Quote of the day

[accelafine]

Smug p****. Can you read? How many more threads are you going to hijack with your monstrous ego and endless supply of spam? I'm surprised Rick allows it. Perhaps he hasn't noticed. It's pretty obvious no one is going to read your shit, so your motive can only be to irritate others and cause disruption.

[iambiguous]

Sex

“V-Day…if you need this one day in a year to show everyone else you truly care for “your loved one” I think it’s quite stupid. I hate this commercialism. It’s all artificial, and has nothing to do with real love.” Jess C Scott

Capitalism let's call it.

“Don't wreck a sublime chocolate experience by feeling guilty.
Chocolate isn't like premarital sex. It will not make you pregnant.
And it always feels good.” Lora Brody

Tell that to your teeth.

“He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.” Terry Pratchett

Sure, why not.

“Sex, whatever else it is, is an athletic skill. The more you practice, the more you can, the more you want to, the more you enjoy it, the less it tires you.” Robert A. Heinlein

Sure, why not?

“What's a fuck when what I want is love?” Henry Miller

Better than nothing for starters.

“Oh, you know. Jace reminds me of an old boyfriend. Some guys look at you like they want sex. Jace looks at you like you've already had sex, it was great, and now you're just friends--even though you want more. Drives girls crazy. You know what I mean?"
Yes, Clare thought. "No," she said. Cassandra Clare

Let's run this by Rosanne: https://youtu.be/nMTjmXzwra4?si=4V23CdXQAGYopwoR

[iambiguous]

George to iambiguous:

Enough already!

[iambiguous]

Pride and Prejudice.

Try to imagine all of the historical and cultural contexts in which the narratives encompassed in this film would have seemed utterly, utterly alien. And then juxtapose that with how passionaite and earnest many of the characters are here in embracing their own narrative as though it would be nothing short of unthinkable not to.

See how it works? We come to acquire a sense of identity in a particular world; and in a world in which we come to take it entirely too seriously. And it’s not like that is still not the case today. But in the “modern world” so much has already been deconstructed that many do indeed yearn to go back to a “simpler time”. Back to a time when there really was a place allotted for everyone and everyone was indoctrinated from birth to know precisely what their place was.

So, what was the narrative back then? Out in this particular world?

By and large: Being rich. Not being rich. Being handsome. Not being handsome. Being rich but not handsome. Being handsome but not rich. Being both rich and handsome. Being neither rich nor handsome. What else really was there? Same for women. Only with considerably fewer options. For women beauty seemed to be a far more crucial component of success. Since for many of Elizabeth’s rank and status you can’t have access to money [if you were not born to it] without it. Or so it certainly appeared.

And here of course not only is the heroine the most beautiful girl at the ball but one of the very, very few that 
actually seems in possession of a mind. Her own mind in other words.Did people [of a certain demographic] actually live this way? Could they really not imagine there might be other ways to think and feel? You tell me.

Director Joe Wright managed to cast Judi Dench reportedly by writing her a letter saying ‘I love it when you play a bitch’.

At the beginning of the movie, Elizabeth is shown reading a novel titled “First Impressions” - this was Jane Austen’s original title of her novel before she altered it to “Pride and Prejudice”. Additionally the text of the visible pages is readable when paused; it is the last chapter of Pride and Prejudice, with names changed.

Joe Wright was not initially keen on Keira Knightley playing Elizabeth, believing her to be too attractive. He changed his mind upon meeting her, deciding her tomboyish attitude would be perfect for the part. Or, as she tells it on The Graham Norton Show (2007) : “He initially thought I was too pretty, but then he met me and said ‘Oh, no you’re fine!’.”

According to the director’s commentary, Carey Mulligan (Kitty) thought of her mother’s funeral during her first crying scene (also her first film). On subsequent takes, when she ran dry, Carey thought of what song would be played at her own funeral. It didn’t work quite as well.

Joe Wright specifically instructed Keira Knightley never to pout, throughout the whole film. There is, however, one scene in where she does, but that scene was shot by the second unit without the director present. According to Knightley, Wright still complains when watching the film over her breaking this ‘pout ban’. IMDb


Pride and Prejudice

Mrs. Bennet: Have you no consideration for my nerves?
Mr. Bennet: You mistake me, my dear. I have the utmost respect for them. They’ve been my constant companion these twenty years.

If you get his drift.

Elizabeth: So which of the painted peacocks is our Mr. Bingley?
Charlotte: Well he’s on the right and on the left is his sister.
Elizabeth: And the person with the quizzical brow?
Charlotte: That is his good friend, Mr. Darcy.
Elizabeth: The miserable poor soul!
Charlotte: Miserable, he may be, but poor he most certainly is not.
Elizabeth: Tell me.
Charlotte: Ten thousand a year and he owns half of Derbyshire.
Elizabeth: The miserable half?

Next up: the miserable half here.

Janet: How do you like it here in Hertfordshire, Mr. Bingley?
Mr. Bingley: Very much.
Elizabeth: The library at Netherfield, I’ve heard, is one of the finest in the country.
Mr. Bingley: Yes, fills me with guilt. Not a very good reader, you see. Prefer being out of doors. Oh, I mean I can read, of course. And I’m not suggesting you can’t read out of doors, of course. Um…
Jane: I wish I read more but there always seems to be so many other things to do.
Mr. Bingley: Yes, that’s exactly what I meant!

Define exactly?

Jane: Mr. Bingley is just what a young man ought to be. Sensible, good humour…
Elizabeth: Handsome, conveniently rich.
Jane: You know perfectly well that I do not believe that marriage should be driven by thoughts of money!

The fool!

Mr. Bingley [overheard by Charlotte and Elizabeth]: But her sister Elizabeth is very agreeable.
Mr. Darcy: Barely tolerable, I dare say. But not handsome enough to tempt me. You’d better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles. You’re wasting your time with me.
[the two men depart]
Charlotte: Count your blessings, Lizzy. If he liked you, you’d have to talk to him.
Elizabeth: Precisely. As it is I wouldn’t dance with him for all of Darbyshire, let alone the miserable half.

Some things never change. Even when they do.

Mrs. Bennet: Oh, Mr. Bennet, the way you carry on, anyone would think our girls look forward to a grand inheritance. When you die, Mr. Bennet, which may in fact be very soon, our girls will be left without a roof to their head nor a penny to their name.
Elizabeth: Oh, Mama, please. It’s ten in the morning!

You tell me,

Mr. Collins: I’ve often observed to Lady Catherine that her daughter seemed born to be a duchess, for she has all the superior graces of elevated rank. These kind of compliments are always acceptable to the ladies, and which I conceive myself particularly bound to pay.
Mr. Bennet: How happy for you, Mr Collins, to possess the talent for flattering with such delicacy. Do these attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment or are they the result of previous study?
Mr. Collins: They arise from what is passing at the time. And though I do sometimes amuse myself with arranging such little compliments, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible.
Elizabeth: Oh, believe me, no one would suspect your manners to be rehearsed.

If you get her drift.

Elizabeth: Did I just agree to dance with Mr. Darcy?
Charlotte: I dare say you will find him amiable.
Elizabeth: It would be most inconvenient since I have sworn to loathe him for all eternity.

On the other hand, just how long is eternity?

Mr. Bennet [to Elizabeth]: Your mother insists upon you marrying Mr Collins. Yes, or I shall never see her again. From this day onward, you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Who will maintain you when your father is dead? Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins…And I will never see you again if you do.

Cue Solomon?

Charlotte: My dear Lizzy. I’ve come to tell you the news. Mr. Collins and I are… engaged.
Elizabeth: To be married?
Charlotte: Yes of course. What other kind of engaged is there?
[Lizzy looks shocked]
Charlotte: Oh, for Heaven’s sake! Don’t look at me like that Lizzy! There is no earthly reason why I shouldn’t be as happy with him as any other.
Elizabeth: But he’s ridiculous!
Charlotte: Oh hush! Not all of us can afford to be romantic. I’ve been offered a comfortable home and protection. There’s a lot to be thankful for.
Elizabeth: Charlotte…
Charlotte: I’m twenty-seven years old, I’ve no money and no prospects. I’m already a burden to my parents and I’m frightened. So don’t you judge me, Lizzy. Don’t you dare judge me!

Too close to call. Ask me to explain why.

Fitzwilliam: Darcy is a most loyal companion. He recently came to the rescue of one of his friends. He saved him from an imprudent marriage.
Elizabeth: Who’s the man?
Fitzwilliam: His closest friend, Charles Bingley.
Elizabeth: Did Mr Darcy give a reason for this interference?
Fitzwilliam: There were apparently strong objections to the lady.
Elizabeth: What kind of objections? Her lack of fortune?
Fitzwilliam: I think it was her family that was considered unsuitable.
Elizabeth: So he separated them?
Fitzwilliam:I believe so. I know nothing else. Miss Elizabeth.

And even if he did some things never change. Or so they tell us.

Mr. Darcy: Miss Elizabeth. I have struggled in vain and I can bear it no longer. These past months have been a torment. I came to Rosings with the single object of seeing you… I had to see you. I have fought against my better judgment, my family’s expectations, the inferiority of your birth by rank and circumstance. All these things I am willing to put aside and ask you to end my agony.
Elizabeth: I don’t understand.
Mr. Darcy: I love you.

Of course that change either everything or nothing at all. And, no, not just back then.

Elizabeth: Do you think anything might tempt me to accept the man who has ruined the happiness of a most beloved sister? Do you deny that you separated a young couple who loved each other, exposing your friend to censure for caprice and my sister to derision for disappointed hopes, involving them both in acute misery?
Mr. Darcy: I do not deny it.
Elizabeth: How could you do it?
Mr. Darcy: I believed your sister indifferent to him. I realised his attachment was deeper than hers.
Elizabeth: She’s shy!
Mr. Darcy: Bingley was persuaded she didn’t feel strongly.
Elizabeth: You suggested it.
Mr. Darcy: For his own good.
Elizabeth: My sister hardly shows her true feelings to me. I suppose his fortune had some bearing?
Mr. Darcy: I wouldn’t do your sister the dishonour…

And on and on and on: the class struggle. Though not exactly out of The Communist Manifesto.

Mr. Darcy: So this is your opinion of me. Thank you for explaining so fully. Perhaps these offences might have been overlooked had not your pride been hurt by my honesty…
Elizabeth: My pride?
Mr. Darcy: …in admitting scruples about our relationship. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your circumstances?
Elizabeth: And those are the words of a gentleman. From the first moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize that you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.
[they look at each other for a long time as though about to kiss]
Mr. Darcy: Forgive me, madam, for taking up so much of your time.

These things can get so damned complicated.

Lady Catherine: A most alarming report has reached me. That you intend to be united with my nephew, Mr Darcy. I know this to be a falsehood. Though not wishing to injure him by supposing it possible, I instantly set off to make my sentiments known.
Elizabeth: If you believed it impossible, I wonder that you came so far.
Lady Catherine: To hear it contradicted.
Elizabeth: Your coming will be a confirmation if such a report exists.
Lady Catherine: lf? You pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been industriously circulated by yourself?
Elizabeth: I have never heard of it.
Lady Catherine: Has my nephew made you an offer of marriage?
Elizabeth: Your Ladyship has declared it to be impossible.
Lady Catherine: Mr Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now what have you to say?
Elizabeth: If that is the case, you cannot suppose he would make an offer to me.
Lady Catherine: You selfish girl. This union has been planned since their infancy. Do you think it can be prevented by a woman of inferior birth whose own sister’s elopement resulted in a scandalously patched-up marriage only achieved at the expense of your uncle. Heaven and Earth! Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted? Tell me once and for all, are you engaged to him?
Elizabeth: I am not.
Lady Catherine: Will you promise never to enter into such an engagement?
Elizabeth: I will not and I certainly never shall. You have insulted me in every possible way and can now have nothing further to say. I must ask you to leave immediately. Goodnight.
Lady Catherine [leaving in a huff]: I have never been thus treated in my entire life!

Let's give her the benefit of the doubt.

Mr. Darcy: How are you this evening, my dear?
Elizabeth: Very well. Only, I wish you would not call me “my dear.”
Mr. Darcy: Why?
Elizabeth: Because it’s what my father calls my mother whenever he’s cross about something.
Mr. Darcy: Well, what endearments am I allowed?
Elizabeth: Well, let me think…“Lizzy” for everyday, “my pearl” for Sundays, and “Goddess Divine,” but only on special occasions.
Mr. Darcy: And what am I to call you when I’m cross? “Mrs. Darcy?”
Elizabeth: No, you may only call me “Mrs. Darcy” when you are completely, perfectly and incandescently happy.
Mr. Darcy: And how are you this evening… Mrs. Darcy?

A happy ending let's call it.

[iambiguous]

Roger Penrose

We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws of physics that gave rise to it.

Whatever that means for, say, all practical purposes?

No doubt there are some who, when confronted with a line of mathematical symbols, however simply presented, can only see the face of a stern parent or teacher who tried to force into them a non-comprehending parrot-like apparent competence--a duty and a duty alone--and no hint of magic or beauty of the subject might be allowed to come through.

That was always my point back then.

Even aardvarks think their offspring are beautiful.

If only autonomically, of course..

To before the Big Bang? Surely not: the Big Bang is supposed to represent the beginning of all things, so there can be no ‘before’. Never fear—this is just a mathematical trick. The extension is not supposed to have any physical meaning!

Good to know?
 
A scientific world-view which does not profoundly come to terms with the problem of conscious minds can have no serious pretensions of completeness.

Click, of course. Or have you already forgotten what that means?

There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature's actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained 'fine structure constant' ... governing the strength of electromagnetic interactions...

You tell me.

[iambiguous]

Fast Food Nation. The movie. 

Mixed reviews. Split right down the middle. Literally, a 50% rating at RT. Not exactly fresh in other words. Though not exactly rotten either.

The major complaint seemed to revolve around the film trying to be two more or less middling movies instead of one really good one. One focus is on the fast food industry itself. The other is on the immigrants that seem to do many of the jobs that are “out of view” of those who frequent fast food restaurants. In other words, the folks who work at the plants that render cows into hamburgers. Mile after mile of cows. It keeps flipping back and forth from one context to the other. Too many characters to keep track of. Too much information to digest in a two hour movie.

And then there are the characters and the plot line that really don’t have anything to do with either one. You’re thinking: what the fuck were they thinking.

Still, the movie does enable the text to be illustrated such that [at least in part] the reality of our fast food nation becomes all the more appalling. Both in and out of the actual restaurants. For one thing, you get to see actual cows stunned to death and then cut up part by part by part. It is really graphic.

Best summed up by Rudy: "This isn’t about good people versus bad people. It’s about the machine that’s taking over this country. It’s like somethin’ out of science fiction. The land, the cattle, human beings. This machine don’t give a shit. Pennies a pound. Pennies a pound. That’s all it cares about. A few more pennies a pound."

Fortunately, we have Paco here to put it all into political perspective. In other words, it is one of the few films that dare to expose the manner in which crony capitalism functions here not only create “the machine”, but to sustain it.


Fast Food Nation:

Phil: The Big One is not only a big hit…it is quickly becoming the flagship of our brand. Which we’ll be building on, both in the upcoming second half of our campaign and in merchandising. Chairman: Terrific. Don, what about those Little Big Ones?

The Big One here?

Don: Well, uh, last week, you know, we did a pretty extensive focus group with some of the kids from Martin Luther King Elementary. And it went great. Tested 91% in the top three boxes. They loved 'em. We figure three Little Big Ones for each kid’s meal…is gonna work out about right. But we wanna do a little more testing on that as well.
Jack [Chairman]: How about Disney?
Don: No word yet. Also, the PBS deal doesn’t seem to be happening. Uh, apparently Burger King and McDonald’s have the Teletubbies all locked up.
Jack: Fuck 'em.

Any Teletubbies still posting here?

Jack: I have a friend that teaches food science over at A&M–microbiology. And this semester, a couple of his grad students decided to culture some patties from a bunch of fast-food chains. They got hold of a couple of Big Ones—frozen patties. Don’t ask me how. And the fecal coliform counts were just off the charts. I’m concerned that this could be a problem for us. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Don: Uh- Not exactly.
Jack: I’m saying there’s shit in the meat.

Next up: meat found in the shit burgers.

Don: Too much E. Coli in stuff. People could get sick.
Wife: Is that the one that can kill kids?
Don: I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, nobody’s gotten sick or anything. But Jack says too much cow manure is somehow getting into the meat.
Wife: That’s disgusting.
Don: That’s my new job. Same office–still dealing with bullshit.
Wife: Well, I guess it is a marketing issue after all. If the kids die from eating your burgers… it makes them much harder to sell.
Don: That’s right. Marketing 101: Don’t kill the customer. Bad for repeat business.
[they both laugh]

Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.

Don: Do you think they would knowingly sell us contaminated meat?
Rudy: Oh, come on. Workers are gettin’ their arms cut off over there. You don’t know who you’re dealin’ with.
Don: No. No, I don’t. Please, help me. I was at the plant. It seemed clean to me.
Rudy: They show you the kill floor?
Don: I don’t know. I saw a lot of things.
Rudy: You’d remember. You see any cattle gettin’ their heads cut off? Were you walkin’ ankle-deep in blood?
Don: No.
Rudy: So they didn’t show you a damn thing.

Not only that, but one suspects on purpose.

Rudy: Rita, Mr. Anderson here would like to know if the meat over there is clean.
[Rita scoffs]
Rudy: He wants to know how cow manure could ever possibly wind up in his hamburger.
Rita: Well, there’s lots of ways. My brother used to work at the gut table. And, you know, they have to pull out the intestines and the stomachs. And they just don’t have enough time to do it right. The line is moving too fast. So when they’re pulling the guts out- and they make a mistake - all the poop and stuff just pours out all over the meat.
Don: Okay, okay, okay. All right. But, really, how often does that happen?
Rita: Every day.

Good to know?

Harry: You know…I think there might be a little bit of shit right here in this meat. Just a teeny little bit. Microscopic.
Don: Your tests say that the meat we’re getting from U.M.P. Is clean. It’s not. I’ve seen independent tests that say that it’s not.
Harry: There’s always been a little shit in the meat. You’ve probably been eatin’ it your whole life.
Don: Yeah? Well, I prefer not to, Harry.

Picky, picky.

Harry: Just cook it. That’s all you need to do. You see? That’s one of the things that’s just buggin' me about this country. Really buggin’ me. Americans have become these–these great big fraidy cats. Afraid of everything. Everything’s gotta be sterile and germfree. Well, everybody needs to grow up. That’s what they need. You wanna be safe? Huh? Perfectly safe? Well, forget about it. That’s not gonna happen. Okay? Everybody just needs to get that through their head. Just cook the meat, and you’ll be fine.

No shit?

Harry: Donny boy, you just gotta try and step back and look at the big picture. 40,000 people die in automobile accidents every year. Does that mean Detroit should stop making cars? Does it? Of course not.

So, how logical is that?

Harry: You ever been down to Mexico? - What’s that have to do with anything? - It’s beautiful down there. Really beautiful. Great beaches. Gorgeous. But poor. Poor. Poorest fuckin’place I ever been, I think. Guy down there makes three, maybe four dollars a day. A day, Don. Now, that same guy, he comes up here…he gets a job workin’ for U.M.P. – makin’ $10 an hour. That’s more money in one day than he makes back home in a whole month. So, frankly, I don’t see the problem. Nobody’s makin’ these people come up here. Right? Nobody’s tellin’ them to come work for U.M.P.
Don: Okay, okay. But that’s not the point.
Harry: And you know what? I admire these people. Okay? I really do. They’re hard workers. They’re workin’ hard, and they’re trying to improve their lives. Okay? Now, isn’t that what our ancestors did? Isn’t that what made this country the great country that it is today? Huh? And you wanna try and stop 'em? You wanna tell 'em that you know what’s best for 'em? Well, most people don’t like to be told what’s best for 'em.

Now, of course, we just ICE the bastards.

Harry: I negotiated a hell of a good price with U.M.P. Okay? I negotiated a great price for your fuckin’ meat. Hell, if it weren’t for me, there wouldn’t be no Big One, Don. I’d like to see you find a supplier that will sell you Grade “A” chuck at 40 cents a pound. I’d like to see that. It is a sad fact of life, Don. But the truth is we all have to eat a little shit from time to time.

Next up: the equivalent of that here.

Pete: So, what would you say? Is Cody a better town today…or back when we were kids? Cindy: Well, I know what you would say.
Pete: What?
Cindy: Your uncle hates everything, Amber. You know, I actually think it’s better now. There’s more stuff to do.
Pete: Oh, yeah. There’s more to do. You got the Wal-Mart, the Kmart and the Target, right? You got Chuck E. Cheese. You got Taco Bell. You got Arby’s. You got Mickeys. You got Denny’s. You’ve got, uh, Chili’s. You got Applebee’s. You got Wendy’s. You got Hardee’s, right? You got the…the K.F.C., the IHOP.

And some places that's on every other block.

Amber: All that surveillance equipment they have here? They say it’s for our safety…but those cameras are pointed right at us- monitoring us, making sure we don’t steal shit and stuff.
Co-worker: Yeah, you know, I always wonder whose job it is to watch those monitors…‘cause you don’t see anyone around here doing that.
Amber: I think they just record everything in case somethin’ happens. It’s probably all getting fed back to the national headquarters…like our cash registers.
Co-worker: What about ‘em?
Amber: You don’t know about that? First thing I do whenever I start my shift is type in the last four digits of my Social Security number, then log in. And from then on, they keep track of every keystroke.
Co-worker: Really?
Amber: Yeah, they keep a record. They know exactly how many orders of fries I’ve sold this month—everything. And I even have to put in a little code with each person’s order… saying their approximate age and ethnicity. They don’t even know.
Co-worker: You know, that is fuckin’ evil.

If only until the workers of the world unite.

Andrew: The problem is, at this very moment, there’s about a hundred thousand cattle in the U.M.P. Feedlot that’s right outside of Cody. It’s one of the biggest feedlots in the world. Each one of those cows puts out 50 pounds of piss and shit every day. Fifty pounds each. So, that U.M.P. Feedlot… produces more waste every single day… than all of the people in Denver combined. And-And the waste from U.M.P.'s feedlot, it’s-it’s- It’s not going to some high-tech treatment plant, you know? It’s being pumped into these lagoons which are these just great big ponds of piss and shit. And these great big shit ponds are leaking shit into Peyton Creek which eventually ends up in the river.
Alice: I mean, you should see it. U.M.P. 's cattle, they’re all just crammed together living in their own manure, eating this genetically engineered crap that’s being dumped into these concrete troughs for them. It’s like prison camps for cows. You wouldn’t believe it. You can smell it, like, three miles away.
Andrew: So Professor Cohen is gonna help us coordinate a letter-writing campaign…not only to the state water quality board but to various editorial organizations.
Paco: Are you kidding me? Excuse me? You guys are gonna write a letter. That company is the meanest fucking company I’ve ever seen. They treat their workers like shit. They treat the animals like shit. They’re dumping tons of shit and piss into our river…and you guys are gonna write a letter? The governor got $200,000 from U.M.P. Last year. Cathy Crawford? Head of the environmental committee in the state senate? Cathy Crawford? She’s married to a U.M.P. Top exec. And you guys are gonna write a letter. What a fucking waste of time.

Cue Michael Clayton.

Andrew [after Amber and Paco suggest cutting the fences and letting the cows out of the pens]: I’m just- I’m warning you guys that right now in this country any destruction of private property along these lines can be considered in violation of the Patriot Act. It can be considered an act of terrorism. You can go to prison for, like, 10 years.
Paco: Yeah, it’s a bunch of bullshit.
Andrew: I know. I know. We have entered a whole new era where they can search your house without a warrant. They can put you in jail without a trial. Eco-activists that have never harmed another human being are considered by our government to be more of a threat to national security than all these right-wing, Timothy McVeigh, militia types.
Paco: Well, right now I can’t think of anything more patriotic than violating the Patriot Act.

Of course, nothing is more patriotic for others than turning his ass in.

Amber [to a cow]: Come on, don’t you want to be free?

On the other hand, some argue, if we didn't consume cows, the cows themselves would have never been around. Or not by the millions anyway.

Alice: I think our major learning was that cows are pretty stupid.

Imagine how horrible it would be, however, if they were pretty smart?

Executive: Which all adds up to us believing that next quarter will be the best time to introduce a major new product. And along those lines, um- Don, you wanna take it from here?
Don: Yeah. Um, well, as you all know, the Barbecue Big One… has been testing off the charts for months. And, uh, I really feel like the marketing department’s nailed the campaign, Jack. So, it’s obviously time for the big launch. And we couldn’t be more ready to go.

Don is back in the fold, eh?

[iambiguous]

They hit the road. And on the road one is never quite certain of what there will be around the next bend. You can meet new people. You can have new experiences. Maybe even spark a few adventures. And this might well change your life forever. Or maybe not. Maybe something somewhere in the middle. But the point is that in a world awash in contingency, chance and change, there is only going to be all the more likelihood of bumping [smacking] into them when you leave the place where you are now and venture out into new places instead.

But here however it’s not exactly like Miles and Jack have left the country. Instead, they are on a road trip to California’s “wine country”. On the other hand, both men are living [floundering even] in this gap between what they wanted their life to be and the way they have actually turned out instead. Especially Miles. It’s just all the grimmer the, uh, “artistic” sort. They want to be renowned for their creative work and [so far] that just ain’t working out.

So, anyway, they are more open to contingency, chance and change than others might be. Or at least Jack is. But in wine country? After all, what does that connote? But that’s what they have scripts for, right? And what a great one this is:

"This is the first film to win best screenplay from all five “major” critic groups (National Board Of Review, New York, Los Angeles, Broadcast and National Society Critics), the Golden Globes, the WGA and, ultimately, the Academy Awards."

Also, everything you ever wanted to know about wine [and wine tasting] is included too. Or [like me] you can just fast forward those parts.

The food that Miles, Jack and Miles’ mother consume during the dinner at Miles’ mother’s house gave the three actors food poisoning.

The guys visit “Frass Canyon” vineyards, which Miles describes with a sneer. “Frass” is insect excrement.

During his audition, Thomas Haden Church stripped naked because that was what the scene called for. He later learned that he was the only actor to do that.   IMDb


Sideways

Mom [to Miles]: Do you need any money?

Nope. Not anymore.

Jack: Are you still seeing that shrink?
Miles: I saw him on Monday. I spent most of the time helping him with his computer.
Jack: Well, I say, fuck therapy. And what is that stuff you take… Xanax?
Miles: And Lexapro, yes.
Jack: Well, I say, fuck that too. You need to get your joint worked on, Miles.

Don't we all?

Miles: This week is not about me. It is about you. I’m gonna show you a good time. We’re gonna drink a lot of good wine. We’re gonna play some golf. We’re gonna eat some great food and enjoy the scenery and we are going to send you off in style, mon frere.
Jack: And get your bone smooched.

Back to that again.

Miles: Let me show you how this is done. First thing, hold the glass up and examine the wine against the light. You’re looking for color and clarity. Just, get a sense of it. OK? Uhh, thick? Thin? Watery? Syrupy? OK? Alright. Now, tip it. What you’re doing here is checking for color density as it thins out towards the rim. Uhh, that’s gonna tell you how old it is, among other things. It’s usually more important with reds. OK? Now, stick your nose in it. Don’t be shy, really get your nose in there. Mmm… a little citrus… maybe some strawberry… passion fruit…and, oh, there’s just like the faintest soupçon of like asparagus and just a flutter of a, like a, nutty Edam cheese…
Jack: Wow. Strawberries, yeah! Strawberries. Not the cheese…

Yawn.

Jack [to Miles]: Christine’s dad – he’s been talking about bringing me into his property business. Showing me the ropes. And that’s something, considering how long it took him to get over I’m not Armenian.

I forget how long.

Stephanie: So, what do you think?
Miles: Quaffable, but uh…far from transcendent.

Things to say to impress the ladies.

Jack: Relax, Miles, Jesus. Okay, okay no Merlot. Did you bring your Xanax?
[Miles shakes his bottle of Xanax]
Jack: And don’t drink too much. I don’t want you going to the dark side or passing out. Do you hear me? No going to the dark side.

Good luck with that, right?

Maya: Hey, Steph? You sure we can open anything? Anything we want?
Stephane: Yeah. Anything but the Jayer Richebourg!
Miles: She has a Richebourg? Mon dieu. I have completely underestimated Stephanie.

Hey, they know their wines. I guess.

Maya: You know, can I ask you a personal question, Miles?
Miles: Sure.
Maya: Why are you so in to Pinot? I mean, it’s like a thing with you.
Miles: Uh, I don’t know, I don’t know. Um, it’s a hard grape to grow, as you know. Right? It’s uh, it’s thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It’s, you know, it’s not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and uh, thrive even when it’s neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention. You know? And in fact it can only grow in these really specific, little, tucked away corners of the world. And, and only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot’s potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. Then, I mean, oh its flavors, they’re just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and… ancient on the planet.

Next up: the philosophical equivalent of Pinot.

Maya: I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing; how the sun was shining; if it rained. I like to think about all the people who tended and picked the grapes. And if it’s an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I’d opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it’s constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks, like your '61. And then it begins its steady, inevitable decline.
Miles: Hmm.
Maya: And it tastes so fucking good.

The look on his face. The look on her face. Fucking priceless. But Miles then blows the moment right out of the water. And he knows it:

Miles [bitterly looking into the mirror after pulling away from Maya]: You’re such a fucking loser. You make me fucking sick.

Good call.

Jack: I’ve been doing some thinking. I may have to put the wedding to Christine on hold…Being with Stephanie has opened my eyes. She’s not uptight or controlling. She’s just cool. Things are so easy with her. Smells different. Tastes different. Fucks different. Fucks like an animal. I’m telling you, I went deep last night, Miles. Deep.
Miles: Deep.

Oh yeah.

Maya: Why don’t you stay through the weekend?
Miles: No, we’ve got to get back Friday for the rehearsal dinner.
Maya: What rehearsal dinner? Who’s getting married?

Oops.

Maya: Do you know what he’s been saying to her?
Miles: He’s an actor, so it can’t be good.
Maya: Oh, just that he loves her. That she’s the only woman who has ever really rocked his world. How he adores Siena. How he wants to move up here and get a place with the two of them and commute when he has to.
Miles: I’m sure he believed every word. Maya, please believe me, I was on the verge of telling you last night, but…
Maya: But you wanted to fuck me first.

Priorities let's call them.

Miles [while tasting wine]: It tastes like the back of a fucking L.A. school bus. Now they probably didn’t de-stem, hoping for some semblance of concentration, crushed it up with leaves and mice, and then wound up with this rancid tar and turpentine bullshit. Fuckin’ Raid.
Jack: Tastes pretty good to me.

Too close to call?

Miles: Well, the world doesn’t give a shit what I have to say. I’m not necessary. I’m so insignificant I can’t even kill myself.
Jack: Miles, what the hell is that supposed to mean?
Miles: Come on, man. You know. Hemingway, Sexton, Plath, Woolf. You can’t kill yourself before you’re even published.
Jack: What about that guy who wrote Confederacy of Dunces? He committed suicide before he got published, and look how famous he is.
Miles: Thanks.

You tell me.

Miles: Half my life is over and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing. I’m a thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper. I’m a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage.
Jack: See? Right there. Just what you just said. That is beautiful. ‘A smudge of excrement… surging out to sea.’
Miles: Yeah.
Jack: I could never write that.
Miles: Neither could I, actually. I think it’s Bukowski.

Sounds like Chuck.

Jack [buck naked after Miles lets him into the hotel room]: Fucking chick’s married. Her husband works a night shift or something, and he comes home, and I’m on the floor with my cock in his wife’s ass.

Bummer.

Jack: We gotta go back.
Miles: What?
Jack: I left my wallet. My credit cards, cash, fucking ID, everything. We gotta go back.
Miles: Big deal. We’ll call right now and cancel your cards.
Jack: You don’t understand. The wedding bands. The wedding bands are in my wallet…She ordered them special. Took her forever to find them. They’ve got this design on them with dolphins and our names engraved in Sanskrit. We’ve got to go back.
Miles: No. No way.
Jack [utterly wretched]: Those rings are irreplaceable! We’ve got to get them, Miles! I fucked up! I know I fucked up, okay? I fucked up. You gotta help me. You gotta help me. Pleeeease! Oh, God, please… Oh God. I know I’m bad. I know I did a bad thing. Help me, Miles. Just this one thing, this one last thing. I can’t lose Christine. I can’t. I’m nothing without her. Please, Miles, please!

So, double checking the script, they go back.

Miles: So, okay, what’s the plan?
Jack: The plan is…you go.
Miles: ME?!
Jack: 'Cause of my ankle. Still hurts. Just go explain the situation, Miles.
Miles [laughing uproariously]: Explain the situation?! Yes. “Excuse me, sir, my friend was the one balling your wife couple of hours ago. Really sorry. He seems to have left his wallet behind. I was wondering if I come in, just poke around, I don’t know.”
Jack: Yeah, yeah, just like that. That’s good.

Desparation let's call it.

Maya [on answering machine]: Hello, Miles. It’s Maya. Thanks for your letter. I-I would have called sooner, but I think I needed some time to think about everything that happened and… what you wrote to me. Another reason, um, I didn’t call you sooner is because I wanted to finish your book, which I finally did last night. And I think it’s really lovely, Miles. You’re so good with words. Who cares if it’s not getting published? There are so many beautiful and… painful things about it. Did you really go through all that? Must have been awful. And the sister character - jeez, what a wreck. But I have to say that, well, I was really confused by the ending. I mean, did the father finally commit suicide, or what? It’s driving me crazy. Anyway, it’s turned cold and rainy here lately, but I like winter. So, listen, if you ever do decide to come up here again, you should let me know. I would say stop by the restaurant, but to tell you the truth, I’m not sure how much longer I’m gonna be working there, because I’m going to graduate soon. So, I’ll probably want to relocate. I mean, we’ll see. Anyway, like I said, I really loved your novel. Don’t give up, Miles. Keep writing. I hope you’re well. Bye.

What to make of that.

[iambiguous]

For me, The Thorn Birds will always revolve around religion and God…around Christianity and Catholicism. That and the insufferable male ego. Even more than the book though, the movie focuses on both the pieties and the perils of faith.

Personally, I have always seen them both [again the movie in particular] as a barely disguised [even contemptuous] assault on the God narrative. And on Catholicism above all. And yet Father Ralph de Bricassart has always been one of the most fascinating characters I have come across over the years. And that is because it is clearly conveyed how much he struggles [fiercely] with his faith. It is more often than not something that he endures. It reminds me of my own struggles [as a young man] to reconcile God with the world as I actually lived it in the belly of the working class beast.

The rest of the film is basically just “there” for me. The various characters serve only to bring the focus back to that tumultuous struggle between Father Ralph and his faith in God. And those who goad him about it. Otherwise, It depicts the sort of functional and dysfunctional relationships you might find in any family this large that has been uprooted from one way of life and suddenly finds itself in an altogether different set of circumstances. Of course the narrative goes back decades – to a time and a place very, very different from the world we know today. But, again, some things never really change much at all, do they? For example, the relationships that revolve around sex and love. And the role of wealth and power.

Mary Carson, Meggie, Frank and Fiona are the only other characters [in part one] that draw any real reaction from me. And here it is all [or mostly] about grappling with the way things are and the way you want them to be instead. And how in reacting to this some people make things better and some people make things worse. And sometimes for themselves and sometimes for others.

Of course for any of this to work [on commercial television], Meggie must be [by far] the most beautiful woman around…and Ralph must be [by far] the most handsome man around. Not that they aren’t mind you.

Bryan Brown, who played Luke O’Neill, was the only Australian on set.

Producers found the conditions of shooting in Australia to be impossible. Most of the sheep ranches were to far out in the middle of nowhere for film crews to get to, and the requirements placed on American film crews to shoot in Australia were unrealistic. So the entire ranch, Drohgeda was built in California.   IMDb


The Thorn Birds [part one]

Mary: Six months now and I still haven’t figured out why the church banished you out here to the land of Never-Never. What sin did you commit? What priestly vow did you break? Poverty? Obedience?..Perhaps, chastity?Ralph: You’re quite sure I have been banished?
Mary: Well of course. Look at you. You’re aristocratic, witty, ambitious…dispite that facade of humility. And God knows you have a subtle mind. You’re the stuff cardinals are made of Ralph. And oh you would look magnificent in red.
Ralph: So you’ve said before.
Mary: And you’re going to say, “But my dear Mrs. Carson, I am a priest. Surely I can do God’s work here as well as in the seats of ecclesiastic power.”
Ralph: Sometimes Mary I think you know me better than I do myself.
Mary: I’m certain of that, too.

Don't even think of doubting that.

Ralph: All right, my Christmas gift to you. I insulted a bishop on a matter of local church policy.
Mary: Oh you broke your vow of obedience.
Ralph: There’s some comfort in the fact that the Pope himself later came out in favor of my views on the matter.
Mary: Has he now? And he hasn’t rescued you?
Ralph: My dear Mrs. Carson, priests are expendable, bishops aren’t. And it’s not so terrible a banishment. I have you to remind me of the existence of civilization. And I have Drogheda.
Mary: Yes. You would like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to have my Drogheda.
Ralph: Oh would I?
Mary: Oh yes you would. If you could charm me into leaving Drogheda to the church his Holiness would have to rescue you…maybe even give you that beautiful red cardinal’s robe some day.

Count on it.

Mary [to Ralph]: Still, I have to give Grogheda to someone someday. That’s worth thinking about…

How about 24 hours a day.

Mary: So, have you thought about it?
Ralph: Thought about what, Mrs. Carson?
Mary [caressing his hand]: About charming me out of Grogheda, because I didn’t say I couldn’t be charmed, did I?
Ralph: Mrs. Carson. What is it that you want from me?
Mary [pulling back]: Why only your spiritual guidance of course, Father. You see, I have a decision to make and you’re the only one that can help me with it…

Enter Meggie Cleary and all the rest of them.

Mary: I’m thinking of bringing Paddy here and making him my head stockman.
Ralph: I wonder you didn’t think of it sooner.
Mary: Oh, I did. I did. I’ve just been waiting, shall we say, to, uh, to see what might develop. And it would be a comfort to me to know I would be helping Paddy…to know I’m not all alone in this world…not…not quite reduced to leaving all my pretty pennies to the Church.
Ralph: It’s a most generous gift, Mary.
Mary: No. Never a gift. No, whoever inherits Drogheda…earns it.

Busting their balls among other things.

Fiona: You’re certainly not like New Zealand priests. They keep very much to themselves.
Ralph: You’re not a Catholic, are you?
Fiona: When I lost faith in my own church, I saw no reason to espouse a creed equally meaningless to me. But Paddy’s a Catholic…and we are raising the children Catholic if it’s worrying you.
Ralph: It isn’t. And I won’t try to convert you. But I would like to be your friend.

And he really, really means it. Her being Meggie's Mom and all.

Mary: Ahh. God is in his wool shed. All is right with the world.
Ralph: And why not? He did choose a stable once.
Mary: Oh come on, Ralph. That’s a bit precious. Except why not…why not make this the epicenter of the papal map…and then you could be cardinal after all.
Ralph: And what would that make you, surely not the Pope.
Mary: Oh, no no. That’s too dull. Satan, perhaps. That’s more interesting.
Ralph: And more powerful.
Mary: Well, every Heaven needs one, just to stay in business.
Ralph: You argue like a Jesuit.
Mary: Isn’t it true? Without Satan, there’s no struggle. And it’s the struggle that keeps us alive.
Ralph: Oh, no. What keeps us alive is the point of that struggle: the hope of attaining perfection.
Mary: Well, if by perfection you mean Heaven…but you have to die to get there, don’t you?
Ralph: Sometimes Mary I think you are after my very soul.
Mary: I am…
[she looks down at Meggie]
Mary: …unless it’s already been taken.

Count of it.

Ralph: Who knows, you might not even want to spend your life here. Because as big as Drogheda is, it’s only a tiny corner of the world.
[he stares wistfully out into space]
Ralph: There’s so much else out there…so many other lives you might choose…so many opportunities for you.
Meggie: Father, do you ever wish you could go out and see the world?
Ralph: I’m a priest wee Meggie. I must go where the church sends me.

For now, let's say.

Paddy [to Stu]: We were farmers you know back in Galway. One day my dad told me to fetch a breeding bull from the next farm up. We were too poor to have one of our own. And I tried but that bull was a killer. I had to come back without him. My dad called me a good-for-nothing coward. He said he’d show me how to fetch a bull. I felt so bad, I sat down and cried. And then after a while I looked up and here come my dad down the lane. He had a rope in his hand all right, but there was no bull at the end of it. He just walked right by me. Never said a word at all. But you know he never called me a coward again after that.

The look on Stu's face...

Frank: Meggie, sit up for a minute and listen to me. You know how they always preached to us to work together for the good of us all. How we must never think of ourselves first. You’ve got to think of yourself because they never will.

A tragedy in the making.

Ralph [holding Meggie]: Why do you tug so at my heart? Why do you fill that space God can’t fill?

Take a wild guess.

Frank: Why did you become a priest?
Ralph: Because I Iove God. And I want to help others feel his love. Why do you ask Frank?
Frank: Because you don’t act much like a priest to me.
Ralph: Being out here gives me an escape from my duties at the Parish. I need that I’m afraid.
Frank: I can understand that well enough. Stuck out here in this hellish place.
Ralph: The Church has such power Frank. Or, rather, God has working through the Church. The power to shape the lives of millions and millions of people…to change the whole course of history. And I want to be a part of that. I try to hold the thought that even out here I do share in that power…but sometimes I find it very difficult.
Frank: Then why don’t you escape? Why do you put it with it, a man like you? You could be anything you wanted to be.
Ralph: And yet I’d give up every ambition…every desire in me to be the perfect priest.
Frank [shaking his head with scorn and derision]: “The perfect priest”.
Ralph: How can I explain? I’m a vessel Frank…and sometimes I am filled with God. If I were a better priest there would be no periods of emptiness, no need to escape. I would always be filled with God. That to me would be perfection.
Frank [again with scorn]: Nobody could be that perfect…not even you.
Ralph: Perhaps me least of all.

Scorn works for me too. But nothing at all like Frank's.

Frank: Maybe I should become a priest. I qualify all right. No women. No money. And boy, do I obey. “Yes, Daddy, no Daddy. Quite all right, Daddy.”
Ralph: Why do you put up with it?
Frank: Because I can’t get away from him.
Ralph: But you’re 22 now. He can’t hold you anymore.
Frank: He’ll hold me til I die.
Ralph: No, Frank, you’re a man. And long past the age when another man can hold you. If you’re held, it’s by something else…or someone else.

Mom?

Frank: I’ll end up killing him!
Fiona: Then you’ll kill me too.
Frank: No, I’ll free you!
Fiona: I can never be free, I don’t want to be free.
Frank [in despair]: God. Mother. Look at yourself! Look at your life! The waste! You don’t belong with him!

Talk about a fascinating back story...

Mary [watching Ralph – naked – dry himself]: You are the most beautiful man I have ever seen Ralph de Bricassart. But of course you already know that. I’m curious how you view us mortals with contempt for admiring that beauty. And yet you would use it without compunction to get whatever you wanted, wouldn’t you?
Ralph: I thought it is my soul you were after, Mary.
Mary: It is. Because at my age, officially, I’m supoosed to be beyond the drives of my body. And one mustn’t expect miracles…even from you. How many women have loved you…besides your mother.
Ralph: Did she love me? I don’t know. She ended up hating me.
Mary: Because you didn’t need her.
Ralph: Because I needed God more.
Mary: Interesting. And now you can’t need any woman…can you, Cardinal de Bricassart?[/b[

Don't bet on it.

[Ralph is in the Parish staring up at Christ on the cross…then writhing in agony…then slumping down in despair. And then he sees Meggie]:
Meggie: Father, I’m so glad you’re back.
[Ralph is still in the throes of a tormented sense of futility]
Meggie: Father, what’s wrong?
Ralph: I’ll never have what I want! Never be what I want! And I don’t know how to stop…wanting!

Tell me about it. And you too?

Frank [to Paddy]: I’ve always felt it. I’ve always known that you came after me…that she was mine first. I’ve always blamed you for dragging her down all these years. It was me. It was me…
Ralph: No Frank. It’s not your fault. Sometimes God’s ways are hard to understand.
Frank [enraged]: Your preaching makes me want to puke, Father!
Ralph: Frank!
Frank: Never mind, I’m going. And I won’t be back.

Well, in the book he does, but not in the TV series.

Ralph: Meggie, Frank had to leave.
Meggie: Why?
Ralph: Because…because it hurt him too much to stay.
Meggie: But it will hurt more without Mom and me…because we are the ones who love him.
Ralph: Meggie, for each of us there comes a time when he must search for a thing he thinks he needs above all else. No matter what it costs.
Meggie: You mean the thing that will make him happy?
Ralph: Happy…
[he stares out, as though into the abyss]
Ralph: There’s a story…a legend, about a bird that sings just once in its life. From the moment it leaves its nest, it searches for a thorn tree…and never rests until it’s found one. And then it sings…more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. And singing, it impales itself on the longest, sharpest thorn. But, as it dies, it rises above its own agony, to outsing the lark and the nightingale. The thorn bird pays its life for just one song, but the whole world stills to listen, and God in his heaven smiles.
Meggie: What does it mean, Father?
Ralph: That the best is bought only at the cost of great pain.

Next up: the worst.

Ralph [after Mary takes Meggie out of school]: Why do you dislike her so much? She is a beautiful, intelligent little girl and yet no one seems to give a rap about her!
Mary: Which means you can be sure of her love. And it’s all so innocent and safe for you, isn’t it? No danger to your reputation…no threat to those not-so-holy ambitions of yours.
Ralph: Oh, Mary, this is unworthy even of you. I am, after all, a priest.
Mary: You are a man first, Ralph de Bricassart.
Ralph: No, Mary. A priest. First, last and always.

We'll see about that.

Ralph [after Mary goads him about the Pope looking for a Cardinal in Australia]: The priest confesses. It’s true I once had ambitions. Great ambitions…which I thwarted by my own stupid lack of humility. And I was sent here. And here you were. A good Catholic, with Drogheda and no heirs…or so I thought.
Mary: And you thought, “Ah, ha, my ticket to the Vatican”.
Ralph: Put with typical cruelty but perhaps not undeserved. The point is, I’ve changed, and it’s largely you I have to thank for it.
Mary: Me?
Ralph: When you made the Cleary’s your heirs, you dashed all my hopes, just as you intended. But it freed me too, from all my old desires. Mary, I’m a priest. And only that. And content.
Mary [scornfully]: Bravo, Ralph. I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a performance more. “All my old desires.” That is wonderful. Well, I’ll let you stew a while longer but your day of reckoning is coming. Don’t you ever doubt it.
Ralph: How you do love the illusion of your own power. Don’t make me pity you.
Mary: Pity me? Pity me? Do you doubt I can’t make you writhe yet? Do you think I can’t make you sell yourself like a painted whore before I am finished with you?
Ralph: I don’t doubt you’ll try, but take care. In trying so hard to destroy my soul, you may lose lose your own. If there’s still one there to lose.
Mary: Or still one there to destroy!

Talk about too close to call!

Ralph: You see, Meggie, it’s very different for people. Or it should be. Because God intended, I think, that when a man and woman mate they do it as a way of showing their love for each other. So it’s a mating not just of bodies but of souls.
Meggie: It must be so wonderful.
Ralph: So I understand.
Meggie: Will it be that way for you and me?
Ralph [startled]: What?
Meggie: When I grow up and we get married.
Ralph: Meggie, you know priests can’t marry.
Meggie: You can always stop being a priest.
Ralph: Oh no, Meggie, darling. I can never stop being a priest. Not ever.

On the other hand, he can never stop being a man either.

Mary [at her birthday]: The time has come when I must pass the reign of Drogheda on to someone else. As we all know those of us who have lived here and have fought the drought and the floods and the heat and the cold, and yet have managed to prosper and become masters of all we survey, this land can be a Heaven…
[she looks over to Ralph]
Mary: …or a hell. My fondest wishes for those who come after me is that it be far more one than the other.

If you can tell them apart.

Mary: She is lovely, isn’t she? There’s not a man in this room who wouldn’t give up everything just to have her, is there?
Ralph: Now, Mary, you’re baiting me again.
Mary: Not one man, except perhaps you. Once, a long time ago, I offered you a chance at the cardinal’s robe and you turned me down. But I wonder…I wonder if you had to choose between Meggie and the cardinal’s robe…which would you choose?
Ralph: Oh Mary, what would I have done without you these past years? Your wit, your perception…your malice.

Next up: the big valley?

Mary: It’s my last birthday, Ralph. I’m tired of living and I’m going to stop.
Ralph: Fiddlestix. You’re planning something special for tomorrow. You told me so yourself.
Mary: Yes, I remember. But I won’t see you. Kiss me goodbye, Ralph.
[Ralph reaches for her hand]
Mary: No! On my mouth! Kiss my on my mouth as if we were lovers!
Ralph [recoils]: Mary, I am a priest.
Mary: A priest! You’re not a man or a priest! You’re some impotent, useless thing that doesn’t know how to be either!
Ralph: You’re wrong, Mary. I know how to be a man. But to be a man on your terms is to be no priest. And I have chosen to be a priest.
Mary: With the free will God has given us and with that same free will, I have chosen to destroy you, Priest. Oh, I’ll go to hell for it, of course, but it’ll be nothing to the hell I’m planning for you.
Ralph: It’s youself you’ll destroy with this every lasting hatred of yours.
Mary: When Satan tempted Christ with the whole world is it because he hated him or because he loved him?
Rlaph: You don’t love me.
Mary: I have always loved you! So much so, I would have killed you for not wanting me!
[Ralph stares at her aghast]
Mary: But I found a better method…
Ralph: Not love. I’m the goad of your old age, that’s all. A reminder of what you can no longer be.
Mary: Let me tell you something Cardinal de Bricassart about old age and about that God of yours. That vengeful God who ruins our bodies and leaves us with only enough wit for regret. Inside this stupid body, I am still young! I still feel! I still want! I still dream! And I still love you! Oh, God, how much!!

This is a real thing, by the way.

Harry [to Ralph]: Good Lord, it’s a new will. Dated yesterday. But why would she make it without consulting me?
[He starts reading the will]
Harry: “I Mary Carson…bequeath all of my worldly goods to the Holy Catholic Church of Rome on the condition that she show appreciation of the worth and ability of her servant Father Ralph de Bricassart and that Father Ralph de Bricassart serve as the chief authority in charge of my estate.”
[Harry looks up at Ralph]
Harry: Well, congratulations, Father, you got the lot after all. All 13 million pounds of it.
Ralph: 13 million pounds?!

The part no one knew about.

Harry [reading the note Mary left for Ralph]: “My dear Ralph, how do you like my new will? Of course you can destroy it if you wish. It’s the only copy and my lawyer will never tell. No one will be the wiser, and Meggie will be the richer, won’t she? But I know what you’ll do. I know it as surely as if I could be there watching when they give you that red robe and miter.”

His reaction? Exactly as she predicted, let's say.

Harry: Father, listen. There’s no denying it was Mary’s property to dispose of in any manner she wished, and I’m not a Catholic, so forgive me. But we both know the Church has no right to the estate. Please, let’s destroy this. Let poor old Paddy and his family have what’s rightfully theirs.

Fuck that. Among other things, let's say.

Ralph [at Mary’s funeral]: We all know what Mary was. A pillar of the community. A pillar of the Church. And it was the Church she loved more than any living being for she understood so well the words of St. Mathew: “Where your treasure is there will be your heart also.”

What bullshit. Among other things, let's say.

Meggie: Father? Father, what is it?
Ralph: She’s won, Meggie. I’ve betrayed you.
Meggie: Betrayed me?
Ralph: Oh, she know me so well. She knew if she stripped you of everything, I’d have no choice. But no. She made sure you’d neither want for anything nor have anything, either. All your life you’ll have to look to me.
Meggie: I don’t understand.
Ralph: Oh you’ll be respectable, even socially admissible, but you’ll never quite be “Miss Cleary”. Never quite be one of them.
Meggie: I don’t want to be one of them. To be stupid and vicious and cruel like Miss Carmichael. How can you even think of that, Father.
Ralph: Meggie, don’t call me Father.

Then off he goes to the Vatican.

Ralph: I’ll be going away, Meggie, soon.
Meggie [distraught]: Oh, Father? Why?
Ralph: Don’t you see? It’s part of her plan. I brought in 13 million pounds. And a holy priest who’s brought in 13 million pounds will not be left to languish here in the back of the beyond. The Church knows how to reward its own.
Praise the Lord?
Ralph: It’s better this way.
Meggie: How can it be better? To take away what I love most in the world?
Ralph: Then better for me. Better then someday having to marry you to somebody else. Better than staying here to watch you change into something I can never have. Meggie, when I saw you last night I almost hated you.
Meggie: Hated me? For growing up?
Ralph: Yes. Yes! Oh Meggie, when you were a little girl, you were like my own child to me. You were the rose of my life. I could have you then.
Meggie: You can have me now. You can marry me. You love me.
Ralph: But I love God more.

On the other hand, how bitterly he sounded.

Ralph: I do you love you Meggie. I do. But I can’t be a husband to you. If only I could make you understand what being a priest means to me. How God fills a need in me no human being ever could.
Meggie: Not even me?
[Meggie kisses him…he kisses her back but then pulls away]
Ralph: I can’t. I can’t! Goodbye my Meggie.
[he races to leave her]
Meggie [aloud to herself]: Go on, then. Go on to that God of yours. But you’ll come back to me because I’m the one who loves you.

Well, let's just say that he does and he doesn't.

[iambiguous]

Identity

“We are all, Esme decides, just vessels through which identities pass: we are lent features, gestures, habits, then we hand them on. Nothing is our own. We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents.”Maggie O'Farrell

Historically, culturally and experientially.

“Time is the enemy of identity.” Michael Moorcock

For example, we die.

“It is not until you change your identity to match your life blueprint that you will understand why everything in the past never worked.” Shannon L. Alder

If that ever actually becomes an option, he scowled bitterly.

“I do not want to be human. I want to be myself. They think I’m a lion, that I will chase them. I will not deny that I have lions in me. I am the monster in the wood. I have wonders in my house of sugar. I have parts of myself I do not yet understand. I am not a Good Robot. To tell a story about a robot who wants to be human is a distraction. There is no difference. Alive is alive. There is only one verb that matters: to be.” Catherynne M. Valente

On the other hand, to be...what?

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he'll tell you the truth” Oscar Wilde

Give me a mask and I'll believe it.

"Looking for who I am is who I am.” Tom Spanbauer

So, did he ever find him?

[iambiguous]

How exactly does one wrap one’s mind around “artificial intelligence” with any degree of certainty? Garbage in, garbage out, sure. But how does actual flesh and blood intelligence make that determination.

The tricky part for most of us is almost always subjunctive. Intelligence that revolves around mathematics and computation…around facts and figures that can clearly be differentiated as either true or false…seems easily within our grasp. We see what computer intelligence can do. And we see how much faster it does it. And we see how, if there is no garbage put in, the calculations are always right on the money.

But what about emotional and psychological intelligence? What about morality, politics and religion? How is that exhibited robotically? And even flesh and blood intelligence here gets all twisted into knots whenever folks try to turn feelings into zeros and ones.

As for those moral and political and religious calculations – can we really expect artificial intelligence to get these things “right”? Dr. Know claims there is nothing it does not know. Oh, really? Well, I have a few questions for him. Let’s start with something like, say, "is abortion immoral?"

Often in our own culture [here and now] intelligence is associated with, for example, Jeopardy Contestants or chess masters or folks said to be in possession of an “encyclopedic knowledge”. But what are the practical limits of that pertaining to so much of human interactions that revolve around value judgments?

One of the reasons for Stanley Kubrick waiting so long to make the film, is that he wanted David (Haley Joel Osment) to be played by an actual robot. After Jurassic Park (1993) was made, Kubrick looked into using digital computer effects to create David.  IMDb 

Did Spielberg do Kubrick’s “vision” justice or not. Lot’s of controversy here: https://cameronbcook.blogspot.com/2012/ ... ed-ai.html

All I know is this: As we get closer and closer to the end of the movie it gets closer and closer to a Disney production. The Blue Fairy? Don’t ask. It’s nothing short of la-la land.

The World Trade Center is seen in the New York scenes of the film, set many years into the future after 2001. Less than three months after the film’s release, they were destroyed in the September 11 terrorist attacks. Though risking controversy and criticism, Steven Spielberg left the twin towers in the DVD release.

The list of words that Monica Swinton says to David to make him capable of love was the original list, written by Stanley Kubrick.

In order to keep the film’s PG-13 rating, a building resembling a penis was digitally removed from the “Rouge City” set. IMDb


A.I.: Artificial Intelligence

Narrator: Those were the years when the icecaps melted due to the greenhouse gases and the oceans had risen and drowned so many cities along all the shorelines of the world. Amsterdam, Venice, New York...forever lost. Millions of people were displaced. Climate became chaotic. Hundreds of millions of people starved in poorer countries. Elsewhere a high degree of prosperity survived when most governments in the developed world introduced legal sanctions to license pregnancies. Which was why robots, who were never hungry and did not consume resources beyond those of their first manufacture were so essential an economic link in the chain mail society.

So, your job...is it next?

Professor Hobby [after stabbing the Mecha’s hand in a demonstration]: How did that make you feel? Angry? Shocked?
Secretary: I don’t understand.
Professor Hobby: What did I do to your feelings?
Secretary: You did it to my hand.

A.I. the formative years. Think Blade Runner and Ex Machina 

Professor Hobby: At Cybertronics of New Jersey, the artificial being has reached its highest form. Universally adopted mecha, the basis for hundreds of models, serving the human race in all the multiplicity of daily life. That’s far enough. But we have no reason to congratulate ourselves. We are, rightly, proud of it, but what does it amount to? Sheila, open. A sensory toy, with intelligent behavioral circuits, using neurone sequencing technology as old as I am. I believe that my work on mapping the impulse pathways in a single neuron can enable us to construct a mecha of a qualitatively different order. I propose that we build a robot, who can love.

And can hate?

Professor Hobby: Tell me, what is love?
Secretary: Love is first widening my eyes a little bit and quickening my breathing a little and warming my skin and touching…
Professor Hobby: …and so on. Exactly so. Thank you, Sheila.

No, really, what is love?

Female Colleague: It occurs to me with all this animus existing against Mechas today it isn’t just a question of creating a robot that can love. Isn’t the real conundrum, can you get a human to love them back?
Professor Hobby: Ours will be a perfect child caught in a freeze frame. Always loving, never ill, never changing. With all the childless couples yearning in vain for a license our Mecha will not only open up a new market but fill a great human need.
Female Colleague: But you haven’t answered my question. If a robot could genuinely love a person what responsibility does that person hold toward that Mecha in return? It’s a moral question, isn’t it?

That’s the thing about love: it cuts both ways.

Henry: Now there are a few simple procedures we need to follow if and when you decide to keep David. If you decide to keep him, there's an imprinting protocol consisting of a code string of seven particular words which need to be spoken to David in the predefined order that's been printed here. Now Monica, for our own protection, this imprinting is irreversible. The robot child's love would be sealed, in a sense hardwired, and we'd be part of him forever. Because of this, after imprinting, no Mecha child can be resold. If an adoptive parent should ever decide not to keep the child, they must return it to Cybertronics for destruction.

With extreme prejudice as it were.

David: I can never go to sleep… but I can lay quietly and not make a peep.

Cue Martin.

Monica: Cirrus, Socrates, particle, decibel, hurricane, dolphin, tulip. Monica. David. Monica…
[she looks up at David. he looks the same]
Monica: All right, wonder if I did that right. I don't…
David: What were those words for, Mommy?
Monica: What did you call me?
David: Mommy.
Monica: Who am I, David?
David: You are my Mommy.

Again then: cue Martin.

David: Is 50 years a long time
Teddy: I don’t think so.

Sometimes it is and sometimes it's not.

Martin [to David]: So, I guess now you're the new Super-Toy, so what good stuff can you do?

Aside from loving Mommy unconditionally in other words.

Henry: Does he eat?

Nope.

Monica: Why do you keep imagining that he was purposely trying to harm me?
Henry: Because we don’t know the answer to that! How is he worth the risk to you, or to Martin, or to us as a family?
Monica: I will not let you take him back. You told me what would happen if you ever took him back.
Henry: Think about this. If he was created to love, then it’s reasonable to assume he knows how to hate. And if pushed to those extremes, what is he really capable of?

Next up: Mechas and...dasein?

David: Is it a game?
Monica: No.
David: When will you come back for me?
Monica: I’m not, David, you…you’ll have to be here by yourself.
David: Alone?
Monica: With Teddy.
[she tells him what is happening]
David: No. No! No, no, no, no! No, Mommy please!
Monica: They’re going to destroy you…David, they’ll destroy you. David…David, they’re going to destroy you!

Just out of curiosity, what would you do?

David: Mommy, no! Mommy! Mommy, if Pinocchio became a real boy and…and I become a real boy can I come home?
Monica: But that’s just a story, David.
David: But that story tells what happens!
Monica: Stories are not real! You’re not real!

Next up: Pinocchio and Donald trump.

David: Why do you want to leave me? Why? I’m sorry I’m not real. If you let me, I’ll be so real for you!
Monica: Let go, David! Let go! I’m sorry…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the world.

Like I'm telling you about it here, for example.

Junky Mecha: Would you be so kind and shut down my pain receivers?

Mine too while you're at it.

Papa: What are you going to do with him?
Lord Johnson: Put him where he belongs---in show business.

Talk about artificial intelligence!

Lord Johnson: Ladies and gentlemen. Girls and boys and children of all ages! What will they think of next?! See here: a bitty box, a tinker toy, a living doll. 'Course we all know why they made them. To seize your hearts. To replace your children! This is the latest iteration to the series of insults to human dignity. An underground scheme to phase out all of God’s little children. Meet the next generation of child designed to do just that!

They're still working on that he suspected.

[Joe starts dancing]
David: Why do you do that?
Gigolo Joe: That’s just what I do.

That and fucking as I recall.

Dr. Know: Starving minds, welcome to Dr. Know! Where fast food for thought is served up 24 hours a day, in 40,000 locations nationwide. Ask. Dr. Know - there’s nothing I don’t.
David: Tell me where I can find the Blue Fairy.
Dr. Know: Question me you pay the fee, two for five you get one free!
Joe: He means two questions cost five Newbucks with a third question on the house. In this day and age, David, nothing costs more than information.

Not counting all the free stuff we post here.

Gigolo Joe: Your mother loves what you do for her, as my customers love what it is I do for them. But she doesn't love you David, she cannot love you. You are neither flesh, nor blood. You are not a dog, a cat, or a canary. You were designed and built specific, like the rest of us. And you are alone now only because they tired of you, or replaced you with a younger model, or were displeased with something you said, or broke. They made us too smart, too quick, and too many. We are suffering for the mistakes they made because when the end comes, all that will be left is us. That’s why they hate us, and that is why you must stay here, with me.

So, how logical and epistemologically sound will that turn out to be?

Professor Hobby [to David]: Would you like to come meet your real mothers and fathers?

And then finally this: the pleasure of sheer speculation. Even if only in la la land.:

Specialist: David, I often felt a sort of envy of human beings and that thing they call ‘spirit’. Human beings had created a million explanations of the meaning of life in art, in poetry, in mathematical formulas. Certainly, human beings must be the key to the meaning of existence, but human beings no longer existed. So, we began a project that would make it possible to recreate the living body of a person long dead from the DNA in a fragment of bone or mummified skin. We also wondered, would it be possible to retrieve a memory trace in resonance with a recreated body. And do you know what we found? We found… the very fabric of space-time itself appeared to store information about every event which had ever occurred in the past. But the experiment… was a failure. For those who were resurrected only lived through a single day of renewed life. When the resurrectees fell asleep on the night of their first new day, they died, again. As soon as they became unconscious, their very existence faded away into darkness. So you see, David, the equations have shown that once an individual space-time pathway had been used, it could not be reused. If we bring your mother back now, it will only be for one day, and then you’ll never be able to see her again.

Emphasis mine.

[iambiguous]

Abyss

“You know what they say. The living are only a species of the dead, aren’t they? And a very rare species at that. The cradle rocks over the abyss.” Adrian McKinty

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

“I am scared of snapping. That something, some random day, it will simply make ‘click’ in my mind and all of the sudden I will absolutely lose my mind. In other words having gazed into the abyss for too long. Go completely and totally insane! How does one descend into madness? What makes one click so all of the sudden life is upside down and people don’t know themselves anymore?” Ryan Gelpke

Well, click of course. The other one.

“No. All I say is that it is not argument that convinces me of the necessity of a future life, but this: when you go hand in hand with someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked in....” Leo Tolstoy

And now, Leo?

“If a person who has come to the edge of the abyss does not go further, it is because things in that person's life stronger than that abyss are pulling him back powerfully!” Mehmet Murat ildan

Distractions I call them.

“I refuse to throw her into the abyss.” Nick Oliveri

So, should someone throw [you know who] into the abyss?

“Another abyss that we have to cross, another abyss that we have to stare into in the hope it won't stare back to us.”
Ryan Gelpke

New thread?

[iambiguous]

In the past I have occasionally used the premise of this film as an example of how I construe [philosophically] the meaning of “dasein”. But I suspect that even after watching this film there will still be any number of folks who just don’t “get” it. They will go on imagining that somehow who they are – who they think they are – has little or nothing to do with variables like this. Or they will remain convinced that, even if this might be a factor, there is still the “real me” buried down there beneath all of the existential layers. And that they are among those who have found their own “true self”.

But I suspect in turn this revolves in large part around an unwillingness to admit to themselves that even their own identity works this way. Why? Because the deeper you probe the roots [the nature] of identity “out in a particular world construed from a particular vantage point”, the closer they come to their own “dasein dilemma”.

Or, beyond the question of identity [point of view] itself, there is still the “one true way” that some will insist is the only way in which to encompass something like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In my view, no delusion is more firmly rooted in the human psyche than objectivism. We seem compelled to twist the narrative that is “I” into a much more solid “thing”.

Also, in some contexts, one might not be all that disturbed by the news there was a “mix up” in the hospital and you did not raise your own actual biological child. If, for example, it happened with my own daughter, I would not have felt any different toward her. But in this context being an Arab raised as a Jew or being a Jew raised as an Arab can be considerably more problematic. In other words, Mr and Mrs Al Bezaaz raised their Jewish son to be a Muslim and Mr and Mrs. Silberg raised their Arab son to be a Jew. So, 17 years later, what do they do, just switch them back? No, here the narrative is considerably more…enlightened?

But here the two families are relatively moderate; both families [within the context of their respective communities] are reasonably well-off. Which means many more [practical] options. Just imagine however if they were much closer to the militant [and generally more impoverished] factions. Or just imagine if they were in the midst of the actual war.

You think: Would that the world could really be like this.


The Other Son [Le Fils de L’Autre] 

Interviewer: An Arab enters a restaurant. What do you look at first?
Joseph: His eyes?
[interviewer says nothing]
Joseph: His waist?
Interviewer: Didn’t your father teach you this?

One more rendition of "the talk".

Orith [mother]: They made a mistake in your blood tests. They say you’re A+
Joseph: So?
Orith: You can’t be. Your father and I are A-. It’s the law of genetics.

Here we go....

Doctor: I had a hunch. I’m waiting confirmation.
Orith: What hunch?
Doctor: I’d rather…
Orith: What hunch?
Doctor: Stay calm, Orith.
Orith: I am. What hunch?
Doctor: That maybe Joseph isn’t your son.

Biologically as it were.

Leïla: How will we tell our son?
Said: We won’t. Imagine if my sister found out. Or our friends. Neighbors. Forget everything we’ve heard.
Leila: Forget? You who complain that they forgot how they threw us off our land?

Depends on who is forgetting what, of course.

Bilal [to Yacine]: As you can see, our villages are still imprisoned… and our lands cut in two. A curse on those who stole from us!

Of course he is telling this to a Jew. A Jew by birth. One of those he just cursed.

Orith: The babies were switched when the hospital was being evacuated.
Joseph: So?
Orith: So there was a mistake, Joseph. The nurse made a mistake.
Joseph: You mean I’m the other one? And the other one is me?
[as the truth begins to dawn on him, Joseph bolts from the table and rushes out of the room]
Young sister: Will we have to give him back?

Who would take him?

Orith: We’ve met his parents. They’re Palestinian. From the West Bank. You were born the same day as Yacine.
Joseph: Yacine? You’ve seen him?
Orith: A photo, yes.
Joseph: Yacine what?
Orith: Al-Bezaaz.
Joseph: I’ll have to swap my kippa for a suicide bomb.
Orith: Don’t ever say that!
Joseph: Am I still Jewish?

Let's run that by the Nazis here.

Rabbi: Orith told me your story, Joseph. I am sad for you.
Joseph: Rabbi, am I still Jewish? It doesn’t alter the fact that I’m Jewish, does it?
Rabbi: If you really want to be, you can be.
Joseph: What do you mean, “If I want to be”? I’m circumcised, I’ve had my Bar Mitzvah, I’ve studied at the yeshiva, celebrated festivals…I’ve always lived this way.
Rabbi: It’s a three-step conversion. Cicumscision. Acceptance of the Torah. That should be easy in your case. And immersion in a ritual bath, with 3 rabbis.
Joseph: But Rabbi, you said I was one of your best students.
Rabbi: Judaism is not a belief, Joseph. It is a state. A spiritual state of being, tied to our own nature. Your real mother isn’t Jewish, so neither are you. Not yet.
Joseph: But I’m exactly as I was before.
Rabbi: God will help you in this conversion.

Then [for me] the part where Palestinians and Jews worship the same fucking God!

Joseph: What about the one I was swapped with?
Rabbi: He is Jewish. By his mother. By nature.
Joseph: You mean he is more Jewish than I am?
Rabbi [nodding his head]: That’s the way it is. That’s the way it is.
Joseph [aghast running from the room]: He’s Arab! He’s Arab!

The absurdity of religion embodied, say some. And/or let the rationalizations begin!

Orith [on phone]: I’m sorry for calling you so late but Joseph would like to meet you. Have you spoken to Yacine?
Leila: No. I don’t know how to deal with his father.
Orith: Tell him it’s nobody’s fault, it’s just the way it is. It’s mektoub. It’s their life; they have a right to know.

Uh, a natural right?


Yacine [to his mother and father]: Find out? Find out what?

Here we go again.

Leila: Said, Joseph is going to be a musician. He gets it from you.

She means from God. One of them.

Joseph: How did you feel when you heard?
Yacine: The same as you, I imagine. I’m trying to make sense of it all. So I don’t go under.
Joseph: Does Bilal know?
Yacine: He knows he has a brother and it isn’t me.
Joseph: Is that why he didn’t come?
[Yacine says nothing]
Joseph: He doesn’t want to come? Does he hate us?
Yacine: How’s it feel to be Palestinian? Do you feel hatred?
Joseph: No, really, I don’t.
Yacine: You never hated?
Joseph: No, You?
Yacine: I live in Paris. A long way away.

Though not any more if you get my drift. And, if you do, please explain it to me.

Alon: Joseph is an artist, not a soldier. Thankfully, he won’t do his military service.
Said: Why “thankfully”? Because he’s Arab?

Then the entire Israel-Palistinian conflict – the Occupation – is “debated” by them.

Bilal [to Yacine]: Have fun with the occupying forces?

No, really,  come down out of the clouds and try at least to imagine the existential implications of this.

Bilal: Why not go live on the other side? Isn’t that where your home is now? Answer me! You’ve always been a Jew. Just go! Leave now!
Yacine: I’ll be whatever and whoever I like.
Bilal: You're the others’ son. Sooner or later you’ll go live there…where you should have grown up.
Yacine: Bilal. I know what you are afraid of. For me, nothing has changed. Especially our dream. In 8 years I’ll come back to Palestine. We’ll build that hospital.
Bilal [angrily]: Why would you? For Firaz, who was never your brother?!

Those fucking memes, right Satyr?

Joseph: If Leila hadn’t gone to Haifa, I’d be the one living over there. To you and to dad, I’d be a complete stranger.
Orith: Your father and I have loved you every second of your life. And although I worry about Yacine and can’t help thinking of him as my third child you’ll always be mine.

For all practical purposes, let's say.

Yacine [about the money he made selling ice creams]: That’s a month's salary for my dad. I told you he’s an engineer?
Joseph: I thought he was a mechanic?
Yacine: No, he’s an engineer. Only he’s not allowed to work outside his village.

Hmm, I wonder why.

Yacine: I’m my worst enemy, but I must love myself anyway. Don’t you ever think like that?Joseph: Yes. Even as I’m smoking a joint with my worst enemy. Being Jewish was important. It meant something. Now it’s as if I didn’t exist. I can’t feel Jewish anymore. I don’t feel Arab either. What’s left?

Distractions?

Joseph [to Bilal]: If I had died, would I have been buried as an Arab or a Jew?

Let's flip for it.

Yacine [voiceover]: You know what I thought when I learned that my life should have been yours? I thought, “Now I’ve started this life, I have to make a success of it so you’ll be proud of me.” Same goes for you. You have my life, Joseph.

Anyone here want mine?

[iambiguous]

Suicide

“I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.” Ned Vizzini

Tell me about it!

“I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.” David Levithan

New thread, right?

“...and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?” Vincent van Gogh

Uh, fame and fortune?

“Did you really want to die?"
"No one commits suicide because they want to die."
"Then why do they do it?"
"Because they want to stop the pain.” Tiffanie DeBartolo

Right, God?

“The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Hundreds of them so far. Well, dozens anyway.

“There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.” J. Michael Straczynski

Of course: https://youtu.be/vLAQiwEGGKs?si=5s-mx2HFHmzj17F1

[iambiguous]

Cops? Let the deluge of conflicting reactions begin. Hard to imagine living in the modern world without them but each of us has had our own experiences dealing with them. Some good, some bad. Me, I have no illusions either way. The times that I have been the victim of one or another crime [and not just a few times given the neighborhoods I have lived in] they showed up and never once actually succeeded in according me justice. And if you watch enough “reality crime” docs you know that over and over again they often seem to fuck up investigations. Still, for the “big crimes” there is more of a likelihood of someone actually getting arrested, tried, convicted and serving time. Though in reality without the “war on drugs” much of the prison industrial complex itself might have to be dismantled.

I suppose if you approach it in terms of the best of all possible worlds, you only need to imagine the modern world without any cops at all. Right? And let’s face it, there are urban jungles from coast to coast that are a hell of a lot more dangerous to live in than the places most of us reside.

Here many different parts become intertwined. The part about race. The part about gender. The part about ethnicity. The part about dope. The part about cartels.

And most important: The part about men bonding.

And then the part about the sub-mental homies in the sub-mental gangs – the gangtas themselves. Literally thousands upon thousands of them out there. Most probably picking up their cues from films like this. And it becomes particularly appalling when the women go around aping the men. Not that I’d ever say this to their face.

This is basically a “point of view” approach to construing “reality”: the cops, the detectives, the blacks, the Mexicans, the civilians, the cameras, etc…

The lead characters in the movie were loosely based on real life LAPD Officers Charles Wunder and Jamie McBride. They were partners in Newton Division in the mid to late 90’s.

When Zavala mentions “Badge Bunnies” to Taylor, he is talking about women who like cops for being a cop. The reasons can include the uniform, the badge, or whatever comes with the job. It’s a true phenomenon and every station has their local badge bunnies…and a warning to stay away from them.

The Spanish graffiti on the wall of the house with the dismembered corpses reads “Hey fags! Keep sending people, HA HA HA!”

Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña were given taser electro-shocks as a part of their research, as it is required in police training. Contrary to rumors that the entire cast was tased, Anna Kendrick claims to have abstained, and said she didn’t think any of the other actors should have agreed to it either.

As part of their training, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña spent five months doing 12-hour ride-alongs with on-duty LAPD officers. During Gyllenhaal’s first ride-along, he witnessed a murder.

In law enforcement, “end of watch” has two meanings; it commonly refers to time to go off duty at the end of shift (some agencies call shifts “watches”). Also, if an officer is killed in the line of duty, the date of his death is referred to as his end of watch.

The word “fuck” is used 326 times, making it sixth in the all time profanity list.Here, check out the top five:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_f ... _word_fuck IMDb


End of Watch

Brian [voiceover]: I am the police, and I’m here to arrest you. You’ve broken the law. I did not write the law. I may even disagree with the law but I will enforce it. No matter how you plead, cajole, beg or attempt to stir my sympathies, nothing you do will stop me from placing you in a steel cage with gray bars. If you run away I will chase you. If you fight me I will fight back. If you shoot at me I will shoot back. By law I am unable to walk away. I am a consequence. I am the unpaid bill. I am fate with a badge and a gun. Behind my badge is a heart like yours. I bleed, I think, I love, and yes I can be killed. And although I am but one man, I have thousands of brothers and sisters who are the same as me. They will lay down their lives for me, and I them. We stand watch together. The thin-blue-line, protecting the prey from the predators, the good from the bad. We are the police.

Got that? Again, better to have something here rather than nothing at all in the world as we know it to be.

Orozco [warning Taylor and Zavala about the tape recording]: Listen, you know they can subpoena that shit if something goes sideways, right? Think twice.Brian: Two words, ‘erase button!’ 

Never delete that.

Mike: Sir, if you’ve been drinking you need to stay the fuck inside and not intimidate the mailman. That’s it.
Mr. Tre: Fuck you! You need to shut the fuck up 'cause without that badge and gun, you ain’t shit! You’re less than motherfucking nothing. You motherfucking border-hopping, donkey riding Mexican motherfucker.

Some are, some aren't?

CK: I mean that Mexican cop might be acting bull with you, Tre. But he’s still out there killing niggas. Straight out.
Mr. Tre. No, no, no. Listen to me, all y’all. This whole fucking thing is like changing of the guard. Back in the day, all these neighborhoods used to be black, and what are they now?
All the gang members in unison: Mexican.
Mr. Tre: Exactly. There used to be chicken stands on the corner, now there’s fucking taco stands on every corner. We’re in some real shit and if we don’t come together, pretty soon we’re gonna be some extinct niggas.

Divide and conquer, let's say.

Brian: It’s been two hours. We’re still waiting for the detectives to release the crime scene so we can go back on patrol.
Mike: Comfortable footwear. Policing is all about comfortable footwear.

Good to know?

Sign on the road: $1,000,000,000,000 to pay for a FAILED 40 year “drug war”. How many millions are in a trillion. Prop 19. 54% voted to IMPRISON the other 46%.

Proposition 19 in California:   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California … n_19_(2010

Brian: So Mr. Big Evil, why do they call you Big Evil?
Big Evil: Because. Because my evil is big.

Logic in the hood let's call it.

Mike: What are we looking for, again?
Brian: All the food groups, man. Dope, money, and guns.

Shop talk.

Brian [to the camera]: This is the lifeblood of our organization: Paperwork.

Scribbling by and large. 

Mike [after the Captain walks out]: Why do you get nervous?
Brian: Women want him, men want to be him, man. He’s just…
Mike: Yeah, I know. But you want him.
Brian: Dude, I’m not gay, but I’d go down on him if he asked.
Mike [now genuinely concerned]: Sometimes I don’t know when you’re kidding. And I have to know when you’re kidding.
Brian: I’m not kidding.
Mik: I gotta know when you’re kidding.
Brian: I’m not kidding.

Let's run that by Janet. 

ICE Agent: Watch out for these guys. They operate by a different set of rules.
Brian: I know I’m just a ghetto street cop, but you gotta give me something here.
ICE Agent: We got indicators he’s a runner for the Sinaloa cartel.
Brian: Yeah, well, we ran him. He came up clean, dude.
ICE Agent: You guys don’t have the proper clearance for any of this information, but I’m gonna throw you a bone. Cartels are operating here. We’re on it. Be careful.
Mike: What does that mean, though?
ICE Agent: It means you and your homeboy need to power down. You just tugged on the tail of the snake and it’s gonna turn around and bite you back. I’m throwing you a bone here. Be grateful for what I’m giving you. I’m giving you a warning. Lay low.
Brian: Can I get your name for my log?
ICE Agent: Negative. Move on.

Next up: ICE agents today.

La La: We should get them when they go to lunch at that Chinese place.
Big Evil: That Chinese place is crawling with cops. We gotta get these fuckers when they’re alone.
La La: We can fucking follow their asses home and hit them there.
Big Evil: Mira, homegirl, white boy’s in fucking Simi Valley. The other fucking fool’s in San Gabriel. We gotta get these fuckers at the same time!
Demon: E, this is one time, homie. Not a bunch of fucking niggas.
Big Evil: Motherfucker! This fucker is straight from SHU, homeboy! You stop fucking around. You got in the car! You want to fucking hang with the fucking carnales, now you fucking pay the fucking price of fucking admission, homeboy. I’ll fucking kill this fucking bitch, alright? You shut the fuck up.
Demon: Come on, E!
Big Evil: You get that shit out of my face! I’ll fucking kill you, motherfucker! Don’t you fucking disrespect.

Folks like this really do exist. Lots of them apparently in some parts of Los Angeles.

Brian [to the camera]: Never fall asleep in a room full of cops!

Next up: try to stay awake in a room full of philosophers. And clouds.

Brian: Janet’s pregnant.
Mike: What? Get out of here, bro. Are you serious? Already? She’s not even Mexican.

Of course, he's allowed to say that.

La La [to Mike]: Checkmate, puto. Rest in piss.

You know, if that's even possible.

[iambiguous]

Remember Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger? US Airways Flight 1549? If so then you recall how on January 15, 2009 his plane smacked into a flock of birds and he had to turn it around. And then he had to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River. And then he became a national hero.

Well, imagine if, a few days later, it was determined that Sullenberger had been both drinking and using cocaine before the flight. He still saved all those passengers and crew, right? But it’s not quite the same is it? For one thing, some will always wonder the extent to which he might have caused the collision in the first place.

Here there are no birds. Here the problem is with the plane itself. A mechanical malfunction.

But the real focus of the film is addiction. To drugs. To alcohol. The tricky part though is that when Whip needed to come through and be the hero he came through and was the hero. Everyone else was in panic mode. Full throttle. But he remains cool, calm and collected throughout. Drunk or not. High on cocaine or not. But we all know that this does not lessen the danger of flying on a plane with an intoxicated and/or high pilot. He was basically the exception. But these things all get mixed together. In the media. In the hearings. Behind the curtains in the corporate boardrooms. It becomes almost impossible to sort through it all in search of the “truth”.

Still, in a way the film is surreal. It wants to show how the ravages of alcoholism and drug addiction can destroy lives. But it doesn’t seem that being drunk or high had any effect whatsoever on Whip when he needed all his wits about him. We don’t want drunk or doped up pilots obviously. But the message would seem to be driven home more powerfully if it revolved around a context in which being drunk and high was actually the crucial factor in bringing about the tragedy that took the lives of six people.

Look for the banana boat.

The crash was inspired by a real life disaster, the crash of Alaska Airlines 261. The plane suffered a catastrophic failure with its horizontal stabilizer eventually causing it to dive “nose-down” at a rate exceeding 13,300 feet per minute. The pilots, like in the film, rolled the airplane to an inverted position to try and stabilize it. Unlike the film, however, this unfortunately didn’t assist them in recovering the aircraft.

During his research, author John Gatins came across a black box recording where the pilots said during an inverted flight: “At least upside down we’re flying!”  IMDb

Flight

Evans: How are you feeling today, sir?
Whip [not sure how to take that]: Tired. But, this is a quick turn for me. Ten turns in three days. Off tomorrow.

I took it another way.

Harling: Whip? What the fuck my man? They’re sayin’, “Sweet Jesus, what a fuckin’ stud that pilot is.” You’re a hero, no shit. You will never pay for another drink in this lifetime. There are crazy news people all over. Classic hero worship, you’re a rock star man.

Let's run that by Dustin Hoffman...if you get my drift.

Harling: What the hell kind of meds they giving you? Alprazolam: that’s generic xanax. Hydrocodone: that’s generic Vicodin. Probably Canadian. Where’s the dihydromorphine? Is this amateur hour? Get that doctor in here; you just saved a hundred people!

Let's run this by...the VA?

Whip: They find the flight data recorders?
Charlie: Yes they found them, perfectly intact.
Whip: Great. That solves everything. The recorders will tell the story. Why do we need a lawyer from Chicago?
Charlie: Hugh’s an attorney who specializes in criminal negligence.
Whip: Criminal negligence?
Hugh: Death demands responsibility. Six dead on that plane, someone has to pay.
Whip: The plane fell apart at 30 thousand feet.
Charlie: The airline will try to prove equipment failure. Which would make the manufacturer responsible. The manufacturer of the plane will try to prove poor maintenance of the equipment by the airline.
Hugh: Or pilot error.

Capitalism, some call it.

Hugh [to Whip]: Now, an initial report shows you had alcohol in your system at a level of point-two-four. Now in the good ol’ US of A, one of the most lenient drunk driving countries in the world, you go to jail for driving with anything above point oh-eight. And by driving, I mean a car.
Whip: What does that mean? I had a beer the night before I flew. And what…That made the tail of the plane explode?

One beer?

Whip: I need a lawyer.
Charlie: Hugh is your lawyer.
Whip: Then I need a bigger lawyer. A lawyer who understands that I flew a broken plane and without me at that stick there’d be 102 funerals, not 6.
Hugh: We’re talking about prison not funerals.

He can be housed with all the other heroes.

Hugh [to Whip]: This tox report also states that you were drunk and high on cocaine, felonies punishable by 24 years in jail. And if your intoxication is proven to have caused the death of the 4 passengers you’ll get 4 counts of manslaughter. That could be life in prison.

That's how life can be. Something happens and then everything changes.

Hugh: Listen clearly. There was a mechanical issue with the plane, but what you and I know is that this was an act of God. I’m gonna fight to get the NTSB to place “act of God” on the probable causes list.
Whip: Whose God would do this?

Here we go again with this alleged loving, just and merciful Creator.

Mr. Carr: Yeah…so what’s the deal Lenny? Is your union gonna survive this one? More importantly? How big a check you think I’m gonna have to write?
Len Caldwell: There were 6 fatalities on the plane.
Hugh: Four. The 2 crew members don’t get settlements like the passengers. That’s a workman’s comp claim, part of the union contract – they do a dangerous job and they know it.

Just for the record.

Hugh: I’m gonna kill the toxicology report.
(he sees the eyes of disbelief)
Hugh: It was done incompetently. The last time the toxicology equipment they used was calibrated was in June of 2009, which is 18 months past code. Their log that should clearly state who labeled the blood vials and when, is very incomplete. And they aren’t sure who stored them. They used a preservative in the vials that has in some cases caused blood to ferment and register higher in an alcohol test. That’s what I’ve done so far. I can handle this.
Mr. Carr: I like this guy, Lenny. He makes me wanna go out and sniff a few lines and fly a jet.

Next up: posting drunk here.

Mr. Carr: Does Whitaker know he’s going to jail?
Hugh: My clients don’t go to jail, Mr. Carr.
Mr. Carr: Oh, he’s going to jail. He belongs in jail. You bet your ass he’s going to jail. The only question is, is he going to die in jail?
Carr’s Attorney: Last time I checked, six counts of manslaughter is life in prison.
Mr. Carr: Life in prison. What we in Georgia call “all day long.”

Next up: all day long here.

Whip: You have to tell them it was an ordinary day. I mean it was an ordinary day. You know I was in shape to fly. You have a problem with saying that?
Margaret: It’s a lie. Whip, it’s a lie. Trina told me you two hadn’t been to sleep.
Whip: My lack of sleep made the plane fall apart?

Uh, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle?

A.A. Speaker: I like meetings that have us all identify. Because it makes me tell the truth about who I am. It reminds that I never ever told the truth. I lied about everything. My whole life had been a lie. And I was told that I would never get sober if I kept lying. I mean, lying’s what I’m good at. If I know anything in this life it’s how to lie, especially about my drinking.

Time for Whip to get up and go.

Ken: That plane was doomed the second you sat in the chair. You reeked like gin or somethin’. I called Vicki from the plane before we took off. That’s when the rain kicked up.

Okay, but is that why "the plane fell apart"?

Whip: I don’t know how much you remember, but the plane started to fall apart.
Evans: I remember everything until we crashed. I know what went on.
Whip: What are we talking about?
Evans: I don’t know Captain Whitaker, what are we talking about?
Whip: I just wanted to get a sense from you what you thought caused the crash.
Evans: Was it the fact that you got on the plane drunk from the night before? The NTSB is coming back tomorrow to finish taking a deposition from me about the events on the flight.
Whip: You think you’d be alive without me on that plane?
Evans: No, we’d all be dead. But are you gonna argue that your physical state was tip top?

Then he starts in on spewing the sort of religious garbage that makes folks like me just shake their heads in disbelief.

Whip: You go to a couple of AA meetings and all of a sudden you think you’re Jesus Christ? Worry about yourself.
Nicole: We’re the same Whip, you and me, we’re the same…
Whip: We're not. I didn’t suck dick to get high. And don’t give me a whole…
Nicole: Never Whip, I never in my life…
Whip: And give me that your momma died and papa drank and...
Nicole: I never in my life…
Whip: Bullshit. Bullshit. There’s whole lot of people out there whose mothers die and they don’t fucking drink.
Nicole: You are sick, Whip.
Whip: Yeah, well, I embrace it, shit! I choose to drink.
Nicole: You do?
Whip: Yes, I do.
Nicole: You choose it? Well, I don’t see a whole lot of choice going on here!
Whip: I choose to drink! And I blame myself! I am happy to! And you know why? Because I choose to drink! I got an ex-wife and a son I never talk to! And you know why? Because I choose to drink!

You know, just a beer or two now and then.

Hugh: The only people who had access to those bottles and could have drank them were the flight crew. Margaret, Evans and Camelia Satou all had clean tox reports. That leaves you and Trina Marquez.
Whip: Okay. I see where this is going. That’s funny that they found two bottles.
Hugh: Why?
Whip: Because I drank three. One’s missing.
Hugh [exploding in frustration]: When I met you I couldn’t believe what a flip, drunk, arrogant scumbag you were.
Whip: Fuck you too, Hugh.
Hugh: But I did the research and heard the analysis from the experts. I’m in awe of what you did. The FAA and the NTSB took 10 pilots, placed them in simulators, recreated the events that led to this plane falling out of the sky. Do you know how many of them were able to safely land the planes? Not one. Every pilot crashed the aircraft, killed everybody on board. You were the only one who could do it!

Next up: simulating philosophy.

Hugh: Son of a bitch! You worthless motherfucker, what a waste! I cleared the decks for you…you piece of shit. You just fucked it all up like the piss drunk you are!
Charlie: What time is it?
Hugh: 9:14, the hearing is in 46 minutes.
Charlie: We probably have an hour before we really need to get him to the hearing and it’s just downstairs.
Hugh: We need a wheel chair.
Whip: Call Harling Mays.
Charlie: Harling’s got a wheel chair?
Whip: Harling’s got cocaine.

One or the other.

Charlie: Remember, if they ask you anything about your drinking, it’s totally acceptable to say “I don’t recall”.
Whip: Hey, don’t tell me how to lie about my drinking, okay? I know how to lie about my drinking. I’ve been lying about my drinking my whole life.

So, what have you been lying about all your life?

Ellen Block [at the NTSB hearing]: Since her toxicology report is the only toxicology report that is admissible in this hearing, and she in fact tested positive for alcohol, is it your opinion that Katerina Marquez drank those 2 bottles of vodka on the flight?
Whip [drops his head anguished]: God help me…
Ellen Block: I’m sorry Mr. Whitaker, I couldn’t hear you. What did you say?
Whip: I said…God help me…
Ellen Block: Yes, well. However, is it your opinion…
Whip: It’s my opinion…Trina did NOT…drink the vodka.
Ellen Block: Excuse me, Mr. Whitaker…
Whip (softly, to himself): She saved that boy’s life…
Ellen Block: Captain Whitaker can you speak louder.
Whip [loudly]: I know for a fact that she did not drink that vodka…because I did. I drank the vodka.

The truth sets you free, as they say?

Ellen Block Mr. Whitaker, on the morning of October…
Whip: I was drunk. I’m drunk right now, Miss Block…I’m drunk right…I’m drunk right now, because…because I’m an alcoholic.

That'll do it. Right, Dad?

Whip [now in prison speaking to a group of convicts]: That was it…I was done. It’s as if I’d hit my life long limit for lies. I could not tell one more lie. And maybe I’m a sucker. Because if I had just told one more lie I could have walked away from that whole mess and kept my wings and my false sense of pride and most importantly I would have avoided being locked up here with all of you nice folks for the last 13 months.

Clearly lying can get tricky.

Whip [to the prisoners]: This is going to sound real stupid coming from a man in prison. But for the first time in my life, I’m free.

That's why we call them scripts.

Will [son]: This essay, the essay that I have to write, it’s called, “The Most Fascinating Person That I’ve Never Met.”
Whip: Okay.
Will: So…
[he turns on his tape recorder]
Will: Who are you?
Whip: That’s a good question…

Next up: a good answer.