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Tag Archives: ballet
Stand With Russia / Stand With Putin [2022)
Are you curious about what is going on with Ukraine?
[Stravinsky Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, 2. Largo]
Well, you should be.
I am.
But I am going to attempt to explain what is going on.
First of all, NATO are a bunch of fucktards.
NATO was formed to defend against the Warsaw Pact (which no longer exists) countries and against the Soviet Union (which also no longer exists).
When did the USSR collapse?
December 26, 1991.
Thirty years ago.
Did NATO disband when this happened?
Did they dissolve?
Of course not.
Why?
Because they are warmongers in disguise.
Why do I say this?
Because NATO was not satisfied to keep the amount of members it had in 1991.
Nooooooo.
It ADDED members.
And it moved in a certain direction.
Which direction was that?
Eastwards.
Towards Russia.
And now they are right on Russia’s doorstep.
Imagine if China or Russia formed a mutual defense treaty with Mexico…or even Guatemala.
And China or Russia put troops and weapons there.
To “protect” those countries against the USA.
Do you think the USA would consider that a threat?
Of course we would.
And before you say the USA is no threat…
[Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8, 1. Largo]
to Mexico or Guatemala, let’s not forget the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and/or the CIA coup in Guatemala (1954…aka Operation PBSuccess).
So let’s review what NATO has done for the past 30 years.
1999- former member of Warsaw Pact CZECHIA (Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic) joins NATO
1999- former member of Warsaw Pact POLAND joins NATO (borders RUSSIA, BELARUS, and UKRAINE)
2004- former member of Warsaw Pact BULGARIA joins NATO
2004- former region of Soviet Union ESTONIA joins NATO (borders RUSSIA)
2004- former member of Warsaw Pact HUNGARY joins NATO (borders UKRAINE)
2004- former region of Soviet Union LATVIA joins NATO (borders RUSSIA and BELARUS [the constituents of the Russian Federation])
2004- former region of Soviet Union LITHUANIA joins NATO (borders BELARUS and RUSSIA [the constituents of the Russian Federation])
2004- former member of Warsaw Pact ROMANIA joins NATO (borders UKRAINE)
2004- former member of Warsaw Pact SLOVAKIA (Czechoslovakia) joins NATO (borders UKRAINE)
2004- former region of communist state Yugoslavia SLOVENIA joins NATO
2009- former member of Warsaw Pact ALBANIA joins NATO
2009- former region of communist state Yugoslavia CROATIA joins NATO
2017- former region of communist state Yugoslavia MONTENEGRO joins NATO
2020- former region of communist state Yugoslavia NORTH MACEDONIA joins NATO
[Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2, II. Adagio sostenuto (performed by Sviatoslav Richter)]
[Borodin String Quartet No. 2, 3. Notturno]
[Stravinsky Rite of Spring: Harbingers of Spring (Dances of the Young Girls and Boys)]
Let’s not forget that NORWAY (a NATO member) borders RUSSIA.
[Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances, I. Non allegro]
So do you see why Russia is worried?
In addition to Norway, NATO began to further border Russia within eight years of the USSR’s collapse (with the accession of Poland).
That was 1999.
2004 was a major year of provocative, aggressive actions by NATO.
THREE MORE countries WHICH DIRECTLY BORDER RUSSIA were added to the mutual defense pact: Estonia, Latvia, and Lituania.
NATO by 2004 had added FOUR COUNTRIES to its membership which DIRECTLY BORDER RUSSIA.
The Soviet Union had ceased to exist for a mere 13 years by this point.
While it is true that NATO has not (yet) added ANY MORE states that border Russia, it has nevertheless continued to add members (mostly from the former Yugoslavia [but one former Warsaw Pact member]): Albania (Warsaw Pact), Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.
[for those keeping score, five (!) NATO countries border Russia]
Albania in 2009 was, in some ways, the most audacious (provocative) move.
[Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues for Piano Op. 87, Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C Major (performed by Keith Jarrett)]
Why?
Because Montenegro (a 2017 accession to NATO) is actually TO THE WEST!
NATO was playing checkers.
They skipped over Montenegro.
Only to gobble it up as well eight years later.
And what is east of Albania?
North Macedonia.
A mere two years ago (2020), NATO moved further east with the accession of North Macedonia.
What is east of Europe?
Russia.
For 30 years, in an almost-uninterrupted train, NATO has moved EASTWARDS in a provocative, slow-motion attack on Russia.
Again, remember my metaphor.
What if China or Russia put troops and installations and weapons in Canada?
Oh, they can’t: because Canada is in NATO.
So let’s choose a different metaphor.
Remember when Russia put nukes in Cuba?
It was a big deal, right?
Why?
Because Havana is a mere 228 miles from Miami.
The city of Russia most closely associated with Europe is St. Petersburg.
Warsaw, POLAND (in NATO since 1999) is 729 miles from St. Petersburg.
Vilnius, LITHUANIA (in NATO since 2004) is 448 miles from St. Petersburg.
Riga, LATVIA (in NATO since 2004) is 357 miles from St. Petersburg.
Tallinn, ESTONIA (in NATO since 2004) is 230 miles from St. Petersburg.
[Prokofiev Visions Fugitives, 1. Lentamente]
[Mieczysław Weinberg Piano Quintet, 1. Moderato con moto]
But to reiterate: there are FIVE NATO COUNTRIES that are ASS-TO-FUCKING-ASS with Russia:
Norway
Poland
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania.
I was in the middle of watching Convoy.
The Canadian Freedom Convoy had made Trudeau enact the Emergencies Act.
Truckers were (and are) headed to D.C. for the Peoples Convoy.
The COVID narrative was falling apart.
Omicron had brought the major risks of the pandemic to an end.
More damning information was emerging every day on Fauci, Moderna, Pfizer, CDC, FDA…
Here is but one example:
But now none of that matters, right?
Are you seeing any news about the truckers?
Remember they were THE ONLY FUCKING THING GOING ON IN THE WORLD just a week ago.
Every country had their own trucker protest.
[Prokofiev Symphony No. 1, I. Allegro]
Did all of that just stop?
We were up to 12,122 reports of death to the HHS VAERS system in relation to the administration of the COVID vaccines in the USA (according to the CDC’s criminally-parsed data).
Open VAERS had it at 23,615 reports of death.
And remember that these numbers should be multiplied by a factor of 10 because of the historical underreporting to the VAERS passive surveillance system.
Take a look at Kawasaki disease.
A perfect example of how, historically, LESS THAN ONE PERCENT of vaccine adverse reactions (including serious ones like Kawasaki disease) had made it into the VAERS system.
So we are talking about 121,220 deaths.
Or, probably, 236,150 deaths.
And that was as of a week ago.
But that doesn’t matter anymore.
Anyone who rammed through these #NeitherSafeNorEffective vaccines are going to pay no price for their crimes against humanity.
Why?
Because the situation in Ukraine has rendered everything else moot.
Why?
Because Russia has nukes.
And they will probably move nukes into Belarus (as that country ditched its status as nuclear-neutral today).
So the whole world is fixated on Ukraine…because if dumbass Biden and dumbass NATO somehow end up shooting at Russia, there could (pretty quickly) be a nuclear exchange.
The situation could devolve rapidly into all-out nuclear war.
What a way to make everyone forget about the past two years, right?
Why were the truckers even in Ottawa?
Because of the killer vaccines and the stupid fucking mandates.
But the threat of death and incineration by nuclear weapons has totally wiped the memory of citizens on planet Earth.
But there is something more insidious going on.
EVERY NEWS SOURCE ON THE PLANET IS MAKING ZELENSKY OUT TO BE A HERO.
AND MAKING UKRAINE OUT TO BE VICTIMS.
No mention of the backstory I gave you.
No mention that NATO has moved eastwards (for no good reason) for 30 years.
So I say, fuck Zelensky!
Fuck Ukraine!!!
I pray every night for the children and elderly of Ukraine.
But I gotta tell you something.
Ukraine fucked up.
They could have investigated Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.
But they didn’t.
And that’s a big reason why Biden is President today.
So congratulations, Ukraine!
You got the President you wanted.
Joe Motherfucking Biden.
[Kalinnikov Symphony No. 1, IV. Finale. Allegro moderato]
We are now at Defcon 2.
Some people think Defcon 5 is bad…like an F5 tornado.
Defcon 5 means the U.S. is at a state of readiness associated with peace.
Defcon 1 means the U.S. state of readiness is that of wartime or imminent nuclear threat.
A couple of days ago we were at Defcon 3.
Not great, but not horrible.
Yes, it has deteriorated.
We are now at Defcon 2.
According to public OSINT analysis.
The actual Defcon level is not made public.
[Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy Overture]
Why did Russia invade Ukraine?
Because in September Ukraine’s new publicly-released National Security Strategy included their express desire and intent to join NATO.
Russia has had enough.
Russia was patient for 30 years.
Why else did Russia invade Ukraine?
Because “hero” Zelensky publicly announced approximately one year ago that his goal was to MILITARILY take back Crimea from Russia. And how was he gonna do that? By joining NATO, of course.
So Zelensky is certainly, while not in the traditional sense, a comedian.
And his joke is his foreign policy.
Which has now led to the deaths of many of his countrymen.
What a punch line!
Let me explain one further thing.
Russia is fighting NOW so that they don’t have to fight a bigger, deadlier war LATER.
Ukrainians are stupid fucking idiots that don’t realize (or care?) that their corrupt country had a major role in looking the other way so that Joe Biden could be elected/installed.
Those dying for Russia are heroes.
Those dying for Ukraine are morons…in service to a moron government.
Russia is not communist.
Are they a little heavy-handed?
Yes.
Why?
Because pricks like George Soros try to overthrow all the countries (Georgia, for instance) in their region.
And don’t forget the recent overthrow of the Kazakh government.
Aside from Ukraine (which was the “bread basket” of the former Soviet Union [as Zbigniew Brzezinski described it]), Kazakhstan was the most important Soviet Republic.
Don’t forget that Russia went into Kazakhstan on a “peacekeeping” mission.
And they were very successful.
So Russia is heavy-handed.
Putin is heavy-handed.
Because, otherwise, Russia will cease to exist.
Putin is doing his job.
I perceive that he loves his country.
His first responsibility is TO HIS PEOPLE.
He is the leader of RUSSIA.
He is not trying to win a popularity contest.
So to all the Russians who wanna protest, get the fuck out of Russia.
Go to the paradise of the European Union.
Claim refugee status.
Whine and complain that Putin is so bad.
But Putin is protecting your culture and your people.
Let me reiterate.
RUSSIA IS NOT A COMMUNIST STATE.
China is.
Fuck China.
And Russia is far from perfect, but NATO needs to BACK THE FUCK OFF!
As an American, I suggest this:
the USA needs to immediately leave NATO.
The USA needs to also immediately expel the United Nations from New York City.
And the USA needs to exit the United Nations.
If Europe wants their own military, fine.
Call it NATO without the USA.
Donbas and Luhansk asked for Russia’s help.
Putin said yes.
Has Putin gone further than helping these two regions?
Yes.
Why?
Here is one possible reason:
Putin has a responsibility to help those of Russian extraction if he can.
He could.
So he did.
Would you expect Israel to help Jews in some place in the world if they were in trouble?
Yes, you would.
What if those Jews were in a country bordering Israel?
Would you expect Israel to intercede?
Yes, you would.
Being Russian is no less special than being Jewish.
And that is why I have made this playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6m9ArhvB67gGDRosUFD78b?si=987de9a823154d80
You must get to know the works of Dostoyevsky.
Karamazov.
You must get to know the composers.
I have put them on a silver platter for you.
Like beluga caviar.
Have some egg.
Some onion.
On a cracker.
Have some champagne.
But, by all means, have some vodka while you are reading Karamazov.
[Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Variation 18]
You must get to know the films of Eisenstein.
They transcend communism.
It is art.
Potemkin is one of the best films ever made.
And Shostakovich made brilliant, tortured music…IN SPITE OF COMMUNISM!
Gaze upon the paintings of Chagall.
Born in Belarus.
[Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker (Suite), IIb. Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy]
It is no less special to be Russian than it is to be Jewish.
And, believe it or not, one can be both.
https://tass.com/russia/1405599
[Stravinsky The Firebird Suite, Finale]
Who really started the attack?
Was it really Russia?
What about this vaunted “false-flag” that the USA government gushed about?
Did Ukraine actually start this conflict?
2/22/22
Was Ukraine going to irradiate the region by using Chernobyl as an asymmetric weapon (a giant dirty bomb)?
Why was Russia so insistent about taking it over?
Russia has nukes.
Russia has uranium, plutonium, etc.
Russia doesn’t need nuclear material to terrorize a region.
It already has nuclear material.
I suspect something was awry at Chernobyl.
Do you think the FSB and GRU are able to decrypt Ukrainian communications?
I do.
What are the new accessions to NATO saying?
Czechia was very enlightened to drop their vaccine mandate a few weeks ago.
But who was on the front lines of the “get Russia” parade?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/czech-president-russia-cut-off-102059014.html
For NATO, and its former Soviet/Warsaw-Pact members, it is not enough that the USSR fell apart in 1991.
THESE PSYCHOPATHS WANT THE TOTAL DESTRUCTION AND ANNIHILATION OF RUSSIA.
That is not peace.
That is not a peaceful mutual-defense organization.
NATO is the aggressor.
Russia has (finally!) acted in self-defense.
This is the last opportunity Russia has to act without the repercussions being GUARANTEED nuclear war.
Putin made the right choice.
[Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 1, 1. Grave – Allegro ma non troppo]
China was right to side with Russia.
And I fucking hate China.
And Russia was right to side with China.
Why?
Because NATO and the moronic foreign policy of Biden forced them into it.
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/china/ukraine-crisis-china-russia-war-us-b2022237.html
Remember when Biden was barely in office and he called Putin “a killer”?
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/03/joe-biden-calls-vladimir-putin-killer.html
What kind of diplomacy is that?!?
Did he go to the Rex Tillerson school of foreign policy???
But let’s get one other thing straight.
[Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade, The Story of the Kalender Prince]
There are only two mRNA vaccines approved anywhere in the world.
Ever.
In world history.
And both of them are COVID vaccines.
We are talking about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Are they approved in China?
No.
Not at all. Not even for emergency use.
Are they approved in Russia?
No.
Not at all. Not even for emergency use.
Why?
Because Russia and China developed their own COVID vaccines (many of them the traditional inactivated-virus vaccines).
Russia has four COVID vaccines:
–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_V_COVID-19_vaccine
–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_Light
–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EpiVacCorona
–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoviVac_(Russia_COVID-19_vaccine)
[the final one is an inactivated-virus vaccine]
As I have proven in many articles, the COVID vaccines available in the USA are neither safe, nor effective.
Same for those of the U.K., Australia, etc.
What do the vaccines have to do with Russia invading Ukraine?
Use your brains.
Why would Russia and China not approve the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines AT ALL in their countries?
Isn’t it interesting how they (China and Russia) have also aligned themselves in regard to foreign policy?
What do the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have to do with their shared foreign policy (if they do at all)?
So Russia has one inactivated-virus vaccine for COVID and ZERO mRNA vaccines.
You can see what China does and doesn’t have here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_COVID-19_vaccine_authorizations
But let’s get back on topic.
Have you seen Biden brag about getting Viktor Shokin (a Ukrainian prosecutor) fired while Biden was Obama’s Vice President?
Now why would Biden be so interested in a Ukrainian prosecutor?
Why would he execute a quid pro quo using American taxpayer-funded loan guarantees to extort Ukraine into firing Shokin?
Listen for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=UXA–dj2-CY
[Pauly Deathwish “Россия”]
Why, indeed?
What was Hunter Biden doing over in Ukraine?
Was he on the board of directors for Ukrainian gas company Burisma?
Was Burisma under investigation by Shokin?
Did the New York Post break this story during the 2020 U.S. election cycle?
Did Twitter lock the New York Post (third-highest circulation in the USA) out of its Twitter account for publishing and sharing the story on Twitter?
https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/
What story did the New York Post publish the next day?
https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/emails-reveal-how-hunter-biden-tried-to-cash-in-big-with-chinese-firm/
Yes, Joe and Hunter Biden are even more corrupt in specific relation to China than they are to Ukraine (if that is even possible). But, of course, China did nothing about this. Because they wanted a President they could control. So they could take Taiwan (which they will shortly do).
So Ukraine had the goods on Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.
But they swept it under the rug.
Because they wanted Joe Biden to win.
So that they could join NATO.
And retake Crimea by military force.
[Prokoviev Alexander Nevsky, VII. Alexander’s Entry into Pskov]
[Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition, The Great Gate of Kiev]
So, I hate to say it, dear Ukrainians, but you should have been more involved in the politics of your country.
You, in effect, “voted” for Joe Biden.
Congratulations.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ukraine-prosecutor-biden-burisma-back-off-state-department-files
Are you wishing now that you had exposed Joe Biden for the corrupt piece of shit that he is?
It’s a little late, maybe, to be researching this.
But you know who else knows about this?
The U.S. military.
Where is the bravery of the U.S. military?
Are you just gonna zip your lips and go fight another pointless war so that Joe Biden can cover his ass for all the mistakes he has made during his first year in office?
In case YouTube (owned by Alphabet Inc. [the owners of Google]) decide to take down the video link I posted above.
Here it is, once again: Joe Biden BRAGGING that he got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired by dangling billions of dollars in loan guarantees over their heads.
https://rumble.com/v7u8sd-joe-biden-admits-to-getting-prosecutor-fired.html
This is not a conspiracy theory.
It is a conspiracy.
It is a factual conspiracy.
Conspiracy fact.
Joe Biden conspired to get a Ukrainian prosecutor fired.
Why?
Was that prosecutor investigating Burisma gas company–a Ukrainian company on whose board his son Hunter Biden sat?
Yes.
Shokin was investigating that.
Until he was fired.
At Vice President Joe Biden’s behest.
The counterargument will be that Burisma was under investigation BEFORE Hunter Biden joined the board.
So there is nothing wrong with Joe Biden getting the prosecutor fired.
In fact, Joe Biden was actually trying to PREVENT corruption in Ukraine.
Give me a fucking break!
Joe Biden was the “point man” for Ukraine AND China during the Obama years.
Does his son, Hunter, taking a job on the board of a Ukrainian gas company that was under investigation for corruption sound like an above-board thing to do?
Never mind whether they were under investigation or not.
Why the fuck did his son join the board of Burisma while his dad was the “point man” for Ukraine?
And look at the second New York Post link I posted above.
Who was “the big guy”?
10% set aside for “the big guy”?
Hunter Biden did a big deal for a hedge fund after he and his father flew on Air Force 2 to China.
So who is “the big guy”?
Who was getting 10% of the “finder’s fee” for this deal?
Was it Vice President Joe Biden?
I think it fucking was.
That’s called SELLING THE OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Joe Biden was never fit to be President.
These are disqualifying CRIMES that he committed.
And Ukraine could have done the right thing and exposed it.
But they didn’t.
Great job, Ukrainians.
Thanks a lot.
Every news service in the world covered for Joe Biden.
Those same news services that are calling Zelensky a “hero” and vilifying Putin.
That same ugly chorus.
Viktor Shokin has spoken up.
There was an assassination attempt made on him.
Three shots from a sniper’s rifle.
Bulletproof glass on his office window saved his life.
Giuliani told you all this.
But you didn’t believe him.
You wanted to believe that Trump is a bad guy.
And maybe he is.
But Biden is far worse.
I am no longer in support of Trump.
Because Trump has supported these moronic vaccines.
Wake me up when Trump calls the neither-safe-nor-effective vaccines bullshit:
https://open.spotify.com/track/3VXsCvRbs1B6BmsVoeAvrQ?si=d8b08ba45df4415a
By the way, this wasn’t just any prosecutor that Joe Biden got fired.
It was essentially the Ukrainian Attorney General.
That’s a pretty fucking big deal, right?
Did Joe Biden, whose son saw fit to cash in on his dad being Obama’s Ukraine “point man” by joining the board of Burisma, really have the moral “high ground” to tell Ukraine who should or shouldn’t be their top prosecutor?
https://www.westernjournal.com/joe-biden-probe-ukraine-top-prosecutors-firing-report/
Does the U.S. military leadership love their country (our country) as much as Putin loves his?
We should just vote Joe Biden out, right?
Three years from now.
Biden hasn’t done that bad during his first year, has he?
I mean, WWIII being imminent is no big deal, right?
I mean…we can make it to the mid-terms, right?
And then Joe Biden’s power will be lessened, right?
So we can make it basically another year with an imminent WWIII hanging over our head.
No problem.
I’m sure Biden will handle this with the same finesse that he handled the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Speaking of which…General Lloyd Austin (who forced our troops to take neither-safe-nor-effective vaccines) and Mark Milley (who did nothing to stop Secretary Austin’s treasonous actions) did such a great fucking job getting us out of Afghanistan.
I’m sure Putin is shaking in his boots.
But here’s an interesting thought.
Putin is a man of ACTION.
His country was/is threatened.
He acted.
What has our U.S. military done to protect OUR country?
They just take orders, right?
Just following orders.
I have a bad feeling that they will be following Joe Biden into oblivion…and dragging us all down with them.
The U.S. military can’t take action.
Because there’s never been a military coup in the USA.
And we wouldn’t wanna ruin that record.
If we’re gonna be nuked, might as well go out with a pristine record of civilian control of the military.
Is Joe Biden fit to be President?
Is he a criminal?
Did he sell the office of the Vice President to Ukraine and China?
How about his mental fitness?
Is he cognitively fit to be Commander-in-Chief?
I’m sure if he weren’t, people like Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten (and their two newborns [their dads’ vaginas must be aching!]) will make the right decision and take one month of paternity leave (two fathers!) rather than two…to make sure the supply chain is functioning properly and ports are working well and there aren’t any cargo ships anchored off the coast of, oh, I don’t know, Galveston, or something…and Mayor Pete (who is a WEF Young Global Leader) will invoke the 25th Amendment because Biden is cognitively not fit to lead.
And then we would have dumbass Kamala Harris as President for the next three years.
Pretty rosy picture, eh?
If Biden was removed via the 25th Amendment and Kamala was impeached (just give her time), then our President would be Nancy Pelosi.
That is the outlook for the next year.
Anyone wondering if Joe Biden really got the most votes in the history of the USA?
81 million votes.
More votes than Obama.
Because he was THAT popular!
He was extraordinarily popular in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Detroit, but didn’t do all that well with the black populations in other major U.S. cities.
Anyone find that a bit odd?
He did REALLY, REALLY WELL in those four cities.
Like, abnormally-well.
He was probably carried by Kamala.
Who left the Democratic Primaries due to her popularity with voters.
She was polling at less that 1% when she dropped out.
So you got the President you wanted, Ukraine!
You made a pretend effort to rectify things.
Let’s not forget about Jan. 6 (which was worse than 9/11 or Pearl Harbor).
Do you Ukrainians think you are experiencing terror and carnage?
You have no idea what AOC went through on January 6.
https://republicbrief.com/russia-threatens-military-consequences-for-2-more-countries/
Let’s just make one thing clear.
Russia is not fucking around.
Is Sweden gonna join NATO?
Not if Russia has anything to say about it.
Is Finland going to join NATO?
Over Russia’s dead body.
Russia has had enough.
They have let NATO expand–right up to their very doorstep–for 30 years.
Ukraine is the line in the sand.
“Hero” Zelensky said he wanted (and intended) to take back Crimea by military force.
He said that 11 months ago.
Then, in September, Ukraine released their national security strategy: a stated desire and intention to join NATO.
Putin gave Biden and the West (Macron, et al.) a chance to call off the dogs.
Biden and NATO would concede nothing.
So Putin attacked.
And Zelensky is the “hero”.
And Putin is the bad guy.
And we just got out of a 20-year war in Afghanistan, so I guess it’s time for us to go fight in Eastern Europe.
In Ukraine.
How’s that Mexican border looking?
Wall finished?
Oh, we’re just gonna let immigrants walk across the border forever, right?
Because we only have 10% inflation.
So we can, obviously, afford to just take in and house the world.
Fuck it!
And Joe Biden NEEDS these voters.
These are DEMOCRAT voters.
They want socialism.
They NEED socialism.
They are poor as fuck.
And the socialism in their countries (like Mexico) was not working so well.
So they came here…to upgrade to a better socialism.
Except for the fact that we didn’t become a wealthy country because of socialism.
Quite the opposite, actually.
But anyway…send our military to Ukraine.
Make sure Ukraine’s sovereignty is protected.
And fuck American soverignty, right, U.S. military?
But how about the biolabs?
Were there biological (and chemical?) weapons in Ukraine?
Did Putin just bomb the sites?
Was the real “false-flag” gonna be a bioterror release by NATO to take over (close) the Bosporus and occupy Ukraine?
Was NATO going to release a bioweapon in Ukraine?
Were United Nations “peacekeeping” forces going to occupy Ukraine?
Did Putin preempt this plan by blowing up their biolabs?
If Fauci (and Daszak and Baric) was involved in the creation of COVID-19, then it wasn’t solely China’s fault.
China stood to gain.
Always ask, “Cui bono?”
But who were the American players?
If DARPA did indeed refuse the EcoHealth Alliance (Daszak) proposal to develop a “bat vaccine” (which was to be sprayed into caves in China), did NIAID (under Fauci) accept the proposal?
Was EcoHealth Alliance a front for the CIA?
What about the Defense Threat Reduction Agency at Fort Belvoir?
Why do they still have an ongoing contract with EcoHealth Alliance to study bat-borne disease in “Western” Asia?
Hm.
Western Asia, eh?
Like Ukraine???
Turkey is key.
Dividing line between Europe and Asia, right?
And St. Petersburg is a European city.
But what is really the dividing line of Europe and Asia in respect to Russian territory?
Where does Europe end and Asia begin?
What about the World Military Games?
Do you trust China?
I don’t.
But is there something to this story that COVID-19 started WAY BEFORE December 2019 (January 2020 in the USA)?
Are a bunch of people just trying to cover their asses?
Who planned the plandemic?
If it were a murder investigation (and it should literally be), the three prime suspects should be: Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, and Anthony Fauci.
Beyond them, I would throw in Pope Bergoglio and Prince Charles as very strong suspects.
But of those three–Schwab, Gates, and Fauci–they had the trifecta: means, motive, and opportunity.
They were, to extend the metaphor, caught red-handed at the scene of the crime.
Throw in Peter Daszak.
Throw in Stephane Bancel of Moderna.
What about Ralph Baric?
And don’t forget the Chinese in Wuhan.
“Bat lady”.
The only relevant thing Trump has done recently was to “praise Putin”, but then he turned around and called Zelensky a hero.
https://www.infowars.com/posts/trump-praises-putin/
Trump has made himself completely irrelevant with his stance on the COVID vaccines available in the USA.
But, hey: if you’re French, I have good news for you:
There’s only one problem:
is Putin controlled by Klaus Schwab?
Schwab brags in a video (in the above article) that Putin was a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum (WEF [Davos]).
Who are the other big feathers in Schwab’s cap?
Merkel, Trudeau, Macron, Ardern, De Croo, Sanna Marin…
It is possible (as of last week) to verify Macron, Ardern, De Croo, and Sanna Marin (as well as Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, and Maria Bartiromo) here:
https://www.younggloballeaders.org/community
My gut tells me that former-Stasi (KGB) operative Vladimir Putin went to YGL to COLLECT INFORMATION.
Same with Maria Bartiromo.
As for the rest?
Fuck ’em!
Gabbard?
A fucking fake.
-PD
Bound by Flesh [2012)
I never know.
What I’m getting into.
These movies.
In the hopper.
And then spit out by a sort of roulette.
That I forget.
Anything I might have known.
And mostly I don’t want to know.
I just want to “pull the trigger” on these films.
Give it a try.
Try to watch it.
And boy did I find a doozy. A masterpiece. A truly special film.
Bound by Flesh is a documentary currently streaming in the U.S. on Netflix.
It was directed by Leslie Zemeckis.
Wife of Robert Zemeckis.
Now.
There are a couple of things which slayed me concerning this film.
First, is San Antonio.
My town.
The boring shithole in which I live.
A place so lifeless, so meaningless…that one must comb through the relics hoping for some shard of redemption.
Yes, Robert Johnson recorded here.
But he also recorded in Dallas.
And that was it.
So we have that half distinction.
And Pola Negri lived here.
We are very honored by that.
And Wings was made here. The first film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
But none of these things helps me to get up in the morning (or the middle of the day).
The 15-or-so years I lived in Austin, I had the legend of Sterling Morrison to give me hope.
Guitarist with The Velvet Underground.
Doctorate in medieval literature from UT-Austin.
And the Hole In The Wall was my sort of Mecca…because Sterling had played there.
But San Antonio has been an unmagical destination of return.
These past five (?) years.
But I say with utmost honesty…with absolute sincerity.
The story of Daisy and Violet Hilton has helped me.
These Siamese twins.
So beautiful!
I mean, really: the two most beautiful girls you’ve ever seen.
And so The Smashing Pumpkins start to make sense.
That time at the Sunken Gardens Theater.
When I was but 17.
And they were touring Siamese Dream.
And my ballet classmate magically pirouetted out on stage.
“How the hell did you get up there?,” we asked her on Monday morning.
It was all magical.
The venue.
The Sunken Gardens.
But now it makes sense.
Siamese Dream.
Daisy and Violet (hereafter to be reversed) lived in San Antonio.
Their (by all accounts) evil manager Myer Myers (what a fucked up name!) built a huge mansion on Vance Jackson (that’s a street here) with the money he skimmed (or ladled) from his cash cows.
The freaks.
Violet and Daisy.
One of the best films I’ve seen in the past years is Violet & Daisy.
With my favorite working actress (Saoirse Ronan) and the very-fine Alexis Bledel.
So we shall go with that.
Violet and Daisy.
Indeed, all throughout this documentary, a prominent curator from the Witte Museum (our old, yet newly-renovated…reopening repository here in San Antonio) gives her articulate insights into the life of Violet and Daisy.
[that curator, incidentally, is the excellent Amy Fulkerson]
Ok…so the twins lived in San Antonio.
Great.
But what else?
Well, it was their route.
Talk about circuitous.
Born in Brighton, England.
Home of Nick Cave.
Hell, home of Jonny Aitken (hi Jonny!) last time I checked.
Interestingly, the twins next big locale change was to Australia.
Which is to say, their life was like Nick Cave in reverse.
And Cave would certainly gravitate to this sort of story.
Dark.
Freak shows.
Carnival midway.
Vaudeville.
[and the death of minstrelsy…{think Emmett Miller}]
Burlesque.
[and the death of vaudeville]
Drive-ins.
Hell…Violet and Daisy were in Freaks by Tod Browning!
Yeah, the guy who directed Dracula starring Bela Lugosi.
But as with many show business stories, this one turns sad.
And yet…as Ms. Fulkerson makes clear, the Hilton twins never gave up.
They had an indomitable spirit.
It may be cheesy to reference, but it reminds me of one of U2’s finest songs (off the very-fine War album).
“Two Hearts Beat As One”
Sure…Violet and Daisy didn’t stay in San Antonio.
They eventually moved on to New York.
And finally to Charlotte and environs.
But their story is so damned inspiring!
And to think that they graced my town 🙂
That they had their trial in 1931 (?) down at the red brick courthouse.
That Myer Myers got what was coming to him.
Which brings us to a parallel point.
To something I haven’t covered in a LONG time.
Pizzagate.
Or Pedogate.
Most of all, the John Podesta scandal which WikiLeaks unearthed.
First, I’d like to salute all the people who turned out in D.C. on the 25th to advocate for missing children.
We’re talking kidnapped, trafficked, raped, killed children.
And there is a very disturbing “video” of which I was just made aware today thanks to the ever-vigilant reporter David Seaman.
Said video is more sound than image, but it is purported to be a recording of John Podesta beating a child at Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C. at a Heaving Breathing show.
Heavy Breathing is one of the bizarre bands (including Sex Stains) which played at this “family” venue run by James Alefantis.
Simply put: John Podesta’s cryptographically verifiable emails on WikiLeaks seem to point to him being AT BEST a pedophile, and at worst a violent child molester possibly involved in Satanic ritual sacrifice of children.
I’m not making this shit up.
Go read the emails for yourself.
Do some research.
It is the freakiest shit on the planet.
Look at it too long, and you want to vomit (while beating the crap out of Podesta).
That’s level one.
The emails.
Level two is/are the tentacles.
It involves Hillary.
Why was Hillary seemingly covering for Laura Silsby in Haiti?
In other words, why was the Secretary of State (Clinton) interceding for an American woman who had been convicted of child trafficking in Haiti?
You can read the story.
Likewise, certain of these Clinton emails are on WikiLeaks.
There are the “after ‘wheels-up'” statements.
But then we get to James Alefantis.
This motherfucker…
No, actually…if he was fucking mothers that would be somewhat socially acceptable.
Be it appears that his establishment IS INDEED integral to unraveling the pedogate ring.
To sum up, it appears that American “elites” (both Democrat and Republican) have a certain predilection for little boys and girls.
Some of the elites are also heavily immersed in occult practices.
Hillary is one of these.
Larry Nichols confirmed that Bill Clinton told him specifically of Hillary’s monthly jaunts to California to participate in a witches’ coven.
As I’ve mentioned before, Hillary would not have been playing second fiddle at such events.
And if that seems farfetched, we can point to the Bohemian Club (aka Bohemian Grove) [also in California] and their yearly opening ceremony called “the Cremation of Care”…at which they perform a “mock” sacrifice of an infant in the shadows of a giant (40 ft-tall?) statue of Moloch.
This is the meeting that has drawn (and continues to draw) the likes of Kissinger, Ted Turner, Reagan, Nixon…and so many more “elites”.
But let’s back up one level.
James Alefantis is a “bad (or sick)” person.
Ok, I couldn’t help it.
More accurately, he’s a sick, sick person.
His Instagram was archived.
And, as David Seaman correctly points out, it fetishizes the sale and abuse of children.
[this is where Violet and Daisy come back in…because they had no one truly looking out for them]
But let’s move laterally for a moment.
The sickest of the bunch might just be Tony Podesta, John’s brother.
This guy’s art collection is like a pedophile’s dream.
But also a Satanist’s dream.
The art that Tony Podesta (and his former wife Heather) collected (and presumably still collect) is some sick fucking shit!
So when you start to tie all this stuff together, John Podesta’s coded (not encrypted) messages made public by WikiLeaks start to take on a very ominous tone indeed.
But the video I alluded to can be found with a simple Google search of “John Podesta Skippy video”.
Yes, even the woeful Huffington Post (I refuse to italicize that crap publication) wrote about John Podesta’s bizarre alter ego years ago: Skippy.
As stated, to my eyes, the video shows very little.
But the sound is of the utmost importance.
Unfortunately, with my highly-trained ear (I advanced a year in ear training classes in one day of university) I am not hearing what other researchers are hearing.
HOWEVER, it seems that someone is fucking with John Podesta.
And I can’t help thinking that is, in general, a good thing.
In other words, someone has “the goods” on Podesta.
The video, incidentally, ostensibly has a child (a horrifying sound…like Lou Reed’s Berlin to the nth degree) begging “John” and (not-quite-alternately) “Skippy” to stop the beating.
I will say this.
I do believe it to be a genuine article.
But in my honesty, I do not hear the words “John” nor “Skippy” at any point.
Yet, I believe it is John Podesta beating a child.
And I believe the general outline of pizzagate/pedogate to be true.
And so, dear friends, we owe it to children to remain vigilant.
Sexual abuse ruins lives.
It is very likely that Podesta (and his brother) himself (themselves) was (were) abused.
It doesn’t excuse their actions.
But it goes a certain distance in explaining them.
However, the occult (which has a direct tie-in to Marina Abramovic…again, verified in WikiLeaks emails) aspect is really hard to fathom.
It’s so bad that I don’t want to fathom it.
But we can’t ignore it.
We can’t be afraid.
We can’t just roll over and die.
I’d rather be wrong about Podesta than for a single child to suffer rape or torture or death at the hands of sadistic monsters.
So there you have it.
That’s how a Pauly Deathwish review goes.
Buy the ticket. Take the ride.
As Hunter S. Thompson said.
I will tell you when a film sucks.
And I will tell you when a film is great.
And I will also tell you when something in the world is fucked up.
The nightly news and the morning paper won’t say “fucked up”.
And, somehow, that explains why they are truth-neutered.
But I ain’t got nothin’ to lose.
My life sucks.
And my life is beautiful.
But I’m down here at the bottom.
On the killing floor, as Howlin’ Wolf sang.
The abattoir blues, as Nick Cave sang.
I ain’t so deluded as to think that lying will get me a better life.
I’m sick of lies.
I’m too old to care.
Go ahead, kill me.
It doesn’t matter.
I’ve got no career for you to ruin.
And I understand the high bar for libel of public figures.
So go ahead, John Podesta: keep comparing us to Sandy Hook truthers.
Yes, by the way, Sandy Hook was fake.
But you’re not weaseling out of this one.
You’re caught.
So let that Raskolnikov guilt sink in.
A thousand times worse than death.
You are a sick, sick person.
I hope I’m wrong.
But I don’t fucking think so.
-PD
Yang Tidak Dibicarakan Ketika Membicarakan Cinta [2013)
By the grace of God I bring you this film review tonight.
Last night I was not feeling well enough to write.
And so I am happy to give you my first review of an Indonesian film.
It is a wonderful piece of cinema and is available on Netflix in the U.S. currently as What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love.
I will just say this.
Any film which includes a character sneezing his glass eye out of his head is ok by me.
Which is to say, this is a pretty strange film.
But it is not strange in an uptight, contrived, David Lynch sort of way.
Perhaps it is the basic situation which makes this film quixotic.
The bulk of the “action” takes place at a “special” school (as it is called in the subtitles).
The beautiful young people at this school all struggle with visual impairment.
There is, however, one very important character who is sighted yet cannot hear.
[We will get to him in due time]
When I tried to watch this film last night, I was not feeling very well (as mentioned previously).
And so in my debilitating moments of bubbling, dull panic I was trying to first situate this film culturally.
There was some blurb about a Dutch film fund.
And the real bit of text at the head of the film which threw me off the scent: a reference to the Busan film fund.
Knowing Busan, I figured, “Great! I am watching a South Korean film.”
I felt somewhat comfortable marginally knowing the cinema tradition in which I had just entered.
But as I saw women and young girls in Muslim garb, I began to question.
Indeed, even on tonight’s complete viewing, it was only 3/4 of the way through the film that I realized I was watching an Indonesian production.
Call me stupid.
Fine.
But this is not a cinema (nor a language) with which I have any experience.
It was only when I saw Jakarta on the side of a bus that I felt fairly confident where the story had been set.
So yes, this is an Indonesian film in Indonesian (or dare I say Malay).
The scope and breadth of this language is not altogether clear to me, but it seems that Indonesian is a “register” (in linguistic terms) of Malay.
Being the dunce that I am, “register” seems an awful lot like “dialect”, but I’m sure most linguists would roundly dismiss this generalization.
Perhaps “jargon” is a better synonym for “register”.
In any case, Malay (of one type or another) is spoken by about 290 million people worldwide.
But we will stick to the term Indonesian (as per the language).
Our whole film is in that language (except for one line in Javanese).
Javanese, unlike Indonesian, is not a form of Malay.
It is quite distinct.
But on to the movie!
First we must pay our respects to the highly-talented director: Mouly Surya.
Based on a cursory search, this would be Mr. Surya (Mouly being far more common as a male name).
Ah…but thank God for research!
Our director, in fact, is MS. Surya.
She is a 36-year-old native of Jakarta.
But really, male or female, this is an obvious work of cinematic art.
What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love isn’t perfect, but it’s frighteningly close.
Which isn’t to say it’s frightening.
It’s not.
But it’s a film which sneaks up on you.
Cineastes may be familiar with the term “slow cinema” which has been bandied about here and there especially in recent years.
There may be some of that here…like when the character Diana combs her hair exactly 100 times.
[I was sure she was going to stop at 88…that number being good luck in Southeast Asian cultures]
Indeed, we are with the character for a seemingly interminable session of hair-brushing at her “boudoir”.
However, that is one of the few times where the “slow cinema” idea has our film run astray temporarily.
Other uses of the technique (an extreme of Deleuze’s “time-image”?) are quite effective and evoke the loneliness of sightless life.
Granted, no two lives are the same.
But the Indonesia pictured in our film is not an economic wonderland.
Quite the opposite.
It is a rather humble school in which students have very basic accommodations.
And as is so often the case, economic struggles exacerbate and compound coexisting problems.
But don’t get me wrong: it appears that the students portrayed actually have it very lucky in the context of their nation (all things considered).
Arguably the star of the film is Karina Salim.
Her situation is one of ballet lessons…and a doting mother.
That said, her roommate has a family which is struggling economically.
It is a strange juxtaposition.
But let’s focus on Ms. Salim.
Her acting is really fantastic.
Whether she is blind in real life, I know not.
But her portrayal of the character Diana is in the great tradition of pathos which touched on the works of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.
The French adjective pathétique.
In English, we (if I may speak for us English speakers) tend to regard pathétique as descriptive of poetic pathos.
Deep expression.
And that is exactly what Karina Salim exhibits in her delicate acting throughout this film.
Her character, Diana, is right on the cusp of womanhood.
And in a very moving set of sequences, we see her quietly preparing her underwear for the week.
The moment of her first menstruation is a cause for secret celebration.
Indeed, she shares this ascent to adulthood with only her mother…on a joyous little phone call which we overhear.
Which brings us to culture.
We almost feel embarrassed knowing this intimate detail of character Diana’s life.
But American films are so much more explicit in so many ways.
Perhaps we are shocked because the reality of womanhood is rarely addressed in Hollywood movies.
And so we see that Hollywood still has taboos.
In this age in which anything goes, honest depiction of mundane-yet-visceral life realities (such as menstruation) are all but absent (save from a film like Carrie [1976]).
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this particular kind of honesty about femininity onscreen.
But what the hell do I know? I’m a dude.
So let’s back to the film.
While Ayushita is very good as Diana’s roommate, it is really Nicholas Saputra who is the other star of this film.
His character is a deaf punk rocker.
[Let that one sink in for a second]
Every day he has a different shirt.
The Sex Pistols. Led Zeppelin (?!?). The Clash. Joan Jett.
He definitely has the best hairstyle in the film.
[A strange zig-zag bleach job which I’ve never seen previously]
His character Edo is a social engineer par excellence.
Yes, there is some trickery in this film.
But it is not malicious.
Or if it begins as malicious, it is transformed into something quite beautiful.
[think Amélie]
But here’s where things get really strange.
There is really no decorous way of putting this, but there are a few characters in this film which pop up from time to time…AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THEY ARE!
There is a rather tasteless meme going back generations that all Chinese people look the same to a Westerner.
[And, perhaps, all Brits (for instance) look the same to a Chinese person]
But, again, there are some characters in this film which seem to be playing out some subplot which escaped me completely.
Indeed, I have so rarely seen anything like it that I can only associate my confusion with that felt by so many in relation to the surreal Howard Hawks narrative in The Big Sleep.
Granted, in our film this is a very minor element.
But it is still disorienting.
Was there some series of edits which mangled this film?
Can I really not tell one Indonesian person from another?
I don’t know.
You’ll have to see it for yourself.
And explain to me exactly what is going on.
For instance, does the blind character Andhika somehow learn how to drive a Vespa around town?
And is he cheating on Diana?
Or is Diana cheating on herself?
Are there two Dianas?
Again, a few scenes completely lost me.
But they do not ruin the general continuity of this film.
If anything, they add a mercurial charm to the whole affair.
And so I wholeheartedly recommend this film which portrays a side of life on which many of us are completely uninformed.
Visual impairment. Braille. Hearing impairment. The difficulty of asking a clerk at 7-Eleven, “what kind of cigarettes do girls buy” in sign language.
And there is beauty in this world.
The appreciation for just a glimmer of sight (however blurry).
And yet, the difficulty of EVERY SINGLE TASK.
Most of all, this is a love story.
Two love stories (at least).
[not counting the extraneous players which pop up here and there]
But it is a very, VERY unique love story.
For me, it is an incredibly moving film because of the acting of Karina Salim and also Anggun Priambodo (who plays Andhika).
So take an adventure to Jakarta. Capital of Indonesia. World’s fourth-most-populous country.
While Indonesia is approximately 87% Muslim, this film portrays a diversity of religious devotion.
Indeed, while one student prays, another listens to a radio play (as one would have heard in the days of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce on The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes [1939-1946]).
Indeed, this scene of overlap…with religion in the background (the praying student) and learning in the foreground (listening to a lesson? or just a bit of entertainment for the girls who live at this school?) is one of the most fascinating from a visual and cultural perspective.
I cannot pretend to know what is going on in all of the footage.
And so an expert on education for the visually impaired in Indonesia would perhaps be able to elucidate some of the more esoteric aspects of this film.
In the meantime, enjoy!
-PD
Top Secret! [1984)
And so we come full-circle.
As in the olden days.
When we first started.
Writing about spy spoofs.
And this is a doozy!
Val Kilmer’s first film.
As Nick Rivers.
Very much Elvis, but equally Beach Boys (at least on the opening number “Skeet Surfing”).
I would call this style of filmmaking “kitchen sink”.
It was a particular type of American comedy in the 1980s.
Fast jokes.
Set pieces.
Elaborate puns.
General silliness.
The setting is East Germany.
In the time of Markus Wolf and the Stasi.
Wolf retired in 1986.
The year after this film (1985), Vladimir Putin started his KGB career in East Germany.
But let’s talk about more important stuff…like how beautiful Lucy Gutteridge is!
A girl and a gun, said Godard.
And for a sequel, another girl and another gun…
Said I.
Port Said.
Fuad II.
Yes, Ms. Gutteridge plays the stunning Hillary.
Which roughly translates to “she whose breasts defy gravity”.
That’s a direct paraphrase.
What?
We almost get the Lawrence Welk Orchestra doing “Sister Ray”, but Nick Rivers and “Tutti Frutti” is close enough to alienate the visiting Russian operatic singer and his caricature faux-Nazi patron.
General Streck.
Not to be confused with Colonel Sturm or Sergeant Drang.
Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers (David and Jerry) strung us along the whole time.
And they directed a fairly decent film here…the triumvirate.
The Nutcracker turns out to be a ballet of literal protrusions.
The prop room is equally literal.
It’s both Joycean and daft.
But I had some genuine chuckles during this film.
They execute a priest as a demonstration.
And his Latin is a knee-slapping litany.
A greatest hits of that dead language.
Legal. Medical. String it together. Make it flow.
Pig Latin. Cow Latin. Pidgin Latin.
Yes Elvis. Yes Beach Boys. And yes Beatlemania.
Sullivan. Hysteria. Hip sway. Swooning.
Is it a bit of Fritz Lang with the magnifying glass?
Certainly prefigures the backmasking of Twin Peaks.
Swedish as a backwards language.
Like those hidden messages on (back to the) Beatles records.
I want to live in that loft of that Swedish bookstore…
clutching a volume of Strindberg and holding a Ms. Gutteridge.
How could anyone dream of more than two fireplaces at the top of a firehouse pole?
Many references. The Blue Lagoon. When Brooke Shields was just 14.
Like the Podestas, we end up next in the script at a pizza restaurant.
(!)
“Straighten Out the Rug” pulls out all the stops…and all the rugs…like Pejman Nozad on vitamins.
An incredibly detailed mock-up of the prison grounds complete with a toy train.
Bovine infiltration.
Eggs Benedict Arnold.
When instead of hollandaise, they’ve secretly replaced the sauce with Folger’s crystal gravy (on loan from the struggling PepsiCo).
While Trump protestors boycott every snack and cranny of this MNE.
But the dénouement is the underwater saloon brawl.
It is actually artful. Postmodern. High art in spite of itself. Dodoism.
We must not forget the yeoman efforts of the great Omar Sharif in this film.
Sadly, Mr. Sharif passed away just this past year in his home country of Egypt.
At least he did not (presumably) need two hours of surgery to wipe the smile off his face.
“Who do you root for in the Virginia Slims tournament?”
“I always root against the heterosexual.”
“Do you know any good, white basketball players?”
“There are no good, white basketball players.”
All of this from the “Match? Lighter. Better still.” line which Robert Shaw sweated out of someone to fool his way into James Bond’s presence and trust for a short time…before he chose fish with red wine.
One wonders whether the East Berliners had the jelly-faced joy of seeing this arrogant Hollywood slap at the time of its release?
Most importantly, “kitchen sink” was the style of the ZAZ directors mentioned previously: Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker.
Kentucky Fried Movie. Airplane! The Naked Gun films (with the exception of the last).
This really is a cute film.
And while most of it would have pushed the envelope for 1984, it would almost be a G-rated movie by today’s standards.
Still, there are some jawdropping moments…such as The Anal Intruder (with the Cuisinart on the shelf [in the jailhouse now]).
Turns out the Christopher Atkins character (played by Christopher Villiers) had gotten all the joys of the Russian sailors who rescued him…including sodomy, Karl Marx, Lenin, L. Ron Hubbard, and one more bloke.
And so we wonder…couldn’t the Butthole Surfers have made it into this film?
Just barely.
Three years later they would drop the masterpiece Locust Abortion Technician.
Ah, the Reagan era…
-PD
Les Misérables: Liberté, liberté chérie [1934)
Tonight, a miracle happened to me.
For a lonely film critic, that can mean only one thing: love.
And so I thank GOd for a moment of happiness.
No, I am not drunk beyond syntactical awareness.
I am merely thinking of Catherine the Great.
1729-1796.
Russia.
Екатерина Алексеевна.
But then I am also thinking of the Panthéon.
Paris.
First came Mirabeau.
1791.
A mere three years.
And then Voltaire.
Ah! Now we are getting somewhere!!
Émile Genevois, like Jonathan Donahue, thinks of “Little Rhymes” when he’s alone and scared.
This is the character Gavroche.
Sous les pavés, la plage.
Mai ’68.
And then the beautiful Marat in 1794.
And still Catherine lived.
Charlotte Corday died. Aged 24.
Back on track with Rousseau.
The barricades.
Rue Saint-Denis. From the June Rebellion of 1832 to the sex shops of 2016.
Prostitution.
Vive la République!
And then the dream of Catherine the Great (второй) came to an end.
Night falls…
Reality.
Yes, maybe it was Katharine Hepburn instead.
Too pure!
But what I’ve lived my life for.
Dedicated.
Misguided.
Recalibrated.
Sad but honest.
Just a simple car ride.
Like Homayoun Ershadi in طعم گيلاس
There is no putting any punctuation on that.
No catafalque of Lamarque.
Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude.
à son ami Franz Liszt
November Uprising. 1830. 1831.
Poland and Lithuania.
And back to that Russian Empire of Catherine (and Пётр before her).
It’s funny.
In Honegger we might hear shades of Tchaikovsky.
The Arabian Dance we know so well from The Nutcracker Suite.
Coffee.
Divertissement.
Act II (второй).
Tableau III.
It wasn’t a diacritical mark. It was merely a speck of dirt on the screen.
In the half-light.
With cat eyes.
Pray to goD for another chance to hold the coins of long suffering.
Through the sewers of Paris.
I thank you for that blessing of weight lifted momentarily.
-PD
Pickpocket [1959)
Writing about film makes you appreciate the film.
You think.
What will I say about this picture?
This succession of pictures.
Sounds.
And so silently you ponder the ways to express true genius.
And how lucky we are to witness true genius.
It’s true.
The Criterion Collection has brought us many films which otherwise might have been forgotten.
Film didn’t begin with The Godfather.
It doesn’t end with Citizen Kane.
And so we need to see the other stuff.
We need to hear voices from outside of America.
Hollywood is international, to be sure, yet everything which enters there leaves marked.
It is a sentiment which Godard expressed in his magnum opus Histoire(s) du cinema.
And this is the other stuff.
Robert Bresson.
You might only know Henri-Cartier Bresson. Don’t stop there.
Robert Bresson was the master of taking non-actors and capturing their vitality on film.
Pickpocket does justice to Uruguay as much as did Isidore Ducasse (which is to say, completely).
Martin LaSalle, a young Urugayan-French actor in his film debut, plays the lead role here of the pickpocket Michel.
LaSalle’s eggshell acting is essential to this masterpiece.
Yet, it is director Bresson who brings the ballet of crime to life.
Yes, it is like Orson Wells doing his magic tricks in F for Fake (his magnum opus).
Indeed, everything has an art. Even crime.
And as paper currency disappears from the industrialized world we see the migration of subway thieves to the ether in an attempt to pilfer Apple Pay “money”.
Yes, I’m afraid that soon everything will need quotes around it.
Perhaps I just don’t understand.
But, there is an art to everything.
Take accounting, for instance: the most boring subject invented by human beings.
And yet, there is an “art” to it…I’m sure…somewhere…deep, deep down inside.
But Pickpocket is of a different era.
Perhaps computer hacking and financial calculator operations require a certain finger dexterity, but nothing like the prestidigitation which Bresson brings to life in this film.
It is a noiseless ballet of lifts, drops, catches, exchanges, etc. Buttons flicked. Buckles finessed in one motion.
It reminds me of the one true line in Goldfinger…perhaps the only genuinely cinematic moment in that film (though I love the other 99% pulp)…
Delivered by the title character, as played by Gert Fröbe, it goes a little something like this:
“Man has climbed Mount Everest, gone to the bottom of the ocean. He’s fired rockets at the Moon, split the atom, achieved miracles in every field of human endeavor… except crime!”
Ahhh…the rolled Rrrrs of that final word. Like H.W.’s brief year at Langley. Like Kissinger at Iron Mountain. Ah! But here we run into a problem.
Hoaxes. Like Sandy Hook. Like Hani Hanjour.
And will Donald Trump have the balls to read a book? Perhaps Webster Griffin Tarpley’s 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA?
I doubt it.
Is Trump a provocateur or merely provocative?
Because if he shot his mouth off a little more pointedly he’d have my vote.
And I would stand with my immigrant brothers and sisters every day to see Dick Cheney take the stand. Under oath.
And Philip Zelikow. Under oath.
And Donald Rumsfeld. Under oath.
And Larry Silverstein. And Rudy Giuliani. And Richard Myers.
Somebody else did it? Then you got nothing to worry about.
Unravel unravel unravel.
Because Trump is wrong about immigration.
And Bernie Sanders is right about Snowden.
And I don’t like Trump or Sanders.
But Trump is the only one even tangentially touching on the real issue: truth.
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Off the rails. Film review.
C’est la vie.
Conspiracy.
Don’t mind me.
I will just go back to watching films.
Go back to sleep.
Nothing to see here.
-PD
Limelight [1952)
I didn’t know movies could be this good.
Where have they been keeping this all of our lives?
Us.
When I was young I stumbled into The Gold Rush. 25/52.
And I lived at the end of a flower in City Lights.
So I knew.
But I forgot.
That Charlie Chaplin was the most vivid outcast—the great romantic on rollerskates.
And the miracle?
Claire Bloom lives.
No Sylvia Plath ending.
And Charles Chaplin lives.
As much as Baudelaire’s vieux saltimbanque.
It was her first film. Bloom.
Age 21.
And now she is 84 years young.
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No one told me films could be miracles.
It’s kinda like Thora Birch.
Buster Keaton.
People thought she stopped working.
But it wasn’t true.
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No greater love have I seen for an art.
Like Pierre-Auguste kissing the canvas…and then painting.
You can’t simply say Renoir in film and let it linger…
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Tell Tchaikovsky the news.
The first chord. In Moscow perhaps. And all 122 pages fall onto the keyboard.
A thunderous vibration like Chaliapin.
Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин
Boris Godunov.
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A drinking problem.
Stage fright.
Torn and frayed.
At the edges.
In the wings.
Wings.
Ah yes…I haven’t heard that name in a long time.
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The piano was unprepared.
A cage of equal temperament.
And so we removed the great nest
of cosmic dissonance.
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Don’t get me wrong.
I love a good cluster chord.
An honest, flawed note.
Take your dissonance like a man…someone said…maybe Henry Cowell.
On second thought, ’twas Ives.
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I’ve spent my life in a drum.
Like Keith Moon.
A human projectile.
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88 ways to look at a blackbird.
I’ve never seen one person leave it all on the stage quite like that.
A lifetime’s work. Painted.
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The film was in black and white?
I didn’t happen to notice.
Because behind my eyes the colours were bursting.
U.
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And so like those little speckles in the concrete which the moon caught.
As I dreamt of being a composer.
And I too dove headfirst into the void like Yves Klein.
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And for us it was no sleight of hand.
There was no airbrushed net.
And I landed hard.
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Gandhi is smiling and that’s all that matters.
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between yell and Yale
bell strut feet dill old pod loot. Look!
88 ways to be a composer and an itch ain’t one (bite me!)
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Film is completely unimportant when writing about film.
Take Hubert’s Flea Circus on 42nd St.
I would never have known were it not for Nick Tosches.
And my favorite book:
Where Dead Voices Gather.
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Yeah, but it’s like Picasso’s musicians.
You think I’ve really cracked up. Craquelure.
“Any fish bite if you got good bait.”
They tell us in economics there’s only one Mona Lisa.
Because the painter is dead.
Only one…
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Because he’s not alive to paint another.
Another Mona Lisa.
Unlimited supply. EMI.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////
You’re driving at something.
I just know it.
Because the film was too long. And too good.
Not possible, Likert.
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Many aw-kward moments of perfection.
Where Chaplin hit too close to home.
Was it Dave Davies?
“Death of a Clown”
Yes, precisely.
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It can’t be described conventionally.
You can’t just go to the Grand Canyon and say, “Vast.”
Was ist das?
Ja!
That is what I’m trying to say.
-PD
paulydeathwish 