sâmbătă, 29 aprilie 2023

The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy, adapted for the big screen by Robert Bresson as L’argent http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/12/largent-written-and-directed-by-robert.html - 9 out of 10

 

The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy, adapted for the big screen by Robert Bresson as L’argent http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/12/largent-written-and-directed-by-robert.html

9 out of 10

 

 

Leo Tolstoy is best known for his masterpieces,  Anna Karenina http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/03/anna-karenina-by-leo-tolstoy-one-of.html War and Peace and The Death of Ivan Ilych, all three have been included on the reputable list of The 100 Greatest Books, compiled by the luminaries of our time, from Nadine Gordimer to John Irving, Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco have been asked for their opinion and the result is available on line, as The Norwegian Book Club list

 

The great Russian author has explored the most important themes, death, especially in The Death of Ivan Ilych http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-death-of-ivan-ilych-by-leo-tolstoy.html but also in The Forged Coupon and other works, indeed, we could say that this giant of literature has not left a major subject outside the scope of his magic writing, religion would be just one other topic of major, nay, paramount interest.

War and Peace is fundamental for the culture of the world http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/01/war-and-peace-by-leo-tolstoy-with-fun.html and if it were not for the one thousand two hundred and twenty five pages, I would take it up again – maybe I will, instead of losing time with new, or unread, lesser works, it would be a better idea to engage with the ‘old masters’, Anna Karenina has been read again recently , though I must admit that I did not find it all that exhilarating, on the second encounter, but there are quite a few factors at play there, from the invasion of the Ukraine, to the knowledge of the tragic end of the protagonist – and we could wish that Putin and his henchmen would know the significance, if they could not be expected to read something that pleads for peace, they only know terror and Armageddon

 

Leo Tolstoy had a very vile side and that is evident in the wondrous Intellectuals http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/06/intellectuals-by-paul-johnson.html by Paul Johnson, who writes about the fact that the great writer was a rather small man, metaphorically speaking, and in some parts of his life, he would not legalize the status of his children, born outside marriage – a bond that was very tenuous for long periods – he was vile to Ivan Turgenev, when the latter was approaching his death and wished for a reconciliation, Tolstoy was so insensitive and cruel as to deny the dying man that…

This is how I remember what I have read in Intellectuals, but as it is put into another opus, memory is not just about recollections, it also tells you things about the one who is reminiscing – now that I see this here, it could be that I am really a negative man, and what I bring from the past is the bad and the ugly, from The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-how-of-happiness-by-sonja.html we find that about half of our penchant to be mirthful is predestined, it is in our genes, about ten percent relies on the circumstances, the place where we live, and we can work with about forty percent

 

From the same monumental How of Happiness we learn about ‘Happiness Activity No 11: Practicing Religion and Spirituality- becoming more involved in your church, temple or mosque or reading and pondering spiritually themed books’ – this where Leo Tolstoy was very much interested and involved, albeit he was excommunicated later in life and he attacked the "pseudo-piety and hypocrisy of organized religion."

Religion is a vast topic indeed, it has been for centuries the most important subject – one could be tempted to say the only dogma, theory admitted, vouched for and allowed – albeit more and more young earthlings have abandoned ‘God’, or opt for unorthodox roles for Her – yes, She is female for an increasing number of young ones – and we have the view shared by Sonja Lyubomirsky, that faith, spirituality is important, on the one side.

 

Being part of a community helps – there is the notion that humans have developed such a large brain, not because of the causes suggested in the past, but because they are social beings, and socializing, being part of a group, being able to cope with the challenges posed by that man, the other woman, this child, and various couples and groups are immense and require a lot of brain activity…it sounds like  a legitimate theory – and faith provides that, the sense of belonging, having a support group to rely upon, a sense of meaning, significance, answers to some rather overwhelming issues…

On the other hand, there is the conviction of Nathaniel Branden – the ultimate expert on self-esteem, author of the classic The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem – who argues in his The Psychological Effects of Religion http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/04/psychological-effects-of-religion-by.html that dogma has a pernicious, disastrous effects on believers, the omnipresence of this guy who has all the powers, he is rather vengeful and if you masturbate at fifteen, he is bound to strike you down at forty-six, because you have broken one of his silly rules, is one bad thing, but there are others: a crucial plagues is…eternity

 

The knowledge, conviction for the evangelicals and other cult members that they will reach heaven could be calamitous, for they see the other life as the much more important part, that is eternal, this one is just a brief transit, and hence a good majority of them concentrate on what is to come and therefore ignore, or pay less attention to what looks like the only chance we all have, there is no after life, heaven, hell

It is tempting to hope that with death we have not ceased to exist, embracing various arguments, from Pascal’s wager http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-pickwick-papers-by-charles-dickens.html you must believe, because if there is a God, then at the ‘end’ you would have lost everything, would be tortured forever in hell, and then if He is not up there, what would you lose…evidently, there are major flaws to this ‘logic’, for the Almighty would not like you to take such a route…there are however quite a few good, presentable ‘proofs’, a couple that I like would be the watch found in the desert, or somewhere, of which you know it had a maker, even if you have no evidence, and then the idea of ‘perfection’ involves it being extant, thus He (or She) exists…let us pray: http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

 

Written by Revolutionary Realini – the proof is here http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html a page in The Newsweek article covering the 1989 Revolution that has deposed Ceausescu

92 out of 100 for Putin A Russian Spy Story - It explains the backgro...

84 out of 100 for Estonia - an excellent documentary

miercuri, 26 aprilie 2023

Mouchette by Robert Bresson, adapted from the wondrous book by Georges Bernanos – author of The Diary of a Country Priest http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/diary-of-country-priest-based-on-novel.html - 10 out of 10

 

Mouchette by Robert Bresson, adapted from the wondrous book by Georges Bernanos – author of The Diary of a Country Priest http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/diary-of-country-priest-based-on-novel.html

10 out of 10

 

 

‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’ – Hamlet…having decided on that, there is the exhilaration of watching the film or reading the book, a marvel – as opposed to the Marvel Universe which I refute, in the future, an impossible task, seeing as they have invaded not just exotic planets and galaxies, but the small and big screens – but we can also shiver at the cruelty shown towards the protagonist and animals (such as the rabbits that I fear have been really killed for the production, there were no special effects, and that period was not into showing at the end that ‘no creatures have been harmed during the filming’…besides, this looks like a hypocrisy, given that humanity does kill billions and tortures them in the process, a horror detailed in Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/02/sapiens-brief-history-of-humankind-by.html by Magician Yuval Harari and other opera) and try to be ‘A Merit Finder, Not a Fault Finder in the narrative…

 

In feminist terms, Mouchette is the archetype, the quintessential victim at the hands of male chauvinist pigs, she has to suffer insults, indignities and it gets ever worse, she is abused, raped and her life is hell, in this small French village, about one hundred years ago – alas, it could be today in most places in the world, those that reject ‘Western norms and values’ and say that this is just for America and Europe and they have to keep to other standards, those that keep women in slavery in large parts of the world, in the name of their religion (see Iran, Saudi Arabia, those and other countries were a sexual orientation that does not agree with the majority’s view are sentenced to…death, at least in ‘aggravated cases’ presumably, where they do not seek a ‘cure’) it has not changed for millennia

Things have changed in large parts of the planet, Alhamdulillah, and for some it could look terrible, and outdated, this kind of things does not happen again they say – but there is the caveat mentioned above – albeit it has only been some years since the MeToo movement has exposed what happens in the screen trade, for a Closer Look at what happens there, you could no better than read the astounding Adventures in The Screen Trade http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/02/adventures-in-screen-trade-by-william.html by the twice winner of the Oscar for Best Screenplay, for Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and All The President’s Men, William Goldman, and there is still a long way to go before stories like Mouchette’s are history.

 

She is just fourteen and that exposes another disgusting, horrendous aspect of women’s’ and girls’ lives, that they were exploited, targeted, sexually abused from a very young age, and changes in the laws have been introduced over the past years, though again, this is true for ‘The Western World’ mostly, and even there you have aberrations, ghastly situations, for instance, in red American states, it was still legal until recently for marriages to be officiated between a girl of fourteen or so and a man (I do not think his age is of importance, but presumably, he could be much older) there is also the invasion of Ukraine, degeneration of large segments of the population of the US and the world to be deplored.

 

On the bright side, we have still a supremacy of the ‘western values” as analyzed in Why The West Rules for Now http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/10/why-west-rules-for-now-by-ian-morris.html a fabulous magnum opus by Ian Morris, only just as the title indicates, this is For Now, things are already changing fast, as the Russian invasion shows, the rise of the Red Dragon, with the tyranny it will bring to growing areas (taking Taiwan would be just a step, however much it will be opposed, indeed there could be World War III over this, perhaps the terminal one) and not just women will suffer.

We have to highlight the fact that it will be men (as always) that will bring Armageddon (let us hope not, but the clash appears inevitable, two of the latest copies of The Economist show you the details of that) down on women and everybody else, the specter of the suffering of Mouchette looks set to continue to haunt us, on a massive scale, China is no longer a ‘one party state’, for it has become a ‘one man state’, and they will – what am I saying they have been doing it already – confront America and whoever stands in the way.

 

And the Chinese way is not one favorable to women – actually, it has just one privileged class, the rulers, in particular the despot and they clearly promote a dogma where the powerful dictate, hence their stand on the Russian invasion, and everything else, where they say that the big country has the right to take territory and keep the others, the smaller ones, submissive, which is what the Red Dragon does, bullying states around, claiming islands that are not theirs, they have invaded Tibet, they crashed opposition, freedom in Hong Kong, Uighurs are placed in labor camps, the list is too long

Yes, this was supposed to be about Mouchette and her plight, the Hades she lives in, but I just got mad, and went off on the tangent of the heroine suffered, some of the pain was eliminated in the most advanced democracies, but there is still horror in so many realms and then there is the rise of the Empire of Xi, which will be apocalyptic for all of us, this was the point in a nutshell, and returning to the individual plight, the young woman is called a ‘pute’ by the vile people of the village, who are venomous and stupid.

 

Mouchette tries to fight back, alas, she is alone against the others, she throws mud at them, to vindicate the metaphorical and literal dirt they pour on her, she walks in the church only after she soiled the shoes thoroughly, the same thing inside the house of one of those villains, she is raped and her life is miserable, one can wonder how to resist in all this, where is the infamous ‘silver lining’, when all we can see are clouds all over the skies and then there is a real tempest, something like a hurricane coming down

She is resilient and admirable in her bravery, strength, determination with which she tries to survive in what is an unbearable atmosphere, when they all gang up upon you, there is no hope, one has to resort to faith in God, I guess, waiting for some help from above, expecting salvation, a life in the paradise to come…if you believe in all that, of course - http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

 

Realini the Revolutionary signs this – this is the link to the Newsweek article that mentions Realini and his presence in the middle of the rebellion that took down Ceausescu http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

85 out of 100 for La Grande Bouffe aka Marea Crapelnita

84 out of 100 for Mr Bean, The Series

duminică, 23 aprilie 2023

Il Medico Della Mutua aka the Doctor of ‘Mutua’ - based on the book by Giuseppe D’Agata, with the Miracle Artist Alberto Sordi http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/note-on-guglielmo-il-dentone-with.html - 9 out of 10

 

Il Medico Della Mutua aka the Doctor of ‘Mutua’ - based on the book by Giuseppe D’Agata, with the Miracle Artist Alberto Sordi http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/06/note-on-guglielmo-il-dentone-with.html

9 out of 10

 

 

The Doctor of Mutua aka the Doctor of The Insurance company reveals aspects that were terrible and amusing in Italy, many decades ago, there are problems even now, no system is perfect, only you can’t help but think that many of the preposterous habits, corrupt practices have been eliminated in Italy, more or less, but are still rampant in a realms like the one we live in, where doctors can be awful and rich…

 

Mind you, my sister is a doctor, therefore I respect the profession, it takes so long to get ready, and then they have to keep learning, to be aware of the new research, medicine, treatments that they deserve admiration, a very good compensation and special places in society…having said that, you can find (like in any group of humans that is large enough) some bastards that are appalling, such as this komodo dragon that comes to the pool and sauna and supports Putin, blaming the invasion on, well the other side.

The creature is rich, he kept speaking (when he revealed is penchant for mass killing tyrants I tried to reason with him and when that failed, I went out of the hammam, and never spoke with him ever since) of the properties he has, hence I tried to explain it so that he can understand (like in those old jokes that made fun of all kinds of groups, populations, using the setting of a bar in which a guy from this country or the other walks, they speak about jokes on his ethnicity, nationality, etc. and when he protests that he is from the place they want to ridicule, they say ‘do not worry, I will tell it to you slowly’ what is not said is ‘so that you can understand’) first with the Cuban missiles, which he used as an ‘argument’ in his conspiracy theory, telling him that the Americans have not invaded Cuba, like Russia has been doing for more than a year with Ukraine

 

Then this local Doctor of the Mutua has had a permanent complaint over the fact that he gets calls connected with a very valuable (maybe north of one million dollars, could be five mill) property that folks want to buy, and I explained, or asked him, what will say if instead of these annoying telephone messages, you have a Putin, Z tank, entering your land and saying ‘davai’, taking this asset from you, and pointing the gun, if he has not killed you already, and then confiscating the other things you have, money, houses, torturing, killing loved ones, friends…then you should note that Russia has already attacked this country.

Not with rockets, not yet, but with cyber weapons, and The Economist mentions that there are tens of billions of damage caused, not all here, but still, for a country that has a long way to go before reaching prosperity…this is one of the Doctors of the Mutua that I will be glad to see replaced by AI, or anything else for that matter

 

Artificial Intelligence will replace people in many, actually it looks like most jobs, from drivers – Yuval Harari, one of the most outstanding luminaries of our age, writes about this in his marvelous Homo Deus – A Brief History of Tomorrow http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/homo-deus-brief-history-of-tomorrow-by.html and in his other wondrous books, Sapiens, A Brief History of Humanity and @1 Lessons for The 21st Century and the fact that cars, lorries will be driven by a combination of Michael Schumacher and Immanuel Kant, humans make mistakes and cause accidents and deaths, indeed, one of the few professions that look secure for now would be…archeology, because it does not present an interest for business, to introduce AI would not bring in savings, there are no ‘material profits’ there

Some of the first doctors to be out of a job would be – let me just show some more cruelty and nauseating nastiness here and say that Putin lover, if the Russians come his way, he may offer his homage and give all to them, or as an alternative, there could be some laws passed to deal with traitors, if the Russian propaganda has been blocked on some venues, as Russia Today, they still have acolytes and messengers like this eejit, who just makes the job of those internet pirates, spreading propaganda and love for tyrants – those working like Guido Tersilli in the story, but also the ones interpreting echography, images, because AI has the ability to analyze and compare with millions of cases.

 

In other words, a human with extended experience, can keep in his mind maybe hundreds, thousands of examples, only the immense data base of a an AI ‘doctor’ will be able to look at millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of images, in a second or less and see where the match is, what this particular lesion has in common with other problems in other patients, and of course you would opt for one ‘doctor’ that has seen, knows about millions of cases and thus can predict, analyze with much more accuracy what the pictures, the film says about your stomach, liver or whatever it is at risk…

The doctor in the story want more patients with the Insurance company, because this way, he will get much more money, and there is some competition, which is always good for the patient – they used to have a tendency to require a lot of care and pills, many decades back – if there is no corrupt race that ends with doctors trying all sorts of schemes that fail to put the sick ones at the center of their attention

 

At one point, Guido Tersilli, tries to get the long list of a dying (if he does expire) colleague and become one of those who are too busy to really look at the problems, the people seeking help are just pushed quickly – this is some problem that even the celebrated NHS, the British National Health Service has, not to the ludicrous degree illustrated in the comedy, but with the pandemic and lockdown, the pressure on the British and most other health systems has reached the point where most of the surgical and other procedures have been postponed, and now there is a long waiting list, just as presumably would be the situation elsewhere –and eventually, the doctor ends up with some sort of ‘postmodern’ practice, as if he were one of those ‘remote workers’,  he speaks on the phone with his nurses, and has them look at the ‘clients/patients’ and then tells them over the phone what medicine to recommend

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

 

Note written by Realini The Revolutionary - - here is the article from Newsweek that covers the 1989 Revolution that took down Ceausescu http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

Succession and Hedonic Adaptation

61 out of 100 for And Just Like That, Season 1

joi, 20 aprilie 2023

Requiem For A Dream by Darren Aronofsky, one of the greatest movies of all time http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/10/requiem-for-dream-written-by-hubert.html - 10 out of 10

 

Requiem For A Dream by Darren Aronofsky, one of the greatest movies of all time http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/10/requiem-for-dream-written-by-hubert.html

10 out of 10

 

 

This narrative works splendidly on many levels, first of all, it is a majestic motion picture, with superb acting, a marvelous director, outstanding script, everything about it is phenomenal, and then you can learn so much from it, from how bad things can get when one is addicted – Things Fall Apart http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/04/things-fall-apart-by-chinua-achebe-is.html which is incidentally the name of a magnum opus by Chinua Achebe – to drugs or weight losing pills, or other substance  or activity.

 

The other way to benefit from this saga – in fact there are other countless perspectives, this being a masterpiece, it does have maybe as many angles as viewers – would be to see how low the protagonists have descended to a nadir and when comparing with them see how fortunate we are – one of the rules of happiness is called ‘Happiness Activity No 1: Expressing  Gratitude –counting your blessings for what you have either to a close other or privately, maybe in a journal, conveying gratitude to one or more individuals you haven’t properly thanked’ in The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky

In the same marvelous, wondrous opus we have   Happiness Activity No 3: Avoid Over thinking and Social Comparison- using strategies such as distraction to cut down on how often you dwell on your problems and compare yourself with others only I have found a version in some other work, which suggests that we could look at those who have less, like Sara, Harry, Marion and Tyrone in the motion picture, and compare with them http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-how-of-happiness-by-sonja.html

 

Aristotle has written some wise lines on drama, the way it should have reversal and revelation – as in Oedipus Rex, where the messenger brings the news that make the hero realize he had killed his father and married his mother http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/03/note-on-oedipus-rex-by-sophocles-and.html - - and how the hero must have traits that the audience thinks it has, the fall in the drama has to make sense, the main character could not be too close to perfection, for it would be hard to take, he must make some mistake, otherwise his descent would be unfair and the public will reject it

Aristotle states that the purpose of tragedy is to arouse “terror and pity” and thereby effect the catharsis of these emotions…in a tragedy, a happy ending doesn't make us happy’ indeed, as I was saying above, it could work in the sense that when we see what happens to the characters their fall will make us see that we are much better, also, alternatively, the rich, mighty could understand that they can experience misfortune and be more humble, prudent, become better at the end of a good drama, tragedy…

 

Over the past few weeks , I have been very upset with the downgrading of the service, facilities at the club Downtown – they do not take the trouble to fix anything, from the saunas that are decrepit and offer the incandescent temperature of 50 degrees Celsius up to about ten o’clock (maybe after I abandon the premises it gets to 120, so there is this caveat, albeit it is more than doubtful such miracle takes places, and besides, they have sent messages saying they are closed for some days) to…a cheap battery needed for the weighing gadget, the rusty seal for the airing system in the hammam, which could not be more than ten dollars.

Maybe it is like Requiem For A Dream, those personages are addicted to drugs, and we are dependent on these saunas, utilities, and we have nowhere else to go, and the chain that has a near (or perhaps absolute) monopoly in the market can play the game it wants, closing the outdoor Jacuzzi and blaming it on the Hotel…by the way, The Radisson is both a major disappointment and a puzzle in this beano

 

The Radisson is supposed to offer a high standard, their ads on CNN pretend that their clients are so spoiled, whereas what we see at this gym that is used by paying subscribers from this city (like myself) and the guests of the hotel…how is it that employees from the Radisson do not take the trouble to check, at least once in a while, the abysmal service (or lack thereof) that is on offer at this ‘wellness’ outfit, which has a policy of cutting expenses to the point where one has to keep wondering what is off next.

There is in fact some sort of race to the bottom, the outdoors Jacuzzi is closed by the hotel (at least that is what the spa claims) and then the other party in this ‘relationship’ cuts down the indoors one – it was off because a client has vomited in the water, says the manager, because evidently, the clients, hotel and higher echelons are responsible for that is wrong, and presumably, she is to be cherished for whatever works, when it does

 

One of the most influential, illustrious psychologists of our time, Malcolm Gladwell has a few miracle books, Outliers, Blink, Talking to Strangers, and the excellent The Tipping Point http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-tipping-point-by-malcolm-gladwell.html wherein he explains what happens in places that are neglected or abandoned (to joke, just like this Club and that side of the Radisson that refers to ‘spa’) where crime becomes rampant, and he cites the case of New York.

Where windows were broken, graffiti was everywhere, and the areas were dirty and run down, crime levels were high, but when authorities changed their strategy and started focusing on the ‘small crime’ and took care of those sectors – when they stopped the fellows that jumped to avoid paying at the subway, they found that many also had illegal guns, or/and drugs - and taking care of the ‘smaller problems’ helped with solving the major issues – in the same manner, I think the club would do well to fix the trouble (the hotel should do its job better too) because when they give the impression that they neglect and do not care, clients are more aggressive, pour water on the feeble stove in the sauna, and make it even more ‘capricious’, they turn their frustration towards the showers and other spaces and this becomes a vicious spiral, just like in Requiem for A Dream http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-tipping-point-by-malcolm-gladwell.html

 

Written by Revolutionary Realini – the link proving that is here http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html an article from Newsweek, covering the 1989 Revolution that ended the Ceausescu regime

96 out of 100 for Marriage Italian Style

84 out of 100 for The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys

luni, 17 aprilie 2023

The Keys To The Kingdom based on the book by AJ Cronin – the argument against this might be found in The Psychological Effects of Religion by Nathaniel Branden http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/04/psychological-effects-of-religion-by.html - 9 out of 10

 

The Keys To The Kingdom based on the book by AJ Cronin – the argument against this might be found in The Psychological Effects of Religion by Nathaniel Branden http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/04/psychological-effects-of-religion-by.html

9 out of 10

 

 

This narrative emphasizes the positive sides of religion, through the main character, Father Francis Chisholm -portrayed in the film adaptation by illustrious Gregory Peck, the one that enthused audiences in gems like To Kill A Mocking Bird and A Roman Holiday http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/09/one-of-realini-best-100-movies-100-out.html -who has all the wonderful qualities we aspire to possess – thus he is a Role Model and a Super Hero, Superman and Holy Man rolled into one – unlike the real clergy.

 

When I think priests, a horrible image comes to mind from real experience: when my father died, we had to hire a few priests, not for a lavish funeral, we were not rich (we are better off, Alhamdulillah, but still worried) only the customs required a ceremony at the interment, another one after one week, six weeks, 10 maybe, six months and so on (which by the way I wave here, I tend to place my testament in notes, saying I want the bare minimum, no, or just a tiny expense, clergy free departure, if possible, the thing they have now, where one becomes compost, albeit that would be more of a fuss, so it is unlikely to happen, no tears, maybe the Badman’s Song by Tears For Fears and that is just about it) and every time you need the ‘holy man’ to act as an intermediary between you and God…Oh God!

The fellows were slimy, lusting for gold, greedy, incompetent, disinterested in the ethereal and all too passionate about the worldly, dirty (metaphorically and literally) absent in spirit and in the flesh somehow, haunting the entrance of the cemetery like unsavory salesmen, vultures competing for each other for the remains of the deceased, and when you hire them and pay (through the nose it seems, especially given the poor service you get, when you consider both sides of the argument, I mean, if you are a believer, you would be appalled at the prayers they mumble and the lack of genuine attempt to address the All Powerful, and if you do this just as the rituals require, then you say ‘Oh My God’, he (there is no woman in the Orthodox priesthood, never mind other persons form the LGBTQ+ community) does not make any effort to work for the money, his singing of the psalms is atrocious, it does not ‘lift you up’, it makes you cringe and grind your teeth, this is actually hell, not even purgatory…

 

In other words, I am more than reluctant to embrace clergy, religious doctrines (though there is something in the Buddhist, especially Zen Buddhist dogma, if there is one, for over there many precepts make sense, some do not, and what the Buddha taught is reasonable, take that anger advice, where keeping fury is compared with ‘having coals in the hand, kept to throw on an enemy and burning your flesh in the meantime’, besides, Nirvana, the notion that cravings are the problem is not just wise, it could save us from mercantilism, the exaggerated consumption that could literally burn the planet, and we would be so much better off with a dose (huge one in most cases) of stoicism, a restraint from purchasing so much

 

Therefore The Keys to The Kingdom does not appear to have the most attractive subject, hero, premise for an exhilarating experience, and it could work in the way suggested by the ‘lower your expectations’ rule…furthermore, we do have a marvelous protagonist in Father Francis Chisholm, one that highlights what is good about religion, Christianity in particular, the munificence, self-sacrifice, bravery, humility, justice, wisdom inspired in the most admirable of the faithful, inspired by the example of Jesus Christ, son of God, if you feel that way, a way of life that is shared by billions of humans…

If Nathaniel Branden thinks that The Psychological Effects of Religion are all calamitous – for instance, the idea that you have an all-powerful fellow watching always over the shoulder, ready to punish the older man for the masturbation practiced by the teenager is atrocious and traumatic – then Sonja Lyubomirsky has the opposite view, arguing in her The How of Happiness http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-how-of-happiness-by-sonja.html that one of the twelve rules of happiness is exactly connected with faith – however, you learn from the book that you need to take a test and see which activity suit you better, and religion might not be one of them – as in  Happiness Activity No 11: Practicing Religion and Spirituality- becoming more involved in your church, temple or mosque or reading and pondering spiritually themed books’…or just meeting with the likes of Father Francis

 

I just realized that this is the name of the Pope, another benign figure, one that inspires trust, benevolence, humanity, magnanimity, tolerance and so much more, with the benefit that he is real – he has made mistakes, and then, if you look for the perspective of one who is not a believer, then the whole thing is a Charade, believing in ghosts, virgin birth, as Maher was just jesting on his show – only he is the leader of an outfit that has tolerated abuse, perversion, the molestation of children by a huge, ghastly number of ‘representatives of God on earth’ who do much to annihilate the good campaigns of the unsoiled ones…

If the clergy were much more like Father Francis (the one from The Keys to The Kingdom, or the one in the Vatican, who has just been sick, and is going to participate in the service tonight, I guess it is Easter for the Catholics, and then coming soon for the majority here, who are Orthodox, perhaps next week) then you would take larger portions of the dogma to be ‘real’ or follow precepts…I have been thinking some years back, maybe a decade, when discovering the wonders of positive psychology – take Flow as an example http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-this-is.html which inform you about the conditions for Maximum Experience, challenges meet expectations, you are in control, time is relative (“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour…Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute…That's relativity”) feedback is constant, it is an autotelic experience, nothing else matters – that a new religion (as if Scientology and all the rest are not enough) would be required, one that centers on positive psychology and the rules – be grateful, munificent, have meaningful goals, good relations with family and friends, decipher the acronyms PERMA, SPIRE and so on – and then respecting with religiosity all that, the future is ours, Nirvana, Heaven descend upon earth with the Great Designer from Above…a first step is here http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

 

Written by revolutionary Realini – as proved in this article from Newsweek, talking about the 1989 Revolution that took down Ceausescu, due in infinitesimal  part to…Realini  - if there are enormities in the text, they are solely due to the trauma suffered then, at the hands of the local KGB, FSB and then the not dissimilar attention paid by the WIFE http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

97 out of 100 for Mouchette

sâmbătă, 15 aprilie 2023

A Lost Letter aka O Scrisoare Pierduta by Ion Luca Caragiale – some celebrate him as the greatest Romanian writer, author of A Stormy Night aka O Noapte Furtunoasa http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/05/o-noapte-furtunoasa-by-ion-luca.html and other satirical, magic plays - 10 out of 10

 

A Lost Letter aka O Scrisoare Pierduta by Ion Luca Caragiale – some celebrate him as the greatest Romanian writer, author of A Stormy Night aka O Noapte Furtunoasa http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/05/o-noapte-furtunoasa-by-ion-luca.html and other satirical, magic plays

10 out of 10

 

 

I have made a note on this local classic – it would be interesting to quantify the impact this might have had outside our realm…I was overwhelmed the other day to find one of the important lists, compiled in Sweden, including a local novel Barefoot aka Descult by Zaharia Stancu – about nine years ago http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/04/o-scrisoare-pierduta-by-ion-luca.html ou sont les neiges d’antan…

 

Works of art, books are revised now…I have just received a message from friend Marius about the case of the teacher fired in Florida, for showing young adults a photo of the chef d’oeuvre Davis by Michelangelo, this was labeled as showing pornography and then the state of Florida has a governor at war with Woke, though he does not define it, he fights it as a means to become popular and eventually beat Trump

On the A Closer Look show of the hilarious Seth Meyer he has just had fun at the interview given by the orange drama queen, in which he tells this story of Desantis coming to the then president with ‘tears in his eyes’ to beg for a favor, to be endorsed in the race for the governorship of that bizarre place, with a ‘terrible message’, which the Orange Alien, in his munificence has changed, and because of the magnanimity of the weirdo, Waco Narcissistic sick man, Desanctimonious won the election…

 

They are expected to clash over the nomination for the Republican party and hence the exchange of fire, especially coming from Trump, over the disloyalty of the former protégé, also called apparently Meatball Ron in private (allegedly, the Big Liar is pondering over various nicknames yet) and the drama and comedy will only intensify as they advance towards the primaries and the polls will change…it looked for a while as if Desantis might prevail, with his mini Trump strategy, but he is a pitiful candidate…

The former president is a calamitous figure, it shows how little the world has progressed on many levels, if humanity has come to be led from 2017, Alhamdulillah for only four years and he will lose next time as well, Insha’Allah, then we could doubt on the advancement of civilization, if so many tens of millions, in the once most advanced democracy, have decided to identify with such a disgusting man

 

There is an august, adjectival, hideous kinky, medicine book – these are words that have come from some magnum opera, The True Story of The Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud, granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and daughter of Lucien Freud, and Little Big Man by Thomas Berger http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/12/little-big-man-by-thomas-berger.html - Sapiens A Brief History of Human Kind

 

http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/02/sapiens-brief-history-of-humankind-by.html in this marvel (a real treat, unlike the Marvel Universe, which is anathema for me) we find reasons to be optimistic – as well as what the future generations will think of us, cruel beings that torture and kill animals for their flesh, or even worse, for pelts, fur or no reason at all, just for ‘fun’, like say the progeniture that has inherited the same unfortunate DNA that the orange goon has- as Yuval Harari explains, humanity has never had it so good, a long period of peace, interrupted after the publication of the book by Putin the Monster.

I just remembered that I am supposed to write about something else, I mean I have started all this for the ‘benefit’ of A Lost Letter, the connection between the play and what is going on in the world, the malfeasances I touched upon, would be that we have liars, corruption, the quest and thirst for political power, machinations that will accept anything, just to get ‘elected’, and if this was thought a satire that exposes shortcomings in our political system, the way a candidate is promoted due to blackmail, it is good for the world as well.

 

We have a ménage a trois, in which Stefan Tipatescu, prefect of the county, somebody much more honorable in my view than Meatball Ron, has an affair with Zoe Trahanache, wife of his friend and political ally, Zaharia Trahanache, and the rival from the opposition finds a letter that testifies to the cheating, and if published, it would call a scandal…how innocent and pure were these scoundrels, when compared with the eejit who has ruined the reputation of America for so many, with his entanglements with porn stars, the disgusting talk on the Hollywood bus and elsewhere, the calamity of January 6th and so much more…

Nae Catavencu, political adversary and ruthless crook, threatens and blackmails with the letter, but he is just as inept as he is unscrupulous, and then they send from the center, some desperate, absurd, ridiculous, preposterous, demented fellow, Agamita Dandanache, and we laugh and cry at the panoply of scoundrels, parvenus, incompetents, sycophants, that have a replica in today’s world, even in America

 

If these fellows from the Lost Letter have some attenuating circumstances, the plot is situated in the year of grace 1883, when democracy, if extant, was in its cradle here, otherwise a less fortunate corner of the planet, on matters of progress and over imposing, oppressing, conquering neighbors – think of The Ottoman Empire, Austro- Hungary and last, but not least Czarist Russia, then the vile Soviet Union, and finally, the one who thinks the fall of the soviet empire was the biggest catastrophe of the last century, War Criminal Putin, who now has an arrest warrant on his name from the International Court of Justice

It is with wonder that we find how relevant this is, in describing politics in the US, Florida, on the red side of the spectrum, even if there will be those that will find fault and say that it is passé, not an appropriate read for our age, I bed to differ and have mentioned the parallels between the characters in the Lost Letter and ‘very stable geniuses’ around the world… http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

Signed by Realini, proud participant in the 1989 Revolution, as evidenced in this Newsweek article http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

88 out of 100 for L'argent aka The Money

86 out of 100 for Succession, Last Season, Episode 3

vineri, 14 aprilie 2023

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-streetcar-named-desire-by-tennessee.html Magician Author of some of the greatest plays, including Cat On A Hot Tin Roof http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/05/cat-on-hot-tin-roof-by-tennessee.html - 10 out of 10

 

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-streetcar-named-desire-by-tennessee.html Magician Author of some of the greatest plays, including Cat On A Hot Tin Roof http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/05/cat-on-hot-tin-roof-by-tennessee.html

10 out of 10

 

 

I have been elated by watching A Street Car Named Desire, and the latest could be the third time – the magic is still there, one of the most rewarding experiences will have audiences admiring Marlon Brando, at his peak, as Stanley Kowalski, an uneducated man, with an impressive Emotional Intelligence…studies have shown that EQ is much more important (have I read it is twice as crucial) than IQ.

 

When this masterpiece was on the other day, I thought of the Paradigm Shift (once Blanche Dubois comes to live with Stanley and her sister, Stella, everything changes – by the way, this chef d’oeuvre is such a hit that it pops up in the most unlikely places and circumstances, one has Elaine from Seinfeld shouting like Brando aka Stanley, after she gets drunk at a party ‘Stella’) described in the Booker Prize Winner Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/06/vernon-god-little-by-dbc-pierre-divine.html one of my favorite comedies, and books of all time, come to think of it…

Vernon is told about Paradigm Shift in those terms, albeit I do not know the passage by heart, and if you want to laugh out loud, then you better read this portion, and much better still, find the magnum opus and enjoy it – you come into this room and find a stranger with a finger up your granny’s arse, what do you think…the answer is evidently that Vernon is outraged and ready to pummel the fellow…

 

In a short time, you see that the man had learned about a terrible danger your respectable relative had been in, and overcame his massive reluctance, to try and save the elderly woman, now what do you say about the new situation…well, he is a hero, kudos, or words to that effect – this would be the fundamental change, that is described in Vernon God Little, which has a good number of hilarious events and characters, like the lawyer who looks like he just arrived from Cuba, with his sleek costume, suit or what not

Blanche Dubois descends upon the Kowalski family, to stay with her sister, and to begin with, she acts with pomp and aristocratic hauteur, pretending to be an authentic lady, with high placed friends, taking some leave form school and lying about, well, almost anything, she could be compared with the Pinocchio of our age, Trump, only her situation is much more serious and there are attenuating circumstances for the woman, while the orange fellow can only be forgiven for having lost his wits, if he ever had any…

 

Spoiler alert, it will be uncovered that the claims to having an enviable position are all pretense, for Blanche is in fact near destitution, she had been dismissed by the school, because she might have had an inappropriate attitude towards a teenage pupil, and then there have been a number of affairs and intimacies with men

 

The context is important, for at that time (and in many places today) male chauvinist pigs dominated the scene, passed judgment on women and almost everything else, condemning even the most banal connections and labeling those who agreed to accept their advances as sluts, immoral and attaching many other slurs, insults, for humans who were vulnerable, easy prey for the predators and the men that had all the advantages…

Blanche Dubois is one of the most intriguing, captivating, interesting, impressive characters, for on the one hand, she is clearly a victim of the age, men, having suffered disappointments, financial distress and so many more challenges, adversities, traumas, and on the other hand, she shows resilience, if she is presenting a ‘false’ image, how could anyone blame her, if life is so grim, then one has to survive it somehow…

 

There are a few ways we could look at Stanley Kowalski, the present day standards would disqualify him as a bully and abuser, for he is very aggressive, at least from one point on, towards his sister-in-law – when he gives her a present, spoiler alert, he means a ticket out of town, with the message that she has overstayed her welcome and needs to get out…furthermore, Stanley pushes off his friend, Mitch

Blanche had managed somehow to get close to Mitch, and the latter seemed determined to propose to the otherwise superior woman, but once he finds that she had had affairs with men, this is a signal for the fellow that he can have sex, he makes it clear that she is not good enough to take home to his mother, but will nonetheless have a fling, exploit her if you will just to satisfy his more primitive urges.

 

Reading this in a contemporary, perhaps feminist key, we have males pushing Blanche into what they would call promiscuity of worse, and then complaining about her ‘immorality’, some exploit her and other cry out and finger the ‘sin’…if we look at the narrative from a perspective that was predominant at the time, then Stanley could be praised for finding about his sister-in-law and ending her stay.

Milan Kundera explained the difference between pity and compassion, the former is reserved for those we see as having a lower position, while the latter is poured on the ones we feel that they are our equals…this might have been elaborated on in The Unbearable Lightness of Being http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-9-put.html perhaps the best known of his works

 

Blanche Dubois has suffered and reached a nadir, but she is also a strong character, someone we must admire, for the lying is a necessary defense mechanism (bastards like Trump lie permanently to obtain massive privileges or maintain them) what could she do, tell the men she meets that other males have taken advantage, they will reject her, this is what they do…

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

this note is signed by Realini, participant in the 1989 Revolution, as proved in this page from Newsweek http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

One of The Best Films of All Time - Au Hasard Balthazar

92 out of 100 for Une Dimanche a La Campagne

duminică, 9 aprilie 2023

Moby Dick or The Whale by Herman Melville – another attempt at making some sense of it is at http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/01/note-2-and-final-on-moby-dick-by-herman.html Ahab and Don Quixote – are they members of the same club, obsessive-compulsive men, chasing myths, explained in The Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky and Stumbling On Happiness by Daniel Gilbert? - 7 out of 10 in my view, but a chef d’oeuvre for most readers

 

Moby Dick or The Whale by Herman Melville – another attempt at making some sense of it is at http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/01/note-2-and-final-on-moby-dick-by-herman.html

Ahab and Don Quixote – are they members of the same club, obsessive-compulsive men, chasing myths, explained in The Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky and Stumbling On Happiness by Daniel Gilbert?

7 out of 10 in my view, but a chef d’oeuvre for most readers

 

 

Moby Dick is not the only magnum opus that I did not get access to, with my feeble accoutrements, in that I did not get why everyone – with few exceptions, perhaps the daughter of The Whale aka Oscar winner Brendan Fraser, would be one, her essay on Herman Melville’s work seemed to be quite critical, albeit maybe I did not even have that right – is so enthralled, enraptured by this strange novel.

 

Instead of a spoiler alert – not the case, for I do not even know how this ends, and even worse, I do not give a damn if the obsessed captain Ahab gets his Whale, although let me just put down that I do see some of the symbols and merits of this, I may not be so dumb after all, and in fact I wish he does not, for one of the reasons why I (and you for that matter) reject this story is because it is about killing an intelligent, impressive beast…yes, yes, it is all a metaphor and there is so much that a sophisticated, erudite mind could extract, if only he, she, they take the trouble and see that this has to do with our obsessive compulsive disorders, the wrong goals we choose and pursue with fervor…

‘Happiness Activity No 10: Committing to Your Goals-picking one, two or three significant goals that are meaningful to you and devoting time and effort to pursue them…’ this is from the life changing The How of Happiness by majestic Sonja Lyubomirsky http://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-how-of-happiness-by-sonja.html a marvel from which we learn that Goals, the meaningful one, are essential for our wellbeing, and Captain Ahab, could be taken as the ‘The How Not To’ example, or at least it looked like this to me.

 

There is something to say in favor of the famous or infamous character, who has been mauled, disabled by the White Whale and then maybe he tries to redress the balance – in the scheme of Character Strengths there is a chapter for bravery, and under it you have Perseverance, surely Ahab has that aplenty, or in the view of Aristotle, he has too much…Aristotle argued in favor of the Golden Mean, with the view that virtue is in the middle, you could be reckless or a coward, but in between, you find bravery

There is also the Justice section of Character Strengths http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/07/character-strengths-and-weaknesses.html and in there we find fairness, which is how we could see the captain, being fair in that he tries to balance out, and determines that he and the crew have to get the White Whale, no matter what, at the cost of missing all other creatures – there is a need to emphasize here that at the time, humans saw whales as a source of oil and revenue, just like today, billions, actually most of the nine billion that live on earth, eat and torture (if not directly) poultry, cattle and billions of other beasts to eat them, and future generations, if there is an earth for them, will look at us and think what Inglorious Bastards, monstrous creatures we have been for doing all this – just to pay back and animal that was fighting for its life…

 

http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-myths-of-happiness-by-sonja.html Sonja Lyubomirsky has this other mesmerizing book, The Myths of Happiness, where we could find some explanation for the Ahab obsession, and perhaps an interpretation of Moby Dick – we are talking of a Myth here, poor Ahab is vainly searching for the White Whale – which is the metaphor that can remind us of Don Quixote, another fellow that is chasing a dream, fighting wind mills, as he thinks these are awful monsters…

alas, Don Quixote is yet another great work (masterpiece as rated by others, luminaries interviewed by the Norwegian Book Club have in fact chosen this to be The Greatest Book Ever Written, no less) that I have failed to enjoy (this is really an indication of obtusity, I mean you must be crazy to keep reading what such a dope has to say, an eejit) http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/11/don-quixote-by-miguel-de-cervantes.html and Don Quixote is indeed part of the same club with Ahab and other ghost chasing lunatics

 

Richard III is a more interesting figure, indeed, we have recently found that, talking of myths, this is yet another one – we have been fed the story that this was a ghoul, sometimes shown as a crippled, hunchback, as in The Goodbye Girl – but we find in the Hideous Kinky detective novel (maybe the best one, rated high on both the British and American Writers Guild top 100) The Daughter of Time by Josephine Fey http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-daughter-of-time-by-josephine-fey.html that the king was in fact a benign royalty, and Shakespeare and others have done him injustice with their portrayal…

http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/06/stumbling-on-happiness-by-david-gilbert.html from The Myths of Happiness and Stumbling on Happiness by august Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert we get that much of what we think will make us happy, in reality does not – and I am again connecting Ahab, Moby Dick with chasing chimeras, and the Hedonic Adaptation Effect – it is assumed that ‘if only we were to do this, or move to that place, then we would be happy’, but research has looked at what happens when people enter that matrix, say they move to California (oh, I would be so happy there, I used to think, only now I have read those magic books and I know better) and what happens is not the Magic Joy descended…

 

instead, we get used to the new circumstances, the good aspects, palm trees, ocean, and then see the negative, the traffic jams, pollution, wild fires and the like, this is called Hedonic Adaptation, and we stop noticing almost anything (we find it much harder, sometimes impossible to adapt to the loss of a dear one, unemployment, very loud noise) and the upside of this is that we can also go through very hard times (paraplegics, people going through debilitating events return to the base level of happiness after some months, on the whole) money is not the panacea that we assume it to be, as the lottery winners research has demonstrated…this could work though, and you could call be for coaching and special cut rate offers:

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

77 out of 100 for Johnny Stecchino

5 out of 10 for House Party

miercuri, 5 aprilie 2023

Downfall aka Der Untergang, based on Inside Hitler’s Bunker – The Last Days of The Third Reich by Joachim Fest - 10 out of 10

 

Downfall aka Der Untergang, based on Inside Hitler’s Bunker – The Last Days of The Third Reich by Joachim Fest

10 out of 10

 

 

This is a fantastic narrative, which shows the world what a monster looks and acts like, as he falls from the heights of the top of The Third Reich, into the bunker where he will spend his last days, together with some of the other demons, like Joseph and Magda Goebbels, parents that have decided to kill their many children (how many were there, six, eight?) poisoning them rather than allow them to live in a Germany that would soon be liberated…granted, the part occupied by the Red Army would not be a democracy, the soviets brought in calamity with them, but still, life is better than death…

 

One of the examples I have comes from Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who had been sentenced to death, and faced execution, with three minutes remaining – this is a story that our divine Literature Professor, Anton Chevorchian used to tell us in class and we have been mesmerized by this and everything else he told us…look, I think about it after forty years and share it with you – which he divided into…three, one to say goodbye to friends and family, another to pass his life in front of him, and last, to enjoy a ray of sunshine that was falling on the top of a church nearby, and then he was pardoned and freed…

http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-eternal-husband-by-fyodor.html the great master includes this experience in his masterpieces, wherein he explains what the man who has very little to live thinks, feels, from personal experience, and we learn that when we have so little ahead, we cherish life immensely, the characters in the magnum opera insist that they would rather live on a bare rock, in the middle of the ocean, than end it all, in such a short time…evidently, time is relative and we know it from Einstein…

 

Seneca has looked at the ‘shortness’ of life and contested the idea, saying that we have in fact enough time in our lifetimes, it is just that we waste so much http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/on-leisure-aka-de-otio-by-senecawith.html we treat time as if it were something we have in abundance, we even ‘kill time’, get bored in many situations and just think about it passing as fast as possible…in an attempt to explain the genius Albert Einstein said “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour…Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute…That's relativity…” albeit with various sexual orientations, the notion will have to be changed accordingly…

Maybe it was Milan Kundera http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-unbearable-lightness-of-being-9-put.html in his most famous The Unbearable Lightness of Being arguing that the genius label has become too weak, using some words to explain everything, praise all and sunder, hoi polloi will end up annihilating the original significance of the word, genius needs to be used for Leonardo, Albert Einstein and maybe Shakespeare…

 

Thomas Mann took on a couple of words, love and friend, in a short story that has been engraved in my mind, if we are to psychoanalyze this, it might be a wrong move, for it might have created a very skeptical frame of mind, some negativity and the perspective that love is really absent http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-magic-mountain-is-classic-that.html and we cannot rely on friends.

There are no friends here, unless we think of Marius, The Last of The Mohicans, and that could be blamed on Thomas Mann – in this short story, one of the characters complains that people keep talking about their ‘great love’, so grandiose, there ‘are no words to express it’, when the opposite is true, love means so much, we do not find it, except in fiction, art, in life, when tested, love shows it was just a word we used, and the ‘friends’ we have, do not really show up when needed, it is just a false notion

 

As for Hitler, the quote from George Bernard Shaw comes to mind, where he said something to the effect that ‘Hitler is a good speaker, organized this and that, has qualities, but what I can say is that it would have been better for the world, if he had never been born’ http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/03/don-juan-in-hell-by-george-bernard-shaw.html albeit Shaw, not a favorite of mine, had also said The Nazi movement is in many respects one which has my warmest sympathy’

Whenever we speak of the Nazis, I am aghast at how the world has stigmatized them, which is as it must be, making illegal those movements and manifestations in many places (say Germany), which is again what must be done, yet, when it comes to communism, those lunatics and demons are somehow tolerated and considered benign, nay, in realms they are venerated, as it happens in the new Soviet Empire.

 

Stalin is making a comeback there, his statues have been installed in places, and over the past few days, they have shown the celebrations on the news, which is part of a ghastly transformation of Russia into a vile, disgusting new empire (actually, it is just the old thing, as they said here, the old Mary with a new hat) that is annexing land from Ukraine -the despot from the Kremlin, ruler of Muscovy, as Zelensky has said we should call Russia, has just visited Mariupol at night, and he entertains another tyrant, Xi, as they try to make the world an immense playground for the two dictators, close buddies now, China waits to take Taiwan soon, and much else in the South China Sea, and wherever they wish

The communists and now those Z mass killers have been just as bad, if not worse than Hitler, if we count the dead, Stalin has surpassed the Nazi mad man, just like Mao has murdered more in his own country, through famine, executing them…they have the same planes now in Ukraine, later in Taiwan, and we need to learn lessons from this narrative, the history of monsters like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, which have successors in Putin, Xi, and some other smaller despots, Kim of North Korea and so on…

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

86 out of 100 for The Death of Dick Long