Category Archives: surveillance

Kamikaze 89 [1982)

Here is a strange case.

I thought I was watching a movie by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

The first I had ever seen.

But I was not.

And I still haven’t seen a Fassbinder movie per se.

This movie was directed by the late- Wolf Gremm.

Gremm might be most well-known for the 1980 film Fabian.

For that movie, Gremm adapted a work of Erich Kästner.

Kästner was always a bridesmaid and never a bride.

Nominated four times for the Nobel in literature, Kästner nevertheless was an important writer in that he used cinematic techniques in his literature.

Think about that for a second.

What might that mean?

Jump cuts, anyone?

‘Tis now that we pay homage to the great Jean-Paul Belmondo.

AND to my favorite drummer ever:  Charlie Watts.

Back to Kästner.

The Nazis burned his books.

These book burnings were instigated by (Psaki) Goebbels.

Kästner may not have really been a man of much integrity.

He wrote for UfA in 1942 under the pseudonym Berthold Bürger.

But you may know Kästner most for a Hollywood adaption of one of his children’s books:  The Parent Trap.

Made twice.

Which brings us to our film by Wolf Gremm.

It’s true:  Gremm and Fassbinder were close friends.

And I was tricked because Fassbinder is the all-consuming star of Gremm’s masterpiece Kamikaze 89 (alternately Kamikaze 1989).

Like a German version of Godard’s Alphaville.

Fassbinder is 100% Lemmy Caution.

But this whole thing needed a premise.

And that story was provide by Swedish author Per Wahlöö.

Before there was Stieg Larsson, there was Per Wahlöö.

Active between 1965 and 1975, and focusing on his character detective Martin Beck (a Stockholm policeman), Wahlöö collaborated with Maj Sjöwall on ten novels featuring Beck.

Like Erich Kästner, Wahlöö and Sjöwall were leftists.  

Communists.

Marxists.

Not unusual in Sweden.

You will find the same idealistic naïveté in the biographical details of Steig Larsson.

Gremm’s film did well as Fantasporto in Portugal.

And for good reason.

Because it is a fucking masterpiece!

The soundtrack is even by Tangerine Dream.

Edgar Froese.

Lester Bangs would have been proud.

Bangs died about three months after this film came out.

We see Brigitte Mira.

We see Nicole Heesters.

Someone briefly gets naked.

We might even see Fassbinder’s junk briefly.

I’ve gotta hand it to Xaver Schwarzenberger.

This film is stunning.

It pops!

Like a more punk version of Nicolas Roeg’s work on Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451.

Schwarzenberger was (and is) perhaps the equivalent of Godard’s Raoul Coutard.

So what?

The world, in general, has not heard of Wolf Gremm.

So this film must be discussed in relation to Fassbinder.

Was Fassbinder as good a director as he was an actor?

I don’t know.

Was Fassbinder as good a director as Gremm?

I don’t know.

Did Fassbinder ever make a film as good as the masterpiece Kamikaze 89?

I don’t know.

Something else should be noted.

Fassbinder himself died two months after Kamikaze 89 was released.

Which is to say, a month before Lester Bangs.

Let’s talk about New German Cinema.

I have devoted plenty of time to my favorite (the Nouvelle Vague aka French New Wave).

But I do not recall ever having broached the topic of Neuer Deutscher Film.

I will say this.

I think Werner Herzog may be the most overrated filmmaker of all-time.

Right next to Tarantino.

I hate to fucking admit it, but Tarantino (whom I hate) has WAY more talent than Herzog.

But hey:  my favorite director ever is Godard.

We first join Fassbinder about 1974 with Ali:  Fear Eats the Soul.

Eight years later, Fassbinder would be dead.

At age 37.

From a cocaine/barbiturate overdose.

I have lived seven years longer than Fassbinder.

Fassbinder crammed his career into his 30s.

Bangs died of an (accidental?) overdose of an analgesic opioid (Darvon), Valium, and cough syrup.

Bangs was 33.

Someone else important died at that age.

Bangs had a great mustache.

Fassbinder had a weird beard.

A nasty, seven-day stubble.

But Fassbinder fucking had style!

1975 saw him come out with Fox and His Friends.

Fassbinder was married for two years.

He then divorced.

I feel that.

Ingrid Caven.

A beautiful lady.

They say.

Hanna Schygulla.

Godard’s Passion.

1982.

There’s a reason I like Fassbinder.

I think.

Because Fassbinder liked Godard.

The Merchant of Four Seasons.

This precedes my earlier introduction.

1971.

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.

1972.

Fassbinder was bisexual.

He bought Günther Kauffman, who appears in Kamikaze 89, four Lamborghinis over the period of one year.

“calculatedly provocative”, they called him.

A verbal kamikaze.

I feel that.

The Tenderness of Wolves.

1973.

As actor.

I have focused on films available in the United States.

On iTunes.

I am.

Pauly Deathwish.

Twenty years coming.

10/11.

-PD

 

Leave a comment

Rod Rosenstein and His Dirty Tricks Squad [2021)

https://t.me/linwoodspeakstruth/165

This is not James Clapper.

https://rumble.com/vdf4nn-james-clapper-interrogation-2.html

And this film review covers not only the first link (which Lin Wood first posted to Telegram on January 24, 2021), but all other snippets of the same sessions which Lin Wood has posted to date on Telegram.

I admit.

It sounds a hell of a lot like James Clapper.

At first, when I heard of this clip circulating, I thought, “There’s no way in hell that James Clapper is being ‘interrogated.'”

And that is likely true.

Because this isn’t James Clapper.

But as I listened to the Rumble clip (which purports that the voice speaking is that of James Clapper) I started to believe it was (or could be) him.

I will say this:  both Clapper and the voice speaking have very similar audible mannerisms…particularly the vocal cadence they share.

This is what led me on a hunt to find the truth.

My verdict is this:  for one reason or another (whether nefarious or otherwise), someone has misled people to think that these interviews are of James Clapper.

How did they mislead?

Well, first of all, they slyly edited out all clips which have details that would contradict Clapper’s biography.

For good measure, they also sped up the audio (for some inexplicable reason).

If for nefarious purposes, a person or persons may be trying to set the groundwork to undercut the information in the future (by planting the false notion that the messenger was Clapper).

If for productive purposes (in a vein similar to QAnon), shock value may have been used to capture the imagination of the populace and FORCE THEM TO DIG.

Whatever the purpose (and whoever the authors of this deception), it has caused me to dig.

And the information is important.

So I am going to parse it for you in executive summary.

What we almost certainly have here is a federal agent (whistleblower).

Is that Lin Wood interviewing him?

I think not.

Lin’s Georgia accent sounds nothing like the interviewer.

So let’s get down to the facts (and assertions of this whistleblower).

First of all, let’s get our sourcing and timeline straight.

Lin Wood began dropping these video clips on January 19, 2021:  the day before the inauguration.

The first video covers:

Epstein.

Supreme Court Justice Roberts.

Epstein “helped” Roberts with his adopted children.

Children from Wales.

Channeled through Ireland.

Epstein then facilitated adoption.

Children as a commodity.

Compromising people.

“Children are the payment and the dirt and the control.”

The FBI has copies of the videos.

Rod Rosenstein.

Shawn Henry (FBI).

Shaun Bridges (Secret Service).

The second video covers:

Pence and his two lovers (and his younger ones).

Surveillance of Roberts’ children.

The abuse of Roberts’ children.

The children were “loaned out” for these different groups.

And it was surveilled.

Plots to murder judges.

Set up by FBI.

False-flag.

They were going to use a “sovereign citizen” group.

“Obama didn’t want any terrorism unless it was white terrorism.”

FBI had infiltrated and armed and instigated.

Divorced fathers with a grudge against the court system.

Plot.

Attacks on the Supreme Court.

Roberts was aware.

Explosives.

Automatic weapons.

Rocket launchers.

Lisa Monaco was a target.

Video three covers:

Supreme Court was target.

Homeland Security were overwhelmed.

Called in FBI.

DoJ picked up whistleblower.

Martha Coakley.

Groups to assassinate federal judges:  1/3 of group made up of “sovereign citizen” patsies and 2/3 made up of FBI.

Whistleblower and his wife were going to be killed.

Plan foiled.

Plans written out.

Maps.

Would have been in the first year of Hillary’s Presidency.

She was not supposed to lose.

Roberts was helping.

He wanted to pick new judges (for those assassinated).

Purpose was to ban firearms and pack Supreme Court.

Antonin Scalia

Video four covers:

Scalia was biggest threat.

Scalia found out about plans and went to White House.

Scalia was taken out.

Cibolo Ranch.

Temp worker.

Servants.

Group there hunting.

DMSO.

Poison.

Dimethyl sulfoxide.

Fairly inert chemical.

Mix with poison.

Why found with pillow over face.

Struggling to breathe.

Can be mixed with fentanyl, etc.

Goes directly into skin.

Eric Holder as replacement.

Hillary and Obama knew about it.

Rod has an intense hatred of Hillary.

He’s only fond of himself.

Running The Hammer system through Baltimore.

Which brings us to our title film.

It covers:

how the whistleblower started working directly with Rod Rosenstein in Baltimore.

FBI would come for corroboration.

Undercover nature.

Terrorist.

Domestic terrorism.

Whistleblower was fairly well concealed.

Dirty Tricks Squad.

Baltimore.

“This is where they were using Hammer, Sunrise, Sunset, things like that.”

To illegally spy on people.

Attempt to corrupt judges.

They concentrated on corrupting people.

Under the guise of a CCIPS (DoJ) operation.

Run out of Fort Washington, Maryland.

[McInerney marker]

Illegally compromise people.

Illegally wiretap.

Break into computers.

Plant, reverse, change information.

Change emails.

Things of that nature.

Judges, Roberts, Pence.

Whistleblower squashed.

Went to DHS.

With pile of evidence.

Made its way back to FBI/DoJ.

Contacted Devin Nunes.

Whistleblower tried to warn Trump about Rod Rosenstein.

Rod, Pence, Paul Ryan.

Core of group.

Rod was “brilliant legal mind”.

Operational name at beginning was Run Silent Run Deep.

[1958 film with Lancaster and Gable about being passed up for promotion]

Pence hated Trump.

Had taken his slot.

Mitt Romney was also involved.

Trump was outsider.

Had not paid dues.

Pence was their mole inside.

Leverage.

Surveillance from way back.

2013 range.

FISA warrants.

Rod wanted VP slot.

Paul Ryan also wanted it.

So did Romney.

Vice Presidential slot under Pence.

With Trump removed under 25th Amendment.

Leverage.

Pence homosexual.

Many adults.

Throughout his time in Congress.

As Governor, felt more free.

One 20 years his junior.

One half his age.

Would introduce others.

Younger and younger people.

15 year olds.

13 year olds.

Rod and Roberts were able to get FISA warrants because.

Younger people supplied by Epstein.

Because Epstein was an intelligence asset.

When he was in USA, FISA warrant used.

FBI would not save the child.

Was more important for them to have the leverage.

Operation directed by Rosenstein.

Dirty Tricks Squad.

Nickname.

Rod.

Shawn Henry (FBI).

Shaun Wesley Bridges (Secret Service).

Joseph Rosati (DEA).

Al Borshack ? (ATF).

Greg Utz (DEA).

Another group in Fort Washington.

[McInerney marker]

For the real illegal stuff.

Illegal communications, hacking, phone tapping.

Main focus: Federal judges.

Compromising people.

Planting information.

Planting child porn.

Leverage.

100s of cases.

Plead to lesser charge.

Forfeit money.

Percentage skimmed.

Shaun Bridges.

His speciality.

#1 expert on computer forensics.

Secret Service.

Hacked Obama’s BlackBerry for fun.

Hacked Obama daughters’ phones.

A violent person.

Drinker.

Arrogant.

All about the money.

Hack people.

Steal info.

Sell intel.

Bridges and Bitcoin.

In prison.

Holds several passports.

Will disappear to Argentina or Colombia.

Al Borshack?

ATF.

Retired.

A nasty piece of work.

Illegal gun running for Fast and Furious.

Made sure paperwork stayed clean.

Serial numbers.

Gun dealer.

Lots of disposable money.

Lots of cash.

Lives very well.

Borshack and Rosati both divorce their wives.

As Rosenstein started falling out of favor as DAG.

Paid off house.

Borshack.

Gave wife 600k.

Custom van with road race bikes.

Has watercraft and cars.

Never has a problem finding cash.

Helped supply the firearm for Seth Rich.

Joseph Rosati.

DEA.

Steroid freak.

Violent, nasty, lying person.

Cases where he added drugs.

Always the cowboy.

Had to swoop in with the big bust.

Sued many times.

Over and over again.

From defendants and agents.

Borshack involved in Seth Rich.

Rosati brought in MS-13.

Rosati also brought in Kevin Doherty?

Wannabe.

USMC.

Gopher.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/disgruntled-ex-employee-of-conspiracy-theorist-admits-shooting-him/2018/12/03/e5df4478-f719-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html

Jack Burkman.

Borshack and Rosati.

“Fishing”.

Local version of Fast and Furious.

Like a game to them.

Thought it was funny.

Rosati poisons.

Hot shots.

Pure drugs.

Done to informants.

Bragged.

Pills.

Pharmaceutical.

Pharmacy fraud.

As DEA agent.

Pharmacy inspections once a month.

Short prescriptions.

Massive amounts of opioids.

Laundering pills.

He’s a piece of crap.

Big bodybuilder.

Cousin with same face.

Bank fraud.

Scams.

Anything for money.

Calling as a phony DEA agent.

Package intercepted.

Drugs.

Drug precursors.

But it you pay a fee, it will never get here.

He was point man for complaints.

If anything came back, it would go to him anyway.

Payphone near work.

Payphone near house.

Burner phone.

People recorded with app.

Real agents shot as a result.

He got his own agents shot.

Maryland mafia.

Conowingo Pizza.

Conowingo.

Route 1.

Maryland.

Little Tony.

Big Tony.

New Jersey.

New York.

Drugs.

Untouchable.

Rosati’s steady supplier.

Heroin for Baltimore and D.C.

Rosati can give them intelligence.

Rosati is always skimming.

They will sell what he skims.

Opioids.

Softball.

Nonprofit.

Shawn Henry (FBI).

He’s just nasty.

Dirty Tricks Squad.

Strzok.

At CrowdStrike now.

Criminal.

John Roberts.

Shawn Henry.

FBI.

False flag people.

Roberts knew.

Provided FISA warrants.

Roberts provided intelligence.

Sharyl Attkisson.

Next video:

The death of Seth Rich.

Rod Rosenstein.

WikiLeaks.

Seth Rich downloaded a lot of info.

Downloaded everything he could.

DNC, Hillary, Bowser, Brazile…

They were worried.

Rod was worried.

Intended to be a robbery.

Ended up being a murder.

DEA.

Gang specialist.

MS-13.

Thumb drive switched.

Convincing, but didn’t expose Rod.

Brazile at hospital before Seth Rich was brought in.

They wanted to recover the thumb drive.

Next video:

Rosenstein.

FBI op.

Ghost Stories.

Heavy surveillance on known Russian assets within the U.S.

Russian Reset.

Hillary.

Obama/Biden.

Cancelled Ghost Stories.

Rod.

Shaun Bridges was taking money.

Bitcoin.

Rod put Sean Wesley Bridges in jail.

[Extortion 17 marker…Tik Tok…]

Terre Haute.

That concludes a brief overview of the videos on Lin Wood’s Telegram account which feature the blurry-faced whistleblower.

Judging by his level of detail and familiarity with certain aspects of his testimony (as well as his passion level rising while recounting certain aspects of the Dirty Tricks Squad), I would guess that the whistleblower was a DEA agent.

God bless him.

It’s not Clapper.

Any connection to Coomer?

Tik Tok mystery man.

“Find out who I am.”

Real name?

Not an Extortion 17 casualty.

Court documents re: Shaun Wesley Bridges and Rod Rosenstein?

Any Coomer connection to Fort Washington facility?

Why did McInerney say that Hammer and Scorecard was at Fort Washington?

Corroboration.

UPDATE. ENTIRE SET OF INTERVIEWS TRANSCRIBED:

FULL-Transcript-of-Whistleblower-Interview

-PD

Leave a comment

The Conversation [1974)

By 1974, TITANPOINTE was complete.

Which brings us to Francis Ford Coppola for the first time.

spoo SPOOK!

Where AT&T is LITHIUM.

Briefly dominating Drudge Report.

And then gone.

“Up on the twenty-ninth floor
Up on the twenty-ninth floor”

Four locks.  And an alarm.  A bottle of wine.

No phone.  Happy 44th birthday.

Not happy about this.

Gene Hackman in this masterpiece.

From Antonioni we got Blowup eight years previous.

But this time it is all about getting a fat sound.

SIGINT.

Is it?

It is a love for one’s work.

Like Gregg Popovich.

Hoosiers.

Gene Hackman.

But scarier.  Like 33 Thomas Street.

SMPTE for the devil…seems.

Grasshopper.

Must have a mix.  Phasing.

Louder.  In phase.

Knock.  Out of phase.

Urgently.  For young Teri Garr.

It doesn’t work.

This work.

It bleeds you of life electricity.

Spooking yourself.

On the trolley.

Snapping synapse line.  Electrical cable overhead.

And power down.  Stuck.  To think.  In silhouette.

Producing hit intelligence.

But not really thinking too much about the consumers.

Until the cris de coeur.

Or crise cardiaque.

When you are the only one between groundbreaking intel and the world at large.

And you are hearing it (“getting” it) for the first time.

When your job becomes an obsession.

Because of a dedication to excellence.

His famous gray plastic raincoat.

We think Manfred Eicher.  And François Musy.

Long nights going through the takes.

Full take.

All tape.

Whispering “conscience”…in that Swiss French we know so well.

Gently coated with cigars.

Shirley Feeney is here.

Cindy Williams.

But no Laverne.

The opening take so slow.

New Orleans jazz in many reverbed permutations.

Slightly shifting like Debussy’s clouds.

Or the light on Monet’s haystacks.

Operationally triangulated.

In a sonic crosshairs.

Most satisfying is the breaking up.

The broken telegraph gibberish of the rhythmic signal skating on intelligibility.

As if he’s heading to 26 Federal Plaza.

But it’s more corporate espionage.

Risk management.

Counterintelligence.

A masterpiece of sound film.

Which emphasizes that which is usually an afterthought.

Sonic activity.

Signaling intelligence.

We wait to decode the universe on our doorstep.

 

-PD

 

 

2 Comments

Citizenfour [2014)

Four days till the US election.

OK, three.

But we must take a look at things as they seem.

And analyze what they might be.

I have always written about Edward Snowden glowingly.

But this film is an enigma.

If you know the history of film, you realize that certain filmmakers (particularly Robert Flaherty) presented staged events as if they were documentaries.

This is known as docufiction.

And if you have followed my take on the two US Presidential candidates (Johnson and Stein can suck it…though Stein has true credibility), you’ll know that my assessment of Trump and Clinton has been mainly through the lens of film.

What we (I) look for is credibility.

Having watched all three Presidential debates (in addition to extensive supplemental research), it has been a no-brainer to conclude that Hillary Clinton has ZERO credibility while Donald Trump has immense credibility.

The differentiation could not be more mark-ed.

[Docu-fiction]

But what about Edward Snowden?

Let me start off by saying that Mr. Snowden does not come off as a wholly believable whistleblower in this film.

Perhaps Laura Poitras’ inexperience as a filmmaker is to blame.

Perhaps it is indeed because Edward Snowden is no actor.

But Mr. Snowden is completely inscrutable and opaque in this documentary.

HOWEVER…

there is something about his ostensible North Carolina drawl which rings true.

And so there are two major possibilities…

  1. Edward Snowden is an extremely brave individual who succeeded in “defecting to the side of the public” (to paraphrase)
  2. Edward Snowden is a superspy

I had read of Snowden.  In studying what he had leaked, his credibility seemed beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Such a damaging agent could not possibly have been a Trojan horse operation (so I thought).

Indeed, the most believable part of this film is the last 10 minutes or so.

Sadly, my “copy” of the movie switched to a German overdub for this final segment.

Which is to say, I was more focused on images in the finale.

Every once in a while I was able to make out the beginning of a phrase from William Binney or Glenn Greenwald.

At all other times during this last portion, the German superimposed upon the English made the latter an almost palimpsest.

My German is that bad.

Entschuldigung.

But here are my reservations concerning hypothesis #1 (from above).

A).  Glenn Greenwald’s earliest interview after the leak was clearly shot with the skyline of Hong Kong in the background.  It is somewhat inconceivable that the NSA in conjunction with the CIA (and possibly the FBI or DIA) did not immediately follow Greenwald’s every move from that point forward (courtesy of operatives under the Hong Kong station chief of the CIA).

B).  Glenn Greenwald is a little too smooth to be believable (the same going for Snowden).  Greenwald’s sheer fluency in Portuguese (a bizarre choice for a second language) seems particularly suspect.  The credulous me wants to believe that Greenwald is simply brilliant.  The incredulous me sees Greenwald as just as much a CIA operative as Snowden.

Indeed, hypothesis #2 would be that Edward Snowden is in fact a CIA operative.  His complete calm at The Mira hotel in Hong Kong does not harmonize with a computer geek who just lifted the largest cache of the most top-secret files in world history.  Instead, his mannerisms almost all point to someone who has been hardened and trained at Camp Peary rather than someone who grew up so conveniently close to NSA headquarters.

Snowden is admittedly a former employee of the CIA.

But what could the purpose of such a Trojan horse exercise possibly be?

One strong possibility comes to mind.

As we learn in Dr. Strangelove, there’s no purpose in having a “doomsday machine” if the enemy doesn’t know about it.

In fact, we don’t even need cinema to illustrate this.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were demonstrations as much as they were mass-murder war crimes.

Weapons are “tested” often as much for the power of display as for the exercise of weapon efficacy.

But the world has always been a weird place.

And it is indeed possible that Edward Snowden is an idealistic, independent party in this affair.

The esteemed Dr. Steve Pieczenik (of whom I have spoken much recently) has lately called Snowden “no hero”.

I’m not exactly sure what he means by that.

Possibly Pieczenik knows the Snowden affair to positively be an intel operation.

Possibly Dr. Pieczenik (whom I respect deeply) merely sees Snowden as of no great bravery when compared to the men and women (both military and intelligence employees) who risk their lives on battlefields across the world…by direct order through the US chain of command.

But Dr. Pieczenik has also pointed out that some orders must be disobeyed.

That is part of the responsibility of defending the Constitution “against all enemies foreign and domestic”.

So we have a very interesting case here.

And it directly parallels our current election choices.

What SEEMS to be?

What is patriotism?

At what point must standard operating procedures be put aside?

What constitutes peaceful protest?

Who among us has the duty and privilege to spearhead a countercoup?

I’ve often thought to myself that I would be a horrible NSA employee because I would have a framed picture of Snowden on my desk.

Suffice it to say, I’m sure that is strictly NOT ALLOWED.

But this film makes me doubt the Snowden story.

As a further instructive detail, why does Snowden (in this film) feel so confident in his ability to withstand torture (!) as a means of coercing from him his password(s)?

Again, that does not sound like a standard ability of an “infrastructure analyst”.

Snowden does not admit in this film to ever having been a field operative.

Indeed, it almost feels like Louisiana Story or Tabu:  A Story of the South Seas when Snowden drapes a red article of cloth over his head and torso to ostensibly prevent Greenwald and Poitras from visually seeing his keystrokes.

It is overly dramatic.

These are thoughts.

No doubt, someone knows much more than me about the truth in this strange tale.

And so the film is, in turns, shockingly brilliant and daftly mediocre.

In a strange way, it is just as suspect as James Bamford’s books on the NSA (which I have long suspected were really NSA propaganda pieces).

One of the keys to propaganda and social engineering is gaining the trust of your targets.

In a large-scale psychological operation, the entire world (more or less) is the target.

Back to cinema, we need look no further than Eva Marie Saint “shooting” Cary Grant in North by Northwest.

Yes, Body of Secrets (Bamford) was damaging to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and US military in general (the revelation of Operation Northwoods) while also exposing Israel as a craven “ally” (the USS Liberty “incident”).

But if we are not careful, we are taken in by these juicy bits of “truth” (in all likelihood, very much true) on our way to accepting the whole book as an accurate exposé.

And this is what makes the world of intelligence so tricky.

Like a chess game in which you are blindsided by a brilliant move.

It takes years (perhaps decades) or an innate brilliance (perhaps both) to discern the organic from the synthetic in the shifting sands of this relativistic world of espionage.

I can only guess and gut.

 

-PD

Leave a comment

The Imitation Game [2014)

When I started this site, I focused a considerable bit on “spy spoofs” (which I cheekily filed under “espionage”).

But now we return to espionage in a more serious tenor.

Cryptography, to be exact.

Keep in mind, signals must first be intercepted before they can be decrypted.

Encryption–>Key–>Decryption.

Cipher, rather than code.

[or something like that]

And this story of Alan Turing hits all the right settings of the heart.

Indeed, the seeming Asperger’s case Turing makes a particularly prescient observation in this film.

Namely, that deciphering secret messages is very much like linguistic deconstruction.

Or even like its predecessor, structural linguistics.

Finnegans Wake, by my reading, is largely a sensual text of transgression written in a sort of code language which can only be decoded by a sort of Freudian mechanism inherent in minds similarly repressed by circumstances such as censorship.

There were things which James Joyce could not just come right out and say.

Else he would have ended up like Oscar Wilde (or Alan Turing himself) [though Joyce was pretty evidently heterosexual in excelsis].

And so The Imitation Game is a very fine film indeed about Bletchley Park (and, by extension, its successor the GCHQ).

It makes one reconsider that great piece of British classical music the “Enigma Variations” by Elgar.

Perhaps it was Edward’s premonition.

That a homosexual savant would save many lives through dogged determination to solve what was arguably the ultimate puzzle of its time.

Enigma.  James Bond fans will know it as the Lektor Decoder (a sort of substitution…a cipher…le chiffre…a metonym if not a MacGuffin).

“the article appears to be genuine” [stop]

“go ahead with purchase” [stop]

Smooth jazz on the weather channel…heil Hitler.

It’s true.

In Nazi Germany one was to begin and end even every phone call with “Heil Hitler!”.

Stupidity has its drawbacks.

Donald Trump has been skewered roundly by nearly every globalist publication on the planet, but there is power in the words, “You’re fired.”

Turing very soon realized that breaking the Enigma code was not a job for linguists.

It was purely mathematics, applied with imagination.

One of the most crucial actors in this film, Alex Lawther, plays what might be referred to as Boy With Apple.

There is something befitting of the “agony columns” mentioned by Simon Singh in his tome The Code Book about Turing’s backstory.

In the grown-up Alan Turing, we see the affection that man can have for machine…much like a struggling record producer naming his tape machine.

In the rotors there is music…and plenty of calibration to be done.

But the machine must be allowed to work.

And we must help the machine along by giving it hints on those entities which are “safe to ignore” (a sort of semiotics of limiting the fried pursuit of completism).

Love, as it turns out, sinks the Nazis.

Because even among the rank-and-file (or, perhaps, especially among them) there was a humanity which was not snuffed out.

It’s not because Hitler was a vegetarian who loved his dog.

The machine becomes predictive.

Because we tread the same path daily.

In some way.

In most ways.

Few of us are psychogeographical drifters–few bebop our infinitely-unique situations.

And even Coltrane has some signature licks.

Some runs.

Mystical fingerings.  Scriabin arpeggiated.

Then come statistics.

And megadeath notebooks seem less cynical.

Its the same discipline which made W. Edwards Deming a saint in Japan as he resurrected their economy.

The blowback was the quality revolution.

The next in that manga pantheon perhaps Carlos Ghosn.

Yes, we Trump voters are morons.  No doubt.

You must hide the victories among losses.

Where the chess player comes in.

Hugh Alexander.

Twice.

“You could be my enemy/I guess there’s still time”

Or is it NME?

“I’ve got a pi-an-o/I can’t find the C”

Or is it sea?

I salute thee, old ocean.  A quote by Lautreamont.

Or is it Ducasse?

Perhaps it’s why Ezra Pound was institutionalized.

On the grounds of the future Department of Homeland Security?

St. Elizabeths.  Washington, D.C.

When he spilled the beans about the Federal Reserve “System” to Eustace Mullins.

Finnegans.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley share a truly touching moment of love.

A passion of minds.

Platonic.  Immortal.

But the breaking is IX.  “Nimrod”…

That austere moment of British greatness.

One of only a handful of UK classical strains which really matter.

Sinopoli does it nicely.  With the Philharmonia.

Only a moron like me would vote for Trump.

To suffer for one’s art.

To turn off the lights and watch the machine come to life.

A miracle of whirligigs and glowing vacuum tubes.

Director Morten Tyldum expresses this ineffable humming solitude in the seventh art.

Cinema.

This dedication.

Dedicated.

And this love.

Which leads both telegraph operator and polymath to tap out the letters of their beloved.

Forever.

 

-PD

3 Comments

Žert [1969)

It would be, perhaps, best to list this as a Slovak film.

Slovakia.

We always talk about Prague.

But not enough about Bratislava.

Yet all of this would make little difference were this film not notable.

And it is quite notable.

The direction by Jaromil Jireš is admirable.

He plays with time.  A very unusual montage of flashbacks.

Haunted.  Haunting.  Hunted by communism.

This, then, would be a subversive film.

To show the corruption within Czechoslovakia.

To show the nightmare of reeducation.

The term is never named as such, but that’s what it is.

Punitive military service.

The soldiers with no weapons.

Because their country doesn’t trust them with such.

In the mines.

On the ground.

Relay.

Hup hup hup.

Power trip of professional army in service to socialism.

Trotsky is forbidden.

And so is humor.

Don’t make your jokes too pointed.

There’s no squirming out of the fact that you stand in opposition to the ethos of your government.

I.

It may not be a momentous occasion to realize that literature is being made.

For it skips under your nose as mere nonsensical rubbish.

Poppycock.  Hogwash.  Eyewash.

Tropes and memes and drupelets hanging low.  Evolving necks.  Giraffes.

I am of two Yiddish species:

schlub and schmuck.

Unattractive.  Fool.

Me and Josef Somr.  Who lives!  Age 82.

A masterful performance.  As real as my daily routine.

Shirt coming untucked.

I have kept my hair, but his combover parallels my gut (his too).  Sucked in.

Beware of jokes.

You are being watched.

Your letters are being intercepted.

And you will have to answer for your words.

Just what exactly did you mean by, “…” ???

Well, this is Milan Kundera with the story.

And I rebelled all the way.

I drew Baudelaire with lightening bolts.  And chartreuse dreams.

Kundera lives!  Age 87.

Born in Brno. (!)

But let’s back to this love-hate.

Not Mintzberg.

At the same time.

Alternating.  A constant election.

Affinities.

I will achieve 17,000-word vocabulary.  Just you watch.

I almost hate my town too.  I know.

Was I imprisoned?

No.

But I lost music.

Like Ludvík.

The name is significant.

Like lost hearing.

And so the clarinet is indispensable.

I mention Jana Dítětová because she was from Plzeň.

Pilsen.  Pillsbury.

The selfish gene.

Tricked.  Objectified.  MILF revenge reified.

Pithy memetics.

MIKE MILF.

Markéta is significant.

…Lazarová.  Two years previous.

A permanent opium war of mankind.

Opiate of the masses.  Asses.  Snippets of military abuse.

You’ve never seen…like this.

We can still insult liberalism.  And neoliberalism.  And neoconservatism.

We can still find Starbucks artless.  And Subway.

But Wal-Mart passes over to kitsch.  Of which Kundera would understand.

Like Warhol meets Flavin.

All that fluorescence.

Non-stop.

Europe endless.

Schubert.

Dip the waves.

Coyoacán borough of Mexico City.  D.F.  Day effay.

Trotsky died the same year Conlon Nancarrow moved to Mexico.

1940.

And Nancarrow would make Mexico City his home.

Las Águilas.  With his Ampico player pianos.

Ludvík is expelled from his teaching position like Dr. James Tracy.

History is always with us.

We see the corruption of good intentions.

Communism.  Socialism.

Teachers of Marxism.

How the country had slid.

And Věra Křesadlová eats her cotton candy.  Stunning.

We wonder why the movie couldn’t have been about her.

But we needed the schlub/schmuck.

And the attempted suicide with laxatives.

Which is to say, there are far more than six stories in narrative history.

Bollocks Schenkerian analysis.

 

-PD

Leave a comment

Ucho [1970)

A banned film.

From communist Czechoslovakia.

Party as nightmare (like O slavnosti a hostech).

But different.

Walls on all sides.

Claustrophobic.

As if Jeremy Bentham was tomorrow appointed head of the NSA.

From the single, centralized watchtower.

Stares out the embalmed ego of Bentham.

Auto-icon.

It’s just a skeleton stuffed with hay.  Dressed in Bentham’s clothes.

Like the panopticon.

A straw man prison.

Dear friends, I know of no film which conveys the horror of the 21st century.

Quite like this gem of resistance against totalitarianism.

This was the underbelly of communism.

The “evil empire” of which Reagan spoke.

His words seem funny today.  His unscientific, hypocritical words.

Because the Red Scare in the United States was typified by the same methods on display.

Here.

Surveillance.

Which I fear will not subside anytime soon.

Nor has this wave even crested.

“Mass surveillance doesn’t work,” Mr. Snowden wrote. “This bill will take money and liberty without improving safety.”

Finally The New York Times prints something worthwhile.

And even Hillary Clinton’s “History made.” ad can’t deflate the importance of Snowden’s words.

And so if you want to see the 12-tone paranoia of the communist “big brother” state (now that we are living in a “capitalist” big brother state), I would heartily recommend The Ear by director Karel Kachyňa.

It was banned for 19 years in Czechoslovakia.

Because it got real close to the truth.

It painted the communist party leaders as a bunch of jerks.

It portrayed the constant suspicion upon bureaucrats as a living nightmare.

The Ear.  Maybe some HUMINT at the party.

But largely this film deals with SIGINT (if author Jeffrey T. Richelson can be trusted).

The Ear deals primarily with what Richelson calls “clandestine SIGINT” in his book The U.S. Intelligence Community.

What we encounter in Ucho are “the oldest of these devices” (viz. “traditional audio surveillance devices”).

Wikipedia does a passable job outlining this area of inquiry in the article “Covert listening device”.

But dear friends…describing it so matter-of-factly does no justice to the strain which omnipresent surveillance puts on largely innocent people.

And therefore The Ear is a film which shows the psychological toll that governments exact when they make ethics secondary.

What we get from director Karel Kachyňa is the portrait of a society (his society) which assumes all citizens to be guilty until proven innocent.

This is ostensibly the opposite of the American system, but today’s Amerika is merely the other side of the coin:  same pervasion of surveillance (even if it is “capitalist”).

My hypothesis is that “free market” America has come to all-to-closely resemble the regimes it fought to defeat.  Those “victories”, then, were hollow.  We have appropriated the worst, most tortuous means of our past enemies.

But Kachyňa has another message for us in this masterpiece.

In such upside-down societies, promotion might be the worst form of punishment.

Beware, my coopted friends.

 

-PD

 

Leave a comment