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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • the problem is fear mongering by the likes of Fox

    And that’s how you keep rednecks from red states feeling superior… through outright lying.

    Back in the Cold War days, Albania was the poorest and most undernourished country in all of Europe, yet the population believed they were the richest.
    The method for spreading this type of lie has been adopted and polished by the right-wing propaganda machine.







  • You know… I’ve never really thought about it that way, but my three favorites may be the same most watched.
    2001: A Space Odyssey
    The Empire Strikes Back
    Miller’s Crossing

    Sometimes I’ll watch Miller’s Crossing with English subtitles/captions, just to take in all that insane and masterful dialogue, it truly is as if William Shakespeare had written a 1920s mob tragicomedy.

    You ain’t got a license to kill bookies and today I ain’t sellin’. So take your flunky and dangle!


  • Isn’t Grosse Pointe Blank from around '98 or ‘99?
    That’s when VHS was on its’ very last legs. I think my first DVD player was from around 2001, by that time the graph line of DVD rising and VHS falling had already intersected, and this was in Mexico, I’m not sure when other parts of the world made the transition, say in the US, Europe or Japan it happened earlier.


  • That mid-Almodovar peak was incredible, now that you mention it. My personal favorite from that time has to be Habla Con Ella (Talk To Her), in parallel Woody Allen filmography terms I would equate it with Hannah & Her Sisters, in artistic achievement.

    Barry Lyndon is currently a rising “underrated masterpiece” topic with most of the best film critic podcasters. My personal favorite film has nearly always been 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I just recently rewatched Barry Lyndon and man… in any other filmography this would have stood alone at the top.
    And we still have the rest of Kubrick’s work to contend with… Dr. Strangelove, The Shining, Paths Of Glory, Eyes Wide Shut… it’s just ridiculous.

    For a long time now, I’ve regarded two people as my artistic heroes of the 20th century: Stanley Kubrick and John Coltrane. Mark Rothko could be up there, too, I cannot imagine my day-to-day life without his work to stop and look at, or to simply have as a presence in my surroundings.






  • But now if I want to feel the spiritual and connectedness, I much prefer something like Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks (I see your username and salute!), or John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. Stuff that challenges as it illuminates.
    Musically, I’ve always been an enthusiastic searcher and have yet to stop delving, decades later.

    One album that was tagged as New Age in the 80s that I still listen to every day - I use it for stretching before meditation - is Brian Eno’s Music For Airports.
    In the 80s, Ambient and New Age were clumped together uneasily but we didn’t know better, until Techno came along and Ambient instantly found its’ proper, logical home.

    For a taste of some of the sound of groups like Wyndham Hill or Mannheim Steamroller - every element of rock n roll completely absent, a bit of medieval vibe wafting throughout - I now prefer a band like Pentangle.

    There’s one song I’d like to recommend to you at this moment - I can’t get it out of my mind right now as I write - I discovered it about a year ago thanks to fantastic UK music monthly Uncut Magazine, it is closer in spirit to Brian Eno and it may have shot all the way to my #1 favorite piece of music ever. Listen to it in a quiet place, or with headphones. Often. This piece has a way of unfurling differently every time you hear it.

    Cluster - “Zum Wohl”


  • “Live on, survive, for the Earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention.”

    Salman Rushdie, from The Ground Beneath Her Feet.

    A more recent one, meditation-related, short and simple and I have no idea who said it, I just happened to catch it a couple of years ago on a website-that-shall-not-be-named:

    “I am not my thoughts.”