Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

You might say he lived a full life. And, depending on which side of the moral and political divide you resided, he was either a sinner or a saint. Most legends are. If you believe in that sort of thing.

Let’s call them, say, as some did, Southern white trash.

They’re all still just narratives. What it really comes down to is the extent to which you get to make up your own. That’s always been more important than whatever the narrative happens to be. And some folks do get to make them up for all the other folks to follow.

There is always going to be a culture of celebrity wherever you go. It’s just that, back then, there weren’t nearly as many celebrities to go around. But then there were also a lot less folks to whorship them. There’s Jesse James before and Brad Pitt [who played him] now. And, push coming to shove, it is surprising how little really has changed. It’s just the technology that has blown it up to what it is today.

This film takes us into the world the outlaws knew among themselves. In some ways [as always] they were just like you and I. And in other ways, nothing of the sort. That’s the way it always works for all of us: There’s the inside looking out and the outside looking in. Sometimes it’s a fair resemblance and sometimes it’s not. But they can never be an exact match. Not even from the inside.

Is this the way Jesse James died? Doesn’t make much sense to me. It seemed more like a suicide when he took off his gun belt. But I don’t really know the “real history” here. The wiki account made it appear as though Jesse had no real suspicions of Bob at all. But the film seems to convey just the opposite.

According to Andrew Dominik, Brad Pitt had it put in his contract that the name of the movie was not to be changed.

Of all the Films made about Jesse James, his descendants have claimed that this is the most accurate. IMDb



The Assassination of Jesse James By the coward Robert Ford.

Narrator: He was growing into middle age, and was living then in a bungalow on Woodland Avenue. He installed himself in a rocking chair and smoked a cigar down in the evenings as his wife wiped her pink hands on an apron and reported happily on their two children. His children knew his legs, the sting of his mustache against their cheeks. They didn’t know how their father made his living, or why they so often moved. They didn’t even know their father’s name. He was listed in the city directory as Thomas Howard. And he went everywhere unrecognized and lunched with Kansas City shopkeepers and merchants, calling himself a cattleman or a commodities investor, someone rich and leisured who had the common touch. He had two incompletely healed bullet holes in his chest and another in his thigh. He was missing the nub of his left middle finger and was cautious, lest that mutilation be seen. He also had a condition that was referred to as “granulated eyelids” and it caused him to blink more than usual as if he found creation slightly more than he could accept. Rooms seemed hotter when he was in them. Rains fell straighter. Clocks slowed. Sounds were amplified. He considered himself a Southern loyalist and guerrilla in a Civil War that never ended. He regretted neither his robberies, nor the seventeen murders that he laid claim to. He had seen another summer under in Kansas City, Missouri and on September 5th in the year 1881, he was thirty-four-years-old.

Let's run this by the moral realists here.

Bob Ford [to Frank James]: Folks sometimes take me for a nincompoop on account of the shabby first impression I make, whereas I’ve always thought of myself as being just a rung down from the James Brothers. And I was hoping if I ran into you aside from those peckerwoods, I was hoping I could show you how special I am. I honestly believe I’m destined for great things, Mr. James. I’ve got qualities that don’t come shining through right at the outset, but give me a chance and I’ll get the job done- I can guarantee you that.

And what job might that be?

Dick: You can hide things in vocabulary.

And sometimes you never see them again.

Narrator: The James Gang committed over 25 bank, train and stagecoach robberies… from 1867 to 1881. But except for Frank and Jesse James…all the original members were now either dead or in prison.

Next up: all the orignial members here.

Jesse [to Bob]: I can’t figure it out. Do you wanna be like me…or do you wanna be me?

Same with me here, right?

Bob: You know what I’ve got right next to my bed? The Train Robbers, or a story of the James Boys, by R.W. Stevens. Many’s the night I’ve stayed up with my mouth opens and my eyes open, reading about your escapades in the Wide Awake Library.
Jesse: They’re all lies, you know.
Bob: 'Course they are.

'Course they might not be lies at all.

Governor Crittenden [to Bob]: Jesse James is nothing more than a public outlaw who’s made his reputation by stealing whatever he could and by killing whoever got in his way. You’ll hear some fools say he’s getting back at Republicans and Union men for wrongs his family suffered during the war, but his victims have scarcely ever been selected with reference to their political views. I’m saying his sins will soon find him out. I’m saying his cup of iniquity is full. I’m saying Jesse James is a desperate case and may require a desperate remedy.

Another "proposition" as it were.

Jesse: You ever consider suicide?
Charley: Can’t say that I have. There was always something else I wanted to do. Or my predicaments changed or I saw my hardships from a different slant; you know all what can happen. It never seemed respectable.
Jesse: I’ll tell you one thing that’s certain; you won’t fight dying once you’ve peeked over to the other side; you’ll no more want to go back to your body than you’d want to spoon up your own puke.

Let's hope so, okay?

Charley: Bob isn’t much more than a boy to most appearances, but there’s about two tons of sand in him and he’ll stand with his shooter when that’s what’s called for. And he’s smart too-he’s about as intricate as they come.
Jesse: You’re forgetting that I’ve already met the kid.

Oops.

Bob: They gave me ten days.
Charley: For what?
Bob: Arresting him.
Charley: You and me, huh?
Bob: It’s going to happen one way or another. It’s going to happen, Charley, and it might as well be us who get rich on it.
Charley: Bob, he’s our friend.
Bob: He murdered Ed Miller. He’s going to murder Liddil and Cummins if the chance ever comes. Seems to me Jesse’s riding from man to man, saying goodbye to the gang. Your friendship could put you under the pansies.
Charley: I’ll grind it fine in my mind, Bob. I can’t go any further than that, right now.
Bob: You’ll come around.
Charley: You think it’s all made up, don’t you? You think it’s all yarns and newspaper stories.
Bob: He’s just a human being.

On the other hand, aren't we all?

Narrator: Jesse slept with Bob in the children’s room that night. And Bob remained awake. He could see that there was a gun on the nightstand. He could imagine its cold nickel inside his grip…its two-pound weight reached out and aimed.
Bob: I need to go to the privy.
Jesse: You think you do, but you don’t.

Ominous enough for you.

Narrator: And so it went, Jesse was increasingly cavalier…merry, moody, fey…unpredictable. He camouflaged his depressions and derangements with masquerades of extreme cordiality, courtesy…and goodwill towards others. But even as he jested, or tickled his boy in the ribs Jesse would look over at Bob with melancholy eyes…as if the two were meshed in an intimate communication. Bob was certain that the man had unriddled him…had seen through his reasons for coming along…that Jesse could forecast each of Bob’s possible moves and inclinations and was only acting the innocent in order to lull Bob into stupid tranquility and miscalculation.

You tell me.

Jesse [his last words]: Don’t that picture look dusty?

He wondered what his own would be.

Narrator: The resulting prints sold for 2 dollars apiece and were the models for the lithographed covers on a number of magazines. Soon a thousand strangers were making spellbound pilgrimages to the cottage…or were venerating the iced remains in Seidenfaden’s cooling room. The man who offered 30,000 dollars for the body of President Garfield’s assassin sent a telegram to City Marshal Enos Craig offering 50,000 for the body of Jesse Woodson James… so that he could go around the country with it…or at least sell it to P.T. Barnum for his Greatest Show on Earth. Another photograph was taken of the renowned American bandit… nestled in his bed of ice. And it was this shot that was most available in sundries and apothecaries…to be viewed in a stereoscope alongside the sphinx the Taj Mahal, and the catacombs of Rome.

Bob and Charlie parlay their fame into a stage production of the assassination:

Narrator: By October of 1883, Bob Ford could be identified correctly by more citizens than could the president of the United States.

Is that good thing or not?

Narrator: By his own approximation, Bob assassinated Jesse James over 800 times. He suspected no one in history had ever so often or so publicly recapitulated an act of betrayal.

Don't look at me.

Dorothy: Why did you kill him?
Bob: Well, he was gonna kill me.
Dorothy: So you were scared and that’s the only reason?
Bob: Yeah. And the reward money.
[long pause]
Dorothy: Do you want me to change the subject?
Bob: You know what I expected? Applause.
[laughs to himself]
Bob: I was only 20 years old then. I couldn’t see how it would look to people. I was surprised by what happened. They didn’t applaud.

Maybe next time.

Narrator: He was ashamed of his persiflage, his boasting, his pretensions of courage and ruthlessness; he was sorry about his cold-bloodedness, his dispassion, his inability to express what he now believed was the case- that he truly regretted killing Jesse, that he missed the man as much as anybody and wished his murder hadn’t been necessary. Even as he circulated his saloon he knew that the smiles disappeared when he passed by. He received so many menacing letters that he could read them without any reaction except curiosity. He kept to his apartment all day, flipping over playing cards, looking at his destiny in every King and Jack.

Fractured and fragmented, let's call it.

Narrator: Edward O’Kelly came up from Bachelor at one P.M. on the 8th. He had no grand scheme. No strategy. No agreement with higher authorities. Nothing but a vague longing for glory, and a generalized wish for revenge against Robert Ford. Edward O’Kelly would be ordered to serve a life sentence in the Colorado Penitentiary for second degree murder. Over seven thousand signatures would eventually be gathered in a petition asking for O’Kelly’s release, and in 1902, Governor James B. Ullman would pardon the man. There would be no eulogies for Bob, no photographs of his body would be sold in sundries stores, no people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral cortege, no biographies would be written about him, no children named after him, no one would ever pay twenty-five cents to stand in the rooms he grew up in. The shotgun would ignite, and Ella Mae would scream, but Robert Ford would only lay on the floor and look at the ceiling, the light going out of his eyes before he could find the right words.

How about we deconstruct that?

[iambiguous]

Not often that you get a remake of a foreign film that is actually equal to [or even better than] the original. Nine times out of ten it’s more like the remake of, say, Tzameti 13.

But, as noted below, Hollywood does insist on making it all a bit less explicit…and grim. But still no less compelling. It’s easy to imagine flawed characters like this. It’s easy to imagine them becoming entangled in circumstances like this.

This one is all Al Pacino though. He nails insomnia. In particular how it can play havoc with the rest of your life. I know because I have been there myself. And not just once.

And let’s face it there aren’t too many jobs where a chronic lack of sleep can spell disaster for your judgment like being a police detective. It might, for example, get someone killed. Or send an innocent man to prison.

What makes this “procedural” most interesting of course is the manner in which the cop and the killer exchange roles as the cat and the mouse. Who has the most to lose if the whole truth comes out. But what is ever the whole truth? “Just the facts, Ma’am”, sometimes doesn’t cut in in this day and age.

Here he does the right thing. But it could easily have gone the other way. Or been construed by someone else as the wrong thing.

Some more explicit or dark details were changed from the original Norwegian film Insomnia such as: the dead dog Dormer shoots in this film is alive in the original; Dormer does some reckless driving to scare the dead girl’s friend, in the original he grabs her between the legs; Dormer and the hotel clerk share their thoughts a lot in the film, in the original they flirt a lot and he almost rapes her; the extremely downbeat ending in the original has been changed. IMDb


Insomnia

Dormer: So how far away is the school?
Det. Burr: It’s 10:00, Detective Dormer.
Dormer: You bet.
Det. Burr: At night.
Dormer: So when does it get dark here?
Det. Burr: It doesn’t. Not this time of year.
Dormer: Yeah, I heard about that.

He said, ominously.

Dormer: Randy, this whole thing you’re doing, you know, this “fuck the world” act. Now that might work with your mama. It might even work with a couple of these local cops, who have known you long enough to figure you’re too dumb ever to kill anyone without leaving a couple of witnesses and a signed confession. Ain’t gonna work with me, because I know things, you understand? I know you beat your girlfriend. I know she was seeing somebody else. Somebody she might have even gone to see after she walked out on you Friday night. Now, you’re gonna tell us who that somebody might be? Or are you so fucking stupid, you’re going to leave yourself as the last person to see Kay Connell alive?

The third degree?

Dormer [to Warfield]: Don’t presume to know what happened. You weren’t here. But then, you never are, are you? You’re always safe behind some desk, reading your bullshit reports. And that is why I have nothing but contempt for you. You and all the assholes like you risk nothing, spend all day sucking the marrow out of real cops when you never had the balls to be one yourself.

This is an age old conflict. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t.

Finch [on phone]: Will, what are you doing? I try to help and you’re running around like a maniac. Were you gonna kill me? How would you explain that?
Dormer: No one gets too upset when child murderers are brought in feet first.
Finch: There’s no evidence I killed Kay. You only know because I told you.

So, who is the cat here and who is the mouse?

Finch: Killing changes you. You know that. It’s not guilt. I never meant to do it. It’s like an awareness. If life is so important, how could it be so fucking fragile?

New thread?

Dormer: You trying to impress me? Because you got the wrong guy. Killing that girl made you feel special but you’re not. You’re the same pathetic freak I’ve been dealing with now for 30 years. You know how many of you I caught with your pants down?
Finch: I never touched her like that.
Dormer: No, but you wanted to. Now you wish you had. Best you could do is clip her nails. Now you’re so different. You don’t get it, do you? You’re my job. You’re what I’m paid to do. You’re about as mysterious to me as a blocked toilet is to a fucking plumber. Reasons for doing what you did? Who gives a fuck?

Cynical enough or should he go further?

Finch: Motivations are everything, Will. What did you see through the fog? I saw pretty clearly, didn’t I? I saw you take aim and shoot your partner in the chest. I heard him say, “Get away from me!” Why? Anything to do with Internal Affairs investigation? All that tension in your department?
Dormer: You think I’m that easy?
Finch: I’m saying that’s how it looks. Maybe even how it feels. How did it feel when you found out it was Hap? Guilt? Relief? Suddenly, you’re free and clear. Did you think about it before that moment? What would it be like if he wasn’t there anymore? Doesn’t mean you did it on purpose though.

Maybe even fractured and fragmented.

Finch [on phone with Dormer]: Kay called and said she and Randy had had a fight. She wanted to come over and talk, meet me at her place. She comes over, she’s distraught, a little drunk. She starts telling me how Randy and Tanya were carrying on. I only wanted to comfort her, hold her I kissed her and got a little exited and then she started laughing at me. She didn’t stop laughing. Did you ever have someone laugh at you, Will? You know, when you’re really vulnerable, laughing their ass off at you? Someone you thought respected you? Ever have that happen, Will? I just wanted to stop her laughing that’s all. And then you know, I hit her. A couple of times, just to stop her. Let her know, a little respect. Randy did it all the time, I think she even liked it when he did it. I mean she never blamed him, she never wanted to leave him. But now I do it, she starts screaming she wouldn’t stop. She’s terrified, she’s screaming her head off, I put my hand over her mouth. And then I get really scared, I mean, I’m scared shitless, more scared than I’ve ever been. And I’m more scared than her, and then everything’s clear. There’s no turning back. After that, I was calm. Real calm. You and I share a secret. We know how easy it is to kill someone. That ultimate taboo, it doesn’t exist outside our minds. I didn’t murder her. I killed her. But it just ended up that way.

Hell, even he believes it by now.

Dormer: There’s this guy, Wayne Dobbs, 24. Works part time at a copy store. Every day he watches this 8-year-old boy…waiting for his carpool across the street.
Rachel: This is one of your cases?
Dormer: Yeah. Hap and me. A year and a half ago. For six months, he watches this kid. Finally gets up the nerve. He goes down, grabs that boy before the carpool comes takes him back to his apartment and keeps him there for three days. He tortures him and makes him do things. And, finally, he’s had enough. He gets a rope. He hangs the boy in a storage space in the basement of the build ng. But he didn’t do it right. Little boy’s neck didn’t break, so he dangled there for a while and then died finally from the shock. Landlord found the body five days later. The second I met this guy, Dobbs, I knew he was guilty. That’s what I do. That’s my job. I assign guilt. You find the evidence, figure out who did it, and then you go get them and put them away. This time there wasn’t enough evidence. And it’s reasonable doubt to a jury because a jury never met a child murderer before. But I have.
[pause]
Dormer: Anyway, I went and took some blood samples from the boy’s dead body and I planted them in Dobbs’ apartment. I could feel it there. This is gonna catch up with me. I don’t do things like that.
Rachel: So how did it catch up with you?
Dormer: Internal Affairs is coming down on our department. Hap, he was gonna cut a deal and bring me straight into it. They would’ve reopened Dobbs’ case, he would’ve walked. Now that won’t happen. And I don’t know how I feel about that. But Dobbs was guilty. Dobbs needed to be convicted. So the end justifies the means. Right?

Sometimes, let's say, there is absolutely no dobt about it.

Rachel: I’m in no position to judge.
Dormer: Why not?
Rachel: Two kinds of people live in Alaska. The ones who are born here, and the ones who come here to escape something. I wasn’t born here.
Dormer: Why don’t you tell me what you think? Here. Now. In this room. You and me. Please.
Rachel: I guess it’s about what you thought was right at the time. Then, what you’re willing to live with.

What are you willing to live with?

Det. Burr: You shot Detective Eckhart. And Finch saw you do it. Did you mean to shoot Hap?
Dormer: I don’t know anymore. I don’t know. I couldn’t see him through the fog, but when I got up close he was afraid of me and he thought I meant to do it, so maybe I did. I just don’t know anymore.

Of course, we do.

Det. Burr: Nobody needs to know. You didn’t mean to do it, and I know that, even if you don’t.
[She tries to throw the shell casing into the water, but he stops her]
Dormer: No, don’t…
Det. Burr: Why? Why?
Dormer: Don’t lose your way.

Anyone here still not lost?

Dormer: Let me sleep. Just let me sleep.

And the Academy Award for the best performance as an insomniac goes to...forget about it.

[attofishpi]

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[iambiguous]

Ottessa Moshfegh from My Year of Rest and Relaxation

If, when I woke up in June, life still wasn't worth the trouble, I would end it. I would jump. This was the deal I made.

Did that once myself. And it's a miracle I'm still around.

They were all so jovial and relaxed with one another, fraternal even. Maybe I was envious of that. They had lives—that was evident.

Don't you just hate that?

I’d been stupid to believe that employment would add value to my life.

On the other hand, the bills don't go away.

What next? I couldn't imagine.

Let's imagine it for her.

The truth was probably that they were just afraid of vaginas, afraid that they’d fail to understand one as pretty and pink as mine, and they were ashamed of their own sensual inadequacies, afraid of their own dicks, afraid of themselves. So they focused on “abstract ideas” and developed drinking problems to blot out the self-loathing they preferred to call “existential ennui.” It was easy to imagine those guys masturbating to Chloë Sevigny, to Selma Blair, to Leelee Sobieski. To Winona Ryder.

Uh, let's not go there, okay?

“Oh, shut up, Reva."
"I love you."
Maybe she did, and that's why I hated her.

That can't be good.

[iambiguous]

As with a film like The Color Purple, Precious stirred up conflicting reactions from within the black community.

There were folks who applauded it for portraying an experience they see as [for some] true to life. There were folks who condemned it for perpetuating what they see to be flagrant racial sterotypes.

It would seem that a case could be made for either point of view.

Not many characters like Precious around. And certainly not many of them around who play the leading role. But it is hard to say with any degree of certainty what it means to be “good” or “bad” when you are born and raised in an environment like this. The mother and the father—what is their own backstory? What sort of childhood did they have? Some conservatives like to insist that none of it matters…just as some liberals will insist it is the only thing that does matter. Has that been resolved yet?

How bad is it? Well, for one thing, her father rapes her. She had a baby [his] born with Downs syndrome. Claireece calls her “Mongo”. That’s short for Mongoloid, she says. Her mother is nothing less than an abomination at times. And her whole world revolves around eating, watching televison, conning social services and viciously abusing Claireece. Claireece is morbidly obese. She’s pregnant again with her daddy’s child. Her daddy has AIDS.

For all practical purposes, it is way, way beyond my capacity to grasp.

Over 400 girls were interviewed from across the country for the part of Precious. Gabourey Sidibe was cast a mere six weeks before the start of shooting after being forced to the audition by friends.

In the final confrontation scene, Mariah Carey was not directed to cry; rather, she was supposed to react with stone faced horror, just as Ms. Weiss does in the novel. However, Carey was so overpowered by the performances of Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe, she broke down in tears and ducked her head away from the camera as not to ruin the scene. Director Lee Daniels loved Carey’s natural reaction and kept the shot of her wiping her tears in the final cut. IMDb


Precious

Claireece: [voiceover] My name is Claireece “Precious” Jones. I wish I had a light-skinned boyfriend with real nice hair. And I wanna be on the cover of a magazine. But first I wanna be in one of them BET videos. Momma said I can’t dance. Plus, she said who wants to see my big ass dancing, anyhow?

Well, to be absolutely honest...?

Mrs. Lichtenstein [principal] Hello, Claireece. Are you pregnant?
[Claireece looks away]
Mrs. Lichtenstein: You’re 16; you’re still in Junior High School; and you’re pregnant with your second child. Is that correct?
[No reply]
Mrs. Lichtenstein: Are you pregnant, again?
[Mrs. Lichtenstein huffs, exacerbated]
Mrs. Lichtenstein: What happened Claireece?
Claireece: I had sex, Mrs. Lichtenstein.
Mrs. Lichtenstein: Do you have any other thoughts about your situation, Claireece?
[Claireece shrugs]
Mrs. Lichtenstein: Claireece?
Claireece: Am I in trouble?
[No reply]
Claireece: Thank you, but I have to get back to math.
[She gathers her things to leave]
Mrs. Lichtenstein: Sit down, Claireece. Sit down right now!
[Claireece sits back down]
Mrs. Lichtenstein: We should have a parent-teacher conference with you, me and your mother.
Clarieece: My mother’s busy.
Mrs. Lichtenstein: Alright. How about if I come to your house?
Claireece: If I were you, I wouldn’t.

I'm with Clarieece here.

Claireece: I hate crackheads. Nobody ever rings the bell but crackheads.
[Claireece walks over to the intercom]
Claireece: Stop ringing the godamn buzzer you motherfuckers!

Nope. Not this time.

Mother: Who is that, Claireece.
Claireece: The white bitch from school.

Nope, no motherfuckers this time around.

Mary: Precious! PRECIOUS! PRECIOUS! Get down here, bitch! You brought that white bitch up in my house? You wrong to bring that bitch up in here!
Claireece: I ain’t bring her in here.
Mary: Well, why the fuck did she ring my buzzer? I can’t hear you, Precious. Since you got so much mothafuckin’ mouth and you gon’ bring a bitch up in my house… why did that bitch ring my goddamn buzzer?
Clarieece: I ain’t tell her to come here!
Mary: See, I think right now you think you becomin’ a grown woman. ‘Cause that shit you pulled in the kitchen… I shoulda fucked you up. But I let you walk away. And I let you get yourself together. But, bitch, I’mma let you know, don’t you ever pull that shit again. That’ll be your last mothafuckin’ day stayin here. I promise you that. You gon’ send a white bitch to my mothafuckin’ buzzer? Talkin’ ‘bout some higher education? You’re a dummy, bitch! You will never know shit! Don’t nobody want you, don’t nobody need you! You done fucked around and fucked my mothafuckin’ man? And had two mothafuckin’ children? And one of ‘ems a goddamn animal, runnin’ ‘round lookin’ crazy as a mothafucka? Bitch, you know what? See, I think you… I think you tryin’ me. I think you tryin’ to fuck with me. You fuckin’ with my money… and you gon’ stand up there and look at me like you a mothafuckin’ woman? I’mma show you what real women do, bitch. See, you don’t know what real mothafuckin’ women do. Real mothafuckin’ women sacrafice! I shoulda aborter your mothafuckin’ ass! 'Cause you ain’t shit! I knew it when the doctor put you in my goddamn hand you wasn’t a goddamn thing! You wear that smirk on your face, bitch? Get outta…!
[throws object at Claireece]
Mary: Now smile about that! Smile about that, you fat bi -
[Claireece kicks a shoe at Mary]
Mary: I’mma kill you, bitch!
[Mary chases Claireece up the stairs]

It was a normal day.

Claireece: [Taking an assessment test] There’s always something wrong with these tests. These tests paint a picture of me with no brain. These tests paint a picture of me and my mother, my whole family as less than dumb. Just ugly black grease, need to be wiped away, find a job for. Sometimes I wish I was dead. I’ll be okay, I guess, ‘cause I’m lookin’ up. Lookin’ for something to fall on me…a desk, a couch, tv… my mom, maybe.

Next up: Daddy.

Mrs. Weiss: You know, let’s talk about your father. Tell me about your relationship with him.
Claireece: I don’t know much more than you do, Mrs. White.
Mrs. Weiss: That’s Mrs. “Weiss.” Talk to me about the little you do know about your father. It is important, whether you know it or not.
Claireece: He give me his baby and my one before it, but I don’t never see him…
Mrs. Weiss: Wait, what did you say he gave you?
Claireece: Nothing.
Mrs. Weiss: Wait, Clareece, you just said your father gave you something…
Claireece: Nothing.
Mrs. Weiss: No, I HEARD you just say…
Claireece: You didn’t hear shit.
Mrs. Weiss: I heard you just say your father…
Claireece: You didn’t hear shit like it!
Mrs. Weiss: I don’t care, honey! I need to know this!
Claireece: I didn’t say nothing like it! Let’s move ON!
Mrs. Weiss: I need this to HELP you…
Claireece [Angrily]: Bitch, can we change the subject?
Mrs. Weiss [tossing her file aside]: Okay. Well, I’ll see you next time then. Or maybe you’ll see someone else. But you’re going to have to talk to someone if you want your check, sweetie.

Now, they've got her!

Claireece [to Mrs. Weiss]: I been going to the doctor, too. It’s nice. Msw. Rain fall out when she found out I ain’t never been to no doctor before. Don’t know how I had my first baby on the kitchen floor with my momma kicking me upside the head. Them the kind of things you talking about when you say, say whatever come to my mind?

In other words, don't get her started.

Mother: Your daddy dead. He had the AIDS.

So, is this rock bottom or not?

Mrs. Weiss [angrily]: You just sat there, shut up, and let him abuse your daughter.
Mary [hysterically in tears]: I did not want him to abuse my daughter! I did not want him to hurt her! I didn’t want him to do nothing to her!
Mrs. Weiss: But you ALLOWED him to hurt her! You did!
Mary: But, those… those things she told you I did to her? Who… who… who else was going to love me? WHO else was going to touch me? WHO else was going to make me feel good about myself? You sit there and you judge me, and you write them notes on your notepad, because you think you know who I am!

The fucking "system".
Though what if it is the best of all possible worlds?

Claireece [to her mother]: You know to this day, I never even knew who you was, not even after all them things you did. Maybe I was too stupid. Maybe I just didn’t want to. You ain’t gonna see me no more.

What, no sequel?

Ms. Rain: You guys know that you are in the ABE class. This is not GED. This is to get you ready for your GED.

Can you believe it?

Ms.Weiss [a socialworker]: I need to know about your homelife and your mother. I need to know what it’s like where you live.
Claireece: My mother’s like a whale on the couch. She say I eat all the time, but she always making me eat. Then she call me a fat mess. The only time she ever leaves is to play her numbers…watch TV, eat, watch TV, eat again. Can you help out with that?

Place your bets!

[iambiguous]

duplicate post

[iambiguous]

This is a fictionalized account of a true story. How fictional?

From IMDb:

Although the movie is based on a true story, it has been indicated by Billy Hayes himself 20 years after its release, that what is presented in the movie is a very exaggerated version of what happened to him in the prison in Istanbul, Turkey. Turkish government officials greatly resented the portrayal of their country in the movie, and made this known to the media in general after the film’s release. Reportedly, Billy Hayes told ‘The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’ that this film “depicts all Turks as monsters”. In 2004, screen-writer Oliver Stone apologized for the portrayal of Turkey, Turkish prisons and the Turkish people in the movie.

It seems Oliver Stone was more intent on bashing Turks than anything else.

In some respects, we have this sort of thing going on right here. What really seems to count [for a few] is not all the bads things that folks can do but how it always seems to be certain kind of people that do it. The Muslims, for example. Or folks from an “inferior” race.

Ironically, Billy Hayes goes to prison for drugs and then once inside the prison he finds that drugs abound. Along with the brutality. But at least he was imprisoned with others from a “Western” background.

But then there’s the place they send you if you are deemed to be “criminally insane”. Grim and ghastly barely describes it. How far then is the gap between the way it is portrayed here and the way it “really is".

In an attempt to really get into character, John Hurt stopped bathing for most of the 53-day schedule and reeked so badly in time, most of his colleagues avoided being close to him.

Producer David Puttnam has mixed feelings about this project. He was happy with the finished cut but when he saw the film with a paying audience at a late night showing in New York, he was deeply disturbed by the audience’s reaction to some scenes. They were cheering and clapping instead of the desired effect of being repulsed by the characters actions. IMDb


Midnight Express

Tex: Boy oh boy, you picked a bad time to fly, Billy. There are guerrillas all over the place blowing up planes and all. They hit four planes in four days. But I guess you young people don’t read the news anymore. That, and with our people back home kicking up a shitstorm about the flow of heroin from Turkey…
Billy: I didn’t have heroin. It was just a little hashish.
Tex: That doesn’t matter. A drug’s a drug.
Billy: It was my first time. It was only two kilos.
Tex: It doesn’t matter if it was two kilos or 200 kilos. The Turks love catching foreigners. They want to show the rest of the world that they’re fighting the drug trade.
Billy Hayes: Who are you? What’s your name?
Tex: That’s not important.
Billy Hayes: Are you with the American consulate here in Istanbul?
Tex: Something like that.

Or actually something not at all like that.

Tex [with a revolver pointed at Billy’s head]: You seem like a nice guy, Billy. I really do feel sorry for you. But if you try anything or try to run away again, I’ll blow your fucking brains out!

A bluff, my ass!

Billy: Who are the kids?
Jimmy: Kids? They’re not kids. They’re local street urchins the Turks lock up here in a seperate wing for the juveniles. Boys as young as nine or ten years old. They’re thieves, drug dealers, muggers, con artists, pickpockets, rapists, murderers… you name it, they do it. Don’t trust any of them!

Turkish Runts?!

Billy [voiceover in a letter to Susan]: To the Turks, everything is “shurla burla”, which means “like this, like that”. You never know what will happen. All foreigners are “ayip”, they’re considered dirty. So is homosexuality, it’s a big crime here, but most of them do it every chance they get. There are about thousand things that are “ayip”, for instance, you can stab or shoot somebody below the waist but not above because that’s intent to kill. So everyone runs around stabbing everyone else in the ass. That’s what they call “Turkish revenge”. I know it must all sound crazy to you, but this place is crazy.

Any "ayips" still posting here?

Jimmy: The second way out, I need your guy’s help, and that’s under.
Billy: You mean tunnel? Are you serious?
Max: This is Shagmahr prison, not Stalag 17.
Jimmy: Well that’s where you’re wrong fuckface, 'cause it’s already built!

That does make all the difference in the world of course.

Billy and Erich: Prison…monastery…cloister…cave. Prison…monastery…cloister…cave. Prison…monastery…cloister…cave.
Billy: Prison…

Prison it is then.

Billy [to the Turkish court]: What is a crime? What is punishment? It seems to vary from time to time and place to place. What’s legal today is suddenly illegal tomorrow because society says it’s so, and what’s illegal yesterday is suddenly legal because everybody’s doin’ it, and you can’t put everybody in jail. I’m not saying this is right or wrong. I’m just saying that’s the way it is. But I’ve spent 3 1/2 years of my life in your prison, and I think I’ve paid for my error, and if it’s your decision today to sentence me to more years, then I…

In one ear and out the other, as often as not.

Billy [to the prosecutor]: I just wish for once that you could be in my shoes, Mr. Prosecutor, and then you would know something that you don’t know: mercy! That the concept of a society is based on the quality of that mercy; its sense of fair play; its sense of justice! But I guess that’s like asking a bear to shit in the toilet.

Pretty much.

Billy [to the judges]: For a nation of pigs, it sure is funny you don’t eat’em! Jesus Christ forgave the bastards, but I can’t! I hate! I hate you! I hate your nation! And I hate your people! And I fuck your sons and daughters because they’re pigs! You’re a pig! You’re all pigs…

That ought to get him out.

Ahmet [at the wheel]: Billy, you’ll get in trouble if you walk this way. A good Turk always walks to the right. Left is Communist, right is good.

Wow, just like here!

Ahmet [who claims to have studied philosophy at Harvard for “many, many years”]: Where are you going? Why don’t you walk the wheel with us? What is the matter my American friend? What has upset you? Oh! I know. The bad machine doesn’t know that he’s a bad machine. You still don’t believe it. You still don’t believe you’re a bad machine? To know yourself is to know God, my friend. The factory knows, that’s why they put you here. You’ll see… You’ll find out… In time, you’ll know.

Unless he escapes first.

[iambiguous]

Meaning

"God, you poets are full of shit. You have no idea what half the words you worship mean.” Lily King

Then those who "are so good with words, and at keeping things vague".

“Eternally inexorable and unconcerned is Fate, a mere heartless trader in men’s joys and woes.” Herman Melville

Your Fate may be different. And that's even if you have one.

"In a way, the futile excuses many people use to cover their superstitions are demolished. They think it is enough to have some sort of religious fervor, however ridiculous, not realizing that true religion must be according to God's will as the perfect measure; that He can never deny Himself and is no mere spirit form to be changed around according to individual preference.” John Calvin

Unless, of course, he's wrong. In other words, he's not a True Christian

“...we, and I mean humans, are meaning makers. We do not discover the meanings of mysterious things, we invent them. We make meanings because meaninglessness terrifies us above all things. More than snakes, even. More than falling, or the dark. We trick ourselves into seeing meanings in things, when in fact all we are doing is grafting our meanings onto the universe to comfort ourselves. We gild the chaos of the universe with our symbols. To admit that something is meaningless is just like falling backward into darkness." Benjamin Hale

Gee, doesn't that sound familiar?

"Where you read a book and when and with whom can make a big difference.” Robert Coles

Sometimes all the difference in the world.

“...not all encounters with the world affect the mind equally. Studies have demonstrated that if the brain appraises an event as "meaningful," it will be more likely to be recalled in the future.” Daniel J. Siegel

Click, for example.

[iambiguous]

All the usual themes: love, sex, commitment…family, friends…God, religion. I’m thinking a new Woody Allen. Never panned out that way though. After this rather wonderfully witty inaugral performance the stuff that came later was, well, more forgettable. I can’t even recall a title from all others. And I did watch a few.

But within the context of this particular demographic this one is still a gem. What’s a man to do when he wants both lasting love and every attractive woman he bumps into? In this culture?!

There are just people who need to have a [more or less] liturgical moral structure in their lives. They need this in order to talk themselves into believing that there are in fact right behaviors and wrong behaviors. Others let this revolve entirely around whatever brings them pleasure or pain. But most of us fall somewhere inbetween. We make those important distinctions between harming and not harming others but we recognize that sometimes the sheer complexity of life envelops us in all manner of more… ambiguous contexts. We do the best we can to abide by one or another “code” of behavior.

In the end, it’s all Hollywood. But only a fool would imagine it’s really the end.

Edward Burns gave Robert Redford a tape of this film in a NYC elevator and begged him to watch it. Redford said that Burns looked like a panhandler. “I get that all the time, but I thought, what the hell, that’s what it’s all about.” He watched it, liked it, and the film went on to win at Sundance.

The most profitable film on a percentage basis in 1995. It cost only $200,000 to make and grossed $13.4 million, 67 times its budget. IMDb


The Brothers McMullen

Barry [after someone mentions their father]: Speaking of our favorite wife beating, child abusing alcoholic, I went to the cemetery today.
Patrick: And?
Barry: And I’m happy to report that he’s still dead.

I figured as much myself.

Jack: I’m pretty much a one-woman kind of guy.
Ann: That’s what my ex-husband first said when I met him.
Jack: And he wasn’t?
Ann: No, he was. I just wasn’t a one-man kind of girl.

I figured as much myself.

Patrick: No, I can’t do it. I can’t live with a woman I’m not married to.
Susan: We’ll be married eventually, so what’s the difference?
Patrick: The difference is we’re not married now. Therefore, I would living in sin.
Susan: We’re not living in sin! We love each other!
Patrick: What does that mean? Listen, there’s no amendment to the rule—“living in sin lest tou love”, okay? I can’t do it. That’s the bottom line.
Susan: Look, I know what you’re doing. You just don’t want to make a commitment, do you?
Patrick: No, it’s not that, I swear.
Susan: So what is it?
Patrick: It’s I’m a Catholic, that’s what it is. And there are certain rules and regulations you have to live by. I’m living by them! Hey, for the same reason you won’t eat a bacon cheeseburger, huh? This is a part of my baggage.

She’s Jewish. But he doesn’t seem to have any problems rationalizing fornication.

Jack: Patrick…are you ready to spend the rest of your life having sex with this one woman? I mean, she’ll be the last woman that you get to see completely naked and be allowed to touch. That’s something to think about.

More to the point, however, is it something to act on?

Patrick: What I’m talking about is real love. I mean two people mapping out an eternity in a moment. And we’d sit and have intimate conversation in some dimly lit room, and we’d both feel there was nowhere else in the world we’d want to be.
Jack: Jesus Christ, Patrick. I mean that’s very romantic, but there is no fucking chance in hell that’s going to happen.
Patrick: You don’t believe in true love? You don’t believe God has someone out there just for you and He allows the lucky few to be fortunate enough to find one another?
Jack [incredulous]: How the hell did a fruitcake like you end up as my brother? No, I don’t believe in true love, but if there is true love, I’m sure God has nothing to do with it.

Jumpin' Jack Flash, let's call him.

Marty: Well listen, Barry, you better find some inspiration soon. For one thing, you need the money. And you know what? It’s embarrassing - I’ve gotta tell the people in my business that my best young writer lives on Long Island. Writers live in Manhattan, Barry. Joey Butafuccos live on Long Island.

And, perhaps, the equivalent of that in regard to philosophy forums?

Patrick: I miss her.
Jack: No, you don’t. You only think you do. You’re suffering from the “will I ever get laid again blues”.
Patrick: No, my friend. I think it’s the case of, “you don’t know how good you had it till it’s gone” syndrome.

Both of them, of course.

Barry [holding up a banana]: Listen, Patrick, I have a theory. Man is like a banana. Strong and firm, bright and phallic, and he’s protected by his all-important shield. But, when a woman comes along, you know, she sees this bright phallic beast and she wants it. But she’s not happy with it the way it is. She wants to see inside. So, she starts peeling away your all-important shield.
[he peels the banana]
Barry: First, she wants to see your romantic side, then she wants to see your passionate side, finally she wants to see your soft, caring, feminine side. She keeps peeling and peeling until you’re left there buck naked, totally exposed with your balls blowing in the wind. And that’s when she gets her knife, and she cuts away your manhood piece by piece…until she’s having your cock in her corn flakes.

That can't be good.
Well, not counting her perhaps.

Jack: Patrick, you’re Mr. Ten Commandments. Let me ask you, how bad a sin is adultry?

And with Ann no less.

Patrick: I’m stunned. I can’t believe this, Jack. You’re actually considering sticking your penis into another woman.

Oh, yeah. But that's only natural, right?

Patrick: But why would you abandon Catholicism?
Leslie: Because I tried to figure out why I said yes to James, and that’s when it hit me. I had to get married. What’s a single Catholic girl going to do if she doesn’t get married? I can’t have premarital sex. But if I do, I can’t use birth control. But if I don’t use birth control and I get pregnant, I can’t have an abortion. What’s a girl to do while she is waiting around for Prince Charming to show up? I mean, Christ, I can’t even masturbate!

No, this is actually a real thing.

Patrick: You can’t have an abortion! That’s against everything I believe in!
Susan: Well the last time I checked the baby was inside me and not you…so I’ll make that decision.

And while she still can here in America.

Jack: Look, I fucked up, okay? I know I didn’t do the right thing but I felt I had to do it anyway. Look, I love Molly…you know I really do. But who says you have to be 100% faithful to your wife, anyway? It just isn’t natural?
Patrick: God said.
Jack [angrily]: Well, fuck God! Why should I spend all my life having faith in something I have no proof ever existed? Patrick, I’m a man. I had a certain urge and I acted on it. And I don’t see it as being such a big deal.
Patrick [stupefied]: “Fuck God?!”

Well, maybe it's the wrong one.

Patrick: Susan wants me back
Jack: What about the baby?
Patrick: She had a miscarriage.
Molly: Oh, my God!
Jack: Jesus, talk about the luck of the Irish.

If that's what you want to call it.

Molly [to Jack]: When did you become such a fucking coward?

Plus, he's going to Hell.

Audrey: I love you, Barry. And I won’t love anyone like I love you. But I’m not going to be like your Mom and wait 35 years for you.

Or even 30 for that matter.

[iambiguous]

John Fowles from The Magus

That is the great distinction between the sexes. Men see objects, women see the relationship between objects. Whether the objects need each other, love each other, match each other.

With obvious exceptions here, of course.

“Beware of the waiting room." He closed the door at once, as if he had rehearsed that moment. I opened it quickly, and leaned out to call after him, "The what?" He turned, but only to give a sharp wave, the Trafalgar Square crowd swallowed him up. I couldn't get the smile on his face out of my mind, it secreted an omission. Something he'd saved up, a mysterious last word. Waiting room. Waiting room. Waiting room. It went round in my head all that evening.

Here's another one: https://youtu.be/Uk9GBY2rL-0?si=-Gtz2nNcug_M10z7

She liked doing things, and only then finding a reason for doing them.

Let's just say you can take this too far.

His name was Captain Montague. He had broken his leg some time before and so had been unfit for active service till then. A kind of phosphorescent pale elegance about his face. A delicate, gallant moustache. He was one of the most supremely stupid men I have ever met. He taught me a great deal.

A military thing, let's call it.

Duty largely consists of pretending that the trivial is critical, and I was never accomplished at that.

Maybe, sure.

The rebel with no specific gift for rebellion is destined to become the drone; and even this metaphor is inexact, since the drone has at least a small chance of fecundating the queen, whereas the human rebel-drone is deprived even of that small chance and may finally see himself as totally sterile, lacking not only the brilliant life-success of the queens but even the humble satisfactions of the workers in the human hive.

Okay, okay, that might describe me.

[iambiguous]

Nobody knows. Nothing? Well, some things surely. Just not what they would need to know in order to answer the most important question of all: How ought I to live my life? The doors of perception here come in all manner of shifting shapes and sizes. And one man’s key is another man’s dead bolt.

William Blake, God and religion. Colin Wilson devotes a chapter or two to them in his book The Outsider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsi ... lson_book)

In whatever manner, alienation and despair morphs into something analogous to “spirituality”. I never bought into it though.

Fact is, I never really understood it then and I don’t pretend to really understand it now. It’s only to state the obvious: that human existence – that existence itself – can seem very mysterious at times. And then there’s the part about Native American culture and how it fits into all of this. But what do I really know about that either. Same with “revisionist Westerns”. Most of that stuff is over my head. I just do the best I can with what I think I know about it. It’s a really strange film and that’s good enough for me.

What’s it all mean? Well, you may as well start in on deconstructing semiology. Everything seems to be a sign pointing you in the direction of yet another referential metaphor.

My guess though is it really doesn’t work this way when you die.


Dead Man

Train Fireman: Look out the window. And doesn’t this remind you of when you were in the boat, and then later than night, you were lying, looking up at the ceiling, and the water in your head was not dissimilar from the landscape, and you think to yourself, “Why is it that the landscape is moving, but the boat is still?”

Obviously, you're not thinking.

[William has just discovered a colt .45 under Thel’s pillow]
Thel: Watch it. It’s loaded.
William Blake: Why do you have this?
Thel: Because this is America.

Plus, it's somewhere in the Bible for sure.

Conway Twill: ‘Course you can’t put much stock in a man who spends the most part of a conversation talkin’ to a bear…talkin’ to a goddamn bear'.

I've certainly never put much stock in it.

Nobody: "Every night and every morn, some to misery are born. Every morn and every night, some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to sweet delight; some are born to endless night."
William Blake: I really don’t understand.
Nobody: You were a poet and a painter, William Blake. But now, you’re a killer of white men.

Any white men here?

William Blake: What is your name?
Nobody: My name is Nobody.
William Blake: Excuse me?

You can say that again.

Nobody: I was then taken east, in a cage. I was taken to Toronto. Then Philadelphia. And then to New York. And each time I arrived at another city, somehow the white men had moved all their people there ahead of me. Each new city contained the same white people as the last, and I could not understand how a whole city of people could be moved so quickly.

A script, let's call it.

Benmont Tench: Who are you travelin’ with?
William Blake: Well, uh…Nobody.

In particular, this time.

Nobody: You cannot stop the clouds by the building of a ship.
William Blake: What? What did you say? You know, I’ve had it up to here with this Indian malarkey. I haven’t understood a single word you’ve said since I met you, not one single word.

What's not to understand, right?

Nobody: I have just ingested the food of the Great Spirit…Father Peyote.
William Blake: Do you think I could have a little bite of it?

We knew he'd come around. If that's what you'd call it.

Conway Twill: I’ll tell you one thing: if that there Blake fella keeps on shootin’ marshals, I might end up liking the bastard!

Hell, even joining him?

Conway Twill: How 'bout your family history there, Cole? Let me guess. Kind of figured you for a German, huh? I mean, am I right? Am I close?

His last words, as it were. Before he is eaten.

William Blake: Do you still have my eyeglasses?
Nobody: No, I traded them. Do you have any tobacco?
William Blake: No, I traded it.
Nobody: For what?
William Blake: I’m not telling.
Nobody: Liar.
William Blake: Thief.

You tell me.

Nobody: I prepared your canoe with cedar boughs. It’s time for you to leave now, William Blake. Time for you to go back where you came from.
William Blake: You mean Cleveland?

Actually, quite a bit further.

[iambiguous]

If it’s set in a small town chances are I’ve seen it. And boy is this ever set in one. And boy oh boy does it ever star Jennifer Connelly.

I guess you might call Harry an opportunist. And he is always just passing through. So if he comes through your town nail everything down. And who plays this character better than Don Johnson? You can’t help but recall Ben Quick—the character he played in the 1985 TV rendition of A Long Hot Summer. Fire figured into that one too.

Only Harry might have met his match this time in Dolly. And she’s no Noel Varner. More like Eula.

The town is a regular Payton Place. But then aren’t they all. Not many likeable people here. But all the better to cheer Harry on as he schemes his way to the lady and the loot. But which lady and which loot?

Sometimes the really smart people can be just as stupid as the rest of us.


The Hot Spot

Harry: Wave your hands around and talk like you own the place.
George: I do own the place. What the hell do you think you’re doing?
Harry: Sellin’ a car.
George: Like hell you are.
Harry: I just did.

And we saw him do it.

Harry [lighting a cigarette]: Shouldn’t chew that stuff. lt’s bad for you.

Of course, eventually, almost everything is.

Harry [lighting a cigarette]: Shouldn’t chew that stuff. lt’s bad for you.

Harry in a nutshll, let's call it.

Harry: I’m a car salesman. When I want a job cleanin’ cars, I’ll get one.
George: That may be a lot sooner than you think, the rate you’re going. What are you, anyway? 35? 36?
Harry: Around there.
George: Well, you sure as hell haven’t set the world on fire so far, or you wouldn’t be hangin’ around a place like this.
Harry: Yeah, but I got ambition. I figure if I stick around selling jalopies for another 40 years, somebody’ll give me a testimonial and a $40 watch.

The American Dream, some call it.

Dolly: So whatcha gonna do in our town?
Harry: Whatever there is to do.
Dolly: There’s only two things to do in this town. You got a TV?
Harry: Nope.
Dolly: Well, now you’re down to just one.

And it's not turning on the radio.

Harry [reading from the back of a romance novel Gloria had been looking at]: “He was a stranger in town. A rough man, mocking, sometimes cruel. But Miriam saw past the tough facade to the bitter wounds that made him - hide his true self from the world.”
Gloria: l told you it was silly.

On the other hand, not at all...

Harry: What do you have to see me about?
Dolly: Well, now l’ve heard everything.

If you get her drift.

Dolly: George says you’re gettin’ serious about Gloria Harper. If you think you’re gonna ditch me for that saccharin little candy-ass, you’ve got another think comin’.
Harry: I don’t see as you got much to say about it.
Dolly: So that’s the way it is, hey?
Harry: That’s it.
Dolly: You’re gonna wish to Christ you never laid eyes on me.
Harry: I already do.
Dolly: Not yet. Not really. But you will.

Oh, yeah...

Dolly: Harry, darling. I don’t think you’ll ever have much luck explainin’ it to her.
Harry: Sutton didn’t know. He wasn’t even at the fire. You told him. lt was you.
Dolly: You’ll have to beg now. You had your chance. Now l’m gonna enjoy hearin’ you beg me to marry you. See…you have to look after me, Harry. Something might happen to me.
Harry: Yes. Something might.

On the other hand, "don't play with him 'cause you're playing with fire."

Harry: In this life, you gotta take what you want.
Dolly: I always get what I want, Harry.
Harry: Yes, indeed. I’ve found my level. And I’m livin’ it.

Not unlike Ben Quick. Only nothing like him at all.

[iambiguous]

Yuval Noah Harari

In the age of Facebook and Instagram you can observe this myth-making process more clearly than ever before, because some of it has been outsourced from the mind to the computer. It is fascinating and terrifying to behold people who spend countless hours constructing and embellishing a perfect self online, becoming attached to their own creation, and mistaking it for the truth about themselves.

Pick one:
1] me more than you
2] you more than me

Terrorists are like a fly that tries to destroy a china shop. The fly is so weak that it cannot budge even a single teacup. So it finds a bull, gets inside its ear and starts buzzing. The bull goes wild with fear and anger, and destroys the china shop.

Terrorists: the new Communists as it were. And the deep state will always need new bogeymen, right?

...our DNA still thinks we are in the savannah.

Or, sure, the jungle.

If Kindle is upgraded with face recognition and biometric sensors, it can know what made you laugh, what made you sad and what made you angry. Soon, books will read you while you are reading them.

About fucking time, let's not say.

People easily understand that ‘primitives’ cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits, and gathering each full moon to dance together around the campfire. What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis.

I actually appreciate that considerably more than others here.

Indeed, many movies about artificial intelligence are so divorced from scientific reality that one suspects they are just allegories of completely different concerns. Thus the 2015 movie Ex Machina seems to be about an AI expert who falls in love with a female robot only to be duped and manipulated by her. But in reality, this is not a movie about the human fear of intelligent robots. It is a movie about the male fear of intelligent women, and in particular the fear that female liberation might lead to female domination. Whenever you see a movie about an AI in which the AI is female and the scientist is male, it’s probably a movie about feminism rather than cybernetics. For why on earth would an AI have a sexual or a gender identity? Sex is a characteristic of organic multicellular beings. What can it possibly mean for a non-organic cybernetic being?

On the other hand, as Maia reminds us, men will shag -- or bop as Scarlett might put it -- anything that moves.

Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. Very soon this traditional model will become utterly obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives, and to reinvent themselves repeatedly. Many if not most humans may be unable to do so.

Then what, Mr. objectivist?

[iambiguous]

Even with the “happy” ending there are few more cynical peeks inside the medical industial complex. It’s not only all about the money here but [for some] literally a matter of life and death. At best Obamacare is just another liberal bandaid from the crony capitalists that perpetrate and then perpetuate this travesty in the so-called “richest nation on Earth”. Some having the gall even to call it the most civilized!

This is the super hightech world of keeping folks alive so that the insurance companies will keep forking over the dough. How close is it to the way things really are…or to the way things ought to be instead? I’ll take a stab at it: Depends on who you ask?

But it’s all about the money outside the hospital too. One sister stands to make a ton of money if Dad lives and the other one if he dies. Who is he? What difference does that make when it is all about the money. Just get yourself a good lawyer. And what would you be willing to do for 10 million bucks? And it’s not like the patient’s condition really isn’t terminal.

And then all the moral and metaphysical ruminations from the Furnaceman and the Nun. The part about how we ought to live in preparation for how we ought to die. And the part about what comes after. The part, in other words, they should have left out.

And, oh, if only the world could be as it is reflected in Dr. Ernst’s sermon at the hearing. Oh what a wonderful world it would be.


Critical Care

Dr. Ernst: It’s important to say we did as much as we could.
Stella: Which is doctor-speak for we put this patient through hell before he died.

Let them try that shit on one of us, right?

Raphael: Water. Please give me water.
Stella: You can’t have any fluids, remember? You can’t have any fluids because you don’t have any kidneys so you can’t pee. I can give you some ice chips every so often.
Raphael: I don’t believe in God, anymore. God would answer my prayers with suffering like this.

Pain? That'll do it.

Furnaceman: Your problem is that you are now absolutely useless to other people. From now on you’re nothing but a burdon to others. People have nothing to gain from being nice to you. Let me put it this way, when you were healthy and you were out there chasing money and women, how much time did you put in comforting the dying? Not much. And I’ll tell you why. Because it’s depressing and disturbing and thankless work. You just have nothing to offer anyone anymore. Well, except for one thing.
Raphael: What’s that?
Furnaceman: Health insurance.

I have access to the VA, myself.
At least until Trump Inc., uh, decimates it?

Dr. Hofstader [in a room filled with computers and lab workers]: Dr Ernst, come see the future of medicine. Seeing patients is a waste of the doctor’s time. We try to correct that problem. We like to think of patients as information that can be digitized. Then we can build computer models for surgeons to practice on that are identical with any patient.

Something, perhaps, that our kids -- or our kid's kids -- can look forward to.

Dr. Butz: What’s wrong with bed five. He’s all paid up. He’s got three insurance companies paying off his bills monthly.
Dr. Ernst: If he’s going to die, why should we proceed?
Dr. Butz: Where have you been all your life? It’s called revenue! He’s got catasthropic health insurance…long term health care…the works!
Dr. Ernst: What difference does insurance make?
Dr. Butz: What difference does insurance make? This must be the generation gap. It’s these HMOs that have confused the issue. If the patient were part of an HMO then I could understand your dilemma. With those babies we get paid not to perform medical procedures. It’s a little like when the government pays the farmers not to grow crops. But with insurance we get paid to perform medical procedures. Do you understand the difference.

More to the point now, perhaps, does trump?

Dr. Ernst: My question is, if you were comatose would you want to be kept a live for months by machines.
Dr. Butz: Hell no! When I go, I don’t want to be tortured in some bed. I have this planned out, Warner. I’m gonna be sitting on my back porch, I’m gonna have a Cuban cigar in one hand, and a big glass 'o scotch in the other, and a belly full of barbecued ribs with a ton of sauce. That’s why I don’t have insurance.

Too close to call?

Dr Butz: This poor schmuck in bed 5 didn’t load up on insurance so that he could go gently into the night. He wanted us to put up a fight…and he wanted us to be paid in cash. That’s why he bought the insurance in the first place!

There is that point.

Dr. Ernst [to Stella]: People are afraid to die so they pay us to keep them in suspended animation.

the other hand, when it comes to suffering, some are just better at handling it than others.

Payne: Dr. Ernst, before we prepare a case it is absolutely essential that we know the truth, so that we can teach our witnesses to articulate truth to our best advantage.

Lawyers!

Dr. Ernst [to Felicia and Constance]: Don’t forget, I can keep your father legally alive almost indefinitely. And I can end his life any time I want just by turning a knob.

First they had him by his balls, and now he has them by their back accounts.

Dr. Ernst: Connie, you forgot your Bible
Constance: If it were any good, I would have gotten all the money.

Touche?

Dr. Butz [shouting from his car after Dr. Ernst rushes to look after a boy who fell down skateboarding outside the hospital]: Ernst! Stay away from him! You wanna get sued again? Damn it, make sure he’s got insurance! Better ask him for proof of insurance! Haven’t you learned anything from me?
Mike: Are you a doctor?
Dr. Ernst: Yeah, I’m a doctor.

That’s better than no change at all, I suppose.

[iambiguous]

"You humans…"

Whether coming from an actual alien or from a mere mortal who thinks he is one, that’s what films like this are usually all about. It allows someone to lump all of us together and then to tell us the things we do right and the things we do wrong. Usually it revolves around how dangerous and destructive we are. As a “species”. Then the “but” part. But it is in embracing the marvel and the majesty of human freedom that this is just something we have to put up with. It’s the price we pay. And well worth it. Instead we have to strive always to keep the bad parts in check by practicing the good parts more. The good parts bearing a striking resemblance to the moral and political philosophy of the one who wrote and/or directed the film.

To wit:

Prot: Let me tell you something, Mark. You humans, most of you, subscribe to this policy of an eye for an eye, a life for a life, which is known throughout the universe for its…stupidity. Even your Buddha and your Christ had quite a different vision, but nobody’s paid much attention to them, not even the Buddhists or the Christians. You humans. Sometimes its hard to imagine how you’ve made it this far.

Sound familiar?

Is he an “alien”? These folks seem to want it both ways. There are the facts about him – things he knows, things he can do – that indicate he may well be from another world, and the facts about him – uncovered through hypnosis and detective work – that indicate he is not.


K-PAX

Mark: Well, let’s hope that extraterrestrials qualify for Medicaid.

They don't, right?

Mark: Have a seat.
Prot: “Have a seat.” What a curious expression.

Next up: take a seat.

Mark: Where is home?
Prot: K-PAX.
Mark: K-PAX?
Prot: Capital “K,” hyphen, capitals “P-A-X.” K-PAX is a planet. But don’t worry. I’m not going to leap out of your chest.

And, in fact, he didn't.

Mark: What if I were to tell you that according to a man who lived on our planet named Einstein, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light?
Prot: I would say that you misread Einstein, Dr. Powell. May I call you Mark? You see Mark, what Einstein actually said was that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light because its mass would become infinite. Einstein said nothing about entities already traveling at the speed of light or faster.

Let's settle this once and for all...philosophically.

Mark: Prot, why did you want to come to our planet?
Prot: Well, I’ve been here many times before. But what brought me here first? I don’t know. Pure curiosity, I guess. I’d never been to a Class BA-3 planet before.
Mark: Class BA-3?
Prot: Early stage of evolution. Future uncertain.

Let's factor Donald Trump in here.

Prot [eating a banana—peel and all]: Your produce alone has been worth the trip.

We're not all bad then.

Prot [to team of astrophysicists]: I take it my calculations help explain the “protabations” you’ve been seeing in the rotation pattern of your binary star, but have been unable to explain until…this moment.

Back to this, perhaps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sirius_Mystery

Prot: You know what I’ve learned about your planet? There’s enough life on Earth to fill 50 planets. Plants, animals, people, fungi, viruses, all jostling to find their place, bouncing off each other, feeding off each other. Connected.
Mark: You don’t have that kind of connection on K-PAX?
Prot: Nobody wants, nobody needs. On K-PAX, when I’m gone, nobody misses me. There would be no reason to. And yet I sense that when I leave here…I will be missed. Yes. Strange feeling.

And the equivalent of that here, of course.

Prot: I wanna tell you something Mark, something you do not yet know, that we K-PAXians have been around long enough to have discovered. The universe will expand, then it will collapse back on itself, then will expand again. It will repeat this process forever. What you don’t you know is that when the universe expands again, everything will be as it is now. Whatever mistakes you make this time around, you will live through on your next pass. Every mistake you make, you will live through again, & again, forever. So my advice to you is to get it right this time around. Because this time is all you have.

Eternal return? Right.