tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75082168068404884522024-03-18T19:41:12.881+02:00 The Devil's Pleasure Garden(If you look at this on your phone you'll miss 2/3 of the triptych. Click on my face to contact.)Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.comBlogger366125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-33791825078080249732022-01-07T17:22:00.010+02:002023-05-09T17:44:44.073+03:00In which the author complains of—<p style="text-align: center;"> <b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-family: Algerian; font-size: 48pt;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HYAsBJcoT8HhsKDReNgFD1fntadXqzq" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">boredom</span></a></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"></p><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r-BHeXR8Po4" style="display: inline;" width="320" youtube-src-id="r-BHeXR8Po4"></iframe></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Sincerity bores me.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">To be sincere is to have one’s heart in the right place, than which few things are more annoying.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Show me a sincere person and I’ll show you a pain in the poopoo.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Honesty is the sincerest form of hostility. Whenever somebody wants to level with you, duck.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">To quote Uncle Oscar, “The worst vice of the fanatic is his sincerity.”</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The angry are sincere.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The drunk are sincere.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The young are sincere.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Please.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It soon leads to the sin of seriousness, for which one cannot do adequate penance.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The forces of seriousness are all around us. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Romantics are serious. Try listening to Debussy. It’s like sitting in a piano bar without a drink.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">As I prefer pleasure to pain, so I prefer Mozart to Beethoven.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Give me Bach and the Italians. Satie is sad, but not serious.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Society is a system of secrets. You see me as I really am, but you wouldn’t say so. It would hurt me. I see you as you really are, but I keep it to myself. You’d just tell me to go stick it up my star. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Whenever someone offers to tell me "the truth" I cross my legs and look out the window.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Nobody knows what they’re talking about, anyway.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Have you the least idea how much I care about your dietary preferences? Were I to pick a little piece of poop out of my pucker and roll it up, it wouldn’t even come to that. </span></div><div><br /></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YWjy_wyG3nY" style="display: inline;" width="320" youtube-src-id="YWjy_wyG3nY"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Character bores me.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It’s like a job application.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Life refuses to be characterized, and so do I. Deep down I'm everybody else. I can identify with anyone but myself.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Reality is something I aspire to.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Of course I’ll never amount to anything. Money spoils the line in my pants.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I have charm, but no depth, and live on the quality of my errors.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">To make money, you need brains. To spend money, you need culture. I have no brains whatsoever, but I'm crawling with culture.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Work is a spectator sport. I always step back and sit down while someone stands over me with a parasol.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The trouble with not having a job is that it denies me the pleasure of retiring.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I do have a PhD. The wizard couldn't give the scarecrow a brain, so he gave him a degree.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Café-sitter, slacker <i>extraordinaire</i>, <i>flâneur</i> without portfolio, <i>boulevardier</i>, <i>je-m'en-foutiste</i>, intellectual dandy—sort of a happy Hamlet, evading responsibility with style.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Narcissist with undeniable charm, prick with a good haircut, a mere lad, and already effete—but more than just a pretty face.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Reluctant rake, underfinanced fop, voracious voluptuary, with splendid insouciance, spiced by panic and depravity.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Like all that's best in life I am quite useless, lounging on the daybed, eating grapes, putting in a call in to Dial-A-Girl.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Of course like you I am governed by the tyranny of moods.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I wish that I wished that I were otherwise. If I could wish to be otherwise I might accomplish it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Frankly, I forgive myself.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4QMB3VTXLV4" style="display: inline;" width="320" youtube-src-id="4QMB3VTXLV4"></iframe></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Women bore me.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Dumb and delicious, brilliant and elegant, you’re more trouble than you’re worth.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">When I see you walking down the street I get interested, which itself is boring.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">When I see a <i>man</i> walking down the street I search for statements of style, am invariably disappointed, and turn my thoughts elsewhere.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">My libido is canine. Flexible. Not all that fussy. But a woman’s bare feet are always glance-worthy; a man’s bare feet, always inconvenient.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">My prevailing perversion is a beautiful-woman fetish, for which my family disowns me.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Women are like food. When you’re young you eat anything. When you get older you choose.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">It’s no use my trying to explain what excites me about you—your stretch marks, your sculpted adipose, your blue marble veins. Pointless. You won’t understand.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Women are guilt. Men are the unforgiven. Some of us like it that way.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Women are engaged in a bold new experiment to see how annoying they can be.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">You rage around in pants, seeking for ways to take yourselves seriously, in maenadic ecstasy over your shared enthusiasms, which is the one virtue of a mob.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Soon, good-looking women will be illegalized because they offend the fat and the ugly. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Women who still love one after all these years—I sigh, I admit that.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">But you have no idea what you are in the eyes of men. Were you to ask, and we find the courage to tell you, you’d never believe it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="color: #241e12;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="color: #241e12;">Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His</span><span style="color: #241e12;"> </span></span></span></span><em style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Light Touch</span></em><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is on </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1683729323546000&usg=AOvVaw2Hd4YAGyyFwVy2bd3qCy_J" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Amazon Prime</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://gdpr.tubi.tv/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323546000&usg=AOvVaw3ufDcq05PBGFbyhBgl7txP" href="https://gdpr.tubi.tv/" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Tubi</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw31ZAj1afhlzIGJMlXOMf6E" href="https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Scanbox</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, and his </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DRSsRtvdiIyQ&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw2DguC-z8KYY78SRvKkzKkP" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSsRtvdiIyQ" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">7-minute comedy</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is an out-loud laugh</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. He is also a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1PYC3nJiptRKNBLBbk1F4n" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">novelist</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword%3DRobert%2520maclean&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw162S1JfpF0z--pNF9L241x" href="https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword=Robert%20maclean" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">playwright</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1FBGyC8qx7A7sNJkPeDQs9" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">blogger</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw3AQysubjQNXhCZlODRwFU2" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><b>YouTuber</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw3P-GogH1INXqHncxTBBc35" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><b>film reviewer</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw39FgjTIfJ_oBPZcOQVqcss" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><b>literary critic</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, and a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list%3DPL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw2vJHdrk2KPD06vTmFcXE6o" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">stand-up comic poet</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains but an intellectual snob.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div dir="ltr"><div class="ii gt" id=":sw" jslog="20277; u014N:xr6bB; 1:WyIjdGhyZWFkLWE6ci0zNDcxNDgzODQ1Mjk4Mjk0NDM2fG1zZy1hOnI0NDU1MTI5NjUwNzE3NTM0Mzc0IixudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbCxbXV0.; 4:WyIjbXNnLWE6cjQ0NTUxMjk2NTA3MTc1MzQzNzQiLG51bGwsW11d" style="direction: ltr; font-family: "Google Sans", Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="a3s aiL " id=":sz" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: 1.5; overflow: hidden;"><div dir="ltr"><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="color: #241e12;"></span><span style="color: blue;"><img class="CToWUd a6T" data-bit="iit" height="200" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4xcN5muCajIvoU9-PV9Ga0Jmbv5sc7vpp3sWFUy9ib6JxF4mjbJse7qZ-w5hihWd3sIPJTWqF4" style="cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;" tabindex="0" width="150" /><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2022/01/in-which-author-complains-of.html&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1A7f6edYb2bZxfPYkKYkax" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2022/01/in-which-author-complains-of.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">“I'm afraid of NOTHING except being bored!”―Greta Garbo</span></b></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw0DQIYjKtP3zOkz2UObr2-n" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">The Light Touch on Amazon Prime</span></a></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw3AQysubjQNXhCZlODRwFU2" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">The Natural Wish to Be Robert MacLean</span></a></b></p><div dir="ltr"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1FBGyC8qx7A7sNJkPeDQs9" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">The Devil's Pleasure Garden</span></a></b></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></span></div></div></div></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></p>Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-31458759157667865912017-10-14T14:37:00.209+03:002022-04-05T17:30:25.027+03:00Pretentious Pictures Presents:<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "algerian"; font-size: 36pt; line-height: 107%;">The light
touch</span></b></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;">
<b><span style="color: red; font-family: "algerian"; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 107%;">A </span></b><b><span style="color: red; font-family: "algerian"; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 25.68px;">pickpocket</span></b><b><span style="color: red; font-family: "algerian"; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 107%;"> chase</span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4xx02rciwpAOkAnp3a7cjQV2zjIHjGl0dAojCKdnaGx468Lno0_3FpwHRxpP9HgB3Ty209Hn74mqwfckxd3n3IcQSspzcPRCsCgleBJvXrD_1thUYR74hQJCEosYCAHk63GRBM_-PZnE/s2048/TLT_MoviePoster_final.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1574" height="439" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4xx02rciwpAOkAnp3a7cjQV2zjIHjGl0dAojCKdnaGx468Lno0_3FpwHRxpP9HgB3Ty209Hn74mqwfckxd3n3IcQSspzcPRCsCgleBJvXrD_1thUYR74hQJCEosYCAHk63GRBM_-PZnE/w338-h439/TLT_MoviePoster_final.jpg" width="338" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><h4 style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: arial; margin: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left;"><div style="color: #222222; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-large;">Amazon Prime</span></a></div></h4><h4 style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: arial; margin: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://tubitv.com/movies/629563/the-light-touch?start=true&utm_source=google-feed&tracking=google-feed" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-large;">Tubi</span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="color: #222222;"><a href="https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-large;">Scanbox</span></a></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://safierent.com/films/the-light-touch/" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-large;">Safier Entertainment</span></b></a></div></h4><h4 style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: arial; margin: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="color: #222222; text-align: center;"><a href="https://spiintl.com/" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">SPI International</span></b></a></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7286976/?ref_=nm_knf_i2"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">IMDb</span></a></div></span></span></h4></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="278" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kZBq1aDKM58" width="334" youtube-src-id="kZBq1aDKM58"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX02suy9zY-8VB0zsFMKwxOJ5Y33F4o0Un1hl1RTA8pgUNpkS2xL4tBBUhZKChYZoXxClwR507D3D8jrFA8fLNm0pBKcVZLiWxqmDW3BmOtv8bNUOJMgPlJY2VLivwwDnVhpt0N9RCRfrpwy8Qiz4Tru01JXEpDEs9ZWwIDLHCmFIkPUPVrSWfoTNg/s3564/Skyrah.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3564" data-original-width="2506" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX02suy9zY-8VB0zsFMKwxOJ5Y33F4o0Un1hl1RTA8pgUNpkS2xL4tBBUhZKChYZoXxClwR507D3D8jrFA8fLNm0pBKcVZLiWxqmDW3BmOtv8bNUOJMgPlJY2VLivwwDnVhpt0N9RCRfrpwy8Qiz4Tru01JXEpDEs9ZWwIDLHCmFIkPUPVrSWfoTNg/w330-h468/Skyrah.jpg" width="330" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Algerian;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">We have now officially ceased sending the film to festivals because it can't seem to stop winning awards. it’s becoming a bore.</span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6_UeXC38F9GIhhbGQizmLCBsZ9oNCPGU8r9kOzGxNGNvn-yZAKVZ3iLjey5gTmDDMcK0jSdkZYI_-etIAfrPq83STP70m4M5wmeS8xkdBbdEU4OoxrGAUySqVICXhFIa_GA3iygO-9no/s1024/Rome.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6_UeXC38F9GIhhbGQizmLCBsZ9oNCPGU8r9kOzGxNGNvn-yZAKVZ3iLjey5gTmDDMcK0jSdkZYI_-etIAfrPq83STP70m4M5wmeS8xkdBbdEU4OoxrGAUySqVICXhFIa_GA3iygO-9no/s320/Rome.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj907ettKvaZQ5kBjNJgBRRaBAnxsGRl1YhiZLwL1W_YJxc6xGqe4hxCxCCedJdftXKH8uXOG4Q74Jj272qm2J1zjpk3JkQJrm7xnx6f61n6cywWyZmT9TswcJK6Z998wnJiy5o9TPPuC8/s903/R+-+Winner.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="903" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj907ettKvaZQ5kBjNJgBRRaBAnxsGRl1YhiZLwL1W_YJxc6xGqe4hxCxCCedJdftXKH8uXOG4Q74Jj272qm2J1zjpk3JkQJrm7xnx6f61n6cywWyZmT9TswcJK6Z998wnJiy5o9TPPuC8/s320/R+-+Winner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmQGcux_miZmWKzQTgZRIqj-cZToXGOc2Ec1TFccm22m4Otj5Idrg0keSGw24PkK2h1HtgO92gW7WB5roI4IuyZ2aMhRxzSmZ-UwZgeDqBixHVyKthawVE_7TTJUuUQXWRQ5jbP_1VPfE/s1735/BEST+ACTRESS+-+Lule+International+Film+Festival+-+2021.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmQGcux_miZmWKzQTgZRIqj-cZToXGOc2Ec1TFccm22m4Otj5Idrg0keSGw24PkK2h1HtgO92gW7WB5roI4IuyZ2aMhRxzSmZ-UwZgeDqBixHVyKthawVE_7TTJUuUQXWRQ5jbP_1VPfE/s320/BEST+ACTRESS+-+Lule+International+Film+Festival+-+2021.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsZGvexbIfgnvK4x7V5ZkgVGsTaLAjBzWzr0SKvnuxFi4O4pa3I7eugTjYgB1pMGQAAJ3m9jRPf8j2BQFgfZW-4vC-JJZsAqFHQPmZOw5w1oxBuxObIqpuUi99Y-L9_21iC9C_shdXfPQ/s1735/BEST+DIRECTOR+-+Lule+International+Film+Festival+-+2021.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsZGvexbIfgnvK4x7V5ZkgVGsTaLAjBzWzr0SKvnuxFi4O4pa3I7eugTjYgB1pMGQAAJ3m9jRPf8j2BQFgfZW-4vC-JJZsAqFHQPmZOw5w1oxBuxObIqpuUi99Y-L9_21iC9C_shdXfPQ/s320/BEST+DIRECTOR+-+Lule+International+Film+Festival+-+2021.png" width="320" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhreZucGco7CH5Kbm60rOCo-7_G60MukL3f8B0gRsnlfF7WRkwzstkLvD604og4XHvMJIJV4IIa9S5fFQWgfS6NdDA4GgZDt9_Zs4491I-gRouBMS29ahRgcAzF5-NONZvilF6m-Y4QfCY/s1735/BEST+COMEDY+-+Sweden+Film+Awards+-+2020.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhreZucGco7CH5Kbm60rOCo-7_G60MukL3f8B0gRsnlfF7WRkwzstkLvD604og4XHvMJIJV4IIa9S5fFQWgfS6NdDA4GgZDt9_Zs4491I-gRouBMS29ahRgcAzF5-NONZvilF6m-Y4QfCY/s320/BEST+COMEDY+-+Sweden+Film+Awards+-+2020.png" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFOUS56DN5NfxHBZQo79W1bOCjQd8AyIqO3Y3GCUVvWicGC-EWTaQi0nPYjc2du7haxRUdCDfF0SEWUYD5D5w3_YfbhOakLzmnuOLD7dukwg-Ekpxk4l-ARrCN06gF_MN8XpB_GLRlRfY/s2048/Blow-Up-generic.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1359" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFOUS56DN5NfxHBZQo79W1bOCjQd8AyIqO3Y3GCUVvWicGC-EWTaQi0nPYjc2du7haxRUdCDfF0SEWUYD5D5w3_YfbhOakLzmnuOLD7dukwg-Ekpxk4l-ARrCN06gF_MN8XpB_GLRlRfY/s320/Blow-Up-generic.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuwORMn4X-SkRfoZYx4sFN6vMb-V2_aSHTkd3WBTwfwr2vhc-Z6LhNRLspSo6JBTSo3bpj-nhObTlgRMGk6maFO8NyPwXwN11odcM8RJHZ9rqa2xQ5UdF9MZ5evjCs529g_hwCSef9Lzk/s1735/Maverick_2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuwORMn4X-SkRfoZYx4sFN6vMb-V2_aSHTkd3WBTwfwr2vhc-Z6LhNRLspSo6JBTSo3bpj-nhObTlgRMGk6maFO8NyPwXwN11odcM8RJHZ9rqa2xQ5UdF9MZ5evjCs529g_hwCSef9Lzk/s320/Maverick_2.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0rkxoDnXF8Upmz6tMsAd8IM_rHVGZuTc-sQylCHhBGT9HvgQwIxtPdvzDX6jdayoegE2rlcB4GyCeW7nmVElrwnijWwWxZLjKrRYum5FVpslhCiEdlIt6hTGv38zM_qn51K2dDOBEirc/s1735/12_London+Greek+Film+Festival+-+2020.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0rkxoDnXF8Upmz6tMsAd8IM_rHVGZuTc-sQylCHhBGT9HvgQwIxtPdvzDX6jdayoegE2rlcB4GyCeW7nmVElrwnijWwWxZLjKrRYum5FVpslhCiEdlIt6hTGv38zM_qn51K2dDOBEirc/s320/12_London+Greek+Film+Festival+-+2020.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDIJ_hqQcRqwEi_ZxIO8VAQJ_z8pxV0f9vjMekDwjhKwa_kH3BTI94wwIJ8bG36IaFcVJhpfr9g1Xa8G9wuk6ZWsUhGWaIAs1jxMofwfBRjToLMCab_Y81fcrKKWgNgdnSgI5QBA1OnO0/s1735/Malta+Film+Festival+-+2021.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDIJ_hqQcRqwEi_ZxIO8VAQJ_z8pxV0f9vjMekDwjhKwa_kH3BTI94wwIJ8bG36IaFcVJhpfr9g1Xa8G9wuk6ZWsUhGWaIAs1jxMofwfBRjToLMCab_Y81fcrKKWgNgdnSgI5QBA1OnO0/s320/Malta+Film+Festival+-+2021.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span face=""><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzTJbejhkU_TtjaZQn0gghH0qORL_3HnlQptQlkLsz5Sd8KLzx_ivH42hE2oDlIbOot04KaDha7iYv0gQIAGA2BIdPH-YwVG7OGGIwaUQnBvBKoskxSfaXTv-nZE5U0dPEOpZfQe7idXE/s1735/zc.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzTJbejhkU_TtjaZQn0gghH0qORL_3HnlQptQlkLsz5Sd8KLzx_ivH42hE2oDlIbOot04KaDha7iYv0gQIAGA2BIdPH-YwVG7OGGIwaUQnBvBKoskxSfaXTv-nZE5U0dPEOpZfQe7idXE/s320/zc.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NrImePtHZH8" width="320" youtube-src-id="NrImePtHZH8"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH7fLjuN-TQOXqUHQbE6I0ihSmT5qwyZp0vRM5kbl_-z_-c2NAAgCtroR3XG5hja9MnBzzbsVONZzWohquKUHd1z59zw_H3XtE3CsFtkqSjy-MpH8lJveg6PRhpR6rCiTU1_alRrDnNtA/s2048/Duncan+Skinner.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1448" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH7fLjuN-TQOXqUHQbE6I0ihSmT5qwyZp0vRM5kbl_-z_-c2NAAgCtroR3XG5hja9MnBzzbsVONZzWohquKUHd1z59zw_H3XtE3CsFtkqSjy-MpH8lJveg6PRhpR6rCiTU1_alRrDnNtA/s320/Duncan+Skinner.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk4TU7NMP73vC3p1Y4JWIRTio9qr4gcB0Bri2VYq82RSiaMaKvcu2Mu9bcLUyfeojVcy1bhMpLqWKBbRD_9oNfCexnAz2ha6GXY01c9NpNmFKWtI29TD3i4zQ_5vqFR0T01l8V-Jwc4Xg/s1735/Athens+International+Monthly+Art+Film+Festival+-+2021.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk4TU7NMP73vC3p1Y4JWIRTio9qr4gcB0Bri2VYq82RSiaMaKvcu2Mu9bcLUyfeojVcy1bhMpLqWKBbRD_9oNfCexnAz2ha6GXY01c9NpNmFKWtI29TD3i4zQ_5vqFR0T01l8V-Jwc4Xg/s320/Athens+International+Monthly+Art+Film+Festival+-+2021.png" width="320" /></a></div></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6pcxfkturMwT3rB8RVYeoSHsfs2fAV6y2kV1cEz6zh15AOCGi1iToub2VAQtwFunvdzAFIYciJ7Z7Qp7EHWGanhGcqPFlU4hu-NcHeuW9L_TtDF-nhFghSoLVTE4npPAC7G60LGZ8IXc/s1735/Prague+International+Film+Awards+-+2021.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6pcxfkturMwT3rB8RVYeoSHsfs2fAV6y2kV1cEz6zh15AOCGi1iToub2VAQtwFunvdzAFIYciJ7Z7Qp7EHWGanhGcqPFlU4hu-NcHeuW9L_TtDF-nhFghSoLVTE4npPAC7G60LGZ8IXc/s320/Prague+International+Film+Awards+-+2021.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK8QaFrp7X51qls9n9bOHnzLdG6oE0hkMSfZGuZik6pdbY13asVkkGPh043K-DzKyjHIDEe3hnnrTDAYD5jnea2CTcvw97UmjBLTqj7aKmu8uKoggppf_23psc4lsd8OdFo81XL3M8jTA/s1735/London+International+Monthly+Film+Festival+a-+2021.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK8QaFrp7X51qls9n9bOHnzLdG6oE0hkMSfZGuZik6pdbY13asVkkGPh043K-DzKyjHIDEe3hnnrTDAYD5jnea2CTcvw97UmjBLTqj7aKmu8uKoggppf_23psc4lsd8OdFo81XL3M8jTA/s320/London+International+Monthly+Film+Festival+a-+2021.png" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuaaJu46Tm1TcayF_KyEopyReMDSMqqzVkofryF0oGbHZEJzv97gZHUv5UzTykQ5z0gM-k8N9ss3CsztXBHT0619jfzpadNtcVJONB4SFWgE6884FbikbmNveixHFaQIW0ircT9bZ7uQ4/s1735/zb.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuaaJu46Tm1TcayF_KyEopyReMDSMqqzVkofryF0oGbHZEJzv97gZHUv5UzTykQ5z0gM-k8N9ss3CsztXBHT0619jfzpadNtcVJONB4SFWgE6884FbikbmNveixHFaQIW0ircT9bZ7uQ4/s320/zb.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHW8iq9vArdmV4hwXc_QdnK7oYsB2jMYdTxxV9r1ML0FyZu4JKetl1xDe5kz5doICrBZ7HeVZDUvGLdNmNf3SK_x99OC2JCpmRmYRa5vWNaUzbYmtsDfiwd4tBCt7dEtcXZsf6viT30Qw/s1735/za.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHW8iq9vArdmV4hwXc_QdnK7oYsB2jMYdTxxV9r1ML0FyZu4JKetl1xDe5kz5doICrBZ7HeVZDUvGLdNmNf3SK_x99OC2JCpmRmYRa5vWNaUzbYmtsDfiwd4tBCt7dEtcXZsf6viT30Qw/s320/za.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2WLhRjyF1muP3edX_1oH6MXaOMJkDi0s-dz9rJU9JH18lnNSAYnBz7ZY7SGcIGz3KPlpjgLZvJjn9JusRXmTcwz9t47KKzu88aCiULK742S_fKlB73JybZn2BnEHxiGW-whZ6OWBEuxE/s1735/Berlin+International+Art+Film+Festival+-+2021.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2WLhRjyF1muP3edX_1oH6MXaOMJkDi0s-dz9rJU9JH18lnNSAYnBz7ZY7SGcIGz3KPlpjgLZvJjn9JusRXmTcwz9t47KKzu88aCiULK742S_fKlB73JybZn2BnEHxiGW-whZ6OWBEuxE/s320/Berlin+International+Art+Film+Festival+-+2021.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWwV-12X_D-SlKnG0BqQfDHnTDZDw_gYar4f6KQzSBrK0FWG2d084nptwE3B6PFWc7CLaLacB9DIxsffFyyex99wbzVgOXBr-OKYgqmEED3we1tTdX4862DvN8JtphKkgQ7wpiAZz5VMY/s1735/Best+Indie+Film+Award+-+2021.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWwV-12X_D-SlKnG0BqQfDHnTDZDw_gYar4f6KQzSBrK0FWG2d084nptwE3B6PFWc7CLaLacB9DIxsffFyyex99wbzVgOXBr-OKYgqmEED3we1tTdX4862DvN8JtphKkgQ7wpiAZz5VMY/s320/Best+Indie+Film+Award+-+2021.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU-bnnUZvVCUjz_fmB5WgaehY9vPwi-3BQ1KJlPOGXPz_hI4cySe_0MWupUTYgXN1keyXb1hD1bYoR6p9vZMVn_glWDbTxROMlAzfR104i-v7_RDM5N8YW7rL4LjTWkRKwHtYKJauDxMQ/s587/ze.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="587" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU-bnnUZvVCUjz_fmB5WgaehY9vPwi-3BQ1KJlPOGXPz_hI4cySe_0MWupUTYgXN1keyXb1hD1bYoR6p9vZMVn_glWDbTxROMlAzfR104i-v7_RDM5N8YW7rL4LjTWkRKwHtYKJauDxMQ/s320/ze.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWwPT1zk1WC_R81oBkZLqdhyU8ruDNHIUmrP00bTuYUf_ebMXhHXHTr9nHQ2BMExDFpJrxBGV6t317iJ-8UDTv-c5xGz2T439ZLhyphenhyphenRaIPbQVX-PzQBD0s1SDjyReLDUj42CLmVBTuyRYI/s2048/zee.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1449" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWwPT1zk1WC_R81oBkZLqdhyU8ruDNHIUmrP00bTuYUf_ebMXhHXHTr9nHQ2BMExDFpJrxBGV6t317iJ-8UDTv-c5xGz2T439ZLhyphenhyphenRaIPbQVX-PzQBD0s1SDjyReLDUj42CLmVBTuyRYI/w327-h464/zee.jpg" width="327" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgucQ8k-SRSiH0UIGhaM-z76caDQ_MC2ikp3yDt-QnoASTm_deHd2AD7AWXWDAZlTy1MnTySbfP3S3etFy6v4wzi7gCG94Tws316-9oembnhpFlyePs9MWCDcsdF3wYlc3qk6g-ZCcRKrc/s1735/ze.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgucQ8k-SRSiH0UIGhaM-z76caDQ_MC2ikp3yDt-QnoASTm_deHd2AD7AWXWDAZlTy1MnTySbfP3S3etFy6v4wzi7gCG94Tws316-9oembnhpFlyePs9MWCDcsdF3wYlc3qk6g-ZCcRKrc/s320/ze.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Wg_iCzLwbVA5pR-c8O1vcunC9ohJf-l3nuwIjtYdBhK23vPSYh9n2pPSBpLhebNciiftoB7HzDV454-EJn5pEO2oJ0ZSMVLxNtvGZqqIaV0dSZFPtdGtGXvIqMVLA7qJH6FD9xFylK0/s1735/ZF1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Wg_iCzLwbVA5pR-c8O1vcunC9ohJf-l3nuwIjtYdBhK23vPSYh9n2pPSBpLhebNciiftoB7HzDV454-EJn5pEO2oJ0ZSMVLxNtvGZqqIaV0dSZFPtdGtGXvIqMVLA7qJH6FD9xFylK0/s320/ZF1.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxHO2vRbZ8AyU2H-f4ClsGetEjUi_Byt2mYU1dR32tdpTJAmfXH9UNWqSobBSPlrU-hslmAye2d0X7zqXEP5-NKimLxF45s9vGzvM6HJV9MsiG7Pj0am6ZRyBlBrH0dbI-cehIG2iYf2Y/s2048/zf1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1449" height="457" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxHO2vRbZ8AyU2H-f4ClsGetEjUi_Byt2mYU1dR32tdpTJAmfXH9UNWqSobBSPlrU-hslmAye2d0X7zqXEP5-NKimLxF45s9vGzvM6HJV9MsiG7Pj0am6ZRyBlBrH0dbI-cehIG2iYf2Y/w322-h457/zf1.jpg" width="322" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZKIZDKVeD6VnHvxvwANRdIj2LN7Ck5LmtNLh8nL7DdRST9_-amdMwpHdZe20Cnjw7wWwEhCDLTLHHxU84vNg4wfy-3IkcUGsrmdDhu2C1UhBum8UtHwwm2j0o7r46i__za0-UVP5e8I/s1500/zf2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZKIZDKVeD6VnHvxvwANRdIj2LN7Ck5LmtNLh8nL7DdRST9_-amdMwpHdZe20Cnjw7wWwEhCDLTLHHxU84vNg4wfy-3IkcUGsrmdDhu2C1UhBum8UtHwwm2j0o7r46i__za0-UVP5e8I/s320/zf2.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghtBpwajqUwL4l3JvhiOFQd1M3bLXVN4QHhfpP4D1u3jz4VvJoH6VXoo0pX7ebVaQvU2Su_BqtUP9hkps-S-GGBueYrfjIuUQrya4NOCt1YNSoxdfjSG-02vasZXNeb1iEVHztWXSAHec/s1735/ZG.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghtBpwajqUwL4l3JvhiOFQd1M3bLXVN4QHhfpP4D1u3jz4VvJoH6VXoo0pX7ebVaQvU2Su_BqtUP9hkps-S-GGBueYrfjIuUQrya4NOCt1YNSoxdfjSG-02vasZXNeb1iEVHztWXSAHec/s320/ZG.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_OwpOqJR2IDzCGMhsqwVDRwqSaIJ44buHJYh_AF7daFnCQYEbrp5c-5gSa3SQnWLJqgAgnZGa153ViF-PzY4cWDGg-2vrXSEKV6SXEWYhiAmrJs9Lk30999A49mOl4UszfuMqDqW5j7g/s450/zg1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="428" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_OwpOqJR2IDzCGMhsqwVDRwqSaIJ44buHJYh_AF7daFnCQYEbrp5c-5gSa3SQnWLJqgAgnZGa153ViF-PzY4cWDGg-2vrXSEKV6SXEWYhiAmrJs9Lk30999A49mOl4UszfuMqDqW5j7g/s320/zg1.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglTNnDHxH46ZH8MPhN5WjKLaLByR7HHJTWs3yH7IezCdvZ6aXKRMRbtz_fYLeejc1dFatLVRThDgGsowULxD7iX4s5zLkj8Hss976GXOFKoAzOsdxD0xoD818Trz6iDVyenXKo2oS9iE0/s1754/zg2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1754" data-original-width="1241" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglTNnDHxH46ZH8MPhN5WjKLaLByR7HHJTWs3yH7IezCdvZ6aXKRMRbtz_fYLeejc1dFatLVRThDgGsowULxD7iX4s5zLkj8Hss976GXOFKoAzOsdxD0xoD818Trz6iDVyenXKo2oS9iE0/w321-h456/zg2.jpg" width="321" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7c0XoKfU5HUdBgk5fDzXEu-BwmPfV83Gzhi2cAtC0RS3zH9Sdf1BVowXd34hI1t1H1cHWQKg59AYXIPE7JwzF6fu5CCroPSXt7_inPsjFSp1btibCmFe_x325FhuahovZNTCcSoPl5ig/s1735/ZH.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7c0XoKfU5HUdBgk5fDzXEu-BwmPfV83Gzhi2cAtC0RS3zH9Sdf1BVowXd34hI1t1H1cHWQKg59AYXIPE7JwzF6fu5CCroPSXt7_inPsjFSp1btibCmFe_x325FhuahovZNTCcSoPl5ig/s320/ZH.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7NyaAmUxAO-DWxd48RNlWja_Ajzj076VoxkDUXmUz4ENiMgGXDPPsxSKLvcdSdY8CGqH0nv2AwEfWwXxpdcC-DbhUEvBXG-th6e12KIq4GbW2yK_hfth_P5QsTLxvYHFulCJ_5aFnKo0/s1735/ZI.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7NyaAmUxAO-DWxd48RNlWja_Ajzj076VoxkDUXmUz4ENiMgGXDPPsxSKLvcdSdY8CGqH0nv2AwEfWwXxpdcC-DbhUEvBXG-th6e12KIq4GbW2yK_hfth_P5QsTLxvYHFulCJ_5aFnKo0/s320/ZI.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBCcJDJBTyc2GdcU0InVDjUnBi88QRJqGr_OYMVKgDS-703uGXZiVqsIlkV2CL0-ht045oTa-toZ1xoHqPjl9xmAgX25cI3lYe2YJV0OzVcjjaffLzLDwaj1Vp3FelBCY_d_ERTp9YtxY/s1735/ZJ.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBCcJDJBTyc2GdcU0InVDjUnBi88QRJqGr_OYMVKgDS-703uGXZiVqsIlkV2CL0-ht045oTa-toZ1xoHqPjl9xmAgX25cI3lYe2YJV0OzVcjjaffLzLDwaj1Vp3FelBCY_d_ERTp9YtxY/s320/ZJ.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOuYFWZV9tvyYgYq9WWA05ZaoHgbpaYKbjuUgMindmzxVmZZgVd4QFCjS72mrtvvkAcnobR_fJjLEcW2h6vT7HhmZkeGQrPWYtCeSrY-6hN2rIO2BrdDh6_7Wa1dYbt6kkWDINzDlZksPMXi907GrQABoTwIdTVDzfonjtdov2rAKzuRsig-ps_rwz=s1735" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1735" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOuYFWZV9tvyYgYq9WWA05ZaoHgbpaYKbjuUgMindmzxVmZZgVd4QFCjS72mrtvvkAcnobR_fJjLEcW2h6vT7HhmZkeGQrPWYtCeSrY-6hN2rIO2BrdDh6_7Wa1dYbt6kkWDINzDlZksPMXi907GrQABoTwIdTVDzfonjtdov2rAKzuRsig-ps_rwz=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJmDUT5gVxWcP3tZFi22UXLUL0gKWxHDLW8u2ixrBHDrQ03MHmzc0rBwxnfL6UM0ET0gWM0tfbXutpSTtgLVqh4j96U2yz-LhkaCcOx2YOgoMss7S0PbNtrLPGW87F3JQXaTdwbEdfZuo/s2048/zj1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1449" height="451" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJmDUT5gVxWcP3tZFi22UXLUL0gKWxHDLW8u2ixrBHDrQ03MHmzc0rBwxnfL6UM0ET0gWM0tfbXutpSTtgLVqh4j96U2yz-LhkaCcOx2YOgoMss7S0PbNtrLPGW87F3JQXaTdwbEdfZuo/w318-h451/zj1.jpg" width="318" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDQ53SyYctOkV_maI-X7PXQiUu8p1KwJ1Dk4rX4IJFMm-o3KO5UUzNe-Yuh7NFCgP7Xvh3YL00jkKUx39RDhBo1LkLJiGXrgLVWqGvheuECJDEqFOSqq9DSdBhhWN_JNWboCeM_ggz-A/s1300/zj2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="1300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDQ53SyYctOkV_maI-X7PXQiUu8p1KwJ1Dk4rX4IJFMm-o3KO5UUzNe-Yuh7NFCgP7Xvh3YL00jkKUx39RDhBo1LkLJiGXrgLVWqGvheuECJDEqFOSqq9DSdBhhWN_JNWboCeM_ggz-A/s320/zj2.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjek9Zt6K0Ycw_39SJHrb9DnVOtYeT4KJtMS2GAS9GwFUZpisvNoxDekRQv92w74_6FEUfmo97AU2uDAtCTh9AgPIfG5slFosMdADjYm_qyHK3akcYPZH5ZebyMijkkWrbRXm8mtAVSQkw/s1500/zk.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjek9Zt6K0Ycw_39SJHrb9DnVOtYeT4KJtMS2GAS9GwFUZpisvNoxDekRQv92w74_6FEUfmo97AU2uDAtCTh9AgPIfG5slFosMdADjYm_qyHK3akcYPZH5ZebyMijkkWrbRXm8mtAVSQkw/s320/zk.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjgNjlxvdwvTCwbKDrqr4b9rP2MM4wSmsrBdQ7HcfjopYaR8T_apNlNbXn5mtngjF4gC8edqI6g0Fh4TqN9vCZNNUcXNWMx46i3hzKmp4yXAnG7oSf6dH8vhVGJC3xFsIZLSQanqlMcR0/s2048/zk1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1449" height="453" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjgNjlxvdwvTCwbKDrqr4b9rP2MM4wSmsrBdQ7HcfjopYaR8T_apNlNbXn5mtngjF4gC8edqI6g0Fh4TqN9vCZNNUcXNWMx46i3hzKmp4yXAnG7oSf6dH8vhVGJC3xFsIZLSQanqlMcR0/w320-h453/zk1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaou-pW6CqNEweJ4ON2N5O3R2-QubqyRz7zWhZhFpf12z_TpL5H-hYC7NRLipoJoqOCnhtbh_x0AvC1IN3O04SgPHGE1EgSoLtt_-YCCAxwDQkdtpoxWDEpnJRJszqin_Y1gDolLqBDoc/s1915/%2521%2521%2521%2521%2521.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="1915" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaou-pW6CqNEweJ4ON2N5O3R2-QubqyRz7zWhZhFpf12z_TpL5H-hYC7NRLipoJoqOCnhtbh_x0AvC1IN3O04SgPHGE1EgSoLtt_-YCCAxwDQkdtpoxWDEpnJRJszqin_Y1gDolLqBDoc/s320/%2521%2521%2521%2521%2521.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span face=""><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Wins:</b></span></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="line-height: 25.68px;">Best Comedy, </span><b><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="http://swedenfilmawards.se/Winners/" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Sweden Film Awards</span></a>;</span></span></b><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"> </span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 25.68px;">Best Actress, Best Director, <b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0025383/2021/1" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Luleå International Film Festival</span></a></b>;</span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 25.68px;">Best LGBTQ, <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://romeinternationalmovieaward.blogspot.com/" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Rome International Movie Awards</span></a>.</span></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Best Comedy Actor: Duncan
Skinner, Moscow Comedy FilmFest </span><b><a href="http://gelosfilmfest.ru/?page_id=912&lang=en"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Gelos</span></a></b></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-large;">Best Comedy and Best Actress: Tess Spentzos, <b><a href="https://www.torontofilmmagazine.com/post/winners-of-tfm"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Toronto Film Magazine Fest</span></a></b></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><span style="color: #222222;"><i>Outstanding Achievement Awards</i>: Best Supporting Actress, Georgia Siakavara; Best Debut, Robert MacLean, </span><b><a href="https://tiff-b.com/films-of-the-month-april-2021/#more-5831"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Tagore International Film Festival</span></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><i>Awards of Recognition</i>: Best Supporting actress, Skyrah Archer; Best Direction, Robert MacLean, <b><a href="https://accoladecompetition.org/awards-of-recognition-may-2021/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Accolade Global Film Competition</span></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 25.68px;">Best Supporting Actress, Skyrah Archer, <b><a href="https://liaff.com/monthly-selection-may-2021/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">L’Age d’Or International Arthouse Film Festival</span></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 25.68px;">Best Producer, Claudio Castravelli, <b><a href="https://www.hlc-cultcritic.com/monthly-result-may-2021/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Cult Critic Movie Awards</span></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 25.68px;">Best Supporting Actress, Skyrah Archer, <b><a href="https://www.vscinefest.com/monthly-selection-may-june-2021/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Virgin Spring Cinefest</span></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 25.68px;">Best Director, <b><a href="https://www.hlc-cicff.com/cicff/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Calcutta International Cult Film Festival</span></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 25.68px;">Best Producer, Claudio Castravelli, <b><a href="https://worldfilmcarnival.com/monthly-results-may-2021/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">World Film Carnival - Singapore</span></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 25.68px;">Best Cinematography, Panos Golfis, <b><a href="https://rstmp.org/rstmp-monthly-result-june/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Royal Society of Television and Motion Picture Awards</span></a></b></span></div></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large; line-height: 25.68px;"><b>Nominations:</b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="line-height: 25.68px;">Antonioni Award for Best Feature Film, </span><b><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0003828/2020/1" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Blow-Up Chicago International Arthouse Film Fest</span></a>;</span></span></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Odysseus Award, Best Film, <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0001629/2020/1/?ref_=ev_eh" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">London Greek Film Festival</span></a>;</span></b> </span></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Best Actress, two Best Supporting Actresses, Best Director, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0001658/2019/1/?ref_=ev_eh" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><b><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Maverick Movie Awards</span></span></b></a><span style="line-height: 25.68px;">.</span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Best Feature Comedy Film, Moscow Comedy FilmFest </span><b><a href="http://gelosfilmfest.ru/?page_id=453&lang=en"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Gelos</span></a></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white;"><span><span style="line-height: 25.68px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><div style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Best Feature Film, </span><b><a href="http://aimaff.com/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Athens International Monthly Art Film Festival</span></a></b></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Best Directing: Honorable Mention, </span><a href="https://limff.eu/index.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">London International Monthly Film Festival</span></b></a></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif">Best Comedy, <b><a href="https://praguefilmfest.com/"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Prague International Film Festival</span></a></b></span></div></span></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span face="arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Best Feature, </span><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0006317/2021/1"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Malta Film Festival</span></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 25.68px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Best European Low-Budget Film, </span><a href="https://bestfilmawards.com/best-film-awards/best-indie-film-award"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Best Indie Film Award</span></b></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: xx-large;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span face="arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif" lang="EN-US"><span style="color: #222222;">Puckish pickpocket Becky, a Bugs Bunny of a girl</span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"> (</span><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1656041/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><span style="color: blue;">Tess Spentzos</span></a></b><span style="color: #222222;">)</span></span></span><span face="arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif" style="color: #222222;">—</span><span face="arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif" lang="EN-US" style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></p></div></span></div></div></div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OY_KB7nXKxI" width="320" youtube-src-id="OY_KB7nXKxI"></iframe></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">—is teasing a wallet out of a purse on an Athens metro when she notices Miranda, a sensitive beauty out of "The Princess and the Pea" (</span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5209419/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1"><b><span style="color: blue;">Skyrah Archer</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">), and falls in love. Miranda escapes her, Becky escapes the purse-owner, and the chase is on.</span></span></div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yc1mwI9bgQ8" width="320" youtube-src-id="yc1mwI9bgQ8"></iframe></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Oops, Becky steals the wallet of a policeman on vacation, her Elmer Fudd, and he’s obsessed with catching</span><i style="color: #222222;"> her</i><span style="color: #222222;">. “My name is Wesley Stankovitch! I don’t </span><i style="color: #222222;">care</i><span style="color: #222222;"> if it doesn’t sound British, I am a police detective with New Scotland Yard—</span><i style="color: #222222;">No!</i><span style="color: #222222;"> I’m on </span><i style="color: #222222;">vacation!</i><span style="color: #222222;"> My pocket has just been picked and I have a photograph of the culprit! Now can I have some men over here!” </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1127512/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1"><b><span style="color: blue;">Duncan Skinner</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UrL4SrS1LkU" width="320" youtube-src-id="UrL4SrS1LkU"></iframe></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">They send him a police</span><i style="color: #222222;">woman</i><span style="color: #222222;">—</span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1272583/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1"><b><span style="color: blue;">Despina Mirou</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">—</span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iaWB4wnNQiM" width="320" youtube-src-id="iaWB4wnNQiM"></iframe></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">whose captain, </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm9278535/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><b><span style="color: blue;">Georgia Siakavara</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">, distrusts her, especially when she gets pregnant on the job.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwAUYB8FzGEBzNYZyjKAONXEr7TWi9CfVcukfz7cFlL7Qi1Eh-HK-d8uFhZ7BEMDEJiHtxFAjqDCw-fngOiQ9o_mEuY_IOAOwZoNxxmDmaEbBa-Tzmr3A84EA053hXmX_CGKg3gi0Mj0/s1600/%2521c.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwAUYB8FzGEBzNYZyjKAONXEr7TWi9CfVcukfz7cFlL7Qi1Eh-HK-d8uFhZ7BEMDEJiHtxFAjqDCw-fngOiQ9o_mEuY_IOAOwZoNxxmDmaEbBa-Tzmr3A84EA053hXmX_CGKg3gi0Mj0/s320/%2521c.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Becky’s father, </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1091863/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1"><b><span style="color: blue;">Mihail Anthis</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGGtSyHlKZFTxjcXuR2uE5CcTp84si4bQXhxiR9Va8uWnMue9sSO-d5-ezB9PHWkx2TfAYv5GeABdCyDA7j-PVcS52TRAaeBORHSEa1kDsa2rmzRjASwPOpy-CguAQxNOKIa1iBp8xkk/s1600/%2521x.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCGGtSyHlKZFTxjcXuR2uE5CcTp84si4bQXhxiR9Va8uWnMue9sSO-d5-ezB9PHWkx2TfAYv5GeABdCyDA7j-PVcS52TRAaeBORHSEa1kDsa2rmzRjASwPOpy-CguAQxNOKIa1iBp8xkk/s320/%2521x.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Becky's psychiatrist, </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2666625/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><b><span style="color: blue;">Sophie Papadopoulos</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_0m3YcdBRVrxDWJI3o8Z-CQVzSpvmvQyvZ2ZGlooHzjia2gh_DE0fmA2FfgB_Y4LAckvB80sqDSDwX9G6YKJ6bIrtdZLcpTwG2t-fJV27KH10QZMdqmGbwdaJJSLJa88SDQe3GJfNw0E/s1600/Sophie1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="939" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_0m3YcdBRVrxDWJI3o8Z-CQVzSpvmvQyvZ2ZGlooHzjia2gh_DE0fmA2FfgB_Y4LAckvB80sqDSDwX9G6YKJ6bIrtdZLcpTwG2t-fJV27KH10QZMdqmGbwdaJJSLJa88SDQe3GJfNw0E/s320/Sophie1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.4px;"><span style="color: #222222;">Miranda’s mother, </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0091668/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><b><span style="color: blue;">Antonia Bogdanovich</span></b></a></span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJLOUHB-JSWz_ly7pD31aljrduurJtO1v0DbEb5TbCxAotazzINGwDuNqF9YFw5Qx-HRLiz_DyvFzQvA2YA-RCWlKTxgcYNeX1YBHlZdr1CEsEDeiFVRwzcuycbeQuVKf8Enzkh0vX6w4/s1600/Antonia.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="904" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJLOUHB-JSWz_ly7pD31aljrduurJtO1v0DbEb5TbCxAotazzINGwDuNqF9YFw5Qx-HRLiz_DyvFzQvA2YA-RCWlKTxgcYNeX1YBHlZdr1CEsEDeiFVRwzcuycbeQuVKf8Enzkh0vX6w4/s320/Antonia.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Miranda’s music professor, </span><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1047602/?ref_=tt_cl_t9"><b><span style="color: blue;">Ian Robertson</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrqYC76UcZ2DcdVQ-_i8hY01hpDXc357cOfiypy_jjtZL-p9aTgBKfdQG-WaPfjvqTs7rV44UHp9D-VnUk6zJnpVuyUwlvdI0fdbxFwJQfpx_UaJIjShTAlBZfLWMBgejQpumzq-XbWFs/s1600/%2521z.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrqYC76UcZ2DcdVQ-_i8hY01hpDXc357cOfiypy_jjtZL-p9aTgBKfdQG-WaPfjvqTs7rV44UHp9D-VnUk6zJnpVuyUwlvdI0fdbxFwJQfpx_UaJIjShTAlBZfLWMBgejQpumzq-XbWFs/s320/%2521z.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Miranda's priest and substitute father, </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3378394/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><b><span style="color: blue;">Christos Sougaris</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0oKwxzInjhaFkcmD584Feay9E8QVK0e_5RSB3vcQsexjTgDzOzB4_94YNrUhI0VMvxtODPTSgMjpoBVZ8i_lRSpQJJe8Q0vdJuo7DEtxBh_hbPPa7zMxcVBEizyAja3cPEWkC1LpHPDg/s1600/Christos+Sougaris.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="311" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0oKwxzInjhaFkcmD584Feay9E8QVK0e_5RSB3vcQsexjTgDzOzB4_94YNrUhI0VMvxtODPTSgMjpoBVZ8i_lRSpQJJe8Q0vdJuo7DEtxBh_hbPPa7zMxcVBEizyAja3cPEWkC1LpHPDg/s320/Christos+Sougaris.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Rich German tourist, </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3146043/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1"><b><span style="color: blue;">Adrian Frieling</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfoBgNANquqx5IH44MeLhm4kwXqDZFkVWKZm8Fpl8t89vjHG-ULZc2ROrnNBDf_HoJ4n-RZb02YJbZM7auesLCp4wWD49L4-C6Ap_FSiQ8c2PoqUFLf48iXdQe6D9Vx6UcHJfq9-DGIZI/s1600/%2521q.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfoBgNANquqx5IH44MeLhm4kwXqDZFkVWKZm8Fpl8t89vjHG-ULZc2ROrnNBDf_HoJ4n-RZb02YJbZM7auesLCp4wWD49L4-C6Ap_FSiQ8c2PoqUFLf48iXdQe6D9Vx6UcHJfq9-DGIZI/s320/%2521q.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Lady with a purse, </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2779411/?ref_=nv_sr_1"><b><span style="color: blue;">Sofia Mantzakou</span></b></a><span style="color: #222222;">.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKkUSzADzelinp0r8L7GqBV69Etp-dJ78w9Tz6kBuEYS8yfLTUgRU1-EHP-JEqYxj149bnloX453hobSM8BxrVd7NYLBg7Ou8OYwrGpAZIfHqV8gdNXfwis-Ochyd0lgTS4o586qU7mnI/s1600/Sofia+Mantzakou.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKkUSzADzelinp0r8L7GqBV69Etp-dJ78w9Tz6kBuEYS8yfLTUgRU1-EHP-JEqYxj149bnloX453hobSM8BxrVd7NYLBg7Ou8OYwrGpAZIfHqV8gdNXfwis-Ochyd0lgTS4o586qU7mnI/s320/Sofia+Mantzakou.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Our first scene winks at the opening of Samuel Fuller’s masterpiece </span><i>Pickup On South Street</i><i>.</i><span> </span></span></div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEPAwEbkQa87VT6XFRqmjEt-eMuF61-DEET-DQDXFdLKt3UEVxilprxjirW5e3cNlF9QnQG4_Dl45QvvxlphQI5SzTAJPLGUz56W1v1GdAnrUWzzZ1FKwRoYBoV8c35xqkNBt_bD76rUg/s1600/pickup2.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEPAwEbkQa87VT6XFRqmjEt-eMuF61-DEET-DQDXFdLKt3UEVxilprxjirW5e3cNlF9QnQG4_Dl45QvvxlphQI5SzTAJPLGUz56W1v1GdAnrUWzzZ1FKwRoYBoV8c35xqkNBt_bD76rUg/s1600/pickup2.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5NgPlv3-PFJGriTznVIlRhsu6VaLMqhYL7ABRdYzyqIcU6aqHCyASG1ByfjOOoat63oCraLwd9GgzHmrdUCznxW6a0-DwZbJwts2WpIwFtXNRdgn6dPrFemL5yfKuogl1A2_-z5izp9w/s1600/Pickup.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5NgPlv3-PFJGriTznVIlRhsu6VaLMqhYL7ABRdYzyqIcU6aqHCyASG1ByfjOOoat63oCraLwd9GgzHmrdUCznxW6a0-DwZbJwts2WpIwFtXNRdgn6dPrFemL5yfKuogl1A2_-z5izp9w/s1600/Pickup.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span lang="EN-US">But let’s get back to ours. Director: Robert MacLean</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1T-UP9d8uwXAmv3ymDVTS52ZuvkECRBA8Rmy40ppbXoW5_6j0HcSmjoWHclYGUHU6iynQuO-yxd4sZqfYLhZR04kR4H5SjT4GzXy9RdhnxrbhNxCDBxFdV3xRcvm6le65cSmBlVwwKi4/s1600/%2521p.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="960" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1T-UP9d8uwXAmv3ymDVTS52ZuvkECRBA8Rmy40ppbXoW5_6j0HcSmjoWHclYGUHU6iynQuO-yxd4sZqfYLhZR04kR4H5SjT4GzXy9RdhnxrbhNxCDBxFdV3xRcvm6le65cSmBlVwwKi4/s320/%2521p.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span lang="EN-US">Executive Producer: </span><span>Claudio Castravelli</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvfJwl-_a1avZc4MGE3kzu76J6dglPiTLNfmB4C5YpV6L89p8onIuDJLLShguTjejr-gyzSpwjrrODCW4271X4oLVysm1K3EDKdur_AYWR8hOYkEciQq6Se1_azFUDZxvRyORgJDfLA4I/s1600/Claudio1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="438" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvfJwl-_a1avZc4MGE3kzu76J6dglPiTLNfmB4C5YpV6L89p8onIuDJLLShguTjejr-gyzSpwjrrODCW4271X4oLVysm1K3EDKdur_AYWR8hOYkEciQq6Se1_azFUDZxvRyORgJDfLA4I/s400/Claudio1.jpg" width="331" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Producer: Ioanna Kiourti</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuE3r9KW1sfMkJfVYzCztqklDS23kTtU7CRudB6Gh3Q94mTZwcERqEJ-yc_u8SCLXnFNCEd_4ix2antw_cub6UWhnNFZLqcD5C_NQvmiDh6L1I7Q8ATyGPAictVpUZm98LpTuBLsq1Wb0/s1600/Ioanna.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="720" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuE3r9KW1sfMkJfVYzCztqklDS23kTtU7CRudB6Gh3Q94mTZwcERqEJ-yc_u8SCLXnFNCEd_4ix2antw_cub6UWhnNFZLqcD5C_NQvmiDh6L1I7Q8ATyGPAictVpUZm98LpTuBLsq1Wb0/s320/Ioanna.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Cinematographer: Panos Golfis</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7pecFi2CShzpSKtO0K5ogEBkLe_QhP4jPC3N-1xiScfKQw58xyMZkqLstNmLiVciJj5lOrnufKMPJxFNOfIxqys_aDkeSu8btIojMLwSuXvn73oAj2TjbbBiJErkJlrggubhczOnxD3s/s1600/Panos.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="960" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7pecFi2CShzpSKtO0K5ogEBkLe_QhP4jPC3N-1xiScfKQw58xyMZkqLstNmLiVciJj5lOrnufKMPJxFNOfIxqys_aDkeSu8btIojMLwSuXvn73oAj2TjbbBiJErkJlrggubhczOnxD3s/s320/Panos.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Grip: Georgios Sideris</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5KWGVz43esA1_Y30q7wl78FQyblWxNK3sejQdUcsiv5Pjo07lRbXD91ttt-UISr0MD0RTpBxvyyd8KF9R7lD0wYDBPOKiPD17j1Tb8PBbzGedRPJLIuJwLSr4jvLC3bA0C3ioUng-tw/s1600/Georgios+Sideris.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ5KWGVz43esA1_Y30q7wl78FQyblWxNK3sejQdUcsiv5Pjo07lRbXD91ttt-UISr0MD0RTpBxvyyd8KF9R7lD0wYDBPOKiPD17j1Tb8PBbzGedRPJLIuJwLSr4jvLC3bA0C3ioUng-tw/s320/Georgios+Sideris.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Film editor: Apostolos Tsitsonis</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYLOTI4Q_iUe8sGc6ASef6xj2anoYlUxHAMeck4gP9wMKCenUfguY2ft53lLJsBM5ivAVnxC-dGkcS_sOldcmxyu8hrGYeVn9rMavNQjaZVlxQcPoP2_L09WUbMoXVa5TgHHMC-1jWsYk/s1600/Apostolos.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYLOTI4Q_iUe8sGc6ASef6xj2anoYlUxHAMeck4gP9wMKCenUfguY2ft53lLJsBM5ivAVnxC-dGkcS_sOldcmxyu8hrGYeVn9rMavNQjaZVlxQcPoP2_L09WUbMoXVa5TgHHMC-1jWsYk/s320/Apostolos.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Continuity: Stella Aggelidou</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8xQoz_VcCFmgRO_XYyt1JkRfrtTeDX-vmxLwa4IoPghdm-JHe2Ty14spU1S781X03p2sNYfhepNjrF26w7R03ZrmXlIQrVYPSbQqHv_mmRZl4Zal1WRX7ve5PKzzrSO4Lm4Qjjc7QPio/s1600/Stella+Aggelidou.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8xQoz_VcCFmgRO_XYyt1JkRfrtTeDX-vmxLwa4IoPghdm-JHe2Ty14spU1S781X03p2sNYfhepNjrF26w7R03ZrmXlIQrVYPSbQqHv_mmRZl4Zal1WRX7ve5PKzzrSO4Lm4Qjjc7QPio/s320/Stella+Aggelidou.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Make-up: Maro Kokkoni</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMirEoRwckz5VQry2S32ks3wCCk9u0Q5BDzRnawzZguVX4UsbDNG_xHtIZh16bDlDLvU0rLazFzPOfq1xUbqbclCOdC4Ek9pAS4-7wxl2L5K6jJ2NjcrjTVhwjywvND8LGaeNT0y44bbQ/s1600/Maro+Kokkoni.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="721" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMirEoRwckz5VQry2S32ks3wCCk9u0Q5BDzRnawzZguVX4UsbDNG_xHtIZh16bDlDLvU0rLazFzPOfq1xUbqbclCOdC4Ek9pAS4-7wxl2L5K6jJ2NjcrjTVhwjywvND8LGaeNT0y44bbQ/s320/Maro+Kokkoni.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Executive producer: Angelika Lialios</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizNxq99DFi_aZB1Aq7VPQXKHA3r_ZIUmnBjZ2N5KG1SCKajoRhUiLlM1nfyH9f3M7C2Qy-fRk6BTM1WrNRPqyIFdrG4P1uStAJsFz3gWC031HnzMCPMxO8JerxOsj8MSALHwxj9IoYwR8/s1600/Angelika+Lialios.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="959" data-original-width="960" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizNxq99DFi_aZB1Aq7VPQXKHA3r_ZIUmnBjZ2N5KG1SCKajoRhUiLlM1nfyH9f3M7C2Qy-fRk6BTM1WrNRPqyIFdrG4P1uStAJsFz3gWC031HnzMCPMxO8JerxOsj8MSALHwxj9IoYwR8/s320/Angelika+Lialios.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Music: Kanaris Keramaris, original score,</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbDUXX8KcLDMpa5QTPr3r0bltJDuUNM7FE9C_NVx0hf-aPtXp-KUYsLvGob9QziqU0pxWjxPiQJnOLp-pkzIZkEj2UlJVdmIwFB7S_qwq2l1J_08le_9fPxlf08vIfLN5VjihyphenhyphenHXWqP7o/s1600/Kanaris+Keramaris.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="747" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbDUXX8KcLDMpa5QTPr3r0bltJDuUNM7FE9C_NVx0hf-aPtXp-KUYsLvGob9QziqU0pxWjxPiQJnOLp-pkzIZkEj2UlJVdmIwFB7S_qwq2l1J_08le_9fPxlf08vIfLN5VjihyphenhyphenHXWqP7o/s320/Kanaris+Keramaris.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">plus the Muchatrela Band,</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAhyphenhyphen_oPnyHj1IZ30g2Rx1eqBNtqXq1RJPHWsJCNySYWBk2zb_QjJ6LcinmKg3idjMFvMbCTtXtFcECnF8AgR6y2t2WczC8TMDGIiM_v2tNd4JEl05pWWDQaxQbTY-eE1XrEPcj70fEzCE/s1600/Muchatrela-Band_15_2014-300x198.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="198" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAhyphenhyphen_oPnyHj1IZ30g2Rx1eqBNtqXq1RJPHWsJCNySYWBk2zb_QjJ6LcinmKg3idjMFvMbCTtXtFcECnF8AgR6y2t2WczC8TMDGIiM_v2tNd4JEl05pWWDQaxQbTY-eE1XrEPcj70fEzCE/s1600/Muchatrela-Band_15_2014-300x198.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
the Antonis Arfanis Trio,</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibf9SX0WIdUtZSR2gqpaFHAfYTyIGeQiCQ74Zo3IntAg52IxWowl_DpUsGIp9ePRL2HNmAV18ZNCSkkVjjXNPz9DIZ1dv5QPtqTwxtwzTxH3hMQzq3QKfFFcfgCWVQH8QRb-LrxkCjHGk/s1600/Antonis+Arfanis.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibf9SX0WIdUtZSR2gqpaFHAfYTyIGeQiCQ74Zo3IntAg52IxWowl_DpUsGIp9ePRL2HNmAV18ZNCSkkVjjXNPz9DIZ1dv5QPtqTwxtwzTxH3hMQzq3QKfFFcfgCWVQH8QRb-LrxkCjHGk/s320/Antonis+Arfanis.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Jusu Foli,</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtArVwhfm7qtlBVKdJXcR4Buhb6166814KTPJin562uttvhjYfYjz8_XL0q6x2N7Jz9YX4-62rl0xXW93_EKS2SRxxKuiIhDh4-pKQRcXrSZoyyCyI0C6VWK5SbDQvcYrQMvLDV1O6g14/s1600/Jusu+Foli.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="500" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtArVwhfm7qtlBVKdJXcR4Buhb6166814KTPJin562uttvhjYfYjz8_XL0q6x2N7Jz9YX4-62rl0xXW93_EKS2SRxxKuiIhDh4-pKQRcXrSZoyyCyI0C6VWK5SbDQvcYrQMvLDV1O6g14/s320/Jusu+Foli.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
and Frédéric Chopin.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiro6YIxu5w5JJBDUVnZqgVZZ0qgo_udoz-r6O9w7s9zwRU6iYu-VzAnbUW3Noe8_azXyGYUM8hxJwiBqVwq1QPuimBSn5nzAhyphenhyphendK8SVuZJHb0VkN1Kup8B6AA9WtOhgsitZfXZ7lpDSs0/s1600/Chopin.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiro6YIxu5w5JJBDUVnZqgVZZ0qgo_udoz-r6O9w7s9zwRU6iYu-VzAnbUW3Noe8_azXyGYUM8hxJwiBqVwq1QPuimBSn5nzAhyphenhyphendK8SVuZJHb0VkN1Kup8B6AA9WtOhgsitZfXZ7lpDSs0/s320/Chopin.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD94pKFELiCM3CcpSkEDam4Mz1Ytsxdd22n5jHVnXCdrnNq16lYCG3Ig1_ZE4nkOEfmjKrgm1lBUfQ1AMPx-oPbjvuv1gGGLTiaWAXDrmF-J3F5fmCkFFXMAU4b0ojKEN4LdTeIEEq7C8/s1600/Tess1.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD94pKFELiCM3CcpSkEDam4Mz1Ytsxdd22n5jHVnXCdrnNq16lYCG3Ig1_ZE4nkOEfmjKrgm1lBUfQ1AMPx-oPbjvuv1gGGLTiaWAXDrmF-J3F5fmCkFFXMAU4b0ojKEN4LdTeIEEq7C8/s320/Tess1.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiO9OUpn8kZVQmm-JcYjnSq5IUjVvcHZGrWvtIaajO5P28PTXGXPK0u-sDDYRY4OxF1tQEYyASa47HA3fWjfvoMwvyj6E_c70GvYZ5CK_Pwo3fQl5hWo1pAE5bUWK5aLcNXDiTsak86TM/s1600/Sk9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiO9OUpn8kZVQmm-JcYjnSq5IUjVvcHZGrWvtIaajO5P28PTXGXPK0u-sDDYRY4OxF1tQEYyASa47HA3fWjfvoMwvyj6E_c70GvYZ5CK_Pwo3fQl5hWo1pAE5bUWK5aLcNXDiTsak86TM/s320/Sk9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp6dPaeVGYjkNRAR165ZkJNIgG6ocI3NFtTTlcQDJOSb6tJJ0718-lEn3zwjuIN4xKbEBjhZ85EZUNzFZc13uDZobPYNb9IhBF09Kn1mTR5rSjqjLM7bIKDn9oQT5RXXXXIlMIxXc0qaA/s1600/Akti.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="497" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp6dPaeVGYjkNRAR165ZkJNIgG6ocI3NFtTTlcQDJOSb6tJJ0718-lEn3zwjuIN4xKbEBjhZ85EZUNzFZc13uDZobPYNb9IhBF09Kn1mTR5rSjqjLM7bIKDn9oQT5RXXXXIlMIxXc0qaA/s320/Akti.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7MdI8OAQMBW9BiR0amHajnB3hvPAf38qXj2H9BFs-Uz9hAAuCRx003qdiX-YYT8_zfal65uKfyfu2Q7FgnIwhuE3N205rzEXryi6Duo-5v6K0aEhkVoVxpwjKSxWRd1vnYABzEXSd1tU/s1600/Dunc1.jpg" style="font-size: 17.6px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="960" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7MdI8OAQMBW9BiR0amHajnB3hvPAf38qXj2H9BFs-Uz9hAAuCRx003qdiX-YYT8_zfal65uKfyfu2Q7FgnIwhuE3N205rzEXryi6Duo-5v6K0aEhkVoVxpwjKSxWRd1vnYABzEXSd1tU/s320/Dunc1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAR-dfuGeaNDwmCnNAufBKyP5NZ66L7ohGZ9Rn8C6IXdNFOWvjjnKA3XVjextTp6ybApr56RE2WSpoRecJIQ_LVjHpEg0lnfp1NYUNVonekBvoGTv9zvePH7DTnlA2krJSjk8BHHOKaU/s1600/Sk6.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAR-dfuGeaNDwmCnNAufBKyP5NZ66L7ohGZ9Rn8C6IXdNFOWvjjnKA3XVjextTp6ybApr56RE2WSpoRecJIQ_LVjHpEg0lnfp1NYUNVonekBvoGTv9zvePH7DTnlA2krJSjk8BHHOKaU/s320/Sk6.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi67od967x9paJ233nyMfuhOJqx38L08Q1vt67RopUCCYTM1qs9wVLpXFlo0GbNju4mVbebeTE19kievMbtKpkQZsklC0tpwJHkMP4VJWmMweEQ-6CvfmX8SQao-xRcimDZMOuaxt4WmPo/s1600/%2521l.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi67od967x9paJ233nyMfuhOJqx38L08Q1vt67RopUCCYTM1qs9wVLpXFlo0GbNju4mVbebeTE19kievMbtKpkQZsklC0tpwJHkMP4VJWmMweEQ-6CvfmX8SQao-xRcimDZMOuaxt4WmPo/s320/%2521l.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyMeivHXqIjfo7LB00r7Bgi-Mt3nd_D0hkScB1DeVRgcz0NACWwjljRLiCr7FF27RgSPse5tmI4bISvxHlsXVP56qH9YflPotCtIh802aEzDuy1F6TE8LlctMBd1ARNr8ga761i0jNNB4/s1600/Desp6.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyMeivHXqIjfo7LB00r7Bgi-Mt3nd_D0hkScB1DeVRgcz0NACWwjljRLiCr7FF27RgSPse5tmI4bISvxHlsXVP56qH9YflPotCtIh802aEzDuy1F6TE8LlctMBd1ARNr8ga761i0jNNB4/s320/Desp6.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhReqEQCyT5BLhhhFHsozLTFnYAO7fs2bLKkaBJkPEi28h0yA_O_9JmyF0cBlY1A3NgfdLg3R0glShoc2vZV4vjdavYHXnP-u4Cw8LBd6RmsOYNgNc7Ab56HAC9MPcR-20seFSb45io0tw/s1600/%2521h.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="933" data-original-width="1600" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhReqEQCyT5BLhhhFHsozLTFnYAO7fs2bLKkaBJkPEi28h0yA_O_9JmyF0cBlY1A3NgfdLg3R0glShoc2vZV4vjdavYHXnP-u4Cw8LBd6RmsOYNgNc7Ab56HAC9MPcR-20seFSb45io0tw/s320/%2521h.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-90863251293875212822016-11-16T19:49:00.024+02:002023-04-19T18:28:14.896+03:00Leonard, a Memoir<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz0qriXnvg2g1CC_ErwcEwBOJMAry8tYdxPHt1I5i63MI7IVLEtsKqaJypwxTj_R408YuhFcknuKlEgbVaXoSuDGEAoFp5UPW6QSvcyqjZH4-Zpp0RJ2xycSnknRaEA4mXkv_zedvHzPo/s1600/%2521%2521%2521%25213.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz0qriXnvg2g1CC_ErwcEwBOJMAry8tYdxPHt1I5i63MI7IVLEtsKqaJypwxTj_R408YuhFcknuKlEgbVaXoSuDGEAoFp5UPW6QSvcyqjZH4-Zpp0RJ2xycSnknRaEA4mXkv_zedvHzPo/s320/%2521%2521%2521%25213.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Leonard Cohen was my mentor, my encourager and one of my favorite heroes. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
I met him when I first came to Hydra, a rock island in the Aegean where, because it bakes in the sun without much relief from trees, summer seems even hotter than in the rest of Greece.<br />
<br />
With others in the foreign community I hung out at Bill’s, a bar run by a public-school educated Englishman who, though he was a friend of Leonard’s, and though, as I later learned, Leonard had financed the enterprise (“I’ll go down to Bill’s Bar, / I can still make it that far”), didn’t care for his lugubrious music. Bill was a Django-Fred Astaire guy, and played Leonard Cohen tapes only when Leonard was around.<br />
<br />
Like so many young writers, I gave Leonard something of mine to read. He accepted it graciously, and I supposed that was the end of it, but he came in a few days later and said, “I read your piece—which I fully intended to ignore—and got so involved that I couldn’t leave it to take a piss, and I really had to piss!”<br />
<br />
What a charmer. The island opened its arms to me, I spent more and more time on it, and lived there for a few years. Eventually I ran out of money and moved into Athens to teach at the American College, but that’s another story. For me Hydra represents Paradise, not least because it was a sexual romp. Those were days before the new diseases, and the new Victorianism, and it was copulation on an Olympic scale. One did stretching exercises between encounters, and had (as the Americans say) “multiple” partners each day.<br />
<br />
Ah, yes.<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCOieGk6PWYKh9550LGKu6rJKS4XT8rX3Vi8-0mz7NaHxosQUTx3DVMLgcR74ajxCQ9NjqqEEBajMdQnrBtxSrw7CJZgJCdlM8MJZNj6jVHvra8dP1IukuxOappK9QH8-M3ravkbB_n0/s1600/%2521%2521%2521%252110.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUCOieGk6PWYKh9550LGKu6rJKS4XT8rX3Vi8-0mz7NaHxosQUTx3DVMLgcR74ajxCQ9NjqqEEBajMdQnrBtxSrw7CJZgJCdlM8MJZNj6jVHvra8dP1IukuxOappK9QH8-M3ravkbB_n0/s400/%2521%2521%2521%252110.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">A no-car island</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-large;">
And of course, Leonard was the poet of the orgiastic. His achievement, in so much of his work, is to treat bare lust with wistful tenderness.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
We took ourselves to someone’s bed,<br />
And there we fell together.<br />
Quick as dogs, and truly dead were we—<br />
And free as running water…<br />
The way it’s got to be, my lover.<br />
<br />
Having so many ladies raises the problem how to say good-bye, his central theme. He remarks in <i>The Favourite Game</i> that John Donne’s poem of farewell, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” is the very essence of poetry. “Hey, that’s no way to say good-bye.” Leonard said a lot of them. For him it was a sin not to:<br />
<br />
But I lingered on her thighs a fatal moment.<br />
I kissed her lips as though I hungered still.<br />
My falsity, it stung me like a hornet.<br />
The poison sank and it paralyzed my will.<br />
<br />
—“will” in the Elizabethan sense, as in “willy,” as in Will shaking his big spear.<br />
<br />
And then leaning on your window sill<br />
He'll say one day you caused his will<br />
To weaken with your love and warmth and shelter.<br />
<br />
One late night at Bill’s he told me the story of “What Does a Woman Want,” which I have tried to reproduce <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2010/06/what-does-woman-want.html"><b>here</b></a> as closely as possible in his style of phrasing.<br />
<br />
I went to see him when he was preparing to leave the island in his costume of choice at the time, dark gray suit, T-shirt and black cowboy boots. The suit had suffered some stains and he was touching it up with Magic Marker. “They’ll never <i>get </i>me,” he said, giving me his wicked smile.<br />
</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK_FWmDV066DdPgQBONY1qm7SC4goOgdb3zUf1vCqiwiV3i3qMyu5trGZBJLcgcVhVj-fw0lLWrVnT8a3Ef6zlVBixPfs23ghLjTb3zixc5dRFc3npTnKt8s7AC2dpvdpT853CDNnRyMY/s1600/%2521%2521%2521%25215.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK_FWmDV066DdPgQBONY1qm7SC4goOgdb3zUf1vCqiwiV3i3qMyu5trGZBJLcgcVhVj-fw0lLWrVnT8a3Ef6zlVBixPfs23ghLjTb3zixc5dRFc3npTnKt8s7AC2dpvdpT853CDNnRyMY/s320/%2521%2521%2521%25215.jpg" width="206" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Marianne bathing on The Rock</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Shall I tell you what he was? He was gorgeous. (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2013/11/gorgeousness.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Gorgeousness</span></b></a>.) Not that he thought so. One of his poems speaks of hours in the mirror. “You hide your double chin, even from yourself.” At his tryst with Janis Joplin,</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
You told me again you preferred handsome men<br />
but for me you would make an exception.<br />
And clenching your fist for the ones like us<br />
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,<br />
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,<br />
we are ugly but we have the music."<br />
<br />
But he was an undaunted man of action. That’s one reason he admired Hemingway:<br />
<br />
The judges said you missed it by a fraction.<br />
Rise up and brace yourself for the attack.<br />
The dreamers ride against the men of action.<br />
Oh, see the men of action falling back.<br />
<br />
I love Hemingway too (see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/09/hemingway-for-wimps.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Hemingway for Wimps</span></b></a>), and Leonard, and action, but my own models were dreamers like Fellini (see<a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2012/12/fellini.html"> <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Fellini</span></b></a>), Robbe-Grillet and Bunuel, not to mention Shakespeare, in whose sea we all swim—adapted, of course, to my <b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/02/girl-with-onre-shoe.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">musical-comedy mind</span></a></b>. I'm too impressionable to have <i>any</i> state of mind for more than a few minutes, but that's my default setting.<br />
<br />
Leonard constantly assured me I was going to “hit” (I’m still waiting, Leonard), and I wish I could claim <i>him</i> as an influence. But we were playing different games, and he didn’t altogether approve of mine, which involved frivolity and laughter and <i>je-m'en-foutisme</i>. Though he could be extremely funny himself, in person <i>and</i> in print (<i>Beautiful Losers</i> is a great comic novel), he had a grain of seriousness in him that looked askance at the purely comic.<br />
<br />
Whence the seriousness? For one thing this Orthodox Jewish boy had fallen in love with the Catholicism of his beloved Montreal, all those plastic virgins on taxi dashboards. <i>Rue Sainte-Catherine</i> is the main east-west street there, and <i>Beautiful Losers</i> is about the Indian saint we suppose it's named after, Kateri Tekakwitha, and the Jesuits. “Homage to the Jesuits” he says, and their “thirst for souls.”<br />
<br />
This was Leonard’s thirst too. World domination was his passion. He wanted <i>all</i> the women, <i>all</i> the fans. He idolized Jesus for that reason, and he idolized Hitler. Oh, yeah. His early book of poems, <i>Flowers for Hitler</i>, goes some way to humanize the Führer. And when the lovers in <i>Beautiful Losers </i>go to Rio, they find him in their beach hotel working as a waiter.<br />
<br />
(Which reminds me, his favorite actor was Dirk Bogarde. One thinks of <i>The Night Porter</i>.)<br />
<br />
“I was born with the gift of a golden voice.” He’s not talking about his <i>voice</i> voice, though well he might—it’s a superb instrument. He’s talking about his power as a poet. “My voice,” he says in one of his poems, “is in you like a hook.”<br />
<br />
A mutual friend met him walking down Fifth Avenue just after the Wall came down, and said, “Isn’t it great?” “Of course it is! My song did it!” He took Berlin.<br />
<br />
On the island, though, he was sweet, modest, polite. Good manners were his style.<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7LSB9pC7zVcI1UVsdhAY8TMoZ9okbI6Kfx_xQRQNTouogHFFhMh2IolmI2YYrCuLBDwT9Puy79otf4OBZ6TPsKIuGpz18pJZNQNR6voiOFWTmfe87_1jdy-VJHIbP_Y85Umnuua7Ains/s1600/%2521%2521%2521%25217.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7LSB9pC7zVcI1UVsdhAY8TMoZ9okbI6Kfx_xQRQNTouogHFFhMh2IolmI2YYrCuLBDwT9Puy79otf4OBZ6TPsKIuGpz18pJZNQNR6voiOFWTmfe87_1jdy-VJHIbP_Y85Umnuua7Ains/s320/%2521%2521%2521%25217.JPG" width="212" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Donkeyshit Lane, coming down from Leonard's place: "Our steps will always rhyme."</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
The second source of his seriousness was his scholarly, almost his rabbinical Jewishness. For a brief time he was an Israeli soldier, and saw action. He shocked me, and I let him know it, when he spoke in favor of vengeful bloodletting in Lebanon. Never fond of Islam, he yet had a grudging respect for the Muslim habit of covering their women. “They know that’s all we think about.”</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
In a late poem he speaks to himself (he’s always speaking to himself) of an insect on his table: “It pleased you not to want to want to kill it.” The “pleased you” is self-mocking; the usual thing is to crush the little fuckers. But then we hear God talking: <i>You</i> are the insect, “so busy in the light of my eyes,” and the “pleased you” resounds as a prayer—May it please you, my Lord—to himself.<br />
<br />
He has a wonderful way of pivoting on a word like that:<br />
<br />
Thanks for the trouble you took<br />
From her eyes.<br />
<br />
His album title, <i>Various Positions</i> (I saw it for the first time in a Tel Aviv shop window) made me laugh out loud.<br />
<br />
The third source of his seriousness was depression, which plagued him all his life, for which he was on prescription drugs, and which was the source of some of his best work. “Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows.” He could get way down.<br />
</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Ia4K8JfG_BU_kW_kGWLv0KkCOyROEoJLWbpfEhLjBEUo21LxXQfg65qtlCsW5zD13RCpdN3PmftegRXjGZnBs820ytl6udgmd51yP4nYTb6Hr7ziPTcdWYlQO0FyVhZwIBYV3uEX4_w/s1600/%2521%2521%2521%25211.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Ia4K8JfG_BU_kW_kGWLv0KkCOyROEoJLWbpfEhLjBEUo21LxXQfg65qtlCsW5zD13RCpdN3PmftegRXjGZnBs820ytl6udgmd51yP4nYTb6Hr7ziPTcdWYlQO0FyVhZwIBYV3uEX4_w/s1600/%2521%2521%2521%25211.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With Suzanne, not the one in the song, but the mother of his children. L suspected she had family in the Jewish mafia, which tickled him.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
When I showed him <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Corpses-Robert-MacLean-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Mortal Coil</span></b></a></i>, he didn’t entirely approve of a book that made fun of death and the dead. “I understand the position,” he allowed—but then came up with a line from near the end of the book (he always read them through, bless him) that amused him: “Don’t worry about photographs of yourself. You don’t look like that.” This matched his taste for directness and simplicity.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
He told me once that the ten commandments as they’re written in Deuteronomy have nothing of the formal Thou-shalt-not about them, but are simple colloquial speech: Don’t do that. This is how you reach people, with simple language and simple experiences—sex, God, doing the dishes. Leonard used his intellectual gifts to <i>be</i> pop culture. <i>Beautiful Losers</i> is a <i>submission</i> to pop culture as a spiritual discipline, Ray Charles running his fingers down a cosmic keyboard at the climax.<br />
<br />
Leonard wanted to reach <i>everybody</i>. He wanted, as who does not, to be God—and was determined to make good on it. What state of mind is a man in who names his son Adam?<br />
<br />
(When his kids came to visit, he was helpless with them. He gave Adam, who was then a scrappy twelve-year-old, <i>Mortal Coil</i>, presumably to keep him occupied. “I like the ‘jokers,’” Adam told me—the name my undertaker calls the corpses. Lorca, two years younger, threw tantrums and threatened to kill herself—not because of my book. Leonard approached her with desperate caution: “Hi, darling!”)<br />
<br />
He consulted a fortune-teller once, a palmist, who told him he was going to lose all his money. Here Leonard did influence me: he went into detail about the experience—inking the palms, recording the experience—that I used in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-Comedy-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The President’s Palm Reader</span></b></a></i>. Decades later Leonard did lose all his money; his assistant in LA cleaned out his bank account and absconded—who knows where she is now?—forcing him to go on tour again. “It would be funny,” he said, “if it happened to somebody else.”<br />
<br />
The palmist told him, “You will always be moving between the monastery and the brothel,” and yes, from beginning to end, that was Leonard. In <i>The Favourite Game</i> his teenage alter ego, on discovering sex, looks down from Westmount at the morning city and wonders why anybody’s going to work.<br />
</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkS8HsoagBHPaQ8EiY3i1xANxWbgSTH_GMjuT979hobM4bKrWHRjtvAf8XS4SVeM01dyJ_M6Z6dq-DLeNrND7WwidOEXMSQ82Sw7TlQ_R95N9JKMfXaxlSTNj8jXNizOlHlaw9g5LXJLM/s1600/%2521%2521%2521%25218.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkS8HsoagBHPaQ8EiY3i1xANxWbgSTH_GMjuT979hobM4bKrWHRjtvAf8XS4SVeM01dyJ_M6Z6dq-DLeNrND7WwidOEXMSQ82Sw7TlQ_R95N9JKMfXaxlSTNj8jXNizOlHlaw9g5LXJLM/s320/%2521%2521%2521%25218.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">My street</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
He declares, in a poem of later years, but in prose, that the image of a naked woman appears to the average middle-aged man every fifteen seconds. “Where did you get that?” I said. “From Masters and Johnson.” Nietzsche, the Bible, Masters and Johnson—and much more, of course, but these were on his mind.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
And he was the hero of the sexual impulse right down to the end: “I was just a tourist in your bed, looking at the view.” What are we going to do without him to defend us against the new puritanism?<br />
<br />
We stayed in touch via the posts and film reviews I email to my list of people.<br />
<br />
Blog is great.<br />
Just wanted to join the applause.<br />
<br />
About <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><i>Woman in Gold</i> and Helen Mirren’s Body</span></b></a>:<br />
<br />
Great work, bro<br />
The whole 9 yards<br />
L<br />
<br />
Last I heard from him, he said (in verse form, naturally):<br />
<br />
the old vehicle has sprung a few leaks<br />
in and out of the shop these days<br />
not much use on the road<br />
<br />
That was June last year. I checked in a few weeks ago and didn’t get an answer. Now I know why.<br />
<br />
He won some prizes. The Governor General’s Award he didn’t accept. To my private relief he wasn’t offered the Nobel for Literature, which is a guarantee of mediocrity—and something of a consolation prize. Faulkner won because he just wasn’t Joyce. (The poor judges, what would they have done if they’d had to read Joyce? Faulkner they had in translation, but how do you translate Joyce?) Beckett won because he just wasn’t Kafka. And Dylan won because he just isn’t Leonard.<br />
<br />
His best friend on Hydra was George L, who looked like the president of the world. First time I met him I said, “So, George, what do you do?” He said, “Well, Bob, I don’t do anything.” Hah! I loved him. I wrote a <i>roman-à-clef</i> about him, and about the island (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Island-Murder-Robert-MacLean-ebook/dp/B008CIN7VQ/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">here it is</span></b></a>), in which he’s murdered. Somebody came across him reading it in a café. He said, “I’m trying to find out how I die.” Now he knows—he’s gone too. His daughter’s an actress, though, and I’m <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/picasso.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">making a movie with her</span></b></a>.<br />
<br />
Let me finish with a long-ago poem I wrote about Leonard:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aAL06mdvHNY" width="320" youtube-src-id="aAL06mdvHNY"></iframe></div>
Here is my plaster statue<br />
Of Leonard Conen,<br />
Best thing groanin.<br />
His spirit is off<br />
Being true to itself<br />
Or possibly trying to renew itself<br />
While here in the silence<br />
I bow my head in homage<br />
To what I have briefly become<br />
To see if I could use,<br />
And muse.<br />
<br />
Monkish whorer<br />
I loved your contradictions.<br />
So purely you burn<br />
For fifteen-old girls<br />
(How can I live in the world with your exploits?),<br />
So neatly fold yourself<br />
Into your disciplines.<br />
Everything is a discipline,<br />
It's tiresome<br />
And I don't care for purity.<br />
<br />
Doubting psalmist,<br />
Failed saint,<br />
Rabbinical Jesuit<br />
Hearing your own confession<br />
(There can little interfere<br />
Between your mouth and your ear),<br />
Behind each a clinical depression.<br />
Fearer and trembler,<br />
Comforter of puberty,<br />
The bride still unravished,<br />
The song less new.<br />
<br />
Hitler groupie<br />
(Who else believed you?),<br />
Israeli warrior,<br />
Meditator,<br />
Partisan hater,<br />
Priest of pop liturgy<br />
Praying for power and<br />
The Arab veil,<br />
The preferred fate for your sister.<br />
Chemistry-set tradition-monger,<br />
Star without capped teeth.<br />
Interesting, if fetal.<br />
<br />
Aspirant slave<br />
Who would bribe exaltation,<br />
The soul's, the body's,<br />
With prostration—<br />
It falls off me.<br />
<br />
I prefer not to grovel<br />
Unless at gunpoint<br />
Or its equivalent.<br />
No doubt I'll learn.<br />
<br />
Retreat meanwhile<br />
To an uncandled niche<br />
In the cathedral,<br />
Bleed in the dark<br />
Like my mother,<br />
Quietly reproach my arrogance<br />
When some whim<br />
Brings me in<br />
From the glaring street<br />
For cool incensed air<br />
And a friendly ceiling,<br />
A ten-minute tourist of your pain.<br />
<br />
(For more such in-depth literary criticism, see <i><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2010/08/nobody-left-to-read-i.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Nobody Left to Read</span></b></a></i>.)<br />
<br />
Leonard's response to the poem was to lend me money. Which I never repaid. I hope he’s someplace where he doesn’t need it.</span><div style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 24.64px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></span></div></div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-87630531663762890182016-08-11T21:50:00.004+03:002022-02-22T20:37:42.433+02:00Pleasure in Paris<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg55MM8vs-70XPIE3lFBKbzHpveoiCaWMosxzAYpwDX8VPPhFGlm9HLJyenVjifa8omTgvoJX_yngEsbxYjP1fYTD0PEBi2wwahWg23Gddhz7o6uQDURNhj62YIi47n12xKZm1NPAoYVqI/s1600/%2521%2521%25213.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg55MM8vs-70XPIE3lFBKbzHpveoiCaWMosxzAYpwDX8VPPhFGlm9HLJyenVjifa8omTgvoJX_yngEsbxYjP1fYTD0PEBi2wwahWg23Gddhz7o6uQDURNhj62YIi47n12xKZm1NPAoYVqI/s320/%2521%2521%25213.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
We Anglo-Saxons have no cuisine but meat and potatoes. Cowboy food. Our one culinary contribution—and it’s not a bad one—is fish and chips. But how much fish and chips can you eat?</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
So when an Anglo gets to Paris, he trembles. (I cannot speak for the stronger sex.) Of course Greece has spoiled me for good. The olive oil. (I put olive oil on <i>everything</i>; I put it on French fries.) The garlic. The roast brains and kidneys, topped of course with olive oil. And the fruit, my God, the fruit—two meals of it a day.<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-p8Wi9NdOl1SVMpVJ4yL4VxJFrEkI_UE4fwcgc8LVe08ZRXnb0UdxJkZpFIZIg6oUECuzONpWhSEOsPQkWROZ9QHtNzkQDSHVvaUMzWbcTAudm5sEN25I4Bgk8f7_z4rLevp_RYDPEk/s1600/%2521%2521%25212.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-p8Wi9NdOl1SVMpVJ4yL4VxJFrEkI_UE4fwcgc8LVe08ZRXnb0UdxJkZpFIZIg6oUECuzONpWhSEOsPQkWROZ9QHtNzkQDSHVvaUMzWbcTAudm5sEN25I4Bgk8f7_z4rLevp_RYDPEk/s320/%2521%2521%25212.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Right now it’s fig season. Figs don’t travel, so you can’t have them unless you’re here. Royal figs, native to Attica and the islands, are unknown even in Thessaloniki, and are an ecstasy on a par with the stronger drugs. Almost certainly they were the forbidden fruit of Paradise; you can’t eat them without feeling guilty.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiWcw_D9m5OyRvwENelgTuxfGY6TjWa6QeRyW7RXLo4qHDEk9jiR8tj1UcdbmF-O2YpUyaf6yfQ0H0jBcRL1J7IfM_buRDd1ixPOeiHiE9fV256WSoFxckG9wLJ8FLFg7vWikVGTmva-4/s1600/%2521%2521%25215.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiWcw_D9m5OyRvwENelgTuxfGY6TjWa6QeRyW7RXLo4qHDEk9jiR8tj1UcdbmF-O2YpUyaf6yfQ0H0jBcRL1J7IfM_buRDd1ixPOeiHiE9fV256WSoFxckG9wLJ8FLFg7vWikVGTmva-4/s320/%2521%2521%25215.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;">
But occasionally one must interrupt one pleasure for another, and go to Paris. Which I did yesterday—in in the morning, out in the evening, scooting past potential bomb sites—for a meeting. And it was sort of a relief: from hundred-degree Athens to seventy-degree Paris. Heat is my proper habitat, but a change is nice. From sun to a dark sky: it kept threatening to rain, but it didn’t. And a chance to wear my jacket!</span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0hKiv6efufXbSja9rXmpwfkQlbwX9TTlNKGAmYXvfJStbn27B4xxFSVKJRUuqJVh0PtA73DnoU0zWJtHVT6yDLtNH70Xt076jrW81BgN3rVdVbKS1T53u8FMyKzFup6LTncpBKkdn89I/s1600/%2521%2521%25219.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0hKiv6efufXbSja9rXmpwfkQlbwX9TTlNKGAmYXvfJStbn27B4xxFSVKJRUuqJVh0PtA73DnoU0zWJtHVT6yDLtNH70Xt076jrW81BgN3rVdVbKS1T53u8FMyKzFup6LTncpBKkdn89I/s320/%2521%2521%25219.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Before the meeting I found myself in the magnificent <i>Place de Rio de Janeiro</i> and succumbed to the urge to have something at the <i>Valois</i>, across from an entrance to the <i>Parc Monceau</i>. Vistas of pleasure all around. What other city has such harmonious buildings on a human scale? Venice, I guess.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
Congratulating myself (as when do I not?), I partook of a <i>foie gras de canard mi-cuit</i> with quince and pimento—exquisite! un-uneatable!—a <i>brioche pur beurre</i> and a glass of white <i>Bourdin Samur</i> 2014 (big deal).<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP4H3RZfC8bzv7JQXcDvJtDg3Fu4TaTeIrTR7OEcLBIwRaRyUYya5hHhKSaiJbesEjwvwhsLMnS_bMOALf0ni5yp-55xRc_kPltZi4JbO3tlP4fbhM_2Dj7ikPjhJzAzVjNuxRjwvVfIc/s1600/From+the+Pont+des+Arts2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP4H3RZfC8bzv7JQXcDvJtDg3Fu4TaTeIrTR7OEcLBIwRaRyUYya5hHhKSaiJbesEjwvwhsLMnS_bMOALf0ni5yp-55xRc_kPltZi4JbO3tlP4fbhM_2Dj7ikPjhJzAzVjNuxRjwvVfIc/s400/From+the+Pont+des+Arts2.png" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">From the <i>Pont des Arts: La Seine et moi, L'Institut et moi, le Louvre et moi. "Moi, moi, moi"! Ah, oui</i>.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Then the meeting. Then the stroll along the Seine. I don’t feel like I’ve really been to Paris without the stroll along the Seine. Then to <i>Les Deux Magots</i> in <i>Saint-Germain-des-Prés</i> to rub elbows with the ghosts of Hemingway <i>et al</i> (see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/09/hemingway-for-wimps.html">Hemingway for Wimps</a>) and finish lunch.<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUOVjIvlRTppDv4gFMuiOQKEEc22NR84aDqbij44ELJjWBJCBhwXZO_8H7Y8Dh5MVbMdh44O9RBgpr-HewlgGRStibU6JVafxjwbrxd5lxXWgjyc4jhKlfhr3OiQt-rt_Uv6ptXa6GZRY/s1600/%2521%2521%252113.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUOVjIvlRTppDv4gFMuiOQKEEc22NR84aDqbij44ELJjWBJCBhwXZO_8H7Y8Dh5MVbMdh44O9RBgpr-HewlgGRStibU6JVafxjwbrxd5lxXWgjyc4jhKlfhr3OiQt-rt_Uv6ptXa6GZRY/s320/%2521%2521%252113.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Since last I was here they have renamed the adjacent pavement <i>La Place Sartre-Beauvoir</i>. We have come from the upscale to the boho. Here gather the extravagantly garbed, the extensively tattooed, and bored middle-aged intellectual women with loose wind-blown gray hair and jeans. (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2015/08/in-praise-of-older-women-iii.html">In Praise of Older Women</a>.) The <i>Quartier</i> has heroically resisted gentrification, and offers a sidewalk show of shabby artiness worthy of the struggling Wagner, the broken Wilde, <i>les clubs de bebop</i>. One feels at home, but not young. (How could one?)</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ORIi-QPpo2qYB9fag4ddO-SrK362iJ9tZkyK2D2XuDfecKMblzOR_Y1ObPtHP3UHEwxVpnTWUXfldP_YCThyQT-S29qh6b6vdrmEx-X_03vwdP7Gl5TmYca3VJCo3gXkcbG4PA7ZYHo/s1600/%2521%2521%252115.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ORIi-QPpo2qYB9fag4ddO-SrK362iJ9tZkyK2D2XuDfecKMblzOR_Y1ObPtHP3UHEwxVpnTWUXfldP_YCThyQT-S29qh6b6vdrmEx-X_03vwdP7Gl5TmYca3VJCo3gXkcbG4PA7ZYHo/s320/%2521%2521%252115.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Ah, but the food! <i>Les Deux Magots</i> comes across with <i>millefeuille de tomates et chevre frais</i>—disks of tomato, fortified by their own skins, in alternate layers with disks of <i>chevre</i>, very agreeable—as a prelude to <i>magret à l'orange</i>, orange duck breast (we started with duck; let’s stay with duck), the <i>purée maison</i> (mashed potatoes with a great deal of butter) and two glasses of <i>Bourgogne Petit Chablis</i>, big deal, but they pour you a full one at <i>Les Deux Magots</i>, which is a mark of royalty. It was a gorgeous experience. (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2013/11/gorgeousness.html">Gorgeousness</a>.)</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
In both cases the waiters were sweethearts. On the other hand, when <i>your</i> waiter goes off duty and his replacement hovers over you, you can get something more predictable. (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html">The Marquis de Sade, Father of Modern France</a>.)<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5DqC8y4fCrrlLWCccQ93FmPhM6VB4Fug8XgowzFRMvX7lFEg09Ilkl787gWsMAL-i9fLvzeTcKfv0XHkjCXAapG7_hNKsH9zYXEqmTd5mGxyRV_6V3KyBw6yHC6PSPH2mJInsy8RKhiY/s1600/%2521%2521%252117.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5DqC8y4fCrrlLWCccQ93FmPhM6VB4Fug8XgowzFRMvX7lFEg09Ilkl787gWsMAL-i9fLvzeTcKfv0XHkjCXAapG7_hNKsH9zYXEqmTd5mGxyRV_6V3KyBw6yHC6PSPH2mJInsy8RKhiY/s400/%2521%2521%252117.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
All too soon it was back to airplane food. "Just coffee, thanks. All right, I’ll have a little of that wine. OK, what is that, cream cheese? Dark bread? OK, dark bread. You know, you’re a good-looking girl. Do you act? No, you <i>should</i> act. I’m a filmmaker. Here’s my card. Take a look at my site and email me."</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib6uJg901ZHptea6ugbkIPmR_VaR_D6Wxcb8gv7B90ug9kLxu3tf6jRHr1RM6XCJjJ75EO1DXT2VjhOnDMsX8frg3sUFb8VUX-vjPc3ShylUaT08pCKSUOkozbkI7J2zEV39ULwY6ixu8/s1600/%2521%2521%252116.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib6uJg901ZHptea6ugbkIPmR_VaR_D6Wxcb8gv7B90ug9kLxu3tf6jRHr1RM6XCJjJ75EO1DXT2VjhOnDMsX8frg3sUFb8VUX-vjPc3ShylUaT08pCKSUOkozbkI7J2zEV39ULwY6ixu8/s320/%2521%2521%252116.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; line-height: 24.64px; text-align: start;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></div></div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-21363525391561307212016-05-01T19:44:00.002+03:002022-02-20T17:48:54.574+02:00Game of Thrones and the News<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">“Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.”—Paul Valéry</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">I am lying on a Greek beach. Well, not <i>on</i> the beach—on a <i>chaise longue</i> shaded by an umbrella—the lazy lap of the waves in my ears as I play with my iPad. A waitress hangs her cleavage in my face and sets down my champagne cocktail. I ignore her.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfsD2MUP5Qj-rCtpGDenmuI5FrdpwLTB7U4q3y8g9Y_MEKaqYs33xxaJ9ebF5RXxUjQ2Ws3NIUG2NbPaZAmRtvceK5z2y2q9YsC8o3GfC4aBDmxkeTlP9dqsJ7xrb_Ffp-YLmaXlm3gmI/s1600/%2540.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfsD2MUP5Qj-rCtpGDenmuI5FrdpwLTB7U4q3y8g9Y_MEKaqYs33xxaJ9ebF5RXxUjQ2Ws3NIUG2NbPaZAmRtvceK5z2y2q9YsC8o3GfC4aBDmxkeTlP9dqsJ7xrb_Ffp-YLmaXlm3gmI/s320/%2540.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Google News. The usual carnage in Syria. The usual carnage in America. North Korea is being a nuisance. Turkey, just over the horizon, is being a nuisance. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br /></span>
<span>I scroll down to “Entertainment” to see what the rabblement are watching and am again annoyed by headlines about something called <i>Game of Thrones</i>. What the hell <i>is Game of Thrones</i>? Enough’s enough—I decide to find out for myself, click links and read up.</span><br />
</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX_HyXwjJ_qWe7a3x0YIhbssTDJ0G2ul800T56sN8mnOLAsk6Vbx3B8kJq_oauDSTmXlqcQvSq69kHrii6uZzWopi_zr0OUJem4KgqA5KFGyNzJi7n-6hlJgeAElugJwY8OzUJ80TQfyI/s1600/Gazing+out+to+sea.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX_HyXwjJ_qWe7a3x0YIhbssTDJ0G2ul800T56sN8mnOLAsk6Vbx3B8kJq_oauDSTmXlqcQvSq69kHrii6uZzWopi_zr0OUJem4KgqA5KFGyNzJi7n-6hlJgeAElugJwY8OzUJ80TQfyI/s320/Gazing+out+to+sea.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Gazing out to sea</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Apparently it’s a television series. Remember television? It's a medium my snobbery prevents me from enjoying. I haven’t seen a TV commercial for decades, which does wonders for one's quality of life. I tap to YouTube and turn the tablet landscape-wise to watch some excerpts.</span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br /></span>
<span>My waitress, barefoot and bikini-bottomed in deference to the heat, hovers. Her thighs, at eye-level, draw my glance, but now she leans over and peers at the little screen, imposing her upper chest into my personal space, her shoulders ignoring me, to shade the iPad with her hand.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcvpbVl9fImsPwhC5URO0RYVCZgASPnslCmyfV2m69hX0Vqvfmd7Dnfvs6BkBNBAmbt1Kg-wNKXsGgaaVvB2iTerQjykFR_r2y5L17tgv6sGW4oHQYUYBX2lOoPB60moDgvoJXktT5EI/s1600/%25402.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcvpbVl9fImsPwhC5URO0RYVCZgASPnslCmyfV2m69hX0Vqvfmd7Dnfvs6BkBNBAmbt1Kg-wNKXsGgaaVvB2iTerQjykFR_r2y5L17tgv6sGW4oHQYUYBX2lOoPB60moDgvoJXktT5EI/s320/%25402.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">It seems to be a fantasy about our murderous and warlike Nordic past (I’m glad <i>that's</i> over)—everybody’s white, and cold—aimed at post-pubescent girls. The only character who lasts longer than a season is a teenager with a rather dangerous, not entirely reliable dragon, which nevertheless rescues the kid when she’s about to be tortured or flayed. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br /></span>
<span>My waitress abandons all semblance of professional neutrality, gets on the cot with me and steadies the hand in which I hold the device. </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguKDqshPJVdKuO63A8OqF8J_qLRzCdCZXsybSaFPKtFDEJYD13jRMOpze5ZoJ0NdTNGwPKZbS4wvOzvYZqJO7fkHGvmzIiY8KtU_RxAdiM0-QFuto14Tg-xdLAPZnyGAMwDeddroJovUo/s1600/%25407.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguKDqshPJVdKuO63A8OqF8J_qLRzCdCZXsybSaFPKtFDEJYD13jRMOpze5ZoJ0NdTNGwPKZbS4wvOzvYZqJO7fkHGvmzIiY8KtU_RxAdiM0-QFuto14Tg-xdLAPZnyGAMwDeddroJovUo/s320/%25407.gif" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">But fantasy on TV? Television, as Warhol said, is reality. <i>Movies</i> are fantasy. People in movies live in the present tense, as in dreams. People in reality live in the past and the future—we have no contact with the present, unless we're having sex, or dying.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br /></span><span><i>Game of Thrones</i>, however, does combine the classic TV genres of soap opera, game show—guess who survives this week!—and news report: coups, court intrigues, hostages, beheadings. There are lots of beheadings; it’s very topical—and a good way to teach the young. For what is TV but a babysitter? “The young,” as Salvador Dalí said, “are completely stupid.”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIsEOWaeIwpK7vDuie4A5YecqNQtQ3mAzP-KbDkjs-ixaqmzxJmma5Tyi4NQhObtlWCjiDv-uxNg2BQbtzjb8TqWKiVAPAYiCkZqM4CQIdDlRSf8Xl0LQisbOhwvWdmvYV3ABTQA2uqZk/s1600/%25401.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIsEOWaeIwpK7vDuie4A5YecqNQtQ3mAzP-KbDkjs-ixaqmzxJmma5Tyi4NQhObtlWCjiDv-uxNg2BQbtzjb8TqWKiVAPAYiCkZqM4CQIdDlRSf8Xl0LQisbOhwvWdmvYV3ABTQA2uqZk/s1600/%25401.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">My waitress thumps on my sternum with her fist to apprise me that I am zipping too quickly past the zombie warriors. But I have now discovered that this spectacle is based on a series of books, and disoblige her by clicking to Amazon to read a little of the text:</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br /></span>
<span>“You could taste it; a nervous tension that came perilously close to fear.” Of course the great Russians weren’t prose stylists either, and that didn’t vitiate <i>their</i> impact.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>But here we have the supernatural—it goes with this kind of writing—sort of thing you get with J.K. Rowling and company. One senses what they’re trying for but the language closes it off. It’s <i>because</i> you don’t know what they’re talking about that there’s a feeling of comfort. Nothing can happen to you. Kind of a safe-space. Busloads of Brits ride around London with the book in their hands, condescending connoisseurs of the cute.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDHG5-DzFNJhLTlLob0wdukr1dvLFGgZc4Q22XLbhfHWQX2RQ9qlqNiiPr2KzRlgaZkQ7XFRJNgcCrrhMVqMaxp-l84itSDrp3SVRZQ0GyjTEGSwWGmmPB2PT5nZmlyn239FRX5_N3-Ns/s1600/Bonnie.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDHG5-DzFNJhLTlLob0wdukr1dvLFGgZc4Q22XLbhfHWQX2RQ9qlqNiiPr2KzRlgaZkQ7XFRJNgcCrrhMVqMaxp-l84itSDrp3SVRZQ0GyjTEGSwWGmmPB2PT5nZmlyn239FRX5_N3-Ns/s320/Bonnie.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>I actually read in the </span><i><span>New York Times</span></i><span> a public official’s opinion that the State Department should have a blueprint for “nation-building,” handy to superimpose on whatever country they happen to be destroying. You too can be an obese red-neck evangelist with Disney-World culture and a concealed weapon. Sign here.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>My waitress, bored by my literary endeavors, gives up on back-seat tablet watching and, with an air of having been seduced into intimacy, caresses my chest. I suppose she'll expect a tip.</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>Returning to Google News I read about a guy in Argentina who shot his parents in the head, had sex with the corpses, cut them into pieces—I’m not making this up—and fed them to the dog. Which is more amusing than the dragon.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>From this distraction I raise my head at the sound of shouts. A rubber raft full of refugees is approaching the beach! I wade in, drink in hand, to greet them but they file past, barely looking at me. “Where’s Germany?” they say. I can only wave vaguely toward it and watch them head off, craning as if to see it.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp-Cu9TDSrQ4daWdTGywVuwcl0ZY-BOahBeL1NKnryG0S8FQELTL5RFWPLcmuvxAdtQIBslaB01UywxZ9NjTKdWB3OYlPHDFrKQkdjoHxp_bh7qEm-eupr6o0g7qr2PnnuxxRJ2Nli6M0/s1600/%25404.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp-Cu9TDSrQ4daWdTGywVuwcl0ZY-BOahBeL1NKnryG0S8FQELTL5RFWPLcmuvxAdtQIBslaB01UywxZ9NjTKdWB3OYlPHDFrKQkdjoHxp_bh7qEm-eupr6o0g7qr2PnnuxxRJ2Nli6M0/s320/%25404.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">In such a light the phrase “game of thrones” acquires richer meaning, <i>n’est-ce pas?</i> As with the Chicanos in the US, so with the Arabs in Europe: they’ve been here before, and they’re back. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br /></span>
<span>I trudge ashore to my <i>chaise</i> and, as they disappear into the distance, recline next to my waitress, who has taken charge of the iPad. To forestall my interference she slips her hand under my waistband while she watches <i>Game of Thrones</i>.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAI1HJDbFmXuJFbW3V80gNZkXovKOwJ-RLKF95oWqmjFHpdrHaRtdK5DzpSeLigkdjgVAXMSHxORPaHHwVkeZqLu6hPQW_BAo9xeZV6PUnEWUWFGxbJ54Q4lf6niUoT3uyYu7YghTMifg/s1600/%2521_thighs.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAI1HJDbFmXuJFbW3V80gNZkXovKOwJ-RLKF95oWqmjFHpdrHaRtdK5DzpSeLigkdjgVAXMSHxORPaHHwVkeZqLu6hPQW_BAo9xeZV6PUnEWUWFGxbJ54Q4lf6niUoT3uyYu7YghTMifg/s320/%2521_thighs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; line-height: 24.64px; text-align: start;"><div style="color: #222222; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Toby Moments on YouTube:</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://youtu.be/MlyKCT_s4_E" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-large;">Jaws</span></a></b></div></div><div style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pfpc4xc0d0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Shoot the Baby</span></a></b></span></div><div style="color: #222222;"><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/05/joyce-said-yes.html" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Trying It On</span></a></b><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="color: #2b00fe;"> </span></span></div><div><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRl_dqRtJYo" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">The Tipping Point</span></a></b></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"><b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-spirit-of-rabelais.html" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Champagne and Ice Cream</span></span></a></b></span></div><div><b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">Here on the blog:</span></b></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2010/10/existenz.html" style="color: #2b00fe; text-decoration-line: none;">Toby's Marriage Guide for Men</a></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/07/cotton-tail-by-louis-duke-has-just-been.html" style="color: #2b00fe; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Toby movies</a> </span></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Toby books:</span></b></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></span></div></div></div></div></div></div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-28691871246404021252015-12-06T17:28:00.009+02:002021-11-15T20:24:46.230+02:00The Real Meaning of Humphrey Bogart<span style="font-size: x-large;">John Huston invented Bogie.<br />
</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy5kb2GgO7oakkBSR2-7nM1DQjaPkMdAOTOX1wGHUiR-E34AqKjcXjeOmSXOY-49Tj3Z2WV8ymG_Royfb4w6wlgJPa5SDkA2RRaqQeMQfXuzluEcLU14JfJrsOI8o7JdddCc6vqnGLNvY/s1600/%2521%254033.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy5kb2GgO7oakkBSR2-7nM1DQjaPkMdAOTOX1wGHUiR-E34AqKjcXjeOmSXOY-49Tj3Z2WV8ymG_Royfb4w6wlgJPa5SDkA2RRaqQeMQfXuzluEcLU14JfJrsOI8o7JdddCc6vqnGLNvY/s320/%2521%254033.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Jean-Paul Belmondo worshipping at the shrine</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Before <i>The Maltese Falcon</i> Humphrey Bogart was a bit player—mad scientist, Irish groom, third thug. He stepped up when he played Duke Mantee, a part evoking Dillinger, in <i>The Petrified Forest</i> on Broadway, to Leslie Howard’s T.S. Eliot-soaked poet.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLzlcpd4LNc1VyyI_pUJsE29j51rfvYiSklryry9Y8feMUAGCHiG63hKQPEeYMT54sE4xi7-6Bhuz4gERPDlwi7VcEDjNEHLgVM01nv9bl7DfcwPdm4dBVl23VXTtehhU-w28ZwjzJE78/s1600/%2521%25401.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLzlcpd4LNc1VyyI_pUJsE29j51rfvYiSklryry9Y8feMUAGCHiG63hKQPEeYMT54sE4xi7-6Bhuz4gERPDlwi7VcEDjNEHLgVM01nv9bl7DfcwPdm4dBVl23VXTtehhU-w28ZwjzJE78/s320/%2521%25401.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
There was an audible gasp when Bogart came onstage, so persuasive was he. But for the movie Warners wanted Edward G. (Ah, producers!) Howard however said he wouldn’t do it without Bogart, who later named his daughter Leslie Howard.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
But for the next five years he was still supporting cast. When George Raft, who the director fought for, turned down the part of Mad Dog Roy Earle in <i>High Sierra</i>, Bogart got up to bat—an ex-con, sucker for the wrong girl, dead in the shoot-out, but the lead.<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEharbb-_MO3fZw71AW_QguqBmnMjhpxoBriTECcO_6Ue2GpCejd8iFP5bhV5H-obfuJBFKXLyVxwvx5WvrOVwiGm1WTJcm4mNMHIMLD7mHWOrFgxQ8O6LGYYZSHqX6bfj0Gn1k3Y-XcdAo/s1600/%2521%25405.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEharbb-_MO3fZw71AW_QguqBmnMjhpxoBriTECcO_6Ue2GpCejd8iFP5bhV5H-obfuJBFKXLyVxwvx5WvrOVwiGm1WTJcm4mNMHIMLD7mHWOrFgxQ8O6LGYYZSHqX6bfj0Gn1k3Y-XcdAo/s320/%2521%25405.jpg" width="256" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Huston, about to direct his first movie, had the idea of starring gangster-face Bogart as the detective-hero. He gave hit novel <i>The Maltese Falcon</i> to his secretary to type up as a script, and a few days later bumped into Hal Wallis, who complimented him on it (Huston never found out how he got it), but wanted George Raft. Raft didn’t want to work with a first-time director (hah!) and turned it down.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
The casting was brilliant: Peter Lorre from Murnau and German Expressionism, new at Warners; Sidney Greenstreet from Shakespeare and the English music hall, in his first film at sixty-two; deliciously feminine Mary Astor, articulate and tricky; and Bogie, toughest of tough guys, spit-in-your-eye insolent and enjoying it.<br />
<br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>(suddenly jumps up and shouts down at the DA)</i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>Now both you and the police have as much as accused me of being mixed up in the other night’s murders! Well, I’ve had trouble with you before, and as far as I can see my best chance of clearing myself of the trouble you’re trying to make for me is by bringing in the murderers all tied up. And the only chance I’ve got of </i>catching<i> them and </i>tying<i> them up and </i>bringing<i> them in is by staying as far away as possible from you and the police because you’d only gum up the works!</i></span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>(to the stenographer, softer tone)</i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>You getting this all right, son, or am I going too fast for you?</i></span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVfduKYYtwIJfk4c_X9AGiM3gvXbqz9W3mrSVSqHaKp7s8K2XcDqPUTYGVvnS4LzsukzA0qNwKmtgOu3GDRCXhCwHcc2HGCAlLObcDYhEK_Cfg2KNcvxxEOIkVrlDooygfizkZx_O-tZc/s1600/%2521%25407.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVfduKYYtwIJfk4c_X9AGiM3gvXbqz9W3mrSVSqHaKp7s8K2XcDqPUTYGVvnS4LzsukzA0qNwKmtgOu3GDRCXhCwHcc2HGCAlLObcDYhEK_Cfg2KNcvxxEOIkVrlDooygfizkZx_O-tZc/s320/%2521%25407.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
It’s a gorgeous film. (See<a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2013/11/gorgeousness.html"> <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Gorgeousness</span></b></a>.) Dashiell Hammett, who wrote the novel (there are only two passages that aren’t in the script), was of the “hard-boiled” school, Hemingway guys, like Huston (see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/09/hemingway-for-wimps.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Hemingway for Wimps</span></b></a>). Toughness is scarcely my pose, but this film is exquisitely made. There isn’t a shot that doesn’t give pleasure.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
Nor am I pro-puritanism (on which I can be intensely boring—see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/10/greece-versus-puritans.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Greece versus the Puritans</span></b></a>), and Sam Spade is a portrait of the Puritan in action.<br />
<br />
The core of the ethic—I’ve got Max Weber’s book open as I type—is “one's duty in a calling.” Spade excels as a detective, and that’s all he wants. He turns the love of his life over to the police, he tells her, because he <i>is</i> a detective, and when someone kills your partner you’re supposed to do something about it, or it’s bad “for all detectives, everywhere.” She laughs at this. “Don’t be silly,” he says, “you’re taking the fall.”<br />
<br />
Like Christian in <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i> he trusts <i>no</i> one—not his woman, not his friends, not at least until he’s secured his own salvation. And the money he earns he doesn’t dare enjoy.<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5TpJY-ACPZiinPkuvJGFZ3fQS465vB97ofZTnhW3siE4dm3ZnLgHYbLorkN73HDA32IFXVdSJEx_pyTofy41sliAHZnqBUxrsqha_VrVYtQyBJyQQBYnfd32-4EdLFfqtYVpnpaZtsRQ/s1600/%2521%254010.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5TpJY-ACPZiinPkuvJGFZ3fQS465vB97ofZTnhW3siE4dm3ZnLgHYbLorkN73HDA32IFXVdSJEx_pyTofy41sliAHZnqBUxrsqha_VrVYtQyBJyQQBYnfd32-4EdLFfqtYVpnpaZtsRQ/s320/%2521%254010.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
I <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2012/09/the-lubitsch-touch.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">remarked elsewhere</span></b></a> that “cool” is a Protestant virtue, the Puritans riding in disciplined formation against hit-and-miss Cavaliers motivated by passion and beer. Sam keeps a distance between himself and his emotions. He pretends to get angry but it’s for show; as soon as he’s alone he laughs at the performance. And he won’t protect the woman he loves “because all of me wants to.”</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
Then he adds up the reasons. “Maybe some of them are unimportant, I won’t argue about that, but look at the <i>number</i> of them.” Double-entry book-keeping. “And what have we got on the other side? That maybe you love me, and maybe I love you.” We’re in the red. God wants us to show a profit—that’s how we know we’re OK with Him.<br />
<br />
Here we have the drama of the lonely puritan Making A Decision. We others go where life leads us. Honey, you killed <i>him</i>, you could kill <i>me</i>, good-bye—is that a choice? There are other fragile beauties who like to whimper while they’re being had—they need me too. Nothing to think about, really.<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggK6_peEsDVj4YL3GXwvHQT2Z5jWaeF0ki56e3Q1oxPjBfAI3_ZGLTBqhhhesfdaIDaGrf3S_urO9u_lO6ngmRGtX71j7BM0q5TwsUOrNTQN9cDfjjKVA006-QuUwsldBLTZHItJlDfE4/s1600/%2521%25406.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggK6_peEsDVj4YL3GXwvHQT2Z5jWaeF0ki56e3Q1oxPjBfAI3_ZGLTBqhhhesfdaIDaGrf3S_urO9u_lO6ngmRGtX71j7BM0q5TwsUOrNTQN9cDfjjKVA006-QuUwsldBLTZHItJlDfE4/s1600/%2521%25406.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
The Puritan, then (and this is our largest conclusion), is a Romantic—“an insecure, unsatisfied, impatient temper,” Joyce called it. There are no accidents here, no grace. Nothing is as admirable as luck, I like to think, but Sam doesn’t rely on luck. He despises this world of shame and compromise, and plucks up his skirts from it.<br />
<br />
But then Sam is Something, not Nothing, like, for example, me.<br />
<br />
Weber contrasts the end of the <i>Divine Comedy</i>, Dante standing “speechless in his passive contemplation of the secrets of God” (which reminds me of Lear to Cordelia, “And take upon us the mystery of things”), with the end of <i>Paradise Lost</i>: “The world was all before them”. Life is a task. Time to get to work.<br />
</span><div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
</div><span style="font-size: x-large;">
And this above all: Thou shalt not be a fool. “I won’t play the sap for you!” His partner was a fool, and look what happened to him. It's a cautionary tale. Makes one fear for one’s own salvation.<br />
<br />
The fake falcon he calls “the stuff that dreams are made of,” and these are the final words. You mean that’s<i> it?</i> For dreams, I mean? Very noir, very noir. “Kind of belief system," <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1">says Toby</a>, "you pick up in a cold climate.”<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VIVqd48MIPJ8LuRe4VwjkcqA6_aoIg_MeIR2OWkNfoCgiR-FG893Cyk_XhtWVIhvuXn_-iOMdTLadHXPEmjWMQDzUJImUizFfGc5u9Uxrr7hEeI2x1L2nMNYXxMBNolnMtzBlD2lUf0/s1600/%2521%25402.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VIVqd48MIPJ8LuRe4VwjkcqA6_aoIg_MeIR2OWkNfoCgiR-FG893Cyk_XhtWVIhvuXn_-iOMdTLadHXPEmjWMQDzUJImUizFfGc5u9Uxrr7hEeI2x1L2nMNYXxMBNolnMtzBlD2lUf0/s320/%2521%25402.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
In <i>Casablanca</i>, another one turned down by George Raft, Rick does play the sap, but only till he wises up and joins the war effort. This movie was made to explain to Americans why they were fighting in Europe. Rick is America—an isolationist, “I stick my neck out for nobody,” and in all things, even in love, a businessman (“A frank for your thoughts.” “In America they’d bring only a penny.”), but when he sells his bar and Signor Ferrari wants Sam thrown in he says, “I don’t buy or sell human beings”—the issue that brought about, to use Griffith’s phrase, the birth of a nation.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
He's a wonderfully tough guy: “Can you imagine us in London?” “When you get there, ask me.” “How about New York?” “Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.” Can you hear the cheers?<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqmNAE0t3Id4wtBxLkQ9qJxwITLL21lO7vWvmQJdQBMFmozJ3qT-Rklku1nbCoeWKbHRuhbjYI2Qva359c3C_NZvuh4sTsVJ1KG3FtLBPvHNzpIRt0bZLQe6UeAsY7ioNhyphenhyphen2-TRJOKeKM/s1600/%2521%25404.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqmNAE0t3Id4wtBxLkQ9qJxwITLL21lO7vWvmQJdQBMFmozJ3qT-Rklku1nbCoeWKbHRuhbjYI2Qva359c3C_NZvuh4sTsVJ1KG3FtLBPvHNzpIRt0bZLQe6UeAsY7ioNhyphenhyphen2-TRJOKeKM/s320/%2521%25404.gif" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;">
And wonderfully insolent. “You despise me, don’t you?” “If I gave you any thought I probably would.”</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
And wonderfully smart-ass. “What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?” “My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.” “What waters? We're in the desert.” “I was misinformed.”<br />
<br />
The other men too have allegorical (which is to say one-to-one) meanings: the Gestapo major, the Czech underground leader, the Russian bartender, Vichy France as a discarded water bottle. Straight messages, like the old refugees on their way to America: “We speak only English now. Sweetness, what watch?” “Ten watch.” “Such watch!” Take care of these people.<br />
<br />
The women on the other hand (are you listening girls?) are symbols, self-contradictory, bearing richer ranges of meaning. Yvonne may love Rick and flirt with the Russian and sleep with the German, but she’ll lead the <i>Marseillaise</i> passionately enough to get the bar closed.<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJHRK5fbZvExg83fIUUgx1ICE0lw9ecf_HJdvzLmg9pVkaczAexCLmYmCow4hA0ixSQ7Zu61g2p5qBQi4NOhTOnpE639KiTAWtFcihL_7LMLy8AOhJtlLyJ1e4NF7mB0QYJiMiU6PsTKg/s1600/%2521%254013.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJHRK5fbZvExg83fIUUgx1ICE0lw9ecf_HJdvzLmg9pVkaczAexCLmYmCow4hA0ixSQ7Zu61g2p5qBQi4NOhTOnpE639KiTAWtFcihL_7LMLy8AOhJtlLyJ1e4NF7mB0QYJiMiU6PsTKg/s320/%2521%254013.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Casablanca</i> is patterned on the equally superb <i>Algiers</i>, jewel thief Boyer hiding out in the Casbah. In walks bad-girls-go-everywhere un-not-lookable-at Hedy Lamarr with her rich protector. Boyer goes right up and asks her to dance, eyeing not her breasts but her jewels. “What did you do before you had these?” “I wanted them.”</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
With <i>Casablanca</i> Bogie entered mythology—tugging his ear, drawing his thumb across his lip, jerking it back from his teeth, staring down anyone who dared hold his gaze. Howard Hawks said, “I’m going to pair you with someone as insolent as you are.” Enter nineteen-year-old Lauren Bacall in <i>To Have and Have Not</i>. Bogie and Baby. She catches him pausing before he drops a passed-out woman on a bed: “Tryna guess her weight?”<br />
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
Huston, though, having invented Bogie, dropped the figure—<i>The Treasure of the Sierra Madre</i> and <i>The African Queen</i> (Bogart hated Africa) are not Bogie movies—until <i>Beat the Devil</i>, which Bogart didn’t want to do because he knew it was mocking the myth. Script by Truman Capote. Jennifer Jones: “Harry, we must beware of these men. They are desperate characters.” “What makes you say that?” “Not one of them looked at my legs!”</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUbOEV_6evzq8xffFEYLlQHelLVfLfALyI0q-r1T5FhnL73dSyoT5LfegEdQFFfDtUq5AA7qp-M2OcW2QGPD-AzE1BkXxcRDGy-amDqJEq8Y2K67Q8T3GdCqA6XPm9urovphyphenhyphengUh7AqSE/s1600/%2521%254015.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUbOEV_6evzq8xffFEYLlQHelLVfLfALyI0q-r1T5FhnL73dSyoT5LfegEdQFFfDtUq5AA7qp-M2OcW2QGPD-AzE1BkXxcRDGy-amDqJEq8Y2K67Q8T3GdCqA6XPm9urovphyphenhyphengUh7AqSE/s320/%2521%254015.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
In private Bogie was the same kind of guy. “No actor who ever played Hamlet,” he advised young Richard Burton, “died rich.” And he is said to have complained to Bacall that he wanted to live within his means. “Anyone who lives within their means,” said Uncle Oscar, “suffers from a lack of imagination.” When the IRS asked George Raft, who came from the other tradition, how he spent ten million dollars he said, “Part of it went for gambling, part for horses, part for women. The rest I wasted.”</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
Bogie’s final film paired Rod Steiger with him. “Never do an eating scene with a Method actor,” he said, “they spit all over you.”<br />
<br />
The hard-boiled style (and Raft had a Mafia background) owes itself to Hemingway, whom I think <i>so</i> highly of—but have to defend myself against. Perhaps the final word, at least as far as my delicate psyche is concerned, is from Charles Bukowski, a tough guy himself. “Hemingway never danced,” he said. It was all struggle, all facing the bull.<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-8ZLoVIWKSj1aa6YfVolGqcs-r2nrFfmpJmE45OlHHkndEDnaxW1hfW2BZO89hsW96rLUdO1NVULnuAJk7veIMSVl70Jb1_xZzFowqJNZ6Y9PeGI8_Z6Wq4_O1twZbJ1uV2DcYriSKSo/s1600/%2521%254016.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-8ZLoVIWKSj1aa6YfVolGqcs-r2nrFfmpJmE45OlHHkndEDnaxW1hfW2BZO89hsW96rLUdO1NVULnuAJk7veIMSVl70Jb1_xZzFowqJNZ6Y9PeGI8_Z6Wq4_O1twZbJ1uV2DcYriSKSo/s320/%2521%254016.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
I suspect my preoccupation with Puritanism comes from living in Greece. Around here Nordics are referred to as <i>kriokoloi,</i> cold-asses—passionless, never showing emotion. Cold-asses think culture is impossible unless you’re rich. They think wealth is having lots and lots of money (what the French call an embarrassment of riches). Class, baby.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
To make money, of course, you need brains. To spend money you need culture. I have no brains at all, but I’m <i>crawling</i> with culture.<br />
<br />
This isn't, however, to take sides. I’m between these things. Not that life is ambiguous—we are incapable of sustaining ambiguity. As Wittgenstein said, you can see the duck, you can see the rabbit, but you can’t see both at once.<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhetPR55TK0ymKGdGNGb45GND5ZSfFPyFJfvvLEY5ltDjF3IbRSZgu8dhJRgXYXKJ04WbnW3-2HiPxyMahgNbHY5GBfCzdWMkyRVfnXVS7oFf0Qb46vSakk-qLC28KpHzG1BxWFfzjnEK0/s1600/%2521%2540%2525.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhetPR55TK0ymKGdGNGb45GND5ZSfFPyFJfvvLEY5ltDjF3IbRSZgu8dhJRgXYXKJ04WbnW3-2HiPxyMahgNbHY5GBfCzdWMkyRVfnXVS7oFf0Qb46vSakk-qLC28KpHzG1BxWFfzjnEK0/s320/%2521%2540%2525.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;">
And since we started with Eliot, let’s hear him on it: “The soul is so far from being a monad that we have not only to interpret other souls to ourself but to interpret ourself to ourself.”</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
Sometimes this, sometimes that. My opinions sneer at one another.<br />
<br />
So let me reveal the sentimentalist I in some phases am, and confess that my favorite rendition of <i>As Time Goes By</i> is by master jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli (and don’t miss the piano solo), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FogmcygI3A&feature=related"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">right here</span></b></a>.<br /></span>
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; line-height: 24.64px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-66659979375087050472015-08-23T15:45:00.004+03:002021-09-27T15:26:47.127+03:00In Praise of Older Women<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaajBuxPamzuOTcHlHJmIrec-hiKs46dv4mO2g5CJz8OGmWNRry2hFFlRVp7Rk27TLShx0x5VMa7h75MBuKl8nXX1yJ-UL72NWN1FIBfxlbffpLWHnZScSDq_566AcjgWWOSGyU5MNW_Q/s1600/6_magritte_mask.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaajBuxPamzuOTcHlHJmIrec-hiKs46dv4mO2g5CJz8OGmWNRry2hFFlRVp7Rk27TLShx0x5VMa7h75MBuKl8nXX1yJ-UL72NWN1FIBfxlbffpLWHnZScSDq_566AcjgWWOSGyU5MNW_Q/s400/6_magritte_mask.jpg" width="290" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmOFlO2NKGMQIMiMZwxKpOL2hD_jxiFuMUXqkwrL6YzPlGknpMyG4H2VF6uMD-ZqYmRq4tDzFconABZFRUZUuMPPhgfys7qqSpt33OYh70MF4HIU1E2cR36KbpKw_jFDmajkt76rgyEO8/s1600/4_0ba7e07582ff4126e56ffd90e609b0de.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmOFlO2NKGMQIMiMZwxKpOL2hD_jxiFuMUXqkwrL6YzPlGknpMyG4H2VF6uMD-ZqYmRq4tDzFconABZFRUZUuMPPhgfys7qqSpt33OYh70MF4HIU1E2cR36KbpKw_jFDmajkt76rgyEO8/s400/4_0ba7e07582ff4126e56ffd90e609b0de.jpg" width="252" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyt9trS1e-kQpVuCC8f2eP2VG-y0fOzkpyXtDaPFZwjt-a4Fzvi4mw68C7SYnedZ1PaQpf0LxfYjwiSDDMzgimIUpkEHEVf1oNpnM91_HTG7PZY2JfY2PfMhVBNVLgI9UZBFVLO49edUM/s1600/3_A+Visit+%2528La+Visite%2529+by+Belgian+painter+Paul+Delvaux+-+1939.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyt9trS1e-kQpVuCC8f2eP2VG-y0fOzkpyXtDaPFZwjt-a4Fzvi4mw68C7SYnedZ1PaQpf0LxfYjwiSDDMzgimIUpkEHEVf1oNpnM91_HTG7PZY2JfY2PfMhVBNVLgI9UZBFVLO49edUM/s400/3_A+Visit+%2528La+Visite%2529+by+Belgian+painter+Paul+Delvaux+-+1939.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitkiOis9wQUH_eJwel2UsBHghzwbH1afh4SUeSxk6k19A7N5ajAsU4LCJsmfrjumaqT3q5cr550-HWqzMDmIPYIDhRiq_GcCepLva3fpQ7YmDMSBrC6TQ-ZoTDJju2vRzaKqvzNfzbKzE/s1600/13_Angelo_Bronzino_001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitkiOis9wQUH_eJwel2UsBHghzwbH1afh4SUeSxk6k19A7N5ajAsU4LCJsmfrjumaqT3q5cr550-HWqzMDmIPYIDhRiq_GcCepLva3fpQ7YmDMSBrC6TQ-ZoTDJju2vRzaKqvzNfzbKzE/s400/13_Angelo_Bronzino_001.jpg" width="316" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNxgGjkdYBi-rGU0ncfcgJtDoaXFp74D5cEcUk-hdMcFNHGXMK-UIQwR6HNq6okDJen_5Vu-t0RGT7rRQ3fahvoio65nCxtumSnURU5DaNfL0TF65XUUw2HFpOq8jTbTYanOJ9L_gIRNM/s1600/d4189657efd1a22459110315bd3d04f5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNxgGjkdYBi-rGU0ncfcgJtDoaXFp74D5cEcUk-hdMcFNHGXMK-UIQwR6HNq6okDJen_5Vu-t0RGT7rRQ3fahvoio65nCxtumSnURU5DaNfL0TF65XUUw2HFpOq8jTbTYanOJ9L_gIRNM/s400/d4189657efd1a22459110315bd3d04f5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfTkfbPNN4cywY72BmJtxvgHRkx0uZN_tHBrQjALEKm10yX2RC7M3XciWqbTFC7vIjuSKr3xYKkHleN_pCz5Z_eMoZrrupSPx4bmB6oMTnK0p5UJdwyUaZlfCr96kvuROMKgb03eZtx9o/s1600/8_dali-my-wife-nude-contemplating-her-own-flesh-becoming-stairs-1945.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfTkfbPNN4cywY72BmJtxvgHRkx0uZN_tHBrQjALEKm10yX2RC7M3XciWqbTFC7vIjuSKr3xYKkHleN_pCz5Z_eMoZrrupSPx4bmB6oMTnK0p5UJdwyUaZlfCr96kvuROMKgb03eZtx9o/s400/8_dali-my-wife-nude-contemplating-her-own-flesh-becoming-stairs-1945.jpg" width="340" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZr0kD-tEynyXIQVEuWiWbUpKB1YnEEOG7rmIbCiReUfoSqSx2-ug-hwUcGw_VtoRO2xt8Tqcbz3FfSfp-PvhWB0mSwahGnUErNCTH_BHuntKxT26SxyMxcXES8bdB7fOcSPcILx8Clkg/s1600/5_h5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZr0kD-tEynyXIQVEuWiWbUpKB1YnEEOG7rmIbCiReUfoSqSx2-ug-hwUcGw_VtoRO2xt8Tqcbz3FfSfp-PvhWB0mSwahGnUErNCTH_BHuntKxT26SxyMxcXES8bdB7fOcSPcILx8Clkg/s400/5_h5.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy0oG7sVHcJ47BFlsgRGh8dlLjck_VE5uyXLyA5kvar5BnE2Sk6SA1tFzLqJc9anKWpu6NR7_m3mAoAYw6Uavo31rXK7qSaPr4d61YK1RkoLFRPSXH7mbLB0c1tXnw0TcYajjATC-j6yI/s1600/8_larry+b.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy0oG7sVHcJ47BFlsgRGh8dlLjck_VE5uyXLyA5kvar5BnE2Sk6SA1tFzLqJc9anKWpu6NR7_m3mAoAYw6Uavo31rXK7qSaPr4d61YK1RkoLFRPSXH7mbLB0c1tXnw0TcYajjATC-j6yI/s400/8_larry+b.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggbaPrZjm8sG3NCcK9sZKRPeTOTEyORzXftdhTghvVRDta1hgJIpWsPj7Geozk48x7dh0IeRO70EBx5sQPr_Z2k6bZYsCpwqYppcg9kM6V1Qe9hJtBJjhDjSweZ43qpqXXzihCsJ_DKE0/s1600/7_freu.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggbaPrZjm8sG3NCcK9sZKRPeTOTEyORzXftdhTghvVRDta1hgJIpWsPj7Geozk48x7dh0IeRO70EBx5sQPr_Z2k6bZYsCpwqYppcg9kM6V1Qe9hJtBJjhDjSweZ43qpqXXzihCsJ_DKE0/s400/7_freu.jpg" width="327" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjFEznZcZGRmI8h18dO6BcKio_xiUET3Gy4k3QPUfVLIg3JOTmlorAkCPKIYPccJRnG6umJKm2QBTYndruim29yc4Wosyt33yrxDwgTo_PF0YcHum09J5sITzk0OL4hKMQFOJ3YOOiJI0/s1600/12_baes-firmin.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjFEznZcZGRmI8h18dO6BcKio_xiUET3Gy4k3QPUfVLIg3JOTmlorAkCPKIYPccJRnG6umJKm2QBTYndruim29yc4Wosyt33yrxDwgTo_PF0YcHum09J5sITzk0OL4hKMQFOJ3YOOiJI0/s400/12_baes-firmin.jpeg" width="301" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiwFu9_vlhLMbTwR_CrzzOi3tlayu0supOVNA0cNNWU0n3CM0Kjhm0Uwqs-C2G_5rzstiLCc2d56zuNDeo1j4MEvlT18YLGDODBZibI6P702-Nd_IVRHOGPhySjX3LLT2LUMXAMWuSXdA/s1600/15_CONNOISSEUR.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiwFu9_vlhLMbTwR_CrzzOi3tlayu0supOVNA0cNNWU0n3CM0Kjhm0Uwqs-C2G_5rzstiLCc2d56zuNDeo1j4MEvlT18YLGDODBZibI6P702-Nd_IVRHOGPhySjX3LLT2LUMXAMWuSXdA/s400/15_CONNOISSEUR.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih4w1IqlZZpPn7BlnuDbEwgtXEVMMyMaauWgnFJHWgNSOQO2k3O7SkhkfPNPfg_AK6B7YaxPDs9KeNbQOkd_UGUyyofrpYBizNNs6YsJovniGKT-el__F5DvukmeYzFlXvFYkqtRp9zyI/s1600/2_Cecil+W+Rea.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih4w1IqlZZpPn7BlnuDbEwgtXEVMMyMaauWgnFJHWgNSOQO2k3O7SkhkfPNPfg_AK6B7YaxPDs9KeNbQOkd_UGUyyofrpYBizNNs6YsJovniGKT-el__F5DvukmeYzFlXvFYkqtRp9zyI/s400/2_Cecil+W+Rea.jpeg" width="360" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7hmZGNur4vf7WaAm0Bt6FcebYRgTMCiBnsrAvruo7ZMSnQDtu3aElx21163WtP7BGcjQ8NzzGMFLCHH6pNF3l5T3QoGRhG0jus4vOOJ47vx5he7E3FNpKNh9HLq_9GsD_7-5ahKP6lo/s1600/5_h16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM7hmZGNur4vf7WaAm0Bt6FcebYRgTMCiBnsrAvruo7ZMSnQDtu3aElx21163WtP7BGcjQ8NzzGMFLCHH6pNF3l5T3QoGRhG0jus4vOOJ47vx5he7E3FNpKNh9HLq_9GsD_7-5ahKP6lo/s400/5_h16.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo2vV8npBVUzt7BIJLf7rPudn_hgNqpRXPuv13AOWejoBgY5lwvuCNH-u478m87v1Nos0A2r9SShiMU1m3K4M_1rUMsjDqSLz1zVnjtYoNGRKwi58QziNqXe_oHAyVjDSO8R2lO9TBrAI/s1600/1_John+Currin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo2vV8npBVUzt7BIJLf7rPudn_hgNqpRXPuv13AOWejoBgY5lwvuCNH-u478m87v1Nos0A2r9SShiMU1m3K4M_1rUMsjDqSLz1zVnjtYoNGRKwi58QziNqXe_oHAyVjDSO8R2lO9TBrAI/s400/1_John+Currin.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; line-height: 24.64px; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><br /><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">On YouTube:</span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio’s </span><a href="https://youtu.be/D2B66hW3XV0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Husband" </span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio's </span><a href="https://youtu.be/jLHIHoNnXyY" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Horse Trade" </span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio's </span><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://youtu.be/R2LzhTam16o" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Stupid Friar"</span></a> </span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Chaucer’s </span><a href="https://youtu.be/Pm4FAjxU8L0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Miller's Tale"</span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8kJe9wdyyg" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"Red Devil Rag"</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 18.832px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMVAW2_TPcc" style="color: #32aaff; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-large;">"<span style="line-height: 25.68px;">Attack of the Giant Feminists</span>"</span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xee5jJDcIZ8" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"But Is It Love? Or, The Destruction of West Los Angeles"</span></a></div></div></div></div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-9750650860478016132013-11-21T18:11:00.019+02:002022-11-20T17:08:31.622+02:00Gorgeousness<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;"><b><span>I don't want a state of grace; I want a state of <i>gorgeousness!</i></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">In an age when beauty is out of style, the work ethic dominates the Internet and there hasn't been a painting or a poem for decades, let us reflect a little on gorgeousness.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Seven Sculptures</span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm_qFsX99bJ8sP8dE2mia3lQGn9ZdC5O5qyN_4xiLdshzTu4iHHC_eeVrI9G1NlG8LsMUfQF0mbEopEc1-ZizMEzGpFABI4D3W5vnUZ4_JCO_CEywAKYngpoxni2V7EukMHEv_GQIm_2g/s1600/Nefertiti+-+Tutt'Art@+(12).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm_qFsX99bJ8sP8dE2mia3lQGn9ZdC5O5qyN_4xiLdshzTu4iHHC_eeVrI9G1NlG8LsMUfQF0mbEopEc1-ZizMEzGpFABI4D3W5vnUZ4_JCO_CEywAKYngpoxni2V7EukMHEv_GQIm_2g/s320/Nefertiti+-+Tutt'Art@+(12).jpg" width="227" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>The word is </span><span>from the French for throat, so let Nefertiti be its patroness. This likeness is from five hundred years before Homer—who says the Greeks invented sculpture? Beautiful women, fully alive, have declined to be in the same room with her, </span><span>so as not to suffer comparison</span><span>.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhynYxsECj8GP9ATa__JQ9B_NjqtBwDZE5wTuI-rW2OTNVSY3FQzSMj-tb3a6BNF5KbmMcaNpAk_OEGCGdjb-0UltQfBwW9rLYfiWs4AIaO7Ffb3ZD67YqasT6-tSNYH0qM6dYEfQ8GCPw/s1600/H.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhynYxsECj8GP9ATa__JQ9B_NjqtBwDZE5wTuI-rW2OTNVSY3FQzSMj-tb3a6BNF5KbmMcaNpAk_OEGCGdjb-0UltQfBwW9rLYfiWs4AIaO7Ffb3ZD67YqasT6-tSNYH0qM6dYEfQ8GCPw/s320/H.jpg" width="210" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Seven Seas</span></b></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Homer, Scheherazade, </span><span>Dante</span><span>, </span><span>Boccaccio, Rabelais,</span><span> Montaigne</span><span>, Shakespeare.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPcfoul69zLYPYgYR1OumJiHS1blJ0v8_l-Nd-3EaPezY85XIyquRug-7ugWtC9pJlUTlBTl1bXImSGsmnhtBFCveg-DSdA8jNgcDxsOlfnNG7lA5rz0IoGCjFXbS1895DxPOCuDWQO5I/s1600/david638.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPcfoul69zLYPYgYR1OumJiHS1blJ0v8_l-Nd-3EaPezY85XIyquRug-7ugWtC9pJlUTlBTl1bXImSGsmnhtBFCveg-DSdA8jNgcDxsOlfnNG7lA5rz0IoGCjFXbS1895DxPOCuDWQO5I/s320/david638.jpg" width="141" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Seven Films</span></b></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>Trouble in Paradise, To Be or Not to Be </i>(the Lubitsch version),<i> Ninotchka, La Dolce Vita, 8 ½, Satiricon, Party </i>(de Oliveira's)<i>.</i></span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFIHX4zOHcQxVrXa6Ekj2jjpnDsAzrBsrb8832rk11lkQ0XfFTIrBXhSB3E0jvPKWE2SLKwMv8_CcWZHurdsFup7u4lyMX2MXpZTopX5hh32KIGxWY6hz3OAsjO-2xroVLlL-3pXRcplY/s1600/Persee-florence.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFIHX4zOHcQxVrXa6Ekj2jjpnDsAzrBsrb8832rk11lkQ0XfFTIrBXhSB3E0jvPKWE2SLKwMv8_CcWZHurdsFup7u4lyMX2MXpZTopX5hh32KIGxWY6hz3OAsjO-2xroVLlL-3pXRcplY/s320/Persee-florence.jpg" width="164" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br /></span><b><span>Seven Novels</span></b><br />
</span><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Satyricon, Crime and Punishment, In Search of Lost Time, Ulysses, The Great Gatsby</i> ("there was something gorgeous about him")<i>, Under the Volcano, Lolita</i>.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFMuzwD2q7EH6AF3TLYng9BW2U6sEI9Npzx9cnjx-faMwdKOnjSCEtvcCdc49Nm0Fn4nAPvU2TsLSoFruaOS5LVAy4_KtOwfYviyl5EzNOcnml8MJqdQ2JNPJYzZ7m4j0I3KeGWV9pt4Y/s1600/David_source_sandstead_d2h_97.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFMuzwD2q7EH6AF3TLYng9BW2U6sEI9Npzx9cnjx-faMwdKOnjSCEtvcCdc49Nm0Fn4nAPvU2TsLSoFruaOS5LVAy4_KtOwfYviyl5EzNOcnml8MJqdQ2JNPJYzZ7m4j0I3KeGWV9pt4Y/s320/David_source_sandstead_d2h_97.jpg" width="212" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Seven Beauties</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Sophia;</span><span> </span><span>Audrey; Brigitte; Ann-Margret; Sylva; OK, Marilyn; and yes, Joan:</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzb-RhpzJslAbM-k9dAXCtef_iJjCqXEfCLiJtFLzttgH5NP6cmNTiVJPcFGwz8WtweR6zCUYBkKIrV8LqrsT8QsTESpWn3Rk_6T8fvUziDmQWaS_Gmcg68BsU-FrSSd-hKaXiaM5-3k8/s1600/Joan-Collins-beauty-doyouremember.com_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzb-RhpzJslAbM-k9dAXCtef_iJjCqXEfCLiJtFLzttgH5NP6cmNTiVJPcFGwz8WtweR6zCUYBkKIrV8LqrsT8QsTESpWn3Rk_6T8fvUziDmQWaS_Gmcg68BsU-FrSSd-hKaXiaM5-3k8/s200/Joan-Collins-beauty-doyouremember.com_.jpg" width="199" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>A</span><span>ll of them are from the P7 sixties</span><span>—the post-penicillin, pregnancy-prevention-pill, </span><span>post-puberty</span><span> sixties, when sex was just being invented. </span><span>Polymorphous perverse sex, I mean, and these women embodied it. In <i>The Seven Year Itch </i>Marilyn handles a heat wave by keeping her panties in the ice box. </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCDppS0iwioiMnBDsbi71Ld2fbnG9SrEx3ufjEUee80Y4agq3m2NcsRO0wyMMohcQLbGO8Ks7z2Uvy_YXP395YLjFLKM8dBffoGoE-wmGFuJ3Sil4BQzHuS3tUGcFnZgaHWvLIKy3kaoM/s1600/Michelangelo+DyingCaptive.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCDppS0iwioiMnBDsbi71Ld2fbnG9SrEx3ufjEUee80Y4agq3m2NcsRO0wyMMohcQLbGO8Ks7z2Uvy_YXP395YLjFLKM8dBffoGoE-wmGFuJ3Sil4BQzHuS3tUGcFnZgaHWvLIKy3kaoM/s320/Michelangelo+DyingCaptive.jpg" width="122" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Then came the aphrodisiac drugs (</span><span>Blake predicted "an improvement of sensual enjoyment" around that time</span><span>)</span><span>—</span><span>and scarcely a decade later, the new diseases. Now we don't have sex any more, not with other people, especially when we're married (</span><span>"If you are afraid of loneliness," said Chekhov, "do not marry"), and have taught ourselves new desires, new ambitions, rather grotesque ones in my opinion. </span><span>O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdl1SFX7hVTwDa3q9TL_PMGHgtp0VgMpgolpi9Uy-9Gsxv-UvWXwG7hgPcoW9oLl_dA-MshbxVs2XUQpulH7rZMr7jq553yNBcSjLV0OCh2eUZ7bKL7v0yxKokXFdYl8_IWxzFc2zoXLk/s1600/Rodin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdl1SFX7hVTwDa3q9TL_PMGHgtp0VgMpgolpi9Uy-9Gsxv-UvWXwG7hgPcoW9oLl_dA-MshbxVs2XUQpulH7rZMr7jq553yNBcSjLV0OCh2eUZ7bKL7v0yxKokXFdYl8_IWxzFc2zoXLk/s320/Rodin.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Seven Ungorgeous Things</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Music by Shostakovich; paintings by Jackson Pollock; German food (except for bratwurst); British food (except for fish 'n' chips); prose by Stephen King, Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney (I think they're all the same guy); California wine, unless nothing else is available—unless zero is available; milk.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br /></span>
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Seven Paintings</span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkkpvTMxPs0Cx0VFfZDy08nWTWQVjcQx5DrJbJ3Xg9oUzAoD-W89Z2rakrB_6VPwWTzeyMttjM3sHyl_fTJ8WMr1a7Me8t-ZIrIHFl3mwhckCGeb4A3bEmIWM8e6Sd5MR0nkdJvXLQsY0/s1600/Giorgione_019.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkkpvTMxPs0Cx0VFfZDy08nWTWQVjcQx5DrJbJ3Xg9oUzAoD-W89Z2rakrB_6VPwWTzeyMttjM3sHyl_fTJ8WMr1a7Me8t-ZIrIHFl3mwhckCGeb4A3bEmIWM8e6Sd5MR0nkdJvXLQsY0/s320/Giorgione_019.jpg" width="284" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Catholicism and Hinduism are gorgeous. Judaism, Islam, Protestantism</span><span>—well. It seems you have to be polytheistic to be gorgeous. Being Catholic is a matter of infinite complications; being Protestant, of stark simplicities. The problem the <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2012/07/germans.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Germans</span></b></a> (pity them!) are having with the <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/10/greece-versus-puritans.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Greeks</span></b></a> right now is one of infinite complications.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8OZxM7bYedQhCC2GSon6pK-i7cdvVfC7J__vdZHxzLTmlOIFr2kM_RSNMLbxx9o2DAt1oa7eZcknuYxtyT1lbYGT7E4GgczcQh27TGx5CJa8Y5cernZ2oDoOqWfNabMxM0uDv_kqXMHo/s1600/Vel%C3%A1zquez_Venus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8OZxM7bYedQhCC2GSon6pK-i7cdvVfC7J__vdZHxzLTmlOIFr2kM_RSNMLbxx9o2DAt1oa7eZcknuYxtyT1lbYGT7E4GgczcQh27TGx5CJa8Y5cernZ2oDoOqWfNabMxM0uDv_kqXMHo/s320/Vel%C3%A1zquez_Venus.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">We've been surrounded by puritan imagery for two hundred years, Wordsworth's God brooding in solitude over the abyss. Homer's gods "dwell in bliss," and though that sterilizer Plato hates the idea, heaven may well be an orgy. Look at the company Michelangelo's God keeps:</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3CUqCyUdQPARSqRxo4IGE-Sf4P_xP0sZ5h6b9tAG87dNZf1R035NIMk763YUy-DM_RoWMsxFm1dyiHU4Gflc6LkWet7lAyCOMdPBF2wlFyszhURIXGOrYa6AyMIf6T3cZ7YBq5JXZcRo/s1600/michelangelo-god.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3CUqCyUdQPARSqRxo4IGE-Sf4P_xP0sZ5h6b9tAG87dNZf1R035NIMk763YUy-DM_RoWMsxFm1dyiHU4Gflc6LkWet7lAyCOMdPBF2wlFyszhURIXGOrYa6AyMIf6T3cZ7YBq5JXZcRo/s320/michelangelo-god.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Seven Movie Lines</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>"They call me Moose on accounta I'm large."</span><span>—</span><span><i>Murder, My Sweet</i></span><br />
<span><i><br /></i></span><span>"Insult her. If she's a tramp, she'll get angry; if she's a lady, she'll smile."</span><span>—</span><span><i>Vivre sa vie</i></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>"Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know."—Camus's </span><i><span>L’étranger</span></i><span>, Visconti's film</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i><br /></i>"Desire is always stronger than any virtue. Satan,<i> ora pro nobis</i>."—<i>The Convent</i></span><br />
<span><i><br /></i></span><span>"Trying to guess her weight?"</span><span>—</span><span>Baby catching Bogie with a woman in his arms in <i>To Have and Have Not</i></span><br />
<span><i><br /></i></span><span>Dean: “Where’s my drink?” Frank: “In your hand.” Dean: “Is that my hand?”</span><span>—some</span><span> Rat Pack movie</span><br />
<span></span><br />
<span>"And waiter, do you see that moon? I want to see that moon in the champagne."</span><span>—</span><span><i>Trouble in Paradise</i></span></span></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Wji4mCqyS6KAAzS3d5Fb8Ast5jDP5SrhjDZQ0Qei4ooych6vHS2eHDTWLK7hsva7e5k0nyYZJibsm3j87NHuzFfLoUalxMZ0H0w0aSKrC_Eb7ufGOIFVKpJBkkpsXZiZQBHCjSQzPLw/s1600/Tiziano_-_Venere_di_Urbino_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Wji4mCqyS6KAAzS3d5Fb8Ast5jDP5SrhjDZQ0Qei4ooych6vHS2eHDTWLK7hsva7e5k0nyYZJibsm3j87NHuzFfLoUalxMZ0H0w0aSKrC_Eb7ufGOIFVKpJBkkpsXZiZQBHCjSQzPLw/s320/Tiziano_-_Venere_di_Urbino_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Seven Musicals</span></b></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>The Smiling Lieutenant, 42nd Street, The Merry Widow, Gold Diggers of 1935, Pal Joey, Black Orpheus, My Fair Lady</i>. Any musical choreographed by Busby Berkeley is bound to be rich in the subtlest and the most obscene pleasures. </span><span>My own sense of tragedy, such as it is, comes from his </span><i><span>Lullaby of Broadway</span></i><span>. </span><span>Like Mozart he is proof that the refined and the vulgar hold hands.</span><br />
</span><div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6VTK2otg7xzj2OXKqDcgxuSlJ2zXPjqsQhcp3rn6VkFRUfH5EsxFAXY8w8EboilBH9R-5_gH8-jQxYhTRvKuC1imQAETplEmYZu5W7rVxrXlR5gkbo4xruwq0BsCPgkPwEgcmE85W7Mg/s1600/Bronzino_001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6VTK2otg7xzj2OXKqDcgxuSlJ2zXPjqsQhcp3rn6VkFRUfH5EsxFAXY8w8EboilBH9R-5_gH8-jQxYhTRvKuC1imQAETplEmYZu5W7rVxrXlR5gkbo4xruwq0BsCPgkPwEgcmE85W7Mg/s320/Bronzino_001.jpg" width="253" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span><div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><b>Seven Operas</b></span><br />
<span>"The three finest things God ever made are <i>Hamlet, Don Giovanni</i> and the sea."—Gustave Flaubert</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><span><i>The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, The Magic Flute, La Traviata</i> (by Cotrubas and Domingo, I beg you)</span><i>, </i><i><span>Gianni Schicchi</span></i><span>. OK, the Verdi and the Puccini suffer from </span><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2010/04/character-arc.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>post-Dickensian scmaltz</b></span></a><span>. I've seen/read/heard the story of Camille so often that it seems safe; </span><i><span>Don Giovanni</span></i><i> </i><span>is dangerous, as is </span><i><span>Hamlet</span></i><span>, as is the sea. Nevertheless, the music of Verdi and Puccini is undeniably gorgeous. </span></span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBQH65PBHvGWVqKe6mkFQ5recIQLb9Mk_ub9yEttnvRtRMrAL_yhdNJ-6tNN3U7HbV8IxesD2yeMBHVM5sd506qPhzthJCDXq7_vPQyYLd0w7Fr0d3PBOxTkIe_6zFh6yq7eHn3gjuolE/s1600/Boucher.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBQH65PBHvGWVqKe6mkFQ5recIQLb9Mk_ub9yEttnvRtRMrAL_yhdNJ-6tNN3U7HbV8IxesD2yeMBHVM5sd506qPhzthJCDXq7_vPQyYLd0w7Fr0d3PBOxTkIe_6zFh6yq7eHn3gjuolE/s320/Boucher.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>All thought aspires to the condition of aria. Imagine allowing your soul to sing</span><span>—to </span><span>sing your sins to your confessor, your worries to your psychiatrist, your passion to your lover, your despair</span><span>—the greatest of human pleasures</span><span>—to whoever.</span><span> But no, despair is denied us; there are always other tables to bet at; the universe, as Tennessee Williams said, is a great big gambling casino.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisTsB2C9Q5acpMiKWwyfUkaS_h6vjaDScAcLTjqn35LmJpAsUv-mQlrmLVuULUcX7gUqOKmjKZfz1W8yWvMXvqnC2RJfVhqG0XA_pwfApu-ZYJkJ5p6jr3UAPncmtD-Mw2nzVstr2KDlM/s1600/rouault_frombook.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisTsB2C9Q5acpMiKWwyfUkaS_h6vjaDScAcLTjqn35LmJpAsUv-mQlrmLVuULUcX7gUqOKmjKZfz1W8yWvMXvqnC2RJfVhqG0XA_pwfApu-ZYJkJ5p6jr3UAPncmtD-Mw2nzVstr2KDlM/s320/rouault_frombook.jpg" width="269" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Opera is <i>the</i> Catholic art, the art of confession. "Do not speak to the driver," says a sign on an Italian bus, "he has to keep his hands on the wheel." What, I have wondered <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/10/greece-versus-puritans.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">elsewhere</span></b></a>, would <i>Protestant</i> opera sound like? It would sound like Wagner, the end of melody, the end of pleasure. </span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Seven Drawings</span></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvmO8B_Yv27vxjCw22ngEv3q4SjN6zwhM1jV_M2dxDa-dPc31JqsVQvwn5fG8NMGivlDVzsQiWVNmc76H93fYm28XNKrZtSXEpVszc7sxgxrU39Y_0yeNFvubMeig7ilG2effTjtNW5FU/s1600/egon_schiele_liegender_akt_d5433442h.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvmO8B_Yv27vxjCw22ngEv3q4SjN6zwhM1jV_M2dxDa-dPc31JqsVQvwn5fG8NMGivlDVzsQiWVNmc76H93fYm28XNKrZtSXEpVszc7sxgxrU39Y_0yeNFvubMeig7ilG2effTjtNW5FU/s320/egon_schiele_liegender_akt_d5433442h.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Opera is not <i>a</i>moral, it is quite deliberately <i>im</i>moral, in the Christian sense: it is pagan. The Bonn-born Beethoven was shocked when he first heard <i>Così fan tutte</i> (</span><span>"You can live without love, but not without lovers")</span><span>, and wrote the </span><span>unsingable and, for those with my pain </span><span>threshold, the unhearable</span><span> <i>Fidelio</i></span><span>.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLnXBh2dAaYIx9PUw7n9enNmK7MmTauBAjJBWkEHstdJIUEEN5FtCsn65M-BvoCqlX5pcYG_aWpnm58MzHfL_QkiTdhn8Nzo8hZM1qedBKx4lLVvpvce6Idzd2Y6OLp9_vDIEWuh7g-Y/s1600/M.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLnXBh2dAaYIx9PUw7n9enNmK7MmTauBAjJBWkEHstdJIUEEN5FtCsn65M-BvoCqlX5pcYG_aWpnm58MzHfL_QkiTdhn8Nzo8hZM1qedBKx4lLVvpvce6Idzd2Y6OLp9_vDIEWuh7g-Y/s320/M.jpg" width="234" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>The nordic Protestant Richard Wagner killed opera dead. Moralism, sentimantality (the two are the same: </span><span>Wagner wrote </span><i><span>Here Comes the Bride</span></i><span>), Christianity, gnosticism, all kinds of puritanism, and to go with them, atonal music. Verdi the sentimentalist fell in love with Wagner the moralist, and that finished it. Check </span><span>Philip Glass for the current state of the art. In </span><i><span>The President's Palm Reader</span></i><span> a hostess asks Word what he thinks of the New Music: "It's great!" he says; "You can hum a tune while you're listening to it!"</span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span><div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJWydpqAt7iitJN_gJOG8GAFQCy1FnIyBeeu3pfX_HFyizqFnUlRAj8tI49duFc5LUVKmI_eqZ56bD0iaE5fDxBNEFWXdtH0XV9aPwCv7611TEsQtVCt7aMerb2d427SPWyFHkK3jRWjQ/s320/Cover.PP.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>The Magnificent Seven</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Louis, Cole, Django, Stéphane, Henry, Nino, Miles. After Wagner flushed melody it was up to Louis and Cole to fish it out and get it dancing again. Louis Armstrong <i>is</i> gorgeousness, the gorgeousest of <i>all</i> musicians, a poet with three voices—his composer's voice, his unmistakable flat-out in-your-face trumpet, and his <i>voice</i> voice which, with Domingo's, is the best male one we have. He taught Ella; he taught Frank; he created American music. Emerson put Shakespeare down because he was a mere entertainer, but entertainment is everything.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_nCGOOnhCBk-Ay0TxDRB7Cp6nWRqv-UQMvDnJo6YQsTqB7l7Ivj8_0Op2XoLeGPAsU5Alp19JsK902H3aCwe2Vk2VeFbh6w8XHNANepplgYT2BHHm7-7wYeukmzmbFDHXIZVfbva_tPU/s1600/Picasso.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_nCGOOnhCBk-Ay0TxDRB7Cp6nWRqv-UQMvDnJo6YQsTqB7l7Ivj8_0Op2XoLeGPAsU5Alp19JsK902H3aCwe2Vk2VeFbh6w8XHNANepplgYT2BHHm7-7wYeukmzmbFDHXIZVfbva_tPU/s320/Picasso.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Miles Davis, after departing the <i>Kind of Blue</i> mode ("I have no feel for it anymore—it's more like warmed-over turkey")</span><span> was Wagner's grandchild. <i>Bitches Brew</i> doesn't resolve musically, so it doesn't live in your memory; you recall only a phantasmagorical present</span><span>. It's the closest thing there is to illegal music. But as with Beethoven and <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2012/02/vladimir-nabokov-and-twelve-year-old.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Nabokov</span></b></a>, I feel with Davis that I'm in the presence of a bully</span><span>—and yet</span><span> not with </span><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/09/hemingway-for-wimps.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>Hemingway</b></span></a><span>!</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8wWO6v00kgDOGueCpOrpGqLqUjqXOCUZEn_0JHC7Hfz6uP4WbAuOfhWHQKgCp03GVcZffTucFwD3ZaR_4w4uhYlzXGiduotKeEjrUqVMTb6wsN3bAUZ_Jm-YmGOb45Ac9XS3AKfzfNYE/s1600/egon3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8wWO6v00kgDOGueCpOrpGqLqUjqXOCUZEn_0JHC7Hfz6uP4WbAuOfhWHQKgCp03GVcZffTucFwD3ZaR_4w4uhYlzXGiduotKeEjrUqVMTb6wsN3bAUZ_Jm-YmGOb45Ac9XS3AKfzfNYE/s320/egon3.jpg" width="211" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Seven Westerns</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>I </span><i><span>hate</span></i><span> Westerns! Except sometimes: </span><span><i>Stagecoach, Shane, The Professionals, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Outlaw Josey Wales</i>. Ford's hypnotic framing is always wasted on the most pedestrian subjects.</span><span> </span><i><span>The Professionals</span></i><span> is the best of them all: "You bastard!" "Yes, sir, by an accident of birth. But you, you're a self-made man."</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwv57lq5ce8BmFjkZN6AdNyvNhUI_lmSxCwBOBU7AeRZtzOY1AezRYs5p3aTmhyphenhyphenc6Zznee8BzNxvuJCG0OV-Mrq8VUdF624ETiqds2Hn7eyCN8M8c8fgp9HvCSlxdHn_AlRExhYzVMOGM/s1600/Auden.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwv57lq5ce8BmFjkZN6AdNyvNhUI_lmSxCwBOBU7AeRZtzOY1AezRYs5p3aTmhyphenhyphenc6Zznee8BzNxvuJCG0OV-Mrq8VUdF624ETiqds2Hn7eyCN8M8c8fgp9HvCSlxdHn_AlRExhYzVMOGM/s320/Auden.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>The Wild Bunch</i> owes it everything, but one must admire those god-men who so bestride the world. Of course I have no interest in machismo</span><span>—I can barely get the plug out of the hot-water bottle</span><span>—and when Peckinpah eases up on it, as in <i>The Ballad of Cable Hogue</i>, he makes real poetry. <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/12/return-of-dirty-harry-zombie-treat-for.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Eastwood</span></b></a> I contemplated in the <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2012/09/the-lubitsch-touch.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Lubitsch piece</span></b></a>. </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_xhesh4ldi86ZFZFIHYquXysn4HeUKwRI6Vq4vhd5TazVjP0q6ZeEgCOVN9vXRuMbb5kCYXUSVfFYtK9f8J1D0iQMfilszhw-ycZz2_8pT291tnenjoaOkPbINez2XT96M7Aw0yxCpsQ/s1600/Beardsley2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_xhesh4ldi86ZFZFIHYquXysn4HeUKwRI6Vq4vhd5TazVjP0q6ZeEgCOVN9vXRuMbb5kCYXUSVfFYtK9f8J1D0iQMfilszhw-ycZz2_8pT291tnenjoaOkPbINez2XT96M7Aw0yxCpsQ/s320/Beardsley2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Leone is the most shamelessly intellectual of them. He must have been shocked at the popularity of that work of semiotics and film criticism, <i>A Fistful of Dollars</i>. It founded an entire genre. His title <i>The Good, the Bad and the Ugly</i> is a gloss on Wittgenstein's "Ethics and aesthetics are one," but the meat is a historical analysis of the industrial revolution and the Western's time in history: the cowboy and the gunfighter thrive between the Civil War and the arrival of the steam engine, and that train is always being built in his movies. Witness the scene where Eli Wallach assembles his pistol out of interchangeable parts. Heavy stuff, and off-putting if you're not hip to his mid-century out-Godard-Godard sensibility.</span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif3af235vKazrWCrXPMQvuJVp67sfY45jeRwvasBVWb3Lg-SWgTo1p7xBRkE5HBZ3LB4dCIagEfkAJJPxhmr2js_CxGQDPG_CLdBosDuE4Td6naTpv_yeYt9LAOOyf98cgeIvUdSpsYSs/s1600/p2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif3af235vKazrWCrXPMQvuJVp67sfY45jeRwvasBVWb3Lg-SWgTo1p7xBRkE5HBZ3LB4dCIagEfkAJJPxhmr2js_CxGQDPG_CLdBosDuE4Td6naTpv_yeYt9LAOOyf98cgeIvUdSpsYSs/s320/p2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Which reminds me:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Seven More Movies</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>Pickup on South Street, The Seven Samurai, Contempt, Death in Venice, Happy New Year, The Night Porter, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover</i>. In the sixties Lelouch's <i>A Man and a Woman</i> was <i>the</i> movie of romance; now it's embarrassing to watch. His gem is </span><i><span>Happy New Year</span></i><span>, a beautifully controlled romantic heist, worth it alone for the </span><span>pre-</span><span>Steadicam </span><span>hand-held on</span><span>e-shot</span><span> scene in which Lino Ventura, fresh out of jail, cases his mistress's place and slips out when her new boyfriend arrives.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ihNoXODGvbYHICo1bEBHDh507ayPBu8H3zuROEuUIY3N-IcC9AITs2hudMRxCEkMWd_7aOYTP6mpdCqL_nXJUbggNp4zdKLedRgQ1qXiEjRcxNqNWgXoKn1L5mfwzlLhJrX_v7Gb_yQ/s1600/la+bonne-annee-1973-09-g.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ihNoXODGvbYHICo1bEBHDh507ayPBu8H3zuROEuUIY3N-IcC9AITs2hudMRxCEkMWd_7aOYTP6mpdCqL_nXJUbggNp4zdKLedRgQ1qXiEjRcxNqNWgXoKn1L5mfwzlLhJrX_v7Gb_yQ/s320/la+bonne-annee-1973-09-g.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Seven Desperadoes</span></b></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>"The beautiful is that which fills us with despair."—Paul Valéry</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>"All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last."—Marcel Proust</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>"It’s not true that a woman can change a man. I don't want to tell another lie."—</span><i><span>8½</span></i><br />
<span><br />"It would be better if nothing existed."—Mephistopheles in Goethe's <i>Faust</i></span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>"Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows."</span><span>—</span><span>Leonard Cohen</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>We sink in the sweet quicksand of Shakespeare. Perhaps the secret of his haunting voice is the despair in it, the dying fall, the tragic joy. </span><span>One must look hard to find a triumphant character in him; perhaps only Rosalind sweeps the board. (Do yourself a favor and see the Elizabeth Bergner version.) </span><span> </span><span>He teaches us how to be no one. </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx3mQfVlwU853WYuXGfJrGF6xUdLB_XlGYsqiCWGqfCP7hRLvi0osd2N6cL4eE6e0fAspvEdlGZ9haTLVP-qU8yzCZL13FgKva7Z-jcbt1vx3Ka8oD8REm105k2SYWkwsub6Mayliuwbc/s1600/Bardot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx3mQfVlwU853WYuXGfJrGF6xUdLB_XlGYsqiCWGqfCP7hRLvi0osd2N6cL4eE6e0fAspvEdlGZ9haTLVP-qU8yzCZL13FgKva7Z-jcbt1vx3Ka8oD8REm105k2SYWkwsub6Mayliuwbc/s320/Bardot.jpg" width="222" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>"Devotion is a kind of despair, and only in despair can we find happiness, which is why I will not deprive myself of my abandonment by the man I love."—Agustina Bessa-Luís, </span><i><span>Party</span></i><br />
<span><br /></span><span>Tragic, comic, who cares; what matters is gorgeousness. </span><span>I said that there have been no poems recently, but Portuguese Agustina Bessa-Luís, who scripted the best de Oliveira's films, <i>Party</i> and <i>The Convent</i>, does the real thing. Alas, I am unable to find translations of her books and am confined to subtitles in her movies, which are of an aristocratic gorgeousness alien to what one of her characters calls "the democracies." </span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br /></span><span>Which reminds me</span><span>—</span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><b>A Further Seven Films</b></span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>The Pink Panther</i> (the original), <i>Charade, How to Steal a Million</i> (such exuberance!), <i>Some Like It Hot, Toby Dammit, La jetée, The Convent</i>. I've seen <i>The Convent</i> two dozen times—but don't go in there expecting a <i>movie</i> movie. These people don't give a damn about what we expect. Ah, to be financed like that!</span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPuG6evqTR-f6Y-HdVXMZeF3uNGSDQ76b90xnuSQbP8K69n_4Gspf6vpNPN9np2LQWjXokIGNjx8KPS4QUc6mVlXv-0wSW6wnxMRrYHSKMeQZjV4mPmna4I_jFBiLg3v5TR38BxfrZpbM/s1600/Marilyn+(Some+Like+it+Hot)_06.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPuG6evqTR-f6Y-HdVXMZeF3uNGSDQ76b90xnuSQbP8K69n_4Gspf6vpNPN9np2LQWjXokIGNjx8KPS4QUc6mVlXv-0wSW6wnxMRrYHSKMeQZjV4mPmna4I_jFBiLg3v5TR38BxfrZpbM/s320/Marilyn+(Some+Like+it+Hot)_06.jpg" width="228" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Pop Music?</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>No. Too gospel-derived. Repent! Atone! The day of judgment is nigh! "And one of these days, baby, and it won't be long, you gonna come back crawlin on yo knees, and you gone be sayin, I still <i>love</i> you! Always thinkin <i>of</i> you! I still <i>love, love, love</i></span><span>—</span><span>" Get lost. It gives rise to the uneasy spectacle of Presbyterians dancing. Gorgeousness is not a judgement, it's an appetite.</span><br />
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrQOxWFTRlKx8h5TjBZMNfg66Ph24EaIY5uJggNYUke4xlsCERrJQU4N0tPjUXRIhzCPA2Eg09Rb8c0YXtDCPk7G8ZNPnYbbePLU2U7xa_t-rxixR8HH6exEIgyS6ZCwtTU9AlmZ-ukY/s1600/dancers.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrQOxWFTRlKx8h5TjBZMNfg66Ph24EaIY5uJggNYUke4xlsCERrJQU4N0tPjUXRIhzCPA2Eg09Rb8c0YXtDCPk7G8ZNPnYbbePLU2U7xa_t-rxixR8HH6exEIgyS6ZCwtTU9AlmZ-ukY/s320/dancers.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Elvis, yes</span><span>—no brains, but a genius, and a gorgeous one. Johnny Cash, OK, I can't say no to the lyric poet of the American South. "When I was just a baby, my mama told me, Son, Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns. I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry." If shooting a man to watch him die doesn't do it to you, what that sight has to do with the sound of a train whistle</span><span>—Pow. Wham. Gotcha.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Seven Fools</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel, Hardy, <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2012/12/fellini.html">Alberto Sordi</a>, Lucy, Jackie Gleason. If I were listing actors Gleason would be at the top, with Mickey Rooney, James Mason</span><span>—I can't think who else now. Michel Piccoli.</span><br />
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnH_0XD_Dztd8sazfE6eRjjhtWBbyzZQOMBjW9J8iRTaKjORIiYfklbHvx0LnF230bqYBM2hqwtbUQZqnG0W1Giu9jRSbggXGOK7esljvfwSmZs6ZszZht6LAYAKtvIJ_vQ20KnxT6tpE/s1600/Alberto_Sordi.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnH_0XD_Dztd8sazfE6eRjjhtWBbyzZQOMBjW9J8iRTaKjORIiYfklbHvx0LnF230bqYBM2hqwtbUQZqnG0W1Giu9jRSbggXGOK7esljvfwSmZs6ZszZht6LAYAKtvIJ_vQ20KnxT6tpE/s320/Alberto_Sordi.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>A fool is without dignity. A fool sees <i>through</i> dignity. A fool has no use for dignity, except to puncture it. Especially his own.</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>If you make a fool of yourself deliberately, it’s a triumph. If you make a fool of yourself and it’s <i>not</i> deliberate, it’s humiliating. If it’s deliberate but people <i>think</i> it’s not<i> </i>deliberate, it’s still humiliating</span><span>—</span><span>so important is the opinion of others</span><span>—</span><span>to me, anyway, but then I’m a fool. The <i>great</i> fools brave this double edge and go all the way into <i>being</i> fools. They live without approval. Not easy.</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>It's like being ugly. It <i>is</i> being ugly. At the end of <i>City Lights</i> the blind flower girl, her sight restored, looks up at the hero who has done this for her and sees</span><span>—</span><span>Charlie. Ooh, bad moment.</span><br />
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXs1Pv38OFRAPMJo8uM2CW9aglltDRoSaVtmDWpGSwJsM6qVg4P0Qg6wnvjiXb1bX_eyHNys4SPuXEjXPYq1112zgIfaiostSCYjCT0XexoOGPeEdovsWxVo6FAnQvUug-LbWbYhuqHzk/s1600/chaplin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXs1Pv38OFRAPMJo8uM2CW9aglltDRoSaVtmDWpGSwJsM6qVg4P0Qg6wnvjiXb1bX_eyHNys4SPuXEjXPYq1112zgIfaiostSCYjCT0XexoOGPeEdovsWxVo6FAnQvUug-LbWbYhuqHzk/s320/chaplin.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Do I see <i>myself</i> as a fool? Only of the undeliberate kind. To be a fool is a holy calling.</span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><b><br /></b></span>
<span><b>Seven Desserts</b></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>Crêpe Suzette</i>,<i> zabaglione</i>, <i>mousse au chocolat</i>, strawberry cheesecake, bananas in white wine, fudge cake, Tia Maria on vanilla ice cream. Each of these is in its own way a dehumanizing experience, like good sex, and should be preceded by <i>foie gras</i> with Sauternes, and then lobster and champagne (champagne goes with any sea food, I find), followed by a <i>Bûcheron chèvre </i>with <i>Pouilly-Fumé</i>. <i>Or</i> substitute for the lobster a <i>filet de bœuf</i> served raw and in pieces to be grilled on your own heated iron</span><span>—I love it when they give you those</span><span>—with a red </span><span>Bordeaux. And try to control yourself.</span></span></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkxoV-RKAbRohRnUFGOWzIRXA_kyVuVObS-nqvaq5n74MvL3phSaqx6x33d7UUti5SGXNUQIHoDPNl7Q7zx4qgIEEXQpydGgdxv9OXzlLITj7Jq-RlR82VtS_fN30e7olt_zdcIcWJe-s/s1600/dinner2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkxoV-RKAbRohRnUFGOWzIRXA_kyVuVObS-nqvaq5n74MvL3phSaqx6x33d7UUti5SGXNUQIHoDPNl7Q7zx4qgIEEXQpydGgdxv9OXzlLITj7Jq-RlR82VtS_fN30e7olt_zdcIcWJe-s/s320/dinner2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Toby's Seven Favorite Pleasures</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>My alter-ego, lazy worthless Toby Tucker, hero of my comic novels, has, for preference, these: </span><br />
<span><br /></span><span> <i> </i></span><i>I lay there, nudged by the lightest possible stirrings of current, waving like seaweed. Here, I congratulated myself, I could combine two of the pleasures afforded by the mortal coil: sleep and immersion in a liquid. Ingestion, elimination, gossiping, shopping for shoes, driving around listening to The Doors and making uh-uh would, for the moment, just have to wait.</i><br />
<span><br /></span><span>Which is eight, actually, not seven. But that's Toby.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4WGBMlzwoufEB-A_uOUSUbjV5pAHm5GaYM1J0tOkl-XXpZ4L5sc-acL75D0x757A3zAE28nq9VzGVHsk2hMjdVFglZqUdLTHHub7GRCTB62zsxfbk8YErZPYs1h8XDzRvTNfqUiLtPpo/s320/TM.cover.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>PS: Roman Tsivkin, a man of deeper culture than my own, was gracious enough to praise this piece, even while correcting me on Shostakovich, whose work I list among things ungorgeous. ‘If anything,’ says Roman, ‘his music should have the designation "ugly beauty"’ [pretty much what I feel about the above Rouault painting of the prostitute]. He sent me to hear Shostakovich's <i>Cello Concerto No. 1</i>, which has all the Russian passion you could ask for (there’s nice camera work in the film on YouTube), his <i>7th Symphony</i> and his jazz waltzes. And I have learned a new pleasure, for which I’m grateful.</span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></span></div></span></div></div></div></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-40543278957657734642013-06-27T18:24:00.003+03:002022-02-18T17:37:12.442+02:00Hitch and Cary: A Study in Charm<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx1XoGpRQdFDlRFFDNuUTm9_cxO7k9kqpO8U141W9xH9o60mqxcJCQhLkD6mSWIXiabG7sBsfIf542vCSKMn_n_7Jb-0_LL0SQoABx4_MYJGLzVoJqKGmVFpHCcTfw3be4AsgrGo9txLw/s1600/Cary-n-Alfred.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx1XoGpRQdFDlRFFDNuUTm9_cxO7k9kqpO8U141W9xH9o60mqxcJCQhLkD6mSWIXiabG7sBsfIf542vCSKMn_n_7Jb-0_LL0SQoABx4_MYJGLzVoJqKGmVFpHCcTfw3be4AsgrGo9txLw/s320/Cary-n-Alfred.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Even Cary Grant isn’t Cary Grant."—Cary Grant</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Grant and Hitchcock</span><span>—not exactly identical twins, but the same kind of guy, really. They had charm. "Thin people," Jackie Gleason said, "are beautiful, but fat people are adorable." Hitchcock seems to have agreed. </span><span>"In England," he said when he got to Hollywood, "everybody looks like this." He does his <i>de rigueur </i>cameo in <i>Lifeboat</i>, with its confined setting, in a weight-reducing ad. He's the one on the left. Neither </span><span>of these blubber-bellies ever got serious about dieting.</span><span> </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX7B1IbiQXJ5WC2wuQDQEyBkD1wPMsPAvTurpjIIsJZjKib1aAYC9m8HpbYffPpbGu_NAdo9YEj024LcZOHmvnyn7e5Pv1d_nGkeYkI9J6IbDeXrBdArNpTWprzyyp1qhHhTa3YccWbSc/s1600/AH17.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX7B1IbiQXJ5WC2wuQDQEyBkD1wPMsPAvTurpjIIsJZjKib1aAYC9m8HpbYffPpbGu_NAdo9YEj024LcZOHmvnyn7e5Pv1d_nGkeYkI9J6IbDeXrBdArNpTWprzyyp1qhHhTa3YccWbSc/s320/AH17.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>As the television host of <i>Alfred Hitchcock Presents</i> he came into our living rooms every Sunday night with perfect British aplomb, </span><span> the merry mock-lugubrious image of sophistication. </span><span>"Good evening," he always began</span><span>.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaReFe2MnK94T-IX3fAPzVu8VBNFE_f_ztrnk_xxszPvjL6dK39tM8yOogj_qtwnPpTntTg8n0-EB_1OU2P9AvM3YI0FJkr6oSNqkgRgVCJaBADPPwnG3RzR4Kj-tYO1giJRip1ntKjIk/s1600/AH3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaReFe2MnK94T-IX3fAPzVu8VBNFE_f_ztrnk_xxszPvjL6dK39tM8yOogj_qtwnPpTntTg8n0-EB_1OU2P9AvM3YI0FJkr6oSNqkgRgVCJaBADPPwnG3RzR4Kj-tYO1giJRip1ntKjIk/s320/AH3.jpg" width="313" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>"Television has brought murder back into the home," he said, "where it belongs." Like Grant he was a symbol, in America, of debonair elegance. Not your average</span><span> food-on-the-teeth Brit.</span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTPHuPpDGGbCSpz5H1Ve-rDmWqNf5POZYUqWnRYDBZLN1imPhsoSZHs4TuRAcw-6Xg5Q8GGJk-kCixSBBTPS3eyhVrlpWi-kgHa8d-ilB6nbcpZlWKL9mbGaRGju1HuJPESv_rrPHg2jY/s1600/AH10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTPHuPpDGGbCSpz5H1Ve-rDmWqNf5POZYUqWnRYDBZLN1imPhsoSZHs4TuRAcw-6Xg5Q8GGJk-kCixSBBTPS3eyhVrlpWi-kgHa8d-ilB6nbcpZlWKL9mbGaRGju1HuJPESv_rrPHg2jY/s320/AH10.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Back home, though, he was lower-class. </span><span>When he worked in England, even as late as <i>Stage Fright</i> in 1950, his actors complained that they couldn’t understand him through his Cockney accent. </span><span>And notice, when he goes into the houses of the rich, </span><span>how the camera always stays downstairs looking up at a world into which it dare not intrude.</span><span> <i>Strangers on a Train</i> and </span><i><span>Marnie</span></i><span> fly to mind; here's</span><span> </span><i><span>Rebecca</span></i><span>:</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjyQ66gBZTpAotqixEBneTy7Z0X4bpim5IOwFQJpDTjL8a_IODVVSOn6-IG-IMG-IBoJr-9GyDwB7UYDbxUstnBjkLUlAgv9UAbHQyJf1bqqhh1VDfPz3PaBlWALur7zsTOgSQeYHrLBo/s1600/AH5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjyQ66gBZTpAotqixEBneTy7Z0X4bpim5IOwFQJpDTjL8a_IODVVSOn6-IG-IMG-IBoJr-9GyDwB7UYDbxUstnBjkLUlAgv9UAbHQyJf1bqqhh1VDfPz3PaBlWALur7zsTOgSQeYHrLBo/s320/AH5.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>And Grant, </span><span>real name Archie Leach, was, c</span><span>lass-wise, H</span><span>itchcock's </span><span>Bristol</span><span> equivalent. He worried all his life that he lacked the background for what he was supposed to be. </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1jXfofBs17nVw62tWCu8Wdckk5zWRANhBlbnvhixZsPbphz80KjvHNaMSdxaKJAHPv3tHGEdC9UNBlOFPA8jobiT2EE-Jg0vuaKkngC6CYczmab5E_Z4leuOQjkIhg38naFkXjteFh3M/s1600/AH13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1jXfofBs17nVw62tWCu8Wdckk5zWRANhBlbnvhixZsPbphz80KjvHNaMSdxaKJAHPv3tHGEdC9UNBlOFPA8jobiT2EE-Jg0vuaKkngC6CYczmab5E_Z4leuOQjkIhg38naFkXjteFh3M/s320/AH13.jpg" width="246" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Both, despite their enormous success, were always slightly out of place in the US. Hitchcock's American films, though his obsession with detail is inspiring, </span><span>never seem to me to be quite American: the people are </span><span>too mild, too mannerly</span><span>—t</span><span>oo British. </span><span>Even his salesclerks are polite—chatty without being intrusive.</span><span> There is never the undercurrent of physical threat that haunts American movies, and indeed American life. Murder and psychopathology are there all right but they're disguised, as they are in Agatha Christie, not, as in the United States, a matter of style. </span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pVDXlR2TGIc2OIiNUUCW2FbMQfxuOhAR6aKVCsJP1iwoE7d_duGR_qEYjIUIFLQlmyojSi5udC8f03F-VsTnwfoJhAnGhUgelN2FGSWyRYtCs1m1788zBL6jV2fT4eWz-lEFWHFqVQc/s1600/AH19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pVDXlR2TGIc2OIiNUUCW2FbMQfxuOhAR6aKVCsJP1iwoE7d_duGR_qEYjIUIFLQlmyojSi5udC8f03F-VsTnwfoJhAnGhUgelN2FGSWyRYtCs1m1788zBL6jV2fT4eWz-lEFWHFqVQc/s320/AH19.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Same goes for Grant: he was never all the way</span><span> American. Imagine him getting angry. Impossible. Anger is the <i>opposite</i> of charm. Anger says things aren't going your way. <i>Everything</i> went his way, except when it didn't, in which case he ran like hell. </span><span>Scarcely an American hero.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj35domuFLUhxulb7ErfX2Jfo4jRS4K-WkEhGHlgHlgAtl_cbGgptK4smUY25aognhUIC2OTwbgZZNrzdDmCkXNeVZ1eHIww4-VbN8parCXxX9vWDw0L0DvxNtS7_-jAfb1cIwdI2zNqZQ/s1600/AH14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj35domuFLUhxulb7ErfX2Jfo4jRS4K-WkEhGHlgHlgAtl_cbGgptK4smUY25aognhUIC2OTwbgZZNrzdDmCkXNeVZ1eHIww4-VbN8parCXxX9vWDw0L0DvxNtS7_-jAfb1cIwdI2zNqZQ/s320/AH14.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Part fool, part coward, is what he was, and here I am at one with him. Punch somebody? No no no. When it comes to a fight, as </span><span>in <i>Charade</i>, </span><span>he allows the George-Kennedy giant to defeat <i>himself</i>, then lectures him on loving thy neighbor</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">—</span><span>though that wasn't entirely his policy. Fuck you, I'm Cary Grant, is more like it.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKisZ0DSrGxiujSxrvH1RJ8axCmRXp0sbyunpUTNJwg8bLGJ3KWOm1OJ6fWYu-soqtX3UkTpsz-ycaKfh1J-tl4gtecQT-u2W5KCjhEjxqyuhY5N4lK4SD4qbc5gJIoh25xfFXHSkkl_A/s1600/AH18.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKisZ0DSrGxiujSxrvH1RJ8axCmRXp0sbyunpUTNJwg8bLGJ3KWOm1OJ6fWYu-soqtX3UkTpsz-ycaKfh1J-tl4gtecQT-u2W5KCjhEjxqyuhY5N4lK4SD4qbc5gJIoh25xfFXHSkkl_A/s320/AH18.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>A recent article in </span><span><i>The Atlantic</i>, "The Rise and Fall of Charm in American Men," centers of course on Grant, but then shifts the focus to Orson Welles and James Garner</span><span>—</span><span>well, all right</span><span>—but</span><span> leaves Fred Astaire out entirely! And in predictable Puritan fashion it pronounces a negative judgement on charm: it is "amoral," unAmerican and to be watched out for. Thank God it's gone. Grant may have been gay.</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>And indeed, what would he <i>do</i></span><span> in a film by </span><span>Crapola or </span><span>Scorsleazy, advertisements, both, that America has run out of decency. It seems clear what he would </span><i><span>not</span></i><span> do, but what would he </span><i><span>do</span></i><span>? (For more on this see </span><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2010/08/italian-american-filmmakers.html"><span>Italian-American Filmmakers</span></a><span>.)</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>Which brings us to the question of the psychopath. H</span><span>itchcock had dealt with psychopaths in his British films, so I don’t know whether it was by insight or by predilection that he so consistently exploited this theme in Hollywood. As a Frenchman in </span><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/02/time-pozo-seco-singers.html"><span>one of my scripts</span></a><span> says, "The psychopath is an American tradition since Captain Ahab and poor Mr. Poe. One daren’t make a film without one. Such people are the norm here—corporate conventioneers, fast food waiters, religious fanatics—even the hotel clerks glow with sinister joy. Observe yourselves in television audiences. You are all quite mad!"</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqFd0ph8qIH9d0Qdcn9uFXCpemkEahwnMAyAh3ZgEAWMsJnXcx9qiw8gJ8JJobD5h3kSHpnlI4Pb6zyHIV9spbh5fLfJGL5X61rfK4RZY8cq8bZ2EIYtLIEdWxiiK5cWRlxqInp6ptDY0/s1600/AH4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqFd0ph8qIH9d0Qdcn9uFXCpemkEahwnMAyAh3ZgEAWMsJnXcx9qiw8gJ8JJobD5h3kSHpnlI4Pb6zyHIV9spbh5fLfJGL5X61rfK4RZY8cq8bZ2EIYtLIEdWxiiK5cWRlxqInp6ptDY0/s320/AH4.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>A header in yesterday's<i> New York Times</i>: "Once I got pregnant I had to abandon the drugs that made me stable enough to want to be become a mother in the first place." Everybody's a psychopath. When Martin McDonagh came to make an American film he wrote for himself <i>Seven Psychopaths</i>, which, as a strategy, couldn't miss.</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>In </span><i><span>Suspicion</span></i><span> Grant plays the psychopath, and Hitchcock complained to Francois Truffaut (a man of extraordinary dullness) that he couldn’t end the film the way he wanted to because you can’t make Cary Grant a murderer.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAiCCpJ2Nvhx4Awuz9QZX4QW7rcU9YGatvqY-9Lzx3cU0PaC9GmtwNUJeDxMnZ08v-bEEezAQm5rFXkFr-zlYYyT_m9onY8TMIk9PQAIvr6bg98zDlobLLd3BcaYC4kxHImp9WhrVYP0o/s1600/AH6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAiCCpJ2Nvhx4Awuz9QZX4QW7rcU9YGatvqY-9Lzx3cU0PaC9GmtwNUJeDxMnZ08v-bEEezAQm5rFXkFr-zlYYyT_m9onY8TMIk9PQAIvr6bg98zDlobLLd3BcaYC4kxHImp9WhrVYP0o/s320/AH6.jpg" width="208" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>He also told Truffaut that, although he had only made one <i>overt</i> comedy, </span><span>all</span><span> of his films were more or less comic. Perhaps this explains why my favorite Hitchcock films are the Cary Grant ones</span><span>—</span><span>especially <i>To Catch a Thief</i> and <i>North by Northwest</i>, which to me are romantic comedies—so much so that I’m inclined to regard Grant as their real auteur.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrM60WYlNTpxXnTci80JrHLnrCUNptWdBPWJHOzGSliI8LIyQf3g8AD1_7syQOrL6IG2fEIG0uq7WZ6oqoFP13a5sgVLWbp5NB1GtGTmeJ13UlskrxY83PxprvVasJ_8J5joRA5yDZZ_E/s1600/AH7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrM60WYlNTpxXnTci80JrHLnrCUNptWdBPWJHOzGSliI8LIyQf3g8AD1_7syQOrL6IG2fEIG0uq7WZ6oqoFP13a5sgVLWbp5NB1GtGTmeJ13UlskrxY83PxprvVasJ_8J5joRA5yDZZ_E/s320/AH7.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Now, please, Hitchcock is a master, for many people <i>the</i> master of cinema, an inventor not just of images—the chase among the umbrellas in <i>Foreign Correspondent</i>, the tennis-game in <i>Strangers on a Train</i>, all faces going back and forth with the ball except the psychopath’s—but of sounds: he</span><span> was the first to experiment with electronic synthesis in <i>The Birds</i>. (And let's mention casting</span><span>—George Sanders as a used-car salesman in <i>Rebecca</i>: inspired!)</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3EXav8_Ga4MrwWmAxghcXcCjZjfa2W3SN45vNLv5dfQNBQ1smbxMWGYVwcduP-sJO6MPEAMgDLlcl-nR0HJbl531EZFnIopHPSskvCPHqZoS6JnHhVooWihrsG-Z-GTHNhyuN29kQzHM/s1600/AH8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3EXav8_Ga4MrwWmAxghcXcCjZjfa2W3SN45vNLv5dfQNBQ1smbxMWGYVwcduP-sJO6MPEAMgDLlcl-nR0HJbl531EZFnIopHPSskvCPHqZoS6JnHhVooWihrsG-Z-GTHNhyuN29kQzHM/s320/AH8.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>But more than that he could give you the feel of a relationship. </span><span>James Agee remarked of <i>Notorious</i> that Hichcock was "as good at domestic psychology as at thrillers, and many times he makes a moment in a party, or a lovers' quarrel, or a mere interior shrewdly exciting in ways that few people in films seem to know." </span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>One thinks of his silent </span><i><span>The Lodger</span></i><span>, in which the lovers are endeared to us by their habit of hovering in a restaurant until they can pounce on their favorite table</span><span>; and of</span><span> </span><i><span>Marnie</span></i><span> (where the psychopath, for the first time since <i>Rebecca</i>, is a woman), when Sean Connery’s character tells her that, although marriages are said to succeed or fail in bed, they’re really about control of the bathroom.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjugXqdQggE__ZQt8UGKM19TXOtyNFnIT_4tMEv1GpsyBLBHSu_UwK6hSA9V4otnhJ-H2qb9wni6xTaruwcuelu43_5oBmek_eNwFLk8RS7wQVo8H3tgAYi7xDyRTHnHS-QU2bAmc1KUZY/s1600/AH16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjugXqdQggE__ZQt8UGKM19TXOtyNFnIT_4tMEv1GpsyBLBHSu_UwK6hSA9V4otnhJ-H2qb9wni6xTaruwcuelu43_5oBmek_eNwFLk8RS7wQVo8H3tgAYi7xDyRTHnHS-QU2bAmc1KUZY/s320/AH16.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span>And</span></i><span>—this I love—Hitchcock was impatient with Method acting and the Actors Studio</span><span>, </span><span>which made Brando the punk and De Niro the lunk </span><span>high priests of seriousness. ("When you hear the phrase <i>a good acting job</i>," says Toby in one of my books, "it usually </span><span>means a depressing movie.") </span><span>As a filmmaker in Europe I always forget what I’m going to confront when I work with an American actor—back story, motivation and <i>cetera</i>, the whole spiritual exercise. (See </span><span><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2010/04/character-arc.html">The "Character Arc"</a></span><span>, where I really get my rocks off on this.) </span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>"When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character," said Hitchcock, "I say, It's in the script. If he says, But what's my motivation? I say, Your salary." All he wanted Paul Newman to do was hold still for the camera, but no, he was too involved in the part. ("Never do eating scenes with Method actors," said Bogart, "they spit all over you.") </span><span>"I don't feel like that, I don't think I can give you that kind of emotion," Ingrid Bergman told him. "Ingrid," said Hitch, "fake it."</span><br />
</span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRrOttMTmS-5-dLe3lz9hlj_3kVR3Caica5BvOEh966fG3PyJrSlN6ciimuX3Nzk3CsabUp1XSIjBhcYYyx6WkEvxIzdlG9MAqUd2wACHKDN-SaqJOBj72T8uScWbmiXD02uTH9F5uetQ/s1600/AH12.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRrOttMTmS-5-dLe3lz9hlj_3kVR3Caica5BvOEh966fG3PyJrSlN6ciimuX3Nzk3CsabUp1XSIjBhcYYyx6WkEvxIzdlG9MAqUd2wACHKDN-SaqJOBj72T8uScWbmiXD02uTH9F5uetQ/s320/AH12.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: x-large;">When an actress asked him which of her profiles was better he said, "My dear, you're sitting on your best profile."</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>His attitude to character is clearest in <i>Psycho</i>: if you kill the heroine in the first act you'd better replace her</span><span>—and yes, here comes her look-alike sister, thrown so together with the hero that she's set up to be his new squeeze. It's the kind of mix 'n' match you get in <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i> and </span><span><i>Così fan tutte</i></span><span>—whichever partner the dance gives you. But the Puritan must think <i>one</i> self, <i>one</i> love, <i>one</i> moral quest, and God help you if you enjoy it. I'm not a Christian but I did like the way the new Pope ended his first speech: "Have a good lunch."</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV5tqv3BZ1HGZVtz8QFTAueEQzIlMftvT5Mk0LxrJCPMhqOX9KeekAZG-E1LZ1lPkBbtOuia5pwFnzgc24vwGOADQltopEhz97xbwtZUFVPwqlJwgruPfYB-mvs3CoWfm-puddT3tCDvM/s1600/AH29.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV5tqv3BZ1HGZVtz8QFTAueEQzIlMftvT5Mk0LxrJCPMhqOX9KeekAZG-E1LZ1lPkBbtOuia5pwFnzgc24vwGOADQltopEhz97xbwtZUFVPwqlJwgruPfYB-mvs3CoWfm-puddT3tCDvM/s1600/AH29.gif" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Nor does Hitch care much about connections. Plot, yes, his plots are tight, but he moves us from scene to scene with a beautiful arrogance. In <i>To Catch a Thief</i> policemen stalk Grant's character through a market (where, in Cannes? Nice? Monte Carlo? Hitchcock, usually so careful about place, uses all of them to compose a Riviera town) at an ever faster pace until he upsets a flower stall and the owner snags him by the sweater and won't let him go. "<i>Madame! S'il vous plaît, Madame</i>!" What happens—do the cops arrest him? Do they take him to the station? Do they question him? Hitchcock doesn't care, and neither do we: cut to lunch on the terrace overlooking the village on the sea, with not even the <i>mention</i> of a resolution of the previous scene. </span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>Or <i>did</i> he care? Did he, as most filmmakers would, agonize in the editing room over some dull takes he didn't dare slow the film down with? Did he perhaps realize that, like Fellini but in his unique way, he was a master of gorgeousness? We are accustomed to thinking of his art as severe but in that film, as in many others, spectacle was all that interested him.</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>On the other hand there’s a lot of b.s. about Hitchcock, to some of which he contributed himself. He said things like "If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on," and "When the screenplay has been written and the dialogue has been added, we're ready to shoot." Balls. </span><i><span>Nobody</span></i><span> has committed more bla-bla than Hitchcock. </span><i><span>Psycho</span></i><span> has three exciting, nay, emotionally scarring scenes, and an hour and a half of yack-yack.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzmDvnxjrgJ4-mXLzfIc6s-8VpxvE31ib2RAO0Cok0LRNVrv5Xi3Hqr7cTXgkydw3ZuMfvzUwLWhnJc55XUY43yYZIe37z1xPK26ZoFHE0p8C-LSQYedg_11nU2xvwmQKz3hMkCBJhxI/s1600/AH.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzmDvnxjrgJ4-mXLzfIc6s-8VpxvE31ib2RAO0Cok0LRNVrv5Xi3Hqr7cTXgkydw3ZuMfvzUwLWhnJc55XUY43yYZIe37z1xPK26ZoFHE0p8C-LSQYedg_11nU2xvwmQKz3hMkCBJhxI/s320/AH.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>A curious thing happened to this draftsman-cum-storyboarder: long about 1949 (though it might have come as early as <i>Lifeboat</i>) he fell in love with the theatre, and started directing movies as if they were plays. <i>Rope</i>, <i>Stage Fright</i>, <i>Rear Window</i>, <i>The Trouble with Harry</i>—these could all be performed on the stage, and that’s the way he shot them. <i>Dial M for Murder</i> has <i>one</i> exciting visual scene, the scissors in the back; otherwise it’s all dialogue in rooms. And <i>Under Capricorn</i></span><span>—oh, God! </span><span>"Always make the audience suffer as much as possible," he said. Uh-huh.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3q3SVELyohkoCYvZeD0YWt4tYXwQ1qpCmsZL9P4iRD0zH6QPvj6_63w1-l60zf1F4h2Q9s8Rcr3oxgr6WLtsBipRcsJ8a38j06K2X9VLXu-TXPquqUuIou_3DbLUO1iyxnMI-Ay1QTE/s1600/AH20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3q3SVELyohkoCYvZeD0YWt4tYXwQ1qpCmsZL9P4iRD0zH6QPvj6_63w1-l60zf1F4h2Q9s8Rcr3oxgr6WLtsBipRcsJ8a38j06K2X9VLXu-TXPquqUuIou_3DbLUO1iyxnMI-Ay1QTE/s320/AH20.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">In the Grant films the problem disappears—perhaps not so much with <i>Notorious</i>, which, as he told Peter Bogdanovich, "Hitch threw to Ingrid." But in <i>To Catch a Thief</i> and <i>North by Northwest</i> we’re in the world of Cary Grant comedies and buoyed by the Grant charm, which never requires excessive dialogue.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPL82-DUKV2pa-FbpbsHvesTpuJb7phmPVUpy7Tn4pFd-x6Vl1kl4gmPVzeo6PZuDl2Dq4qOv4tlxUhdgZbYRtJsIrsSTNsDK0MDte1BJT8X46DRNYZq6nmirZGpH2kAKY2WHyr5vBXVc/s1600/AH26.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPL82-DUKV2pa-FbpbsHvesTpuJb7phmPVUpy7Tn4pFd-x6Vl1kl4gmPVzeo6PZuDl2Dq4qOv4tlxUhdgZbYRtJsIrsSTNsDK0MDte1BJT8X46DRNYZq6nmirZGpH2kAKY2WHyr5vBXVc/s320/AH26.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>He's not my favorite actor, I’m not saying that. I prefer the Boyer-Irene Dunne version of </span><i><span>An Affair to Remember</span></i><span>. (I prefer the Irene Dunne version of anything.) And, here’s an irony, Grant wasn’t as famous as Hitchcock. To quote the above Frenchman, "The very first rank of fame is to be known by your nickname, like Liz and Bogie and Di and Satchmo. The second is to be known by your initials—mainly for American presidents, but Brigitte was BB, which means in French baby, and Marilyn in the headlines became MMM. Then come the first names, Sophia, Marcello, Frank, and fourth are the last names, Garbo and Gable. And fifth…." Well, Cary Grant. Hitch’s nickname was a company-town secret until it got out, but it got out.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJtABP1dwPciQxaxCVc8UwhO4N943BDhmG_RIXxfGTcibduOJt4e9oc8K28cXADHrX8MoCogmHJNiCBKnhzDEbzDv9kQ85M8eVyZxCvlq76Ym4SpmFgMCzn2hH_Iv6zpv9m2TtndQY_54/s1600/AH25.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJtABP1dwPciQxaxCVc8UwhO4N943BDhmG_RIXxfGTcibduOJt4e9oc8K28cXADHrX8MoCogmHJNiCBKnhzDEbzDv9kQ85M8eVyZxCvlq76Ym4SpmFgMCzn2hH_Iv6zpv9m2TtndQY_54/s320/AH25.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Let's tie this up with </span><i><span>Charade</span></i><span>, the best film Hitchcock never made. Stanley Donen, he of </span><i><span>Singin’ in the Rain</span></i><span> and </span><i><span>Two for the Road</span></i><span>, made it instead. It’s got Grant (hoarse at fifty-nine—why do actors seem to age so quickly?); it’s got the darling Audrey, </span><span>clearly crazy about him</span><span> and</span><span> at her breathiest ("I’m not hungry at all any more, isn’t it marvelous!"); it’s got a score by Henry Mancini, one of the Magnificent Seven (Louis, Cole, Django, Stéphane, Henry, Nino and Miles); it's got Paris, and some nice digs at the French; it's got charm from every possible direction; and it’s got </span><i><span>warmth</span></i><span>, which you’ll look hard for in Hitchcock.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqWp5JlyPxrPJTI6Laleq_DGs5zV966_m58iGVchgmUQ_AgixpWPOhDdbTFbrdL6CI5OBgs7g0rHYeicFbiSEc53PsaGhdbuNTnr23qoJyaeoHu01ZWLeoi_QJKytngrw_7fGqraIGOp4/s1600/AH27.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqWp5JlyPxrPJTI6Laleq_DGs5zV966_m58iGVchgmUQ_AgixpWPOhDdbTFbrdL6CI5OBgs7g0rHYeicFbiSEc53PsaGhdbuNTnr23qoJyaeoHu01ZWLeoi_QJKytngrw_7fGqraIGOp4/s320/AH27.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">But it couldn't have happened without him. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="background-color: white; color: #32aaff; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-3355106304752319302012-12-02T20:39:00.014+02:002023-04-09T19:42:36.681+03:00Fellini<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMoRsCnNRSqfXE_7iVZc04QhuKifgq8U1YjI5WO9gX5Bvbxr7g3U7ATqR_fO9iZkWsFuSE0I9ZGNTznJeTb2jRVE7gtsB8tZdVdEgOVWHx1W077aM8v6bOOTLa87a22HlycmHWugTRCK4/s1600/Fellini+Casanova.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMoRsCnNRSqfXE_7iVZc04QhuKifgq8U1YjI5WO9gX5Bvbxr7g3U7ATqR_fO9iZkWsFuSE0I9ZGNTznJeTb2jRVE7gtsB8tZdVdEgOVWHx1W077aM8v6bOOTLa87a22HlycmHWugTRCK4/s320/Fellini+Casanova.jpg" width="235" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span>“</span>Aesthetic
emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic
emotion. Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no
longer art.</span><span><span>”</span>—Remy de Gourmont </span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>Theoretically</i>,
the perfect movie would combine Ford's framing, Ophuls' staging,
Fellini's pacing, Visconti's production values and Lubitsch's wit. But w<span>ho lines up to see theories?</span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>We
don’t have to ask what the best thing is in any art— everybody knows.
What’s the greatest painting if not the Sistine ceiling? The greatest
sculpture? The greatest play? The greatest film? Many people who
bother to consider such things would say <i>8 ½</i>; and indeed who is the axiomatic director but Fellini?</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc7quolM0bUTfbPaVkDjNXSc8TzDdhQXT06ybzBa9rF3km_s8MoDGNix5VzJY_YDeYSfnj8xOa46vMApL1UCSw4q_8gAmYEY0TGMOj3in8SWq71X67A99dmtdhRDDcvyf0n-VAO4IYQeg/s1600/cl.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc7quolM0bUTfbPaVkDjNXSc8TzDdhQXT06ybzBa9rF3km_s8MoDGNix5VzJY_YDeYSfnj8xOa46vMApL1UCSw4q_8gAmYEY0TGMOj3in8SWq71X67A99dmtdhRDDcvyf0n-VAO4IYQeg/s320/cl.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>So
let us stand the greatest play and the greatest film side by side: the
melancholy Dane and the melancholy Guido. Eternal high-school kid that I
am, I’m always looking for a key to <i>Hamlet</i>. Maybe this is it!<br /><br />Like
Hamlet, Guido is a new kind of man. Hamlet Senior is modeled </span><span><span>on Achilles</span>, as
heroes had been for millennia, and still are.
“Strength and honor” is the salute in <i>Gladiator</i><span>—</span>the values assoc<span>i</span>ated with the heroic, and <span>with</span> pop culture. If you’re not interested in tough guys most cinema is meaningless to you.<br /><br />The
ghost<span> </span>walks in armor, and he expects his son to do the
heroic thing, <span>because</span> revenge is the epic motive. Check your <i>TV Guide</i>.
But Hamlet just isn’t Achilles. He can’t bring himself to kill
Claudius—not that he lacks the murderous impulse. In neighboring Norway
Fortinbras, which means “Strong-arm,” is a replica of Fortinbras
Senior. Hamlet catches sight of Junior marching his army through
Denmark to attack the Poles, and is full of admiration<span>;</span> but like all the <span>mask</span>s Hamlet tries on, it just ain’t him. No mask fits Hamlet (<span>"I have that within<span> which passeth show") but he can't represent himself without one. Who can? </span></span>He is, as Harold Bloom says,
something new.<br /><br />Same goes for Guido, and for all of Fellini’s men. When, in <i>La Dolce Vita</i>, Lex Barker punches Marcello for being out all night with Anita, Paparazzo says, “<span>Y</span>ou’re not going to fight back?” Marcello shakes his head. No machismo for him.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXcKwHJmHjxKChRQ5LeNxY2yW7IBrueje1o8ydwuKBuxWrjKdTi_-0Gx8OTrlQ1mEVcemXkbeUWxYYiWI_eB6eAJrjpj_D_jJeVevcpCYNB05ItfxQbimPlvIK3SwXJ9c8XHVX2bHdLIM/s1600/la+dolce+vita.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXcKwHJmHjxKChRQ5LeNxY2yW7IBrueje1o8ydwuKBuxWrjKdTi_-0Gx8OTrlQ1mEVcemXkbeUWxYYiWI_eB6eAJrjpj_D_jJeVevcpCYNB05ItfxQbimPlvIK3SwXJ9c8XHVX2bHdLIM/s320/la+dolce+vita.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>Hamlet</i> and <i>8 ½</i>
both persuade us that the inner life can be portrayed on the stage, on
the screen. We had had to project that innerness onto the gestures and
speeches of the actors; these works put it in our face. <br /><br />Like
Hamlet Guido makes a film within a film, if I may so put it. </span><br />
<br />
<span>Like
Hamlet, he lifts his inner torment above the others, and resorts to
irony when he deals with them, and indeed with himself. Each of them is
understood, in his respective world, by no one.<br /><br />Like Hamlet Guido
is haunted by <span>his</span> father, who climbs out of the grave and complains about
the accommodations. “How’s my son doing?” <span>he</span></span><span> asks Guido’s producer, but the producer just shakes his head.<br /><br />Like Hamlet he has an ambiguously erotic relationship with his mother. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Like Hamlet's, Guido's dream girl turns out to be "a little bore," as he calls Claudia.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Like Hamlet (indeed like Shakespeare), his reality is shattered and lies there in pieces. He has no synthetic power but in the vibrancy of each piece. This seems to me a thread in the velvet of Shakespeare's "voice," so to call it, a note of surrender, a dying fall.</span><br />
<br />
<span>Like Hamlet Guido thinks a hundred thoughts<span>, and none of them are really him.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span>Like Hamlet he’s a comedian, a monologuist, a clown and, like most clowns, a sad one. <span>The pair of them are</span> self-pitying smart-asses.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwbdKGYfqiX31cKJ4EbwknTkfUTND_-6XXgo2J2k60k2JCAlFhxllf5fktqNfaQSy_byHLNPXu8BFVTp9Gl93tyEBb1mj5lsRuFi1KMIaKgV-0vr8swdl5t94DSd8OglZWcc8qO7n2wUU/s1600/F2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwbdKGYfqiX31cKJ4EbwknTkfUTND_-6XXgo2J2k60k2JCAlFhxllf5fktqNfaQSy_byHLNPXu8BFVTp9Gl93tyEBb1mj5lsRuFi1KMIaKgV-0vr8swdl5t94DSd8OglZWcc8qO7n2wUU/s320/F2.jpg" width="254" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><span>Hamlet is <span>a</span></span> refined m<span>a</span>n. <span>He's</span> been played <span>infinitely differently<span>, and several times by women, as Poldy remarks</span> i</span>n <i>Ulysses</i><span>, b</span>ut as many ways as we can imagine him, we can't think of him as vulgar. Why not? </span><span><span><span>H</span></span>e <span>is</span> crass, dishonest, <span><span>rash, cruel, murderous</span></span></span><span><span><span><span>—<span>there's hardly <span>a disgrace he doesn't commit</span></span>.</span></span></span></span><span><span> <span>Ah, but that wit of his<span>. "So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes." "I see a cherub that sees them."</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span>S<span>ame for</span> Guido<span>, who</span> never commits the vulgarity of action; it's all in his mind. Fellini wasn’t happy with Marcello as his alter-ego, and
made him have his chest waxed to be more refined. I think he’d have
preferred an Alain Delon or an Oskar Werner. “Oh, Maestro, Marcello again?” say the spirits, mocking him </span><span><span>(as when do
they not?)<span> </span>in <i>City of Women</i><span>.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span>Like Hamlet Guido lives in a <i>world</i> of spirits</span><span><span><span><span>—in <span>his case Italy, where</span></span> ancient <span>presences</span></span></span>
from the pagan panoply that underlies Catholicism roam the
earth, and know his thoughts.<span> </span>"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy."<br /><br />Like Hamlet he<span>'s blocked by his contradictions</span>.<span> </span>“And in my heart there was a kind of fighting.” Guido answers
yes and no to every possible question. “Do you have children?” says the
Cardinal. “Yes, I mean no.” This too is post-heroic. The hero is
always yes <i>or</i> no, zero <i>or</i> one: only one man comes back
from a gunfight. “Decide, Guido!” his producer shouts as they view the
screen tests; “Choose!” Guido can’t. He is <i>not</i> the decider. <br /><br />At
the station he throws away his collaborator’s ruthless critique of his
script, then picks it up and reads it again. This is a scene he stole
from Buster Keaton (Leone used it too, at the beginning of <i>Once upon a Time in the West</i>):
the train leaves, his mistress hasn’t arrived, he’s relieved and gets
up to go, but as it pulls out there she is in white fur trimming. “<i>Yoohoo!</i>” He looks around; does anybody see?<br /><br />Then
he takes her back to his room and has her perform his sexual
fantasies. For once he’s a director who knows what he wants<span>.</span> </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirhGzo9UGy110G2sd2ypqbSGjOe-pZo0Swnm3pLOIhCUvlNujhnYDkDlFC_J_KCFQSRZkehR2NoPV7BtNCoSgA2NwBS74ZkLvSO3isHOEa4cxgmEZh-HCWczWRAOiee-FxQYcapaX78P0/s1600/8_and_a_half.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirhGzo9UGy110G2sd2ypqbSGjOe-pZo0Swnm3pLOIhCUvlNujhnYDkDlFC_J_KCFQSRZkehR2NoPV7BtNCoSgA2NwBS74ZkLvSO3isHOEa4cxgmEZh-HCWczWRAOiee-FxQYcapaX78P0/s320/8_and_a_half.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Like
Hamlet, Guido knows the self is not socially acceptable. They free us
from Christianity—that won’t work for either of them. Hamlet, murderer
of men, to<span>r<span>turer</span></span> of women, frees us from sin<span>,</span> negates sin.<span> <span>I<span>t</span></span></span> no longer matters. <span><span>Yet</span> w</span>e have no doubt of his metaphysical validity. (I don’t want to say “salvation”—Christianity doesn’t work for me either.) </span><span>The redeemer as smart-ass<span>.</span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>And what is Guido if not an impotent god? </span><span><span>Both of these <span>men</span> are </span>open-topped<span><span>. T</span>hey</span> communicate directly with—what?</span><br />
<br />
<span><span>Happiness, <span>Guido</span> says, is being able to tell the truth without hurting anybody</span>. His <span>sensuality</span> is all that interests him. He<span>'</span>s not a Christian, saints be praised, but he’s Catholic, and confession is part of his style. The screen tests in <i>8 ½</i> are confessions to his wife<span>. Everything he does is a confession. W</span>hen he goes down into the Dante-esque steam room to interview the Cardinal all he can do is confess<span>. </span>“Father,
I am not happy.” “You’re not here to be happy,” says the Cardinal with
some justice, but then he quotes Origen, the Church Father who
castrated himself: “There is no salvation outside the Church.” And
there is Guido, outside the Church.<br /><br />Ah, he’s down. But at the end, <span>the</span> uplift! “What is this flash of joy that’s giving me new life?” I have mentioned </span></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/10/greece-versus-puritans.html" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">elsewhere</span></a></b></b><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;"> </span></b>that the Protestant inclines to schizophrenia, and the Catholic to manic-depression. Guido’s spirits simply lift, and we have <span>his</span> vision of a latter-day Communion of Saints.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br />But
humility, charity—don’t look for them in Hamlet. Don’t look for them
in Guido. “He never gives, nor lends, nor trusts,” the feminist judges
say of Snaporaz. Early on Fellini worked under the yoke of Neo-Realism,
which he subverted at every opportunity. Social reality interested him
not even slightly, but it was the only game in town. <br /><br />In <i>Il Bidone</i>
Broderick Crawford plays a con man disguised as a priest. There’s a
touching moment when he’s asked to comfort a wheelchair-bound teenager,
who tells a sad story. He shrugs—at her<span>, at</span> the whole movement: “You don’t need me. You’re much better off than a lot of other people.” When he and Richard Basehart are <span>m</span>ilking
a village Basehart smiles at an urchin, a perfect Neo-Realist poster,
but “You look like a little devil,” he says. Devils are what we seem to
be in Fellini. “And the bravest of the devils said ‘I’m going to get <i>into</i> the labyrinth!’” Giulietta tells the kids in <i>Juliet of the Spirits</i>. </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZCRKzNdFyhLlh2bb6UPFRhk9M1scM9pqi_q0pU2ZCqZVHts2tiCrTnlB-uO55YCqBSuNk7WlVuGLgegVjZ-AZxL52HeA0FbdNQXfcOHs84-_o1Y2RuqN7ioXWiklj8fIgBeBDqoGVykc/s1600/F.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZCRKzNdFyhLlh2bb6UPFRhk9M1scM9pqi_q0pU2ZCqZVHts2tiCrTnlB-uO55YCqBSuNk7WlVuGLgegVjZ-AZxL52HeA0FbdNQXfcOHs84-_o1Y2RuqN7ioXWiklj8fIgBeBDqoGVykc/s320/F.jpg" width="235" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Not that <span>he</span> took evil seriously. When the Fascists fill his father full of castor oil, which in fact was their practi<span>c</span>e,
to humiliate him by making him shit himself, the young Fellini, and the
older Fellini, think it’s a big joke. An American bombing raid forces
him and his Roman hosts from their dining tables in the street into an
air-raid shelter; but you can meet some good-looking women down there.</span><span><span><span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span>“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,” Snaporaz quotes in <i>City of Women</i>. I don’t know how deeply the Maestro read in <i>Hamlet</i>—he
didn’t like to be thought of as an intellectual. And Toby Dammit, the
Englishman in Rome, gives us just enough of Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and
tomorrow” to let us know that he’s a tragic Nordic. These schizos; if
you want to get where you’re going you can’t take your head.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvZjKxNxGL9he0mTgmQUS05XkZYDmhCBM2RCdTxa8gxh_Xz06ECgIUhPGTeDNY52qmEIaEw1-nOstYlbLBOSSxhx2K6jNZuX3zsx9QIZVa6y2-tmf31cprUEw27PU02wc4Ovyq4mla-o/s1600/TD2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvZjKxNxGL9he0mTgmQUS05XkZYDmhCBM2RCdTxa8gxh_Xz06ECgIUhPGTeDNY52qmEIaEw1-nOstYlbLBOSSxhx2K6jNZuX3zsx9QIZVa6y2-tmf31cprUEw27PU02wc4Ovyq4mla-o/s320/TD2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Most of us think <i>Hamlet</i> is Shakespeare’s greatest work, and <i>8 ½</i> Fellini’s. (Thank God for black and white.) (Thank <i>who</i>?)
Everything else Fellini did is episodic—breaks into episodes that can
be eliminated without affecting the story. This, as Aristotle told us,
is bad for business, and relegates those films to what we currently call
art-house status. Only plot sells: not beautiful language, not
beautiful shots, not beautiful stars; plot. <span>Which is to say </span></span><span><span><i>because</i><span>,</span> not</span> <i>and then</i><span>.</span><span> </span>The king died and then the queen died, said W.H. Auden, is a story; the king died and then the queen died of grief is a plot.<br /><br />In his first solo-directed feature <i>The White Sheik </i>Fellini
did give us a unified plot: provincial newlyweds come to Rome to meet
his family and she gets lost and winds up with a photo-roman hero she<span>'</span>s always adored, played by the superb Alberto Sordi. (Woody Allen took this for one of the strands <span>of</span> <i>To Rome with Love</i>, and has a Sordi look-alike for the star. So fond was Allen of the piece that, though it’s only a day-long <span>thing</span>, he edits it in with other strands<span> that</span> carry us through weeks, as if they were happening simultaneously.)</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmMoOpB6A8TMy8xDLbMHMlERVS1R3GH03NxVncw8AE0dqxocrUJX6QtCD7owSrf3VZJmXadXJjxT6ScLZ94dy09_7Smmi2Y0ML0gaD8y8y7RHw1RjmB12yK2xwMqmOFaEAMOknU6w_iy0/s1600/Sordi.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmMoOpB6A8TMy8xDLbMHMlERVS1R3GH03NxVncw8AE0dqxocrUJX6QtCD7owSrf3VZJmXadXJjxT6ScLZ94dy09_7Smmi2Y0ML0gaD8y8y7RHw1RjmB12yK2xwMqmOFaEAMOknU6w_iy0/s320/Sordi.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Apart from that one, in Fellini’s work, only <i>8 ½</i> is all of a piece.</span><br />
<br />
<span><span>O</span>f
course Guido’s Catholic upbringing has repressed him. Enter Freud. To
clog the intelligence with an idea is un-Shakespearean, <span>so</span> here ends the resemblance to <i>Hamlet</i><span>, which may be construed as a systematic<span> flushing of ideas</span></span>. We enjoy them as we evacuate, but this is nothing to the postpartum levity; Hamlet, like Guido, feels lighter in act five. Ideas, to change the metaphor, or perhaps not, are fireworks displays, illuminating the terrain for a moment<span>, </span>existing for their own glory, then vanishing. (I l<span>ik</span>e the Irish-accent pun in <i>Finnegans Wake</i><span>:</span> “when they were jung and easily freudened.”)<span><span> </span></span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>Hamlet renounces all precedent<span>,</span> but Fellini is a classicist.<span> </span>The
art historian Kenneth Clark said that one of the aspects of classicism
is smoothness of transition. Few films are as smooth as <i>8 ½.</i> <br /><br />Classicism is Fellini's moral touchstone. At the end of <i>La Dolce Vita</i>
Marcello and his cronies invade a friend’s beach house for an orgy, and
when the owner returns he is amused, tolerant; but when they start
breaking things he throws them out. He is a balanced man, a classical
man, and we meet him again in <i>Satyricon</i>, the aristocrat who, now
that everything is falling apart, frees his slaves, sends his children away to safety and
commits suicide with his wife. Do with the house now what you want.
Does Fellini approve of Marcello's orgy, of E<span>ncolpio's <span>ambisexual</span>ism, of Casanova's <span>exploit</span>s? Yes and no.</span></span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtNxe_4MiB2uA5mXuQ2_XtBkFVH2Tv2dvFIRDad31817tPAwbrDnofZYYXWq2PyAbGVDduorAlCLzbeit6ylfi-sKvxkloAFEazYz_kzZ76503vlgIb0DwEiYWrhq_VBtj6YJ9Hki-XCo/s1600/Satyr.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtNxe_4MiB2uA5mXuQ2_XtBkFVH2Tv2dvFIRDad31817tPAwbrDnofZYYXWq2PyAbGVDduorAlCLzbeit6ylfi-sKvxkloAFEazYz_kzZ76503vlgIb0DwEiYWrhq_VBtj6YJ9Hki-XCo/s320/Satyr.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><span>Dante <span>inspires <i><span>8 ½</span> </i>as Piranese, the ultimate designer of labyrinths, does <i>City of Women</i>, </span>and the<span> labyrinth is Fellini's image of <span>human existence</span>. </span></span></span><span>In the castle maze of <i>La Dolce Vita</i> Marcello and Anouk
Aimée make contact by voice through an acoustic whatsit and exchange
words of love while she makes it with another guy. In </span><span><span><i>Satyricon</i>'s</span> Cretan-style
labyrinth the murderous Minotaur turns out to be a jok<span>e</span>.
Like Icarus Guido wants to fly, Toby Dammit wants to fly, Snaporaz
wants to fly.</span><br />
<br />
<span><span><span>People who argu<span>e that Shakespeare wasn't pornographic cannot have read </span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>“</span></span></span>Venus and Adonis.</span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>”</span></span> </span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>“</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither; though by your smiling you seeme to say so.</span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>” </span></span></span> Sounds like he's been there, though.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span><span><span><span>Fellini's sensuality is all-consuming, and in this he and his <i>compagni</i> are fixed entities.<span> </span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>“</span></span></span>Change!</span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>”</span></span></span> says Snaporaz to the feminists; </span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>“</span></span></span>Into <i>what</i>?</span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>”</span></span></span> </span></span>A journalist shouts t<span>o</span> Guido, “Is
pornography the most intense form of entertainment?”<span> </span>Sylva Koscina's<span> </span>performance as the sexy sister in <i>Juliet of
the Spirits</i><span><span> removes, for the moment, <span>doubt.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_tcZ8EnSxGzYsXwPy1UVqwhqVDXjkgx-fT4cL-NqI8YVXpUW78j2mlVbF3FcXt8lHSSFhrcBglf-LXLTEgupFawTbp6_eqkz1xeXqF0Z51AcPQ109IoLE-63h2doPNyED1sWfyUXHVSE/s1600/Sylva2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_tcZ8EnSxGzYsXwPy1UVqwhqVDXjkgx-fT4cL-NqI8YVXpUW78j2mlVbF3FcXt8lHSSFhrcBglf-LXLTEgupFawTbp6_eqkz1xeXqF0Z51AcPQ109IoLE-63h2doPNyED1sWfyUXHVSE/s320/Sylva2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Hamlet <span>by contrast is a master of change. The purity of total change is hypnotic in him, as long as it isn’t moral. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span><span>What a pair of rapscallions!</span></span><br />
<br />
<span><span><span><span>Of course a</span>rt is not moral. Morality <span>is</span> intention.<span> </span>In Roman Catholic sin-ology the intention makes or unmakes the sin. In art intention counts for nothing.</span><span><span> </span></span><span><span>You make a film, </span><span><span>Jean Renoir said, to find out what it will look like. </span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span>In Hollywood movies intention counts for everything.<span> </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span>The
only other filmmaker we can compare to Fellini is Luis Bunuel, and both
are Freud guys. For both it comes down to the sexual impulse. Which, sure. Both do
fantasy and dream, and blur their borders with reality.<br /><br />Bunuel is a great poet. In <i>The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie</i>
a boy’s dead mother calls to him from the closet where her clothes
sway. As a kid I never had such a strong sense of my mother’s presence
as when I went to her closet, opened the door<span> and </span>smelt the perfume.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrMxm63JECQ07ktZkia8lZQ3W3ZQ-CVDluPJHMNXBVk9OaXHo7epboMiO-6RvIdPAF1FuscyXOXYKp5Fn1lNNrXwD0oBip5762VUgaQblZN70454UdqIIEuwWmDGT1ZZKsx8fgoPfODI/s1600/phantom1-500x250.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrMxm63JECQ07ktZkia8lZQ3W3ZQ-CVDluPJHMNXBVk9OaXHo7epboMiO-6RvIdPAF1FuscyXOXYKp5Fn1lNNrXwD0oBip5762VUgaQblZN70454UdqIIEuwWmDGT1ZZKsx8fgoPfODI/s320/phantom1-500x250.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Bunuel made for me what is the ultimate horror film. Most people find <i>The Phantom of Liberty</i> funny. (This is the one where people sit on toilets at the din<span>ner</span>
table, and escape to the bathroom to eat.) But he so accurately <span>get</span>s the entrapment of dreaming, which leads us by
association from this to that in a way entirely beyond our control, that
it frightens me.<br /><br />But superb as he is, he is as cold as Velázquez. Fellini, as I don’t have to tell you, is warm warm warm. He
mocks himself over his own nostalgia, but it’s no less compelling for
that.<span><span> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span><span><span>Guido</span> is tender. Hamlet is sensitive, but he’s not tender. Falstaff is tender. Lear, at the end, is tender. Not Hamlet. (“Think yourself a baby That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay, Which are not sterling.”)</span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>To
Giulietta’s dismay Federico was active in the field of love, but he
didn’t see himself as a man of action: “I am the only one I know,” he
once said, “who can admit that it’s all fantasy.” The man of action he
satirized in <i>Casanova</i>.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5XmrpS428rduD-DHxNXaxQmy68p-uvcFaHzMy88UBnJRsdKVcBsXQVrjb3OmvEGmR32dfsoOPYiKTn4Ep7H2xSRdIhI9nn-NzRG-1SNGCSiyeOKCg33o6vnnURdtRQsOL554X8Xa-Uxw/s1600/anitaekberg.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5XmrpS428rduD-DHxNXaxQmy68p-uvcFaHzMy88UBnJRsdKVcBsXQVrjb3OmvEGmR32dfsoOPYiKTn4Ep7H2xSRdIhI9nn-NzRG-1SNGCSiyeOKCg33o6vnnURdtRQsOL554X8Xa-Uxw/s320/anitaekberg.gif" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>To
his fantasies Fellini gave the classical form of goddess-worship. The
labyrinth is where you don’t know what’s going on. As the Goddess tells
Roberto Benigni’s holy fool <span>in</span> Fellini’s last film, <i>The Voice of the Moon</i>, he’s not <i>supposed</i>
to know what’s going on. “You do not have to understand. Woe to him
who understands<span>,</span>” she says, and she has the last word. I don't know if
that woul<span>d satisfy Hamlet, but he does<span>, in the fifth act, seem at peace with the divinity who directs him.</span></span></span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqiUX8xb0oySOEExt767kBYn0HbNbXj-tskibY0UBkABE5s7NkvdmTYTni7mon3CO7q6vTDsqJkqM4myadd-kOsWyDcbbf4R-lxFYU3gEXOy25HoUEzrke3TbRcJqJBC6W6EcnKqWJPdk/s1600/la-strada2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqiUX8xb0oySOEExt767kBYn0HbNbXj-tskibY0UBkABE5s7NkvdmTYTni7mon3CO7q6vTDsqJkqM4myadd-kOsWyDcbbf4R-lxFYU3gEXOy25HoUEzrke3TbRcJqJBC6W6EcnKqWJPdk/s320/la-strada2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>The holy fool is a figure <span>Fellini</span>
had cultivated in the Neo-Realist days, possibly because
Giulietta—indomitable, wide-eyed with wonder—was so adept
at playing it. Does Zampanò abuse her? All people have value, Il Matto
tells her, one holy fool to another.<br /><br />When Fellini lost interest in his fantasies his films, for me, flattened out. We want the refugees saved in <i>And the Ship Sails On</i>, but I can’t sit through it, or <i>Ginger and Fred</i>, or <i>Intervista</i>, not again anyway. <span>I</span>n <i>The Voice of the Moon</i> he returns to the holy fool, and it <span>does</span> have moments of charm<span>, b</span>ut as Rabelais said, “Now my innocence begins to weigh me down.”<br /><br />Then again, at the end of his life Shakespeare is supposed to have collaborated on <i>Henry VIII</i>. I can’t get through that either.<br /><br />I know that when I discuss these things I’ll lose them, and that’s partly why I do it, to exorcise them and free my own voice.<br /><br />At
his best Fellini was the most exuberant, the most generous, the most
gorgeous of filmmakers. And where would we be without <b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2013/11/gorgeousness.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">gorgeousness</span></a></b>?</span><br />
</span><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmd04zOz0K26fxyrZiaSAKgvSJd5PW_MqYg7mnL2ojCziL8FAChVBde-n9PjbP6DoFMSlpiz4ecG6uBKYb1do4Locgsv8ziHecxT8437i-hDPAsNgNIHLaYDvUaF-4XzAleJxtbxjJzkQ/s1600/gorgeous.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmd04zOz0K26fxyrZiaSAKgvSJd5PW_MqYg7mnL2ojCziL8FAChVBde-n9PjbP6DoFMSlpiz4ecG6uBKYb1do4Locgsv8ziHecxT8437i-hDPAsNgNIHLaYDvUaF-4XzAleJxtbxjJzkQ/s320/gorgeous.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Bob, what a wonderful piece! Thank you. I think Fellini would have chuckled </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">at it, in a good way. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Thanks again,</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Paul Mazursky</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><br /><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-size: 17.6px;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">On YouTube:</span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio’s </span><a href="https://youtu.be/D2B66hW3XV0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Husband" </span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio's </span><a href="https://youtu.be/jLHIHoNnXyY" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Horse Trade" </span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio's </span><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://youtu.be/R2LzhTam16o" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Stupid Friar"</span></a> </span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Chaucer’s </span><a href="https://youtu.be/Pm4FAjxU8L0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Miller's Tale"</span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8kJe9wdyyg" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"Red Devil Rag"</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b style="color: #222222; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 18.832px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMVAW2_TPcc" style="color: #32aaff; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-large;">"<span style="line-height: 25.68px;">Attack of the Giant Feminists</span>"</span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xee5jJDcIZ8" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"But Is It Love? Or, The Destruction of West Los Angeles"</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;" /></div></div></div></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: small; font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-89740201989462943322012-09-09T15:39:00.004+03:002022-05-04T18:22:52.354+03:00The Lubitsch Touch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7pqDLAfMhp0M8tMdMlasjihCX_b28uhZfAlbeRppX3V72NcBtjVNLfMlTYlVhJDEgI2wTBBARhkczRUlNi-UqCb_h_w-B2v_ZIajb-Hg_FTFtnRWU_Tskv50yUF6zEyz63leAKZHeGjQ/s1600/EL3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7pqDLAfMhp0M8tMdMlasjihCX_b28uhZfAlbeRppX3V72NcBtjVNLfMlTYlVhJDEgI2wTBBARhkczRUlNi-UqCb_h_w-B2v_ZIajb-Hg_FTFtnRWU_Tskv50yUF6zEyz63leAKZHeGjQ/s320/EL3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>If all the art and literature of the twentieth century, a century that took itself <i>so </i>seriously (though its record for slaughter <i>is</i> hard to match), were dropped into a dumpster, it wouldn’t be worth <i>one</i> work by Michelangelo or Botticelli. Do you mind if I say that?</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ePHgZBfTMDC7LYD7rj7prjEVjqQZkM5dn_A5Uougv-AhFOOfymOrazWFScd2qPWPdjGUWXoV8ycHTujLSjtF-C2cTSvFgQ03JwhXr9Tly1fMM22AdNdbyVyqol84_kdmi-1x523JVf8/s1600/EL6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ePHgZBfTMDC7LYD7rj7prjEVjqQZkM5dn_A5Uougv-AhFOOfymOrazWFScd2qPWPdjGUWXoV8ycHTujLSjtF-C2cTSvFgQ03JwhXr9Tly1fMM22AdNdbyVyqol84_kdmi-1x523JVf8/s320/EL6.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Here
in our own nervous century we swim in a sea of cultural trash, illuminated
by video games that excite the shooters, by pornography that has changed
the shape of the human body (</span><span>it's hairless now, as in fifth-century Greece and the Italian Renaissance; the dicks,
even in quiescence, dwarf their predecessors; the breasts, which were
out of control for a while, have again become natural), and by the
preachings of the evangelists of Success, who promise us transformations (</span><span>regard their tweets) </span><span>beyond
even the come shots that conclude the ritual sequence of postures in
the videos, the actress licking her lips in anticipation.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW35JHPugSoB9oDxPVznLggcqrxUH2VFn-AuNyLe0bgY7Vk5OksuVAuvFIrIFF3xS_RArkL6MhxJ94qblrxYAKBt2oniWYyXFMpdeATBPVGwx9zCg3X3LJaOie7-gRb-e8RQe5tSrKmzA/s1600/EL8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW35JHPugSoB9oDxPVznLggcqrxUH2VFn-AuNyLe0bgY7Vk5OksuVAuvFIrIFF3xS_RArkL6MhxJ94qblrxYAKBt2oniWYyXFMpdeATBPVGwx9zCg3X3LJaOie7-gRb-e8RQe5tSrKmzA/s320/EL8.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>And yet we ourselves are <i>dis</i>embodied, and function </span><span>with
avatars like Mardi Gras masks on sticks. We are discouraged from
actual sex, and urged to cultivate narcissism and the internet, which
are strangely aligned. And indeed, one has learned to fear women who
kick-box, or have tattoos. </span><br />
<br />
<span>B<span>eauty, </span></span><span><span><span><span>that royal danger, </span></span>that puritan's <span>foe</span>, is out of style</span>.
Our movie stars exhibit only a serviceable regularity of feature, often
not even that, and appear in morality tales as predictable as the
postures of the porn stars.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDM2RMngA_-dWjAs5Kyg0rSswYE39gYDPaq9DqZcrEfrhMdYjqLArAMz9Yl4zp3Nny9kszkaTrOS645SkIRAYkThdSvwNbL0jIoQSjm-fKEnelwC1fZPxliAknykOtDet4hfx5PUDcEKs/s1600/EL14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDM2RMngA_-dWjAs5Kyg0rSswYE39gYDPaq9DqZcrEfrhMdYjqLArAMz9Yl4zp3Nny9kszkaTrOS645SkIRAYkThdSvwNbL0jIoQSjm-fKEnelwC1fZPxliAknykOtDet4hfx5PUDcEKs/s320/EL14.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><span>Action films have dwindled into displays of animation;
even James Bond has become a cartoon. And a film by
Quentin Tarantino or Tim Burton can ruin the evening.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span><i>Love</i>
is out of style. "Alliances" are in style. Business plans are in
style. Brad Pitt made an entire film about the success of a business
plan. So elevating. But that's where we are. People fall in love with
business plans.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfzf4z4UiUK2TVz1xIxpiyTh2dUBz7YgqkJUc7OWv2VQfMFS_TupML4W76G2dZql96UEBoR642psO60uaAsV8vcsCR9xhTG5KfF0R3J2I272jbsJs0ro_5cFRWIXCJdQt5rt3YYnsu4g0/s1600/EL31.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfzf4z4UiUK2TVz1xIxpiyTh2dUBz7YgqkJUc7OWv2VQfMFS_TupML4W76G2dZql96UEBoR642psO60uaAsV8vcsCR9xhTG5KfF0R3J2I272jbsJs0ro_5cFRWIXCJdQt5rt3YYnsu4g0/s320/EL31.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>One
wonders what one does like about cinemah, and why one wants to make
films, and when I’m in that mood I always think of Ernst Lubitsch. Now,
nobody can make a film like Lubitsch, let’s get that straight, but one <i>can</i> be inspired by him to make something as light as a soufflé, as subtle as a secret, as funny as a fart.<br /><br />If only.<br /><br />My favorite Lubitsch movie,<i> Trouble in Paradise</i>,
is about a master thief who, in a Venice hotel (Grand Canal Venice, not
LA Venice), robs someone in another room. Then, resuming his pose as a
baron, he hosts a dinner in his own suite for a countess he plans to
seduce. “And you see that moon, waiter? I want to see that moon in the
champagne.” The waiter writes it down: “Moon in champagne.” When the
lady arrives, she and Gaston (his name is Gaston) pick each other’s
pockets, discover that they’re both thieves, and fall in love. And we
fall in love with them falling in love.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8W_jnw9lJpfJeWb9hw5V0Q3GViDPnhW5KWwysfAc5bZ_2itwHz4tBFjB8g5iCI0DUFHjatvaUXAQhVfzvirYGwb4xVVixP6yenznvCYoo3EawUHaJJcuaT9PmPj948CUIduJDLh4Ue18/s1600/EL4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8W_jnw9lJpfJeWb9hw5V0Q3GViDPnhW5KWwysfAc5bZ_2itwHz4tBFjB8g5iCI0DUFHjatvaUXAQhVfzvirYGwb4xVVixP6yenznvCYoo3EawUHaJJcuaT9PmPj948CUIduJDLh4Ue18/s320/EL4.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>But don’t expect a “cool” hero. Suave, yes. Charming, wow. But not cool. “Cool” is eminently a Puritan virtue. (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/10/greece-versus-puritans.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Greece versus the Puritans</span></b></a>.)
Max Weber tells us that during the English Civil War the Puritans,
because of their unemotional determination, were able to ride in strict
formation, in cool formation, towards the undisciplined Cavaliers,
Musketeer types who relied on gallantry and beer.</span><br />
<br />
<span>Henry James says of Daisy Miller’s first reaction to Winterbourne that she </span><span><span>“</span>had
never seen anything so cool”—the first instance I know of the modern
usage, and if I hear it much more I’m going to lose mine. The attitude
is one of detachment and distance, and becomes virulent in the fifties,
Elvis and Marlon sneering at it all. They are outsiders; the first line
of Camus’s <i>L'Etranger</i> (<i>The Outsider</i>) is “Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday.”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMJT94YLMWCFRj6SXhhqTumrzhYLCFEUc8FfzXGbE98PutBZzVhN9nZ3-cdINkO8wTWGDsn4m2CgvN_8Fmf1RaMevNcpjolWmk3IgbyeTrlGRu5YT08pdM4pWsIC3zJdfINO_cN3ta8P4/s1600/EL15.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMJT94YLMWCFRj6SXhhqTumrzhYLCFEUc8FfzXGbE98PutBZzVhN9nZ3-cdINkO8wTWGDsn4m2CgvN_8Fmf1RaMevNcpjolWmk3IgbyeTrlGRu5YT08pdM4pWsIC3zJdfINO_cN3ta8P4/s1600/EL15.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>The
opposite thing is best exemplified by the courtier John Denham, who in
that same Civil War pleaded for the life of George Wither, a Puritan, “on the
ground that, so long as Wither lived, he himself could not be accounted
the worst poet in England.”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbKl_SgF8e7IJ8xJBoirLeuZtyrrVsk4RrIFo1Wbt-sP3BCiwJDivGPKGs_YH-TUxR2x3AXIzE1t8vvglb-80Vii4czvUr6YA_y7bIpUL6YJmmHshUcKKBCVFL5ohbfDE8-qc2PiDFZX0/s1600/EL16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbKl_SgF8e7IJ8xJBoirLeuZtyrrVsk4RrIFo1Wbt-sP3BCiwJDivGPKGs_YH-TUxR2x3AXIzE1t8vvglb-80Vii4czvUr6YA_y7bIpUL6YJmmHshUcKKBCVFL5ohbfDE8-qc2PiDFZX0/s320/EL16.jpg" width="259" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Gaston
is not cool; he is operatic. His every speech is animated by passion,
and he is splendidly overplayed by Herbert Marshall, who lost a leg in
World War I, which has to be disguised in the wide shots. He was nevertheless an accomplished ladies’ man, and along with Peter Lorre
and George Sanders, he’s my favorite actor.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNc23X-Kq_spn5jeY_cH01i0id90B0hOMTrquI9mG0I92FLg1BcUqBnt3Owh5hhPjfrSPBJRalczDAFZSHZHvtxDEoGSVLBWt0O9t6RLnq6EaQs3ayiYJluK-w-kb3Qp4vRulBguKMOug/s1600/georgesanders.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNc23X-Kq_spn5jeY_cH01i0id90B0hOMTrquI9mG0I92FLg1BcUqBnt3Owh5hhPjfrSPBJRalczDAFZSHZHvtxDEoGSVLBWt0O9t6RLnq6EaQs3ayiYJluK-w-kb3Qp4vRulBguKMOug/s320/georgesanders.jpg" width="271" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span><span>"Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored...I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck."</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>A
Paris radio news report on one of Gaston’s spectacular thefts is
followed by a commercial for Colet Perfume—“Cleopatra was a famous
tantalizer, But she did it with her little atomizer!”—and now we’re on <i>Madame</i> Colet herself, the young widow who owns the company and refuses to cut salaries in spite of the Depression (we’re in 1932). <i>Such</i> a smooth transition.<br /><br />At
the opera Gaston steals her jeweled purse (we never see these thefts
happen; action for Lubitsch is vulgar), and when she offers a reward for
the purse larger than he could get by selling it, he simply returns it</span><span><span>—and</span> plans to steal her money. But they fall in love. And we fall in love with them falling in love. So now he loves <i>two</i> women. And that’s the plot.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibmYnb_PEZ1-dRce2UiUwFXCLPOVP-7bVJRIUz31zsyahMzATo-VZKEEcxdklUx4dQPKMQgKmPiaJUjR_4eQ0kkMvksOCusZCA_JywFsv9UbReIxW9vlJajvXRCrfIRhgWyM8mf0fumYE/s1600/EL2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibmYnb_PEZ1-dRce2UiUwFXCLPOVP-7bVJRIUz31zsyahMzATo-VZKEEcxdklUx4dQPKMQgKmPiaJUjR_4eQ0kkMvksOCusZCA_JywFsv9UbReIxW9vlJajvXRCrfIRhgWyM8mf0fumYE/s1600/EL2.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>It moves incredibly fast. I’ve watched it and watched it and watched it to figure out how it moves so fast. </span><span>The credit sequence of <i>The Outlaw Josey Wales</i> moves fast; I’m scarcely a Clint Eastwood guy but I must say it’s a tight little film in itself. <i>Trouble in Paradise</i>, though, is a whole movie.<br /><br />Partly
it's that Lubitsch delights in ellipsis, which of course is always good
for the budget. I can think of three of his films in which scenes are
played out in mime beyond glass. In <i>Trouble in Paradise </i>a whole
evening of seduction is done with voices over an Art Deco clock marking the
hours. Peter Lawford goes into a room to punch Charles Boyer (this is
in <i>Cluny Brown</i>), and comes out having lent him money.<br /><br />What any artist worth the name wants is to avoid Saying Things. An artist wants to <i>show</i>
you something, make you feel something, not Say Something. If you’re
experiencing a piece of art that’s trying to Tell You Something, you’re
in the wrong hands. And yet, who can avoid it? In Shakespeare the
characters, even the speeches, have lives of their own</span><span>—they Say Things</span><span>—but</span><span> Shakespeare
himself is nowhere to be found. We others, however, speak with our own
voices, and commit the sin of Saying Things.</span><br />
<span><br />What did Lubitsch Say? He said, there’s no Mr. Perfect
or Ms. Right. He said, if your wife sleeps with somebody else it’s no
big deal. He said, why make an enemy? He said </span><span><span>(or rather the little boy in <i>Heaven Can Wait</i> said)</span>,
if you want to win a girl you have to have lots of beetles. He said
sex, he said alcohol, he said big cigars, all with the utmost
refinement. And he said the <i>over</i>-refinement of being in love, from which all sweet ironies spring. </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvSQ_JYBkK0tQDUqtvzFlq3MbtBOljiR5ZbaHvhnqdmGI3nE3eR4ndU9GFaWyCY6pCKJA55SdzjlCST46wQ5lnsLstizi54cwwVdJ92IOfi1KFgU-hewD47awBHnfvO_4y9ND5xzmEu6Y/s1600/EL27.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvSQ_JYBkK0tQDUqtvzFlq3MbtBOljiR5ZbaHvhnqdmGI3nE3eR4ndU9GFaWyCY6pCKJA55SdzjlCST46wQ5lnsLstizi54cwwVdJ92IOfi1KFgU-hewD47awBHnfvO_4y9ND5xzmEu6Y/s320/EL27.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>In
1917 he made a short based on a Strauss operetta: A Berlin <i>bon viveur</i> who goes out drinking and dancing every night gets a subpoena to
report to jail for a day "for disgraceful behavior". But when the cops
come for him his wife's <i>lover</i> has to pretend to be him to save her reputation, and the lover does the time. Meanwhile she disguises herself and goes to the party, and her husband picks <i>her</i> up! Then the revelation, and from now on he takes her out drinking and dancing with him.<br /><br />In <i>Heaven Can Wait</i>
a rich young man falls in love with a woman and marries her, and
continues to have the other women he wants. He has it all. Lubitsch
loves to show people having it all</span><span>—ain't it awful?</span><span>
And when he's old and dying a beautiful nurse goes into his room and, well,
closes the door. As he tells the Devil (for he has not bothered to
report to heaven) "Who could ask for a more beautiful death?" And here,
to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, death imitates art: Lubitsch himself died in
the arms of a call girl.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbUqjhyphenhyphenBvGI0c7kljmsJX8fkRB_ho55WFdbi5L-uTiV_CsZ6cIdDNNyzMuaeE0Go-vt0vogbILVT9S-Tan0aSoaqP-Hcxc7prRxgGBsFfrWomcUgQN9ii3wG2X6UQrTkpmrUBtrzPGwDA/s1600/EL21.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbUqjhyphenhyphenBvGI0c7kljmsJX8fkRB_ho55WFdbi5L-uTiV_CsZ6cIdDNNyzMuaeE0Go-vt0vogbILVT9S-Tan0aSoaqP-Hcxc7prRxgGBsFfrWomcUgQN9ii3wG2X6UQrTkpmrUBtrzPGwDA/s320/EL21.jpg" width="230" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Interesting
detail: his wife (the character's, not Lubitsch's) leaves him for her
parents’ house is in Kansas, and these parents don’t speak to each
other; their black servant conveys messages from one end of the
breakfast table to the other, and with perfect humor and dignity. You
don’t get much of that in 1942, but that’s Lubitsch.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs9tF1UBeYGSZsaq3tcWu80F3XM_V490e60PMrA7YaS-C8AOUUKJ2G0NZJ0YTrPW6rWgl1M8IALSOhUPcOghWm-GF4UguFnDL2kfCRWcpIZzt9n_BUuhEXPi57zDy8nIm1EUvEIlS_CpU/s1600/EL25.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs9tF1UBeYGSZsaq3tcWu80F3XM_V490e60PMrA7YaS-C8AOUUKJ2G0NZJ0YTrPW6rWgl1M8IALSOhUPcOghWm-GF4UguFnDL2kfCRWcpIZzt9n_BUuhEXPi57zDy8nIm1EUvEIlS_CpU/s320/EL25.jpg" width="252" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Clarence Muse</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>While
we’re on the permissiveness that gives such taste to his sauce, he has a
Wildean indulgence for embezzlers, and much in common with
Wilde, whose people are always finding out that they're not "good"—</span><span>loveable, but not good. But this is where Lubitsch <i>begins</i>, not where he ends. (In fact he made a silent version of <i>Lady Windermere's Fan</i>.) They both loved everything about being a gentleman, except being a gentleman.</span><br />
<br />
<span>Something in him loves larceny. In <i>Ninotchka</i>
some Russian rubes come to Paris to sell jewels that had once belonged to the
Grand-Duchess-in-exile, who's already <i>in </i>Paris, and who keeps a man (Melvyn Douglas), who calls on
the boys: </span><span>“Well, gentlemen, what about my proposition?</span><span>”</span><span> </span><span>“What proposition?</span><span>”</span><span> </span><span>“I just <i>said</i>, let's have some lunch!</span><span>” Cut to hookers and champagne, and the deal is developing. In <i>A Royal Scandal </i>Catherine
the Great (Tallulah Bankhead) confronts her embarrassed chancellor over
his embezzling: a little I can understand, she says, “but take it <i>easy!</i>”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhHQAWvbOfDmZrmVKfobZxj04ItlZY1Zy1MuLOXaM5rqfqE28Z4WPmqrCjUPQkWtOe7wB-jU7TOKpgdGX_FuPqBYoJuEsdNxdyaMn0WTxAxEJxKSiZSCxCLbBon-eK2hNAQ_kVwHycKMY/s1600/EL30.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhHQAWvbOfDmZrmVKfobZxj04ItlZY1Zy1MuLOXaM5rqfqE28Z4WPmqrCjUPQkWtOe7wB-jU7TOKpgdGX_FuPqBYoJuEsdNxdyaMn0WTxAxEJxKSiZSCxCLbBon-eK2hNAQ_kVwHycKMY/s1600/EL30.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>We might have wished to say the same to our own chancellors, from Wall Street to Athens.<br /><br />“Everybody and his Aunt Nellie,” as Audrey says in <i>Charade</i>,
has a theory of “the Lubitsch touch,” and I have mine. When Maurice
Chevalier died, Lawrence Durrell described his appeal as “tender
insolence,” and this says it. Chevalier came to his Hollywood
prominence in Lubitsch’s movies, and embodied the Lubitsch spirit, as
did the screenwriter Samson Raphaelson. I like to think that both of
them took fire from Lubitsch. Perhaps I’m oversimplifying.</span><br />
<br />
<span>Lubitsch's
insolence pairs a superior tenderness with a daring attitude to
pleasure. In his own piece on Lubitsch, Peter Bogdanovich connects
innocence to sophistication, and I like that; the true sophisticate is a
<i>naïf</i>.</span><br />
<br />
<span>And oh, how Lubitsch was imitated! He founded a whole genre, the screwball comedy. <i>Everybody</i> tried to be Lubitsch. His <i>protégé</i> Billy Wilder kept a sign up in his office: HOW WOULD LUBITSCH DO IT?<br /><br />Pointless. Wilder himself was too intellectual. Everything in Jean-Luc Godard—the semiotics, the study of the image <i>qua</i> image, the postmodern mind split off from its referents—it's all there in Wilder. And that’s the trouble. <i>Some Like It Hot</i>
is a gorgeous film, worth seeing just for Tony Curtis’s Cary Grant
imitation. But in much of Wilder's work the intellectual baggage is
heavy. Intellect is not refinement; intellect can be acquired. (None of us know what we look like; these things are hidden from us; we can only appreciate them in others.) And except for <i>The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</i>, which is <i>all</i> intellect, after <i>Irma la Douce</i> Wilder's films become crass.</span><br />
<br />
<span><i>Trouble in Paradise</i> is a poem. The effort is always to make poems.<br /><br />I was about to say that <i>To Be or Not to Be</i>, about actors playing Nazis to escape Nazis, is my second-favorite Lubitsch, but then I thought of his <i>The Merry Widow</i>, another operetta (this one with sound), that's like drinking champagne</span><span>—light, bubbly, intoxicating. I hate decisions. </span><span><i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span>In <i>The Merry Widow</i>
Chevalier plays a womanizer-as-national-hero, and in his courtroom
speech he pleads guilty: "Any man who can dance through life with hundreds
of women, and is willing to walk through life with one<span>—<i>should </i>be hanged!" The peasants leap up and applaud. On the other hand, </span></span><span><i>To Be or Not to Be </i></span><span>i</span><span>s a winter film; it gives me a cozy feeling that I also feel in <i>Some Like It Hot</i>—a strange kind of warmth, I don’t know what it is, that you only get in black-and white movies.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQE9pmaZjFz-Ek0DUm0etNvC6-SMl8dCLhq4bSv4d7BG31bvl9iKnidhWGZw-KJ_mjZg-dhFjEKRllCkCfwPT2XM9VPWhyphenhyphen-4JjP_mv7gE7td8ya1g0IpNSBRT1baBziayFEvAg3e7KhJs/s1600/Margaret.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQE9pmaZjFz-Ek0DUm0etNvC6-SMl8dCLhq4bSv4d7BG31bvl9iKnidhWGZw-KJ_mjZg-dhFjEKRllCkCfwPT2XM9VPWhyphenhyphen-4JjP_mv7gE7td8ya1g0IpNSBRT1baBziayFEvAg3e7KhJs/s320/Margaret.jpg" width="275" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>And
it has Carole Lombard, my favorite actress along with Irene Dunne and
Margaret Rutherford. Beautiful as she was, Lombard never took herself
seriously. She said of her great love Clark Gable, “If his pee-pee was
one inch shorter they’d be calling him the <i>Queen</i> of Hollywood.”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmXWBGKLAX2equJRH9q6Xmu-eY5_t2b9rbaJt6tYoqlfKd9_EhmJXQXx4mIYxViIk9uwGkBrlo8zIpehLwOb3uFh9CQgwckszsbSpvCde1E7m4BCVJAubr7-D4ah_qpw15RY-_VQhiQgs/s1600/El28.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmXWBGKLAX2equJRH9q6Xmu-eY5_t2b9rbaJt6tYoqlfKd9_EhmJXQXx4mIYxViIk9uwGkBrlo8zIpehLwOb3uFh9CQgwckszsbSpvCde1E7m4BCVJAubr7-D4ah_qpw15RY-_VQhiQgs/s320/El28.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Sample dialogue with Jack Benny: </span><span>“It’s
becoming ridiculous the way you grab attention—whenever I start to tell a
story you finish it, if I go on a diet you lose the weight, if I have a
cold you cough, and if we should ever have a baby I’m not so sure I’d
be the mother.” “I’d be satisfied to be the father.”</span><br />
<br />
<span>A
distaste for schmaltz is one of Lubitsch’s two great freedoms.
In-love-ness, OK, but you won’t find any of the sentimentalities that
inform lesser filmmakers—childhood (invented by Jean-Jacques Rousseau),
Christmas (invented by Charles Dickens) or America (invented by Frank
Capra).</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs1CZQQIYHil4kLDd7kmuNragseVb4ELVPH2sP8bY6lwcMCMlPWFMCLDWzKQmD1zorxeiYfzEPie_r55X8UBOGObF5aYVk69towWZlliip3_Fxe82r-lBHHoxRN8vlLF7IogrVm9CkKt0/s1600/EL19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs1CZQQIYHil4kLDd7kmuNragseVb4ELVPH2sP8bY6lwcMCMlPWFMCLDWzKQmD1zorxeiYfzEPie_r55X8UBOGObF5aYVk69towWZlliip3_Fxe82r-lBHHoxRN8vlLF7IogrVm9CkKt0/s320/EL19.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>And
he has a Shakespearian freedom from dogma that was singular in the last century: no Freud, no Marx.
Knowledge of psychoanalysis didn’t become general until the 50s, so he
was able to spoof it in <i>That Uncertain Feeling</i> without being very deep about it. <br /><br />But
Marx was the flavor of the 30s—all the kids were communists, real
members of the Party, it was the thing, and of course in the 50s McCarthy ambushed
them. Stalin was a hero, Roosevelt was inaugurating revolutionary
social programs, and even the future Nixonite John Ford made <i>The Grapes of Wrath</i>.
Not Lubitsch. When Gaston confronts an outraged Trotskyite he ticks
him off in Russian. (Ah, how the super-hero has changed: </span><span>for Lubitsch he was someone who followed opera, knew eighteenth-century furniture and spoke several languages.)<br /><br />When the rubes in <i>Ninotchka</i>
fail to make the deal, Ninotchka herself, an unsmiling puritan from the collective, comes to Paris and encounters Melvyn.
Love, baby. “GARBO LAUGHS!” said the posters. But the Countess
blackmails her back to Moscow and to the Commissar, played, in an inspired piece of casting, by Bela Lugosi.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_FUo3B5WSrS3QYo5np9cmerdcMF4jweLY-u9G5sEww_q-LyP7aBIuy16dGd-vB7aFzLm0E7__ZbH4ZMNLipS3-IrYyvtZwgbwnR4CafZxzN4YQcQRn5z-FxhZU5chv1ZKKCAjXiqlWi0/s1600/EL23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_FUo3B5WSrS3QYo5np9cmerdcMF4jweLY-u9G5sEww_q-LyP7aBIuy16dGd-vB7aFzLm0E7__ZbH4ZMNLipS3-IrYyvtZwgbwnR4CafZxzN4YQcQRn5z-FxhZU5chv1ZKKCAjXiqlWi0/s320/EL23.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span> Dracula in Lenin drag</span> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>To be a communist was to commit the sin of seriousness</span><span><span>—</span>bad manners. But though
Lubitsch presented himself as frivolous and easy-going</span><span>—"the playboy," Graham Geene called him</span><span>—</span><span>he
had the strength to resist, nay to mock, that whole
<i>zeitgeist</i>. Frank Capra was still selling a socialist vision in the <i>Why We Fight </i>series, and the Germans were attacking our Soviet allies, but even in wartime Lubitsch didn’t join the parade.</span><br />
<br />
<span>Peter Lawford (a young fool), at the outbreak of war: "I'm going to write another letter to <i>The</i> <i>Times</i>." Boyer (indulging him): "Good!" "No<span>—no, I'll join the RAF!" "Better! <i>Join</i> the RAF.</span></span> <span> Rise above <i>The</i> <i>Times!</i>"</span><br />
<span><br />Now look, Freud and Marx were brilliant men who gave their lives to trying to help people. But enough!<br /><br />And
I love high spirits. My own comic novels are inspired by P.G.
Wodehouse. I’ve wandered elsewhere, but I’d rather do comedy than
anything else. And in film, Lubitsch is the master.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFa3x5D0xYEwoBJFb2SfBlXaHxb-z5XKIzFR97_G8_BQQ42QwvWQVimOhiM2AvFG6YsQCauXDYPLPdK0e9V3SAF0ogLSNsb7eaQl2fdB76qWiQ2Yyna4xP9vMDG-yX2XthK45dy1v_mdc/s1600/EL17.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFa3x5D0xYEwoBJFb2SfBlXaHxb-z5XKIzFR97_G8_BQQ42QwvWQVimOhiM2AvFG6YsQCauXDYPLPdK0e9V3SAF0ogLSNsb7eaQl2fdB76qWiQ2Yyna4xP9vMDG-yX2XthK45dy1v_mdc/s320/EL17.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="color: red; text-align: start;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Toby Moments on YouTube:</span></b><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pfpc4xc0d0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Shoot the Baby</span></a><br /></b></span><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/05/joyce-said-yes.html" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Trying It On</span></a></b><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #2b00fe;"> </span></span></div><div><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRl_dqRtJYo" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">The Tipping Point</span></a></b></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-spirit-of-rabelais.html" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Champagne and Ice Cream</span></span></a></b></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Here on the blog:</span></b></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2010/10/existenz.html" style="color: #2b00fe; text-decoration-line: none;">Toby's Marriage Guide for Men</a></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/07/cotton-tail-by-louis-duke-has-just-been.html" style="color: #2b00fe; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Toby movies</a> </span></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Toby books:</span></b></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 24.64px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><br /><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Boccaccio’s <a href="https://youtu.be/D2B66hW3XV0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Husband" </span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Boccaccio's <a href="https://youtu.be/jLHIHoNnXyY" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Horse Trade" </span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Boccaccio's <span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://youtu.be/R2LzhTam16o" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Stupid Friar"</span></a> </span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Chaucer’s <a href="https://youtu.be/Pm4FAjxU8L0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Miller's Tale"</span></a></span></b></div><div style="font-size: 17.6px;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-75366445730219843992012-07-24T21:53:00.006+03:002022-02-23T18:23:27.059+02:00Germans<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRSIPv2taNRM8ZnLKw3AMLoF0GEC2Ck_TlGFWQXrph1LFZFrJsEMOGulbr2T45TBqVPGrU59rcjf-mcuCYrOxnWYIl5Kx8a0J_a3qCUhmacUX8VyL82OCgNM1VehWExL9AQld7Pn5FfU/s1600/2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRSIPv2taNRM8ZnLKw3AMLoF0GEC2Ck_TlGFWQXrph1LFZFrJsEMOGulbr2T45TBqVPGrU59rcjf-mcuCYrOxnWYIl5Kx8a0J_a3qCUhmacUX8VyL82OCgNM1VehWExL9AQld7Pn5FfU/s320/2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">“Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.”—Otto von Bismarck</span></div>
<span><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Germans. Always a problem.<br /><br />Under
the Celts, Europe was one country. Under the Romans, under the Church,
under Napoleon, under Hitler, Europe was one country. And now, under
Merkel, Europe is, for the moment, one country.<br /><br />When the Celts
had it, it stretched from Ireland to what is now Turkey, and it’s still
basically Celtic. The Germans—Angles, Saxons, Franks, Lombards, Goths,
etc.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>—</span><span>later settled on the
Celts as ruling classes, and gene-testing is revealing that the
“English,” for example, are mostly Celts, as the "French" have always
believed themselves. This is in addition to the pockets of more or
less “pure” Celts that survive in the British Isles, Brittany, Belgium,
Spain, Switzerland and Venice, which is not an exhaustive list.<br /><br />The Romans brought North Africa and the Middle East into the mix, as later did Napoleon and Hitler. But the Romans <i>excluded</i>
Ireland, the Picts—and Germany. Stay on your side of the Rhine, they
told the Germans, and when they raided into Gaul the Romans retaliated
by raiding into <i>Germania</i> (with a hard “G”), which was as far as the Romans cared, or dared, to go.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ9s58Q5mb1_uEgXw7SOVHUQ-mmTZKhB1ZMDPvn556p4vVVrPrcJmvKCbQQ9vbWixFdz6B7N5KSLU3z_M1X5sY4hP_JQa4rt7rfHS07a3wCXuFQrrrOvrIhTXfUrYfYwniLL0ABUGMGM4/s1600/7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ9s58Q5mb1_uEgXw7SOVHUQ-mmTZKhB1ZMDPvn556p4vVVrPrcJmvKCbQQ9vbWixFdz6B7N5KSLU3z_M1X5sY4hP_JQa4rt7rfHS07a3wCXuFQrrrOvrIhTXfUrYfYwniLL0ABUGMGM4/s320/7.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Attila </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>The Germans were never Romanized. That’s why they’re like that. And when they (or rather <i>we</i>—see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/07/my-racial-profile.html">My Racial Profile</a>) got the upper hand, it all fell apart.</span><br />
<br />
<span>Charlemagne almost put it back together, and he did push into <i>Germania</i>.
But to be legitimate he had to be crowned in Rome by Pope Leo, who used
him like a rook on a chess board, and influenced politics from Britain
to Constantinople. That's where the power lay, and where it stayed: seven centuries
later Vasari tells us that Michelangelo “spoke to the Pope as the
King of France would not have dared to speak to the Pope.”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY7yW-3DwkNABvxTcUOWkqaCoWsXVsKmTK9T-Aumy0smOQU3z2LR9zP-qKu44LrPGhD2I8RzJ6srFZv4JzJm4GLHdQxP3MIrST1VUy0RbWLnjQf8StVW8bn9TdzqR6bDfQ7VorWjY2Kks/s1600/16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY7yW-3DwkNABvxTcUOWkqaCoWsXVsKmTK9T-Aumy0smOQU3z2LR9zP-qKu44LrPGhD2I8RzJ6srFZv4JzJm4GLHdQxP3MIrST1VUy0RbWLnjQf8StVW8bn9TdzqR6bDfQ7VorWjY2Kks/s320/16.jpg" width="297" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>Germania</i>
became a collection of principalities, and it is remarkable, to me at
least, that this brilliant people produced no literary masterpiece for
so much of the modern period. Martin Luther was a model of German prose
(“Sin bravely,” he said; I have that on a T-shirt), but he died in
1546, and until Goethe nothing literary happened, at least nothing
exportable. There <i>had</i> been Winckelmann, but Goethe had to tell me about Winckelmann; I’d never have known. <br /><br />Meanwhile, of course, they were writing the world’s music, if I may take the liberty of including Austria in <i>Germania</i>, as Charlemagne did. Austria <i>had</i> been Romanized; maybe that explains something.<br /><br />They are a wonderfully clean people, Germans. In <i>Duck You Sucker</i>,
Sergio Leone introduces a German military advisor in Mexico by showing
him in his seat on a train brushing his teeth. Exactly. In bed with a
German you can, and do, go anywhere; in bed with a French or a British
person you must proceed with caution.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsv4dx4_4kVewSDLzWD39vPOzB5LGVXhe4yiX0Msn8mavDkdD7ICy__bHu53jGwrtZQumpW6IzaExF7jJkKKt66Qiu-ptzPnrCLsE0c8e8L95zJBZUMVZkIJ4ZwsSn9PTOrk_vIaUdfAA/s1600/DK2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsv4dx4_4kVewSDLzWD39vPOzB5LGVXhe4yiX0Msn8mavDkdD7ICy__bHu53jGwrtZQumpW6IzaExF7jJkKKt66Qiu-ptzPnrCLsE0c8e8L95zJBZUMVZkIJ4ZwsSn9PTOrk_vIaUdfAA/s320/DK2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>They
do not, however, queue up. If you’re in line for the ski lift and one
or more Germans come down the slope they’ll butt right in at the front
and have to shouted at and waved away. When, in <i>Casablanca</i>, Carl tells Rick that he gave the Germans the best table, </span><span>“</span><span>knowing they would take it anyway,” he’s not making rah-rah war talk, he's referring to this tendency of theirs to arrogate.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRTjEpp7uEE0NmSSJPOqqKBD_-b2WSBlZMK3ztccdkWAAWb7suZyJElJxz0gg6YfU4ajdrZ9WMSnQ6JvzU9q7ulQ_vsl686UgvspulLivMcdMFfUXuUTuK8NyMCPmtbiXCSQsTU69bf7c/s1600/19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRTjEpp7uEE0NmSSJPOqqKBD_-b2WSBlZMK3ztccdkWAAWb7suZyJElJxz0gg6YfU4ajdrZ9WMSnQ6JvzU9q7ulQ_vsl686UgvspulLivMcdMFfUXuUTuK8NyMCPmtbiXCSQsTU69bf7c/s320/19.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Here’s
a better example: when the Nazis were advancing on Paris Clare Boothe
Luce was staying at the Ritz, and as they approached, the hotel emptied
out. But she, intrepid reporter (she invented <i>Life </i>magazine), stayed on till she was the last one, and the concierge came up and told her to leave: “The <i>Germans</i> are coming!” he said. She got out her notepad: “How do you know?” “They have reservations!”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzWRUIbeQhN7DF8ELLDqPMl774P7Qb9Owv0_8YEhZ6ymbFTteSUj4rD6FNO76lNsFiZlvaNxSU7y3D9wZp36cnKLUdfcAYWpTOpm9cwdDRWxqcmDR425CIO6pZf1xouaUZSgrdGlTW4O4/s1600/17.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzWRUIbeQhN7DF8ELLDqPMl774P7Qb9Owv0_8YEhZ6ymbFTteSUj4rD6FNO76lNsFiZlvaNxSU7y3D9wZp36cnKLUdfcAYWpTOpm9cwdDRWxqcmDR425CIO6pZf1xouaUZSgrdGlTW4O4/s1600/17.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Ah,
but now it gets heavy. Now we must touch The Subject. When I was a
film professor a German colleague said, “Do you think the world will
ever forgive the Germans?”<br /><br />I didn’t have to ask for what. I
treated this as thinking out loud, and ignored it. When he persisted I
said, “No,” as curtly as I could.</span><span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>“Why not?”</span> <span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>“For four reasons,” I said, trying to scare him off.</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>Didn’t work. He wanted to suffer. </span><span>“What's the first?”<br /><br />“Morality,</span><span>”</span><span> I said. </span><span>“</span><span>So
vague. What we did to the Indians, what we did to Dresden, what we did
to the Italian villages we bombed—Churchill said if we lose this war
they’ll try us for war crimes. But there was a case for it. You could
argue for it. You could discuss it. The truth about Hiroshima and
Nagasaki is that </span><span>we were experimenting to see what the effects would be on human flesh.</span><span>
Harry Truman said we did it to shorten the war and save lives, but we
could have done that by blowing up Mount Fujiyama or giving them a show in
Tokyo Bay. Still, there was a case for it. You could argue for it.
But with the camps </span><span>you gave us clarity, a</span><span> relief from the ambiguity we waffle around in, something black and white. We're not likely to let <i>that</i> go.”</span><span><br /><br />I trusted that would suffice. But no. “What’s the second reason?” he said.</span><br />
<br />
<span>“It was a terrible thing you did,</span><span>” I shrugged. </span><span>“</span><span>Why <i>should </i>we forgive you?” (“<i>You</i>,” notice. I knew he was standing in for his people.)<br /><br />He nodded. “The third?”<br /><br />“You’ll never forgive <i>yourselves</i>. Why should <i>we</i> forgive you?”<br /><br />On the surface he was digesting all this. “And the fourth?”<br /><br />“Well, when you say <i>the world</i>, you don’t mean Asia or Africa. They’re not interested—they’ve got their own histories. You mean <i>us</i>—the
Germanic peoples, including the blond Visigothic aristocracies lording
it over the Indians in “Latin” America. <i>We’re </i>Germans. You embarrassed the family. And in family life there’s no forgiving or forgetting.”<br /><br />Now he was depressed. I felt bad. “On the other hand,</span><span>”</span><span> I said, </span><span>“</span><span>one of the great achievements of humankind was landing on the moon, and that was accomplished by a former SS man.”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikUFp7Q3-GGgO8nQ_TLADlGNOBJO3CCL634DKcJ4fucr4-C3dU2SSD4Rbbwq4PIg0s5DoJptDgzesFGWeZpklWe_agfzofBvJJvkY_NWtPc9C5dJ6Ef-VrmquWCHo-rh0flNPM4r_9tHU/s1600/20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikUFp7Q3-GGgO8nQ_TLADlGNOBJO3CCL634DKcJ4fucr4-C3dU2SSD4Rbbwq4PIg0s5DoJptDgzesFGWeZpklWe_agfzofBvJJvkY_NWtPc9C5dJ6Ef-VrmquWCHo-rh0flNPM4r_9tHU/s320/20.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Another
German friend (I know a lot of Germans; they’re going to love this
piece) is a painter, an Expressionist. (Most German artists are Expressionists; it
has something to do with horror.) He was middle-aged before he went to
his father and said, “How could you <i>do</i> that?” I don’t know what the answer was. Maybe there <i>was</i> none. Maybe it was unrepeatable. What <i>could</i> it be? But the sense of a curse lingers, on the people and on the land.<br /><br />And
Angela Merkel works under that curse. When France and Germany
conceived the Euro-dream in 1951 it was to make sure Germany wouldn’t
attack France again. Simple as that. The aim of the Union is to put an
end to war in Europe, which a glance at history will show is continual
here. Simple as that. But once again, Germany dominates. <br /><br />The trouble is, Europeans can’t <i>do </i>anything.
It's endemic. British incompetence is as monumental as it is
dignified, from the top down. A Canadian woman who transferred to the
London branch of her company confessed to me, “You just want to <i>push</i> them!”<br /><br />A Frenchwoman, lounging topless by the Greek sea, said to me, “You Americans [for her I was willing to be an American], you <i>act</i> [inviting me, as it were, to action]; we French are dreamers.” Quite right. Don’t ever try to get anything done in France.</span><span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>When
Portugal and Spain and France and England were young
barbaric countries they conquered empires. Those war lords Ferdinand
and Isabella were burning down university towns in the suave Muslim
civilization of the time, even as they were sending Columbus off to
augment their holdings. But that was then. These days it takes a
Napoleon or a Hitler to actually <i>do</i> something, and of course the results aren’t always ideal.</span><span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>A friend of mine—actually he’s <i>not </i>a
friend of mine, I’m not even speaking to the son-of-a-bitch—anyway,
he’s a yacht skipper. You rent your yacht for a vacation and he brings
the crew and sails it where you want to go, and when you’re out there and something goes wrong, he fixes it with tape and a coat hanger
and gets on with it. But the German clients are standing there with the
manual in their hands. “Yah, but zis iss not za right vay! Ziss is
not—” They’re by-the-book people, Germans, and they’re trying to force
their considerable will on the anarchic non-work-ethic Greeks. The
Greeks have never <i>heard</i> of the book. (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/10/greece-versus-puritans.html">Greece versus the Puritans</a>.)<br /><br />One of the problems with Merkel—<i>one</i>,
I say, of the problems with Merkel— is that she grew up in East
Germany, resisting Soviet thoughts, yes yes, I know, but the eastward
look was her horizon. The Euro-dream is a <i>West</i>-German dream, not
a Merkel dream. She has not explained to her voters that if they break
the Mediterranean countries there’ll be no market for what they make,
and the Greeks, as a matter of patriotism, are already refusing to buy
anything made in Germany. Nor has she mentioned that if they don’t pump their precious money
into those countries their own euros won’t be worth much anymore.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc56kpaLQQXx-bEb7j93NHV7G-6iYU7CCKluWZDnj4feJIrYJR_KbNn39rm0QqSGi6ts7__vjD7wmQMKqWszp3f6XAJ8j_6OiKpJgPWuW9no7vIIUJBDBI3elW-qiijaad24SfxhN28bE/s1600/8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc56kpaLQQXx-bEb7j93NHV7G-6iYU7CCKluWZDnj4feJIrYJR_KbNn39rm0QqSGi6ts7__vjD7wmQMKqWszp3f6XAJ8j_6OiKpJgPWuW9no7vIIUJBDBI3elW-qiijaad24SfxhN28bE/s320/8.jpg" width="309" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">M'ma! </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>The
Greeks suspect the Germans, who, it must be conceded, rarely do
anything without a plan, of forcing them to privatize their companies
and sell them cheap so <i>Germans</i> can buy them; and to cut salaries so the new owners will have a low-rate labor force.<br /><br />And
the Greeks, rather than ruin themselves at German command, are playing
for time—one of the things they do best. “Wait,” they love to say. “I
don’t <i>want</i> to wait,</span><span>”</span><span> shouts the Nordic, and the German in me sympathizes. “Wait,” they say. <br /><br />Now they will lean their chins in their hands and watch the German economy crumble. Then we’ll see where we are.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijPKsoh2-9Hr472IMsQW5Ou2l27ANc774bendLqtalE-EiENheNyG6sgDDb4vHiaoyJN3sXP-jRKdseZ3QSsLrLfoqnfq-fbwbha6Ud6-52lwAiidAz3jSM4MpkntXl3w7OQVHZecUZgs/s1600/13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijPKsoh2-9Hr472IMsQW5Ou2l27ANc774bendLqtalE-EiENheNyG6sgDDb4vHiaoyJN3sXP-jRKdseZ3QSsLrLfoqnfq-fbwbha6Ud6-52lwAiidAz3jSM4MpkntXl3w7OQVHZecUZgs/s1600/13.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="color: red;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: red;">
<div>
<br />
<div>
<div style="color: black;"><br /></div><div style="color: black; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="color: black; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-56264571983572663712012-06-05T16:24:00.010+03:002022-02-22T19:33:24.423+02:00Some Notes on God<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShOueO-vy1HS9FEUjh5QAT6vSZ2W_Avidpd0Q4HOtLZ_G30X32v3n8DNh9dPQ-0iLl9cZ96gqbrMr7y_IQ4IZmHP2C6f8XiCYCqUhGEcmn1NAFpuodct1-rnRTuCkrhKbidwiMWzeOVY/s1600/God8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgShOueO-vy1HS9FEUjh5QAT6vSZ2W_Avidpd0Q4HOtLZ_G30X32v3n8DNh9dPQ-0iLl9cZ96gqbrMr7y_IQ4IZmHP2C6f8XiCYCqUhGEcmn1NAFpuodct1-rnRTuCkrhKbidwiMWzeOVY/s320/God8.jpg" width="236" /></a></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">1. Is God vulnerable?</span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Apparently. To <i>feel</i> is to be vulnerable, is it not? To suffer?<br /><br />The
noise of humanity irritated the Mesopotamian gods so miserably that
they wiped it out with a flood, the one on which the Genesis version is
based. Then they ran to their father Anu to shelter them from it.
Fraidy-cats. Then they suffered remorse for having caused it. They
felt it all.<br /><br />Isis was vulnerable to love and loss, and her
brother-husband Osiris to deception, to assassination and—if you consider it a vulnerability—to rebirth.<br /><br />The Greek gods, who Homer said
"dwell in bliss," nevertheless suffered jealousy, envy, anger,
fear, indignation, ugliness, deformity, lameness, castration,</span><span> </span><span>and
ultimately death. So much for bliss. </span><br />
<br />
<span>And they suffered </span><span>pleasure, if you consider <i>that</i> a vulnerability.</span><br />
<br />
<span>The <i>Nordic</i> gods were subject to the same things, and of course to twilight.<br /><br />The
Judaeo-Christian-Muslim God was notoriously jealous, and with some
reason: scholars are telling us all those names of his were actually of
other gods, lots of them. He suffered anger, rage, vengefulness and, we
can only conclude, a sense of obligation to put on our own vulnerability,
sweat blood in terror and submit to torture from which death could only
be a relief. It’s a beautiful story, “The notion,” as T.S. Eliot says,
“of some infinitely gentle, Infinitely suffering thing.”<br /><br />If only
it weren’t so mixed up with hellfire and sexual prohibition. “As the
caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on,” says William
Blake, “so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.” Hence the
hypocrisy of the diaper: the Romans didn’t nail anybody up in his
underwear. Even Salvador Dalí paints it on. Only Michelangelo gives us
a nude Christ.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Uh2uVZfdtj0VMgyHIwk95gBLRBvvjhJDmRswlc7bpmd2_3GPYpNddIbUzGQTQhLnVl42HFOkl9dv2PbqWB1Rfpvat5uocdcrSbvj9pK5v1pRsxCwZXRf0M59d7vKHvvY5jZMeflXKtA/s1600/God14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Uh2uVZfdtj0VMgyHIwk95gBLRBvvjhJDmRswlc7bpmd2_3GPYpNddIbUzGQTQhLnVl42HFOkl9dv2PbqWB1Rfpvat5uocdcrSbvj9pK5v1pRsxCwZXRf0M59d7vKHvvY5jZMeflXKtA/s320/God14.jpg" width="228" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>It
is debated whether Jesus spoke and read Greek, which had been the
lingua franca of the Eastern Empire since Alexander; moreover, the flight into
Egypt must have brought the Holy Family to the Jewish community in
Alexandria, the world’s intellectual capital, and the logical place for
Jesus to pick up enough to wow the Temple priests with at the age of
twelve—not that logic has to be involved. Certainly he talks more like
Socrates than like Moses.<br /><br />And like Socrates, he may just be a
character in a book. The four most important people in Western
culture—Homer (for Alexander wanted to be Achilles, and Caesar wanted to
be Alexander), Socrates, Jesus and Shakespeare—may never have existed.<br /><br />"Homer"<br />May be as misnomer<br />For several otherwise out-of-work guys<br />Half his size.<br /><br />Dalí
once remarked that he adored weakness, which he found consonant with
modern physics, and that he painted anti-matter angels. Perhaps we
could imagine an anti-matter God, who submits himself to his cosmos like
any artist to his work, and then what happens happens. The price for
freedom, after all, is vulnerability.<br /><br />But let’s not get carried away. Ignorance—and here’s an adage I can sign—is bliss. Who <i>knows</i>
what's behind the curtain? On Isis’s statue the inscription said, "I
am all that was, is and will be, and no mortal has yet lifted my veil."</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRccYdkVwDIWJ9OmHDwgZMByCF_1TVmeqfCLjGMp2dbaJ9aarHVoO6Fm7iod07XZj6gco3tqnj7XXg76ZYcMNPmTXdj8OUt-4Ane3kJpL3iQBbeu7mV1EOF6HNKhmeuh2Pjf-L7lQTZgM/s1600/G.fem12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRccYdkVwDIWJ9OmHDwgZMByCF_1TVmeqfCLjGMp2dbaJ9aarHVoO6Fm7iod07XZj6gco3tqnj7XXg76ZYcMNPmTXdj8OUt-4Ane3kJpL3iQBbeu7mV1EOF6HNKhmeuh2Pjf-L7lQTZgM/s1600/G.fem12.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<h3><span style="font-size: x-large;">
<span> </span></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">2) Is God evil?</span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>There’s a case for it.
The shadow side of our culture is Gnosticism, the belief that we
ourselves are sparks of the original God, held prisoner here by a
second-rate god, a Demiurge, psychotic and inferior, who split off from
Godhead and trapped us here. Vulnerability again: apparently it’s
eternal.<br /><br />When you get the gnosis, the knowledge, from a redeemer or just by waking up, you can never lose the sense that <i>you</i> are God, and the sky-god isn’t.<br /><br />It’s
been with us since the first century, the idea that the Demiurge put us
in a garden and told us we could do anything we wanted except eat the
fruit of a certain tree. Well, what else could we do? Then he came
looking for us—very creepy: “Who told you you were naked?” In this
version the <i>serpent</i> is the redeemer, the ancient symbol of wisdom.<br /><br />Then
"God" wiped us out with a flood, after which he promised he wouldn’t do
that any more; next time he’d do it by fire. Thanks a lot. (Which <i>Planet of the Apes</i> movie is it where the people worship an atom bomb as a manifestation of God? What James Baldwin called <i>The Fire Next Time</i>.)<br /><br />But
there are lots of versions. The texts were suppressed, and until
recently the only source we had on them was the Church Fathers, who
summarized them to condemn them. The thing went underground and spread
to Islam, where the Sufis adopted it, and were horribly beaten down.
The great Persian poet Rumi was a Gnostic. </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Rhx5OIVUDJjolPc9FJbm3ULSeNpIOe5tAfhFcLICFdicY24lo2bh38rpoGYjL2tJmcFekjEjC_JWM9Jlxi6p19UOJNJpZvgE57fvSuIE5T-iRrwYa82YMYCQLwmreG2JXCS2dtwqVfA/s1600/God15.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Rhx5OIVUDJjolPc9FJbm3ULSeNpIOe5tAfhFcLICFdicY24lo2bh38rpoGYjL2tJmcFekjEjC_JWM9Jlxi6p19UOJNJpZvgE57fvSuIE5T-iRrwYa82YMYCQLwmreG2JXCS2dtwqVfA/s320/God15.png" width="302" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>In
the middle ages Gnosticism emerged in Kabbalah. And from Islam it
came, through both the Muslim-occupied Balkans and Muslim-occupied
Spain, to northern Italy and the south of France. There it appeared as
Catharism ("Purism"): the Cathars were vegetarians, egalitarians,
feminists—the whole trip—and embodied a heresy so threatening that the
Pope sent a crusade against them. </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT4xHl3KAkT6gHSXa3hBu_PcfbQ4SEhM2UDV4tgBtw7gFB2et81ElHWFmK5x1ivtpiD5fQE-1Kyje-nmFdasdYT7TdimQORcTi5iycRMJUw6rwJYnM7MobGslQhogd4WFgiewIgTP_luo/s1600/God16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT4xHl3KAkT6gHSXa3hBu_PcfbQ4SEhM2UDV4tgBtw7gFB2et81ElHWFmK5x1ivtpiD5fQE-1Kyje-nmFdasdYT7TdimQORcTi5iycRMJUw6rwJYnM7MobGslQhogd4WFgiewIgTP_luo/s1600/God16.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>The
leader of the crusade, Simon de Montfort (I’m quoting the Wikipedia)
“ordered his troops to gouge out the eyes of 100 prisoners, cut off
their noses and lips, then send them back to the towers led by a
prisoner with one remaining eye.” It didn’t work, so they </span><span>slaughtered them and burned down their
cities</span><span>. The Cistercian abbot who led the attack on Béziers was asked how
to distinguish Cathars from Christians. "Kill them all," he said. "God
will know his own."</span><br />
<br />
<span>Courtly love
comes down to us from poems written at that time, and in that place, and
imitated ever since. We’re still in the habit of letting ladies go
first, though we no longer hold their chairs while they sit or take our
hats off in their presence, possibly because we’re not wearing hats. <br /><br />And
though the exaltation of women was a civilizing force in those barbaric
times, it’s no exaggeration to say that the women’s revolution has been
against courtly love.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdsdYn-c2dCCjFR0B3aS0JW45VNltq2ENULEFq7jg1zzG-sPM5xcgYx1xCPxwj85ZPrYNxvQoyuFw2hMJCxRilr_iHxju4IW-tce_N54EfahZ3ReJ0m0urrgmCHJw3Ntykp0ixk9Q-NRc/s1600/God17.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdsdYn-c2dCCjFR0B3aS0JW45VNltq2ENULEFq7jg1zzG-sPM5xcgYx1xCPxwj85ZPrYNxvQoyuFw2hMJCxRilr_iHxju4IW-tce_N54EfahZ3ReJ0m0urrgmCHJw3Ntykp0ixk9Q-NRc/s320/God17.jpg" width="246" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>The
schism between the Orthodox east and the Catholic west happened before
these events, so courtly love never took hold in Greece. Here in
anarchic Athens, where people park their cars on the sidewalk and
there’s often room for only one person to pass at a time, women smile at
me when I step back for them (I can’t help it): it tells them I'm from
the West, and Greeks love foreigners.<br /><br />But here’s the thing: many
people believe that courtly-love literature was not about lovers and
their high unattainable ladies, but code for the poet yearning for his
high unattainable self, his godhead. Saying it in code is better than
having your eyes gouged out.<br /><br />Notice that the lover never
“attains” his beloved—that’s one of the rules. In the <i>north</i> of France,
where it took the form of romance, Tristan and Isolde don’t have sex;
they sleep with a sword between them: their job is to yearn. And it’s
that way down to Wagner, down to pop songs.<br /><br />Dante seems to have
sensed the spiritual meaning. His sonnets to Beatrice are the strongest
courtly-love poems I know; and it’s she who, in the <i>Commedia</i>, leads him up to the light.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCDB-ME4QgQUpdGswmb7omdi9vazTHPpvlCfaXSpn4aSY4lXyG9KFeDbxryYyWZEBXzQzBwO3kUcX_ioMIPTubiz_tiHUxfgpfp7WVUQEbuXfu3pBUpO-uc3H5r-ei07lmdG2hmsX6Dxk/s1600/God21.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCDB-ME4QgQUpdGswmb7omdi9vazTHPpvlCfaXSpn4aSY4lXyG9KFeDbxryYyWZEBXzQzBwO3kUcX_ioMIPTubiz_tiHUxfgpfp7WVUQEbuXfu3pBUpO-uc3H5r-ei07lmdG2hmsX6Dxk/s320/God21.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
God as gay</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>In <i>Paradise Lost</i> Milton, who knew the ancient languages</span><span>—</span><span>and the Fathers by heart</span><span>—</span><span>puts
the Gnostic arguments in Satan’s mouth. Milton, as Blake says, “was a
true Poet, and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.” It’s Milton’s
Satan who inspires English Romanticism. In Byron’s <i>Cain</i>, Cain is
a hero who defies the illegitimate God and commits murder, fuck you.
Shelley despises the world he finds himself in, and even sweet
Wordsworth adapts Satan’s speeches to his own sense of self.<br /><br />Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:<br /> The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,<br /> Hath had elsewhere its setting,<br /> And cometh from afar:<br /> Not in entire forgetfulness,<br /> And not in utter nakedness,<br /> But trailing clouds of glory do we come<br /> From God, who is our home.<br /><br />Well,
that’s the sweet way of saying it. You get your sweet Gnostics, like
Emerson, and you get your bitter Gnostics, like Samuel Beckett, who
thinks even after we die the torture continues. Ralph Ellison's <i>Invisible Man</i> is not just the black guy in white society; he's the unseen self.<br /><br />Blake
wondered what kind of God could make the tiger: “Did he who made the
lamb make thee?” (I have lambs and tigers in my own heart, it doesn’t
seem that remarkable.) Queegueg says the same thing in <i>Moby-Dick</i> which, along with <i>Peter Pan</i> and <i>Under the Volcano,</i>
is the great Gnostic novel: when a shark he thought dead snaps
at him he says, “Queequeg no care what god made him shark, wedder Feejee
God or Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam
Ingin.” And we get it again with the enormous fat crocodile in Terrence
Malick’s <i>The Thin Red Line</i>: who <i>made</i> that thing?<br /><br />Ingmar Bergman gave us a vision of God as a rapacious spider, and Stanley Kubrick had the Gnostic paranoia (see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/04/some-thoughts-on-stanley-kubrick.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Some Thoughts on Stanley Kubrick</span></b></a>).
David Lynch combines that with Presbyterianism, an easy fit:
Romanticism is not only Gnosticism, it's post-Christian Presbyterianism;
that is to say it's dualistic</span><span>—</span><span>it rejects the world. (For more on dualism, see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/10/greece-versus-puritans.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Greece versus the Puritans</span></b></a>.)</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIQA2ghxTCfoARAJ-06me_6yRH_KfugckfcjIT5p6QzB8ufeKoNrlQWp29sYSdrNqo02qeGxIdEWnZIl17tzfQ9qDXZ7sPQWr3dpw9Phor30yAFd2QUgsWbj3viIjPrSXyYQWv1jWR9XI/s1600/God18.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIQA2ghxTCfoARAJ-06me_6yRH_KfugckfcjIT5p6QzB8ufeKoNrlQWp29sYSdrNqo02qeGxIdEWnZIl17tzfQ9qDXZ7sPQWr3dpw9Phor30yAFd2QUgsWbj3viIjPrSXyYQWv1jWR9XI/s320/God18.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
"That is God...a shout in the street."</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>Classicists
like Joyce and Dalí don't care for that. In 1943 Dalí wrote, “Hitler
wants war, not in order to win, as most people think, but to lose. He
is romantic, and an integral masochist, and exactly as in Wagner’s
operas it has to end for him, the hero, as tragically as possible. The
end to which Hitler aspires is to feel his enemy’s boot crushing his
face, which for that matter is unmistakably marked by disaster.”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTkZ2lxsFH-tUvqbdNKC8Hl1td3YlUvtN4gkdJhHBMmdIOpdOOTgsPV5JV3xqYd3AMkdRn8A2Blee2P0HSA2s3DhwdjNyZzS02LAVCMJwZ_rdaEv-OMYYkofKzl8qFeu10vrtilSGObdQ/s1600/God19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTkZ2lxsFH-tUvqbdNKC8Hl1td3YlUvtN4gkdJhHBMmdIOpdOOTgsPV5JV3xqYd3AMkdRn8A2Blee2P0HSA2s3DhwdjNyZzS02LAVCMJwZ_rdaEv-OMYYkofKzl8qFeu10vrtilSGObdQ/s1600/God19.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>I wonder what he'd say about Merkel. </span><br />
<br />
<span>Nevertheless our own time is heavy with Gnostics. In Peter Weir’s <i>Fearless</i> Jeff Bridges looks up at the sky and says, “You want to kill me, but you can’t.” In Weir's <i>Dead Poets Society</i>
those boys who stand up on their desks at the end are assuming their
full stature by defying the Demiurge—who is really rather a nice guy,
isn’t he? And in his <i>The Truman Show</i> the Demiurge is a reality-TV producer who keeps Truman in a false world. </span><br />
<br />
<span>For the young, of course, there’s <i>The Matrix</i>: God as computer.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuMWhdi6jHf-0km7z-5b-Emu-rzkDSQg5oriAaHWjEcReSQYBW3EzSL_Pc9s6-7AyOMjf2ukAsDQBY79L5I0Z70ZX0FXfzvYfSOSqh9bCswJTyIgxRyHfMF80l-DbczamZ0t5iHhlF0aY/s1600/God20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuMWhdi6jHf-0km7z-5b-Emu-rzkDSQg5oriAaHWjEcReSQYBW3EzSL_Pc9s6-7AyOMjf2ukAsDQBY79L5I0Z70ZX0FXfzvYfSOSqh9bCswJTyIgxRyHfMF80l-DbczamZ0t5iHhlF0aY/s320/God20.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>The
discovery of the Gnostic gospels at Nag Hammadi in 1945 had something
to do with this mood: for the first time we had the real texts, and a
different kind of Jesus, a stay-light-on-your-feet Jesus. The Copts are the ancient guardians of this tradition.</span><br />
<br />
<span>But
it's always with us, texts or no. In its debased form it’s the content
of all those Twitter messages, LinkedIn messages, inspiration messages,
you-can-do-it messages. Here’s a profile I just saw: “Beyond Your Fear
Is A Whole New You! We all have fear about something in our lives.
Whether it is rejection, loss, failure or a number of any other emotions
that are like anchors dragging behind us and holding us back from doing
what....” There are more redeemers out there than people who give a
rat’s ass.<br /><br />But that’s the way we see things these days. Emersonianism <i>is</i> America. <i>“Yes we can!”</i> Harold Bloom says most Americans are Gnostics without knowing it. </span><br />
<br />
<span>But what a paranoid vision! And it’s a <i>dogma!</i> I <i>hate</i>
dogma. There’s a difference, after all, between belief and faith. (See also <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64jESVc-w58"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Thinking about God, by Doctor Robert MacLean, PhD</span></a></b>,)</span><br />
<br />
<span>Nor
can I square it with my enjoyment of the world; Gnosticism is scarcely
what you’d call earthy. Mine is </span><span>a precarious position, yes, but as my alter ego says in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1"><i><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Cad</span></b></i></a>, "if you're not making a fool of yourself, you're not alive." We speak from experience there, Toby and I.</span><br />
<br />
<span>And who says it has to be squared? "Commonsense is square," said Vladimir Nabokov, "whereas all the most essential visions and values of life are beautifully round." </span><br />
<br />
<span>Socrates, whether he existed or not, said "The best theory of the gods is no theory at all." </span><br />
<br />
<span>Enigma, then, is God's real name. And the world's. And yours.</span><br />
</span><h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">3) Are <i>you</i> God?</span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Probably. But don’t think about that now, you’ve got the rent to pay.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="color: red;"><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-62825846468195619012012-04-06T16:32:00.005+03:002022-02-03T21:45:55.647+02:00Cold Comfort: Notes on Canada<span style="font-size: x-large;">“For many are cold, but few are frozen.”—Matthew 22:46</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9rGp-S4JRVOY2-G9w93JY65fgKH8QBFh9IuMQRcHF90bErKu2KjzCnVVufExrXtPv-bPjTi-qUCRzlUfiosGcIUVXo2M4OuhX2OHsczA8T8ys8fQ80Ho7RdwsPv5THlE_flbw7rUMArA/s1600/Can10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9rGp-S4JRVOY2-G9w93JY65fgKH8QBFh9IuMQRcHF90bErKu2KjzCnVVufExrXtPv-bPjTi-qUCRzlUfiosGcIUVXo2M4OuhX2OHsczA8T8ys8fQ80Ho7RdwsPv5THlE_flbw7rUMArA/s320/Can10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span>Canadian pretending to like the cold.</span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Canada is the center of the world. You didn’t know that? Oh, yeah.<br /> </span><br />
<span>See, <i>your</i> trouble (as always, I address the mirror) is you’ve got
Mercator’s projection in your mind—which tells you nothing about the way
things really are:</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_8ThPUbMYGsqdqZ0yoT9KLSr7KRxSlJXPTeUi2N6NbCUeqjkWXucfHThfOKYptWtAQcaVJDxW-NvizIxxfxOFqhQdBbxdeRWMAIKIXNRA44hmAgIC6qjDs0zNr0kZsAOZwprOZKcksog/s1600/Can8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_8ThPUbMYGsqdqZ0yoT9KLSr7KRxSlJXPTeUi2N6NbCUeqjkWXucfHThfOKYptWtAQcaVJDxW-NvizIxxfxOFqhQdBbxdeRWMAIKIXNRA44hmAgIC6qjDs0zNr0kZsAOZwprOZKcksog/w364-h307/Can8.jpg" width="364" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>It was invented in 1569 for sailors, who couldn’t conveniently fit a globe—the very <i>idea</i>
of a globe was new then—into the situation room. And despite the fact
that it’s so distortive it’s the icon of news programs, weather reports,
travel agencies, Google Maps—it’s our image of the world.<br /><br />But no. To see the shape of things you have to look at them with the North Pole in the middle:</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiem4mEYY2y37wiDag2D6sHwHxPhWip3cUV499pzTT0N8dmRrt1kMb31S_Sf82Mogkaqy3qLJSYuMiJHdtqvh57xlDRZQFZegCzk6xrNr6G1t5BHwf6VauMifKSBm8hcRa9gkh-l24qPho/s1600/Can3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="387" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiem4mEYY2y37wiDag2D6sHwHxPhWip3cUV499pzTT0N8dmRrt1kMb31S_Sf82Mogkaqy3qLJSYuMiJHdtqvh57xlDRZQFZegCzk6xrNr6G1t5BHwf6VauMifKSBm8hcRa9gkh-l24qPho/w387-h387/Can3.jpg" width="387" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>See
what I mean? Canada is between China, Japan, Russia, the United States and
Europe. China is not “across the Pacific”; it’s just along the coast.<br /><br />Unless
you look at the world from the top, you can’t see how our Siberian
ancestors found Sweden as convenient to raid into as India </span><span>(see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-racial-profile.html">My Racial Profile</a>)</span><span>; how Baffin is as short a Viking row-your-boat
from Greenland, which is still Danish, as Greenland is from Iceland;
how the Saint Lawrence River swallowed the French into the
lake-and-river system that Canada is, and drew those white-water guys
through the strait of (give it the French pronunciation) <i>Detroit</i>, all the way to the Rockies where they shot the rapids down to the coast</span><span>—s</span><span>o many places <i>en route</i> are still called <i>Portage</i>, where you have to carry the canoe—and also down the Mississippi past (French, please) <i>Saint-Louis</i> and <i>Baton Rouge</i> to <i>La Nouvelle-Orléans</i>;
how the Titanic could go down off Newfoundland. North America shows
its Canadian face to Europe. Sail around it and you make land in
Brazil.<br /><br />A Greek friend of mine who was shooting a film in Alaska
was surprised by all the Orthodox churches there; it’s still got the
Russian flavor. Nabokov’s <i>Ada</i> (see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2012/02/vladimir-nabokov-and-twelve-year-old.html">Vladimir Nabokov and Twelve-Year-Old Girls</a>)
gives us a world in which western Canada is Russian, and eastern Canada
French—things that could easily have happened—which would have made
the 49th parallel a, what, interesting border.<br /><br />During the Cold
War people with the Mercator icon in their heads imagined there would be
a trans-Atlantic exchange of missiles. Nonsense. <i>We</i> knew the
Bear was coming over the top and it would happen in our sky; and the DEW
Line—the Distant Early Warning radar system—is still there, waiting.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVu2pEq9y4m7vW5_0c1GhdzLyhzAh_2isQss7juj19y4M_vLga9Mt-vhfhaMRcgr9vLELollFD5WMpU4X_iXjAEpv1K67_3Z5tsdGaC6CM1ZSW0FmhfPPo6VEj60757DcgeAlDi487QYs/s1600/Can24.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVu2pEq9y4m7vW5_0c1GhdzLyhzAh_2isQss7juj19y4M_vLga9Mt-vhfhaMRcgr9vLELollFD5WMpU4X_iXjAEpv1K67_3Z5tsdGaC6CM1ZSW0FmhfPPo6VEj60757DcgeAlDi487QYs/s320/Can24.jpg" width="314" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>The
Mongols arrived in Canada first. They like to come down from their
mountains and conquer the world once in a while. Their cousins took
over China, and then India, where they were known as Moguls, so we weren’t <i>too</i>
far off calling them Indians. They pushed down through the Americas,
founded this civilization and that, penetrated the Amazon
jungle—wow!—and went all the way to land’s end, a people in love
with the horizon.<br /><br />Like the Vikings they’d go <i>anywhere</i>. </span><span>And they managed to survive with dignity in this deep-freeze. </span><span>Ottawa is the second-coldest capital in the world, after Ulaanbaatar. Moscow is relatively mild.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaV8SiwYc5hShwU2UKhQbI7XGIIOfWKS-rzn90ecC_2l7FSMwcU6s2EFBjxkC-_DdSIrJjjzhyphenhyphenRT-hkotY6Clpa8G9Ap-S9wvswjUVhyphenhyphennFvkUTqhAEQxjnKaRuuuat9fb7jgyi7-LqAEo/s1600/Can11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaV8SiwYc5hShwU2UKhQbI7XGIIOfWKS-rzn90ecC_2l7FSMwcU6s2EFBjxkC-_DdSIrJjjzhyphenhyphenRT-hkotY6Clpa8G9Ap-S9wvswjUVhyphenhyphennFvkUTqhAEQxjnKaRuuuat9fb7jgyi7-LqAEo/s320/Can11.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span><span style="font-size: x-large;">Canadian with a deeper sense of reality.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br />A
Toronto friend once dismissed my exotic residence as “in the
Mediterranean glare.” “How,” I said, for I was not to be deglamourized,
“does ‘the Mediterranean glare’ differ from the Toronto glare? Is not
glare a matter of latitude? Toronto is slightly south of Florence,
which puts the French <i>Riviera</i> well north of us.”<br /><br />But she had a point. Why is it so God-damned <i>cold</i>
there? I have friends who went unprepared on a fall day that was
turning into winter—this was in downtown Montreal—and they feared death
while waiting for a taxi. <i>Cold</i>, baby! It’s cold.<br /><br />Almost certainly one's ancestors were stronger people, but why did they stop <i>there?</i> Other Scots went south, of course, but there was fever in those places, and the cold tends to mitigate that.<br /><br />And
we’re not macho about it. Those of us with the bread have hot tubs to
slip into when we get home from the ice and snow. Upscale apartment
buildings have them on the top floor by the pool. <i>Nobody</i> goes
into the pool. We all sit there in our Felliniesque basin, heedless of
exposure to viruses, warming ourselves together and otherwise
respectful of the social norms. You can meet some good-looking women
that way.<br /><br />The great Canadian poem in English is “The Cremation of
Sam McGee,” in which a Tennesseean prospector in the Yukon just can’t
get warm, and indeed freezes to death, but not before he makes his
partner promise to cremate him. The Canadian is stuck with the
corpse—where do you burn it in the snow?—and for days and nights eats
with it staring at him, sleeps with it staring at him, till he finds an
ice-bound ship, sets it on fire and throws the body in. He is already
mushing his huskies away when he stops to go back and peek, at which
Sam, sitting up in the flames, utters the great Canadian line: Close the
door, you're letting the heat out.<br /><br />In French the great Canadian poem is the splendidly solipsistic <i>Mon Pays</i>, which most of us know as a song: «<i>Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver.</i>»
My country is not a country, it’s winter; My road is not a road, it’s
the snow. (That’s what they play whenever they cut to Quebec.) Gilles
Vigneault. He nailed it.<br /><br />A legendary bank robbery in Montreal
(the world capital of daring bank robberies) happened when the
snowmobile was first invented. The culprits zoomed into town on
Ski-Doos, cleaned out a savings-and-loan and shot off over the horizon while the
cops were still digging out their cruisers.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigbbQfhKny5w0V7x_QWJrfJa0VpWLKByOj3CR9JYMS_yxAlaFcQgdvBcTH5CeywlXyGblenR8pk87v-XlDTi7W4AjGzt4EN1_zwq8ML8IP3kUJSLxu_csZPBNgAjgyH_OeqbC9fzNJpjs/s1600/Can35.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigbbQfhKny5w0V7x_QWJrfJa0VpWLKByOj3CR9JYMS_yxAlaFcQgdvBcTH5CeywlXyGblenR8pk87v-XlDTi7W4AjGzt4EN1_zwq8ML8IP3kUJSLxu_csZPBNgAjgyH_OeqbC9fzNJpjs/s320/Can35.jpg" width="227" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> <span>“I don't even know what street Canada is on.”—Al Capone</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>Up
north the Mounties don’t like snowmobiles; they prefer dog sleds. When
you get stranded out there, you can’t eat a snowmobile.<br /> </span><br />
<span>Robert
Service, the “Sam McGee” poet, told a story about a man who <i>had</i> been
trapped that way, and was found with his partner's half-eaten corpse and put on trial for cannibalism. But “I didn’t eat him,” he said. “I
fed him to the dogs. Then I ate the dogs.”<br /><br />(None of these remarks apply to Vancouver. When it snows an inch in Vancouver they abandon their cars in the streets.)<br /><br />On
the other hand the summers are sultry, especially in the eastern half.
I remember one July when Margaret Thatcher got off a plane wearing a
fur coat. We love that.<br /><br />At a dinner party in New York a woman
said to me with, well, sympathy, "So you're under the British," taking a
stab as it were at what a Canadian might be. <br /><br />And yes, most
Americans think of Canada as a monitoring device in their attic, a crew
cut on their reality, an American park, just as Europe is an American
museum. Canadians, they feel, are ersatz Americans, with goose bumps and
visible breath. </span><span>A thirty-foot dirty mirror surrounds the USA—Americans </span><span>look out at their own image while </span><span>the whole world looks in. </span><span>Like everyone else, but at closer range, we suffer their disdain for people who are <i>not</i> American, one might almost say <i>un</i>-American. What could we be thinking of? (In France of course they spit on everybody. See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html">The Marquis de Sade, Father of Modern France</a>.) </span><span>Ask an American where Calgary is, he thinks it’s where Christ was crucified. </span><br />
<span><i> </i></span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLgM8hPYT-tq4HNYKLNRp4iwHdxrnjoGcJnNoH7_7yZbkhDd_AGNR3KtsygFViNiEodSq3DvbOGzxbWtTCT7kZbs07RI8KppJ_HNoklv2HlBCl3pik2lEYqXaajCjMJRQDJXQGfuUuTG4/s1600/Can32.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLgM8hPYT-tq4HNYKLNRp4iwHdxrnjoGcJnNoH7_7yZbkhDd_AGNR3KtsygFViNiEodSq3DvbOGzxbWtTCT7kZbs07RI8KppJ_HNoklv2HlBCl3pik2lEYqXaajCjMJRQDJXQGfuUuTG4/s400/Can32.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>The Calvary Stampede!</i></span><br />
<br />
</span><div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>"Oh,
we don't think of ourselves as under the British," I told her. "We
think of ourselves as the British." Why was that a remarkable thing to
say? My parents wouldn't have had any trouble with it, but I was
astonished even as came out of my mouth</span><span>—</span><span>though as she later confessed on the pillow, it did give her the appropriate <i>frisson</i>.</span><br />
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6dXc1gbY0sZ9j8DpGdISbY3LVht20FWspJpawvE8hmtxKBEMXsNaEdYjNB4rHGJ_fm7U8RMXfshEZ0WXwoIh__ovKi2UawdHWPVW8oYViwco6CWFloegu_GvEYnKXWTrzKVsyccLiQOw/s1600/Can26.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6dXc1gbY0sZ9j8DpGdISbY3LVht20FWspJpawvE8hmtxKBEMXsNaEdYjNB4rHGJ_fm7U8RMXfshEZ0WXwoIh__ovKi2UawdHWPVW8oYViwco6CWFloegu_GvEYnKXWTrzKVsyccLiQOw/s320/Can26.jpeg" width="264" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
<span><span>“Canada is the linchpin of the English-speaking world.”—Winston Churchill</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br />The
first thing the American Revolutionary Army did was to secure the Saint
Lawrence and ask the French burghers of Quebec City and Montreal to
join them. But no, after centuries of Parisian corruption they
preferred administration from London. Then the Loyalists and
their slaves left the thirteen new states for the Maritime provinces and
Ontario—<i>et voilà!</i><br /> <br />Quebec is an orphan. It was
cut off from France by the British blockade against Napoleon,
thereafter lost touch until De Gaul, and speaks the language in a
medieval style and accent, somewhat as Middle English usages survive in
the rural south. Quebec films (the best art in Canada) screen in
Paris with subtitles.<br /><br />Three things hold the country together: the
cold, for misery loves company; hockey, the sport of the cold, the cold
pretending to have fun; and a hatred for Toronto, which is universal in
Canada except in the west island of Montreal (did you know Montreal was
an island?), which plans to separate from Quebec and join Toronto.<br /><br />As a kid in Canada, when you sit in the classroom not listening to the teacher, you daydream at the icons on the wall</span><span>—</span><span>the evolution chart with its gradually taller straighter squarer-chinned chimps (see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/09/post-planet-of-apes-thoughts-on-darwin.html">Post-“Planet of the Apes” Thoughts on Darwin</a>)
and Mercator’s map of the world, the two diagrams of identity. The
green U.S., big yellow Brazil, and the pink parts: Canada, Britain,
India, Australia, pieces of Africa and Latin America, daubs and
splatters here and there in the oceans.<br /> <br />That must be why,
though Canada is a tiny country, with a population one and a half that of New York City—California is bigger—there seem to be as many
Canadians living abroad as Americans. We grow up identifying with all
that pink, and feel at home in the world. Proportionately speaking,
twice as many Canadians as Americans own passports.<br /><br />We would not make a good fifty-first state. Canadians don’t like to be too motivated, and that <i>is</i>
un-American. The country was set up by the British civil service,
which is to say by the aristocracy; and in Quebec the feudal order
survived until 1960, when Jean Lesage led what he called <i>la Révolution tranquille</i>,
the quiet revolution. On both sides there’s an old-world horror of the
motivation, the positive thinking, the compulsive optimism, the
praise-the-Lordism you get south of the border.<br /><br />Then too, though
the tone in English Canada is predominantly WASPy and work-ethic, we are
numerically a Catholic country—the French, the Irish, the Italians
(Toronto is the largest Italian city in the world outside of Italy), the
Ukrainians, the Highland Scots: Nova Scotia is known in the Church as
“the holy land.” We often have French leaders, and are shaped by them.
“Stay out of the bedroom,” Trudeau told his law-makers; in the States
the law is all <i>over</i> the bedroom.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivekdp35gAgDkxAdmCY415idnnl-mM8IRg9dEgCvUaOtPRgJruzvKNG_2IB4cKitkvi59Sezh8BS3GbZhmBwDkE4RKpYUKX17YFp-IWXFN5UO1zKXutLsZEhiuTXju4qVcbpK7qZX2wjw/s1600/Can38.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivekdp35gAgDkxAdmCY415idnnl-mM8IRg9dEgCvUaOtPRgJruzvKNG_2IB4cKitkvi59Sezh8BS3GbZhmBwDkE4RKpYUKX17YFp-IWXFN5UO1zKXutLsZEhiuTXju4qVcbpK7qZX2wjw/s320/Can38.jpg" width="218" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>But most important, we have what is north of the <i>Rio Grande</i> otherwise unknown in America, a racial border between Ontario and Quebec, traced out by a river and stretching down <i>Boulevard Saint-Laurent</i>
at mid-Montreal. French Canada spills over into New Brunswick and
lives in pockets throughout the country, but between Ontario and Quebec
the old European line is drawn—not at all appropriate for a land of
abstract principles like “America.”<br /><br />There is no question of
assimilating French Canada into the usual model of a country. The
meal is too big, too French, too full of onion soup and Breton <i>crêpes</i>
and Normandy pastries. Too many arrogant waiters are unimpressed by
our French lessons. No, we are the Disunited State of America, and have
the British indolence about such arrangements. <br /><br />Of course there
are faults, I’m not saying there aren’t faults—the cold (did I mention
that?), the Presbyterian sermons that pass for poetry there; and don’t try to
actually <i>do</i> something, it’s considered obscene. The acme of cultural achievement is scoring from the blue line.<br /> </span><br />
<span>Growing up in Toronto I experienced Canada as a suburb of Buffalo. Sitting on the floor before the television watching <i>Wild Bill Hickock</i>
I said, "Mom, why aren't we Americans?" She answered. I don't know
what she said. The myth of a people on a mother's lips and I was too
absorbed by CBS to hear.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc3Xd-cH6zHdiOMU8f8CnG1PtioyH-6zZYRrqXAb5rpCaYT0Q94ZNCHBVjsGskMHOyTYGefrEXGWkGXYd5yeFKXs2MBFC_n2jsWvQlyBiJtpz3epYEy2ZJWs7FUOqeCGTwL_nHTebaWm8/s1600/Can36.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc3Xd-cH6zHdiOMU8f8CnG1PtioyH-6zZYRrqXAb5rpCaYT0Q94ZNCHBVjsGskMHOyTYGefrEXGWkGXYd5yeFKXs2MBFC_n2jsWvQlyBiJtpz3epYEy2ZJWs7FUOqeCGTwL_nHTebaWm8/s1600/Can36.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: red;">
<div style="color: black; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="color: black; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #32aaff; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-34739114502401665772012-03-11T18:03:00.010+02:002023-06-12T16:28:06.234+03:00What We Know—An Excursion into Unscience<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9Rv3rRM2CojN-mGvC52T0Z67XTwWSqSUWGZQOvwobbZpEhP7p0Hm0rDBPqJ38nAHnUgvI5ZaZBUQbMiu_JBxMEQetW4bGqF-IKDmfEEoYDh6Nhjgjwl4hBHXvERXd8Vge2zFfUkt4gg/s1600/Einstein.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO9Rv3rRM2CojN-mGvC52T0Z67XTwWSqSUWGZQOvwobbZpEhP7p0Hm0rDBPqJ38nAHnUgvI5ZaZBUQbMiu_JBxMEQetW4bGqF-IKDmfEEoYDh6Nhjgjwl4hBHXvERXd8Vge2zFfUkt4gg/s1600/Einstein.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Make that what <i>you</i> know. (I address these remarks to the mirror.)<br /><br />Not much.<br /><br />Science
is Latin for “knowledge,” and we walk around in a trance of confidence
that “science” understands the things that we don’t, and can and will
solve all the problems. This attitude is called “scientism.”<br /><br />What, then, do you <i>really</i> know?<br /><br />Let’s
start with what you see when you open your eyes: light. “Everything
that is,” said Duns Scotus, “is light.” What is it? Particles? Of
what? Waves? Vibrating what medium? Much debated. If it’s particles,
how does it get through glass? If it’s waves, how does it reach us
through ninety-three million miles of vacuum? </span><br />
<br />
<span>Maybe it's dark matter, the Darth Vader hidden behind appearances</span><span>—sort of a Zoroastrian evil twin!</span><br />
<span><br />The
Wikipedia says, “light can be expressed as both particles and waves.
This paradox is known as the Wave–particle Duality Paradox.”<br /><br />You see? There <i>are</i> people who understand. But they don’t want to talk to you.<br /><br />Note the word “paradox,” the language of the medieval Church.<br /><br />OK, what about <i>real</i> matter? Substance. Stuff. The hand before your face. What <i>is</i> it?<br /><br />You
feel certain, I know you do, that it’s made of molecules and atoms. If
you want to get real refined about it, it comes down to quarks (James
Joyce be praised!) and other “subatomic particles.”<br /><br />Hah! <br /><br />You’ve been sold the fifth-century-BC Greek atomic theory. And it’s <i>still</i> a theory. <i>If</i> that little solar system with electrons orbiting a nucleus did exist, the nucleus, I understand (there, I understand <i>something</i>!), would be like a baseball on the floor of a cathedral, the electrons flies in the upper reaches of the vault. <br /><br /><i>If</i>.<br /><br />We
live in a world of metaphor—“nuclear” power, “atomic” bombs,
“electricity”—for what is electricity? “A flow of electrons”! A
“current”! Uh-huh. Like a river: you can drink it, you can wade in it,
you can pee in it, you can swim in it, you can boil pasta in it,
but don’t ask what it is. The information is not available. Feels good
though, as long as it doesn’t sweep you over the falls.</span><br />
<br />
<span>How
about energy? What is energy? It’s the Greek word for “motion.” That
which moves has “energy.” We fool ourselves with these words.<br /><br /><i>Gravity</i>? The force that holds it all together, keeps the moon in orbit around our own little ball, keeps <i>us</i> in orbit around the sun—what is it? <i>Gravity</i>
is Latin for “heaviness”: the apple falls because it’s “heavy.” Heavy
answer. One feels, does one not, that one is being bullshat.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKoP8Q2RG97xDVmFo3pBaQ-T_x_YV-vW-lAU6A994SD5N286eBXcAAviurMGIhrEcLP9alwkw0kUvunr1YyGfdY_qyYAKBCsWoO9wzWzGOuv-3cmTDdY3vYBYR2q_U8Wz8jRK8MmiBRms/s1600/Newton2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKoP8Q2RG97xDVmFo3pBaQ-T_x_YV-vW-lAU6A994SD5N286eBXcAAviurMGIhrEcLP9alwkw0kUvunr1YyGfdY_qyYAKBCsWoO9wzWzGOuv-3cmTDdY3vYBYR2q_U8Wz8jRK8MmiBRms/s320/Newton2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>No, wait—gravity is <i>electromagnetic</i>!
If you wrap a wire around a piece of metal and send a “current” through
it, the metal behaves like a magnet. What’s a magnet? It’s a stone
the Greeks found in Magnesia that acts like that. So gravity is an
electric charge, because electric charges attract one another. <i>Why</i> do electric charges attract one another? Well, uh—<br /><br />Here’s
a shocking idea, but I’m afraid it’s true: no one has ever seen an
atom, or even a molecule. No one has ever photographed one. That’s
shocking because, in our imaginations, they’re what the world is made
of. <br /><br />What they really are, “atoms” and “molecules,” is numerical concepts that work. <br /><br />Paul
Valéry, a poet much influenced by Francis Bacon, the inventor of
scientific method, said, “Science means simply the aggregate of all the
recipes that are always successful. The rest is literature.” <br /><br />But
just because atoms are concepts doesn’t mean we can’t split one. We
can make a <i>really</i> big explosion (the first guys who did it
stood much too close with their fingers in their ears, afraid they would
set off a reaction that would destroy the world), but it doesn’t
involve “atoms.” Google how to make a nuclear device and what you’ll
get is a chemical recipe.<br /><br />Same for DNA: what Watson and Crick did
was, not isolate a molecule, but construct a model of how such a
molecule would look, and fit the data. Search “DNA testing,” which gets
so many innocent people out of jail, and you’ll find another chemical
recipe.</span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5spRXNZHq_ONgpn7m2DbRYQCwXvGWb7baYGggexAvL2Nt6AEhpkx8lHtK4yPlFDhaXWZTz1Ha-mEO_7o3r_jdqvc_QXrwJYv9MwCyYQPoriDiOSwUyFbuBTwh_MX9vs4By1_MVF2vQ-0/s1600/DNA2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5spRXNZHq_ONgpn7m2DbRYQCwXvGWb7baYGggexAvL2Nt6AEhpkx8lHtK4yPlFDhaXWZTz1Ha-mEO_7o3r_jdqvc_QXrwJYv9MwCyYQPoriDiOSwUyFbuBTwh_MX9vs4By1_MVF2vQ-0/s320/DNA2.jpg" width="156" /></span></a></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Cultural icon as hood ornament</span><br />
<span> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>The
molecule metaphor has been instrumental in persuading us that we know
what we’re talking about. So there’s another thing you don’t know—what
you’re talking about.<br /><br />OK, what about space? Newton built his
universe, the one we live in, in Euclid’s space, where the shortest
distance between two points is a straight line, the three angles of a
triangle add up to a hundred and eighty degrees, and so forth. Newton’s
idea of inertia was that if something is moving and there’s no force to
stop it, it will proceed in a straight line forever. Ergo the universe
is infinite, and has no boundary: if there <i>were</i> a boundary, what would be on the other side?<br /><br />But when our telescopes became strong enough (I treated this idea briefly in <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/10/greece-versus-puritans.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>Greece versus the Puritans</b></span></a>), and our cameras fast enough, to record the movements of galaxies, we saw that they did not obey Euclid’s laws.<br /><br />Imagine
three equidistant objects: easy. Imagine four: a pyramid on a
triangular base. Imagine five: can’t be done. And yet it is so. Five
hundred, five thousand galaxies where they shouldn’t be. The assistant
patent officer in Bern came up with a theory that would account for
that, or at least describe it:<br /><br />“Curved space” does not mean space
is somehow bent; it’s a metaphor (always these metaphors!) taken from
the curvature of the earth. If you flatten the global earth into a
two-dimensional chart, as sailors had to do, Nairobi and Mombasa are the
proper distance apart, but not Moscow and Saint Petersburg; so you have
to make a separate map of the north to take into account that the earth
is curved. So in space: we cannot construct a model of our universe in
which the distances between the galaxies are in proportion: every
perspective requires another model.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdEG4KuEnEjtsXp5DABmCZMhN65vEfUaqzwIkQT2FEJxmoHBU5ToTtbmQr_OrGPB16htaIW_JWTUYVRucr11SBKXyyVfQMjxSgDIuDHkJYtMCQPXC9_NHhMAh2xkeYCEcX0hPpksoILqs/s1600/Curve.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdEG4KuEnEjtsXp5DABmCZMhN65vEfUaqzwIkQT2FEJxmoHBU5ToTtbmQr_OrGPB16htaIW_JWTUYVRucr11SBKXyyVfQMjxSgDIuDHkJYtMCQPXC9_NHhMAh2xkeYCEcX0hPpksoILqs/s320/Curve.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Typical understanding of curved space; the caption says, "Gravity causes space-time to curve around massive objects." Oy.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>Our universe is not Euclidian but skew; our <i>imaginations</i>, however, are Euclidian; we cannot think a non-Euclidian thought. We cannot imagine our world.<br /><br /><i>And</i>, get this, if this arrangement doubles the cosmos back on itself, it may, while having no boundary, be finite.</span><br />
<br />
<span>Hah!<br /><br />The
geneticist J.B.S. Haldane said, “My own suspicion is that the universe
is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we <i>can</i> suppose.”<br /><br />And
let us have Vladimir Nabokov (a true scientist, Nabokov: his work on
butterfly migration is just now being appreciated) on Einstein: “While
not having much physics, I reject Einstein’s slick formulae; but then
one need not know theology to be an atheist.” (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2012/02/vladimir-nabokov-and-twelve-year-old.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Vladimir Nabokov and Twelve-Year-Old Girls</span></b></a>.)<br /><br />We don’t know why the moon keeps her face to us always, as in a dance.</span><br />
<span><br />We don’t know why the sky is blue, though there are people who will try to tell you.<br /><br />We don’t know what’s at the center of the earth.</span><br />
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj-xo3RPYbG52Tu3sk-GCUIfW_Jtn8nNJbLN5ZTYk_q44HV8i827CXqNNBgqT55q-72m2rsNCBmhOl6jmK1b5_dDucJF5Plt4Sq_eiGQmk4Q9EujP739GqazLnC08uqfdtLgTR_huKnSM/s1600/Center2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj-xo3RPYbG52Tu3sk-GCUIfW_Jtn8nNJbLN5ZTYk_q44HV8i827CXqNNBgqT55q-72m2rsNCBmhOl6jmK1b5_dDucJF5Plt4Sq_eiGQmk4Q9EujP739GqazLnC08uqfdtLgTR_huKnSM/s320/Center2.jpg" width="225" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>So
much for space. What about time? Those who are willing to accept the
skewness of space are not always ready to accept corresponding
discontinuities in time. You need perfectly continuous time, for
example, to buy the concept of evolution.<br /><br />Now, I apologize for this. I wrote a piece called <b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Accidental Monkey</span></b> and announced it on a LinkedIn group devoted to “science” (permit me
the quotation marks), where it was attacked with a religious furor. And
that’s what the so-called “Theory” of Evolution (it is <i>not</i> a
theory; a theory is testable—ask Bacon) is: a religion. It is the
medieval Great Chain of Being turned on its side and extended in
continuous time. It is nineteenth-century <i>laissez-faire</i> economics. It is what Karl Popper said it was, before they started leaning on him: metaphysics. (<i>Physics</i>, in fact, is metaphysics; one should speak more properly of <i>a</i> physics</span><span>—as we must, who hold Einstein in one hand and Heisenberg in the other.</span><span>)</span><span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>But take away what people think they know and you can
confront an angry mob. (The furor of course was welcome. You are
aware of the game: get them onto my site where they buy my books and I
don’t have to disappoint the landlord. I can’t wait to see what happens when I post this.)</span><br />
<br />
<span>“That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere,” said Valéry, “is almost certain to be false.”</span><span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>In
five millenia we’ve landed on the moon, put a vacuum cleaner on Mars
and have a transmitter exiting the solar system, and you’re telling me
that for two hundred and fifty thousand years we’ve been picking
berries? Please.</span><span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>To use the duc de Saint-Simon’s phrase, the Theory of Evolution is "supported by unanswerable reasons that do not convince."</span><span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>My favorite line in Billy Wilder’s <i>The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes</i>:
Mycroft mocks his brother’s analytical powers by recalling that as a
child he had deduced that babies came into the world in the satchels
carried by the arriving midwives. "As good an explanation as any,"
smiles Watson. Mycroft scowls.</span><br />
<br />
<span>Popper’s
ancestor David Hume, whom Einstein studied so carefully, and whose
epistemology (the knowledge of knowledge) governs the approach in
(forgive me if I call it) <i>real</i> science, forbids identification of
one thing with another, forbids us to assume continuities—forbids
metaphor. Since Hume, philosophy has become mood music. In the middle
ages we were creatures of God; in the current mythos we are creatures of
nature. The possibility becomes distinct, in Hume’s light, that we’re
not creatures at all.<br /><br />But let’s not get cute.<br /><br />Leave we, then, the subject of evolution, whatever the hell it means—it’s supposed to explain <i>everything</i>
about us—with another remark from the butterfly chaser: "Perhaps the
most admirable among the admirable laws of Nature is the survival of the
weakest."<br /><br />But then, if you’re not a neurotic monkey, what <i>are</i> you? <i>Who</i> are you?<br /><br />Hah!<br /><br />“Our ignorance of our nature,” as Jean-Luc Godard said, “is total.”</span><br />
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcCcPtVkjzq6JbIgWPOSZ3CSIXEkkEfRUVT9ORZ-q8giFOZBO5LdjuII1vTfrEsKuwaMi5oWjvVAa5OVyk0QxjHN3TlGGQTI7Gfey_LbHle0RBGV4Cv6Y21KOTBJDizDEVGG55idS1ZIY/s1600/Gauguin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcCcPtVkjzq6JbIgWPOSZ3CSIXEkkEfRUVT9ORZ-q8giFOZBO5LdjuII1vTfrEsKuwaMi5oWjvVAa5OVyk0QxjHN3TlGGQTI7Gfey_LbHle0RBGV4Cv6Y21KOTBJDizDEVGG55idS1ZIY/s400/Gauguin.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?</i> by Paul Gauguin</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>Speaking
of addressing these remarks to the mirror, you don’t know what you look
like, either. Forget trying to find it in there, that’s <i>not</i>
what other people see. Same for photographs: even movie stars watching
themselves on the screen can’t see what they look like, and, oh, they
try. Cary Grant said he quit making movies because he was afraid his
double chin was showing. Huh?<br /><br />You don’t know what you <i>sound</i> like. It’s a profoundly disturbing experience to hear your own voice. Is that <i>you</i>? Can’t be.<br /><br />You don’t know your own style. A compliment is always a surprise.<br /><br />And you don’t know what it is to think. I mean you do think—sometimes—but what <i>is</i> a thought?</span><span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>Your inner abyss, which the outer one reflects,
is an illusion, but an illusion that plays its notes on your body. </span><span>Your memory distorts the past, you can’t see the future, and
your ignorance of yourself, and of what life is, reduces you to a
child.</span><br />
<span><br />Real science, like real art, is
useless. It’s not technology, or electronic expertise, which the vulgar
regard as science. It’s a personal pursuit, for personal pleasure, of
an addition to what we know.</span><br />
<br />
</span><div style="color: red;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: black;">Between what we know—hah! what do <i>I</i> know?—and the dark matter we are forced to hypothesize, comes the sharp point of intelligence.<br /><br />Now,
look, all you scientists (let us for the moment dignify you with the
name), you who elevate a few clues into a policy, I can see you coming
already with your torches and pitchforks to spit your
ill-considered trite-isms at me: I like to answer all comments
individually, but forgive me if in this case I ignore a few.<br /><br />“Since no man of aught he leaves knows,” says Hamlet, “what is ’t to leave betimes?</span><span style="color: black;">”</span><span><span style="color: black;"> </span></span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaq8ukPJNsQ0wnXbSamI5nE09tyyCrh6XEKzaggmbXh53Sqmqh-Bm4_T9bcWvJivJ9SrDOwQ1QyLtj62IuvbQKIOjZCYsO78xZWFHDv09KOUNzEy9t_f7rM9m6vDF43i_UbProGUjGbxQ/s1600/Hamlet+%28Laurence+Olivier%29.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaq8ukPJNsQ0wnXbSamI5nE09tyyCrh6XEKzaggmbXh53Sqmqh-Bm4_T9bcWvJivJ9SrDOwQ1QyLtj62IuvbQKIOjZCYsO78xZWFHDv09KOUNzEy9t_f7rM9m6vDF43i_UbProGUjGbxQ/s320/Hamlet+%28Laurence+Olivier%29.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><span style="color: black;">But not just yet, my dear Prince, I'm enjoying this.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black;">________________________</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">P.S. Nabokov did agree with Einstein to this extent: </span></span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">"I confess, I do not believe in time." At his old
friend's funeral Einstein said, "Now Besso has departed from this strange world a
little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in
physics ['<i>believe</i> in physics'? it's a faith?], know that the distinction between past, present and future is
only a stubbornly persistent illusion."</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">P.P.S. Mediterraneans count by their fingers; you buy ten eggs here. Nordics count by the moon: everything comes in dozens. Why does the average menstrual cycle precisely match the moon's? </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">P.P.P.S. What is sex? Is <i>it</i> electromagnetic too?</span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="color: red;">
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-54526899173464111072012-02-04T18:52:00.005+02:002023-11-30T20:08:05.316+02:00Vladimir Nabokov and Twelve-Year-Old Girls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjcqMBNmtoo5LoyLXaDa3ddxYlf3kq5r8rB7j_K8h0K8WRafpTf5c_1RGsvw4D7tdbYMP2PXaupUaIgWgM5soaj_zxGNb7trwjUwuum96Byckzm782WzDozfyxQcTad4mQM-a1ARaIvjA/s1600/Lo5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjcqMBNmtoo5LoyLXaDa3ddxYlf3kq5r8rB7j_K8h0K8WRafpTf5c_1RGsvw4D7tdbYMP2PXaupUaIgWgM5soaj_zxGNb7trwjUwuum96Byckzm782WzDozfyxQcTad4mQM-a1ARaIvjA/s320/Lo5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>If it weren’t for<i> Lolita</i> we might never have heard of Nabokov, which would be a huge loss. Success is so often a matter of scandal.<br /> </span><br />
<span>I like P.G. Wodehouse best; no one else gets us so high. But when I
descend into actual literature—an abrasive experience for my sensitive
soul, but one that has allowed me to fiddle away my time
unproductively—I cannot but acknowledge that the five great novels of
the twentieth century are <i>Ulysses, A la recherche, Gatsby, Under the Volcano</i> and <i>Lolita</i>.<br /><br />Nabokov's
images fill me with awe; his phrases are tiny masterpieces; his
sentences, galleries with their own exquisite shapes. But even in his
most gorgeous stories he can be something of a stuffed shirt:<br /><br /><i>The snag with Vladi</i><i>mir Nabo</i><i>kov was<br />A dyspepsia almost as noisome as Waugh's.<br />Life offered neither<br />A very long breather<br />From constant unbearable irks.<br />Now I've wrung my enjoyment from both of these men<br />I need not be exposed to them ever again<br />But I suffer the scourge<br />Of a lingering urge<br />To pour Eno all over their works!</i></span><br />
<span><i> </i><br />What gives <i>Lolita</i> that extra thing is the confrontation between a cultured European and the
American vulgarity embodied by Lolita, with whom he is desperately in
love. Then too, one cannot but feel that it's a portrait of
Nabokov’s own passion. And passion delivers.<br /><br />It’s shameless of
me to say this—I know nothing of this man’s inner life—but lust for
young girls does emerge elsewhere in his work, and in <i>Lolita </i>he contributed
the word “nymphet” to the English language. It's my intuition that his
stuffed-shirtism, so at home after all in the 1950s, is a firewall
against an unseemly urge. In one of his essays he opines that if the
criminal could only write about the crime he wouldn’t have to commit it.
Like Dostoyevsky, Lewis Carroll and J. D. Salinger, he converted the
obsession into literature. Balthus did it in
paint:</span><br />
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim9tFXeH1Q_ebyRUHvRR26RBnx1sgQZIEo6q1rOPFClNQ24eE3DnVy_VdYsY2R4N0L1EIF7KjfYAbpIrJzbnrySwRyJZW8HOCDugXx7PAqUFGcGQ2xREMPf9G0RTGSRIcboi51HkYbnqM/s1600/Lo18.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim9tFXeH1Q_ebyRUHvRR26RBnx1sgQZIEo6q1rOPFClNQ24eE3DnVy_VdYsY2R4N0L1EIF7KjfYAbpIrJzbnrySwRyJZW8HOCDugXx7PAqUFGcGQ2xREMPf9G0RTGSRIcboi51HkYbnqM/s320/Lo18.jpg" width="255" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>But no psychology can touch bottom, and VN would have agreed:<br /><br /><i>Nabokov was annoyed<br />By Freud,<br />Considered Eliot<br />Beneath yelling at<br />And Dali<br />Too far gone to rally;<br />Waugh regarded Eliot<br />As brelliot<br />But thought Picasso<br />Was an asso.</i><br /><br />Nevertheless
I will dare to say that his orientation was not a whim. Many people,
for example, can be gay on a whim, myself included; but there are also people
who can’t imagine any other way of doing it. The conclusion forces
itself upon me that sexual preferences are hardwired. One might be
grateful if one’s wiring isn't too inconvenient, though there’s nothing
terribly convenient about heterosexuality; it can be as big a p. in the
a. as the other thing.<br /><br />It’s OK to like little boys if you’re a
king, like Henry II or James I or William III (of William and Mary); or
if you’re an aristocrat, like the Earl of Rochester (the Johnny Depp film about him was dreary, so unlike the merry Earl) or Lord
Byron; or if you’re a famous novelist like Thomas Mann, or a celebrity
poet like W.H. Auden:<br /><br /><i>Said the Queen to the King, we do frown on<br />Your choosing our page to go down on<br />When you meet on the stairs—<br />And it does give him airs<br />If you </i>will<i> do the job with your crown on!</i></span><br />
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_as66FdXe-WzYeaaD25PfuBPDp3fm9GY1jCLBNGo5YL26hUoFp1-XqJ5HSB5vC1ppa6Xf41y2sqtYa3I_q3LLDDwWApfcEARo6L2MrzrlWv_CHblkNnQ8ZS5PA1AiPYzp0qPuo0sTRE/s1600/Auden.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_as66FdXe-WzYeaaD25PfuBPDp3fm9GY1jCLBNGo5YL26hUoFp1-XqJ5HSB5vC1ppa6Xf41y2sqtYa3I_q3LLDDwWApfcEARo6L2MrzrlWv_CHblkNnQ8ZS5PA1AiPYzp0qPuo0sTRE/s320/Auden.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>But
if you’re an average Joe they’ll throw you in the can with gorillas who
are as repelled by the vice as church-goers, and will pick on you.<br /><br />Ditto
for little girls: in the literary world you’re somewhat protected. When
he publishes his poems in a book Leonard Cohen can say, “The
fifteen-year-old girls I wanted when I was fifteen, I have them now. I
advise you all to become rich and famous.” But in the popular eye, like Polanski or Woody Allen, you have to watch it. Woody's mentor
in <i>Love and Death</i> tells him, “I have come to the conclusion that the best thing is blonde twelve-year-old girls. Two of them, whenever possible.”<br /><br /><i>Had Nabokov proceeded to his PhD,<br />Would he have to shake his polymathic rattles at me?<br />Had Woody Allen only finished his BA,<br />Where'd his undergradjut exercises be today?</i><br /><br />In <i>Lolita</i>
Humbert makes his own list: “Marriage and cohabitation before the age
of puberty are still not uncommon in certain East Indian provinces.
Lepcha old men of eighty copulate with girls of eight, and nobody minds.
After all, Dante fell madly in love with Beatrice when she was nine, a
sparkling girleen, painted and lovely, and bejeweled, in a crimson
frock, and this was in 1274, in Florence, at a private feast in the
merry month of May. And when Petrarch fell madly in love with his
Laureen, she was a fair-haired nymphet of twelve…”<br /><br />He might have
mentioned Juliet, who was thirteen when she married Romeo, Edgar Poe,
who married his cousin when she was thirteen, and that other southerner
Jerry Lee Lewis, who married <i>his</i> cousin of thirteen</span><span>—though </span><span>Nabokov may not have been following Jerry Lee's career. </span><span>(If a boy from Alabama marries a girl from Louisiana, are they still cousins?) </span><br />
<span><br /><i>Poe<br />Is slow.<br />The diction is inflated<br />And the angst is overrated.</i></span><br />
<br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNwThvpp_9OfNNVontd-RlTBodqCqHoFCVneeTpqAMHZePRnKNcGp3jYgsV2_cLVhorLIlHZk_NbOWIwda5G8YoTpghsdpgE3O9LuFmDkX4yB6MScpnDKFlImir8IxlKpjOMYQ0qCM4o/s1600/Lo16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNwThvpp_9OfNNVontd-RlTBodqCqHoFCVneeTpqAMHZePRnKNcGp3jYgsV2_cLVhorLIlHZk_NbOWIwda5G8YoTpghsdpgE3O9LuFmDkX4yB6MScpnDKFlImir8IxlKpjOMYQ0qCM4o/s320/Lo16.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span></span><br />
<span>Indeed,
one thinks of Margaret Mead and Alfred Kinsey, who tell us that there’s
nothing inherently wrong with sex with the young, that it’s the adult
hysteria that does the damage.<br /><br />One thinks also of the pedophile priests in the Catholic Church—of the sheer <i>number </i>of them! Were Mead and Kinsey inspecting us as a tribe they might conclude that it was the norm.<br /><br />It
is a convention in our time to go on TV and say you were abused as a
child. If you’re a politician in the Bible Belt, you oppose same-sex
marriage and you get caught using a male escort service, you go on TV
and say you were abused as a child. The etiology may be dubious, but it
works with the public. </span><br />
<br />
<span>In <i>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</i>, which I've just seen, the heroine was abused as a child, the victim was abused as a child, the villain was abused as a child—it explains everything!<br /><br />As for my own case (I can hear you
asking), I’m a narcissist with a taste for older women. Now that I’ve
reached a certain age there <i>are</i> no older women, and the guy in the mirror isn’t looking that good. But one presses on. (See <b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2015/08/in-praise-of-older-women-iii.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">In Praise of Older Women</span></a></b>.)<br /><br />Ours
is a period of neo-Victorianism. Freud, whatever his ultimate merits,
freed us, not only from nineteenth-century prudishness, but from the
Christian prohibition that dates from Saint Paul. Freud’s influence took
wide hold in the fifties and sixties, just as the birth-control pill
was freeing us from the anxiety of getting “caught,” as people used to
say, and penicillin was freeing us from the horrors of syphilis and
gonorrhea. Oh, we had <i>much</i> too good a time! Then herpes and AIDS, stark
parallels to the old scourges, pushed us back toward something more
sentimental.</span><br />
<span><br /><i>Lolita</i> was written in the <i>early</i>
fifties, another dryness of atmosphere, and by his own account
Nabokov’s wife stopped him from burning the manuscript. Here is Humbert
hating himself even as he possesses his dream:<br /><br /><i>I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her</i></span><span><i>—</i></span><span><i>after
fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred—I would
gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness
(her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court
through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave
gray eyes more vacant than ever—for all the world a little patient still
in the confusion of a drug after a major operation)—and the tenderness
would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone
light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress
her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the peak of this human
agonized selfless tenderness (with my soul actually hanging around her
naked body and ready to repent), all at once, ironically, horribly, lust
would swell again—and "oh, no," Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven,
and the next moment the tenderness and the azure—all would be
shattered.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span>This, Nabokov insists, is not <i>his</i> remorse but Humbert's: "<i>He</i> cares, I do not. <i>I</i> do not give a damn for public morals, in America or elsewhere." </span><span><i><br /></i></span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEw1T4d2vVXZ950JKUdZgld48zlCC1mieFMb7EX3ZtRBzgQOkJ5q9Q3dFB-f29bwuivWQBHBT8tz_KPYw20wsFJThQ5smLS68cVxn0_l4SEh-XyIdRhIzK5MBbYgRRgwcfWGjKUzPdGC8/s1600/Lo15.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEw1T4d2vVXZ950JKUdZgld48zlCC1mieFMb7EX3ZtRBzgQOkJ5q9Q3dFB-f29bwuivWQBHBT8tz_KPYw20wsFJThQ5smLS68cVxn0_l4SEh-XyIdRhIzK5MBbYgRRgwcfWGjKUzPdGC8/s320/Lo15.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
<span>Harold Bloom introduces his
study of Shakespeare, whom he regards as a god (and in his Gnostic
parlance he <i>means</i> it), by arguing that Shakespeare was anti-Semitic,
that we’ve been misreading <i>The Merchant of Venice</i> for four
hundred years. “There’s a price for loving Shakespeare,” he says. Arthur
Koestler once remarked that if he threw out his anti-Semitic books he’d
be deprived of half his library. It's rather sad. In <i>Moby Dick</i>
Ishmael, whose lover is a South-Sea islander, regards the whale's
whiteness as the same mark of superiority that gives "the white man ideal
mastership over every dusky tribe." What shall we do with these texts?<br /><br />Dostoyevsky was an anti-Semitic child-rapist and a hypocrite, who lied even to himself. The only erotic moment in <i>Crime and Punishment</i> is when ten-year-old Polina, step-sister to the Hallmark-Card
heroine, comes down some stairs and kisses Raskalnikov. But any such
enjoyment is pinned on the child-raping villain of the piece, whom we are
encouraged to hate. Dostoyevsky himself was a loathsome man; one
wouldn’t have wanted to meet him. But he is the greatest novelist in
human memory, and there is no book as passionate, as thrilling or as
psychologically intimate as <i>Crime and Punishment</i>.</span><br />
<br />
<span>“The
great artists of the world are never Puritans,” said H.L. Mencken, “and
seldom even ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man—that is, virtuous in
the Y.M.C.A. sense—has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or
written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading.”<br /><br />Martin Amis, a writer of astounding mediocrity,
is a better embodiment of our time. He is the son of Kingsley Amis,
whose first novel was a hit, after which he collapsed into a
lower-middle-class philistinism that dismayed his readers</span><span>—b</span><span>ut there he was, the author of <i>Lucky Jim</i>. And there was Martin</span><span>—and <i>he</i> was</span><span> a writer <i>too!</i></span><span>—</span><span>sustaining his career on the same book.<br /><br /><i>Kingsley Amis<br />Is justly famous,<br />And his first book scored it!<br />But it’s one thing to attract attention, and another to reward it.</i><br /><br />When
Junior speaks of Nabokov he says, “you would need to venture to the
very fringes of literature—Lewis Carroll, William Burroughs, the Marquis
de Sade—to find an equivalent emphasis: an emphasis on activities we
rightly and eternally hold to be unforgivable.” <br /><br />Good little man. Straight from the Y.<br /><br />And English literature—we must have the courage to face it—is dead.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB5TucOHgcgp7EgtFGoz-uH0MpfED3lygAHhb3WvmMln1wBDtnDtCUwFqFicOsXzMYqouAjdZrs1-rd239o4Gbg4G2HgXdk-o11w23coutDtVylQam19MY761x40Uc-M7g1VclZ7w-KPk/s1600/Lo13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB5TucOHgcgp7EgtFGoz-uH0MpfED3lygAHhb3WvmMln1wBDtnDtCUwFqFicOsXzMYqouAjdZrs1-rd239o4Gbg4G2HgXdk-o11w23coutDtVylQam19MY761x40Uc-M7g1VclZ7w-KPk/s1600/Lo13.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="color: red;"><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="color: #241e12;">Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His</span><span style="color: #241e12;"> </span></span></span></span><em><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #241e12;">The Light Touch</span></em><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is on </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw0KN7FL0x3uZV2XutlwWRvr" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Amazon Prime</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://gdpr.tubi.tv/&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw0idAEzhwRLi4GNIc9ilBDp" href="https://gdpr.tubi.tv/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Tubi</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw3C6ywY4tuxge2fdKhjDUhR" href="https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Scanbox</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and his </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DRSsRtvdiIyQ&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw1GFkkcW87VKEPD2mCVyyGW" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSsRtvdiIyQ" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">7-minute comedy</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is an out-loud laugh</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. He is also a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw3P_X7hlUqrs5Z_GpW8Fu9i" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">novelist</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword%3DRobert%2520maclean&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw2udSW65iHvZX0grshn7mj3" href="https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword=Robert%20maclean" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">playwright</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw0OXrtjz91RpskyjOwW-zWO" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">blogger</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw2ftoSACK826BdQUMF8sL3-" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>YouTuber</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw3mqbo5wooU0ihJVNP473Ne" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>film reviewer</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw0aqw1GWGVKjqOYLfJVbkrl" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>literary critic</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list%3DPL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw0EGRqONt_2x16pQ2beXFfo" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">stand-up comic poet</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains but an intellectual snob.</span></span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="color: #241e12;"></span><span style="color: blue;"><img class="CToWUd a6T" data-bit="iit" height="200" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4xMcRx2munm4xWCLySlvNfewbS9CTJi_D0rg77QSbH1R5DXvxF41N-xOVJSa6-LZDvRn_S_wsQ" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px; padding: 5px;" tabindex="0" width="156" /><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="color: blue;">“<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DbjNFinj8KJw&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw0Mwkl7X--T7KK0KxUxkkh9" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjNFinj8KJw" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">I was beastly but never coarse. A high-class sort of heel.</a>”</span></span></b><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw0KN7FL0x3uZV2XutlwWRvr" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Light Touch on Amazon Prime</span></span></a></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw2ftoSACK826BdQUMF8sL3-" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Natural Wish to Be Robert MacLean</span></a></b></p><div dir="ltr"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1698768616199000&usg=AOvVaw0OXrtjz91RpskyjOwW-zWO" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Devil's Pleasure Garden</span></span></a></b></div></div></div>
<div style="color: red;"><br /></div>Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-71650106230500507442012-01-09T21:31:00.013+02:002022-11-27T16:44:08.298+02:00Michael Caine and the British Caste System<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rkCY3GlGSQ4/Tv38s-flIYI/AAAAAAAABk0/Pw7SzJG3yI4/s1600/C8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rkCY3GlGSQ4/Tv38s-flIYI/AAAAAAAABk0/Pw7SzJG3yI4/s320/C8.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Michael Caine was the first Cockney ever to play the male lead in a mainstream film. He kicked the door in.</span><span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>"</span><span>Cockney</span><span>"</span><span>
means working-class from the East End of London, so I'd better say, not
that he was the first proletarian leading man in Britain—other actors
had changed their style of speech to accomplish that—but that he was the
first to do it with his own accent.<i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span><i>"I'm every bourgeois nightmare</i></span><span>—</span><span><i>a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars."</i> </span><br />
<br />
<span>Before
him the lower-class Englishman was a clown, a George Formby ("I'm
leaning on a lamp-post at the corner of the street, In case a certain
lih-o lady comes by...")</span><span>—</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1h-L91b_pq0/Tv39N5VdmVI/AAAAAAAABlA/tX3Cc5vfWSQ/s1600/C17.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1h-L91b_pq0/Tv39N5VdmVI/AAAAAAAABlA/tX3Cc5vfWSQ/s320/C17.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>—</span><span>a
Lonnie Donegan ("Oh, my old man's a dustman, He wears a dustman's 'at,
'E wears cor blimey trousers And he lives in a council flat..."</span><span>), a Stanley Holloway, the Cockney of choice for Alfred Doolittle in <i>My Fair Lady</i></span><span>—</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YEVyf4N659U/Tv39h9t15hI/AAAAAAAABlM/Tlr3LLmoYAk/s1600/C18.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YEVyf4N659U/Tv39h9t15hI/AAAAAAAABlM/Tlr3LLmoYAk/s320/C18.jpg" width="267" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>—</span><span>and for <i>Hamlet</i>’s gravedigger, </span><span>who,
as in Shakespeare’s time, was a clown. Until Caine there was no other
way to represent the British—well, with respect to Doolittle let’s not
say <i>working </i>class</span><span>—</span><span>but the people, the many, the proles.<br /><br />Yes, there had been Albert Finney in <i>Saturday Night and Sunday Morning</i> (I still remember the gasp from the audience when he said “bastards”)</span><span>—</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t2AwHAyP59c/Tv398S-V74I/AAAAAAAABlY/DJ1NDinzCYM/s1600/C20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t2AwHAyP59c/Tv398S-V74I/AAAAAAAABlY/DJ1NDinzCYM/s320/C20.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>—</span><span>Tom Courtenay in <i>The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner</i></span><span>—</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dgpptOi_FhA/Tv3-OU8xIjI/AAAAAAAABlk/3c2RSC977gY/s1600/C19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dgpptOi_FhA/Tv3-OU8xIjI/AAAAAAAABlk/3c2RSC977gY/s320/C19.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>—</span><span> and Richard Harris doing his Brando imitation in <i>This Sporting Life</i></span><span>—</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j68qo-jRLW4/Tv3-ccDAotI/AAAAAAAABlw/JYePAoYwsL0/s1600/C21.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j68qo-jRLW4/Tv3-ccDAotI/AAAAAAAABlw/JYePAoYwsL0/s320/C21.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>—</span><span>but
these were what today would be called art-house films, examples of
British Miserablism, not in the James-Bond league at all; and the
protagonists emerge from clownhood only briefly, soon to re-immerse.<br /><br />Caine himself broke in as an upper-class officer in <i>Zulu</i> in 1964</span><span>—</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2jrJYGySmIQ/Tv3_ESnOUwI/AAAAAAAABl8/FOyRuR2znTs/s1600/C22.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2jrJYGySmIQ/Tv3_ESnOUwI/AAAAAAAABl8/FOyRuR2znTs/s1600/C22.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>—</span><span>but in <i>The Ipcress File</i> the
next year, and in subsequent “Harry Palmer” movies, he was the insolent
Cockney connoisseur of classical music who annoys his snooty boss by
shopping in the same gourmet store. This was the kind of character I
could relate to even as a kid—someone who knew how to live! I’m still
writing <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">books</span></a></b> about that guy.</span><br />
<br />
<span>I wasn’t aware of this at the time, of course, but in the British imagination it was a revolution.<i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span><i>"The first actor I ever saw was The Lone Ranger. I thought, That's what I want to do."</i> </span><br />
<br />
<span>What they have there is a <i>caste</i>
system, because it’s more rigid than just class. In America (in the
larger sense of that term; I’m <b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2012/04/cold-comfort-notes-on-canada.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Canadian</span></a></b>) class is fluid. My father came
from Highland clearance people (slaughter, prison ships, the whole
nightmare—see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-racial-profile.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">My Racial Profile</span></b></a>), who were dumped in Cape Breton, where they still speak Gaelic; peasants, but <i>rich</i>
peasants; land-owners, but Catholics, with big families, ten kids to a
generation dividing up the heritage. My great-grandfather worked
wrought-iron as a hobby, and presented gates and grill work to his
friends as gifts; my grandfather took it up out of necessity,
and became a blacksmith; he taught my father, who was a hard-hat diver welding hulls in Halifax
harbor; when he got to Toronto he found work as a mechanic </span><span>in an abattoir</span><span>.
I, of course, am above money; like Toby in my <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">novels</span></a></b> I stay south of
the Alps, where I can function at leisure, and not too often. You’re
up, you’re down, you’re up again. But it ain’t that way in Merrie Olde
England, kids.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6eoe5fUrjD0/Tv4CWlPy_KI/AAAAAAAABmg/qYfX9AAT8EU/s1600/C3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6eoe5fUrjD0/Tv4CWlPy_KI/AAAAAAAABmg/qYfX9AAT8EU/s320/C3.jpg" width="227" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>"I wouldn't make an anti-American film. I'm one of the most pro-American foreigners I know. I love America and Americans."</i> </span><br />
<br />
<span>The
British system has everything in common with Hindu caste. It cannot be
married across. In Bombay newspapers (they say "Bombay" there, not
"Mumbai"; that’s for politically correct Westerners) you'll see ads for
marriage partners saying "Caste no object." That doesn’t mean a Brahmin
can marry a non-Brahmin. A friend of mine in Goa who sold tee-shirts
went to Madras to hire someone to dye them; the guy said, "I'll do the
mixture for you but I can’t stir the pot; that’s against my caste. My
partner here can do the stirring; you can hire us both for one salary."
That’s what they mean by "Caste no object."<i> </i></span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xHDKwIRn6Vo/Tv4MiaLRX7I/AAAAAAAABnQ/geKRbqwm-x4/s1600/C25.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xHDKwIRn6Vo/Tv4MiaLRX7I/AAAAAAAABnQ/geKRbqwm-x4/s320/C25.jpg" width="259" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><i>"Things are not quite what they seem always. Don't start me on class, otherwise you'll get a four-hour lecture."</i> </span><br />
<br />
<span>And
yes, the British and the Indians understood each other. I spent eight
months in India, long enough almost to say I lived there, and it seems
to me that the British broke India’s heart when, rather than bleeding
down into the hierarchy like other conquerors, they simply peeled
themselves off the top and left. They snubbed India. So like them.</span><br />
<br />
<span>You can’t marry across <i>British</i> caste either. Only
in movies. Class differences can </span><span>"</span><span>spice</span><span>"</span><span> a marriage, Evelyn Waugh said,
but just to a </span><span>"</span><span>Caste no object</span><span>"</span><span> degree. The traditional exceptions are heiresses</span><span>—</span><br />
</span><div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR_34YfHNjZ6zmhec4JFDyxMKURgghTJ0PaTb0XNNttJXSoY-Xe26B79-XwHSzfkh3etLqYMXu_YBIUaLd03rAM5E_gI1VhrtJif0OtjvlaQyBMG3-GAn_GVfyMEBs0bLeynDHVvpwxN4/s1600/C29.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR_34YfHNjZ6zmhec4JFDyxMKURgghTJ0PaTb0XNNttJXSoY-Xe26B79-XwHSzfkh3etLqYMXu_YBIUaLd03rAM5E_gI1VhrtJif0OtjvlaQyBMG3-GAn_GVfyMEBs0bLeynDHVvpwxN4/s320/C29.jpg" width="260" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>—and footmen.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rfCkyityApH9ZivF_9Pqn6D9WUaaOI29EEOa8YT4JvrUZgT0149Qvf6QVhG2hGOCBp4JFUqujhJtlIqLGGun8Lpu6jwvb0kN9ohZmwSPVOfCqAS8vVALfiDNB9t4jzAMJd1lua3dmKA/s1600/C33.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rfCkyityApH9ZivF_9Pqn6D9WUaaOI29EEOa8YT4JvrUZgT0149Qvf6QVhG2hGOCBp4JFUqujhJtlIqLGGun8Lpu6jwvb0kN9ohZmwSPVOfCqAS8vVALfiDNB9t4jzAMJd1lua3dmKA/s320/C33.jpg" width="248" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>(For more on footmen see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Marquis de Sade, Father of Modern France</span></b></a>.)</span><br />
<br />
<span>Try having a drink in a London
pub after eleven: you’ll be out on your cleavage before the
hour chimes. These people have to be in bed so they can get to the
factory in the morning, and that’s the law. If you want to keep drinking
you have to go to a </span><span>"</span><span>club</span><span>"</span><span> and mix with another sort. Members only.</span><span> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>William Burroughs said, </span><span>"</span><span>We should be grateful to those Valley Forge boys for getting us out from under all that,</span><span>"</span><span> implying that the American Revolution was about <i>class</i>.
And that’s the way their allies in the French navy saw it: they went
back to France feeling that what the Americans had done, they could
do—and a few years later they did.<i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span><i>"In England I was a Cockney actor. In America, I was an actor."</i> </span><br />
<br />
<span>It's a charming accent, much in style in the eighties and
nineties with kids from other backgrounds. During World War II a
Canadian airman was shot down over the Channel, woke in a ward full of
wounded guys, passed out</span><span>—</span><span>and
came to in a room by himself, which he found ominous; when the nurse
came in he said, "Level with me, was I brought in here to die?"
"Naaa-oh," she said, waving the thought away, "yew was brought in 'ere
yestadie!"</span><br />
<br />
<span>It cannot escape notice that lower- and lower-middle-class British people ally themselves with, think of themselves as, think <i>as</i>,
Americans. What’s the alternative? The revolution is just catching up
with them. Cromwell’s was reabsorbed, and was never very tasty anyway
(see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/10/greece-versus-puritans.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Greece versus the Puritans</span></b></a>).</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0gxMTwp8SPrO-pgKU3sTIU2n2zf-4JFz-g60vJFPk8sL3lXMLkKiFQq7LJZwVuUTFADKgagOleOLKOibLaKIheX7UZxdFbcZnbfCH4lWV2StWdmfYSH9cNctVScMJ1FiJjg-cCQ9Wgek/s1600/C24.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0gxMTwp8SPrO-pgKU3sTIU2n2zf-4JFz-g60vJFPk8sL3lXMLkKiFQq7LJZwVuUTFADKgagOleOLKOibLaKIheX7UZxdFbcZnbfCH4lWV2StWdmfYSH9cNctVScMJ1FiJjg-cCQ9Wgek/s320/C24.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>The
already rigid Norman hierarchy ("we have the man Shakespeare with us")
was stiffened by something that happened around that time. The art
historian Kenneth Clark (sorry, <i>Lord</i> Clark) calls it </span><span>"</span><span>the odious pomposity</span><span>"</span><span> that grew up in Europe, typified by the court of Louis XIV, but in style everywhere. </span><span>By early in the last century working men on a manor were not even allowed to be <i>seen</i>—rather like Hindu Invisibles. </span><span>"</span><span>Bri-tons never never never shall be slaves!</span><span>"</span><span> Serfs, yes.<i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span><i>"Alfie was the first time I was above the title; the first time I became a star in America." </i></span><br />
<br />
<span><i> </i>"</span><span>Class is race,</span><span>"</span><span>
Nietszche tells us, and at the bottom of the British ladder you find
Celts, people with names like Lennon and McCartney. In the middle you
find Anglo-Saxons with names like Jagger and Richards. Notice how these
men all made their fortunes affecting American accents. (Mick shouting
to the rioters at Altamont, </span><span>"</span><span>Y'all cool out, now!</span><span>"</span><span> Huh?) At least they <i>think</i>
they’re Anglo-Saxons: now that doctors are looking at everyone’s genes
they’re finding that most people who thought they were "English" are in
fact Celts.</span><br />
<br />
<span>And on top are the
Normans, from Norway via France. These days Norwegians are the butts of
Scandinavian jokes (they can hardly tell blonde jokes, can they?), but
in Gore Vidal’s phrase the Normans are still on their </span><span>"</span><span>high Norwegian horse.</span><span>"</span><span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>That’s habit for you</span><span>—a</span><span>nd barbarism, too. To bow to someone wearing white fur and purple, to bow to someone wearing <i>anything</i>
is barbaric. The Brits would have abolished it long ago if the
Disneyland effect didn’t pull in so much of their GNP. The Revolution
has not—not really—caught up.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMjck6ANXENcMLzyW9D1Vxh1oGD6uNPKRqnog29Vs05Gs_20-5cKAd918zPNmqFCQPJPVSEWUNFY6BxV1Do7ReGFd3YRJk_RVG74xF-Kj_ciDxpoT74PpzArBsFLu3rnzUaDI9Dc5r86k/s1600/C23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMjck6ANXENcMLzyW9D1Vxh1oGD6uNPKRqnog29Vs05Gs_20-5cKAd918zPNmqFCQPJPVSEWUNFY6BxV1Do7ReGFd3YRJk_RVG74xF-Kj_ciDxpoT74PpzArBsFLu3rnzUaDI9Dc5r86k/s320/C23.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>So you can see why Maurice Micklewhite’s accent was so
important to British, and even to American life. Sir Michael—for he has
not rejected the honors due his achievement (would you?)—is the son of
an Irish fish market worker, and he too gradually became American,
though, superb actor that he is, he can do any accent. One of my
favorite Caine portrayals is his Stalin in <i>World War II: When Lions Roared</i>. Even in his late seventies he’s one of the very few great stars.</span><br />
<br />
<span><i>"My career is going better now than when I was
younger. It used to be that I'd get the girl but not the part. Now I
get the part but not the girl."</i> </span><br />
<br />
<span>I’d
like to have him for one of my own movies, and broached the subject
with some associates. "Why does he get so much?" said one. "Because,</span><span>"</span><span> said another, </span><span>"</span><span>he's Michael Caine."</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGiKOPXl5KSXr-044O3SEcqHEiP3UVK3DkAXUMBHUXURfZ0qeyBgFUVMruismtx6cs-RG21apqO8Dh5MgglE5agfpAgkARs_58zq0jYQzDN2FpZtLxqj44R_rCOitWEoRvBIGbWRee0Mg/s1600/C.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGiKOPXl5KSXr-044O3SEcqHEiP3UVK3DkAXUMBHUXURfZ0qeyBgFUVMruismtx6cs-RG21apqO8Dh5MgglE5agfpAgkARs_58zq0jYQzDN2FpZtLxqj44R_rCOitWEoRvBIGbWRee0Mg/s1600/C.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<div style="color: red;">
<div style="color: black;"><br /></div><div style="color: black;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><br /><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">On YouTube:</span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio’s </span><a href="https://youtu.be/D2B66hW3XV0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Husband" </span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio's </span><a href="https://youtu.be/jLHIHoNnXyY" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Horse Trade" </span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio's </span><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://youtu.be/R2LzhTam16o" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Stupid Friar"</span></a> </span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Chaucer’s </span><a href="https://youtu.be/Pm4FAjxU8L0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Miller's Tale"</span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8kJe9wdyyg" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"Red Devil Rag"</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 18.832px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMVAW2_TPcc" style="color: #32aaff; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-large;">"<span style="line-height: 25.68px;">Attack of the Giant Feminists</span>"</span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xee5jJDcIZ8" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"But Is It Love? Or, The Destruction of West Los Angeles"</span></a></div></div></div></div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-71059054998724274442011-12-19T15:52:00.009+02:002022-02-18T19:38:30.218+02:00The Return of Dirty Harry<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EP1nduvuSds" width="320" youtube-src-id="EP1nduvuSds"></iframe></div></div></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Now, Dirty Harry was an X-L cop<br />And when he told Spider Mayo to stop<br />The Spider turned to see who be talkin’,<br />And kep’ walkin’.<br /><br />The street was crowded. The day was hot.<br />He pushed on through and broke into a trot<br />But Harry’d already started to run,<br />And had out the gun.<br /><br />Spider ducked down an alley and disappeared.<br />Harry ran in there after him and peered,<br />And couldn’t see much in the shadows at all<br />Till he looked up the wall.<br /><br />On a ladder above him three floors high<br />A black-widow silhouette crawled for sky.<br />Harry holstered the Magnum and started to climb.<br />Had him this time.<br /><br />Up top the Spider was three roofs away.<br />Harry had no time to stop and survey—<br />He come up to the first gap on the run<br />And landed scrambling for the second one.<br /><br />A plastic chute for construction debris<br />Was the only way down that Spider could see:<br />He crawled in starfish and, clawing around,<br />Worked his way down<br /><br />Until Harry landed on him astride.<br />They fought like a rancid burger inside<br />A convulsing gut till they came unstuck<br />And fell in the truck.<br /><br />Spider was already down on the street<br />And running when Harry got to his feet.<br />He took out the Magnum and hopped to the ground.<br />Wasn’t no one around—<br /><br />Just Spider going. An approaching van.<br />Harry took up the stance and raised his hand.<br />A light wind streamlined his aim and his clothes.<br />He held the pose.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqXCLN2KAF6_J9f8CLmDtGtT85RvZ6W2kxo86Cp1k-HtbJjNqhSGabBUf-9uKuFig3rXYqP3bpzmuuwgkyrb7KM0DI_V-FWlIPGqh-gQ8BEXjGLVEL5xdo-1KQB0wVrqzoaHbHk4GnYtk/s1600/Harry3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqXCLN2KAF6_J9f8CLmDtGtT85RvZ6W2kxo86Cp1k-HtbJjNqhSGabBUf-9uKuFig3rXYqP3bpzmuuwgkyrb7KM0DI_V-FWlIPGqh-gQ8BEXjGLVEL5xdo-1KQB0wVrqzoaHbHk4GnYtk/s320/Harry3.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>But Spider tore open the driver’s door,<br />Jumped into the van, knocked the guy to the floor<br />And drove back at Harry, foot to the mat—<br />Laid it out flat.<br /><br />Harry stood there, put three slugs through the glass,<br />And jumped on a parked car as the van veered past,<br />But it slammed in broadside as hard as it could,<br />And he fell off the hood.<br /><br />Spider screech-stopped, reversed and, squealing wheels,<br />Roared back at Harry still crouched on his heels—<br />And shattered the light bulb out in his head!<br />He <i>had</i> to be dead<br /><br />But Spider would not be played for no chump:<br />He backed over Harry till the wheels went bump,<br />Then put it in forward and did it again<br />And again, up to ten,<br /><br />And drove away feeling that he’d been firm,<br />Left him in the street like a squeezed-out worm,<br />And before Harry would have had time to nod<br />He was facing God.<br /><br />“Well, Harry,” God told him, “you sure blew that.<br />I was countin’ on you to ice that rat.<br />I mean I've seen screw-ups,” he thumped the desk,<br />“But this is grotesque!<br /><br />“Spider Mayo’s done things too bad to name!<br />If he does any more now, you’re to blame!<br />I’m not threatening you—I know you’re a guy<br />Who’d spit in My Eye—</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsemImqOrkaP-17qYf0UD9kwrlQn4XtVcyz1um6UBINvxKS7xC2RlnGZImXPZa0aMLiaOofZCl9fdU1bbdXIcnZvttImb4p-ETWcI3VSQ3BEYaeUx8bD7qX84uLeveYgTsy9sEcPjzuHQ/s1600/God.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsemImqOrkaP-17qYf0UD9kwrlQn4XtVcyz1um6UBINvxKS7xC2RlnGZImXPZa0aMLiaOofZCl9fdU1bbdXIcnZvttImb4p-ETWcI3VSQ3BEYaeUx8bD7qX84uLeveYgTsy9sEcPjzuHQ/s320/God.jpg" width="227" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>“But damn it, Harry, you’re my right-hand man,<br />And you’re up here somewhat prior to plan!<br />You <i>owe</i> Me!—and I want one more k.o.<br />Go down there and git Me: Spider Mayo!”<br /><br />Now, Harry’d as soon have thrown down his badge<br />And turned in his car keys at the garadge,<br />But he figured when it came from this high<br />He oughta comply.<br /><br />He lay on the pavement with open eyes,<br />Already beginning to draw the flies.<br />The sun overhead returned his look<br />Till his retinas cooked.<br /><br />The police were waving the traffic through,</span><br />
<span>Restraining the crowd; the ambulance crew<br />Rolled out the stretcher and opened it up<br />When Harry—sat up!<br /><br />Bloody tire tracks crossed his chest and his legs.<br />His ribs were a bagful of broken eggs.<br />But he got to his feet as the onlookers gawked,<br />And walked.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Purple hollows hung under his eyes;<br />Reporters surrounded him, dwarfed by his size.<br />One held a microphone at him and said,<br />“We thought you were dead.”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-f_ZIuGyqXGmZxFgwD8wo10PxZee5ErJm9bTMxLiHJ2A_gWlL32aFyrTzZuU8m7SFNNKE3kFxqzA1_jEVbbWNEnp-BLUw3tlieRyVt73KAY9wHMSac70oL1SmLzRTgQElIQhc9iOlFWw/s1600/Harry25.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-f_ZIuGyqXGmZxFgwD8wo10PxZee5ErJm9bTMxLiHJ2A_gWlL32aFyrTzZuU8m7SFNNKE3kFxqzA1_jEVbbWNEnp-BLUw3tlieRyVt73KAY9wHMSac70oL1SmLzRTgQElIQhc9iOlFWw/s320/Harry25.jpg" width="299" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>He stopped and looked at her. His skin was gray.<br />What she saw in his eyes is hard to say;<br />She was standing there with the mic still on<br />When Harry was gone.<br /><br />“Dirty Harry is dead,” she said on TV,<br />“But he’s back on the street and it looks to me<br />Like whoever he’s after’s chances are slim,<br />And I wouldn’t be him.<br /><br />“Meanwhile the mayor was quoted as saying<br />That Harry’s been linked to last week’s slaying<br />Of one of the lords of the inner city,<br />And it wasn’t pretty.”<br /><br />Shot of the mayor. “He’s got to be stopped.<br />All he is now is a renegade cop.<br />Some private idea of good and bad<br />Has driven him mad.”<br /><br />“The mayor would not go into detail<br />About his own dealings with Spider Mayo.<br />Informed sources say this could get scary.<br />Good luck, Harry.”<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hA0Ewop5QIs" width="320" youtube-src-id="hA0Ewop5QIs"></iframe></div>He sat at the bar with a sense of mission,<br />The only one watching the television.<br />Somebody waved in front of the screen<br />And said, “Sweetheart, you’re green.”<br /><br />He was too stiff even to turn his head,<br />And might not have even if he hadn’t been dead.<br />The bartender said, “Ignore that queer.<br />I’ll getcha a beer.”<br /><br />The drag queen hung onto his shoulder<br />And Harry, if possible, got colder.<br />She said, “So you’re showing a little mold—</span><br />
<span>You're not that old.”<br /><br />He got up from the stool and limped outside;<br />What he needed now was a place to hide.<br />The floozy followed him into the street:<br />“Let’s get something to eat.”<br /><br />She stopped at a window to fix her hair<br />When she turned around he wasn’t there,<br />A pang went through her for his quiet strength<br />And potential length.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi118sHBR-_59-K1M4U852m08fwBDeY1_b5jC0rZr5onJUMmUE37q3ksL4J4X9uW5rl8HWJO1wQqT-11LscAmc-TnTWJ_MYM964KTwf0OQkwi1psaQ3jjg_3wFN50LA8aEkyzDCss42Vxk/s1600/Harry24.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi118sHBR-_59-K1M4U852m08fwBDeY1_b5jC0rZr5onJUMmUE37q3ksL4J4X9uW5rl8HWJO1wQqT-11LscAmc-TnTWJ_MYM964KTwf0OQkwi1psaQ3jjg_3wFN50LA8aEkyzDCss42Vxk/s320/Harry24.jpg" width="279" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>He fiddled a lock and went inside.<br />A woman looked up from the late show and sighed.<br />He sat down as was his habit to do<br />And watched too,<br /><br />His hands on his knees, his eyes straight ahead.<br />She observed him a while before she said,<br />“Well, Harry, I’m glad you’re keeping in touch,<br />But you haven’t changed much.”<br /><br />In bed she fingered him where he’d been scarred.<br />She said, “Hon, you’re cold but you sure are hard.<br />It’s times like this that I wonder whether<br />We should get back together.<br /><br />“That look in your eyes you used to get when you came,<br />It’s there all the time now—but just the same,<br />I don’t know, Harry, it’d never last.<br />The past is past.”<br /><br />When she fell asleep he got up tip-toe,<br />Uncovered his police radio<br />And got the location of the tail<br />On Spider Mayo.<br /><br />A flop house. Night. He stayed out of the light<br />Till the unmarked car circled out of sight.<br />The desk jockey opened his mouth to ask,<br />Caught Harry’s look and just let him go past.<br /><br />Harry turned a knob, didn’t make a sound,<br />Pushed the door open, paused, glanced around,<br />Went in and closed it without so much as a breath,<br />And waited for Spider Mayo like death.<br /><br />A match flared, showed Spider’s face in the dark,<br />Lit his ciggy and burned while he remarked,<br />“Harry, it ain’t only you look like hell,<br />You startin’ to smell.<br /><br />“The chick on the news says you fuckin’ dead.<br />‘Bout time somebody put you to bed.”<br />And holding it out for Harry to catch,<br />He tossed the match.<br /><br />Harry hadn’t sniffed: the place was seething<br />With gas fumes but he hadn’t been breathing.<br />The room was a furnace. Out in the hall<br />Spider was sprinkling gasoline all<br /><br />Over the floor and then touching it off,<br />Laughing insanely and starting to cough.<br />Harry limped after him blinded by heat,<br />Barbecuing his feet.<br /><br />“Hey, Step-and-a-Half, I’s over here!”<br />Called Spider when Harry happened to hear<br />A scream upstairs. The whole place was on fire.<br />The scream got higher.<br /><br />Spider laughed gleefully, threw in the can,<br />Gave Harry the finger and turned and ran.<br />No telling how much time it would cost him<br />Now if he lost him.<br /><br />He staggered upstairs and kicked in a door.<br />This whole moral effort—what was it for?<br />A young woman’s face showed brand-new horror<br />As he looked around for her.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiil7mRh4UU1Lmlzt8omY4T7RnaPOgUD6t8xkWljZ8zbfwHwCzQYF1g2u2RGm_koOZjtf1fKCQ4gwRf51gNBCV8rRqlkMlAznXQWszWO5uWCqnL2w_6nEF6dgCbqaysUS367jl5JhUGlA/s1600/Harry13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiil7mRh4UU1Lmlzt8omY4T7RnaPOgUD6t8xkWljZ8zbfwHwCzQYF1g2u2RGm_koOZjtf1fKCQ4gwRf51gNBCV8rRqlkMlAznXQWszWO5uWCqnL2w_6nEF6dgCbqaysUS367jl5JhUGlA/s320/Harry13.jpg" width="225" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>He soaked a blanket, grabbed her to tie her<br />And carried her back down into the fire.<br />When they made it outside, no Spider there,<br />And most of Harry was medium-rare.<br /><br />The girl reached up to kiss him but quickly found<br />She’d much rather Harry just put her down.<br />Still, he left her with a sense of elation<br />That may have been more than just smoke-inhalation.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Wsry9FtvwA" width="320" youtube-src-id="8Wsry9FtvwA"></iframe></div>Next morning the mayor spoke to the press.<br />“Where Harry is now is anyone’s guess.<br />Last night he burned down an entire hotel.<br />The man’s not well.”<br /><br />“I love him!” the girl said that Harry had saved.<br />“He may be dead but he’s awfully brave,<br />And I’m willing to give him my maidenhood<br />If it’ll do any good!”<br /><br />“That creep,” said Spider, “got nothin’ on me.<br />I got me a contracting company<br />And legitimate deals with city hall,<br />Is all.”<br /><br />At the bus station in a TV chair<br />Harry sat listening to the mayor,<br />Wrapped in a raincoat and turned-up collar<br />Till he used up his dollar.<br /><br />Spider chopped powder with a razor blade,<br />Rolled a new twenty when the lines were made,<br />Held a nostril closed, snorted up his share<br />And passed the other half to the mayor.<br /><br />He said, “I be the one that takes the heat.<br />I want that motherfucker off the street.”<br />The mayor said, “Yeah, I’m doing my best.<br />Don’t get that shit all over my desk.”<br /><br />He vacuumed the dust as if with a hose<br />And sat back holding the bridge of his nose,<br />Feeling the present tense fill out his clothes<br />And hearing his office door open—and close.<br /><br />He tilted back further, peered under his hand,<br />Unhurried but starting to understand.<br />A man in a raincoat turned and faced him.<br />It was a moment before he’d placed him:<br /><br />His face was bad meat—the skin had melted.<br />The mayor saw it <i>after</i> he smelt it.<br />The eyes had gone livid and seemed to stare<br />At the mayor.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnm4BiDx4-EAsL8CwIIxPC4GWIFbEDLXfHGvM3h2RPvcpBwDuCqyoGZcS1j8kdHr_-Swni7cv5eXOQftGWumz1_TQLTbNM6IUZuUNXPcqx9WNwtGCZPaGpV_6AVOOUFLhtnA_OypmdnnI/s1600/Harry11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnm4BiDx4-EAsL8CwIIxPC4GWIFbEDLXfHGvM3h2RPvcpBwDuCqyoGZcS1j8kdHr_-Swni7cv5eXOQftGWumz1_TQLTbNM6IUZuUNXPcqx9WNwtGCZPaGpV_6AVOOUFLhtnA_OypmdnnI/s320/Harry11.jpg" width="238" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Spider sat wondering what he’d been hit with<br />And what they could have been cuttin’ this shit with.<br />The mayor pressed a buzzer and grabbed a phone,<br />And Spider felt profoundly alone<br /><br />As Harry advanced on him. He couldn’t scream.<br />He was paralyzed as if in a dream<br />Until Harry grabbed him around the throat.<br />He shrieked, jumped up and brushed at his coat.<br /><br />“Don’t touch me, you asshole! You fuckin’ dead!”<br />He backed to the Board Room, holding his head,<br />And slamming a fourteen-foot oaken door,<br />Locked it and made for the next one before<br /><br />Harry kicked through it as smoothly as fate.<br />Spider locked another and didn’t wait—<br />He ran screaming as Harry burst through again<br />And again, up to ten,<br /><br />Till Spider was racing through the lobby,<br />Hopelessly stoned and panicked and sobbing.<br />He rushed through the door to the open air,</span><span> </span><br /><span>And found cops all over city hall square<br /><br />Holding the crowd that was straining to see<br />Just how dirty Harry could be.<br />Then a gasp went up from everyone<br />As Harry staggered out into the sun,<br /><br />A botched and putrefied resurrection,</span><br />
<span>Looming in Spider Mayo’s direction.<br />Though the cops were there because of the mayor,<br />They wouldn’t let Spider run anywhere.<br /><br />He cried, “Harry, I didn’t mean what I done,<br />I’s just havin’ a little fun!<br />You ain’t gonna hold that against some’un!”<br />But Harry kept comin’.<br /><br />His ex ducked the cordon, broke away,<br />And said, “Hon, you left before I could say—<br />I don’t know, Harry, I guess I’m a jerk,<br />But I think it could work!”<br /><br />He didn’t slow down. At his other side<br />Was the girl for whom he’d got himself fried.<br />She said, “When you carried me out of that fire<br />You touched my desire!”<br /><br />The drag queen grabbed his hand to implore him<br />While the newswoman backed along before him.<br />She said, “Harry, can you give me a moment?<br />Don’t you have any comment?”<br /><br />He stopped and looked at her. His skin was cracked.<br />Their entire affair had been eye contact.<br />But he lurched ahead, having no time to linger,<br />And left the queen still holding his fingers.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu3of0IY7RRNCcGyuz32FuhjEMVJcmF7jmwGSu0z3i6_u0PO1UDCAFRlBvFGQgCN-Iwa9-J3IVzupfB1LEdOOM6raSuck1oUcUPwpmxcrjKWNBVk9q-JrVg8dw9ONhrRxI2-2EPqK22T8/s1600/Harry12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu3of0IY7RRNCcGyuz32FuhjEMVJcmF7jmwGSu0z3i6_u0PO1UDCAFRlBvFGQgCN-Iwa9-J3IVzupfB1LEdOOM6raSuck1oUcUPwpmxcrjKWNBVk9q-JrVg8dw9ONhrRxI2-2EPqK22T8/s1600/Harry12.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Spider was now in the psychotic stages<br />Of the worst drug vision he’d had for ages.<br />Harry’s shadow fell over him like a tree’s.<br />He dropped to his knees<br /><br />And said, “I’ve sinned! The mayor made me do it!<br />You wouldn’t know without you been through it!<br />Dealin’ drugs was my way out of the gutter!”<br />He gave a shudder<br /><br />As Harry reached for him with his good hand.<br />He said, “Harry, you gots to understand<br />A mo’ ruthless sense of reality!<br />You just like me!<br /><br />“<i>You</i> try livin’ there! You don’t want to hear it<br />But my childhood twisted my little spirit!”<br />He pleaded, with all the tears he could summon,<br />But the hand kept comin’<br /><br />And grabbed him. He clawed at Harry’s face<br />And the flesh came away without leaving a trace.<br />He gaped up at a skull with blow-dried hair<br />And yellow eyes that continued to stare<br /><br />Into Spider’s soul. But the soul was gone:<br />Whether the revelation had been too strong<br />Or whether he’d snorted too much meth,<br />He was scared to death.<br /><br />Harry put him down with the gentleness bred<br />Of the strange brotherhood of the dead,<br />And stood for a moment over Spider<br />With the tact of an insider.<br /><br />To the women he turned his face of bone.<br />At least it was clear his teeth were his own,<br />But they weren’t all that sure now they wanted to marry<br />Harry.<br /><br />Nevertheless they stood there undaunted<br />Waiting to see which one he wanted—<br />But he reeled and stumbled toward the crowd:<br />It screamed so loud<br /><br />That he faltered back and groped in the dark,<br />A wino about to pass out in the park.<br />An arm slipped out of his sleeve to the ground and<br />He tripped and fell over into the fountain<br /><br />Where he lay face-down, savoring release as<br />He drifted slowly apart into pieces.<br />An eye let go, fell away from the skull<br />With a thud that was underwater-dull,<br /><br />Slid over the bottom toward the hole,<br />Paused at the rim, a reluctant soul,<br />Took a last look around at what it had been<br />And slipped in.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-3aemu1YeyEytD4KE4ME7WAcSYUoCjZuPqlFZQ8cp2wSKTamLRCW3TlPdvkbyVcwlHvmVS2a2AsKQ_r1E9Ar5v3CjUGJYZSqUBstebf4mByd848Kg1mdVtg5_yvR01Zy8jfkEo2Yhfo/s1600/Harry9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-3aemu1YeyEytD4KE4ME7WAcSYUoCjZuPqlFZQ8cp2wSKTamLRCW3TlPdvkbyVcwlHvmVS2a2AsKQ_r1E9Ar5v3CjUGJYZSqUBstebf4mByd848Kg1mdVtg5_yvR01Zy8jfkEo2Yhfo/s320/Harry9.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="background-color: white; color: #32aaff; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-1099546617160750432011-11-25T16:14:00.021+02:002023-08-23T15:51:32.235+03:00The Marquis de Sade, Father of Modern France<div class="post-header">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OKU3_ZyUwAk" width="320" youtube-src-id="OKU3_ZyUwAk"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>
<i>De Sade<br />Might have been perfectly glad<br />To have had as his hassock<br />Masoch.</i><br /><br />I love France. <br /><br />And
I love Paris. It doesn’t matter how Disneyfied it gets; it remains the
world’s capital, the measure of all cities, and not just for me. In the
Middle East they call Beirut “the Paris of the Mediterranean.” They used
to, anyway. In Asia Shanghai is </span><span>“</span><span>the Paris of the East.</span><span>”</span><span> In America Montreal is “the Paris of the North.” “When
good Americans die,” as Oscar said, “they go to Paris.” And so do bad
Irishmen: Oscar is buried there.<br /><br />And I love the French. Sort of.
Their style, their indolence, their cuisine…so much about them endears
them to one. But they are not, it must be admitted, sweet-natured. Not
warm. They are, to use their own phrase, <i>le peuple le plus désagréable du monde, même entre eux</i>—the snarkiest people in the world, even to each other.<br /><br />How
did this happen? Were they always like that? Is it, as so much is these days, genetic? (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-racial-profile.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">My Racial Profile</span></b></a>.) If not, what, or who,
could be the cultural antecedent of this manner?<br /><br />Is it Rabelais,
father of the long lunch? “Frugality,” he said, “is for the vulgar.” </span><span>My kind of guy. </span><span>“It
is godlike to lend, but to owe is a heroic virtue.”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGm2KkT4UxR901pCz9wg5Ce3RUCia5Xkh5Zm48zhR9pP-5FCeHl99sLqAQKRP2P3_EXchk0kKJoMBX6jmzHJku2rxNNnKA1y3H6j1e2B79WN9dkk-oIT9Xq5TKPwE7poUHya3TlDMAgUw/s1600/Rabelais4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGm2KkT4UxR901pCz9wg5Ce3RUCia5Xkh5Zm48zhR9pP-5FCeHl99sLqAQKRP2P3_EXchk0kKJoMBX6jmzHJku2rxNNnKA1y3H6j1e2B79WN9dkk-oIT9Xq5TKPwE7poUHya3TlDMAgUw/s1600/Rabelais4.jpg" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>When he came to die he left this will: “I have nothing; I owe much. I leave the rest to the poor.”</span><span></span><br />
<span><br />No, there’s too much generosity of spirit there. It can’t be him.<br /><br />Is
it Montaigne, whose suave self-contemplation supplanted the wisdom of
the ancients? Too mild. Too tolerant. And he was so deeply inhaled by
Shakespeare that we tend to think of him as an Englishman.<br /><br />Molière, then? That comic genius? No no no, too free of heart. Too funny. (Note though the remark in his <i>Dom Juan</i>
that a peasant girl is at a disadvantage compared to a Parisienne, who
need only adjust her coiffure to sharpen her allure. Ah, Paris!)</span><br />
<br />
<span>Voltaire? The wit, the very soul of the Enlightenment? "The trouble with honest people is that they're cowards." <i>Hey! Almost!</i> But no, he's simply too polite.<br /><br />It
can<i>not </i>have been Rousseau, who loved nature and found it morally good.
De Sade quashed that: “Nature averse to crime? I tell you that nature
lives and breathes by it, hungers at all her pores for bloodshed, yearns
with all her heart for the furtherance of cruelty!”</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgbnWNRj_MNY7XFYlYBEX3F2jVIOiEqt-WUjcdIWKjm4hOSPqT6LL-8ZFpr8WFiSHwabtGoZPyt2EUI1KE1gWdCgFKyj_mEmL2H6oA1lRD34WU4iBA7DfOmSr8R-_ewjcOSQOpHvRDkL4/s1600/DeSade3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgbnWNRj_MNY7XFYlYBEX3F2jVIOiEqt-WUjcdIWKjm4hOSPqT6LL-8ZFpr8WFiSHwabtGoZPyt2EUI1KE1gWdCgFKyj_mEmL2H6oA1lRD34WU4iBA7DfOmSr8R-_ewjcOSQOpHvRDkL4/s320/DeSade3.jpg" width="222" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>
</span>
<span>
So it’s not Rousseau. No, it’s the
Marquis himself. With him something enters French culture that had not
been there before. Suzanne in Diderot’s <i>The Nun</i> suffers, it’s
true, including erotic molestation by the Mother Superior, but she is
rescued, and never submits. And Rétif de la Bretonne (he and de Sade
hated one another) gave his name to the shoe fetish, known now as <i>retifisme</i>.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKvsARtfnAFEiRq8dTiQieMXbPAwsWE7srWrfF8BPjTpxDEZDQRUGxopDcQDWk5zDzK1kPCQ_42R94z0EjZO7Ns5Rep579gNvTy3YlyuRZ47-1Sl8VfA_GjgBd_mqDIZVaKfSX_342qsI/s1600/DeSade8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKvsARtfnAFEiRq8dTiQieMXbPAwsWE7srWrfF8BPjTpxDEZDQRUGxopDcQDWk5zDzK1kPCQ_42R94z0EjZO7Ns5Rep579gNvTy3YlyuRZ47-1Sl8VfA_GjgBd_mqDIZVaKfSX_342qsI/s320/DeSade8.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We like these on you, girls. We love to see you helpless.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;">But
only the Marquis gives us the whole deal: "There is no more lively
sensation than that of pain; its impressions are certain and
dependable—they never deceive as may those of the pleasure women
perpetually feign and almost never experience." Not a bad psychologist.
Cheer up, guys.<br /><br />After him we get a new cruelty in French culture. I don’t mean Balzac and his books for twelve-year-olds, his gosh-isn’t-it-great manner; or even the torture that is axiomatic in Hugo’s novels. <br /><br />I don’t just mean Delacroix and his orgiastic scenes of rape and slaughter—</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPsFIbrRPWY-P-QXy17TPC54EgV2eOH-pPmdwMNKRlFyimes2C0XcbXgy_nSF_dG5HbfhjkCBAKkrejkxM_aBJFyt9rwIDD8Ajv28CD3kZW0-9ZKnN1LdLTVoE_b1UDavRrt53UW7icaM/s1600/Delacroix2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPsFIbrRPWY-P-QXy17TPC54EgV2eOH-pPmdwMNKRlFyimes2C0XcbXgy_nSF_dG5HbfhjkCBAKkrejkxM_aBJFyt9rwIDD8Ajv28CD3kZW0-9ZKnN1LdLTVoE_b1UDavRrt53UW7icaM/s320/Delacroix2.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>
</span>
<span>
—or the enthusiasm for women of color
shown by Baudelaire, Gauguin and Rimbaud, meant to dramatize their, how
shall I say, focus, not to say their dominance.<br /><br />I mean the
merciless exposure to which her author subjects Emma Bovary. She, a
fool, and her husband, a fool—a doctor, no less, who bungles an operation on his clubfooted
patient and causes his leg to be amputated—scurry like bugs under Flaubert’s
microscope, his heart as neutral as glass. As Erich Auerbach said, their
“world consists of pure stupidity.” Even the title is a sarcasm, “<i>Madame</i> Bovary,” as if the poor girl were the lady she longs to be.<i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span><i>Flaubert<br />Shaved his short hair<br />And reclined in the raw:<br />“Madame Bovary, c’est mwaw.”</i></span><br />
<span><br />And
what is there, outside of the Marquis, to match her suicide, writhing
in agony for days with arsenic in her belly? Anna got it over faster by
throwing herself under train wheels; what a moment <i>that</i> must have
been. Bad women must be punished, sure, I understand that, but for Emma
it’s drawn out to what can only be described as sadistic length.<br /><br />Here starts an entire mode of narrative. Flaubert’s <i>protégé</i> de Maupassant <i>despises</i> his characters, <i>jeers</i>
at them. I love Proust as much as you do, but I want to be at eye-level
with Swann; of course he’s a chump, who isn’t, but I don’t want <i>always</i> to be scoffing at him, <i>always</i> to be looking down at him through the Flaubertian lens.<i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span><i>Zola<br />Has the flaw<br />That the earthy passages that should make me drool</i></span><br />
<span><i>Just make me want to fish my jeans out of his pool.<br />
</i><br />
Emma has many heirs, like Séverine in <i>Belle de Jour</i>,
also married to a doctor. We may consider Bunuel because he regarded
Paris as the capital of Spain, even before Franco. Indeed the Marquis
makes personal appearances in <i>two</i> of his films, and Severine gets the
whipping she dreams of. But not the life.<br /><br />Torture had always been
used for political purposes, as we use it now. The Church used it for
religious purposes, but then religion <i>is</i> politics (I propose this as a definition). De Sade's innovation is to have used it for sexual purposes.<br />
<br />
He is not spooked by age; his ramrod
hero the Duc de Blangis is fifty. Nor is he just a master, like
Nietszche; he submits to the whip himself, and Blangis regularly has
himself sodomized.<br />
<br />
There is no superego in de Sade, no
conscience, no heart to be appealed to; this is his fascination and his
insolence, and makes him royally dangerous. And, yes, the heart <i>is </i>tricky; it believes anything.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj5y9IG1gPu49s6neOSrY4NBG1-UrqUOLxlMStchllo5bHZBOHPtkR_cE4ojdlvdKjHFRZUo4Mb3sj8g9ZWcwXO4JOIE5FWAYA5AyoyKK303VHHGbwYiovLcvtSuIT2idQfoLJbTXctM4/s1600/DeSade.orgasm.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj5y9IG1gPu49s6neOSrY4NBG1-UrqUOLxlMStchllo5bHZBOHPtkR_cE4ojdlvdKjHFRZUo4Mb3sj8g9ZWcwXO4JOIE5FWAYA5AyoyKK303VHHGbwYiovLcvtSuIT2idQfoLJbTXctM4/s320/DeSade.orgasm.jpg" width="267" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><span>
On the other hand he identifies himself with nature, rather like Byron with the raging storm—magnificent, but faintly disappointing; why identify with anything? He supposes his sex drive to be larger than ours—how dare he! And his assumption that tenderness is cowardice doesn't fit quite comfortably, not that he cares for comfort.<br />
<br />
But his real sin, if I may so put it, is his seriousness. Libertinage and
perversion are fine old traditions, but Casanova and the Earl of
Rochester laugh at themselves. You won't find many laughs in the
Marquis. He is a man of commitment. And then, once the orgasm is over, we're left standing around in our leathers.<br />
<br />
<i>The Marquis was in many ways the pride of his species;<br />I just hope he flossed after gobbling those feces.</i><br />
<br />
It is almost precious that he is
vulnerable to jealousy: "She who, either in seeking base revenge or,
what can be even more sordid, out of a gross and vulgar urge to satisfy
her carnal appetites, gives herself wantonly to a footman—" But let us
draw a veil over the rest of this discourse.<br />
<br />
Quite apart from torture, he—more than Freud, <i>before</i>
Freud—made sex the content of every gesture. Like Freud he advised
resisting the superego (though he wants virtue to <i>exist</i>, or we'll miss
the pleasure of violating it), and Miller and Lawrence regarded him as the real liberator.
He sponsored the passionate commitment to the carnal that we have in
Genet, Duras and Robbe-Grillet. In what other country are there erotic
writers of such stature?<br />
<br />
A journalist at a press conference
accused President Mitterand of having, not only a mistress, but a
daughter by her. "<i>Et puis?</i>" he shrugged. "So?" End of story; not even a follow-up. In America
he'd have had to go on TV and say he was abused as a child, not that it
would halt the impeachment.<br /><br />One pictures Strauss-Kahn leaping
nude from single bed to single bed and throwing himself on a serving
wench. (Did he, however, force his shah into an unwelcoming oral cavity?
The portcullis comes down and then where are you?) It’s all the
Marquis, my darlings.<br />
<br />
“Orgasm and sarcasm,” as Woody Allen sums up the French, and they're related: if the former is
your reality, how much patience do you have with anything beyond the
enticements of <i>coiffure</i> and <i>couture</i>? <br />
<br />
The French critic Roland Barthes said
that “teasing is a sadistic passion,” and this, comic writer that I am,
draws me to him (de Sade, not Barthes). I’ve been thrown out of bars for
teasing. Kicked out of bed. Made to stand in corners. Can’t resist.<i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span><i>I used to be a semiologist<br />But now I’m not Saussure.</i><br />
<br />
It can be embarrassing for the
Anglo-trained male to realize that French women, I don't hesitate to
generalize, expect you to enjoy hurting them. They don't enjoy it
themselves, necessarily, but they expect <i>you</i> to. Gosh. They really <i>are</i> different people, and they regard <i>us</i>, with some justice, as children.<br />
<br />
The Marquis
could never have been an American. Manson's efforts achieved for him
only a kind of psychiatric sainthood. The
psychopath is a stock American figure, at least from Ahab on, and few Hollywood
movies are without one. But de Sade was in the Bastille so his family
could guard its reputation, and in
the Charenton asylum so the Revolution could distance itself from his
writings. He wasn’t a psycho.<br />
<br />
I often think that Shakespeare lies
behind the Anglo-Saxon success, just as Homer lay behind the
Graeco-Roman one. Alexander slept with the <i>Iliad</i> beside his bed; he wanted to be Achilles; Caesar wanted to be Alexander. [Hamlet declined to be Achilles; there are no heroes in
Shakespeare unless they're more or less assholes. De Sade, be it noted,
delights in violating every law of nobility he can think of.] The
Church, though it governed Europe for a thousand years, thrust its rule
into heretical times bolstered by Dante. France has the Marquis.<i> </i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBCGMfZX0d2CrE1yWRbdiLqSHmywA_4zEECkZZok9NDwR5ixXRXkNz91mUoP9s7aH2V2ieU57FO8j9eau56y-dtJZ7bFcOJfx3s9AhRchQrDMgksWY-3_w_ypme8jcxBboLhhgKIi3AMTetjOqLV1kjZvtdtHaLR5QIx_8hrguEiF80ghI1Ol4Q_9H=s1400" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1400" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiBCGMfZX0d2CrE1yWRbdiLqSHmywA_4zEECkZZok9NDwR5ixXRXkNz91mUoP9s7aH2V2ieU57FO8j9eau56y-dtJZ7bFcOJfx3s9AhRchQrDMgksWY-3_w_ypme8jcxBboLhhgKIi3AMTetjOqLV1kjZvtdtHaLR5QIx_8hrguEiF80ghI1Ol4Q_9H=w402-h241" width="402" /></a></div></span></span>
<span><span>
One overhears, in a Paris café (this
actually happened), two waiters discussing whether an acquaintance is
Cartesian or Pascallian: does he favor doubt or faith? <i>All</i> French, the French feel, are either one or the other, and we might rush to conclude that here are their real antecedents.<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>Sartre<br />Let an enormous fartre<br />And sighed, "Descartes be damned.<br />I stink, therefore I am."</i><br />
<br />
But regard the waiter as he separates
himself from his confrere to “serve” you, the subtle brusqueness with
which he lets you know you are intruding on his time, the culpable
helplessness with which you submit while he removes, with balletic
crispness, whatever is on your table, and asks you with a “<i>Oui, m’sieur</i>?” what you think you might want.<br />
<br />
Do not offer him your French to sneer
at. Only raise your eyes to meet his, gleaming down at you with casual
malice, and you will find yourself face to face, there can be no doubt,
with the Marquis.</span> </span></span><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His recent </span><em><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #241e12;">The Light Touch</span></em><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is on </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw1p3VPMD14gIxc_Wew6YsuK" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Amazon Prime</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://gdpr.tubi.tv/&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw1sh1Fq_CEFc_cCLUxwQ56g" href="https://gdpr.tubi.tv/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Tubi</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw0R2948-Ar-dOHy64FlnRJX" href="https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Scanbox</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and his </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DRSsRtvdiIyQ&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw34IYVPoHGyRXFhThsgnAMx" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSsRtvdiIyQ" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>7-minute comedy</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is an out-loud laugh</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. He is also a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw1XvnMtKCJdK0NMYwJTs_-D" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>novelist</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword%3DRobert%2520maclean&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw0h0yAVlA_SSCn51DKxqb0d" href="https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword=Robert%20maclean" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>playwright</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw0Zt7-4o_O5D-3b5cNN0QaS" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>blogger</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw1RxEzSMMc47Ni_CHC6dQwq" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>YouTuber</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw1Sn9qHGYhisNjf9BqZIn8Q" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>film reviewer</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw1XCEUU1gh1zl0MBDmZ7RMn" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>literary critic</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list%3DPL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw3LCc3XJK-ei7Z2d5EPL2FP" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>stand-up comic poet</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains, but an intellectual snob.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"><img class="CToWUd a6T" data-bit="iit" height="215" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4zWxtaxVMn-TDjnCW4DtkVjvfiawO7hZ7gzHA_BBx2UWs6AAYz6JLgUBxf1ZwKsO4XbJENOb7E=w267-h215" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px; padding: 5px;" tabindex="0" width="267" /><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;">“<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw1XvnMtKCJdK0NMYwJTs_-D" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and has no hair under her arms.</a>”—Salvador Dalí</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw1p3VPMD14gIxc_Wew6YsuK" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Light Touch on Amazon Prime</span></span></a></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw1RxEzSMMc47Ni_CHC6dQwq" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: large;">The Natural Wish to Be Robert MacLean</span></a></b></p><div dir="ltr" style="color: #222222;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1668617320963000&usg=AOvVaw0Zt7-4o_O5D-3b5cNN0QaS" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Devil's Pleasure Garden</span></span></a></b></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-size: small;"><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: red; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></span></p></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div></div>Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-20489968293024049302011-10-26T17:29:00.023+03:002024-02-20T02:24:12.842+02:00Catholics and Puritans<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”—H. L. Mencken</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUN6VzFDxcCt2T9qsaKRJ9nTtnlonYbjCTtjy42ZhlkcXpEEBkpZy4F6wxt6YigRpCTPHqaKvj5jvKjE86sMDpOtXNwZsBubHz3o4b2BzuvbgdxsXG-LgEV6hwF-k6Vpt9NbM20TYSW7k/s1600/Greece2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUN6VzFDxcCt2T9qsaKRJ9nTtnlonYbjCTtjy42ZhlkcXpEEBkpZy4F6wxt6YigRpCTPHqaKvj5jvKjE86sMDpOtXNwZsBubHz3o4b2BzuvbgdxsXG-LgEV6hwF-k6Vpt9NbM20TYSW7k/s320/Greece2.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">A fault line runs across Western
culture. On one side the Puritan work ethic rules the economy; on the
other it's something else. In America the line is the Rio Grande; the
exception is French Canada. In Europe the line is roughly defined by
the Alps; the exception is Ireland. </span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br />France, by this reckoning, is at the center of the
world, where it belongs. England is across a narrow channel from a
Mediterranean country.
</span><span><br /><br />So we might say that Catholicism, Roman
or Orthodox, is that "something else," though it seems to me that
religions arise out of peoples, not the other way around</span><span>—Nordic barbarians on the one hand, ancient civilizations on the other. South of the Alps people have been civilized—settled,
living together, absorbing invaders—for four thousand years (the old
polytheism peeks out from Catholicism), while our own ancestors were
still roaming the Siberian steppes.<br /><br />Shakespeare
was a civilized man, yes, but his London was barbaric. The British as a
people didn’t get there until Victoria, when Puritanism finally took
hold. Civilization is middle-class; the aristocrat, Nietzsche tells us,
is a barbarian. It’s fair to say that the British have been civilized
for only a hundred and fifty years. Not long before that my people
painted their faces before going into battle.
</span><span>(See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-racial-profile.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">My Racial Profile</span></b></a>.)<br /><br />We mustn’t confuse Puritanism with
prudery. Jean-Luc Godard, William Burroughs, Paul Schrader and David
Lynch are Puritans, but their work can be pornographic. <b><a href="https://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2012/02/vladimir-nabokov-and-twelve-year-old.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Vladimir Nabokov</span></a></b>
on the other hand was prudish, but in no way puritanical.
</span><span><br /><br />The Puritan is a dualist: soul/body,
good/evil. The world, for a Puritan, is a temptation to be got through.
The Catholic is a monist who believes in the earthly paradise. A few
adjustments will restore it. When the Pope disembarks from a plane he
gets down on his belly and kisses the ground. You won’t find the
Archbishop of Canterbury doing </span>
<span><span style="font-style: italic;">that</span>.<br /><br />Puritanism forbids images. An image is
false. Truth is elsewhere. The sources of Puritanism in our culture are
Moses and Plato. The second commandment forbids images. Plato banished
image-makers from his Republic.
</span><span><br /><br />According to Freud’s theory Moses was a
defeated Egyptian prince who led the Hebrew slaves away from
image-saturated Egypt to establish a monotheism; but when he came down
the mountain he found them backsliding, adoring an image, the bull
calf—which by the way had also been worshipped in Minoan Crete, as it is
today in India and Spain. (The bullfight, says Garcia Lorca, contra
<b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/09/hemingway-for-wimps.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Hemingway</span></a></b>, is “an authentic religious drama, where in the same manner as
in the Mass, a God is adored and sacrificed.”)
</span><span><br /><br />To forbid images is to impose
abstraction. All three puritan traditions, Judaism, Islam and
Protestantism, emphasize reading and abstract thinking. The Muslims
invented the zero, a <i>huge</i> feat of abstraction, and algebra, and gave us our numbers.
</span><span><br /><br />But the early Church, with illiterate
peasants and slaves to reach, had to interpret the second commandment as
not to worship “false gods.” Walk into a Catholic or an Orthodox church
and there are images on the walls, in the windows, on the ceiling, on
the floor. The first thing Puritans do is smash the statues and break
the stained glass.
</span><span><br /><br />Without the Catholic tradition we
wouldn’t have Giotto, Botticelli, Giorgione. There was no Jewish oil
painter of note until Chagall. [Correction: until <b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2013/11/gorgeousness.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Velázquez</span></a></b>.] In America, where abstraction is the
rule, painting has been reduced to the bathroom tile of Jackson Pollock.
</span><span><br /><br />Nor does physics permit images. The
imagination is bound by Euclid’s laws: the shortest distance between two
points, the three angles of a triangle. Newton built his universe in
Euclid’s space. But when our telescopes became strong enough, and our
cameras fast enough, to record the movements of galaxies, we saw that
they did not obey those laws.
</span><span><br /><br />Imagine three equidistant objects: easy.
Imagine four: a pyramid on a triangular base. Imagine five: can’t be
done. And yet it is so. Five hundred, five thousand galaxies where they
shouldn’t be: we cannot construct a model of our universe. We cannot
imagine it.
</span><span><br /><br />The image induces orgasm. You imagine her even when you’re having her. You imagine her even when you’re </span>
<span><span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> having her. Hence the veil.<br /><br />Ten years ago in Afghanistan, despite
the world’s outrage, the Taliban dynamited giant Buddhas carved in the
living rock; they were images and they had to go. Muslims on the other
hand were outraged by the Danish cartoons of the Prophet</span><span>—not so much that they mocked him as that he should have been portrayed in an image at all.<br /><br />Jean-Luc Godard attacks images; it has
been said that film is not his medium. William Burroughs did the same,
and refused to be labeled an “entertainer,” though that is scarcely
true. Still, these Puritans clear a space for the spirit. If there can
be no adequate image of God, or of reality, then there can be none of
you, which is comforting.
</span><span><br /><br />“I found America the friendliest, most
forgiving, and most generous nation I had ever visited. We South
Americans tend to think of things in terms of convenience, whereas
people in the United States approach things ethically. This—amateur
Protestant that I am—I admired above all. It even helped me overlook
skyscrapers, paper bags, television, plastics, and the unholy jungle of
gadgets.”—Jorge Luis Borges
</span><span><br /><br />The Puritan is a moralist; the Catholic, a
mystic. Consider opera, that Catholic art, that rite that
transubstantiates passion into music. What would Protestant opera
sound like? It would sound like Wagner</span><span>—moralistic, amelodic, German. (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2012/07/germans.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Germans</span></b></a>.)</span><span><br /><br />The Puritan believes in “character” in
the sense, not of what distinguishes you from others, but of moral
strength. You stand alone. Monotheism breeds the mono-self. In how many
Catholic works (by “Catholic” I do not mean “Christian”) of Rabelais,
Joyce, Picasso, does one self melt into another.
</span><span><br /><br />And so, in the Hollywood movie, we have the all-important “<a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/04/character-arc.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">character arc</span></b></a>", in which the lead Learns Something. Are </span>
<span><span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> learning anything? You’re gathering skills, I know that, but how’s the penetration of mystery going?<br /><br />An Irishman kills someone, and runs
north. Burdened by his guilt he seeks out a clergyman and unloads.
“You’ve done the right thing coming to me,” says the minister; “now you
must give yourself up to the authorities.” “I’d rather not,” says the
Irishman. “But you know that it’s <i>my</i> duty to tell them.” He runs.
The police are behind him. He goes south and escapes. Still heavy with
guilt he enters a church; the confessional light is on; he goes in and
kneels in the dark. “Father, I’ve committed murder.” “How many times, my
son?”
</span><span><br /><br />The Protestant public is outraged that the Church is not punishing more severely the pedophile priests. Character. “So <i>that’s</i> the kind of man you are!” But the Church believes in the forgiveness of sins, right here in the earthly paradise.
</span><span><br /><br />Let us not speak of Catholic and
Protestant; let us speak of Nordic and Mediterranean. For the vulgarity
north of the Alps is just as grotesque as it is in America.
</span><span><br /><br />Consider punching. Angry Mediterraneans
shout at each other in the street in a manner that shocks Nordics, in
that it never erupts into fighting. We barbarians love to punch.
</span><span><br /><br />Consider drunks. I <i>live</i> in Greece
and so far I’ve met two drunks. Walk down the street in New York,
Toronto or London and look around: we’re all drunks. In an Athens
grocery store you can buy plain alcohol for disinfecting cuts and
cleaning instruments; in those other cities you can get it in a <i>drug</i>
store, but it has an obnoxious smell, so we won’t drink it.
</span><span><br /><br />Consider farting which, along with
belching, is a mode of communication in the Anglo-Saxon world. In
Mediterranean countries it’s simply not done.
</span><span><br /><br />Oddly, when you think of the disdain of
which America is often the target (“America is the only country that
went from barbarism to decadence without civilisation in between,” said
Oscar Wilde), civilization took root on the seaboard before it did in
northern Europe, planted there by Puritan middle class intellectuals.
The United States is unique in that it is a country springing from
intellectual principles.
</span><span><br /><br />Norman Mailer said Puritanism was the
muscular contraction that brought us to the moon. But it exacts its
price in the impulse to legislate morality—the Mann Act, Prohibition,
abortion laws, the world’s biggest prison population (proportionately <i>and</i>
numerically); in the missionary zeal with which it brings democracy to
people who have no use for it; and in its conviction, right
down to the bone marrow, that the movement of money is the action of
God in the world. Bankers in Protestant countries are priests, their calling invested with high authority, and holy secrecy.
</span><span><br /> </span><br />
<span>That's the kind of morality a cold climate can produce. </span>
<span>The New Age library includes a host of books that will
help us adjust our attitudes and become more deserving. (Character
again: it depends What Kind Of Person You Are.) And today’s Republicans
will stop at nothing to reduce the national deficit and regain divine
favor. (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/federico-garcia-lorca-quote.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Lorca's remarks</span></b></a> on Wall Street.)<br /><br />Do you see this going away? I don't.
American fundamentalists are a political force strong enough to have
kept their President in office for eight years and, astonishingly, to
have fought Darwinian evolution for a century. No one understands America’s difficulty with this, and it appears to exercise
the best of the journalistic minds there. There's no contradiction
between creationism and Darwin’s Theory; the Church accepted it a
century ago, and the impermeability on this issue is disturbing
in such a powerful country. (See </span><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><u><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2011/09/post-planet-of-apes-thoughts-on-darwin.html"><b>The Accidental Monkey</b></a></u></span><span>.) </span><br />
<span><br />Two fundamentalisms now confront each
other, Islamic and American, degenerations, both, of once higher
cultures. The incidence of suicide bombings on the one hand, and the
gunning down of numbers of people at a time on the other, cannot but
seem connected.
</span><span><br /><br />It was the Puritan poet John Milton who
towered over English Romanticism, which was really a kind of secular
Presbyterianism, and each of the poets (except the Shakespearean Keats),
even Worsdworth in his quiet way, took Milton’s Satan as his
psychological model, though Coleridge preferred wailing for him.
</span><span><br /><br />Thus was born the Byronic hero, the
Puritan rebel our popular imagination inherits. Marlon Brando was its
fiercest avatar, but the figure remains</span><span>—that lonely Puritan rebel is still our dominant model.<br /><br />Here in Greece, as the world now knows,
there is a splendid insouciance about money. At the supermarket, even at
such formal places as the bank and the post office, if you don’t have
the right change, “Pay me next time.” Which means forget it. There is
such an elegance about that, but it makes us positively stutter to
confront it.
</span><span><br /><br />The characters in <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">my books</span></a></b>, like me,
hang out south of the Alps, not only because they're paradisiacs but
because here they're a little beyond Big Brother's reach.
</span><span><br /><br />Ah, but the barbarians are again at the gates.
</span><span><br /><br /><br />Afterthoughts:
</span><span><br /><br />1) What T.S. Eliot calls the
“dissociation of sensibility” set in with the Puritan revolution—a
schizophrenic scissoring of the mind from the sense of self on the one
hand, and from the world, including the body, on the other. The
corresponding Catholic psychosis is manic-depression. <b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2012/12/fellini.html"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Fellini</span></a></b> cuts on
laughter and tears, and </span>
<span><span style="font-style: italic;">8½</span> resolves when Guido’s spirits simply lift.<br /><br />2) "The romantic temper,” says Stephen
Dedalus, “is an insecure, unsatisfied, impatient temper which sees no
fit abode here for its ideals." Our own taste for parallel worlds, New
Age projections and internet avatars is a case in point: life is
elsewhere.
</span><span><br /><br />3) Find the mortal world enough;
</span><span><br />Noons of dryness see you fed
</span><span><br />By the involuntary powers,
</span><span><br />Nights of insult let you pass
</span><span><br />Watched by every human love.
</span><span><br />—W. H. Auden, “Lullaby”
</span><span><br /><br />4) Comedy is the Catholic form, as in
Dante; tragedy is the other thing. Robert Graves’s Protestant mother and
Catholic father fell in love with a house in Wales: “Oh,” she said, “I
could die here.” “Let’s <i>live</i> here,” he said.
</span><span><br /><br />5) See also <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/03/catholic-converts.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Catholic Converts</span></b></a>.
</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div style="color: red;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; line-height: 24.64px; text-align: start;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a name="m_5851771585743956559_SignatureSanitizer__Hlk103709735"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His recent </span></a><em><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #241e12;">The Light Touch</span></em><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is on </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3wCgwsCLZtNYGGXfLUQ2eq" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Amazon Prime</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://gdpr.tubi.tv/&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3CtN1fF0egocc8-0nySsWW" href="https://gdpr.tubi.tv/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Tubi</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw0UZPBQ4Yl025MfJg2lxB8Q" href="https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Scanbox</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and his </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DRSsRtvdiIyQ&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3_nrbu6PpK2WBQZIy7MJ4K" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSsRtvdiIyQ" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">7-minute comedy</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is an out-loud laugh</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. He is also a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw0Et0XfmasEqHjpz0SLfLjU" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">novelist</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword%3DRobert%2520maclean&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw0ZGOgIyUHBRxVVQh6xI7yj" href="https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword=Robert%20maclean" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">playwright</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3HTjSljvyBaFwg3Gl3ZC86" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">blogger</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw1R6UfPx5WKG_c6C5uqn26C" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>YouTuber</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw2WXmpYOe5LQPrme-rZ_pNM" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>film reviewer</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw1R1KoAFJldxLrQT4652Ehd" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>literary critic</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list%3DPL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3qWLsU21e2yhkIPdJ_tJ9F" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">stand-up comic poet</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. Born Toronto, </span></span><span style="color: #241e12;">PhD McGill,</span><span style="color: #241e12;"> </span><span style="color: #241e12; font-size: large;">taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains, but an intellectual snob.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"><img class="CToWUd a6T" data-bit="iit" height="200" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4xMcRx2munm4xWCLySlvNfewbS9CTJi_D0rg77QSbH1R5DXvxF41N-xOVJSa6-LZDvRn_S_wsQ" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px; padding: 5px;" tabindex="0" width="156" /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #4472c4;">“<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw0Et0XfmasEqHjpz0SLfLjU" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">I was beastly but never coarse. A high-class sort of heel.</a>”</span></b><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3wCgwsCLZtNYGGXfLUQ2eq" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">The Light Touch on Amazon Prime</span></a></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw1R6UfPx5WKG_c6C5uqn26C" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Natural Wish to Be Robert MacLean</span></a></b></p><div dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3HTjSljvyBaFwg3Gl3ZC86" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">The Devil's Pleasure Garden</span></a></b></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Toby Moments on YouTube:</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://youtu.be/MlyKCT_s4_E" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-large;">Jaws</span></a></b></div></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pfpc4xc0d0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Shoot the Baby</span></a></b></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/05/joyce-said-yes.html" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Trying It On</span></a></b><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif" style="color: #2b00fe;"> </span></span></div><div><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRl_dqRtJYo" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">The Tipping Point</span></a></b></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"><b><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/02/in-spirit-of-rabelais.html" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Champagne and Ice Cream</span></span></a></b></span></div><div><b><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">Here on the blog:</span></b></div><div><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2010/10/existenz.html" style="color: #2b00fe; text-decoration-line: none;">Toby's Marriage Guide for Men</a></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/07/cotton-tail-by-louis-duke-has-just-been.html" style="color: #2b00fe; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;">Toby movies</a> </span></span></div><div><span face="Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif"><b><span style="color: red; font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Toby books:</span></b></span><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-44836770646526460912011-09-29T16:33:00.019+03:002023-03-20T20:47:31.694+02:00Hemingway for Wimps<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>I’m thinking of writing a book with that title, </span><span>about how to look death in the face and then run like hell.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fRToAznd2mg" width="320" youtube-src-id="fRToAznd2mg"></iframe></div>Hemingway was the most important writer of the twentieth century—not the best, but the most important. Too schoolboy-magazine, really, but of world-class stature.<br /><br />Well, what does “not the best” mean? The novels haven’t held up. I love <i>The Sun Also Rises</i>, but it’s the only one that works these days, at least for me.<br /><br />But the stories are up there with the greatest: Scheherazade, Boccaccio, Chekhov, Kafka, Hemingway. “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”—is there a wilder, more gripping story? Gable and Peck both starred in film versions.<br /><br />But that’s not the point. The importance of Hemingway was that he defined the American man, really for the first time. Tom and Huck defined boyhood, not manhood. Arthur Dimmesdale, Natty Bumpo, these are versions of the British gentleman, meaning the British aristocrat, like Tarzan</span><span face=""arial" , "sans-serif"" lang="EN-US">—</span><span>th</span><span>e only model American men had, and the world had of American men.<br /><br />Look at the heroes of the movies of the twenties. The most popular was Douglas Fairbanks, an American version of the British gentleman. Barrymore, Adolpf Menjou—ersatz Brits. Ronald Coleman—a Brit.<br /><br />But in the thirties, when everybody’s read the novels, or heard of them, we have the emergence of Hemingway Man: Gable, Bogart, Cooper. Tough guys. "If you want to call me that, smile."<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wWyz-VAA64U" width="320" youtube-src-id="wWyz-VAA64U"></iframe></div>The British aristocrat, <i>all</i> old-world aristocrats, trace their lineage back to myth, to heroes and gods who slew monsters. Hemingway slew his own monsters—bulls, lions, charging buffalo, giant fish—he traveled the world seeking them out. It was very strongly felt by the young men who fought in Korea and Vietnam that you couldn’t <i>be</i> a man unless you had stood up under a shelling—“that chastening,” as he called it.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizNRvXlbvOOqipAqz59RVeULw2SbDGmh1r0nzgaHHylixYojjkB7SF94rYL-XmLUxPO_YdUr1M7kSH_Jn62BTUDS_zwg0bDUbIf7OqlKDrb7mdOThqNV1UtcZ1on1Y0v7vVCncFujCGEM/s1600/Hem.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizNRvXlbvOOqipAqz59RVeULw2SbDGmh1r0nzgaHHylixYojjkB7SF94rYL-XmLUxPO_YdUr1M7kSH_Jn62BTUDS_zwg0bDUbIf7OqlKDrb7mdOThqNV1UtcZ1on1Y0v7vVCncFujCGEM/s320/Hem.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>It is no exaggeration to say that what we call “the sixties,” the movement and broad social feeling roughly between 1966 and 1975, was a reaction against Hemingway, the minting of post-Hemingway man. (Nor is it any exaggeration to say that the feminist movement that gathered such strength then was a reaction against the courtly love tradition, but <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.gr/2012/06/some-notes-on-god.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">that’s another story</span></b></a>.)<br /><br />There had always been guys like Teddy Roosevelt, “big-stick” guys, macho guys. Indeed, Graham Greene says that machismo is an inheritance from the Romans, and exists only in places that had been part of the Empire, and their colonies. </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvYrpeuBB1DBtLpgjt_doZ05LX1oDhU_BOHZNVardOjdQgKs3_c5wBplb_sIsQQXjX7QflJ0-ZfTsRzuJzAMVZBMA64LE2yKk2OVeDvDk_7DWP68wUixKwGRfaBK92U86dgmTRS-z2YT0/s1600/Hem2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvYrpeuBB1DBtLpgjt_doZ05LX1oDhU_BOHZNVardOjdQgKs3_c5wBplb_sIsQQXjX7QflJ0-ZfTsRzuJzAMVZBMA64LE2yKk2OVeDvDk_7DWP68wUixKwGRfaBK92U86dgmTRS-z2YT0/s320/Hem2.jpg" width="247" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>But Papa wore macho with a glamour that seduced the world, and gave America, and American men—and their women—a specialness, an identity, a global profile.<br /><br />Fitzgerald, who wrote the finest English prose since Shakespeare, and was a more generous man than Hemingway, who despised him, was shouldered out by Hemingway Man, and knew it, and resented it, and forgave it. Fitzgerald was the opposite of a tough guy, and therefore in competition with the British gentleman. He wrote very little that wasn’t designed to show that American class had more class than British class. </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUvFNwRSRhwP6-OQnpu-6KoZulUsu797RYZ-bfEszaSxy1M71Ys_GExyLAMnuXQlczY0LSlVBrgKOYbztegJ1j4FPj9qC0vo51KyE2LSaHNyF5CWoFfLbWOj_y5VCrl87wT8ciilgGJ5s/s1600/Hem3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUvFNwRSRhwP6-OQnpu-6KoZulUsu797RYZ-bfEszaSxy1M71Ys_GExyLAMnuXQlczY0LSlVBrgKOYbztegJ1j4FPj9qC0vo51KyE2LSaHNyF5CWoFfLbWOj_y5VCrl87wT8ciilgGJ5s/s320/Hem3.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>But by the thirties, nobody cared. Indeed, who cares now? Name a recent American president, even the sitting one, who isn’t cut from Hemingway’s cloth.<br /><br />Ironically—for we must have irony, I can’t live without it—he finished life as a lesbian.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigAMLiul_wyOnwFwHEzQ6GvEUUEnmOENLCuQWo7FPofYfUZiEIYihOfn8gAdSTCP3GZW5CewsaSHnZVVjGFttifmrNc4x2KQPsDgn9VqwAEqDaxa-T582hSJJHdnF7lCwOvKWj-RvAhMs/s1600/Hem5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigAMLiul_wyOnwFwHEzQ6GvEUUEnmOENLCuQWo7FPofYfUZiEIYihOfn8gAdSTCP3GZW5CewsaSHnZVVjGFttifmrNc4x2KQPsDgn9VqwAEqDaxa-T582hSJJHdnF7lCwOvKWj-RvAhMs/s1600/Hem5.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>He became fascinated by lesbianism, put it in his novels and stories, and asked of his women that they treat him as one of them in bed. Well, it takes balls.<br /><br />One of my English professors told us that the Hemingway mystique was false if it came down to blowing your own head off, but that’s unfair. Papa had been concussed and internally damaged in two back-to-back small-plane crashes in the jungle, and must have been in enormous pain. With pain like that you can’t tell whether it’s physical or spiritual. Drugs, booze, shock treatments, going blind, I mean come on.</span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqueHs1Pk7yubAvwFctg0UKjKF3LUoVe1FFzBgTxiaH1SVDtzDZgxYGo1GvFBmwNKrD8YN7A_Venv1QCFV99MSy_nULapBlAK0j1eh8Y5ecmZdvVq3oxgDymJG1N6OfSrnVUZHKwEugc/s1600/Hem4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqueHs1Pk7yubAvwFctg0UKjKF3LUoVe1FFzBgTxiaH1SVDtzDZgxYGo1GvFBmwNKrD8YN7A_Venv1QCFV99MSy_nULapBlAK0j1eh8Y5ecmZdvVq3oxgDymJG1N6OfSrnVUZHKwEugc/s1600/Hem4.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>You’ve got to get out from under your heroes, and I think I <i>have </i>moved on from Hemingway. My characters are as wimpy as I am. But his presence is still there. Norman Mailer carried it for us until a few years ago. I leave you with this:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jna3xWzaf-E" width="320" youtube-src-id="jna3xWzaf-E"></iframe></div><span id="goog_786558838"></span></span></span><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>For more such idle verse see</span><span> <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HYAsBJcoT93zM3qIx1SXJYDcfvfDsG4"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Literary Musings</span></a></b><span style="color: blue;">.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><a name="m_5851771585743956559_SignatureSanitizer__Hlk103709735"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His recent </span></a><em><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #241e12;">The Light Touch</span></em><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is on </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3wCgwsCLZtNYGGXfLUQ2eq" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Amazon Prime</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://gdpr.tubi.tv/&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3CtN1fF0egocc8-0nySsWW" href="https://gdpr.tubi.tv/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Tubi</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw0UZPBQ4Yl025MfJg2lxB8Q" href="https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>Scanbox</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and his </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DRSsRtvdiIyQ&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3_nrbu6PpK2WBQZIy7MJ4K" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSsRtvdiIyQ" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>7-minute comedy</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is an out-loud laugh</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. He is also a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw0Et0XfmasEqHjpz0SLfLjU" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>novelist</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword%3DRobert%2520maclean&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw0ZGOgIyUHBRxVVQh6xI7yj" href="https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword=Robert%20maclean" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>playwright</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3HTjSljvyBaFwg3Gl3ZC86" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>blogger</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw1R6UfPx5WKG_c6C5uqn26C" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>YouTuber</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw2WXmpYOe5LQPrme-rZ_pNM" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>film reviewer</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw1R1KoAFJldxLrQT4652Ehd" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>literary critic</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list%3DPL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3qWLsU21e2yhkIPdJ_tJ9F" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong>stand-up comic poet</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains, but an intellectual snob.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"><img class="CToWUd a6T" data-bit="iit" height="200" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4xMcRx2munm4xWCLySlvNfewbS9CTJi_D0rg77QSbH1R5DXvxF41N-xOVJSa6-LZDvRn_S_wsQ" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px; padding: 5px;" tabindex="0" width="156" /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #4472c4;">“<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw0Et0XfmasEqHjpz0SLfLjU" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">I was beastly but never coarse. A high-class sort of heel.</a>”</span></b><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3wCgwsCLZtNYGGXfLUQ2eq" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">The Light Touch on Amazon Prime</span></a></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw1R6UfPx5WKG_c6C5uqn26C" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Natural Wish to Be Robert MacLean</a></b></p><div dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1663768463757000&usg=AOvVaw3HTjSljvyBaFwg3Gl3ZC86" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">The Devil's Pleasure Garden</span></a></b></div><div dir="ltr" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></div></div><div><div style="color: red;"><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>
</div>Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-66380244930488135852011-09-07T18:27:00.044+03:002024-02-18T20:22:40.262+02:00The Accidental Monkey<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CK9D10icMWc" width="320" youtube-src-id="CK9D10icMWc"></iframe><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>The accidental monkey<br />‘S a metaphysics junkie<br />With bothersome abysses on his mind;<br /><br />Preoccupied with dying,<br />Interminably trying<br />To turn around and glimpse his own behind.<br /><br />His finger in his yin-yang<br />He contemplates the Big Bang,<br />The earliest ancestor he can find,<br /><br />Unless it’s all that room<br />The Bang had to go boom—<br />Or does it create space as it unwinds,<br /><br />A spreading dance of gravity<br />In a <i>potential</i> cavity<br />Like that in which his finger is entwined?</span><br /><span><br /></span><span>Reality extrudes him.<br />Its structure still eludes him,<br />His probing finger warmer but confined.<br /><br />A cosmos so anonymous,<br />How can it but be ominous<br />That such vast masonry was left unsigned?</span><br /><span><br /></span><span>Enigma born of distances<br />And exquisite resistances—<br />Too seamless not to seem that way designed.<br /><br />Theisms, whether mono<br />Or other sorts of guano,<br />Have left his spirit largely unaligned.<br /><br />Perusing Darwin’s Theory<br />He feels a little leery<br />Of sepia-toned free-market states of mind.<br /><br />Amino acid soup-erman<br />Whose wake-up call so overran<br />’S the one myth all the apes have not maligned;<br /><br />But too unscientific<br />To offer much specific,<br />As willing as he is to be resigned.<br /><br />The spiral strands of rubble<br />He surveys through the Hubble<br />May possibly bear others of his kind.<br /><br />Would that be any better,<br />To get an email letter<br />From some strange breed of orphans just as blind?<br /><br />Abject on a conveyor,<br />Hunched over as for prayer<br />He’s hummed through life bowed down by double bind.<br /><br />The horizontal motion<br />Admits no meta-notion,<br />His view cut off both forward and behind.<br /><br /><i>A bas</i> with this banality!<br />He opts for verticality—<br />His heart leaps up and stands in him star-high!<br /><br />A fallen god no longer,<br />Already he feels stronger,<br />Astral banana peeling off the rind!<br /><br />Abyss-wise up is down though<br />And starry heaven’s clown so<br />Has raised his head it’s lodged in his behind.<br /><br />Divine but rather stupid,<br />Of Morpheus and Cupid,<br />And to this grosser matter self-consigned,<br /><br />The accidental monkey<br />At least is his own flunky,<br />And buoyed by this he hop-turns to the grind.</span></span></blockquote><div> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBotzj4FCS5zfxxqO19p2oEt1_2ovWafUWIYGIii06Fjdx1FlKMnkb9S_nravtus_4GGO3zFmnL886f43JN_Ipfw8moac33LT3WgcY-OdHw-2pNshhiyNJYOSa-M9m7aAu0vWnBoEGF65qFhyphenhyphenBxsmnfE2qL6JyM6RSlwjAe_CKi9tOsjjJO0C2_owlXYc/s512/3C%20enhanced.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="425" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBotzj4FCS5zfxxqO19p2oEt1_2ovWafUWIYGIii06Fjdx1FlKMnkb9S_nravtus_4GGO3zFmnL886f43JN_Ipfw8moac33LT3WgcY-OdHw-2pNshhiyNJYOSa-M9m7aAu0vWnBoEGF65qFhyphenhyphenBxsmnfE2qL6JyM6RSlwjAe_CKi9tOsjjJO0C2_owlXYc/w133-h160/3C%20enhanced.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><br /><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 25.2px; text-align: left;">"</span>That which has always been accepted by</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>everyone, everywhere, is </span></span><span style="font-size: x-large;">almost</span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>certain to be false.</span><span><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;">"</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span face=""arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; text-align: left;">—Paul </span>Valéry</span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Darwin was a Romantic. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The Romantic is impatient with mystery. He must identify himself, and that means to identify <i>with</i> something, or someone—to be able to say, “That’s me”</span><span>—which</span><span> requires indulging in metaphysics, as who can help doing?</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The usual Romantic choice is Nature. De Sade identified with a Nature that was bloody, murderous and, well, sadistic (see <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The Marquis de Sade, Father of Modern France</span></b></a>); Byron, with the storm; Shelley, with the west wind</span><span>—</span><span>“Be thou me, impetuous one!” (perhaps he's punning; </span><span><i>péter</i> is French for fart); Marx, with history, which he thought behaved rationally; Darwin, with the orangutan; and Freud with Darwin: the id is the ape within.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>For the Romantics, and for much of the nineteenth century, time was an absolute. The ancient <i>Greek</i> absolute was space, three-dimensional Euclidian space. </span><span>The Greeks knew the diameter of the globe, and o</span><span>ne idea moving behind appearances gives the parallax of rational thought.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>This same enthusiasm was unearthed in the Renaissance. Three-dimensional painting became an optical science, Baroque perspective dominated everything from Versailles to the ruler-drawn borders of America, and Newton built his universe in Euclid’s space. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>The inward-looking Romantics were in love with one aspect of this space, infinite time. An object is inert in that it doesn’t move unless acted upon, and in motion continues <i>forever</i> unless it meets another force. That line describes infinite time. </span><span>Space, said Kant, is our outer sense, time our inner sense. Likewise for Godard the shot is a glance, montage a heartbeat. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>In all of literature, said Northrop Frye, there are only two books that go from the beginning to the end, the bible and </span><i><span>The Communist Manifesto</span></i><span>. Darwin stopped in the present, but his time-line was infinite.</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>This absolute collapsed, however, in the 1870s and 80s, when our telescopes became strong enough, and our cameras fast enough, to record the movements of galaxies, and we saw that their placement doesn't fit three-dimensional space. Of this arrangement we cannot construct a model—cannot <i>imagine</i> it. Euclid’s laws, it turns out, are the laws of the mind, and we can’t think outside them. (See on this <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/10/greece-versus-puritans.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Greece versus the Puritans</span></b></a>.) </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>We call intergalactic space “curved” as a metaphor derived from Mercator’s projection: if Moscow and Saint Petersburg are the right distance apart, Nairobi and Mombasa can’t be, and vice versa. (There’s more on this in <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-we-knowan-excursion-into-unscience.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">What We Know</span></b></a>.) But if space is skew, so is the now perhaps <i>finite</i> time-line. </span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>And the nineteenth-century view of things has survived. Is it therefore the fittest? That esteemed entomologist <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2012/02/vladimir-nabokov-and-twelve-year-old.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Vladimir Nabokov</span></b></a> said, </span><span>“</span><span>Perhaps the most admirable among the admirable laws of Nature is the survival of the weakest.</span><span>”</span><br />
<span><br /></span><span>Evolution is our myth, our default belief about ourselves. Ask any jerk walking down the street and he'll tell you the score. Have a banana. The “scientists” who publish daily base their speculations on it, as do the literary Naturalists, from Flaubert and Zola to Norman Mailer. Poor disappointed Strindberg wondered if men and women were not descended from different monkeys.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>It's a version of the medieval Great Chain of Being, from God and the angels down to minerals, laid on its side and extended in time. Stanley Kubrick, that stern satirist, was having none of it. In a gesture of victory an ape throws his bone-club, the first tool, into the air and, leaping the longest gap ever in a piece of montage, it becomes a space module. No explanation needed—<i>our</i> myth, and therefore invisible. But if being the fittest were just a matter of incremental circuitry the computer HAL (read IBM) would win. (See also <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/04/some-thoughts-on-stanley-kubrick.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Some Thoughts on Stanley Kubrick</span></b></a>.) </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Ludwig Wittgenstein, in many ways an exemplary thinker, said, “Darwin’s theory has no more to do with philosophy than any other hypothesis in natural science.” But it <i>isn’t </i>a “theory.” Scientific method requires of a theory that it be testable, “verifiable,” as Karl Popper put it. Nothing in the Theory can be tested. </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>“Science,” said Paul Valéry, “means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. The rest is literature.” And t</span><span>here </span><span><i>are</i> other ways </span><span>to read the fossil record. "Facts"? Turn a fact a little this way and a little that and it will show you a different face. The proper concern of science, as Edgar Poe said, is not with facts but with laws.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Why do I quote artists rather than scientists? Because they're better. Poe, with his take on Newton, and his understanding that physics is metaphysics, anticipated much that a later century found revolutionary. "Space and Duration are one," he said. Whereas scientists, so numerous, so earnest, are as guilty as the rest of us of scient<i>ism</i>, the confidence that science knows it all, <i>can</i> know it all, <i>will</i> know it all.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Most of them are kids publishing or perishing, and have no time to think things all the way through</span><span>—nor would they dare commit heresy. Sponsor spank. And so the Theory assumes the rigidity of religious dogma. Doubt "science" and you can go to the stake. Just look at the comments on this essay.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Must we be saddled with the effort to imagine one thing turning into another, and</span><span> to explain the existence of </span><span>“stuff,” that from which we </span><span>“evolved”? Or was it always there? Always will be? Are we flirting with a model of God? </span><span>Are we creationists?</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Darwin was a creationist. And the pope is a Darwinist, no problem there. The Scopes monkey trial baffled literate onlookers. Only fundamentalists could insist that the world was created five thousand years ago like it says in the bible. In the movie, Spencer Tracy (marvelous man) shouts “I don’t give a damn about right and wrong!” “What </span><i><span>do</span></i><span> you give a damn about?” “TRUTH!” </span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Well, truth is hard to come by, and overrated. </span><span>We know how things behave, but what they are is a closed door.</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>Is our local Euclidian time-line long enough to <i>accommodate</i> the Theory? Godard, to come back to him, says no, it’s too short to get all the way from the amino-acid soup to us. “Our ignorance of our nature,” he says, “is total.”</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span>And Valéry, to come back to <i>him</i> (he had what Nabokov calls “the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist”), says:</span><br />
<span><br /></span>
<span><i>Humanity is very young and its memory short. Hence it is quite legitimate to surmise that the known physical laws are no more than hasty conclusions drawn from too brief observation and that the human race as we know it (</i>Homo sapiens<i>) has so far existed only between two manifestations of prodigious, discontinuous “laws,” between two gaps in the order of the universe. But a man who watches a church clock from five past to fifty-five past twelve cannot know that it strikes the hour; cannot even guess this. It is not impossible that certain inexplicable phenomena, such as the appearance of life on our planet, are the effects of intermittent laws, laws whose successive manifestations we have not yet had time enough to observe.</i></span><br />
<span><i><br /></i></span>
<span>Of course that opens things up to uncomfortable speculation. (See <a href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2012/06/some-notes-on-god.html"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Some Notes on God</span></b></a>.)</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi28gU_cB9ddEpjTw7fjIdedmEEisjUZvLy74h1bVeEM8IK05Ld1lMUrJW91AHnp3ejpIyF-wgn9jPF6u05YHjbyOdmjGvjVCNu6jorVSyKoBzqB-YSATH1HxW8PmT8fvpM5EPtXOKV25w/s1600/Mantegna%252C_Andrea_-_crucifixion_-_Louvre_from_Predella_San_Zeno_Altarpiece_Verona.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="800" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi28gU_cB9ddEpjTw7fjIdedmEEisjUZvLy74h1bVeEM8IK05Ld1lMUrJW91AHnp3ejpIyF-wgn9jPF6u05YHjbyOdmjGvjVCNu6jorVSyKoBzqB-YSATH1HxW8PmT8fvpM5EPtXOKV25w/s320/Mantegna%252C_Andrea_-_crucifixion_-_Louvre_from_Predella_San_Zeno_Altarpiece_Verona.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Perhaps I’ve been living too long in Greece. These Mediterraneans are classicists, rock people, as Dalí says, and he evokes Mantegna to prove it. Romantics are Nordics, forest-and-fog people, music-and-flowers people, gazing inward at evanescent visions. </span><span>“My moustache is the contrary of Nietzsche’s, which is depressive, with plenty of music. Mine is a pair of erect scissors, the rocks of this country.</span><span>” </span><br />
</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9fAUcEnHfMW-Chfk1p9L0Du_w9gMW0kjNNn3E4RKCIt1VChhahx5v9K0kRb9yUfpFxopZPKcuJLOyrO9FdNf6oNi3qEooCNCokKh6egBGa0qZK68vMgG4E_jfrdHAkA9hcgKW5kZBaqM/s1600/salvador-dali-portrait-travis-knight.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9fAUcEnHfMW-Chfk1p9L0Du_w9gMW0kjNNn3E4RKCIt1VChhahx5v9K0kRb9yUfpFxopZPKcuJLOyrO9FdNf6oNi3qEooCNCokKh6egBGa0qZK68vMgG4E_jfrdHAkA9hcgKW5kZBaqM/s320/salvador-dali-portrait-travis-knight.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">And indeed, Romantic depth can usually be traced to indigestion.</span></div></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><p align="center" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Algerian; font-size: 28pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SBYC5LY/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr="><span style="color: #2b00fe;">On
amazon</span></a></span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Algerian; font-size: 28pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p></span></span></div></span></span><p style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 3pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His recent </span><em><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #241e12;">The Light Touch</span></em><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is on </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw0jU36DuQbHdRZI4uGWKRTd" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>Amazon Prime</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://gdpr.tubi.tv/&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw3ZEmCrAyp1LeF5LEbNoWwX" href="https://gdpr.tubi.tv/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>Tubi</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw20MORPLELxQmsVbL2Eb3-d" href="https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>Scanbox</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and his </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DRSsRtvdiIyQ&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw2xT8UGvmh-7E8g5baUXup7" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSsRtvdiIyQ" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>7-minute comedy</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is an out-loud laugh</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. He is also a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw32YAiBOWfAFXlYihtRMtn4" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>novelist</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword%3DRobert%2520maclean&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw0fPGI9LDpGfgnWKUeHK3TA" href="https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword=Robert%20maclean" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>playwright</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw3RokKuWc96YUn5Xp6Ii8ig" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>blogger</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw0RPH3LA-Vqc0-YCnkBsF2V" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><b>YouTuber</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw3mCaHDgxW3ieJQn0j_iPvW" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><b>film reviewer</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw2ppq61n-iGDq-hdNO8qE_p" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><b>literary critic</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list%3DPL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw0IyL6ikClW04zUDR2uQWf2" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><strong>stand-up comic poet</strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains, but an intellectual snob.</span></span><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0cm 0cm 3pt;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"><img class="CToWUd a6T" data-bit="iit" height="132" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4wVRBP9MY1Y66ofTMkHxiHhkm2kDwesBM7hJpEkh70bqLi_EEY5OTbqPlvz4wKo1UB7OWvfBZ4" style="cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;" tabindex="0" width="200" /><br /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0cm 0cm 3pt;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">“<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/07/cotton-tail-by-louis-duke-has-just-been.html&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw3K_YSrsnJrsrW6JTuTYF99" href="https://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/07/cotton-tail-by-louis-duke-has-just-been.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Like all that is best in life I am quite useless.</a>”</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw1uHmCnHWqFJA1lP0vA8Wqe" href="https://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Film reviews:<i> Poor Things</i> and <i>Napoleon</i></span></a></b><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw0jU36DuQbHdRZI4uGWKRTd" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">The Light Touch on Amazon Prime</span></a></span></b><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1708360877034000&usg=AOvVaw0RPH3LA-Vqc0-YCnkBsF2V" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">Exquisite Pleasures</span></a></b></p>
<br />
<div style="color: red;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a></span></div>
</div>
</div>Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-69288634538632290292011-07-11T20:04:00.029+03:002023-05-15T17:06:15.254+03:00My Racial Profile<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFva9XWdRk6lyKmVmEpB69lghS4Arq1osdh-tqY8JGdOqqLL-OiZzXdwELrR30RSoZGbfpHM-OUs4GdM1H5hne7niSyt5gzmV6A2-b7GWolZkzEkgEpT983a6iPqMPG6cXJhxNdd0q8qI/s1600/kkk.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFva9XWdRk6lyKmVmEpB69lghS4Arq1osdh-tqY8JGdOqqLL-OiZzXdwELrR30RSoZGbfpHM-OUs4GdM1H5hne7niSyt5gzmV6A2-b7GWolZkzEkgEpT983a6iPqMPG6cXJhxNdd0q8qI/s320/kkk.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form?...It was proof to the unhappy Hook that Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very pinnacle of good form."—James M. Barrie</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">I’ve got English and Irish in me, and they hate each other.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span><br />
Actually it’s English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh—the whole catastrophe.
</span><span><br /><br />
But it doesn’t stop there. You have two parents, four grandparents,
eight great-grandparents, etc. Counting thirty years per generation, as
genealogists do, three hundred years ago you have one thousand
great-times-nine grandparents. Six hundred years ago, you have a million. </span>
<span><i>Nine</i> hundred years ago, you have one billion <i>direct</i> mothers and fathers.<br /><br />
Now, nine hundred years ago there were only two million people in the
British Isles, which means everybody there had to be my straight-line
parent—let me do the math, here—five hundred times over.
</span><span><br /><br />
And as genealogists tell us, the only thing we know for sure about our
ancestors is that they slept around. What pours down through that
bottleneck that kept mine so busy?
</span><span><br /><br />
Going back to the beginning, there seems to have been an aboriginal
people on those islands before the arrival of the invaders from Siberia,
a short people Tolkien immortalizes as Hobbits, and that’s as
scientific as we’re likely to get about them. Whatever happened to
them?
</span><span><br /><br />
The land of my father’s people was occupied by the Picts, about whom
much has been written but nothing is known, except that rather than
conquer them the Romans simply built a wall across the thinnest part of
the island to keep them out.
</span><span><br /><br />
The various waves of Celts that swept in seem to have left them intact
until the Irish, who, when Ireland was called “Scotland,” invaded
Pictish territory and took over the Highlands. But that was later.
</span><span><br /><br />
I gave my first novel to an old Belgian painter, and when he finished it he said, “You’re a </span>
<span><i>Celt!</i>”, though my name might have tipped him off.<br /><br />
The first traders to come to the remote British islands ("British" is a
Celtic word) were those adventurous Phoenicians, who must have left
behind some of their seed—what sailor doesn’t?—so there’s Syrian blood
in my background.
</span><span><br /><br />
<i>Britannium</i>
</span><span> was a Roman province for four centuries, a long time
by any standard—street lights, highways, libraries, museums, swimming
pools, a police force, central heating—<i>yes!</i> The Romans built their houses over pits of live coals so the heat came up through every part of the floor. <i>They</i>
knew how to live there. Not till the Americans took over was it again
possible to be warm and clean at the same time in Britain, though they
still don’t have the hang of it.<br /><br />
So there’s a lot of Italian in my racial mix. And into that civilized
and enlightened holiday spot for rich Romans came Diaspora Jews, Greek
high-school teachers, Alexandrian scholars, </span>
<span><i>Côte d'Azur</i> serving wenches—people from all over the Empire.<br /><br />
Soldiers guarding Hadrian’s Wall brought in their wives and families
from Spain, North Africa and Asia Minor. Archeologist are still finding
their jewelry and kitchen stuff. Moors, Arabs, Egyptians,
all in my family tree.
</span><span><br /><br />
Then came those Hell’s Angels in boats, the Angles, the Saxons, the
Jutes (pronounced “Yutes”)—collectively speaking, the Germans.
Bastards. They burned it all down, pissed on the ashes and slaughtered,
raped, enslaved and married the Celts. The rest they chased into the
Welsh and Cornish hills, where they still are. Sort of like what the
Scots did to the Picts and what we did to the Indians. And Britain, for
the next thousand years, was more or less a camp.
</span><span><br /><br />
Courtesy my mother’s father, William Parker, I’m an Englishman—and a Welshman, thanks to my mother’s mother, Eliza Evans.
</span><span><br /><br />
And from all directions, a Viking. More bikers in boats. They filled
eastern Britain (King Mark of Norway complained that his country was
empty because everyone had gone to England), and built Dublin.
</span><span><br /><br />
They went everywhere, and their habit was to take prisoners to row for
them; those they didn’t work to death they dropped at the next landing
and captured replacements. They must have brought in some Chinese,
because they came back with at least one carved Buddha; and some Russians. The
climate was warmer then, so sailing across the top of Asia wasn’t a
problem, any more than negotiating the ice mountains floating in Hudson
Bay. One of those turns over and it’s a tidal wave. Ah, the Vikings!
</span><span><br /><br />
And they probably imported some North American Indians; we know from a
particularly vivid saga that they met them and fought them. And some
sub-Saharan Africans. International people, the Vikings. </span>
<span><br /><br />
But not sweethearts. They used to sail down to the French coast, beach the boats and run (</span><span><i>run!</i>)
to Paris, where they raped, killed, pillaged and burned, and then ran
back to the boats. One of the most aggressive of them was Rollo, and
King Charles made a deal with Rollo: <i>take</i> this strip of coast,
but defend it; keep the other Vikings away. He did, and when they
sailed down from Blondland they began making a right turn before they
got to "Normandy".<br /><br />Here's Winston Churchill on Rollo's great-grandson, who saw the daughter of a tanner doing laundry in a stream: "His love was instantly fired. He carried her to his castle, and, although already married to a lady of quality, lived with her for the rest of his days." Out came William the Bastard, and he was exactly that. </span><span>If there’s one thing more to be feared than a Viking it’s a </span><span><i>Christian</i> Viking, a Viking married to a Frenchwoman. Chilling. From acr</span><span>oss the little channel his eyes fell on Angleland. I’m having that, he said.</span><br />
<span><br />
He organized Britain for war, which is what feudalism is. Aristocratic
titles are military offices, and from the ground up the purpose of the
smallest farm was to put a knight, or a share of a knight, in the
field. He counted every square foot in the country—they thought he was
nuts!—and wrote it all down in what by an exquisite piece of sarcasm was
known as the Doomsday Book. Only God knew as much. He made Hitler
look like a Boy Scout. (Actually Hitler did look like a Boy Scout.)
</span><span><br /><br />
And for the next four hundred years the British aristocracy spoke
French; which is why we have two words in the language for every kind of
meat. “</span><span><i>Boef!</i>” called the lord. What’s that? What’s that? Cow, cow, give him cow. “<i>Mouton!</i>” What’s that?<br /><br />
“Parker” is a Norman name; it means “keeper of the park,” or the forest,
a high office because only the king was allowed to shoot the deer,
except for Robin Hood. And there are lots of Parkers, just as there are
lots of black people in America named Jefferson. Our fathers took the
name of the manor they were attached to, and came by it honestly because
the lord had had his way with their mothers.
</span><span><br /><br />
Which brings us down to the two-million bottleneck. Of course people have poured in since then, which renders precious even </span>
<span><i>these</i> speculations. <br /><br />
According to tradition the Black Irish, those of us who don’t have
Nordic coloring, were fathered by Spanish sailors who swam ashore when
the Armada was wrecked. My father's mother's uncle didn’t know where in
Ireland he was from: one morning as a small boy he just got up and
walked down to the port, boarded a ship and sailed away. Where you
from, kid? Ireland.
</span><span><br /><br />
So there I am, a pure-bred
Celtic-Pictish-Syrian-Italian-Jewish-Greek-Moorish-Arabic-Egyptian-Gallic-Anglo-Saxon-Viking-Chinese-Russian-African-Amerindian-Spanish-English-Irish-Scottish-Welshman,
with a trace of Hobbit. </span>
<span><br /><br />
How about you?</span></span><div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="color: #241e12;">Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His</span><span style="color: #241e12;"> </span></span></span></span><em><span style="color: #241e12; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The Light Touch</span></em><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is on </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1683729323546000&usg=AOvVaw2Hd4YAGyyFwVy2bd3qCy_J" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Amazon Prime</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://gdpr.tubi.tv/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323546000&usg=AOvVaw3ufDcq05PBGFbyhBgl7txP" href="https://gdpr.tubi.tv/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Tubi</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw31ZAj1afhlzIGJMlXOMf6E" href="https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Scanbox</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and his </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DRSsRtvdiIyQ&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw2DguC-z8KYY78SRvKkzKkP" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSsRtvdiIyQ" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">7-minute comedy</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is an out-loud laugh</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. He is also a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1PYC3nJiptRKNBLBbk1F4n" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">novelist</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword%3DRobert%2520maclean&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw162S1JfpF0z--pNF9L241x" href="https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword=Robert%20maclean" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">playwright</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1FBGyC8qx7A7sNJkPeDQs9" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">blogger</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw3AQysubjQNXhCZlODRwFU2" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>YouTuber</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw3P-GogH1INXqHncxTBBc35" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>film reviewer</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw39FgjTIfJ_oBPZcOQVqcss" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>literary critic</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list%3DPL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw2vJHdrk2KPD06vTmFcXE6o" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">stand-up comic poet</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains but an intellectual snob.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="color: #241e12;"></span><span style="color: blue;"><img class="CToWUd a6T" data-bit="iit" height="200" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4xcN5muCajIvoU9-PV9Ga0Jmbv5sc7vpp3sWFUy9ib6JxF4mjbJse7qZ-w5hihWd3sIPJTWqF4" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px; padding: 5px;" tabindex="0" width="150" /><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin: 0px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2022/01/in-which-author-complains-of.html&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1A7f6edYb2bZxfPYkKYkax" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2022/01/in-which-author-complains-of.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">“I'm afraid of NOTHING except being bored!”―Greta Garbo</span></b></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw0DQIYjKtP3zOkz2UObr2-n" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">The Light Touch on Amazon Prime</span></a></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw3AQysubjQNXhCZlODRwFU2" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">The Natural Wish to Be Robert MacLean</span></a></b></p><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1FBGyC8qx7A7sNJkPeDQs9" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">The Devil's Pleasure Garden</span></a></b></div>
<br /><div style="color: red;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #888888; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="background-color: white; color: #2187bb; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: large;" /></div>
</div>
</div>Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-54968234563543841652011-07-07T16:51:00.013+03:002021-07-18T19:01:09.722+03:00Some thoughts on Finnegans Wake<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7DPW6ZQA7WlLEmV0WitdkVepjI0gnfYDvNeE_2U-dGs6FBZKrdy8lyBhQYrjIrv_ns5RPA2uifTCPQqooHaTemybrY75b1-tDwlMathkNpXb3UQiF1YFuhlM2U-k8g-1E4VHBD7m5jyI/s1600/FW.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7DPW6ZQA7WlLEmV0WitdkVepjI0gnfYDvNeE_2U-dGs6FBZKrdy8lyBhQYrjIrv_ns5RPA2uifTCPQqooHaTemybrY75b1-tDwlMathkNpXb3UQiF1YFuhlM2U-k8g-1E4VHBD7m5jyI/s320/FW.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span>Finnegans Wake</span></i><span> is a barroom rant in the style of Professor Irwin Corey.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>
<br />
It's opaque until you see something. But even in its opacity it's God's mirror. (“That is God,” says Stephen, “a shout in the street.”) </span><span><br />
<br />
It helps to have a few drinks—then you're on his wavelength. </span><span><br />
<br />
It's a volcano in a cultured mind, a confession mumbled in the sleep, a prophesy, a bag-man’s babble, a bomb site, a pre-fab ruin, a druid’s curse on Rome, an Irishman’s revenge on English, a child’s private language, like the baby talk that starts the <i>Portrait of the Artist</i>, the language cookie crumbling into amusing shapes—concrete shapes, not abstract ones—this is not a Protestant work. It’s sort of a magazine. </span><span><br />
<br />
Joyce drops the Western tradition into the toilet and flushes, riverrun past Eve and Adam's. He throws it up on the sidewalk, fragments of culture in a stomach-acid soup, and, dog-like, eats it up again—and it ain't bad! </span><span><br />
<br />
<i>Finnegans Wake</i> is as earthy, grotesque, giant-haunted, list-loving, wine-drenched and fool-playing as its ancestor <i>Gargantua</i>; and as sensuous as <i>Ulysses</i>—the only book I know with its own smell. (Greenish and yellow, if odors be colors.) </span><span><br />
<br />
It’s a white elephant, a hoax, a waste of time—and this is the key: time wasted is time well spent. It’s any number of things—the one thing it’s <i>not</i> is serious. </span><span><br />
<br />
I have a horror of somebody trying to tell me what it means. </span><span><br />
<br />
The writer’s problem is that one must Say Things. Nobody wants to Say Things—it’s a bore. Joyce found the solution. </span><span><br />
<br />
He's one of the three great Catholic (but not Christian!) artists of the last century—Joyce, Picasso, Fellini. JJ, PP, FF. No Puritan can bear what he does to The Word. </span><span><br />
<br />
It’s the still point of the turning world—but one laugh, one glimpse of God and you're dragged in and turning too. </span><span><br />
<br />
You can only read it if you don’t want to get it read—it <i>isn't</i> to be read, it's to be witnessed. It’s a pass at the present tense, the closest thing to <i>now</i> outside of sex. We spend our day traveling between ecstasies—then the book reads us and for a moment we understand ourselves. </span><span><br />
<br />
A marginalium: ENTER THE COP AND HOW. SECURES GUBERNANT URBIS TERROREM. (He's our guy!) </span><span><br />
<br />
The <i>Wake</i> is the end of something; that seems clear. Then came ersatz Joyces—the disciples of modernist difficulty—and then our last great writer, my beloved Nabokov, whose images make me weep with joy but is such a stuffed shirt. </span><span><br />
<br />
The real epilogues are the comedians—Wodehouse, the first pages of <i>Catch 22</i>, and Anita Loos—whose <i>Gentlemen Prefer Blondes</i> Joyce was following in a magazine series as he wrote the <i>Wake</i>. </span><span><br />
<br />
Putting aside what one has learned is hard, to say the least. The most most of us can manage is to play music on it. <i>Finnegans Wake</i> puts it <i>all</i> aside: it’s the ultimate sensuality. So dangerous. Nothing left now but The Beginning. </span><span><br />
<br />
It’s the Western <i>I Ching</i>—you open it at random to find out how you are today. And who.</span></span><br />
<div style="color: red;">
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/FOREIGN-MATTER-Trouble-Fantasies-ebook/dp/B0055KVEXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A11MW6AJTK8WZ7&s=digital-text&qid=1308246009&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuZB1MXsQLUxsv7R04UmUApMxDTN1qPTlvnUxN7CIibal0eIyQoL7QY5mHo83_elA8tnitA-9qtYosoYUy-TJvOWk1-hidTyFeNjbIy1fDSgNVVsDKPwYUbu9DDZoEjCTSjrOVBThVdLc/s200/Cover.FM.new.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8StIcml1kBij72dFQE2DggyCistteA_KCA8ZeVkpM4Alsc5h1Z-EkZsb5CpVlAZP6c4mRPRcqoBL-qKQfGNJABOc6ic0iWV0ovGsCh5SQ1BM0boFrxc6CHCMf8CMRZu3NnaUR4nKbNSw/s200/3.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVWLZHwA5sSfX99oBCvDXLsb2R_SsXX0QyfuuxPH3HxCPFMatkETBuct2MuAIzHaUXGomF13e423C_NsWfhQiURFQMV1gqprgnKmqQ0JotKiIOrQhdc-1qXOFnREC5vfC2lJeJMfTyf8o/s200/4.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1322143113&sr=1-1" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><img height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Y1_bmDoJTkmCsSKFbh0LhRu2XBGuP4h5D_RlG4aYP5H_lrSQkl9hS2q7ZzcFvYAs_jG2wk58ZBbc2fozuXGZInlh6gbdBbq90uUlKXEA2seRcWYXKaGPi4h_p6b3Jf0mjhU-BIoJDzQ/s200/5.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Coil-Comedy-Corpses-ebook/dp/B005PX0N40/ref=sr_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317211626&sr=1-8" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg18gZr1Tsdvproe6RDEy6KcGrj9bFvHE2wfITSPRYg6VYD1keu-xRsVLYN6kKSr-_yQdbcIUsrPjFatqlybD14XUJSOfeU3DywPfBV7vfnat_s9NP2GPY5b0guU18OLrG6y4dXCbCQCf8/w133-h200/image.png" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Palm-Reader-Washington-ebook/dp/B005FZ31MO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312539070&sr=1-1" style="color: #2187bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1367" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVY2MRAVHj-Yr_HTxvmEki03QUSdoqQyWqfKqYMt2wHq4ZxaGgjAL-7PNCyx5abEQx96V1jByu-RwUvB1PW1P_futWJTIKCAbXxhaBuk3pBZyo8diXqrGhydMvXtLQt-s8LaXQ7oX1S_I/w133-h200/image.png" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="133" /></a><br /><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">On YouTube:</span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio’s </span><a href="https://youtu.be/D2B66hW3XV0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Husband" </span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio's </span><a href="https://youtu.be/jLHIHoNnXyY" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Horse Trade" </span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Boccaccio's </span><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><a href="https://youtu.be/R2LzhTam16o" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Stupid Friar"</span></a> </span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">Chaucer’s </span><a href="https://youtu.be/Pm4FAjxU8L0" style="color: #2187bb; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"The Miller's Tale"</span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8kJe9wdyyg" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"Red Devil Rag"</span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 18.832px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMVAW2_TPcc" style="color: #32aaff; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: x-large;">"<span style="line-height: 25.68px;">Attack of the Giant Feminists</span>"</span></a></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xee5jJDcIZ8" style="color: #2187bb; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"But Is It Love? Or, The Destruction of West Los Angeles"</span></a></div></div></div></div>
</div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7508216806840488452.post-15837562664191890552011-06-10T21:39:00.051+03:002023-11-13T16:21:26.007+02:00Anger and Exasperation, A Toby Moment<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrgC975awD3tYtFaCd03kLEU3Ew-T96Z3pMc4t2Yx9B4JFunJRzRLNuTfdLsQAxEDGb4K_6ZCoL9a2c2uhAUPWaWY4BQhhuecJsWGRAbqzRJlfh_weC2QBBl-EhyaIBBPKfncBP65aOmod1CvjNt37c8j7RMIpue9Synp1oNHPwQD0nvMkimJe8zzA/s745/!_hammock2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="745" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrgC975awD3tYtFaCd03kLEU3Ew-T96Z3pMc4t2Yx9B4JFunJRzRLNuTfdLsQAxEDGb4K_6ZCoL9a2c2uhAUPWaWY4BQhhuecJsWGRAbqzRJlfh_weC2QBBl-EhyaIBBPKfncBP65aOmod1CvjNt37c8j7RMIpue9Synp1oNHPwQD0nvMkimJe8zzA/s320/!_hammock2.png" width="320" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“Toby,” said the child, “what’s the difference between anger
and exasperation?”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I didn't even open my eyes. “Buzz off.”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“Tell me! I want to know!”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I rolled my head in my hammock and looked at it. It is a girl child, and not easily deterred.</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">One can’t just shoo it away.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> “Is that your
new phone?”</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“Yes.”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“Give it to me.”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“No! Get your own!”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“What would I want with a phone? Is your grandfather’s
number on it yet?”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“Yes.”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“Get it.”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">It handed me the phone, open at “Gwampa”. I swear to God the kid wrote it that way.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“He’ll know your voice,” it said.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I tapped on Gwampa and Haze’s phone rang.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“Hello!” he shouted, jerked away from running his empire.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I tried my French voice. “<i>Allo. Tobee est là?</i>”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><div>“What?”</div><div>“<i>Tobee!</i>” I insisted. “Is he zere?”</div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“No, there’s no Toby here.” He hung up.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I tapped. Ring-ring. “<i>Hello!</i>”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I did my sinus-infection Brit aristo. “Oh hullo. I'd like to speak to Toby, please.”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“</span><span style="font-family: arial;">There </span><i style="font-family: arial;">is</i><span style="font-family: arial;"> no Toby here!”</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Could you just have a look round? It's frightfully important.</span><span style="font-family: arial;">”</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“You want me to do <i>what?</i> Do you know who you're talking to?</span><span style="font-family: arial;">”</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“No need to get shirty, old thing. When will he be back? Can you take a message?”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“No, I can’t take a message, because he won’t <i>be</i>
back. He’s never here, so it’s impossible for him to be ‘back,’ you understand?”
He hung up.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I glanced at the child as I tapped again. “<i>HELLO!</i>”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I did my Louis. “Hey, muthafuckah! Get Toby for me, will ya?”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“There IS. NO. TOBY. <i>HERE!</i> WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GET
THE IDEA THAT TOBY IS <i>HERE?</i> <i>HE’S NOT HERE!</i>”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I held this up for the child to hear. “That’s anger,” I explained.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">He hung up. I tapped. Ring-ring. “<i>WHAT!</i>”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">“Hi, this is Toby. Were there any calls for me?”</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">I handed the child the phone and closed my eyes. “Run along,” I said, waving it away.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Ladies and Gentlemen,</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">This is where you will find some Toby <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">books</span></a></b>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">If you’re planning on the south of France for the summer, try
<b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Total-Moisture-Toby-ebook/dp/B005KTP4S4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315049848&sr=1-1"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">this
one</span></a></b>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">If it’s Paris or London, grab <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Please-Fuck-Toby-Book-ebook/dp/B006BGZJM6/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">this</span></a></b>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">The Greek islands? <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cad-Toby-ebook/dp/B005W4YG5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318766896&sr=1-1"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">Here
you go</span></a></b>.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><i>Bon voyage</i>,</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Bob </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="color: #241e12;">Robert MacLean is an independent filmmaker. His</span><span style="color: #241e12;"> </span></span></span></span><em><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #241e12;">The Light Touch</span></em><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is on </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1683729323546000&usg=AOvVaw2Hd4YAGyyFwVy2bd3qCy_J" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Amazon Prime</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://gdpr.tubi.tv/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323546000&usg=AOvVaw3ufDcq05PBGFbyhBgl7txP" href="https://gdpr.tubi.tv/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Tubi</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> and </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw31ZAj1afhlzIGJMlXOMf6E" href="https://www.scanbox.com/movies/the-light-touch/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Scanbox</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and his </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DRSsRtvdiIyQ&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw2DguC-z8KYY78SRvKkzKkP" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSsRtvdiIyQ" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">7-minute comedy</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;"> is an out-loud laugh</span><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. He is also a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_%3Ddbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr%26storeType%3Debooks&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1PYC3nJiptRKNBLBbk1F4n" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074C1WNXK?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">novelist</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword%3DRobert%2520maclean&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw162S1JfpF0z--pNF9L241x" href="https://www.concordtheatricals.com/search?keyword=Robert%20maclean" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">playwright</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1FBGyC8qx7A7sNJkPeDQs9" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">blogger</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw3AQysubjQNXhCZlODRwFU2" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>YouTuber</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw3P-GogH1INXqHncxTBBc35" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2010/11/original-oceans-eleven-with-rat-pack.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>film reviewer</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw39FgjTIfJ_oBPZcOQVqcss" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2011/11/marquis-de-sade-father-of-modern-france.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>literary critic</b></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">, and a </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list%3DPL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw2vJHdrk2KPD06vTmFcXE6o" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5HYAsBJcoT--Ea5lFl7BbmhNWRONYrwD" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><strong><span face="Arial, sans-serif">stand-up comic poet</span></strong></a><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #241e12;">. Born Toronto, PhD McGill, taught at Canadian universities, too cold, live Greece, Irish citizen. No brains but an intellectual snob.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="color: #241e12;"></span><span style="color: blue;"><img class="CToWUd a6T" data-bit="iit" height="200" src="https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4xcN5muCajIvoU9-PV9Ga0Jmbv5sc7vpp3sWFUy9ib6JxF4mjbJse7qZ-w5hihWd3sIPJTWqF4" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px; padding: 5px;" tabindex="0" width="150" /><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2022/01/in-which-author-complains-of.html&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1A7f6edYb2bZxfPYkKYkax" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/2022/01/in-which-author-complains-of.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: blue;">“I'm afraid of NOTHING except being bored!”―Greta Garbo</span></b></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref%3Datv_dp_share_cu_r&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw0DQIYjKtP3zOkz2UObr2-n" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09JYJ7P42/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">The Light Touch on Amazon Prime</span></a></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw3AQysubjQNXhCZlODRwFU2" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCncEisXoSTMltS_FGMu_OMA" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">The Natural Wish to Be Robert MacLean</span></a></b></p><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/&source=gmail&ust=1683729323547000&usg=AOvVaw1FBGyC8qx7A7sNJkPeDQs9" href="http://robertmaclean.blogspot.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">The Devil's Pleasure Garden</span></a></b></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div>
Robert MacLeanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05720124605199903710noreply@blogger.com1