason the Führer’s brought me off my Alps in Austria and placed me in French cow country today is because it does occur to me. Because I’m aware what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.

Just look at all of the dignity that has been abandoned here.

Lt. Raine: My name is Lt. Aldo Raine and I’m putting together a special team, and I need me eight soldiers. Eight Jewish-American soldiers. Now, y’all might’ve heard rumors about the armada happening soon. Well, we’ll be leaving a little earlier. We’re gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. And once we’re in enemy territory, as a bushwhackin’ guerrilla army, we’re gonna be doin’ one thing and one thing only… killin’ Nazis. Now, I don’t know about y’all, but I sure as hell didn’t come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and jump out of a fuckin’ air-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain’t got no humanity. They’re the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin’, mass murderin’ maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed. That’s why any and every every son of a bitch we find wearin’ a Nazi uniform, they’re gonna die. Now, I’m the direct descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger. That means I got a little Injun in me. And our battle plan will be that of an Apache resistance. We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us. And the German won’t not be able to help themselves but to imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the German will be sickened by us, and the German will talk about us, and the German will fear us. And when the German closes their eyes at night and they’re tortured by their subconscious for the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of us they are tortured with. Sound good?
The Basterds: YES, SIR!
Lt. Raine: That’s what I like to hear. But I got a word of warning for all you would-be warriors. When you join my command, you take on debit. A debit you owe me personally. Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps. And all y’all will git me one hundred Nazi scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Nazis. Or you will die tryin’.

Next up: Uh, scalping Nazis...here?

Lt. Raine: Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz?
[Stiglitz nods]
Lt. Raine: These are the Basterds, ever heard of us?
[Stiglitz nods again]
Lt. Raine: We just wanted to say we’re a big fan of your work. When it comes to killing Nazis I think you show great talent. And I pride myself on having an eye for that kind of talent. But your status as a Nazi killer is still amateur. We all come here to see if you wanna go pro.

The Nazis already being pros at what they do.

Lt. Raine [Drawing a map]: Up the road apiece, there’s a orchard. Now, besides you, we know there’s another kraut patrol fuckin’ here somewhere. Now if that patrol were to have any crackshots, that orchard would be a goddamn sniper’s delight. Now if you ever want to eat a sauerkraut sandwich again, you gotta show me on this map where they are, you gotta tell me how many there are, and you gotta tell me what kinda artillery they’re carrying with ‘em.
Sgt. Rachtman: You can’t expect me to divulge information that would put German lives in danger?
Lt. Raine: Well Werner, that’s where you’re wrong, because that’s exactly what I expect. I need to about Germans hiding in them trees, and you need to tell me, and you need to tell me right now. Now take your finger and point out on this map where this party’s being held, how many’s coming, and what they brought to play with.
Sgt. Rachtman: I respectfully refuse.
Lt. Raine [a smack is heard offscreen]: Here that? That’s Sgt. Donny Donowitz. But you might know him better by his nickname. The Bear Jew. Now, if you heard of Aldo the Apache, you gotta have heard of the Bear Jew.
Sgt. Rachtman: I have heard of the Bear Jew.
Lt. Raine: What did you hear about him, Werner?
Sgt. Rachtman: He beats German soldiers with a club.
Lt. Raine: He bashes their brains in with a baseball bat is what he does. Now, Werner, I’m gonna ask you one more goddamn time, and if you still “respectfully refuse,” I’m callin’ the Bear Jew over here, and he’s gonna take that big-ole bat of his, and he’s gonna beat you to death with it. Now take your wiener schnitzel lickin’ finger and point out on this map what I want to know.
Sgt. Rachtman: Fuck you.
[pause]
Sgt. Rachtman: And your Jew dogs!
[the Basterds all laugh]
Lt. Raine: Actually, Werner, we’re all tickled to here you say that. Frankly, watchin’ Donny beat Nazis to death is is the closest we ever get to goin’ to the movies.
[calling offscreen]
Lt. Raine: DONNY!
Sgt. Donowitz [from offscreen]: Yeah?
Lt. Raine: We got a German here who wants to die for his country! Oblige him!

Next up: The Bear Jew in Gaza?

Lt. Raine: You probably heard we ain’t in the prisoner-takin’ business; we in the killin’ Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin’.

Reelect Trump and it might start boomin' again.

Lt. Raine: You didn’t say the goddamn rendezvous was in a fuckin’ basement.
Lt. Hicox: I didn’t know.
Lt. Raine: You said it was in a tavern.
Lt. Hicox: It is a tavern.
Lt. Raine: Yeah, in a basement. You know, fightin’ in a basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you’re fightin’ in a basement!

Anyone here know the others?

[iambiguous]

Meaning

“Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.” Ernest Becker

That's me!
Right?

“Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

And if there isn't a Heaven?

“I think of you as a friend. I used to think "friend" was just another word... Nothing more, nothing less. But when I met you, I realized what was important was the word's meaning.” Masashi Kishimoto

Next up: the great friendships here.

“Exactly!" said Deep Thought. "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means.” Douglas Adams

Your own answer in particular.

“You know what, sometimes it seems to me we're living in a world that we fabricate for ourselves. We decide what's good and what isn't, we draw maps of meanings for ourselves... And then we spend our whole lives struggling with what we have invented for ourselves. The problem is that each of us has our own version of it, so people find it hard to understand each other.” Olga Tokarczuk

Let's just hope that never happens here.

“And people get all fouled up because they want the world to have meaning as if it were words... As if you had a meaning, as if you were a mere word, as if you were something that could be looked up in a dictionary. You are meaning.” Alan Watts

I challenge anyione here to sum it up better.

[iambiguous]

Inglorious Basterds

Major Hellstrom: Did you hear that? That’s the sound of my Luger pointed right at your testicles.
Lt. Wilcox: Why do you have a Luger pointed at my testicles?
Major Hellstrom: Because you’ve just given yourself away, Cap’t. Your no more German then that scotch.
Lt. Wilcox: Well, Major…
Bridget von Hammersmark: Major…
Major Hellstrom: Shut up slut. (To Hicox) You were saying?
Lt. Hilcox: I was saying that makes two of us. I’ve had a gun pointed at your balls since you sat down.

There you go! Fighting in a basement!!

Bridget von Hammersmark: I can see since you didn’t see what happened inside, the Nazis being there must look odd.
Lt. Raine: Yeah, we got a word for that kinda odd in English. It’s called suspicious.

Anyone speak English here?

Lt. Raine: Well, I speak the most Italian, so I’ll be your escort. Donowitz speaks the second most, so he’ll be your Italian cameraman. Omar speaks third most, so he’ll be Donny’s assistant.
Pfc. Ulmer: I don’t speak Italian.
Lt. Raine: Like I said, third best.

That's one way to put it, of course.

Col. Landa [to Aldo]: So you’re “Aldo the Apache”.
Lt. Raine: So you’re “the Jew Hunter”.
Col. Landa: A detective. A damn good dectective. Finding people is my specialty so naturally I work for the Nazis finding people, and yes some of them were Jews. But “Jew Hunter”? It’s just a name that stuck.
Pfc. Utivich: Well, you do have to admit, it is catchy.
Col. Landa: Do you control the nicknames your enemies bestow on you? “Aldo the Apache” and “the Little Man”?
Pfc. Utivich [confused]: What do you mean “the Little Man”?
Col. Landa: Germans’ nickname for you.
Pfc. Utivich: The Germans’ nickname for me is “the Little Man”?
Col. Landa: And as if to make my point, I’m a little surprised how tall you were in real life. I mean, you’re a little fellow, but not circus-midget little, as your reputation would suggest.

Next up: your reputation here little man.

Lt. Raine: You know, where I’m from…
Col. Landa: Yeah, where is that, exactly?
Lt. Raine: Maynardville, Tennessee.
[pause]
Lt. Raine: I’ve done my share of bootlegging. Up ‘ere, if you engage in what the federal government calls ‘illegal activity,’ but what we call ‘just a man tryin’ to make a livin’ for his family sellin’ moonshine liquor,’ it behooves oneself to keep his wits. Long story short, we hear a story too good to be true…it ain’t.
Col. Landa: Sitting in your chair, I would probably say the same thing. And 999, 999 times out of a million, you would be correct. But in the pages of history, every once in a while, fate reaches out and extends its hand.
[he slowly sweeps his arms out in a grand shrug]
Col. Landa: What shall the history books read?

Well, so far it's nothing at all like this film.

Col. Landa: By the way, that last part is actually true.

I forget: which part was that?

Col. Landa: You’ll be shot for this!
Lt. Raine: Nah, I don’t think so. More like chewed out.

Think John McClain.

Lt. Raine: You know somethin’, Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece.

Think Lizbeth Salander.

[iambiguous]

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.

In other words, alas, others, in the end, have to agree with you.

If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.

Next up: the lion whisperer.

The face is the soul of the body.

In other words, whatever that means.

The world is everything that is the case.

Just in case you thought it was only what uou believed it was.

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all.

Start here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641

If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely," it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.

Right, like that will stop them from posting here..

[iambiguous]

This sort of relationship is as philosophical as you need it to be.

We take these things out on each other…and we do it in an essentially absurd and meaningless world that dumps on us time and time and time again. We contribute to the wreckage, sure, but there is so much more “out there” that sets it all in motion. We’ll even make things up to bear it.

You just don’t see much of it here.

What makes this a particularly dysfunctional baroom brawl is how effectively the protagonists parlay their exceptional wit. They are born and bred of the university. So they are quite intelligent. This isn’t Al and Peg Bundy here.

Or maybe this is just reflective of the times. The gap between the 50s in theory and the 50s in practice.

And they are all bombed out of their skulls. All the easier to endure lives that are never fully anchored in either illusion or reality.

"Edward Albee said he came up with the title when he saw the phrase written on a men’s room wall in a New York tavern." IMDb


Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Martha: I swear, if you existed, I’d divorce you.

How do you come back from that?

George: And try to keep your clothes on too. There’s no more sickening sight than you drunk and your skirt over your head.

How do you come back from that?

Nick: Who did the painting?
George: Some Greek with a mustache Martha attacked one night.
Nick: It’s got a…
George: Quiet intensity?
Nick: Well, no, a…
George: Well then, a certain noisy relaxed quality maybe?
Nick: No, what I meant was…
George: How about a quietly noisy relaxed intensity?

Not unlike here?

Nick [to Honey]: We’ll go in a little while.
George: Oh no. No, you mustn’t. Martha is changing, and Martha is not changing for me, Martha hasn’t changed for me in years. If Martha is changing, that means we’re going to be here for days. You’re being accorded an honor, and you mustn’t forget that Martha is the daughter of our beloved boss. She is his right…arm. I was going to use another word, but we’ll leave that sort of talk to Martha.

Anyone changing here?

George [after Martha has changed into an embarrassingly tight and revealing outfit]: Why Martha! Your Sunday chapel dress!

Well, that too.

Martha [derogatorily to George]: Hey, swamp! Hey swampy!
George: Yes, Martha? Can I get you something?
Martha: Ah, well, sure. You can, um, light my cigarette, if you’re of a mind to.
George: No. There are limits. I mean, a man can put up with only so much without he descends a rung or two on the old evolutionary ladder, which is up your line. Now, I will hold your hand when it’s dark and you’re afraid of the boogeyman and I will tote your gin bottles out after midnight so no one can see but I will not light your cigarette. And that, as they say, is that.
Martha: Jesus.

What's He got to do with it?

[iambiguous]

Science

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.” Carl Sagan

Unless, of course, as with all Communists, he was wrong.

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” Richard P. Feynman

Just follow all of the exchanges...here?

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” Galileo Galilei

On the other hand, let's take that all the way to the Supreme Court.

“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” Albert Einstein

Well, here, if only theoretically.

“I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.” Richard P. Feynman

How old were you?
If you do know the difference.

“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.” Isaac Asimov

And now?

[iambiguous]

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Martha: I hope that was an empty bottle, George! You can’t afford to waste good liquor, not on YOUR salary! Not on an associate professor’s salary!

You know what's next, George.

George: You take the trouble to construct a civilization, to build a society based on the principles of…of principle. You make government and art and realize that they are, must be, both the same. You bring things to the saddest of all points, to the point where there is something to lose. Then, all at once, through all the music, through all the sensible sounds of men building, attempting, comes the Dies Irae. And what is it? What does the trumpet sound? Up yours.

And then some here.

[George takes a corner too fast, tossing everyone in the car from side to side]
Martha: Aren’t you going to apologize?
George: Not my fault, the road should’ve been straight.
Martha: No, aren’t you going to apologize for making Honey throw up?
George: I didn’t make her throw up.
Martha: What, you think it was sexy back there? You think he made his own wife sick?
George: Well, you make me sick.
Martha: That’s different.

Or maybe not?

George: Well, that’s one game. What shall we do now? Let’s do something else. We played Humiliate the Host, what’ll we do now? We must know other games, us college types. Can’t be the limit of our vocabulary. Haven’t had enough? There are other games. How about… How about Hump the Hostess? Want to play that one? Do you want to play Hump the Hostess?

Next up: The games we play here.

George: You’re a monster - You are.
Martha: I’m loud and I’m vulgar, and I wear the pants in the house because somebody’s got to, but I am not a monster. I’m not.
George: You’re a spoiled, self-indulgent, willful, dirty-minded, liquor-ridden…
Martha: SNAP! It went SNAP! I’m not gonna try to get through to you any more. There was a second back there, yeah, there was a second, just a second when I could have gotten through to you, when maybe we could have cut through all this, this CRAP. But it’s past, and I’m not gonna try.

Uh, it went Click?

Martha: I looked at you tonight and you weren’t there… And I’m gonna howl it out, and I’m not gonna give a damn what I do and I’m gonna make the biggest god-damn explosion you’ve ever heard.
George: Try and I’ll beat you at your own game.
Martha: Is that a threat George, huh?
George: It’s a threat, Martha.
Martha: You’re gonna get it, baby.
George: Be careful Martha. I’ll rip you to pieces.
Martha: You’re not man enough. You haven’t the guts.
George: Total war?
Martha: Total.

Talk about a dangerous liason.

Martha [mostly to herself]: George, my husband… George, who is out somewhere there in the dark, who is good to me - whom I revile, who can keep learning the games we play as quickly as I can change them. Who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy. Yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha: Sad, sad, sad. Whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and having said: “yes, this will do”. Who has made the hideous, the hurting…the insulting mistake of loving me. And must be punished for it. Sad, sad, sad.

Introspection let's call it.

Martha: Truth and illusion, George. You don’t know the difference.
George: No, but we must carry on as though we did.
Martha: Amen.

Right, bring that into it.

George: When you get through the skin, and through the muscle…and slosh aside the organs, down to the bone, you know what you do? When you get down to the bone you aren’t all the way. Something’s inside the bone. The marrow. That’s what you got to get at.

Of course: dasein!

George: Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? Who’s afraid of Virgina Woolf?
Martha: I am, George.
George: Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Martha: I am, George. I am.

That makes two of them then.

[iambiguous]

Roberto Bolaño

You have to know how to look even if you don't know what you're looking for.

How's that working out for you? Though, sure, point taken.

Ivanov's fear was of a literary nature. That is, it was the fear that afflicts most citizens who, one fine (or dark) day, choose to make the practice of writing, and especially the practice of fiction writing, an integral part of their lives. Fear of being no good. Also fear of being overlooked. But above all, fear of being no good. Fear that one's efforts and striving will come to nothing. Fear of the step that leaves no trace. Fear of the forces of chance and nature that wipe away shallow prints. Fear of dining alone and unnoticed. Fear of going unrecognized. Fear of failure and making a spectacle of oneself. But above all, fear of being no good. Fear of forever dwelling in the hell of bad writers.

Or, perhaps, fear of being no good once you come down out of the clouds.

You can woo a girl with a poem, but you can't hold onto her with a poem.

Next up: wooing a boy?

As time goes by, as time goes by, the whip-crack of the years, the precipice of illusions, the ravine that swallows up all human endeavour except the struggle to survive.

Some more than others, of course.

In some lost fold of the past, we wanted to be lions and we're no more than castrated cats.

Some more than others, of course.

There's no place on earth with more dumb girls per square foot than a college in California.

New thread?