Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

Atlantic City.

But some years after Nucky Johnson [Thompson] and the boardwalk empire crooks [thugs] were gone. Though not the criminal element, of course. It mutates like everything else that’s looking to survive. But some are considerably more small-time than others. Eeking out a living from day to day as it were. But always looking for that big break.

For example, the folks here. The ones whose lives revolve around, “these things happen”. Just more often to them.

This is the place where everyone is looking to get rich quick. With an absolute minimum of physical labor. There must be a million cons. You’re either thinking one up or trying to spot it.

And there’s a theme in common with so many films like this: the one percenters. Those who play it outside the law, outside the “norms” of society. Sometimes glorified and sometimes not.

And when you bring someone into your life don’t forgot all the parts you know absolutely nothing about. Not that you can, of course.

That look on Lou’s face when he finally knows what’s up. Then the look on his face when he beats the odds.



Atlantic City

Oyster bar girl: Who are they?
Sally: My husband and my sister.

Sure, maybe.

Lou: That’s enough!
Grace: Nothing’s enough.

Sure, maybe.

Dave: You owe me.
Sally: Get out!
Dave: Who got you out of fucking Saskatchewan? If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be home making jam, putting out for lumberjacks!

How about this: "If it wasn't for me here?"

Sally [trying to distract a cad]: Can I lay a hard ten on a soft three?

I'd let her.

Fred [to Dave]: This is a very tight town. I only do business with the people I do business with. If the people I do business with find out I’m doing business with the people I don’t do business with…

Let's decide: is this a tight forum?

Lou: It’s all shit now. It’s a shame you never saw Atlantic City when it had floy floy. Remember the song, “Flatfoot Floogie with the Floy Floy”?
Dave: No.
Lou: Hep cat and zoot suit. That was the floogie part. But the floy floy. That was something special. Atlantic City had floy floy coming out of its ears in those days. Now it’s all so goddamn legal. Howard Johnson running a casino. Tutti-fruiti ice cream and craps don’t mix…Yeah, it used to be beautiful - what with the rackets, whoring, guns. Sometimes…sometimes things would happen and I had to kill a few people. I’d feel bad for a while, but I’d jump into the ocean, swim way out. Come back in feeling nice and clean, start all over again.

Nicky!

Sally [at restaurant]: I don’t want anything that swims.

Let alone raw?

Sally: Teach me stuff.
Lou: Like what?
Sally: What you know.
Lou: You want information or wisdom?
Sally: Both.

In other words, clouds or no clouds.

Lou: I’m her lover!
Grace [to Sally]: Oh ho ho. You wanna know his nickname in the old days? “Numb Nuts!” Men had names like “Legs” and “Bullets” and “Cookie”. His was “Numb Nuts”!

Next up: the old days here. You first, Mr. Pinhead.

Lou: They used to call Atlantic City the lungs of Philadelphia.
Dave: If we stay here long enough, we could be the nose of Philadelphia.

You tell me.

Shapiro: Your husband had a record.
Sally: I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him in 8 months.
Shapiro: Yeah, I know that and I understand that, and this is very unfair, but he…
Sally: I don’t even know why he was here.
Shapiro: Look, I know that, and you know that, but they don’t know that.

And it’s not the mob this time.

Lou: Don’t touch the suit.

Pick one: clubs, spades, heasts or diamonds.

Lou: A room. For me and my mother.

Incest?!
Fuhgeddaboudit it.

Chrissie: Oh, I never use seatbelts. I don’t believe in gravity.

More bizarre still: All those things she does believe in.

[iambiguous]

Clockers: Entry level crack dealers who sell drugs 25 hours a day.

Rosa Park…or crack cocaine? Which one seems more applicable to you? Is there one that ought to?

Once you try the dope you understand clearly why [for some folks] it can become a way of life. As opposed to, say, a recreation. Then you’ve got to come up with reasons why he or she might want to choose another way of life instead.

And so much of the violence here revolves not around the drug per se but around the fact there is so much money to be made selling it. Why? Because it is illegal and street hustlers pummel each other in order to be the only dudes around selling it. Besides, “they” are mostly killing each other.

At best, telling folks to “do the right thing” here is good for a laugh. But that is basically where Lee goes with it.

But some folks do go a lot deeper than others. But is it better for them or worse?

All of the detectives [save one] are from the cookie cutter: white, racist, creeps. Everything’s a fucking joke. Only the occasional cop gets to be black.

And here there is always a huge gap between those able to make the clocks and those “employed” just to tell time.


Clockers

Rodney: Strike, you really want to get off the benches? You deal with it. For me.

Most conversations here are...loaded.

Detective: Another stain on the sidewalk, huh?

Though sometimes only the outline of one.

Errol [to Strike]: My old man was a preacher. And when I started messin’ with this shit, he said, “you gonna pay for that. You gonna pay for that shit, boy.” He was right. You can’t cheat this shit no…mo’.

On the other hand, how many die trying.

Det. Jo-Jo: Strike, my man! This is a new day, Strike. Dinkins out, Rudy in. Law and order. Cut the budget. Party’s over. Crackdown on drugs, crime, niggers, spics, homeless, squeegeemen…

Rudy's out now, right?

Rodney: Errol told me you talked to the homicide cop. How’d that go?
Strike: It was awright.
Rodney: ‘Awright’ or ‘all right’?
Strike: It was awright. All right?

Uh, aks him again?

Det. Klein: Here. Here’s my card.
Strike: I got two already!

Laminated to boot.

[iambiguous]

Meaning

“Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create meaning.” Osho

More to the point, historically, to enforce it.

“Meaning is produced not only by the relationship between the signifier and the signified but also, crucially, by the position of the signifiers in relation to other signifiers.” Jacques Lacan

I know, I know: they don't know when to stop!

“The hardest things to talk about are the ones we ourselves can't understand.” Elena Ferrante

On the other hand, isn't that what the bots are for?

"I've come to the conclusion that the artist can not justify life or come up with a cogent reason as to why life is meaningful, but the artist can provide you with a cold glass of water on a hot day.” Woody Allen

Next up: the con artists?
fArtists I think some call them.

“But does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end-and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it's possible to play it with a kind of joy? To try to make some meaning out of all this seems unbelievably quaint. Maybe I only see a pattern because I've been staring too long. But then again, to paraphrase Boris, maybe I see a pattern because it's there.” Donna Tartt

Let's finally settle this: blah, blah, blah?

“We do not pray for immortality, but only not to see our acts and all things stripped suddenly of all their meaning; for then it is the utter emptiness of everything reveals itself.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Next up: the unbearable lightness of prayer itself.

[iambiguous]

Gautama Buddha

As rain falls equally on the just and the unjust, do not burden your heart with judgements but rain your kindness equally on all.

People actually do believe these things!
I mean, still!!

Long is the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is tired; long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law.

People actually do believe these things!
I mean, still!!

Attachment leads to suffering.

In other words, not unlike detachment: https://youtu.be/w7lBleOF9Pw?si=TNZTa_VP7yhZdmVN

With our thoughts we make the world.

Great billowing clouds of them here in fact.

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.

Peace with honor!!!
In theory as it were.

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.

Cue karma?

[iambiguous]

Clockers

Rodney [to Strike]: If God created anything better than crack cocaine he kept that shit for hisself.

Next up: God invents analytic philosophy.

Rodney [to Strike]: I mean, crack is like truth serum. It will truly expose who you are. I mean, if you happen to be a low-life rat bastard motherfucker, who would sell off his newborn for a suck off that glass dick, crack will bring it right on in the light. Now I don’t care if you are black, white, Chinese, rich, poor. You take that first hit, you on a mission. And that mission will never end. Even when the house, the money, the loved ones are gone and they send you to the joint, you’re still trying to cop. The only time the mission ends is when you six feet under.

Noted. Now, where do I get some?

Det. Klein [suspecting Victor took the fall for Strike]: You’re the fuckin’ king snake! You’re a low-down, cold-blooded evil junkyard n***** like I’ve never seen
Strike: n*****? n*****?!
Det. Klein: You’re not the mafia. You’re not even Rodney Little. You’re a skinny-ass snake motherfucker. You think you’re hot shit. You ain’t nothing but a cold fucking fart.
Strike [enraged]: You don’t know a motherfucking thing about me. You don’t know who I am. You ain’t nothing but a racist-ass, n*****-hating cop. You don’t know how it is for the brothers out here.

Do the right thing? How about "don't worry, be happy?"

Strike [in Rodney’s car; Rodney gives him crap about abandoning his post to be questioned by Klein]: Aw, man. Fuck you, Rodney.
Rodney [pulls the car over to the shoulder]: Excuse me?
[punches Strike in the stomach]
Rodney: Who the fuck are you talking to like that? Are you out of your motherfucking mind?
[pulls Strike down on his lap]
Rodney: Huh? You think I’m one of these crew-niggas sitting on the project?
[punches him again]
Rodney: BENCH, motherfucker!
[grabs a gun from the backseat and sticks it in Strike’s mouth]
Rodney: Open yo mouth, nigga. Now you feel that? I’ll put this gun in yo bad-breaf-smellin’ mouth and I will pull the trigger. And I will splatter what little motherfuckin’ brains you got all over the Corinthian leather interior of my car! And this my wife’s brand new car, so you know I don’t give a fuck. You understand me? Do you understand me, bitch?
[Strike nods]
Rodney: And let me tell you something else…if I ever hear about you talking to that “homocide” one more time, that Rocco motherfucker - I mean, I don’t care if it’s the light of day - if I hear my name coming up in this at all and I heard it was from you, then I’m gonna kill you. I mean you are 187 on the strength, you understand me? Do you understand me?
Strike: Yeah.
Rodney: Word is bond.
[takes the gun out of his mouth and pushes him off]
Rodney: Now get yo motherfuckin’ ass out my car.

A "hood" thing? Or [eventually] is it pretty much applicable to all of us?

Rodney: Rocco Klein… Rocco Klein, you know, I’ve always wanted to ask you…you Italian? you a Jew? I mean, what are you? You can’t make up your mind?
Det. Klein: Me?
Rodney: Yeah, you.
Det. Klein: I’m from the lost black tribe of Israel, the Yos.

Wow, I never suspected that.

Andre [beating up Strike]: It’s motherfuckers like you that mugged Rosa Parks!
Strike: Who the fuck is Rosa Parks?
Andre: Who the fuck is Rosa Parks? Who’s Rosa Parks?!

How about you?
No Googling.

Det. Klein: If I ever see you again… I’ll book you on charges of criminal solicitation and conspiracy to commit murder. I’ll let Andre beat you down again, then pick up Rodney on the same charges and I’ll make sure you two share the same cell, the same fuckin’ bed. Do you understand me clearly?
Strike: Yeah, I understand you clearly.

Well it is after all a might makes right world..

[iambiguous]

No Jews here. But no Catholics either. So, I’d ask Mel this: Are those folks now burning in Hell? Or is that why this civilization [eventually] was destroyed? Was it punishment from God because none of them accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior?

What is the “lesson” Gibson wishes to impart in this film?

So, were some only more or less “noble savages” before the Europeans landed? Is the ending meant to convey that the European Christians were sent to “save their souls”? By, among other things, conquering them? enslaving them? decimating them?

Not that they weren’t already doing this to each other.

With religion, the sky’s the limit, right? And in that respect is this meant to convey what perhaps our own “end times” will be like? Or is Mel trying to suggest instead that anything that Christians do now in the name of God is better than this?

Travel well.

Many substantial speaking roles were filled by Mayan people who had never acted before. Sick Girl, who curses the hunting party as they and the captives pass right before entering the city, was played by a seven-year-old who lived in a dirt-floored hut in a village similar to Jaguar Paw’s.

The film is allegedly inspired by the text of the Popol Vuh, sometimes called the Mayan Bible, and Spanish missionary descriptions of the Maya.

According to director Mel Gibson and co-writer Farhad Safinia’s DVD commentary, the halting of the sacrifices at the onset of a solar eclipse is a carefully-timed ruse by the Mayan ruling class. As precocious astrologers, the Mayans used their knowledge of celestial phenomena to control the underclass.

The Jaguar’s attack is portrayed accurately. Other big cats asphyxiate their prey with a bite to the throat; Jaguars kill with a penetrating bite to the brain. IMDb


Apocalypto

Title card: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” Will Durant

And, here, by Durant's epistemologists.

Jaguar Paw: The heart… for Smoke Frog.
Smoke Frog: Thank you.
Jaguar Paw: This liver for Curl Nose.
Curl Nose: Thank you.
Jaguar Paw: Cocoa Leaf… the ears.
Cocoa Leaf: Thank you.
Jaguar Paw: And for you Blunted… the balls.
Blunted: Not this again.

That’s nothing compared to what Flint Sky has in store for him. And Mrs. Blunted.

Flint Sky: Those people in the forest, what did you see on them?
Jaguar Paw: I do not understand.
Flint Sky: Fear. Deep rotting fear. They were infected by it. Did you see? Fear is a sickness. It will crawl into the soul of anyone who engages it. It has tainted your peace already. I did not raise you to see you live with fear. Strike it from your heart. Do not bring it into our village.

Deep rotting fear. That'll do it.

Old Story Teller: And a Man sat alone, drenched deep in sadness. And all the animals drew near to him and said, “We do not like to see you so sad. Ask us for whatever you wish and you shall have it.” The Man said, “I want to have good sight.” The vulture replied, “You shall have mine.” The Man said, “I want to be strong.” The jaguar said, “You shall be strong like me.” Then the Man said, “I long to know the secrets of the earth.” The serpent replied, “I will show them to you.” And so it went with all the animals. And when the Man had all the gifts that they could give, he left. Then the owl said to the other animals, “Now the Man knows much, he’ll be able to do many things. Suddenly I am afraid.” The deer said, “The Man has all that he needs. Now his sadness will stop.” But the owl replied, “No. I saw a hole in the Man, deep like a hunger he will never fill. It is what makes him sad and what makes him want. He will go on taking and taking, until one day the World will say, ‘I am no more and I have nothing left to give.’”

Only this time that may well be the case.

Middle Eye [to Jaguar Paw]: Almost.
[Middle Eye hits Jaguar Paw with a club]
Middle Eye: That is your name. “Almost.”

Let's pick a name fo me.

Zero Wolf [after a huge tree is cut down and almost falls on him and the slaving party]: Hey, I am walking here!

Of course, he's only paraphasing Ratso.

Mayan chieftain: The land thirsts. A great plague infects our crops. The scourge of sickness afflicts us at whim.

Off with their heads!!

Middle Eye [after a snake has bitten one of the warriors]: He’s fucked.

You know like, eventually, they all are.

Seven: What are they?
Jaguar Paw: They bring men.
Seven: Should we go to them?
Jaguar Paw: We must go to the forest. To seek a new beginning.

Meanwhile he still has a spearhead buried in his chest. You can see it sticking out of him. Cue Charlie and the Proposition.

[iambiguous]

Ludwig Wittgenstein

“It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed ‘Wisdom.’ And then I know exactly what is going to follow: ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

That's why the gods invented bonfires.

I really do think with my pen, because my head often knows nothing about what my hand is writing.

What exactly is the equivalent of the pen here? If not ink...then what?

If someone does not believe in fairies, he does not need to teach his children 'There are no fairies'; he can omit to teach them the word 'fairy'.

Next up: If someone does believe in fags?

Think, for example, of the words which you perhaps utter in this space of time. They are no longer part of this language. And in different surroundings the institution of money doesn’t exist either.

Well, other than for all practical purposes, perhaps.

The aspect of things that are most important to us are hidden because of their familiarity and simplicity.

Hint: It starts with a "d".

This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it--- or similar thoughts. It is therefore not a text-book. Its object would be attained if it afforded pleasure to one who read it with understanding.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

This book. And of course the other one.
As for understanding both, that's what the "serious philosophers" are for. Technically as it were.

[iambiguous]

Since I spent almost the entirety of my time in Vietnam at two MACVs [Lam Son and Song Be], I never actually thought of myself as belonging to a platoon. I was a 72B20 so I was part of the “communications team.” On the other hand, Song Be
was way, way out in the middle of nowhere so the war was all around us. In fact, the entire compound we were stationed at was virtually destroyed. We actually had to move into a recently completed ARVN compound. And they hated us [especially me] more than the Commies.

Bottom line: I was in the war…but nothing like these guys were. I got medals...but not for the things these guys endured. But we had our own renditions of the folks that followed Barnes and the folks that followed Elias: The RA juicers and the US heads. Actually, though, I was drafted but chose to become RA. But that’s another mind-boggling tale in and of itself.

Even Oliver Stone however [in my view] has no political narrative to speak of here. Just vague conjecture about America kicking ass for too long…how it’s her turn now. Chris’s concluding rumination that, “looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us”, was [to me] in the general vicinity of psycho-babble bullshit. And it goes nowhere near the military industrial complex and the war economy.


Platoon

Gardner [seeing body bags]: Oh, man. Is that what I think it is?
Sergeant: All right, you cheese-dicks, welcome to the Nam. Follow me!

Next up Afghanistan and Iraq.
If you get my drift.

Chris [narrating]: Somebody once wrote, Hell is the impossibility of reason. That’s what this place feels like. Hell.

Okay, but [for some of us], we're not all that far behind them here.

Chris [in a letter to his Grandmother]: The hardest thing l ve ever done is go on point. Three times this week. I don’t know what l'm doing. A gook could be three feet in front ofme and I wouldn’t know it. I’m so tired. We get up at am, hump all day, camp around four or five, dig a foxhole, eat, then put out an all-night ambush or a three-man listening post. It’s scary cos nobody tells me how to do anything, cos I’m new. Nobody cares about new guys. They don’t even wanna know your name. A new guy’s life isn’t worth as much cos he hasn’t put his time in yet. They say if you’re gonna get killed in the Nam, it’s better to get it in the first few weeks. The logic being you don’t suffer that much. If you’re lucky, you stay in the perimeter at night. Then you pull a three-hour guard shift. Maybe you sleep three, four hours a night…But you don’t really sleep. I don’t think I can keep this up for a year, Grandma. I think I’ve made a big mistake coming here.

Let's not allow things to get that bad here, okay?

Chris [narrating]: Well, here I am, anonymous, with guys nobody really cares about. Most come from the end of the line, small towns you never heard of. Pulaski, Tennessee. Brandon, Mississippi. Pork Bend, Utah. Wampum, Pennsylvania. Two years’ high school’s about it. If they’re lucky, a job waiting for them back in a factory. Most have got nothing. They’re poor. They’re the unwanted.

A class thing. let's call it.

Barnes [to a dying Gardiner]: Shut up! Shut up and take the pain! Take the pain!

Cue the commo bunker. And that fucking grenade. And that was all in the first fucking hour, Charlie. 13 and a wake up!!!

King: Thirty nine and a wake-up, a pause for the cause, and I’m a gone motherfucker! Back to the world!
Crawford: I hear you, man. Broke 100 the other day.
King: No shit.
Crawford: Ninety-two left to go. April 17, heroes, man. Home to California. I’ll be sitting outside, checking out the babes on the beach. The surfing’s gonna be good.
King: March, man, in Tennessee. Sniff the pines, sniff that cross-mounted pussy down by the river. Whoo, hot damn! Hey, Taylor, how long you got left? Three hundred and what?
Chris Taylor: Thirty-two. Three hundred and thirty-two days.
King: Xin loi, my boy!
Crawford: I can’t even remember when I was 332, man. You gotta, like, count backwards or something. You know, like, you got 40 days in. I mean, think positive, dude.

Ask me about my own swagger stick there.
Just not the first one.

[iambiguous]

Platoon

King: Hey, Taylor. How in the fuck you get here anyway? Why, you look educated.
Chris: I volunteered for it.
King: You did what?
Chris: I volunteered. I dropped out of college, and told them I wanted the infantry, combat, and Vietnam.
Crawford: You volunteered for this shit, man?
Chris: You believe that?
King: You’s a crazy fucker, giving up college.
Chris: It didn’t make much sense. I wasn’t learning anything. I figured why should just the poor kids go off to war and the rich kids always get away with it?
King: Oh, I see. What we got here is a crusader.
Crawford: Sounds like it.
King: Shit. You gotta be rich in the first place to think like that. Everybody know the poor are always being fucked over by the rich. Always have, always will.

That was sort of me as well those first days. And then I met Danny. I'm still more or less his own rendition of who I think I am today. Mac introduced me to Marx and Lenin. But Danny introduced me to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

Elias [to Chris after he takes his first hit]: First time?
Chris: Yeah.
Elias: Then the worm has definitely turned for you, man. Feel good?
Chris: Yeah, it feels good. I got no pain in my neck now.
Elias: Feeling good’s good enough.

No doubt about it: Elias meet Mac.

Chris [narrating after the platoon finds Manny dead]: The village, which had stood for maybe 1,000 years, didn’t know we were coming that day. If they had, they would have run. Barnes was at the eye of our rage. And through him, our Captain Ahab. He would set things right again. That day, we loved him.

Never went there myself. But I clearly recognized it in others. And not just when I was stoned.

Elias [to Barnes after Barnes has killed a woman and holds a gun to a little girl]: You ain’t a firing squad, you piece of shit!

Then this part: https://youtu.be/QEv3zzKyiFQ?si=giMa2o8JzQm06rWv

Chris [seeing soldiers rape a girl]: Don’t do it! Don’t do it! You fuckers! What is this, huh?!
Bunny: What, you a homosexual, Taylor? She’s a fucking dink!
Chris: She’s a fucking human being, man!
Bunny: You’re a fucking cherry, Taylor!
Chris: Fucking animals! All of you, you’re fucking animals!
Bunny: You don’t belong in Nam, man! Ain’t your place at all!
Chris: You don’t fucking get it, do you, man? You just don’t fucking get it!

Unless, of course, he doesn't get it.

Rhah [to Chris]: You ain’t never been right about nothing! And dig this, you assholes, and dig it good… Barnes been shot seven times and he ain’t dead. Does that mean anything to you, huh? Barnes ain’t meant to die. The only thing that can kill Barnes is Barnes.

We'll see about that!

Barnes: Talking about killing? Y’all experts? Y’all know about killing? I’d like to hear about it, potheads.
[takes pipe and inhales drag]
Barnes: Why do you smoke this shit? So as to escape from reality? Me, I don’t need this shit. I am reality. There’s the way it ought to be. And there’s the way it is. Elias was full of shit. Elias was a crusader. Now, I got no fight with any man who does what he’s told, but when he don’t, the machine breaks down. And when the machine breaks down, we break down. And I ain’t gonna allow that in any of you. Not one.
[hands pipe back and spits]
Sgt. Barnes: Y’all love Elias. Oh, you wanna kick ass. Yeah. Well, here I am, all by my lonesome, and ain’t nobody gonna know. Six of you boys against me. Kill me. Huh. I shit on all of you.

What would I have done? Well, I still can't pin that part down yet.

King [watching the ambush party head off into the jungle]: I’m glad I ain’t going with them. Somewhere out there is the beast and he hungry tonight.

In other words, who is ambushing whom?

Chris: It’s the way the whole thing works. People like Elias get wasted. People like Barnes just go on making up the rules any way they want. So what do we do? Sit in the middle and suck on it. We just don’t add up to dry shit, King.
King: Whoever said we did, man? All you got to do is make it out of here, and it’s all gravy. Every day, the rest of your life, gravy.

Tell that to...me?
Over and over again and over at the Vet Center.

Barnes: Martin, get your boots on. And the next time I catch you spraying skeeter repellent on your fucking feet, I’m gonna court-martial your n***** ass.
Junior: Well, then court-martial me, motherfucker! Bust my ass. Send me to fucking Long Binh! You do your fucking worst! You white folks have got your last klick out of Junior!
Barnes: O’Neill, get me that centipede.
O’Neill: Sergeant?
Barnes: Yeah, that long, hairy, red and black bastard I found in the ammo crate. I’m gonna put it in this boy’s crotch, see if he can walk.
O’Neill: I remember now.

Still, they have to catch you first. And, well, I'll just leave it at that.

Bunny: You know, Junior, some of the things we done, man, I don’t feel like we done something wrong. Sometimes, man, I get this bad feeling. I told the padre the truth, man. I like it here. You get to do what you want. Nobody fucks with you. The only worry you got is dying. If that happens, you won’t know about it anyway. So what the fuck, man?
Junior: Shit! I gotta be in this hole with you, man?!

Better him than this guy: https://youtu.be/Ea2qb5qTeQI?si=ITXVw2GakpIyTiHb

Harris: Be advised. We’ve got zips in the wire down here.
Phantom Pilot: Roger your last, Bravo Six. Can’t run it any closer. We’re hot to trot and packing snake and nape, but we’re bingo on fuel.
Harris: For the record, it’s my call. Dump everything you’ve got left on my pos. I say again, expend all remaining in my perimeter. It’s a lovely fucking war. Bravo Six out.
Phantom Pilot: Roger your last, Bravo Six. We copy. It’s your call. Get them all in their holes down there. Hang tough, Bravo Six. We’re coming cocked for treetops.

Friendly fire it's called.

Barnes [to Chris]: Get me a medic. Go on, boy!
[Taylor refuses to budge, and aims an AK-47 at Barnes]
Barnes: Do it.
[Taylor shoots Barnes three times, killing him]

Man it always feels so fucking great watching that.

Click, of course. And, sure, if feeling like this really is the right way to react.

[iambiguous]

Science

“We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.” Bertrand Russell

Though, apparently, still only all the way up to the grave.

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” Thomas A. Edison

Start here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... SjDNeMaRoX

“We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.” Richard P. Feynman

Not that this hasn't been going on now for thousands of years.
In other words, progress in regard to what?

“No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.” Sigmund Freud

Dream on, Sigmund. If only up until now.

“I went to school in drag, in art school and my day was completely different because everybody thought I was a chick. You should see me as a chick. So I went as a girl, as like an experiment and it worked really well and everyone was really nice to me but I couldn't talk obviously...you know train conductors were really cool to me on my commute...HA! I looked hot as a chick!” Gerard Way

Another prevert!

“Millions saw the apple fall, Newton was the only one who asked why?” Bernard M. Baruch

Why? Because it never could have not fallen in the only possible world. On the other hand, why is that?

[iambiguous]

It’s hard for me to imagine how one would choose of one’s own free will to link pain and humiliation with sexual pleasure. But then the very first scene with the mother informs us of how one’s “free will” can become entangled in a past burgeoning with experiences that you or I might know little or nothing about.

And then there is this: No one humiliates her more than Mom does. And if she can’t get someone to humiliate her she can always humiliate herself. Or she can humiliate them. Or maybe that is what she was after all along?

But that is just one factor in her life. We can never really know of all the others. Even if this were “based on a true story”. The ones for example that would account for the scene in the sex shop booth. Personally, I can think of few things more repulsive. But who is to account for all the different ways human sexuality can be embodied. Still, that?!

Or the scene at the drive-in movie. Clearly her sexual neurosis goes way beyond masochism.

Anyway, it then becomes a matter of the extent to which we are made aware of these existential roots. And, in becoming aware, the extent to which we can [if we wish] change them.




The Piano Teacher [La Pianiste]

The Mother: Good evening, child.
Erika [dreading what’s to come]: Evening, mama.
The Mother [sarcastically] Home already? I’m so happy.
Erika: I’m going to bed.
The Mother: Not so fast.
Erika: Please. Leave me be. I’m tired.
The Mother: I can quite believe it. Your last pupil left 3 hours ago. Might I know where you’ve been all this time?
Erika [trying to go to her room]: Please.
The Mother: No, you don’t. Not until you tell me.
Erika: I went for a walk. Do you mind? I spent 8 hours in my cage. I was tired and needed some air.
The Mother: For 3 hours?
Erika Kohut: Absolutely.

You won't doubt it for a minute. Or, perhaps, for as long as she did? But then she is tearing at her mother’s hair. And then she’s collapsing in her arms apologizing.

Erika: Have you read Adorno on Schumann’s Fantasia in C Major
Walter: No.
Erika: He talks of his twilight. It’s not Schumann bereft of reason, but just before. A fraction before. He knows he’s losing his mind. It torments him but he clings on, one last time. It’s being aware of what it means to lose oneself before being completely abandoned.
Walter: You talk about things as if they were yours. It’s rare. And I think you know it.
Erika: Since my father died completely mad in Steinhof asylum, I can talk easily about the twilight of the mind, can’t I?

Another clue, perhaps. And not unlike all the ones I've dropped here, I might add.

Erika: You will receive my instructions. By letter. Or face to face. Or maybe over the phone.
[she looks down at Walter’s penis]
Erika: Now you can put it away. Facing me.

And of course the equivalent of that here. On the other hand, yours or mine?

Erika: Schubert’s dynamics range from scream to whisper not loud to soft. Anarchy hardly seems your forte. Why not stick to Clementi? Schubert was quite ugly. Did you know? With your looks, nothing can ever hurt you.
Walter: Why destroy what could bring us together?
Erika: Mannerism is no…
Walter [interrupting her]: Why can’t I look at you? Because if I do, I won’t resist the temptation to kiss you on the neck. May I kiss you on the neck?
[she walks away…but returns with her “letter of instructions”]

No, really, how far would you go? What if it was your penis being instructed?

Walter [reading the letter aloud]: “On the contrary, if I beg, tighten my bonds, please. Adjust the belt by at least 2 or 3 holes. The tighter the better. Then, gag me with some stockings I will have ready. Stuff them in so hard that I’m incapable of making any sound. Next, take off the blindfold, please, and sit down on my face and punch me in the stomach to force me to thrust my tongue in your behind.” Is this supposed to be serious? You’re making fun of me, aren’t you? You want a slap?

No, really, this shit actually happens. Though I've always needed cue cards myself.

Erika [kneeling before him]: If you want to hit me, hit me.
Walter [disgusted]: I don’t want to soil my hands. No one would touch your sort, even with gloves on. I swear I loved you. Now you repulse me. Fuck it.
[he walks out of the room]

Tomorrow? Exactly!

Erika: Do you like me calling you darling?
Walter: It’s absolutely marvelous.
Erika: You must be patient. I’ll give you all the names, we’ll play all the games you want.
Walter: You know you really stink? Sorry, you stink so much, no one will ever come close to you. You’d be better leave town until you don’t stink so bad. Rinse your mouth more often, not just when my cock makes you puke.

Or, sure, just skip those parts.

Walter: Just then, I was under your window and I was jerking off. That’s what you want, huh? You want to…
[making obscene signs]
Walter: …is that it? You’re a witch, a pervert! You want to give everyone your illness, don’t you? Not me!
Erika: I did apologise.
Walter: Fuck your stupid apologies!

And the ending? It is exactly what you expected and the very last thing you saw coming.

[iambiguous]

God

“We don't know the Devil's side of the story, because God wrote all the books.” J.A. Konrath

Want to hear my side of it?

“I have always considered "Pascal's Wager" a questionable bet to place, since any God worth believing in would prefer an honest agnostic to a calculating hypocrite.” Alan Dershowitz

Tell me about it. And how is it not just another pinhead rendition of fantasy football?

“God lives in the place of praise. If we want to be where He is, we need to go to His address.” Nancy Leigh Demoss

No, you take a leap of faith or place your wager. Then pray like hell. Unless, of ccourse, as with most things like this, you might as well just flip that coin.

“Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?” Yann Martel

And [of course] this part: what does He then say to you?

“Creation discloses a power that baffles our minds and beggars our speech. We are enamored and enchanted by God's power. We stutter and stammer about God's holiness. We tremble before God's majesty...and yet, we grow squeamish and skittish before God's love.” Brennan Manning

All revolving around this: a God, the God, my God.

“Sometimes when we say "God is silent," what's really going on is that he hasn't told the story the way we wanted it told. He will be silent when we want him to fill in the blanks of the story we are creating. But with his own stories, the ones we live in, he is seldom silent.” Paul E. Miller

Next up: "No problem. I'm in".

[iambiguous]

Shock radio or schlock radio? Bottom line: It wouldn’t exist at all if there were not millions upon millions of folks who thrive on it. They’re even willing to endure a gazillion commercials to tune in day in and day out.

Of course unlike the reactionaries that overpopulate talk radio today, Barry is somewhere [vaguely] on the liberal/left end of the political spectrum. When he’s not being entirely cynical…or even nihilistic.

So, is it exposing talk radio or just fanning the flames? Some will miss the irony altogether. And others will take it as literally as they take Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage. And who really knows how much irony is embedded in shows like theirs: cha ching.

Are there actually talk radio programs like this out there? I don’t know. It’s just a movie and hyperbole is built right into these things. But I surely did grow up around a lot of the callers.

On the other hand, the part about talk radio itself gets shunted aside as we bear witness to a man who is going off the rails. And we can only begin to guess if the program he airs is the engine or the caboose. Did it turn him into this monster or was the monster always there, looking for an outlet?

Based in part on the shooting of Alan Berg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_Radio_(film)


Talk Radio


Barry: The worst news of the night is that three out of four people in this country say they rather watch TV than have sex with their spouse. The second worst news is that some kids needed money for crack last night so you know what they did? They stuck a knife in the throat of an eighty year old grandmother down on Eulid Avenue. Right here in Dallas. One night, in one American city. Multiply that by hundreds of cities and what’ve you got: a country where culture means pornography and slasher films, where ethics mans payoffs, graft insider trading, where integrity means lying, whoring, intoxication. This country is in deep trouble, people! This country is rotten to the core and somebody better do something about it. I want you to take your hand out of the bowl of Fritos, throw away your National Inquirer, and pick up that phone - go ahead PICK IT UP! Hold it up to your face and dial 555-T-A-L-K. Open your mouth and tell 'em what we’re gonna do about the mess this country’s in. TALK RADIO, it’s the last neighborhood in town. People just don’t talk to each other anymore.

We've clearly proven that ourselves here.

Barry [to caller]: When are we going to admit that drug prohibition is not working in this country? I think we should legalize all drugs, as sinister as that sounds.
Caller: That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. Is it?
Barry: A junkie could go to a drugstore, sign his name, get the stuff for a buck…then he doesn’t have to rob or kill for his habit.
Caller: You cannot let children have drugs.
Barry: Why not? They’re gonna get it anyway. In America today we’re talking about shooting up in the eighth grade.
Caller: We have a moral obligation to the children.
Barry: Know what the most dangerous drug is?
Caller: It’s heroin.
Barry: No, it’s legal. It’s tobacco. It kills 350, 000 people a year. You know how much coke, crack, heroin, pot kill every year? Four thousand people. Will you listen to sense? Will you listen to logic, please? The only people who benefit from prohibition…are the gangsters makin’ the money on it, the politicians condemning it and gettin’ your vote. And who foots the bill? You, Rhonda Q Sucker!

Has that ever been resolved?

Barry: Hello, Chet. Hello?
Chet: You think you’re so smart. Hello? Why are you always talkin’ about the drugs and niggers…and homos and Jews?
Barry: You know what I hate? I hate people who tell me what they don’t wanna talk about. You don’t wanna talk about blacks and gays, why’d you bring them up? Sounds like you like talking about them. Tell me what you wanna talk about, or get off the phone.

Let's make that the policy here.
You know, someday.

Barry: Last summer I visited Germany. Wanted to take a look at Hitler’s homeland. Are you familiar with Adolf Hitler, Chet?
Chet: I’m familiar with Adolf Hitler.
Barry: I bet you are. I decided to visit the remains of a concentration camp on the outskirts of Munich: Dachau. You join a tour group, go out by bus, get out at the gate. It’s chilling. A sign over the gate says, "Arbeit Macht Frei. " It means, “Work will make you free” - something the Nazis told their prisoners. I’m walking around this concentration camp, and I see something on the ground. I picked it up. Guess what I found, Chet? A tiny Star of David. Very old. Who knows? It might’ve belonged to one of the prisoners at the camp. Maybe a small boy torn from his parents…as they were dragged off to the slaughterhouse. I kept that Star of David. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did. I keep it right here on my console. I like to hold it sometimes. In fact, well… I’m holding it right now. I like to hold it in my hand to give me courage. Maybe some of the courage that small boy had as he faced unspeakable evil…can enter me as I face the trials in my own life…as I face the cowardly and the narrow-minded. The bitter, bigoted people who hide behind anonymous phone calls…full of hatred and poisonous bile. The gutless, spineless people like you, Chet, who make me puke!

Then cut for commercials.

Chet: You think you’re so smart…You get the package I sent down to the station?
Barry: Package?
Chet: You got it, I know you did.

We're looking right at it.

Barry [to Dan after Chet claims to have mailed him a bomb]: I hope you’re not calling the cops, because if you are, I’m going to get really pissed off! Get off the phone, or I walk. Don’t waste my time man. Hang it or I walk! Hang it up!

Maybe next time?

[iambiguous]

Werner Herzog

“I think there should be holy war against yoga classes.”

Let's try to explain that.

Only if this were a film would I consider it real.

And [of course] the equivalent of that here.

The two men see pornographic pictures. Strangely coiled naked bodies, performing unchaste acts in groups, in hopeless configurations.

The "twilight world" let's call it.

A hunter, with a second hunter nearby, asked me what I was looking for up there. I said I liked his dog better than I liked him.

And yet he's still around!

Most details are factually correct; some are not. What was important to the author was something other than accuracy, some essence he thought he glimpsed when he encountered the protagonist of this story.

Let's say that I am the protagonist here...?

An ocean without monsters would be like sleep without dreams.

Next up: a philosophy forum without monsters.
Or, as some call them here, pinheads.

[Walker]

“Why, she’s just as cute as a button,” said the daring Amishman, while watching his first women's softball game.