Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Not the Messiah. (He's a naughty boy)
Not The Messiah is an oratorio based on The Life of Brian, and it celebrates the 40 years of Monty Python. It was a magnificent performance. I enjoyed it so much that I will put it back on my queue for another viewing down the road. I do this very rarely.
The performance took place in the Royal Albert Hall in 2009. The Royal Albert Hall is a marvelous setting for musical works. In addition, the music was provided by the 120+ piece BBC Symphony Orchestra, while the chorus consisted of 140+ voices. In addition, were four opera singers.
This is obviously the setting for an evening of high musical culture--except for one small detail. This is produced by the Monty Python gang. The music was inspired by Handel's Messiah, a glorious work performed at Christmas on every continent and in every locale with a large chorus. However, refusing to being tied down to consistency, other musical flavors are included: pop, Welsh hymns, country and western, doo-wop, hip hop, Broadway, and Greek chorus.
A number of the arias and choral presentations were obviously "influenced" by Handel's own words. The lyrics ranged from the sentimental to the raucous to the maudlin to the just plain silly, and occasionally with a bit of profanity thrown in. This, I think, is what makes it so successful--the context. One expects magnificent lyrics to fit the setting and the music and the musical talent available and one gets nonsense.
Then there were the side bits. For example, we were treated to a Bob Dylan shtick, complete with guitar and harmonica rig, as he mumbled his way through "We are all individuals." Thanks to the powers that be for subtitles. One of Handel's choruses in the Messiah is titled "All we like sheep have gone astray." The Monty Python version is somewhat different--"We love sheep." At the appropriate moment of course in wanders a shepherdess with a flock of sheep (three). Also wandering on stage throughout the evening were bagpipers and a squad of Royal Canadian Mounties. Somehow a group of Mexican trumpeters got into the orchestra, complete with Mariachi outfits. Most of this nonsense was provided by the Monty Python group themselves. On hand were a couple of Terrys, a Brian, a Michael, and a few other noteworthies.
I must confess that I'm not a Monty Python fan. I have seen several of their films and thought them enjoyable, but could never understand the adoration of their fans. However, this is a really great film and one that I will watch again in the future.
Highly Recommended
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Robert Frost: Stopping by Desert Places
No, I haven't gotten the title wrong. I just conflated the titles of two of Robert Frost's poems: "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "Desert Places." I find that juxtaposing two different poems can give me some ideas about one or both that I might never have seen by looking at them separately.
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Desert Places
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express
They cannot not scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
Some obvious similarities are that they have four stanzas of four lines each. However, the rhyme pattern is different. In "Stopping," the first, second, and fourth lines rhyme, while the third line provides a link to the next stanza (aaba, bbcb, and ccdc) until the last stanza in which all four lines rhyme, including the famous doubled last two lines--dddd.
In "Desert Places," Frost has also rhymed the first, second, and fourth lines, but the third line does not provide a link to the next stanza. Moreover, the fourth stanza does follow the pattern of the first three stanzas: aaba, ccdc, eefe, and gghg.
Both poems are set in winter and are located in rural settings. Both focus on snow and the attitude of the person viewing the snow covered landscape. However, it seems, to me anyway, that the attitudes of the poet/narrator differ considerably in them.
Stopping By Woods: First Stanza
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
Desert Places: First Stanza
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
In both poems, the narrator is out in the countryside--either in the woods or by a field. Snow is falling in both, but the mood differs considerably. In "Stopping" the narrator has stopped in a forested area, supposedly to watch the snow fall. But, he concerns himself with something quite different than snow. The owner lives in the village and won't see him here. He stresses that he is alone out here. The question, for me, anyway, is why is this an issue, important enough to make it the central point of this introductory stanza.
The first stanza of "Desert Places" is quite different: Frost concentrates on the physical scene before him. It seems to be a far less pleasant place than the woods in "Stopping." The snow falls and darkness is coming on, fast. This seems to bother him, as if he doesn't want to be out at night when it's snowing. The snow covers everything but "a few weeds and stubble." This does not appear to be an attractive view. The second "fast" in the first line--does that refer to the "night" or to him as he hurries past the "weeds and stubble." There is no thought here of stopping to watch the snow fall, as we find in "Stopping.
Stopping by Woods--second stanza
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
Desert Places--second stanza
The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
He imagines, in the second stanza, what his horse must be thinking, but of course, it is really what he is thinking at this moment. There's something strange here about stopping in away from any human habitation, with only a frozen lake and woods around him. It is also strange that he calls this the darkest evening of the year. First, how does he know it is the darkest of the year? Second, the snow is falling and snow reflects ambient light, so it is actually much lighter than if it wasn't snowing. Perhaps the "darkest evening" refers to an internal state, rather than the actual condition around him.
While the second stanza of "Desert Places" also reflects an internal state of the narrator, the tone again is very different. Instead of being connected in some way to his horse, he is now completely isolated from everything about him. The woods belong to something else. Even his perception of the animals about him is distorted by his isolation. The animals 's lairs are seen as smothering them, yet in reality the lairs are protecting the animals from the snow and cold. Depressed, he transforms the life-preserving lairs into the graves of "smothered" animals.
Whatever life he may possess seems gone, for he is so "absent-spirited" that the loneliness he perceives about him doesn't even notice him. He is a non-entity, a void that is ignored even by a scene he sees as a graveyard. He is neither there nor not-there.
"Stopping by Woods"--third stanza
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
"Desert Places"--third stanza
And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express
In "Stopping" he again imagines what his horse might be thinking, but it is he who really questions his decision to stop here. The mood here is questioning but not bleak. He is accompanied by his horse who communicates with him, and his natural surroundings are pleasant. I think the last two lines of this stanza are the most beautiful in the poem:
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
Each time I read this poem I find myself slowing down when I get to "sweep" and drag out "easy wind" and "downy flake."
Contrast this with the third stanza in "Desert Places." "Lonely" appears twice, and "loneliness" once. The snow is "a blanker whiteness of benighted snow" that possesses "no expression" and "nothing to express." It is the silence of nothingness, not that of "an easy wind and downy flake." Moreover, that loneliness will get worse:
And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
To call this a bleak stanza would be an understatement. A loneliness that can only get worse and the silence of nothingness provide a stark contrast to the third stanza of "Stopping." But there still is a glimmer of hope for the loneliness will get worse "ere it will be less."
"Stopping by Woods"--fourth stanza
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
"Desert Places"--fourth stanza
They cannot not scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
While my interpretation of the poem differs from the commonly accepted interpretation (I think he is contemplating suicide), the fourth stanza clearly suggests that some decision has been made. He decides that it isn't time to sleep (sleep frequently is a euphemism for death, not only in poetry but among many people) because he has tasks to perform and "miles to go before I sleep." I think it is significant that the last two lines are the same. Perhaps some doubt still remains, and he needs to repeat it to convince himself. I wonder if this stanza is perhaps one of the most memorized stanzas of any of Frost's poems. I know I knew it by heart long before I had memorized the entire poem.
Overall I feel that this is an optimistic stanza, and therefore an optimistic poem, for he has decided to go on. There are still things to do and promises to keep before it's time to sleep.
Compare this to the fourth stanza of "Desert Places." While the third stanza does suggest hope
"And lonely as it is that loneliness/Will be more lonely ere it will be less--"
the fourth stanza does not carry that hope forward and end optimistically as does the fourth stanza of "Stopping." The despair and desolation he feels is inside him. Frost draws a contrast here between himself and Blaise Pascal, the 17th century mathematician and philosopher, who once wrote "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces [the heavens] terrifies me." Frost remarks that those spaces don't frighten him because he has those desert places so much closer than outer space.
Now, forget what I've just written, go back to the top, and read and enjoy both poems.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Desert Places
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express
They cannot not scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
Some obvious similarities are that they have four stanzas of four lines each. However, the rhyme pattern is different. In "Stopping," the first, second, and fourth lines rhyme, while the third line provides a link to the next stanza (aaba, bbcb, and ccdc) until the last stanza in which all four lines rhyme, including the famous doubled last two lines--dddd.
In "Desert Places," Frost has also rhymed the first, second, and fourth lines, but the third line does not provide a link to the next stanza. Moreover, the fourth stanza does follow the pattern of the first three stanzas: aaba, ccdc, eefe, and gghg.
Both poems are set in winter and are located in rural settings. Both focus on snow and the attitude of the person viewing the snow covered landscape. However, it seems, to me anyway, that the attitudes of the poet/narrator differ considerably in them.
Stopping By Woods: First Stanza
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
Desert Places: First Stanza
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
In both poems, the narrator is out in the countryside--either in the woods or by a field. Snow is falling in both, but the mood differs considerably. In "Stopping" the narrator has stopped in a forested area, supposedly to watch the snow fall. But, he concerns himself with something quite different than snow. The owner lives in the village and won't see him here. He stresses that he is alone out here. The question, for me, anyway, is why is this an issue, important enough to make it the central point of this introductory stanza.
The first stanza of "Desert Places" is quite different: Frost concentrates on the physical scene before him. It seems to be a far less pleasant place than the woods in "Stopping." The snow falls and darkness is coming on, fast. This seems to bother him, as if he doesn't want to be out at night when it's snowing. The snow covers everything but "a few weeds and stubble." This does not appear to be an attractive view. The second "fast" in the first line--does that refer to the "night" or to him as he hurries past the "weeds and stubble." There is no thought here of stopping to watch the snow fall, as we find in "Stopping.
Stopping by Woods--second stanza
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
Desert Places--second stanza
The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
He imagines, in the second stanza, what his horse must be thinking, but of course, it is really what he is thinking at this moment. There's something strange here about stopping in away from any human habitation, with only a frozen lake and woods around him. It is also strange that he calls this the darkest evening of the year. First, how does he know it is the darkest of the year? Second, the snow is falling and snow reflects ambient light, so it is actually much lighter than if it wasn't snowing. Perhaps the "darkest evening" refers to an internal state, rather than the actual condition around him.
While the second stanza of "Desert Places" also reflects an internal state of the narrator, the tone again is very different. Instead of being connected in some way to his horse, he is now completely isolated from everything about him. The woods belong to something else. Even his perception of the animals about him is distorted by his isolation. The animals 's lairs are seen as smothering them, yet in reality the lairs are protecting the animals from the snow and cold. Depressed, he transforms the life-preserving lairs into the graves of "smothered" animals.
Whatever life he may possess seems gone, for he is so "absent-spirited" that the loneliness he perceives about him doesn't even notice him. He is a non-entity, a void that is ignored even by a scene he sees as a graveyard. He is neither there nor not-there.
"Stopping by Woods"--third stanza
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
"Desert Places"--third stanza
And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express
In "Stopping" he again imagines what his horse might be thinking, but it is he who really questions his decision to stop here. The mood here is questioning but not bleak. He is accompanied by his horse who communicates with him, and his natural surroundings are pleasant. I think the last two lines of this stanza are the most beautiful in the poem:
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
Each time I read this poem I find myself slowing down when I get to "sweep" and drag out "easy wind" and "downy flake."
Contrast this with the third stanza in "Desert Places." "Lonely" appears twice, and "loneliness" once. The snow is "a blanker whiteness of benighted snow" that possesses "no expression" and "nothing to express." It is the silence of nothingness, not that of "an easy wind and downy flake." Moreover, that loneliness will get worse:
And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
To call this a bleak stanza would be an understatement. A loneliness that can only get worse and the silence of nothingness provide a stark contrast to the third stanza of "Stopping." But there still is a glimmer of hope for the loneliness will get worse "ere it will be less."
"Stopping by Woods"--fourth stanza
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
"Desert Places"--fourth stanza
They cannot not scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
While my interpretation of the poem differs from the commonly accepted interpretation (I think he is contemplating suicide), the fourth stanza clearly suggests that some decision has been made. He decides that it isn't time to sleep (sleep frequently is a euphemism for death, not only in poetry but among many people) because he has tasks to perform and "miles to go before I sleep." I think it is significant that the last two lines are the same. Perhaps some doubt still remains, and he needs to repeat it to convince himself. I wonder if this stanza is perhaps one of the most memorized stanzas of any of Frost's poems. I know I knew it by heart long before I had memorized the entire poem.
Overall I feel that this is an optimistic stanza, and therefore an optimistic poem, for he has decided to go on. There are still things to do and promises to keep before it's time to sleep.
Compare this to the fourth stanza of "Desert Places." While the third stanza does suggest hope
"And lonely as it is that loneliness/Will be more lonely ere it will be less--"
the fourth stanza does not carry that hope forward and end optimistically as does the fourth stanza of "Stopping." The despair and desolation he feels is inside him. Frost draws a contrast here between himself and Blaise Pascal, the 17th century mathematician and philosopher, who once wrote "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces [the heavens] terrifies me." Frost remarks that those spaces don't frighten him because he has those desert places so much closer than outer space.
Now, forget what I've just written, go back to the top, and read and enjoy both poems.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Favorite SF Films
This is a list of my favorite SF films. It is not a list of Ten Best SF Films or anything as grandiose as that. Some of these may be included in Best SF Film lists created by others, but I suspect quite a few won't make it, for one reason or another.
They are in alphabetical order, so the sequence does not indicate any preferences on my part. These are my favorites, three of which I own: Blade Runner, THX 1138, and The Man from Earth. I will probably get my own copies of many of the others when the opportunity and cash availability coincide favorably.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Screenplay by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick and adapted from a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, "The Sentinel." One of the few SF films that actually has an idea other than drooling BEMs invading Earth and lusting after scantily-clad human females. I suspect this film appears on several Best Of . . . lists. Spectacular special effects, HAL 9000, and the theme of the further evolution of the human species are the major characters here.
A Boy and His Dog
Adapted from a short novel or a long novella (pb copy available has 90 pages) by Harlan Ellison. I haven't read the work, but I just found out about it and have ordered it. It would be interesting to compare the two works. It's a post-apocalyptic tale of the adventures of a teen-aged boy (a very young Don Johnson--pre-Miami Vice) and his telepathic dog, Blood.
Alien
Sigourney Weaver, the Alien, and special effects and straightforward plot. While the plot, an alien gets aboard the spaceship and proceeds to eliminate crew members is not new, the special effects and the design of the space ship make this one a standout in the genre. And, Weaver as Ripley strikes me as being unique as a strong, intelligent, and competent female in a genre that is normally male-dominated and the females are generally relegated to being hapless victims who always need rescuing.
I've seen the sequels, and while they are good, they strike me as being more of the same: Ripley vs. the alien. From what I've read, the alien was inspired by two aliens encountered in A. E. van Vogt's novel, The Voyage of the Space Beagle, a starship sent out on an exploratory voyage. In addition, Gene Roddenberry in an interview said this work was the inspiration for Star Trek. If so, this would make van Vogt's novel one of the most influential novels in the genre.
Blade Runner
This film also, no doubt, makes many Top Ten SF Film lists, and rightfully so. Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckard, a cop who specializes in eliminating replicants (androids). He is burned out and has to be forced into this one last assignment, destroying 4 or 5 replicants who have made it back to earth. His problem is exacerbated by his feelings for Rachel, another replicant. Considerable debate has emerged about Deckhard's status: is he human or a replicant? Riddley Scott, the director, has said he is, but after viewing the film a number of times, I have to disagree. The link will lead you to my comments about the five versions of Blade Runner. See my post about the five versions of Blade Runner.
Man from Earth
I found this film a welcome change from the usual run of SF films characterized mainly by special effects and cartoon characters. Put simply, it's about a man who tells his friends one afternoon as he's packing to leave for places unknown that he's actually 14,000 years old. He has to leave because people are beginning to notice that he hasn't aged in the ten years that he's been there. There are three ways we can take an announcement like this, and his friends react the same way. One response is that he's telling the truth. That is immediately rejected by all. The other two are that he's lying to or that he's delusional. In the film we see how his friends struggle to decide which of the two it is.
See my post on this film.
Metropolis
Watch the complete version which runs close to 2 1/2 hours. It will be uneven in parts because after they had spliced together about 2 hours of film and digitally remastered it, another 30 minutes was discovered in South America. That version was owned by a film collector who had died and left his collection to a film museum. So, there will be about two hours of digitally remastered film interspersed with about 30 minutes of unrestored film You will instantly see the difference.
It is a romance and a sociological critique about a city which has only two classes: the bosses and the workers, or as Maria puts it, the head and the hands. The conflict is caused by the lack of a "heart" to mediate between the two contending forces. It is one of the films I intend to make part of my personal collection one day.
Star Wars IV: A New Hope
The best of the six episodes still. Episodes V and VI are considerably better than the three later episodes. IV had a plot and interesting characters with the best special effects at its time. While the special effects became more spectacular in Episodes I, II, and III, Lucas forgot the basic fundamentals of story telling: interesting characters and a plot. Instead he substituted action scenes to make up for the lack and hoped nobody would notice it. Most comments that I heard suggested he failed. There are stories going around that Episodes VII, VIII, and IX will appear sometime in future. It will interesting to see what happens.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 version)
This is the first SF film that far surpassed the level of SF films I had seen up to that point. It is loosely based on a short story by Harry Bates, "Farewell to the Master." It has an idea that was frightening, at least to me. The alien confederation had given to machines the power of life and death over not just a person, but an entire species. Gort was authorized to commit genocide if it so decided. The alien ambassador Klaatu, played marvelously by Michael Rennie, brought a warning from the alien/galactic federation--humans were too violent to allow them loose in the galaxy, so it must change or be destroyed.
I found this frightening and confusing (and still do). Why not just quarantine the planet? If Gort had enough power to nullify all electrical systems, it certainly could prevent space ships from leaving the solar system, or even leaving Earth. We have simple-minded bloodthirsty types in this country whose only solution to international problems seems to be encapsulated in the dictum--"Nuke 'em back to the stone age. That'll solve the problem once and for all." That seems very similar, to me anyway, to the alien federation's thinking also.
Them (1954)
My favorite creature feature--giant ants brought about by, surprise, radiation from tests of nuclear weapons. James Arness is an FBI agent called in by the police to investigate several mysterious killings. Edmund Gwenn is a scientist called in to help with the investigation, and, of course, he brings with him his beautiful, single daughter as his assistant. The story begins in the New Mexico desert and ends in the drains under Los Angeles. Great fun.
THX 1138
A very early Lucas film and probably not to many viewers' liking. While the plot is not very complex, we are given two interesting characters, with an excellent performance by Donald Pleasence. Robert Duvall turns in a very good performance also. The setting and the cinematography are the stars of the film. Setting a significant part of the film in an all white backdrop was risky, but it worked well, creating a bizarre environment that emphasized the alien culture and the contrast to the still recognizable human feelings and emotions of the characters.
How many of these are on your favorites list? Which ones weren't included? Let me know as I may have forgotten about some of them over the years.
They are in alphabetical order, so the sequence does not indicate any preferences on my part. These are my favorites, three of which I own: Blade Runner, THX 1138, and The Man from Earth. I will probably get my own copies of many of the others when the opportunity and cash availability coincide favorably.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Screenplay by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick and adapted from a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, "The Sentinel." One of the few SF films that actually has an idea other than drooling BEMs invading Earth and lusting after scantily-clad human females. I suspect this film appears on several Best Of . . . lists. Spectacular special effects, HAL 9000, and the theme of the further evolution of the human species are the major characters here.
A Boy and His Dog
Adapted from a short novel or a long novella (pb copy available has 90 pages) by Harlan Ellison. I haven't read the work, but I just found out about it and have ordered it. It would be interesting to compare the two works. It's a post-apocalyptic tale of the adventures of a teen-aged boy (a very young Don Johnson--pre-Miami Vice) and his telepathic dog, Blood.
Alien
Sigourney Weaver, the Alien, and special effects and straightforward plot. While the plot, an alien gets aboard the spaceship and proceeds to eliminate crew members is not new, the special effects and the design of the space ship make this one a standout in the genre. And, Weaver as Ripley strikes me as being unique as a strong, intelligent, and competent female in a genre that is normally male-dominated and the females are generally relegated to being hapless victims who always need rescuing.
I've seen the sequels, and while they are good, they strike me as being more of the same: Ripley vs. the alien. From what I've read, the alien was inspired by two aliens encountered in A. E. van Vogt's novel, The Voyage of the Space Beagle, a starship sent out on an exploratory voyage. In addition, Gene Roddenberry in an interview said this work was the inspiration for Star Trek. If so, this would make van Vogt's novel one of the most influential novels in the genre.
Blade Runner
This film also, no doubt, makes many Top Ten SF Film lists, and rightfully so. Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckard, a cop who specializes in eliminating replicants (androids). He is burned out and has to be forced into this one last assignment, destroying 4 or 5 replicants who have made it back to earth. His problem is exacerbated by his feelings for Rachel, another replicant. Considerable debate has emerged about Deckhard's status: is he human or a replicant? Riddley Scott, the director, has said he is, but after viewing the film a number of times, I have to disagree. The link will lead you to my comments about the five versions of Blade Runner. See my post about the five versions of Blade Runner.
Man from Earth
I found this film a welcome change from the usual run of SF films characterized mainly by special effects and cartoon characters. Put simply, it's about a man who tells his friends one afternoon as he's packing to leave for places unknown that he's actually 14,000 years old. He has to leave because people are beginning to notice that he hasn't aged in the ten years that he's been there. There are three ways we can take an announcement like this, and his friends react the same way. One response is that he's telling the truth. That is immediately rejected by all. The other two are that he's lying to or that he's delusional. In the film we see how his friends struggle to decide which of the two it is.
See my post on this film.
Metropolis
Watch the complete version which runs close to 2 1/2 hours. It will be uneven in parts because after they had spliced together about 2 hours of film and digitally remastered it, another 30 minutes was discovered in South America. That version was owned by a film collector who had died and left his collection to a film museum. So, there will be about two hours of digitally remastered film interspersed with about 30 minutes of unrestored film You will instantly see the difference.
It is a romance and a sociological critique about a city which has only two classes: the bosses and the workers, or as Maria puts it, the head and the hands. The conflict is caused by the lack of a "heart" to mediate between the two contending forces. It is one of the films I intend to make part of my personal collection one day.
Star Wars IV: A New Hope
The best of the six episodes still. Episodes V and VI are considerably better than the three later episodes. IV had a plot and interesting characters with the best special effects at its time. While the special effects became more spectacular in Episodes I, II, and III, Lucas forgot the basic fundamentals of story telling: interesting characters and a plot. Instead he substituted action scenes to make up for the lack and hoped nobody would notice it. Most comments that I heard suggested he failed. There are stories going around that Episodes VII, VIII, and IX will appear sometime in future. It will interesting to see what happens.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 version)
This is the first SF film that far surpassed the level of SF films I had seen up to that point. It is loosely based on a short story by Harry Bates, "Farewell to the Master." It has an idea that was frightening, at least to me. The alien confederation had given to machines the power of life and death over not just a person, but an entire species. Gort was authorized to commit genocide if it so decided. The alien ambassador Klaatu, played marvelously by Michael Rennie, brought a warning from the alien/galactic federation--humans were too violent to allow them loose in the galaxy, so it must change or be destroyed.
I found this frightening and confusing (and still do). Why not just quarantine the planet? If Gort had enough power to nullify all electrical systems, it certainly could prevent space ships from leaving the solar system, or even leaving Earth. We have simple-minded bloodthirsty types in this country whose only solution to international problems seems to be encapsulated in the dictum--"Nuke 'em back to the stone age. That'll solve the problem once and for all." That seems very similar, to me anyway, to the alien federation's thinking also.
Them (1954)
My favorite creature feature--giant ants brought about by, surprise, radiation from tests of nuclear weapons. James Arness is an FBI agent called in by the police to investigate several mysterious killings. Edmund Gwenn is a scientist called in to help with the investigation, and, of course, he brings with him his beautiful, single daughter as his assistant. The story begins in the New Mexico desert and ends in the drains under Los Angeles. Great fun.
THX 1138
A very early Lucas film and probably not to many viewers' liking. While the plot is not very complex, we are given two interesting characters, with an excellent performance by Donald Pleasence. Robert Duvall turns in a very good performance also. The setting and the cinematography are the stars of the film. Setting a significant part of the film in an all white backdrop was risky, but it worked well, creating a bizarre environment that emphasized the alien culture and the contrast to the still recognizable human feelings and emotions of the characters.
How many of these are on your favorites list? Which ones weren't included? Let me know as I may have forgotten about some of them over the years.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Loren Eiseley: the unpredictable, pt. 3
"A few years ago I chanced to write a book in which I had expressed some personal views and feelings upon birds, bones, spiders, and time, all subjects with which I had some degree of acquaintance. Scarcely had the work been published when I was sought out in my office by a serious young colleague. With utter and devastating confidence he had paid me a call in order to correct my deviations and to lead me back to the proper road of scholarship. He pointed out to me the time I had wasted--time which could have been more properly expended upon my own field of scientific investigation. The young man's view of science was a narrow one, but it illustrates a conviction all too common today: namely, that the authority of science is absolute.
To those who have substituted authoritarian science for authoritarian religion, individual thought is worthless unless it is the symbol for a reality which can be seen, tasted, felt, or thought about by everyone else. Such men adhere to a dogma as rigidly as men of fanatical religiosity. They reject the world of the personal, the happy world of open, playful, or aspiring thought."
-- Loren Eiseley --
from The Night Country
I am not launching an attack on science, nor is Loren Eiseley. Science is one of several methods humans use to understand their environment and their place in the universe. Science is not perfect nor are scientists superior thinkers. They are expert in their field of research, but even there one finds disagreements among the researchers with considerable expertise and knowledge. Science can tell us how things came about and how to do many interesting or curious things, but it can't tell us if we should and why we should do these things. Science showed us how to build an atomic bomb or how to create chemical weapons, but science can't tell us if we should build that bomb or develop those weapons.
The answer to a "why" question requires a different mind set, a different knowledge, a different perspective that can't be tested, tasted, felt, or measured. It requires a way of thinking that combines a knowledge of the human past, present, and projections into the future. Should we build an atomic bomb? What are the consequences of creating such a weapon? Once something is created, its very existence seems to promote its use. That's the next question: should we use it? Why? How? When? Science can not be expected to provide the answer to these all important questions.
To those who have substituted authoritarian science for authoritarian religion, individual thought is worthless unless it is the symbol for a reality which can be seen, tasted, felt, or thought about by everyone else. Such men adhere to a dogma as rigidly as men of fanatical religiosity. They reject the world of the personal, the happy world of open, playful, or aspiring thought."
-- Loren Eiseley --
from The Night Country
I am not launching an attack on science, nor is Loren Eiseley. Science is one of several methods humans use to understand their environment and their place in the universe. Science is not perfect nor are scientists superior thinkers. They are expert in their field of research, but even there one finds disagreements among the researchers with considerable expertise and knowledge. Science can tell us how things came about and how to do many interesting or curious things, but it can't tell us if we should and why we should do these things. Science showed us how to build an atomic bomb or how to create chemical weapons, but science can't tell us if we should build that bomb or develop those weapons.
The answer to a "why" question requires a different mind set, a different knowledge, a different perspective that can't be tested, tasted, felt, or measured. It requires a way of thinking that combines a knowledge of the human past, present, and projections into the future. Should we build an atomic bomb? What are the consequences of creating such a weapon? Once something is created, its very existence seems to promote its use. That's the next question: should we use it? Why? How? When? Science can not be expected to provide the answer to these all important questions.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Loren Eiseley: the unpredictable, pt. 2
This quotation follows directly after the quotation included in the earlier post titled "Loren Eiseley: the unpredictable." I had planned on a series of sequential posts from this section of Eiseley's The Night Country, but it didn't work out that way. Reality sometimes barges in and upsets "the best laid plans of mice and me."
"It is through the individual brain alone that there passes the momentary illumination in which a whole human countryside may be transmuted in an instant. 'A steep and unaccountable transition,' Thoreau has described it, 'from what it called a common sense view of things, to an infinitely expanded and liberating one, from seeing things as men describe them, to seeing them as men can not describe them.' Man's mind, like the expanding universe itself, is engaged in pouring over limitless horizons. At its heights of genius it betrays all the miraculous unexpectedness which we try vainly to eliminate from the universe. The great artist, whether he be musician, painter, or poet, is known for this absolute unexpectedness. One does not see, one does not hear, until he speaks to us out of that limitless creativity which is his gift."
I find this startling and illuminating. I have heard many scientists defend what they do to be as beautiful and stirring as as any work of art--that science is not the enemy of the arts. But now I read Eiseley's comment here:
"At its heights of genius it betrays all the miraculous unexpectedness which we try vainly to eliminate from the universe."
Isn't that the task of science--to remove the unexpectedness and unpredictability of the universe? I am reminded of Poe's "Sonnet--to Science."
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for resurrect in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
I think Poe and Eiseley would agree here. After all, what is science about--it is an attempt to explain all things and reduce it to predictability, to do away with surprises and the unexpected. What happens when scientists stumble across something unexpected? They greet it with joy and then go about trying to eliminate it. Scientists, some day, may be able to tell us from what parts of the brain a poem or a symphony emerges, but they will never be able to predict the next poem or symphony that emerges.
The next paragraph in Eiseley's essay:
"The flash of lightning in a single brain also flickers along the horizon of our more ordinary brains. Without that single lightning stroke in a solitary mind, however, the rest of us would never have known the fairyland of The Tempest, the midnight world of Dostoevsky, or the blackbirds on the yellow harvest fields of Van Gogh. We would have seen blackbirds and endured the depravity of our own hearts, but it would not be the same landscape that the act of genius transformed. The world without Shakespeare's insights is a lesser world, our griefs shut more inarticulately in upon themselves. We grow mute at the thought--just as an element seems to disappear from sunlight without Van Gogh. Yet these creations we might call particle episodes in the human universe--acts without precedent, a kind of disobedience of normality, unprophesiable by science, unduplicable by other individuals on demand. They are part of that unpredictable newness which keeps the universe from being fully explored by man."
all quotations:
-- Loren Eiseley --
from The Night Country
This is probably one of the clearest and most succinct comments on the value and importance of the arts that I have ever read. And, as I read it, what Eiseley says about the flash of genius that illuminates others, is equally true of what he writes here, for he has changed my thinking about the value of the arts and also about the value of science and their roles in human culture. The arts can not do nor should they be expected to do that which science can, but on the other hand, science can not do what the arts do for humanity--transport us out of mundane reality into a new unexpected and unpredictable world. Science attempts to reduce all to a mathematical formula--The Grand Theory of Everything--while the arts seek to maintain the sense of wonder, of surprise, of unpredictability that makes us human.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Frederik Pohl: Nov. 26, 1919 to Sept. 2, 2013
There will be numerous obituaries appearing in the next few days, so I won't write anything extensive. except to say that whenever I saw his name on a story, I would grab it because I knew it would be an enjoyable and thoughtful read.
My personal favorites:
Gateway
Man Plus
His collaboration with Cyril Kornbluth produced two satirical classics: Space Merchants and Gladiator-at-Law.
He also produced several works in collaboration with Jack Williamson.
He will be missed.
My personal favorites:
Gateway
Man Plus
His collaboration with Cyril Kornbluth produced two satirical classics: Space Merchants and Gladiator-at-Law.
He also produced several works in collaboration with Jack Williamson.
He will be missed.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Loren Eiseley: the unpredictable
"Physicists, it now appears, are convinced that a principle of uncertainty exists in the submicroscopic realm of particles and that out of this queer domain of accident and impact has emerged, by some kind of mathematical magic, the sustaining world of natural law by which we make our way to the bank, the theater, to our homes, and finally to our graves. Perhaps, after all, a world so created has something still wild and unpredictable lurking behind its more sober manifestations. It is my contention that this is true, and that the rare freedom of the particle to do what most particles never do is duplicated in the solitary universe of the human mind.
The lightning flashes, the smashed circuits through which, on occasion, leaps the light of unverses beyond our ken, exist only in rare individuals. But the flashes from such minds can fascinate and light up through the arts of communication the intellects of those not necessarily endowed with genius. In a conformist age science must, for this reason, be wary of its own authority. The individual must be re-created in the light of a revivified humanism which sets the value of man the unique against that vast and ominous shadow of man the composite, the predictable, which is the delight of the machine. The polity we desire is that ever-creative polity which Robert Louis Stevenson had in mind when he spoke of each person as containing a group of incongruous and ofttimes conflicting citizenry. Bacon himself was seeking the road by which the human mind might be opened to the full image of the world, not reduced to the little compass of a state-manipulated machine."
-- Loren Eiseley --
from The Night Country
Does this sound at all familiar? Large corporations, as well as governments, are happiest with the composite person, predictable and manageable. The art of communication can be used or misused to manipulate and indoctrinate citizen-consumers as well as illuminate and enlighten. It's a race to see who wins. I'm not optimistic for the forces of conformity have the financial and the political resources to silence the odd and irregular messages that come from those lacking the official stamp of approval.
The lightning flashes, the smashed circuits through which, on occasion, leaps the light of unverses beyond our ken, exist only in rare individuals. But the flashes from such minds can fascinate and light up through the arts of communication the intellects of those not necessarily endowed with genius. In a conformist age science must, for this reason, be wary of its own authority. The individual must be re-created in the light of a revivified humanism which sets the value of man the unique against that vast and ominous shadow of man the composite, the predictable, which is the delight of the machine. The polity we desire is that ever-creative polity which Robert Louis Stevenson had in mind when he spoke of each person as containing a group of incongruous and ofttimes conflicting citizenry.
-- Loren Eiseley --
from The Night Country
Does this sound at all familiar? Large corporations, as well as governments, are happiest with the composite person, predictable and manageable. The art of communication can be used or misused to manipulate and indoctrinate citizen-consumers as well as illuminate and enlighten. It's a race to see who wins. I'm not optimistic for the forces of conformity have the financial and the political resources to silence the odd and irregular messages that come from those lacking the official stamp of approval.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
The Rubaiyat: Quatrain LXXII
Another quatrain bemoaning the end of Spring or Youth.
First Edition: Quatrain LXXII
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
Second Edition: Quatrain CIV
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
Fifth Edition: Quatrain XCVI
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah, whence and whither flown again, who knows!
FitzGerald made only minimal changes to this quatrain over the five editions. The most significant change occurs in the first line when the introductory "Alas" in the first edition is replaced by "Yet Ah" in the second and fifth versions. The tone now changes from "Alas," a strong expression of sorrow, to "Yet Ah," which, to me anyway, is much weaker and more thoughtful, perhaps with a touch of ambivalence here.
Overall though, the theme is that of passing time, of changes which are inevitable, which echoes a number of the early quatrains that centered around the theme of the loss of past glories. Something that was present is now gone--Youth and the nightingale in this quatrain--but they are replaced by the Rose of summer.
The first line is a bit ambiguous; I first understood it as saying that Spring and the Rose vanish together. But, in Quatrain VIII (First Edition) we read, "And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose" which indicates that Spring vanishes with the appearance of the Rose, the sign of the "first Summer Month." Perhaps the Rose brings its own delights, not quite as pleasing as Youth and Spring though.
Time passes, and what it brings can never replace what has been lost--that Golden Age so often celebrated in many mythical histories.
First Edition: Quatrain LXXII
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
Second Edition: Quatrain CIV
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
Fifth Edition: Quatrain XCVI
Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah, whence and whither flown again, who knows!
FitzGerald made only minimal changes to this quatrain over the five editions. The most significant change occurs in the first line when the introductory "Alas" in the first edition is replaced by "Yet Ah" in the second and fifth versions. The tone now changes from "Alas," a strong expression of sorrow, to "Yet Ah," which, to me anyway, is much weaker and more thoughtful, perhaps with a touch of ambivalence here.
Overall though, the theme is that of passing time, of changes which are inevitable, which echoes a number of the early quatrains that centered around the theme of the loss of past glories. Something that was present is now gone--Youth and the nightingale in this quatrain--but they are replaced by the Rose of summer.
The first line is a bit ambiguous; I first understood it as saying that Spring and the Rose vanish together. But, in Quatrain VIII (First Edition) we read, "And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose" which indicates that Spring vanishes with the appearance of the Rose, the sign of the "first Summer Month." Perhaps the Rose brings its own delights, not quite as pleasing as Youth and Spring though.
Time passes, and what it brings can never replace what has been lost--that Golden Age so often celebrated in many mythical histories.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Jerome Bixby's Man from Earth, an SF film
Jerome Bixby is probably best known for his short story, "It's a Good Life," which became a Twilight Zone episode in 1961, as well as scripts for four Star Trek episodes. In addition, he has written numerous short stories, both SF and westerns under several pseudonyms. But, for me, his best work is the script for The Man from Earth, which he finished several days before his death.
It has no special effects, no drooling bug-eyed monsters (BEMs), no space ships, no ray guns, no car chases, no exploding buildings, no scenes of hand-to-hand combat, and no gun battles. So, what does it have? It has a fascinating premise, interesting characters, and intelligent dialogue. It is directed by Richard Schenkman, who resisted the urge to "improve" it by turning it into an action-oriented film. The cast has no big names, which is an advantage for then the focus is on character and dialogue. They do a superb job.
The plot is simple: John Oldman, a history professor, has resigned his position and is leaving the area. His friends and colleagues are hurt, angry, and confused, for he hasn't told anyone about his decision, except for the university administration. He plans to leave without saying goodbye to his friends, some of whom he has known for ten years. They are hurt and angry because he is "sneaking" out of town without even saying goodbye and confused about his reasons. He is highly respected and considered to be the most obvious choice for appointed head of the department in a few years.
The film opens quietly: John is putting boxes into the back of his pickup. He is obviously getting ready to leave when several cars pull up. People get out carrying bags of takeout food and drinks. They have decided to have a going-away picnic, in spite of John's attempts to leave quietly. It is clear that they are upset, but he is a friend so they try to be civil.
They move into the house and take places in the large front room with a fireplace. This is where they will spend most of the film, talking about John's decision to leave. After considerable nagging, John reluctantly comes to a decision: he will explain.
He introduces the subject gradually, by suggesting that he may be writing a novel. He begins by asking his anthropologist friend if a man from the Pleistocene Era, which ended around 12000 BC, would be noticeable today. The anthropologist says that one wouldn't be any physically different from people today.
John explains that he's not talking about time travel or any sort of mechanism that would suddenly transport this person some 14,000 years into the future. His caveman simply lives day-by-day, after having reached the apparent physical age of mid 30s. He is 14,000 years old.
After having established this, he casually mentions, in response to a question about Columbus, that he had been with Columbus and that he, like many, did feel the world was round, but there was always that uncertainty. At this point the mood and tenor of the relationships changes drastically.
To be brief, John Oldman claims to be 14, 000 years old, and that's why he is leaving. He has found that it is best if he spends no more than a decade in any particular place because people begin to notice that he doesn't seem to age like everybody else. In fact, one of his colleagues, a few minutes earlier, had joking asked what his secret was--that he hadn't aged a bit since he arrived ten years ago.
There are three ways that one can respond to Oldman's claim: he is telling the truth, he is deceiving them for some reason, or he is seriously mentally disturbed. They cannot accept that he is telling the truth, so he must be lying or seriously delusional. Some are angry for they think he is trying to make fools of them while others are saddened by his obviously delusional state of mind.
These are good, honest, intelligent people who try to handle possibly the most ambiguous and perplexing situation they have ever encountered. They know, like, and respect John, but his claim is too outrageous. They try to poke holes in his story, but it's impossible. He makes no claim to be a super genius or possess super powers. He only knows what he learns from those about him. Everything he knows could have come out of a book or learned paper written by anthropologists or historians.
The film concentrates on the changing relationship between John and the others. He now realizes that he made a serious mistake in telling them his story for they can't accept it as true. Part of their problem may be that they can't accept that he will go on living while they age and eventually die. I wonder if I would sit there and ask myself--"Why him and not me?"
When I first sat down to watch the film, I had no expectations aside from the brief blurb stating that it was about a man who claimed to be 14,000 years old. I couldn't believe it when the film ended and I found I had sat there, transfixed for 90 minutes by a film that many would dismiss as being just one of those talky movies where nothing happens.
I have watched it now four times and finally purchased my own copy. It is one of only ten DVDs that I own, two of which are gifts. The other two SF DVDs that I own are Blade Runner and THX 1138. I will watch it again, probably several more times at that, for each time I discover something new, about the story, about the dialogue, about the characters.
It has no special effects, no drooling bug-eyed monsters (BEMs), no space ships, no ray guns, no car chases, no exploding buildings, no scenes of hand-to-hand combat, and no gun battles. So, what does it have? It has a fascinating premise, interesting characters, and intelligent dialogue. It is directed by Richard Schenkman, who resisted the urge to "improve" it by turning it into an action-oriented film. The cast has no big names, which is an advantage for then the focus is on character and dialogue. They do a superb job.
The plot is simple: John Oldman, a history professor, has resigned his position and is leaving the area. His friends and colleagues are hurt, angry, and confused, for he hasn't told anyone about his decision, except for the university administration. He plans to leave without saying goodbye to his friends, some of whom he has known for ten years. They are hurt and angry because he is "sneaking" out of town without even saying goodbye and confused about his reasons. He is highly respected and considered to be the most obvious choice for appointed head of the department in a few years.
The film opens quietly: John is putting boxes into the back of his pickup. He is obviously getting ready to leave when several cars pull up. People get out carrying bags of takeout food and drinks. They have decided to have a going-away picnic, in spite of John's attempts to leave quietly. It is clear that they are upset, but he is a friend so they try to be civil.
They move into the house and take places in the large front room with a fireplace. This is where they will spend most of the film, talking about John's decision to leave. After considerable nagging, John reluctantly comes to a decision: he will explain.
He introduces the subject gradually, by suggesting that he may be writing a novel. He begins by asking his anthropologist friend if a man from the Pleistocene Era, which ended around 12000 BC, would be noticeable today. The anthropologist says that one wouldn't be any physically different from people today.
John explains that he's not talking about time travel or any sort of mechanism that would suddenly transport this person some 14,000 years into the future. His caveman simply lives day-by-day, after having reached the apparent physical age of mid 30s. He is 14,000 years old.
After having established this, he casually mentions, in response to a question about Columbus, that he had been with Columbus and that he, like many, did feel the world was round, but there was always that uncertainty. At this point the mood and tenor of the relationships changes drastically.
To be brief, John Oldman claims to be 14, 000 years old, and that's why he is leaving. He has found that it is best if he spends no more than a decade in any particular place because people begin to notice that he doesn't seem to age like everybody else. In fact, one of his colleagues, a few minutes earlier, had joking asked what his secret was--that he hadn't aged a bit since he arrived ten years ago.
There are three ways that one can respond to Oldman's claim: he is telling the truth, he is deceiving them for some reason, or he is seriously mentally disturbed. They cannot accept that he is telling the truth, so he must be lying or seriously delusional. Some are angry for they think he is trying to make fools of them while others are saddened by his obviously delusional state of mind.
These are good, honest, intelligent people who try to handle possibly the most ambiguous and perplexing situation they have ever encountered. They know, like, and respect John, but his claim is too outrageous. They try to poke holes in his story, but it's impossible. He makes no claim to be a super genius or possess super powers. He only knows what he learns from those about him. Everything he knows could have come out of a book or learned paper written by anthropologists or historians.
The film concentrates on the changing relationship between John and the others. He now realizes that he made a serious mistake in telling them his story for they can't accept it as true. Part of their problem may be that they can't accept that he will go on living while they age and eventually die. I wonder if I would sit there and ask myself--"Why him and not me?"
When I first sat down to watch the film, I had no expectations aside from the brief blurb stating that it was about a man who claimed to be 14,000 years old. I couldn't believe it when the film ended and I found I had sat there, transfixed for 90 minutes by a film that many would dismiss as being just one of those talky movies where nothing happens.
I have watched it now four times and finally purchased my own copy. It is one of only ten DVDs that I own, two of which are gifts. The other two SF DVDs that I own are Blade Runner and THX 1138. I will watch it again, probably several more times at that, for each time I discover something new, about the story, about the dialogue, about the characters.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Tao Te Ching: Chapter 33--Knowing Oneself
33.
He who knows others is learned;
He who knows himself is wise.
He who conquers others has power of muscles;
He who conquers himself is strong.
He who is contented is rich.
He who is determined has strength of will.
He who does not lose his center endures,
He who dies yet (his power) remains has long life.
The Wisdom of Laotse
trans. by Lin Yutang
This was also stressed by the Greeks. "Know thyself" is a Delphic maxim which apparently was carved into the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. This chapter however goes beyond attaining knowledge and insists on action. To know oneself is not enough: one must take
what one knows about oneself and act upon it to shape one's behavior.
He who knows others is learned;
He who knows himself is wise.
He who conquers others has power of muscles;
He who conquers himself is strong.
He who is contented is rich.
He who is determined has strength of will.
He who does not lose his center endures,
He who dies yet (his power) remains has long life.
The Wisdom of Laotse
trans. by Lin Yutang
This was also stressed by the Greeks. "Know thyself" is a Delphic maxim which apparently was carved into the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. This chapter however goes beyond attaining knowledge and insists on action. To know oneself is not enough: one must take
what one knows about oneself and act upon it to shape one's behavior.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Eric Hoffer: from Reflections on the Human Condition
Something to irritate almost everybody . . .
"#33 It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn."
"#40 It is maintained that a society is free only when dissenting minorities have room to throw their weight around. As a matter of fact, a dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority."
"#41 There is a spoiled-brat quality about the self-consciously alienated. Life must have a meaning, history must have a goal, and everything must be in apple-pie order if they are to cease being alienated. Actually there is no alienation that a little power will not cure."
"42 The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. Fin an affluent society, the alienated who clamor for power are largely untalented people who cannot make use of the unprecedented opportunities for self-realization, and cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self."
"43 We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails."
"44 Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation."
-- Eric Hoffer --
from Reflections on the Human Condition
"#33 It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn."
"#40 It is maintained that a society is free only when dissenting minorities have room to throw their weight around. As a matter of fact, a dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority."
"#41 There is a spoiled-brat quality about the self-consciously alienated. Life must have a meaning, history must have a goal, and everything must be in apple-pie order if they are to cease being alienated. Actually there is no alienation that a little power will not cure."
"42 The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. Fin an affluent society, the alienated who clamor for power are largely untalented people who cannot make use of the unprecedented opportunities for self-realization, and cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self."
"43 We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails."
"44 Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation."
-- Eric Hoffer --
from Reflections on the Human Condition
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Loren Eiseley: on stability
"Life is never fixed and stable. It is always mercurial, rolling and splitting, disappearing and re-emerging in a most unpredictable fashion. I never make a journey to a wood or a mountain without experiencing the temptation to explode a puffball in a new clearing or stopping to encourage some sleepy monster that is just cracking out of the earth mold. This is, of course, an irresponsible attitude, since I cannot tell what will come of it, but if the world hangs on such matters it may be well to act boldly and realize all immanent possibilities at once. Shake the seeds out of their pods, I say, launch the milkweed down, and set the lizards scuttling. We are in a creative universe. Let us then create. After all, man himself is the unlikely consequence of such forces. In the spring when a breath of wind sets the propellers of the maple seeds to whirring, I always say to myself hopefully, "After us the dragons.
To have dragons one must have change; that is the first principle of dragon lore. Otherwise everything becomes stale, commonplace, and observed. I suspect that it is this unimaginative boredom that leads to the vulgar comment that evolution may be all very well as a theory but you can never really see anything in the process of change. There is also the even more obtuse and less defensible attitude of those who speak of the world's creative energies as being exhausted, the animals small and showing no significant signs of advance. 'Everything is specialized in blind channels,' some observers contend. 'Life is now locked permanently in little roadside pools, or perching dolefully on television aerials.'
Such men never pause to think how they might have looked gasping fishily through mats of green algae in the Devonian swamps, but that is where the homunculus who preceded them had his abode. I have never lost a reverent and profound respect for swamps, even individually induced ones. I remember too well what, on occasion, has come out of them. Only a purblind concern with the present can so limit men's views, and it is my contention that sympathetic observer, even at this moment, can witness such marvels of transitional behavior, such hoverings between the then and the now, as to lay forever to rest the notion that evolution belongs somewhere the witch world of the past."
-- Loren Eiseley --
from The Night Country
Loren Eiseley is not the first to talk about unending change in the world: Taoists, Heraclitus, and Montaigne among many others had also noted this, but we forget and we need to be reminded of this regularly. In textbooks that discuss evolution, how many end the exposition with the present day and never go on to talk about future evolutionary modifications.
The same is true of human affairs. I remember when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Iron Curtain came down in the early '90s. The wise ones talked about peace, the end of the arms race, the reduction of military forces now that the Cold War had ended. The money spent on weaponry could now be put to peaceful uses to benefit humanity. And now. . .
To have dragons one must have change; that is the first principle of dragon lore. Otherwise everything becomes stale, commonplace, and observed. I suspect that it is this unimaginative boredom that leads to the vulgar comment that evolution may be all very well as a theory but you can never really see anything in the process of change. There is also the even more obtuse and less defensible attitude of those who speak of the world's creative energies as being exhausted, the animals small and showing no significant signs of advance. 'Everything is specialized in blind channels,' some observers contend. 'Life is now locked permanently in little roadside pools, or perching dolefully on television aerials.'
Such men never pause to think how they might have looked gasping fishily through mats of green algae in the Devonian swamps, but that is where the homunculus who preceded them had his abode. I have never lost a reverent and profound respect for swamps, even individually induced ones. I remember too well what, on occasion, has come out of them. Only a purblind concern with the present can so limit men's views, and it is my contention that sympathetic observer, even at this moment, can witness such marvels of transitional behavior, such hoverings between the then and the now, as to lay forever to rest the notion that evolution belongs somewhere the witch world of the past."
-- Loren Eiseley --
from The Night Country
Loren Eiseley is not the first to talk about unending change in the world: Taoists, Heraclitus, and Montaigne among many others had also noted this, but we forget and we need to be reminded of this regularly. In textbooks that discuss evolution, how many end the exposition with the present day and never go on to talk about future evolutionary modifications.
The same is true of human affairs. I remember when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Iron Curtain came down in the early '90s. The wise ones talked about peace, the end of the arms race, the reduction of military forces now that the Cold War had ended. The money spent on weaponry could now be put to peaceful uses to benefit humanity. And now. . .
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Wallace Stevens: The House was Quiet and the World Was Calm
The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the evening, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
is he reader leaning late and reading there.
-- Wallace Stevens --
Another title for this poem could be "Meditations on Reading." Or, perhaps that could be a subtitle for I really don't want to give up the title for it fits the poem so well, for when I am reading, the house is quiet, regardless of how noisy it may really be, and the world is calm, in spite of the daily headlines. The title flows as do the words on the page.
This poem best describes the act of reading, as least as far as I am concerned. The flowing into a union of the reader, the writer, the ideas/words, and the night convey what I experience when I look back at a time when I was absorbed in a book. I am somewhere else and only partially me. To say I am only reading words on a page is true, but only partially true. It is not the whole truth. Emily Dickinson said some thing very similar when she wrote, "There is no frigate like a book/To take us Lands away."
Monday, July 29, 2013
The Rubaiyat: Quatrain LXXI
This is the fifth linked quatrain that focuses on wine. It refers back directly to LXIX in which he laments that his devotion to the grape has done his "Credit in Men's Eyes much wrong."
First Edition: Quatrain LXXI
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour--well,
I often wonder what the Vinters buy
One half so precious as the Goods they sell.
Second Edition: Quatrain CIII
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour--Well,
I often wonder what the Vinters buy
One-half so precious as the ware they sell.
Fifth Edition: Quatrain XCV
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour--Well,
I often wonder what the Vinters buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
FitzGerald has made only minimal changes in this quatrain over the five editions. In the first three lines he has made only one minor change, that of capitalizing "Well" in the second line of the second and fifth editions. He added a hyphen to "One-half" in the second edition but had removed it by the fifth edition. He seemed to have difficulty in deciding just what to call what the Vinters sold over the various editions as he went from "Goods" to "ware" to "stuff." My preference is for "Goods," perhaps because it was the first one I read. "Ware" would be improved somewhat if he had made it "wares they sell." But, "stuff," no, that just doesn't work for me. The "stuff" they sell is wine, and he has praised it so much throughout the 70+ quatrains, that calling it "stuff" is derogatory and doesn't convey the significance it has had for him.
As I have mentioned previously, I have read several commentaries in which the author has tried to "save" Khayyam and place him within the mystic tradition which would preclude the use of alcohol. In some quatrains, I can see where references to the grape or wine could be interpreted as God's grace or divine inspiration, but there are numerous references which just don't seem to fit, and this quatrain and Quatrain LXIX are two of the many. It is hard to see that divine grace could have done his "Credit in Men's Eyes much wrong" or "robb'd [him] of [his] Robe of Honour."
Also, consider the first line of the stanza in which he says that "Wine has play'd the Infidel." Again, I don't see how this could be a reference to divine grace. If I find two interpretations and one can be seen to apply consistently while the other only seems partially valid, then I would definitely go with the one that seemed appropriate most often.
Like several other quatrains or couplets, I had come across the last two lines--
I often wonder what the Vinters buy
One half so precious as the Goods they sell.
long before I was even aware of the existence of The Rubaiyat. It was an epigraph or a quotation that came at the very beginning of a short story, an SF story to be precise. I do not remember the author, the title, or even the plot of the story, but those two lines have stayed with me for decades now.
First Edition: Quatrain LXXI
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour--well,
I often wonder what the Vinters buy
One half so precious as the Goods they sell.
Second Edition: Quatrain CIII
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour--Well,
I often wonder what the Vinters buy
One-half so precious as the ware they sell.
Fifth Edition: Quatrain XCV
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour--Well,
I often wonder what the Vinters buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
FitzGerald has made only minimal changes in this quatrain over the five editions. In the first three lines he has made only one minor change, that of capitalizing "Well" in the second line of the second and fifth editions. He added a hyphen to "One-half" in the second edition but had removed it by the fifth edition. He seemed to have difficulty in deciding just what to call what the Vinters sold over the various editions as he went from "Goods" to "ware" to "stuff." My preference is for "Goods," perhaps because it was the first one I read. "Ware" would be improved somewhat if he had made it "wares they sell." But, "stuff," no, that just doesn't work for me. The "stuff" they sell is wine, and he has praised it so much throughout the 70+ quatrains, that calling it "stuff" is derogatory and doesn't convey the significance it has had for him.
As I have mentioned previously, I have read several commentaries in which the author has tried to "save" Khayyam and place him within the mystic tradition which would preclude the use of alcohol. In some quatrains, I can see where references to the grape or wine could be interpreted as God's grace or divine inspiration, but there are numerous references which just don't seem to fit, and this quatrain and Quatrain LXIX are two of the many. It is hard to see that divine grace could have done his "Credit in Men's Eyes much wrong" or "robb'd [him] of [his] Robe of Honour."
Also, consider the first line of the stanza in which he says that "Wine has play'd the Infidel." Again, I don't see how this could be a reference to divine grace. If I find two interpretations and one can be seen to apply consistently while the other only seems partially valid, then I would definitely go with the one that seemed appropriate most often.
Like several other quatrains or couplets, I had come across the last two lines--
I often wonder what the Vinters buy
One half so precious as the Goods they sell.
long before I was even aware of the existence of The Rubaiyat. It was an epigraph or a quotation that came at the very beginning of a short story, an SF story to be precise. I do not remember the author, the title, or even the plot of the story, but those two lines have stayed with me for decades now.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Iron Sky: an SF film?
The question in the title of this post really means that I wondered whether to call it a film or farce. It's brought to you by the same folks who produced Star Wreck, another SF satiric film that conflates Star Wars and Star Trek. I haven't watched it yet, but it's in my queue now. Iron Sky also targets two victims: various alien invasion films and films about hidden nests of Nazis plotting to resurface and take over the world. In other words, Moon Nazis.
There was some discussion many years ago as to who got the best German rocket scientists--the USA or the USSR. Now, the truth can be told. Neither! The best German rocket scientists fled to dark side of the moon along with many other high ranking Nazi officials in 1945. Since then, they have been working on a super weapon that will destroy the world.
The time is 2018 and the last problem with the doomsday weapon has been solved, mostly by accident. Two American astronauts have landed on the moon near the Nazi base (built in the shape of a swastika, of course). One of the astronauts had a mobile phone with him. When asked what it was, he told them it was a phone and a computer. The German Mad Scientist (who had a hairdo reminiscent of Einstein) laughed and said this was obviously a lie because it was so small. Real computers were room-sized. Curious anyway, the Mad Scientist inserts the phone to discover it can control the doomsday weapon, but the battery drained too quickly. The solution to the problem was obviously to go to Earth and get bigger and stronger batteries.
The Nazis go to Earth occasionally, but not too often because the crews and ships frequently don't return for some inexplicable reason. The Nazi ships look just like the flying saucers so prevalent in 1950s alien invasion movies. So, the UFO sightings were real: they weren't aliens--they were Nazis. Meanwhile, the Mad Scientist's young, beautiful, blonde daughter begins to fall in love with the American astronaut and helps him to escape. And so on and so forth.
The American President who plays a significant role is obviously Sarah Palin, even though she is not named: the long black hair, the glasses with the half-lens, and various verbal expressions. Her Oval Office is equipped with a cycle exercise machine and various stuffed trophy animals, including a polar bear. (The director in an interview says the bear was not planned, but his staff found it somewhere.)
Eventually the Nazis launch an attack on New York and the scenes are classic from 1950 films: crowds running and screaming, saucers destroying buildings, dogfights between fighter jets and saucers. The Nazi mother ships resemble dirigibles. However, various nations on Earth including the US possess armed space ships (all illegal of course, banned by the UN, and agreed to by all nations). When the US President scolds them for possessing these illegal ships, some point out that the US has one also. Her response is the that the US always lies--it is expected.
Keep an eye peeled for at least two little bits "borrowed" from Dr Strangelove--Peter Sellers' problem with his arm and the ending.
Lots of fun. It is best viewed by shutting down your brain, in the presence of like-minded friends, and with your favorite attitude adjustment substance at hand.
There was some discussion many years ago as to who got the best German rocket scientists--the USA or the USSR. Now, the truth can be told. Neither! The best German rocket scientists fled to dark side of the moon along with many other high ranking Nazi officials in 1945. Since then, they have been working on a super weapon that will destroy the world.
The time is 2018 and the last problem with the doomsday weapon has been solved, mostly by accident. Two American astronauts have landed on the moon near the Nazi base (built in the shape of a swastika, of course). One of the astronauts had a mobile phone with him. When asked what it was, he told them it was a phone and a computer. The German Mad Scientist (who had a hairdo reminiscent of Einstein) laughed and said this was obviously a lie because it was so small. Real computers were room-sized. Curious anyway, the Mad Scientist inserts the phone to discover it can control the doomsday weapon, but the battery drained too quickly. The solution to the problem was obviously to go to Earth and get bigger and stronger batteries.
The Nazis go to Earth occasionally, but not too often because the crews and ships frequently don't return for some inexplicable reason. The Nazi ships look just like the flying saucers so prevalent in 1950s alien invasion movies. So, the UFO sightings were real: they weren't aliens--they were Nazis. Meanwhile, the Mad Scientist's young, beautiful, blonde daughter begins to fall in love with the American astronaut and helps him to escape. And so on and so forth.
The American President who plays a significant role is obviously Sarah Palin, even though she is not named: the long black hair, the glasses with the half-lens, and various verbal expressions. Her Oval Office is equipped with a cycle exercise machine and various stuffed trophy animals, including a polar bear. (The director in an interview says the bear was not planned, but his staff found it somewhere.)
Eventually the Nazis launch an attack on New York and the scenes are classic from 1950 films: crowds running and screaming, saucers destroying buildings, dogfights between fighter jets and saucers. The Nazi mother ships resemble dirigibles. However, various nations on Earth including the US possess armed space ships (all illegal of course, banned by the UN, and agreed to by all nations). When the US President scolds them for possessing these illegal ships, some point out that the US has one also. Her response is the that the US always lies--it is expected.
Keep an eye peeled for at least two little bits "borrowed" from Dr Strangelove--Peter Sellers' problem with his arm and the ending.
Lots of fun. It is best viewed by shutting down your brain, in the presence of like-minded friends, and with your favorite attitude adjustment substance at hand.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Baltasar Gracian: on trivia
No. 121
"Do not make a business of the trivial. Just as some can make a tale out of anything, so others can make a business of everything: they always speak importantly, they take all things seriously, making of everything either a case, or a mystery. To convert petty annoyances into matters of importance, is to become seriously involved in nothing. It is to miss the point, to carry on the chest what has been cast from the shoulders. Many things which were something, by being left alone, became nothing; and others which were nothing, became much because messed into: in its beginnings it is easy to make an end of anything, but not so later; for many a time, the remedy itself brings out the disease: by no means the worst rule of life, to let things rest."
-- Baltasar Gracian --
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Baltasar Gracian died in 1658, over 350 years ago. It's obvious that the human race hasn't changed much since his time. Much of which passes for news today is really the trivial blown out of proportion. What one person said thirty years ago becomes a focus of a media feeding frenzy.
But it's too simplistic to blame it on the media for they compete for the greatest audiences, and they know what people are interested in. If people weren't obsessed with trivia about other people's lives and perhaps mistakes, the media wouldn't focus on the irrelevant and insignificant.
"Just as some can make a tale out of anything, so others can make a business of everything: they always speak importantly, they take all things seriously, making of everything either a case, or a mystery."
Does the above quotation fits anybody you can think of on radio or TV today?
"Do not make a business of the trivial. Just as some can make a tale out of anything, so others can make a business of everything: they always speak importantly, they take all things seriously, making of everything either a case, or a mystery. To convert petty annoyances into matters of importance, is to become seriously involved in nothing. It is to miss the point, to carry on the chest what has been cast from the shoulders. Many things which were something, by being left alone, became nothing; and others which were nothing, became much because messed into: in its beginnings it is easy to make an end of anything, but not so later; for many a time, the remedy itself brings out the disease: by no means the worst rule of life, to let things rest."
-- Baltasar Gracian --
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Baltasar Gracian died in 1658, over 350 years ago. It's obvious that the human race hasn't changed much since his time. Much of which passes for news today is really the trivial blown out of proportion. What one person said thirty years ago becomes a focus of a media feeding frenzy.
But it's too simplistic to blame it on the media for they compete for the greatest audiences, and they know what people are interested in. If people weren't obsessed with trivia about other people's lives and perhaps mistakes, the media wouldn't focus on the irrelevant and insignificant.
"Just as some can make a tale out of anything, so others can make a business of everything: they always speak importantly, they take all things seriously, making of everything either a case, or a mystery."
Does the above quotation fits anybody you can think of on radio or TV today?
Monday, July 8, 2013
Kenko: on instabiliity
No. 25
"The world is as unstable as the pools and shallows of Asuka River. Times change and things disappear; joy and sorrow come and go; a place that once thrived turns into an uninhabited moor; a house may remain unaltered, but its occupants will have changed. The peach and the damson trees in the garden say nothing--with whom is one to reminisce about the past? I feel this sense of impermanence even more sharply when I see the remains of a house which long ago, before I knew it, must have been imposing.
Whenever I pass by the ruins of the Kyogoku Palace, the Hojoji, and similar buildings, it moves me to think that the aspiration of the builders still lingers on, though the edifices themselves have changed completely. When Fujiwara no Michinaga erected so magnificent a temple, bestowing many estates for its support, he supposed that his descendants would always assist the emperor and serve as pillars of the state; could he have imagined that the temple would fall into such ruin, no matter what times lay ahead? The Great Gate and the Golden Hall were still standing until recent years, but the Gate burned during the Showa era, and the Golden Hall soon afterwards fell over. It still lies there, and no attempt has been made to restore it. Only the Muryoju Hall remains as a memento of the temple's former glory. Nine images of Amida Buddha, each sixteen fee tall, stand in a row, most awesomely. It is extremely moving to see, still plainly visible, the plaque inscribed by the Major Counselor Kozei and the door inscription by Kaneyuki. I understand that the Hokke Hall and perhaps other buildings are still standing. I wonder how much longer they too will last?
Some buildings that lack even such remains may survive merely as foundation stones, but no one knows for certain to what they once belonged. It is true in all things that it is a futile business attempting to plan for a future one will never know."
--Kenko --
from Essays in Idleness
trans. Donald Keene
I listen to others talk and am surprised to see how many people make plans for ten, fifteen, or even twenty years ahead. Inevitably they assume that nothing will change, that all will go then as it goes now. How many stock market crashes have occurred since the Great Crash in the '20s? But, once the stock market begins climbing up to record levels, investors forget that the reverse not only could happen, but has happened in the recent past and are, therefore, shocked and caught unprepared once the bottom drops out again.
The Taoists teach that change is inevitable: when times are bad, we should persist, for they shall soon improve, and when times are good, we should enjoy it, and prepare for a downturn.
"The world is as unstable as the pools and shallows of Asuka River. Times change and things disappear; joy and sorrow come and go; a place that once thrived turns into an uninhabited moor; a house may remain unaltered, but its occupants will have changed. The peach and the damson trees in the garden say nothing--with whom is one to reminisce about the past? I feel this sense of impermanence even more sharply when I see the remains of a house which long ago, before I knew it, must have been imposing.
Whenever I pass by the ruins of the Kyogoku Palace, the Hojoji, and similar buildings, it moves me to think that the aspiration of the builders still lingers on, though the edifices themselves have changed completely. When Fujiwara no Michinaga erected so magnificent a temple, bestowing many estates for its support, he supposed that his descendants would always assist the emperor and serve as pillars of the state; could he have imagined that the temple would fall into such ruin, no matter what times lay ahead? The Great Gate and the Golden Hall were still standing until recent years, but the Gate burned during the Showa era, and the Golden Hall soon afterwards fell over. It still lies there, and no attempt has been made to restore it. Only the Muryoju Hall remains as a memento of the temple's former glory. Nine images of Amida Buddha, each sixteen fee tall, stand in a row, most awesomely. It is extremely moving to see, still plainly visible, the plaque inscribed by the Major Counselor Kozei and the door inscription by Kaneyuki. I understand that the Hokke Hall and perhaps other buildings are still standing. I wonder how much longer they too will last?
Some buildings that lack even such remains may survive merely as foundation stones, but no one knows for certain to what they once belonged. It is true in all things that it is a futile business attempting to plan for a future one will never know."
--Kenko --
from Essays in Idleness
trans. Donald Keene
I listen to others talk and am surprised to see how many people make plans for ten, fifteen, or even twenty years ahead. Inevitably they assume that nothing will change, that all will go then as it goes now. How many stock market crashes have occurred since the Great Crash in the '20s? But, once the stock market begins climbing up to record levels, investors forget that the reverse not only could happen, but has happened in the recent past and are, therefore, shocked and caught unprepared once the bottom drops out again.
The Taoists teach that change is inevitable: when times are bad, we should persist, for they shall soon improve, and when times are good, we should enjoy it, and prepare for a downturn.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Eric Hoffer: on desire
"7. Every intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are. Hence probably the imperiousness of the desire for fame, which is a desire for a self utterly unlike the real self."
"8. There is even in the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that what we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-abnegation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser, and their like are not far behind the selfless in the excise of self-sacrifice.
Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self."
-- Eric Hoffer --
from The Passionate State of Mind
Desires or needs seem to signify a lack in ourselves or perhaps a feeling that all is not right with us, that something is missing, while those who lack desire are those who are content with who they are and with what they have. If so, then our consumer-oriented culture suggests that a majority of us are dissatisfied with ourselves, and advertising agencies use this to manipulate us into buying products that will make us happy by filling gaps or by changing ourselves into something we are not at this moment.
All advertisements directly or indirectly suggest that this product is something we must have if we are to be happy, and many go even a step further. In order to assuage any possible guilt at purchasing the product or service, which might be viewed as a luxury or perhaps self-indulgence, the ad tells us that we "deserve" this product or service, in other words, you should have this, whatever is may be.
What I wonder is how this ever came about? What is it that we lack that earlier generations seemed to have?
"8. There is even in the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that what we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-abnegation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser, and their like are not far behind the selfless in the excise of self-sacrifice.
Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self."
-- Eric Hoffer --
from The Passionate State of Mind
Desires or needs seem to signify a lack in ourselves or perhaps a feeling that all is not right with us, that something is missing, while those who lack desire are those who are content with who they are and with what they have. If so, then our consumer-oriented culture suggests that a majority of us are dissatisfied with ourselves, and advertising agencies use this to manipulate us into buying products that will make us happy by filling gaps or by changing ourselves into something we are not at this moment.
All advertisements directly or indirectly suggest that this product is something we must have if we are to be happy, and many go even a step further. In order to assuage any possible guilt at purchasing the product or service, which might be viewed as a luxury or perhaps self-indulgence, the ad tells us that we "deserve" this product or service, in other words, you should have this, whatever is may be.
What I wonder is how this ever came about? What is it that we lack that earlier generations seemed to have?
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Thomas Mann's The Black Swan
Thomas Mann: The Black Swan
This short novel by Thomas Mann is one of his more unusual works, which really isn't saying much for an author who writes novels about a lengthy stay in a TB sanitarium or a composer's pact with the devil or the disintegration of a bourgeois family or the slow deterioration of an honored and respected scholar on vacation in Venice or about two young men in India who commit suicide over their love for a young woman who restores them by praying to the goddess and but gets their heads on the wrong bodies.
The Black Swan is described on the back cover as "the feminine counterpart" of Death in Venice. One could see that since it is the tale of an older woman who falls in love with a much younger man, perhaps half her age. But, the differences are much more striking than the rather obvious gender reversal.
Frau Rosalie von Tummler is fifty and "her health had been affected by certain critical organic phenomena of her time of life, the extinction of her physical womanhood, to whose spasmodic progress she responded with repeated psychological resistance."
Rosalie is a true romantic, a worshiper of Nature, in most of her forms. Upon seeing a gorge covered with blossoms, she exclaims to her daughter, Anna, "Child, child, how wonderful! It's the breath of Nature--it is!--her sweet, living breath, sun-warmed an drenched with moisture, deliciously wafted to us from her breast. Let us enjoy it with reverence, for we too are her children." Because of her intense attachment to and focus on the physical aspects of Nature, Rosalie decries the contemporary interest of artists in the abstract and the intellectual. Anna, a painter, is one of the "new" painters and part of the work consists of a dialogue between Rosalie and Anna about the lack of interest Anna shows in the colors and shapes and sounds and odors of the natural world.
And herein lies the paradox, for it is Nature, Rosalie's divinity, that has decreed the physiological changes that she is now undergoing. And her view? "When it has ceased to be with us after the manner of women, we are no longer women at all, but only the dried-up husk of a woman, worn out, useless, cast out of nature. My dear child, it is very bitter . . . But we, take it all in all, are given just thirty-five year to be women in our life and our blood, to be complete human beings, and when we are fifty, we are superannuated, our capacity to breed expires, and, in Nature's eyes, we are nothing but old rubbish!"
Anna paradoxically disagrees: "How you talk, Mama, and how you revile and see to want to reject the dignity that falls to the elderly woman when she has fulfilled her life, and Nature, which you love after all, transforms her to a new, mellow condition, an honorable and more lovable condition, in which she still can give and be so much, both to her family and to those less close to her." Rosalie, the worshiper of Nature, bewails what Nature has done to her, while Anna, the more cerebral and intellectual who ignores Nature in its physical manifestations, celebrates what Nature does for women at the later stages of life.
It is in this state of mind that Rosalie meets Ken Keaton. He is much younger than her, as Tadzio is much younger than Doktor Aschenbach in Death in Venice, but there the similarity ends. While Tadzio is fourteen, still a child, Ken Keaton is in his early twenties. He is, or was, in fact, an American soldier who had come over with the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI. He had been wounded, and after his release, he decided to take his discharge in Europe. He supported himself by teaching English.
It was in this capacity that Rosalie met him. Eduard, Rosalie's son, is studying to be an engineer and feels he must learn English because he wanted "to go to England for further study or perhaps straight to the El Dorado of technology, the United States." He persuades Rosalie to pay for English lessons with Keaton.
Keaton comes three times a week and eventually becomes almost part of the family. His presence at dinner following the lessons becomes a normal part of the von Tummler routine, and Rosalie soon becomes infatuated with him. She does nothing though because she feels that she is no longer a woman and therefore Keaton would reject any overtures on her part, even though she is fairly certain he is having an affair with one of the women in her circle.
It is at this point that the "miracle" happens. Rosalie greets Anna with the news: "Congratulate me, darling, there is reason of it! I am a woman again, a whole human being again, a functioning female, I can feel worth of the youthful manhood that has bewitched me, and no longer need lower my eyes before it with a feeling of impotence. The rod of life with which it struck me has reached not only my soul alone but my body too and has made it a flowing fountain again. Kiss me, my darling child, call me blessed, as blessed I am, and, with me, praise the miraculous power of great, beneficent Nature!"
But, she is mistaken. Nature, her divinity, has played a cruel trick on her. Ironically she unknowingly prefigures her own condition when she walks in the Palace Gardens with Anna one day in February when she speaks of the early blooming crocuses: "Isn't it remarkable. . . how much they resemble the autumn colchicum? It's practically the same flower! End and beginning--one could mistake them for each other, they are so alike--one could think one was back in autumn in the presence of a crocus, and believe in spring when one saw the last flower of the year."
Rosalie believes that Nature has restored her womanhood, but the sign she greets so happily is really a death sentence.
This short novel by Thomas Mann is one of his more unusual works, which really isn't saying much for an author who writes novels about a lengthy stay in a TB sanitarium or a composer's pact with the devil or the disintegration of a bourgeois family or the slow deterioration of an honored and respected scholar on vacation in Venice or about two young men in India who commit suicide over their love for a young woman who restores them by praying to the goddess and but gets their heads on the wrong bodies.
The Black Swan is described on the back cover as "the feminine counterpart" of Death in Venice. One could see that since it is the tale of an older woman who falls in love with a much younger man, perhaps half her age. But, the differences are much more striking than the rather obvious gender reversal.
Frau Rosalie von Tummler is fifty and "her health had been affected by certain critical organic phenomena of her time of life, the extinction of her physical womanhood, to whose spasmodic progress she responded with repeated psychological resistance."
Rosalie is a true romantic, a worshiper of Nature, in most of her forms. Upon seeing a gorge covered with blossoms, she exclaims to her daughter, Anna, "Child, child, how wonderful! It's the breath of Nature--it is!--her sweet, living breath, sun-warmed an drenched with moisture, deliciously wafted to us from her breast. Let us enjoy it with reverence, for we too are her children." Because of her intense attachment to and focus on the physical aspects of Nature, Rosalie decries the contemporary interest of artists in the abstract and the intellectual. Anna, a painter, is one of the "new" painters and part of the work consists of a dialogue between Rosalie and Anna about the lack of interest Anna shows in the colors and shapes and sounds and odors of the natural world.
And herein lies the paradox, for it is Nature, Rosalie's divinity, that has decreed the physiological changes that she is now undergoing. And her view? "When it has ceased to be with us after the manner of women, we are no longer women at all, but only the dried-up husk of a woman, worn out, useless, cast out of nature. My dear child, it is very bitter . . . But we, take it all in all, are given just thirty-five year to be women in our life and our blood, to be complete human beings, and when we are fifty, we are superannuated, our capacity to breed expires, and, in Nature's eyes, we are nothing but old rubbish!"
Anna paradoxically disagrees: "How you talk, Mama, and how you revile and see to want to reject the dignity that falls to the elderly woman when she has fulfilled her life, and Nature, which you love after all, transforms her to a new, mellow condition, an honorable and more lovable condition, in which she still can give and be so much, both to her family and to those less close to her." Rosalie, the worshiper of Nature, bewails what Nature has done to her, while Anna, the more cerebral and intellectual who ignores Nature in its physical manifestations, celebrates what Nature does for women at the later stages of life.
It is in this state of mind that Rosalie meets Ken Keaton. He is much younger than her, as Tadzio is much younger than Doktor Aschenbach in Death in Venice, but there the similarity ends. While Tadzio is fourteen, still a child, Ken Keaton is in his early twenties. He is, or was, in fact, an American soldier who had come over with the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI. He had been wounded, and after his release, he decided to take his discharge in Europe. He supported himself by teaching English.
It was in this capacity that Rosalie met him. Eduard, Rosalie's son, is studying to be an engineer and feels he must learn English because he wanted "to go to England for further study or perhaps straight to the El Dorado of technology, the United States." He persuades Rosalie to pay for English lessons with Keaton.
Keaton comes three times a week and eventually becomes almost part of the family. His presence at dinner following the lessons becomes a normal part of the von Tummler routine, and Rosalie soon becomes infatuated with him. She does nothing though because she feels that she is no longer a woman and therefore Keaton would reject any overtures on her part, even though she is fairly certain he is having an affair with one of the women in her circle.
It is at this point that the "miracle" happens. Rosalie greets Anna with the news: "Congratulate me, darling, there is reason of it! I am a woman again, a whole human being again, a functioning female, I can feel worth of the youthful manhood that has bewitched me, and no longer need lower my eyes before it with a feeling of impotence. The rod of life with which it struck me has reached not only my soul alone but my body too and has made it a flowing fountain again. Kiss me, my darling child, call me blessed, as blessed I am, and, with me, praise the miraculous power of great, beneficent Nature!"
But, she is mistaken. Nature, her divinity, has played a cruel trick on her. Ironically she unknowingly prefigures her own condition when she walks in the Palace Gardens with Anna one day in February when she speaks of the early blooming crocuses: "Isn't it remarkable. . . how much they resemble the autumn colchicum? It's practically the same flower! End and beginning--one could mistake them for each other, they are so alike--one could think one was back in autumn in the presence of a crocus, and believe in spring when one saw the last flower of the year."
Rosalie believes that Nature has restored her womanhood, but the sign she greets so happily is really a death sentence.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain LXX
This quatrain is a classic example of rationalization. He has promised to give up wine, but now second thoughts appear--a very common occurrence to any of us who has ever made a vow to give up something.
First Edition: Quatrain LXX
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.
Second Edition: Quatrain CII
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.
Fifth Edition: Quatrain XCIV
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.
FitzGerald was obviously satisfied with this quatrain, for, as best as I can see, he made no changes in either the second or the final versions--a bit unusual for him.
The quatrain links back to Quatrain VII (First Edition).
Quatrain VII
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
Both quatrains refer to garments and repentance and spring. It's intriguing to note that he refers to repentance in both quatrains as garments, something which can be easily donned or thrown off, as the mood fits. Repentance is not an integral part of him, or so it seems.
The mood is different in the two quatrains in that in VII it is one of defiance--one should fill the cup and fling the garment of repentance--while in LXX--"but was I sober when I swore?"--he seems not to defying but rationalizing, while he tears up the "contract."
One more curious element here is the repetition of words in the first three lines of the quatrain.
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.
In the first line "Indeed" begins the line and is immediately repeated. The second line begins and ends with "I swore" and "I" actually appears three times in that line. The third line repeats the pattern of the first as it begins with a two word phrase--"And then"--which is immediately duplicated. Therefore, all three lines begin with a word or phrase which is repeated later in the line.
This is the second of three sequential quatrains that relate to his thoughts about drinking wine. In the previous quatrain, he laments the harm done to his reputation. In this quatrain, he suggests that he has tried to overcome this transgression, but always fails eventually, which leads inevitably to the following quatrain.
First Edition: Quatrain LXX
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.
Second Edition: Quatrain CII
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.
Fifth Edition: Quatrain XCIV
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.
FitzGerald was obviously satisfied with this quatrain, for, as best as I can see, he made no changes in either the second or the final versions--a bit unusual for him.
The quatrain links back to Quatrain VII (First Edition).
Quatrain VII
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
Both quatrains refer to garments and repentance and spring. It's intriguing to note that he refers to repentance in both quatrains as garments, something which can be easily donned or thrown off, as the mood fits. Repentance is not an integral part of him, or so it seems.
The mood is different in the two quatrains in that in VII it is one of defiance--one should fill the cup and fling the garment of repentance--while in LXX--"but was I sober when I swore?"--he seems not to defying but rationalizing, while he tears up the "contract."
One more curious element here is the repetition of words in the first three lines of the quatrain.
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.
In the first line "Indeed" begins the line and is immediately repeated. The second line begins and ends with "I swore" and "I" actually appears three times in that line. The third line repeats the pattern of the first as it begins with a two word phrase--"And then"--which is immediately duplicated. Therefore, all three lines begin with a word or phrase which is repeated later in the line.
This is the second of three sequential quatrains that relate to his thoughts about drinking wine. In the previous quatrain, he laments the harm done to his reputation. In this quatrain, he suggests that he has tried to overcome this transgression, but always fails eventually, which leads inevitably to the following quatrain.
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