Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

More family ties. Again, the family you didn’t pick but are still entangled in in any number of ways. My reaction to this one [largely envy] stems no doubt from the fact I was never really entangled in one of my own. I could see we lived on different planets for all intents and purposes and I knew that as soon as I could I’d be gone. And I was. So maybe I do envy those folks who had more “normal” – more complex, nore nuanced, more intimate – relationships.

And there is something about the death of one of the main characters [in any family] that can bring out either the best or the worst in us. But, again, it’s not something I have ever had to experience. I was around when my father died, but who the hell was he anyway. Here the relationship is more traditionally alienated. The culturally sophisticated father is estranged from a millionaire son who only reads stock portfolios. But things can change.

There are, in other words, barbarians outside the gate, and barbarians inside the gate.

But this particuar barbarian has lots of loot. Enough, for example, to buy the heroin. The dope that will keep his father considerably less pain-ridden. He even pays former students to visit his father at the hospital to pretend they are there by their own choice—to bid the professor adieu. And it works. Father and son are brought closer together as The End looms.

But is this the way to end it? Here he is dying while surrounded by the family and friends that make death itself all the more unbearable. It’s a trade off that [for better or for worse] I will never have to make.

It is the first sequel ever to win the Best Foreign Language Film award at the Oscars. IMDb

It was the sequel to The Decline of the America Empire. This film is somewhere in my collection so look for it down the road. It was also nominated for an Academy Award. In 1986.


The Barbarian Invasions [Les Invasions Barbares]

Louise [Remy’s wife to Gaëlle]: This is where he brings his mistresses. With any luck we will find panties.

A French thing.

Remy [father]: You may be a millionaire, but you know nothing!
Sébastien [son]: I know I won’t end up like you! She’s the reason I’m here. She raised me, not you!
Remy: Don’t you have a plane to catch to Hong Kong? I don’t need you, not for one second! Go to hell!
Sébastien: Fuck you!
Remy: Go to hell!

Of course, we know where this is heading even if [at the time] they don't.

Mother [to Sebastien]: Until you’re a parent you’ll never understand. He changed your diapers. He called your teachers every month all through school. He so wanted you to do well. When you had meningitis at age he rocked you in his arms for 48 hours non-stop, without sleep, to keep death at bay.

Yeah, when they're kids.
If you get my drift.

TV talking head [with 9/11 as the backdrop]: There were, what, 3000 dead. Historically, that’s insignificant. As a U.S. example, 50,000 died at the Battle of Gettysburg. What is significant, as my old prof said, is they struck at the heart of the Empire. In previous conflicts–Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War–the Empire managed to keep the barbarians outside its gates, its borders. In that sense, people may look back on — and I stress may — as the beginning of the great barbarian invasions.

He means terrorist invasions, of course.

Rémy: Contrary to belief, the 20th century wasn’t that bloody. It’s agreed that wars caused 100 million deaths. Add 10 million for the Russian gulags. The Chinese camps, we’ll never know, but say 20 million. So 130, 145 million dead. Not all that impressive. In the 16th century, the Spanish and Portuguese managed, without gas chambers or bombs, to slaughter 150 million Indians in Latin America. With axes! That’s a lot of work, sister. Even if they had church support, it was an achievement. So much so that the Dutch, English, French, and later Americans followed their lead and butchered another 50 million. 200 million dead in all! The greatest massacre in history took place right here. And not the tiniest holocaust museum. The history of mankind is a history of horrors.

Read it and weep. Oh, and, of course, praise the Lord.

Remy: My son is an ambitious and puritanical capitalist. Whereas I was always a sensual socialist.

Back, say, when that made all the difference in the world.

Pierre’s wife: Did you get that book I mentioned? Inner Healing by Swami Rapudanthra.
Remy: No, unfortunately not.
Pierre’s wife: I’ll bring it. Your body’s in your head. Illness starts and ends in the head. I keep telling Pierre that. Well, we’ll be going. See you soon.
Friend: How old is she?
Friend: It’s not about age. Her breasts outweigh her brain. It’s true! The quantity of blood they require drains the brain. It’s physiological.
Pierre [poking his head back in the room]: No wisecracks. She’s given me two girls who’ve transformed my life. And a mere brush of her hand makes me as hard as a bull. Which we’ll all agree is a godsend at our age.

To say the least.

Sebastien: My proposal is that I pay for your supplies, as well as my father’s.
Nathalie: Do you want brown or white?
Sebastien: I’ve no idea.
Nathalie: To smoke or shoot up?
Sebastien: I trust you.
Nathalie: You shouldn’t.
Sebastien: Why not?
Nathalie: You should never trust a junkie. They make a habit of lying.

What's that make Trump then?

Remy: What’s that?
Nathalie: Heroin.
Remy: It comes from opium, right?
Nathalie: It’s morphine mixed with chemicals.
Remy: Will you inject it?
Nathalie: We’ll start inhaling and then see.
Remy: It’s incredible to…
Nathalie: Be quiet now. Try to concentrate. The first time is the best. It’s the one you long for over and over again. It’s called “riding the dragon”.

And, of course, the equivalent of that here. Well, once we find it.

Remy: You don’t care much about living, do you?
Nathalie: Not really.
Remy: I was like you at your age. Ready to die at any time. I didn’t care. That’s why the young people make the best martyrs. It’s paradoxical, but living grows on you when you begin to subtract: I’ve got 20 years left, 15, 10. When you realize it’s for the last time. I’m buying my last car. This is my last trip to Genoa, Barcelona…

Your last post here.

Nathalie: I won’t live that long.
Remy: How do you know?
Nathalie: Overdoses are pretty frequent.
Remy: But you can never tell. Maybe you’ll kick it and reach a ripe old age. We can’t decipher the past, how can we know the future? No one ever knows what’ll happen to them. Except me, now. I know.
Nathalie: Are you scared?
Remy: Sure am. I don’t want to stop living. I loved life so much.
Nathalie: What was it you loved?
Remy: Everything. Wine, books, music, women, above all women. Their smell, their mouths, the feel of their skin.

The holes...?

Remy: Pius XII sitting on his ass in his gilded Vatican while Primo Levi was taken to Auschwitz…That’s not sad! It’s despicable! Hideous!
Nurse: If what you say is true, and history is a series of abominable crimes, then someone has to exist who can forgive us. That’s my belief.

Five will get you ten it's God. Though what are the odds it's your God?

Remy: I still can’t come to terms with death.
Nathalie: You know you have to.
Remy: I can’t accept it.
Nathalie: That’s how it is. It’s a law of nature. The very instant you shut your eyes, millions more will also die.
Remy: But I won’t be here anymore. Me. I’ll be gone for good. If at least I’d learned something. I feel as helpless as the day I was born. I haven’t found a meaning. I have to keep searching…

You know, like I am here.

Rémy: We’ve been everything: separatists, supporters of independantists, sovereignists, sovereignity-associanists…
Pierre: At first, we were existentialists.
Dominique: We read Sartre and Camus.
Claude: Then Fanon, we became anti-colonialists.
Rémy: We read Marcuse and became Marxists.
Pierre: Marxist-Leninists.
Alessandro: Trotskyists.
Diane: Maoists.
Rémy: After Solzhenitsyn we changed, we became structuralists.
Pierre: Situationists.
Dominique: Feminists.
Claude: Deconstructionists.
Pierre: Is there an -ism we haven’t worshipped?
Claude: Cretinism.

Any cretins here?

Remy [to the whole gang]: I enter the dining room of her hotel. I spot her, and die. Beauty that could melt Emperor Qin’s terra cotta warriors. I order tea, we make small talk. I can see us doing Pekinese lotus. The Szechuan dragon. To make myself appear interesting, I dive in: “Your country has achieved so much. We’re so envious. Your Cultural Revolution is wonderful!” Her lovely black eyes glaze over. I’m mortified to realize that she’s thinking, “He’s either a CIA agent or the worst cretin in the West.” So much for the lotus and dragon. For two years she’d cleaned pigsties on a re-education farm. Father murdered, mother committed suicide. And some dumb French-Canadian who’s seen the films of Jean-Luc Godard and read Philippe Sollers says that the Chinese Cultural Revolution, is wonderful!

I guess we'll never know for sure in an essentially meaningless world.

[iambiguous]

There are sports fans. Then there are football fans. Then there are football fans in England. Soccer football in other words.

People like sports because 1] there is a book of rules that are applicable to all 2] somebody clearly wins and somebody clearly loses 3] there is a team somewhere nearby to root for—even fanatically 4] it readily distracts folks from all the crap they have to endure in their lives.

Of course with so much celebrity and money riding on sports these days, winning may not have a whole lot to do with, say, sportsmanship. It may have more to do it with whatever it takes to win. And that’s the tug of war here. Bringing football back to the “beautiful sport” it was meant to be or yanking it over the pond to America—where any rabid citizen can easily explain to you why, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”. Our kind of football in other words.

All the stuff here happened [more or less] nearly 50 years ago. And not being all that knowledgable about football in England I have no idea how to factor it into the history of the sport there. But some things – the part about winning at all cost, the money and the celebrity, for example – seem here to stay.


The Damned United

Title card: 1974. Leeds United is the dominant force in British football. The nation is in trauma having failed to qualify for the world cup. The manager of the England national football team is the most coveted job in the country. There’s only one obvious choice…

And it's not me, I can assure you.

TV interviewer: You’ve been very vocal in your criticism of Leeds over the years. You’ve accused the players of dirty tactics… cheating, dissent, foul play. You’ve called Norman Hunter Norman ‘‘Bites Yer Legs’’ Hunter. Peter Lorimer falls when no one touches him.
Brian: And I was right.
TV interviewer: But I’m curious. Why do you now show such alacrity to joining them after such vituperative criticism of them for so long?
Brian: Goodness. It will take me half an hour to explain all those words for a start. Look, football is a beautiful game, Austin. It needs to be played beautifully. I think Leeds have sold themselves short. They’ve been champions, but they’ve not been good champions.

Next up: the good posters here.

Manny: I also hired you under the assumption that you would be coming here wanting the best for this club. For the city of Leeds. So why do I get the feeling this is all about you and Don?
Brian: Of course it’s just about me and Don. Always has been. But instead of putting frowns on your foreheads you elders of Leeds in your blazers and your brass-fucking-buttons it should put big white Colgate smiles on your big white faces. Because it means I won’t eat, and won’t sleep until I’ve taken whatever that man’s achieved, and beaten it. Beaten it so I never have to hear the name Don-fucking-Revie again. Beat it. The only name anyone sings in the Yorkshire ale houses…raising their stinking jars to their stinking mouths…is Brian Clough. Brian Clough uber-fucking-alles. Understand?

Of course, understanding some things is one thing, accepting them another thing altogether. And here in particular.

Brian [to the assembled Leeds players]: Well, I might as well tell you now. You lot may all be internationals and have won all the domestic honours there are to win under Don Revie. But as far as I’m concerned, the first thing you can do for me is to chuck all your medals and all your caps and all your pots and all your pans into the biggest fucking dustbin you can find, because you’ve never won any of them fairly. You’ve done it all by bloody cheating.

On the other hand, "whatever works".

Longson: 170 grand for Colin-fucking-Todd? Correction, ‘‘The Almighty’’ Colin Todd.
Brian: Best technical footballer in the country.
Longson: And his salary’s 300 quid a week? We can’t pay a footballer that.
Brian: That’s the way things are going, Uncle Sam. Football’s all about money now. Let me ask you a question, Uncle Sam. What’d you come into football for?
Longson: To support the football club of my hometown. The club I’ve supported all my life. I didn’t come to be lectured by some cocky little twat from the North East.
Brian: The way I see it, there’s no point being in this game…not unless you want to beat the best. And be the best. That’s all the people of Derby want. If you really have their interest at heart—not just impressing your friends in the director’s box—I suggest you keep your eyes on your road haulage business. Keep your opinions to yourself and start signing some fucking cheques. Leave the running of this football club to the professionals.
Longson: Well, professionals don’t run the football club, Brian. The chairman does. If it’s true football is all about money…and that’s the way it’s going…well, that suits us chairmen just fucking fine. Because we’re the ones who’ve got it.

And not just coincidentally.

Brian [to interviewer]: I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the country. But I’m in the top one.

The top one will do it.

Muhammed Ali [on TV]: Some fella in London, England named, some Brian… Brian Clough. I heard all the way in America that this fella talks too much. They say he’s another Mohammed Ali. There’s just one Mohammed Ali. Now, Clough, I’ve had enough. Stop it.
Peter: Are you gonna stop it?
Brian: No, I’m going to fight him.

No, of course, not really.

Peter: The problem isn’t Longson. It’s you. This mad ambition you have to beat Revie and Leeds. It comes and it goes. Sometimes it’s good. Oh, yes. Like a fire that stirs everything up. Then there’s this. This thing that takes over. Destroys everything that’s good in your life. Please, Brian. Please tell me that this letter is just a draft. You’ve not sent it. I’ll be out in a couple of days. Let me talk to them.

Too late…

Brian: What are you doing?! You weren’t supposed to accept our resignations!
Longson: Shouldn’t bloody well offer them, then, should you?
Brian: Look, you can’t get rid of us. It would be a disaster for the club. For the whole of Derby!
Longson: You can’t keep shooting your mouth off the way you have been and issuing these ultimatums. With great reluctance, your resignations have been accepted.
Brian: Look, you can’t do this. It’s madness.
Longson: The decision stands. Car keys on the table and out.
Brian: We’re gonna create a footballing dynasty here. Derby could be one of the greats. Alongside United, Liverpool, Leeds!
Longson: Now! And don’t dare show your face here again.

I guess you had to be there.

Brian: We’re from the north, Pete. What do we care about Brighton? Bloody southerners. Look where we are! We’re almost in France.

And not all that much further, Germany.

Peter: Brighton’s a small club, I’ll give you that.
Brian: Bloody midgets!
Peter: But at least we’d be together! You and me, Brian. We can build them up. Make them our own, like we did with Hartlepools, like we did with Derby…
Brian: And then what? Bottle again soon as it comes to the big time? That’s always been the trouble with you, Pete. No ambition.
Peter: That’s the trouble with you, Brian. Too much ambition. Too much greed, too much everything!
Brian: Yeah, you knock it, but it’s done you proud over the years, hasn’t it? My ambition. Without me, you’d still be in Burton bloody Albion.
Peter: Yes, and without you, I’d still have a job in Derby! A job and a home that I love. Oh, yes, you’re the shop window, I grant you that. The razzle and the bloody dazzle. But I’m the goods in the back! Without me, without somebody to save you from yourself, Brian fucking Clough, you’re not just half. You’re nothing!
Brian: I’m nothing? I’m nothing? Don’t make me laugh. What does that make you then, Taylor? Something? You’re half of nothing! Nothing’s parasite! A big fat pilot fish that feeds on nothing. A bloody nobody! The forgotten man! History’s fucking afterthought!

And the equivalent of that here, of course.

Peter: So, what are you doing here?
Brian: Don’t make this difficult for me, Pete. You know why I’m here. I won’t bloody grovel. All right. Well, all right, I’m grovelling. I’m on me knees.
Peter [indicating what Brian has to say]: I apologise… unreservedly… for being a twat.
Brian: I apologise for being a twat…
Peter: Unreservedly.
Brian: Unreservedly. ’
Peter: Because I can’t do it without you.
Brian: Because I can’t do it without you. ’
Peter: I’m nothing without you.
Brian: I’m nothing without you. ’
Peter: Please…please, baby, take me back.
Brian: Fuck off. All right. Fine. Please. Please…baby…take me back.
Peter: Come on.
[Pete and Brian embrace]
Peter: You’re only gonna fuck it up again, aren’t you?
Brian: I love you, you know.
Peter: I know. But it won’t stop you.
Brian: So would you sooner go through it all without me?
Peter: Never.

Well, that settles it then.

Title cards:

Don Revie failed as England Manager. He went to the UAE where his career ended amid allegations of financial misdealings. Leaving him in football wilderness.

Brian Clough and Peter Taylor were reunited. They took over a small provincial club, Nottingham Forest…going on to win the European Cup in 1979…and again in 1980. A feat that has not been matched by a British manager since.

Brian Clough remains the greatest manager the England team never had.

[iambiguous]

Meaning

“If you set out to mention everything you would never be done, and that's what counts, to be done, to have done. Oh, I know, even when you mention only a few of the things there are you do not get done either, I know, I know. But it's a change of muck. And if all muck is the same muck that doesn't matter, it's good to have a change of muck, to move from one heap to another...” Samuel Beckett

Muck to muck here.
You first.

“Don't worry about meaning. If a story's any good, it can't help but have meaning. Let the PhDs tell you what your story means.” William Kittredge

Or, sure, AI.

“Unless you know the code, it has no meaning.” John Connolly

Or, here, none that I will ever understand.

“Happiness! There is no word with more meanings, each person understands it in his own way.” Fernán Caballero

Resulting in considerableble unhappiness, of course.

“The world of fundamental religion does not recognize even the slightest variation in meaning should this meaning fall outside its own definition of truth.” Susan Griffin

In other words, one or another "strict literal interpretation to scriptures".
The rest then being history.

“Once he gets to the fort the colonel turns to John Wayne and says, "I did see a few Indians on the way over here." And John Wayne, with this really cool look on his face, replies, 'Don't worry. If you were able to spot some Indians, that means there weren't any there.' I don't remember the actual lines, but it went something like that. Do you get what he means?” Haruki Murakami

New thread?

[iambiguous]

Actually, this is just a chunk of England. A very small chunk of the whole. Though not to the main characters. As far as they are concerned it is the whole fucking universe. And parts of this universe really, really piss them off. Mostly because they were dumped into it at birth and really didn’t have a fucking thing to say about it. And dealing with it, it is always easier to adopt the narrative of victim. But not like all the other victims because you are bent on doing something about it. Even if the solution is a pipe dream and thought up by others.

An impoverished and/or working class working class community in a world being inundated by all that is perceived to be “other”. This behavior is as predictable as the tides. Only these lads are no where near what you’d call hardcore skinheads. Not nearly akin to the folks that populated, say, Romper Stomper. More like “disaffected youth” looking for a narratve to “solve” all their problems. That’s where Combo and the National Front come in. For some of them. Crosses tattooed right on their foreheads. They’re pissed off at the ruling class too. But their solution is fascism.

Combo and Shaun! The powers that be are trembling in their boots.

All of this is intertwined somehow with the Falkland’s war. This is England at home. That is England abroad. Taking “pride” in the nation.

At a Q&A period following this film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, director Shane Meadows noted that the grim skinhead influenced upbringing of the 11-year-old protagonist was a true portrayal of his own childhood and many of the events depicted were drawn from his early life.

Thomas Turgoose had never acted before, had been banned from his school play for behaving badly and even demanded £5 to turn up for the film’s auditions. IMDb


This Is England

Mr. Sandhu [after Shaun finally leaves the shop]: Oh, and you’re banned.
Shaun: Oh, and you’re a mong.

Take a wild guess what that's short for.

School Bully: How many people can you fit into a mini?
Shaun: I don’t fucking know how many?
School Bully: Six. Three in the back, two in the front, and your fucking dad in the ashtray.
Shaun [whose father died in the Falklands War]: You fucker!

He's still just "a kid" though.

Combo: But I’ve got one question to ask you, Milky. Do you consider yourself English, or Jamaican?
[there’s a long uneasy silence, as Milky looks around nervously to the rest of his friends]
Milky [eventually]: English.
Combo: Lovely, lovely, love you for that, that’s fucking great. A proud man, learn from him; that’s a proud man. That’s what we need, man. That’s what this nation has been built on, proud men. Proud fucking warriors! Two thousand years this little tiny fucking island has been raped and pillaged, by people who have come here and wanted a piece of it - two fucking world wars! Men have laid down their lives for this. For this… and for what? So people can stick their fucking flag in the ground and say, “Yeah! This is England. And this is England, and this is England.”

And then the rest of the racist spiel.

Combo: There’s 3 and a half million unemployed out there. Three and a half million of us can’t find fucking work because the Pakis are taking them all 'cause it’s cheap fucking labor, cheap and easy labor. Which makes us cheap and easy. Three and a half fucking million. It’s not a joke. It’s not a fucking joke. And that Thatcher sits in her fucking ivory tower and sends us on a fucking phoney war. The Falklands? Fucking Falklands? What the fuck’s the Falklands?

The good, the bad and the ugly, let's call it.

Lenny [of the NF]: Some people say we’re racists. We’re not racists. We’re realists. Some people call us Nazis. We’re not Nazis. No, what we are, we are nationalists and there’s a reason people try to pigeonhole us like this. And that is because of one word, gentlemen. Fear.

Right, like there is absolutely nothing to fear from them if you are not "one of them".

Combo: What are you doing?
Gadget: I thought I’d take a shit.
Combo: Put your arse away, mate.

And away it went.

Combo [to Sandhu, after the gang robs him]: Picking on a kid, mate? Fucking hell. Picking on a fucking kid, was ya? Eh?
Mr. Sandhu: Just take what you want and go, OK?
Combo: SHUT UP! I’M talking! I’M your fucking size! Fuck with me!
Mr. Sandhu: You got what you want! Just go now, alright?
Combo: Don’t you fucking dare backchat me, or I will slay you now where you fucking stand, you fucking Paki ****! Right? You listen to fucking me! That fucking kid’s Dad DIED for this fucking country! What have YOU fucking done for it? FUCK-ALL but take fucking jobs off decent people.
[he backs toward the door, pointing a huge knife at Sandhu]
Combo: Now listen, son. Listen good. We’ll be back here whenever we want, right? Cuz this is fucking OURS, now. This is OURS, this, fucking Sandhu. Don’t forget that. Any fucking time we want. And clean the place up, it fucking stinks of curry! Fucking stinks! REEKS of the fucking shit!

Too close to call, some will insist.

Combo: What do you think makes a bad father?
Milky: I don’t know. How about you, what do you reckon?
Combo: Niggers. You fucking coon.
Shaun: Combo, just leave him.
[Milky smiles. The smile that exposes everything]
Combo: Don’t fucking smile. Stop smiling at me.
Shaun: Milky, stop smiling at him. Please!
Combo: Stop fucking smiling at me because I’ll wipe that fucking smile off your fucking face.
[Milky’s smile widens]
Combo: You fucking ****!
[he beats and kicks Milky to within an inch of his life…then he throws Shaun out of the apartment]

And it’s really all about Lol’s rejection, isn’t it? Some revolution.

[iambiguous]

Jordan B. Peterson

I don't think that you have any insight whatsoever into your capacity for good until you have some well-developed insight into your capacity for evil.

Two words: conflicting goods.

You're going to pay a price for every bloody thing you do and everything you don't do. You don't get to choose to not pay a price. You get to choose which poison you're going to take. That's it.

Him being one of them, of course.

And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of.

Given the option, of course.

To suffer terribly and to know yourself as the cause: that is Hell.

You first.

The purpose of life, as far as I can tell… is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant.

How's that working out for you?

“No tree can grow to Heaven,” adds the ever-terrifying Carl Gustav Jung, psychoanalyst extraordinaire, “unless its roots reach down to Hell.”

You tell me.

[iambiguous]

Not based on a true story but it is reflective of events that occured in the life of the screenwriter. And stories like this were all too true back then. And we still read of actual men like this from time to time. The details change but the history out of which such behaviors were born [and then flourished among the Nazis] is still making its impact. Eventually though the last of them will be gone. But there are always new atrocities, new fanatics accused of war crimes. But none quite like this one. At least so far.

Here we see how a man can be one way around those he loves and another way entirely around those he hates. What happens then when someone he loves discovers the man he is around those he hates. Or around those he once hated. What happens when the thought of hating someone simply because he or she is Jewish or black or gay etc. is utterly alien [even repulsive] to you. Yet you still can’t not feel love for the bigot who is your father or your brother or your Uncle.

But then you discover he was a rapist and a murderer…and that he did these things over and over and over again. That he was a mass murderer. And that he did this things with the sort of relish we reserve for the ones we call monsters. When do you turn your back on him; or even turn him over to the law? When are you morally obligated to?

After the movie was released, screenwriter Joe Eszterhas’s own father, Istvan Eszterhas, was accused of war crimes in Hungary for printing anti-Semitic editorials and even organizing a book burning. IMDb


The Music Box

Ann: This Michael Laszlo must have lied when he got his citizenship. He’s accused of war crimes. Papa, it’s not you. It’s somebody else. They made a mistake. We’ll clear it up. Don’t worry.

He's worried.

Ann: He wants me to represent him.
Dean: Well I wouldn’t represent him. Suppose he did it?
Ann: Oh Christ, Dean.
Dean: You still love him. He’s still be your dad. Bloods thicker than spilled blood. That’s just a fact of life.

We'll see about that.

Ann’s colleague: You know, Harry was in the OSS after the war. Then the OSS becomes the CIA and the CIA sets up its first little spy apparatus…putting a bunch of Gestapo guys on the payroll. Word is Harry sipped boubon with Klaus Barbie.

Shh, let's not go there. Where? To the deep state of course.

Harry [to Ann]: You don’t have a prayer, you know that? The Holocaust is the world’s sacred cow. Holocaust survivors are the world’s secular saints. You’d be better off pissing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier than to cross examine them.

New thread?

Ann: I heard about your wife. I’m sorry. You must have felt very bad.
Jack: Yes, it was a terrible accident.
Ann: The police report said you were drunk. It must not have been easy to cover up.
Jack: You know, I like you Miss Talbot but I now I see I must have misjudged you. You are your father’s daughter.
Ann: Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.
Jack: Yes you did.
Ann: So didn’t joining Legal Aid assuage the guilt, Jack? What if going after war criminals doesn’t do it either? Are you gonna find Jesus? Are you going to get yourself born again?
Jack: You honestly think you need a self-serving reason to justify prosecuting war criminals? I think maybe you should get another lawyer, Miss Talbot. A real lawyer. One who is not so emotionally involved. By the way, they never pressed charges because there was no case. I was innocent.
Ann: But they could have pressed charges, couldn’t they Jack? They could have built a case if they wanted just like you’re doing with my father.
Jack: I fail to see how you can equate one with other Miss Talbot but maybe you can in court.

She'll come around. And then some, Dad.

Mikey [son]: I already know all about that stuff, anyway. Grandpa told me all about it.
Ann: What did he tell you?
Mikey: It’s a secret just between him and me.
Ann: You can’t tell me?
Mikey: He said it’s all a big exaggeration. The Holocaust and stuff. It’s all made up.

About what you would expect from him.

Ann: That was a stupid thing to say!
Mike: What did I say?
Ann: All that stuff about the Holocaust.
Mike: I didn’t say anything.
Ann: He told me, Papa.
Mike: I’m not lying to you!
Mikey: He didn’t! It was Grandpa Talbot!

That's true.

Ann: Did you really drink whiskey with Klaus Barbie?
Harry: No. But I drank with a lot of others like him though. I was an intelligence officer. I interogated many after the war. Communists were Satan’s army on earth. The Nazi’s had the best anti-communist spy apparatus in the world…and we used them. We were right to use them.
Ann: You really did drink with those monsters.
Harry: None of them that I knew were monsters. They were all salt of the earth types.

Not much that can't be rationalized if you need to believe it.

Jack: After the war we let in thousands of its victims. But we also let in some of the executioners. The war was almost over. We were in Germany and the Russians were crossing the Hungarian border. But the Hungarians were still killing their Jews. They turned the fucking Danube into their own shade of blue. That’s what was happening.
Ann: Some Hungarians. But not my father!

As she [and we] get closer and closer to the music box.

Ann [To Magda Tibor while looking at a photograph of a young Tibor]: The scar…

And then she knows the truth. Next stop: Shelly’s Loans. The music box.

Ann: It was you, Papa. You killed them all. I saw those photos. It was you, Papa. You killed that woman and her son. You raped that woman. That boy was seven. He was only seven years old! You shot that poor boy in the head while he was crying over his mother!

https://youtu.be/mu3ZfdpIZpM?si=SNoluBiiQOonwJDY

Ann: Tibor was blackmailing you.
Michael: No, he was a friend.
Ann: I saw the scar, Papa. I saw the scar.

But she still loves him. And she never wants to see him again. And she won’t let his grandson ever see him again. And she sends a letter to Jack.

[iambiguous]

Junior high school. Big City. The classes are almost all black, the teachers are almost all white. So you know a teacher will either rescue a student here or a student will rescue a teacher. And/or [of course] both.

He teaches history. And history is the stuff of change. Some of it you have control over but most of it you don’t. In our personal lives there is change too. And you’d think that at least here we are more in charge of how the events unfold. And that is often the case. But not always. Sometimes things just come along and overwhelm you. And then you either have or do not have access to dope.

So there he is by day trying to inspire his students to go out into the world politically and make it a better place to live and then by night smoking or snorting himself into oblivion—and so removing himself as far from that ideal as he possibly can. But that is only a contradiction though if you are convinced that others must choose the path you take. You have your reasons for what you do but they don’t have to be their reasons.

What I especially like about it is how little it delves into his reasons. Same with Drey. We get pieces of the puzzle. Clues. But we don’t really see the world as he does…as she does. Not the whole thing. That allows us to imagine all the more how it is that we might have our own reasons. And how others might not really be able to fathom them at all.



Half Nelson

Jimbo [reading the paper aloud in the teachers' lounge]: A man who was curious to know if a knife could penetrate his bullet-proof vest was killed yesterday by a stab wound to the chest. Witnesses say the man, Jeff Turner, 32, urged his brother, Scott Turner, 35, to stab him as hard as he could, believing the vest would stop the knife. It didn’t.

That ever happen to you?

Jimbo: Gid you guys hear that they found a crack vile in the girl’s locker room?
Dan: Jesus. Do they know whose it was?

Bingo: It was his.

Mario Savio [on TV]: “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you are free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
Dan: What is this machine that he’s walking about? It’s keeping us down, what is it?
Jamal: Like, robots and stuff, right?
Dan: Umm… it could be robots. It could be robots, but let’s say it’s a metaphor. He’s saying this machine is keeping you down. Now, what is that? What keeps us from being free? Ms. Drey?
Drey: Prisons.
Dan: Absolutely. Absolutely, prisons. OK? Prisons are definitely a part of it. What else?
Terrence: White!
Dan: White is definitely a part of it. The Man.
Student: The school.
Dan: The school, exactly. The whole-the whole education system is part of the machine. What else?
Student: Aren’t you the machine then?
Dan: Oh, no, you didn’t. What’d you say?
Student: Aren’t you the machine?
Dan: You’re saying I’m the machine?
Student: Yeah, you’re white. You’re part of the school.
Dan: Oh, yeah, I guess you’ve got a point. All right, so I’m part of the machine. But if I’m part of it, then so are you. You are, too. We all are. And this is the thing, remember? Everything is made with opposing force. We may be opposed to the machine, but we’re still very much a part of it, right? I work for the government, the school, but I’m also very much opposed to a lot of its policies. You guys hate coming to school, right? Holler back if you heard me! You hate it, but you come anyway.
Student: Sometimes.
Dan: Sometimes. Exactly.

We’ve come a long way since Savio. Just don’t ask in what direction.

Dan: I used to be so fucked. I used to be so fucked up. I was just out there. You know? But I fucking cleaned up. I cleaned up,
[snorts a line of cocaine]
Dan: For the most part.

Cleaning up here.

Dan [to the class]: Change moves in spirals, not circles. For example, the sun goes up and then it goes down. But everytime that happens, what do you get? You get a new day. You get a new one. When you breathe, you inhale and you exhale, but every single time that you do that you’re a little bit different then the one before. We’re always changing. And its important to know that there are some changes you can’t control and that there are others you can.

See! I told you!!

Isabel: Are you a communist?
Dan: What?
Isabel: I was looking through your books. Che in Africa?
Dan: So?
Isabel: The Communist Manifesto?
Dan: If I had a copy of Mein Kampf, would that make me a Nazi?
Isabel: Well, you don’t have a copy of Mein Kampf, but if you did, then yes, I’d ask if you were a Nazi.
Dan: Maybe I’m hiding it.
Isabel: Why would you hide it?
Dan: 'Cause it’s just not cool to be a Nazi anymore, baby.

Of course, for some here [and especially there] it couldn't be cooler.

Terrance [a student to the class]: “On November 1st, 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco City Council. He was the first openly gay person to ever be elected to public office. A year later he was assassinatecd by another member of the City Council called Dan White. Dan White claimed he shot Milk because he ate too much junk food that day. This would later be known as the ‘twinkie defense’”.
[Terrance looks at Mr. Dunn incredulously]
Terrance: Is that for real?

Go ahead, use that "condition" here to post "junk philosophy".

Dan [to the class]: In Asia the idea that things are made of opposites, Ying and Yang, dates back 3,000 years. That was them saying change is the only constant…but that just died in the West. It just couldn’t be both, couldn’t be black and white. It couldn’t be right and wrong. It had to be one or the other. Who am I to say that Aristotle is wrong, right, but that doesn’t make any sense. These things need each other. The idea that…that all God’s creations are perfect, perfect…so just to suggest that…that a tree it’s…it’s crooked and it’s straight…it’s strong and it’s weak…is to suggest that…that God created something imperfect. They do however acknowledge it in people; we are sinners…but we can strive to be good…just not in nature itself I guess.

Cue the big billowing clouds?

Dan: Look, you don’t really see other kids coming up to my car, Drey, to talk to me…it’s uh…I’m your teacher, not your friend. Why don’t you go play with other kids your own age? I’m just trying to be alone.
Drey: Then be alone, asshole.
Dan [rolls up his car window]: Bitch.

On the other hand, we know what's coming.

Dan: Man…I’m sweating like George Bush on Judgment Day.

Dubya Bush?

Drey [to the class]: “On September 11th, 1973, the CIA helped overthrow and murder democratically elected Chilean president Salvador Allende. The military coup led to mass disappearances, assassinations and the torture of thousands of Chilean civilians under the leadership of U.S. backed dictator Augusto Pinochet. Secretary of Sate Henry Kissinger said of Allende’s 1970 election, ‘these issues are much too important for Chilean voters to decide for themselves.’”

Next up: Kissinger on Judgment day.

Drey: You ever sell to Coach?
Frank: Why?
Drey: Just wondering.
Frank: Look, don’t you think you and Teach’s relationship is a little, uh…
Drey: What?
Frank: Inappropriate?
Drey: What do you mean?
Frank: He your teacher, Drey. Sometimes you act like he’s…
Drey: He’s my friend.
Frank: Look, he’s a basehead, all right, and baseheads don’t have friends.

Unless you count the dealers?

[iambiguous]

Eugène Ionesco

I still forget, sometimes, that I am no longer 12 years old.

And now: I still forget, sometimes, that I am no longer alive.

In the history of humanity there are no civilizations or cultures which fail to manifest, in one or a thousand ways, this need for an absolute that is called heaven, freedom, a miracle, a lost paradise to be regained, peace, the going beyond History... There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.... Humanity has always had a nostalgia for the freedom that is only beauty, that is only real; life, plenitude, light.

And how absurd might that be?

Solitude seems to oppress me. And so does the company of other people.

That can't be good.

Oh words, what crimes are committed in your name?

Let's see who can list the most.

The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all. I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware of the unreality, the evanescence of the world, a fleeting image in the moving water.

And don't forget it.

Daisy: I never knew you were such a realist-I thought you were more poetic. Where's your imagination? There are many sides to reality. Choose the one that's best for you. Escape into the world of imagination.

She means distractions of course.

[iambiguous]

I’ve always believed it was very important to understand this: How the family we were born into – the family that [for most of us] will have such an enormous impact on our lives – is not one we chose to belong to at all. Yet it becomes hard wired into us in ways we will never fully understand. It will follow us to the grave. At best we can try to understand the things that we think and feel and do now in the context of what we were taught to think and feel and do back then. And to ask ourselves, “what is independent of all this?” What, in other words, is true no matter the families we were raised in?

Here though I can’t really relate to the protagonists at all. My own family interactions could hardly have been more distant. I lived largely in my own little world far, far removed from all the rest of them. Had my father not been an alcoholic [which was often the center of the universe for my mother] I would barely have interacted with them at all. But Astrid “lived in the shadows” of a mother who was all-pervasive and powerful in her life. And her mother had substance. There was simply no way to understand how she looked at the world [and her place in it] without grasping the nature of this relationship.

But then somehow it was important that her mother was “the most beautiful woman in the world”. And, being Michelle Pfeiffer, she probably was. But dangerous too. She is cruelly arrogant around folks who stoop to the quackery of things like God or astrology. The “cattle” she calls them. What others call “sheep”. And yet she can’t recognize how she is setting up her own narative in the same manner with respect to her daughter: Be yourself but only if you end up being just like I am.

Actually, though, it’s not nearly cynical enough for me. It’s just more love and human remains. With a tidy little bow tacked on for an ending.


White Oleander

Astrid [narrating]: Everybody asks why I started at the end and worked back to the beginning, the reason is simple, I couldn’t understand the beginning until I had reached the end. There were too many pieces of the puzzle missing, too much you would never tell.

Next up: starting somewhere in the middle.

Astrid [narrating]: But how do I show that nothing, not a taste, not a smell, not even the color of the sky, has ever been as clear and sharp as it was when I belonged to her. I don’t know how to express that being with someone so dangerous is the last time I felt safe…

You ever belong to someone?

Astrid [narrating]: He came into our lives without warning. She ignored him at first. He wasn’t her type. We laughed about him, his persistence. “Never let a man spend the night,” she said. “Never apologize, never explain”. She was breaking all her rules. And it would change everything.

Murder usually does.

Teacher: Is your mother coming tonight?
Astrid: No. She has other plans.
Teacher: More important than parents’ night?
Astrid: She’s an artist. She doesn’t care about things like parents’ night.

A cliche?

Ray: So you’re going to the Jesus show?
Astrid: Aren’t you coming?
Ray: To Bible study? No. In my opinion, if there’s a God, he sure as hell ain’t worth praying to.
Astrid: That sounds like something my mother would say.

Cue Harold Kushner.

Ingrid [in prison]: What’s that?
Astrid: Nothing. It’s just a cross.
Ingrid: I know it’s a cross. Why are you wearing it?
Astrid: It’s a present from Starr.
Ingrid: She force you to go to church?
Astrid: They’re really nice people. It’s called the Assembly of God. To join you have to accept Christ as your personal savior. And you’re baptized. They call it being washed in the blood of the Lamb. But really, it’s just water.
Ingrid: Have you accepted Christ as your personal savior?
Astrid: There’s nothing wrong with Christians.
Ingrid: Are you out of your mind? How did this happen? I raised you, not a pack of Bible-thumping trailer trash. I raised you to think for yourself.
Astrid: No you didn’t. You raised me to think like you. Maybe thinking for yourself isn’t so great. Reverend Daniels says it’s evil.
Ingrid: Evil? If thinking for yourself is evil, then every artist is evil. Is that what you believe, now that you’re washed in the blood of the Lamb? Man’s ability to reason is evil? Am I evil?
Astrid: No. No. But killing people who don’t want you is evil. We pray for your redemption.
Ingrid: Fuck my redemption. I don’t want it. I regret nothing. Look, it’s good that you’re trying to identify evil, Astrid. But evil is tricky. Just when you think you know what it is, it changes its form. Learning its nature takes a lifetime of study. I will not lose you. Not to them. Those people are the enemy, Astrid.

Actually, I would never go that far myself. Well, most days anyway.

Paul: How come you chopped off your hair?
Astrid: None of your business.
Paul: You’re still beautiful.
Astrid: Looks don’t interest me.
Paul: That’s easy for you to say, you’ve never been ugly.

Touche.

Ingrid: Don’t attach yourself to anyone who shows you the least bit of attention because you’re lonely. Loneliness is the human condition. No one is ever going to fill that space. The best you can do is know yourself…know what you want. And don’t let the cattle get in the way.
Astrid: You’re not talking about me. You’re talking about yourself.

And then some.

Ingrid: So you spend most of your time with Claire?
Astrid: Yeah.
Ingrid: I’d like to meet her.
Astrid: Why?
Ingrid: Because you don’t want me to.

There's a reason for that.

Astrid: Claire’s dead. She killed herself.
Ingrid: I’m sorry.
Astrid: No, you’re not. You poisoned her too, but with words.
Ingrid: I told her what she already knew.
Astrid: You were just jealous.
Ingrid: Of course I was jealous. I live in a cell with a woman who has a vocabulary of 25 words.

That'll do it no doubt.

Astrid: I’m not coming back. I wanted to tell you that in person. I’m gonna leave you here, alone.
Ingrid: I know you think I’m cruel. I’m trying to protect you from those people.
Astrid: Those people are not the enemy, Mother. We are. You and me. They don’t hurt us. We hurt them.

Me, I’m split right down the middle. But then again, with respect to things like this, I always was.

Rena: Workers of the world arise. You’ve got nothing to lose but your Visa card, happy meal, and Kotex with wings.

Kotex with wings?

Astrid: How long were you gone?
Ingrid: About a year, give or take a few months.
Astrid: My God.
Ingrid: You’re not asking the right question. Don’t ask me why I left. Ask me why I came back.
Astrid: You should have been sterilized.
Ingrid: I could have left you there, but I didn’t. Don’t you understand? For once, I did the right thing! When I came back, you knew me. You were sitting by the door, and you looked up, and you reached for me. It was as if you had been waiting for me all along.
Astrid: I was always waiting for you, mother. That’s the constant in my life. Waiting for you. Will you come back? Will you forget that you tied me in front of a store or left me on a bus?
Ingrid: Are you still waiting?
Astrid: No. I stopped when Claire showed me what it felt like to be loved. What did you think, that I would amuse you? That’s what babies are like, mother. What’d you think? We’d exchange thoughts on Joseph Brodsky?

Who are you waiting for?

[iambiguous]

Frida Kahlo. An artist and a revolutionary. Though not necessarily in that order. An incredible life with extraordinary ups and downs.

Talk about the personal and the political. And how volatile they can be in ripping the lives of folks apart and then in shredding them to pieces…it’s all is on display here from start to finish. Somehow you have got to establish where the lines will be drawn but no one has any illusions about what that means. And that is before you throw in their “artistic temperment”. It’s a turbulent combination of elements guarenteeing a constant stuggle to stay up on the tracks.

And then the accident. A series of events intertwining the laws of nature with the bad choices we [or others] make. In the end you find your life forever changed. If you are lucky you will have already lived most of yours. She was not. She had reprieves, sure, but eventually the body has the final word. She was only 47 when she died.

And then there’s that surreal encounter between Nelson Rockefeller and Diego Rivera. What the fuck did Rockefeller expect? Diego was an avowed Communist! But did Diego really imagine that Rockefeller would accept a mural that prominently featured folks like Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Karl Marx!

“I hope the exit is joyful
And I hope never to return”
Frida Kahlo

Laura San Giacomo was originally set to play Frida Kahlo but was dropped when fans objected to a non-Mexican playing the role of Frida.

In the movie, when Frida Kahlo first meets Diego Rivera as a young girl, she is spying on him flirting with a nude model; Rivera tells the model that he could eat her wrapped in tortilla. This is actually a reference to Rivera’s real-life autobiography where he describes practicing cannibalism on female cadavers in 1904. IMDb


Frida

Frida: Careful, guys. This corpse is still breathing. Try to get me there in one piece.

Physically, anyway.

Lupe: Why is this whore still here?
Diego: Huh?
Lupe: Tell me. Tell me, mi amor. Are you planning to have her after lunch, or have you fucked her already?
Diego: Lupe, please don’t start.
Lupe: Y-You think I don’t know what’s going on. You must think I’m an idiot.
Diego: I can’t work like this.
Lupe: Yes, you can. Your food and your slut. That’s all you need to paint your pinche murals!
[she throws a basket of food at him]
Diego: Hey! Get out!
Lupe: And don’t come home! Don’t come home and give me one of your speeches about the artist and the people and your fucking revolution! You only care about yourself, you piece of shit!

Well, he is an artist, after all.

Frida: What do you think matters most for a good marriage?
Guillermo [Papa]: A short memory.
Frida: Why did you get married?
Guillermo: I can’t remember.

Use this yourself on occasion.

Doctor: The spinal column was broken, as were the collarbone and two ribs. The pelvis is broken in three places. The metal rod entered the right side of the body and came out the vagina. The right leg has fractures, and the foot was crushed.
Sister: Will she ever walk again?
Doctor: Let’s make sure she lives first.

She does. Either fortunately or unfortunately.

Diego: This is very good work. You have real talent.
Frida: Oh, come on. I’m not looking for your compliments. I want a serious critique.
Diego: But I’m being sincere. These are very original paintings…none of the usual tricks.
Frida: But that’s…that’s not specific.
Diego: You have to trust a true compliment as much as a critique.
Frida: Yeah, well, some people have told me not to trust what you say. They say if a girl asks your opinion, and she’s not a complete fright, you’ll gush all over her. I need you to tell me one thing honestly… do you actually believe that I should continue to paint?
Diego: Yes. Yes.

You tell me: https://www.google.com/search?q=frida+k ... client=img

David: Mr. Trotsky…a man who plays the martyr when, in truth, he was rejected by his own country. Good riddance.
Diego: No. He had to run for his life. Stalin would have had him shot. That’s his version of socialism…kill anyone who disagrees with you.
David: Well, some people have to get shot in a revolution, you know.
Diego: Well, I prefer evolution then. Educate the poor. Mobilize the workers. Rise like a slow tide. But you…you’ll have your revolution and kill half the poor to save them.
David: Diego, this from a Communist who’s getting rich painting for the government and wealthy patrons?
Diego: I can’t help it if the rich have good taste.
David: The rich don’t have good taste. They pay someone to have good taste for them. And they don’t hire you because you are good. They hire you because you assuage their sense of guilt. They use you, Diego, and you are too vain to see it.

And the equivalent of that here for sure.

Diego: I think it’s quite possible that we were born for each other, so we should marry.
Frida: But you don’t believe in marriage.
Diego: Of course I do. I’ve had two wives already.
Frida: Exactly. You can’t be true to only one woman.
Diego: True, yes. Faithful… no. Unfortunately, I’m physiologically incapable of fidelity. Is fidelity that important to you?
Frida: Loyalty is important to me. Can you be loyal?
Diego: To you? Always.
Frida: Good. Because I love you, panzon. I accept.

But can he be faithful?

Tina: I don’t believe in marriage.
[crowd laughs]
Tina: No, I really don’t. Let me be clear about that. I think at worst it’s a hostile political act, a way for small-minded men to keep women in the house and out of the way, wrapped up in the guise of tradition and conservative religious nonsense. At best, it’s a happy delusion - these two people who truly love each other and have no idea how truly miserable they’re about to make each other. But, but, when two people know that, and they decide with eyes wide open to face each other and get married anyway, then I don’t think it’s conservative or delusional. I think it’s radical and courageous and very romantic. To Diego and Frida.[/b]

Thank God for divorce, anyway.

Frida: Diego, son of a bitch! That model, huh?
Diego: Yes. It was just a fuck, that’s all. I’ve given more affection in a handshake.
Frida: Well, that makes me feel so much better.

He warned her.

Diego: You’d seen my work. You knew my politics when you hired me. Yeah, I showed you the sketches. I discussed them with you and your father. What were you expecting from me? A line of dancing girls?
Rockefeller: No, but nor was I expecting a portrait of Lenin! Now, let’s be honest. In the sketches that you showed me originally, it was just some anonymous worker.
Diego: He transformed himself into Lenin of his own accord.
Rockefeller: No, you transformed him into Lenin because they took shots at us in the paper! Do you really think that my family is influenced by newspaper hacks? I would’ve defended you. I will defend you against any attack because the work is thrilling. As always. But a portrait of Vladimir Lenin will offend many people… in particular, my father. You see, you’re putting me in an impossible position. So I’m asking you to please change this one detail.
Diego: It’s against my principles.
Rockefeller: Yes, well, you’ve adjusted your principles to come to our parties and eat at our table, so I hope you will reconsider.

I forget: does he?

Rockefeller: Señor Rivera, I must ask you one last time to reconsider your position.
Diego: I will not compromise my vision.
Rockefeller: In that case, this is your fee, paid in full, as agreed, but your services are no longer required.
Diego: It’s my painting!
Rockefeller: On my wall.
Diego: It’s the people’s wall, you bastard!

Art and capitalism. For better or for worse, let's say.

Diego: I could not believe it! These people are idiots! They scream about Hitler’s aggression, a-a-and then sing Stalin’s praises. Aren’t they the same creature?
Trotsky: Yes, but not exactly. Of course they are both monsters, but Hitler at least is a madman with a vision.
Diego: Vision? He’s insane!
Trotsky: Of course he is insane, but he has the ability to mobilize the people’s minds, whereas Stalin, he’s… he is so dull. There is the brutality, but when you get right down to it, Stalin is nothing but a bureaucrat, and that is what is smothering our revolution. They are the same, but only in that the insanity of power has overruled them. And between them, they will consume the continent.

Or maybe not, of course.

Trotsky: Frida…how were you hurt?
Frida: I couldn’t even tell you anymore. I’ve been cut into, rebroke, and reset so many times. I’m like a jigsaw puzzle. And all the operations have done more damage than the accident, for all I know. Everything hurts. But the leg…the leg is the worst.

You either get this or you don't.

Frida: At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.
Trotsky: That’s what I loved about your paintings…that they carry that message. You said that nobody would care about them, but I think you are wrong. Your paintings express what everyone feels…that they are alone in pain.

Tell me about it. And how about you?

Frida: Leon… tell me about your children.
Trotsky: My children. We knew the girls had been murdered and one of the boys. We thought the other was still alive in the prison. But that letter came. He was executed, too. They are all gone. I have condemned my family…as I am condemned.
Frida: You mustn’t say that.
Trotsky: But it’s true. Stalin has more power than any tsar. I’m alone with few friends and no resources against the world’s biggest killing machine.

History, let's call it.

Diego [after learning Frida has been unfaithful to him with Trotsky]: You’ve broken my heart, Frida.
Frida: It hurts doesn’t it? But why? It was just a fuck, like a handshake.
Diego: No. I told you who I was when you married me.
Frida: Yes, you did, and I married you anyway. And, you promised to be loyal. You have been my comrade, my fellow artist…my best friend. But you’ve never been my husband.

A double standard let's call it. Or as Joe Jackson once encompassed it: https://youtu.be/AS8XFDjPYHQ?si=7cHK_iQlyAyO3lOA

Can't you see
It's just biology
Biology coming in between you and me
She said thanks I'm so relieved
What your saying I can well believe
Now I know, I feel no shame
About Dave and Tony and Phil and James
I said
Baby baby this can't be true
She said well what's right for you
Has to be
Right for me
In any case I'm sure you'll see
It's nothing to do with our hearts
It's nothing to do with our heads
It's nothing to do with our homes
It's nothing to do with our beds
It's just B-I-O-L-O-G-why
Can't you see
It's just biology
Biology-coming in between you and me

Frida [to Diego]: I want you to burn this Judas of a body. I don’t want to be buried. I’ve spent enough time lying down. Burn it.

Ashes to ashes.

Diego [at an exhibition of her work in Mexico]: I want to speak about Frida not as her husband, but as an artist. I admire her. Her work is acid and tender…hard as steel…and fine as a butterfly’s wing. Loveable as a smile…cruel as…as the bitterness of life.

Like they say, art is the least untrue lie.

[iambiguous]

R.D. Laing

In a world full of danger, to be a potentially seeable object is to be constantly exposed to danger. Self-consciousness, then, may be the apprehensive awareness of oneself as potentially exposed to danger by the simple fact of being visible to others. The obvious defence against such a danger is to make oneself invisible in one way or another.

Virtually!

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.

So, what did you fail to notice that you failed to notice? Here, say.

They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.

Yep, one of the "knots".

We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.

The Sixties, let's call it.

Human beings seem to have an almost unlimited capacity to deceive themselves, and to deceive themselves into taking their own lies for truth.

Let's make sure that never happens here, okay?

There are good reasons for being obedient, but being unable to be disobedient is not one of the best reasons.

Pick two:

1] genes
2] memes

Then put them in the right order.

[attofishpi]

R.D. Laing

In a world full of danger, to be a potentially seeable object is to be constantly exposed to danger. Self-consciousness, then, may be the apprehensive awareness of oneself as potentially exposed to danger by the simple fact of being visible to others. The obvious defence against such a danger is to make oneself invisible in one way or another.

Virtually!

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.

So, what did you fail to notice that you failed to notice? Here, say.

They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.

Yep, one of the "knots".

We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.

The Sixties, let's call it.

Human beings seem to have an almost unlimited capacity to deceive themselves, and to deceive themselves into taking their own lies for truth.

Let's make sure that never happens here, okay?

There are good reasons for being obedient, but being unable to be disobedient is not one of the best reasons.

Pick two:

1] genes
2] memes

Then put them in the right order.

[iambiguous]

It seems obvious that we all come out of the womb programed by nature to embody the potential for being cruel with, to or around others. But the extent to which we come to embody it in our actual lives is also impacted by nurture. This is obvious as well. Yet in looking at particular acts of cruelty how do we unravel all the pieces in order to create a “whole” explanation?

[I still recall my ex-wife’s Uncle adopting the sweetest little boy you could ever imagine. His name was Billy. Yet the Uncle [and his biological sons] were about as far removed from “sweet” as one can get. Pure white trash as far as I was concerned. And then before my eyes over the years I watched Billy turn into one of them: No less cruel to others deemed “different”. Like father, like sons. Adopted or otherwise.]

Here we have the elders and the children in this small village. And here we also have an object lesson in how cruelty can wend its way through human history. And these children in particular would go on to become the generation that Hitler would use to promulgate his own rendition of it. That seems to be an important element in the story. Or at least the narrator thinks so.

This was a time historically [just before the First World War] when the old was giving way to the new. The “modern world” was almost upon them. But the stupidity of religion [out in the sticks] simply makes its adjustments. Same with the men in thrall to their peckers.

It’s a cruel world. And given what we are how could it be otherwise? But we can still choose [up to a point] how cruel or kind we will be. Or course others link this cruelty not to “human nature” but to the authoritarian menace of religion and to the intrinsic nature of the capitalist political economy: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/01/ribb-j06.html

After it lost the Best Foreign Film Oscar, a few articles were written exposing that the Academy voters for this category were not obligated to view all the films before voting.

The children in the film are the generation of Germans who became Nazis. Michael Haneke has stated that while that is intentional, the ideas in the film are meant to encompass more than what lead to the rise of Nazism.

Although the town itself is fictional, many of the incidents depicted in the film are drawn from real incidents in Germany and Austria during the 1920’s-1940’s. IMDb


The White Ribbon [Das Weiße Band Eine Deutsche Kindergeschichte]

Narrator [the teacher in the village, now an old man]: I don’t know if the story that I want to tell you, reflects the truth in every detail. Much of it I only know by hearsay, and a lot of it remains obscure to me even today, and I must leave it in darkness. Many of these questions remain without answer. But I believe I must tell of the strange events that occurred in our village, because they may cast a new light on some of the goings-on in this country…

Questions without answers:
Zorba: Why do the young die? Why does anyone die? Tell me!
Basil: I don’t know.
Zorba: What’s the use of all your damn books? If they don’t tell you that, what the hell do they tell you?
Basil: They tell me about the agony of men who can’t answer questions like yours.

Pastor [to his eldest son and daughter]: I refuse to be touched by you. Your mother and I will sleep poorly because we know I have to hurt you tomorrow, and because it will be more painful to us than the strokes will be painful to you. Leave us alone and go to bed.

Right, it'll hurt mom and dad more than the kuds.

Pastor [to his eldest son and daughter]: When you were small, your mother once in a while would tie a ribbon in your hair or around your arm. Its white color was to remind you of innocence and purity. I thought that at your age you were well-mannered enough to get by without such reminders. I was wrong. Tomorrow, once you’ve been purified by your punishment, your mother will tie such a ribbon on you again, and you’ll wear it until your behavior shows us that we can trust you again.

Next up: white ribbons here.

Martin: I gave God a chance to kill me. He didn’t do it, so he’s pleased with me.
Teacher: Why would God want you to die?

Like He actually needs a reason.

Rudolph [a young boy]: Do all people die?
Xenia: Yes.
Rudolph: All of them, really?
Xenia: Yes, everyone dies.
Rudolph: But not you, Xeni?
Xenia: Me too. Everyone.
Rudolph: But not Dad?
Xenia: Dad too.
Rudolph: Me too?
Xenia: You too. But not before a very very long time. All of us, only in a very long time.
Rudolph: And you can’t do anything against it? It has to happen?
Xenia: It has to happen. But not now, not for a very long time.
[long pause]
Rudolph: And Mom? She didn’t go on a trip? Is she dead too?
Xenia: Yes. She’s dead too. But that was a long time ago.

Next to God, what else is there?

Baron [looking at cabbage patch scythed to bits]: Quite a job, isn’t it?!
Baroness [revolted]: This is disgusting!
The Steward: It used to be an old custom: “Now that the harvesting’s done, It’s time to pay us, every one, Any miser who leaves us in a rut, He shall have his cabbage cut.”

The class struggle...sort of.

Narrator: They had found Sigi. He had been tied up in the old sawmill, upside down. His trousers had been pulled down and his buttocks were bleeding from cane strokes. He seemed to be in a state of shock, was unable to walk and had to be brought back to the manor on a makeshift stretcher, lying on his belly.

Curiouser and curiouser.

The Baron [to the assembled town]: We all know that the people responsible for the terrible injuries suffered by my son, and those suffered by the doctor are sitting here among us, in this room.

They usually are.

Narrator: The landowner’s speech frightened the people. Most knew about the incident at the Thanksgiving feast. But the majority didn’t know exactly what had happened, and in the end they didn’t care. The Baron was not really popular among the people, but he was respected as a powerful social figure, as well as the employer of nearly the whole village…His threat about loosing the peace of the community couldn’t mean anything good. At the same time the mysterious character of what were obviously criminal deeds fed the mistrust of the farmers, deeply rooted since time immemorial.

That's how it works by and large: contingency, chance and change.

Doctor [to the Midwife who is masturbating him]: Wouldn’t it be better if you stopped doing that? Why all the effort? Don’t look at me so dumbfounded. It’s not that you lack talent… It’s just that I can’t do it with you any more, that’s all. To tell you the truth: you disgust me.
Midwife (quietly): What did I do to you?
Doctor (irritated): My God, you haven’t done anything at all. You’re ugly, you’re messy, you’re flabby and you have bad breath. Isn’t that enough?..I just want it to stop, that’s all. I’ve been trying, but it’s just disgusting. I try to think of another woman when I’m making love to you, a woman who smells good, who is young, who is less flabby than you, but my imagination can’t handle it. In the end, it’s you again and then I just feel like throwing up and am embarrassed at myself. So what’s the point?!

And how pathetic is that?

Midwife: You can’t afford to get rid of me. Who would do the dirty work for you, who would help you with the children, and here in you practice? You’re not speaking seriously. You just want to see how far you can go, don’t you: will she still put up with it or can I drag her even lower through the mud? I’m tired too. I’ve got two retarded children: Hans and you. You’re the one that gives me most trouble.
Doctor: My God, why don’t you just die?

Here? Let's name names.

Narrator: The year was coming to an end with fine weather. The sun made the snowy landscape sparkle so brightly that it hurt the eyes. None of us suspected that it would be the last time a year moved on to the next in an era of peace, and that that same year a radical change would take place of which no one had the faintest inkling…

Radical change. That'll do it.

The Baroness: What’s going on?
The Baron: They’ve just assassinated Archduke Ferinand in Sarajevo.

Speaking of radical change: the first world war, the great depression, the second world war, the bomb.

Narrator: The news spread around the village like wildfire. What would the consequences be? The first person who spoke the word “war”, was severely contradicted. But once it had been uttered, it remained stubbornly at the center of all our thoughts.

For years. And then for decades to come. And look where we are today. It's not for nothing that the doomsday clock is now set at 90 seconds to midnight.

Narrator: During the next few weeks, the village gossip-factory worked overtime. Some claimed, the doctor was Hansi’s father. He and the midwife had tried to abort the child so that the shame of their relationship wouldn’t be found out, and that’s how the child became disabled. Others even went as far as to claim that there was something fishy about the death of the doctor’s wife, and that they wouldn’t be surprised, if the two weren’t responsible for it. Whoever had lynched the boy obviously knew about the hidden crimes of his parents. Suddenly it seemed even possible that the doctor and the midwife, as potential murderers, were also the perpetrators of all the other crimes. It was suspected, that the doctor had wanted to spare his legitimate children and himself public disclosure of his guilt, and had therefore fled with them. Apparently he had taken the disabled boy with him out of guilt. Understandably enough, he had left behind his accomplice and the mother of the disgraced child. The fact that it was on a bicycle that she tried to catch up with the man who had happily escaped, was the cause of a great deal of laughter.

Nervous laughter for some though.

Narrator: Today, more than a quarter of a century later, toward the end of my life, and several years after the end of a second war that was to change this world in a more cruel and radical way than the first one, the one we faced at the time, I wonder if the events of those days and our silence about them, weren’t the germ of the tragedy toward which we were heading. Didn’t we all know secretly what had happened in our midst? Hadn’t we, in a way, made it possible by closing our eyes? Didn’t we keep our mouths shut because otherwise we would have had to wonder if the misdeeds of these children, of our children, weren’t actually the result of what we’d been teaching them?.

I guess we'll never know. For certain, I mean.

[iambiguous]

How good is it? Well, it bombed at the box office. And then it went on to become a cult classic. Yeah, that good.

A savagely funny look at a world that should be looked at in a savagely funny way. Maybe even in a cruelly funny way. But how do parody something that is a parody in and of itself. It’s hard to top the real thing.

Of course these are just actors pretending to be office wokers. In fact, they have the sort of jobs that actual office workers would kill for. It’s awful. You find yourself in a situation where you pray to God that you don’t lose a job that you loathe. It’s all part and parcel of the American dream. Especially in this day and age.

Not only that but there’s all the bullshit you have to endure once you leave the office. Especially when you leave only to go to the workplace of others. Say, someone who works in a fast food restaurant. Someone who at a minimum is required to wear 15 pieces of flair.

There’s just no getting around all the crap out there. And that’s before we get to the crap that’s your own damn fault.

The iconic red stapler coveted by Milton was created for the film by the prop department. They needed a bright enough color to be seen on film and chose red. After the film was released, Swingline began to receive requests from customers for red staplers. Having stopped offering red a number of years before, they made the decision to start offering the color once more. IMDb


Office Space

Samir: No one in this country can ever pronounce my name right. It’s not that hard: Na-ghee-na-na-jar. Nagheenanajar.
Michael: Yeah, well, at least your name isn’t Michael Bolton.
Samir: You know, there’s nothing wrong with that name.
Michael: There was nothing wrong with it…until I was about twelve years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
Samir: Hmm…well, why don’t you just go by Mike instead of Michael?
Michael: No way! Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks!

There you go!

Peter [talking about the hypnotherapist he and Anne are about to see]: Hey, he did help Anne lose weight.
Samir: Peter, she’s anorexic!
Peter: Yeah, I know, the guy’s really good.

Isn't there a pill for that now?

Milton: [talking on the phone to Peter]: And I said, I don’t care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I’m, I’m quitting, I’m going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they’ve moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn’t bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it’s not okay because if they take my stapler then I’ll set the building on fire…

No staplers here, of course.

Bob: Y’see, what we’re trying to do here, we’re just trying to get a feel for how people spend their day. So, if you would, would you just walk us through a typical day for you?
Peter: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. I use the side door, that way Lumbergh can’t see me. Uh, and after that, I just sorta space out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too. I’d probably, say, in a given week, I probably do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work.

Something to be very, very proud of, right?

Peter: The thing is, Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy. It’s just that I just don’t care. It’s a problem of motivation, all right? Now, if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime. So where’s the motivation? And here’s another thing, Bob. I have eight different bosses right now! Eight bosses. So that means when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my real motivation - not to be hassled. That and the fear of losing my job, but y’know, Bob, it will only make someone work hard enough not to get fired.

Or here not to get banned.

Bill: Milt, we’re gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into storage B. We have some new people coming in, and we need all the space we can get. So if you could just go ahead and pack up your stuff and move it down there, that would be terrific, OK?
Milton: Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler…

The class struggle reaching a new low, let's call it.

Peter: You’re gonna lay off Samir and Michael?
Bob: Oh yeah, we’re gonna bring in some entry-level graduates, farm some work out to Singapore, that’s the usual deal. Standard operating procedure.
Peter: Do they know this yet?
Bob: No. No, of course not. We find it’s always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there’s less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.

Let's run this by Ryan Bingham.

Michael: Samir and I are the best programmers they got at that place. You haven’t been showing up and you get to keep your job.
Peter: Actually, I’m being promoted.

Ah, the real world!

Peter [explaining the plan]: Alright so when the sub routine compounds the interest is uses all these extra decimal places that just get rounded off. So we simplified the whole thing, we rounded them all down, drop the remainder into an account we opened.
Joanna [confused]: So you’re stealing?
Peter: Ah no, you don’t understand. It’s very complicated. It’s uh it’s aggregate, so I’m talking about fractions of a penny here. And over time they add up to a lot.
Joanna: Oh okay. So you’re gonna be making a lot of money, right?
Peter: Yeah.
Joanna: Right. It’s not yours?
Peter: Well it becomes ours.
Joanna: How is that not stealing?
Peter: I don’t think I’m explaining this very well.
Joanna: Okay.
Peter: Um… the 7-11. You take a penny from the tray, right?
Joanna: From the cripple children?
Peter: No that’s the jar. I’m talking about the tray. You know the pennies that are for everybody?
Joanna: Oh for everybody. Okay.
Peter: Well those are whole pennies, right? I’m just talking about fractions of a penny here. But we do it from a much bigger tray and we do it a couple a million times.

Besides, as we all know, property itself is theft.

Milton: Okay, but that’s the last straw.

Not counting all the straws to come.

Michael: If we’re caught while laundering money, we’re not going to go to white-collar-resort-prison. No, no, no. We’re gonna go to a federal-pound-me-in-the-ass-prison.

Let's explore the difference.

[iambiguous]

Death

“Death? Why all this fuss about death? Use your imagination, try to visualize a world without death! Death is the essential condition to life, not an evil.” Charlotte Perkins Gilman

How's that not working out for you?

“Men die. It's practically what they're for.” Catherynne M. Valente

Praise the Lord?

“If men only felt about death as they do about sleep, all terrors would cease. . . Men sleep contentedly, assured that they will wake the following morning. They should feel the same about their lives.” Richard Matheson

Of course, there are lots of things that should be that are not.

“Death and what came after death was no great mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was.” Garth Nix

I'm still completely baffled by them myself.

“How unhappy does one have to be before living seems worse than dying?” Deborah Curtis

What, like one size fits all?

“Aren't you afraid of dying?
Not really. I've watched lots of good-for-nothing, worthless people die, and if people like that can do it, then I should be able to handle it.” Haruki Murakami

Talk about missing the point...