Tag Archives: forgive

Knight Without Armour [1937)

First, my apologies.

My apologies to every Jewish person I may have offended.

There is no good explanation other than to say that the Internet is rife with anti-Jewish sentiment.

I have experienced this irrational wave of nastiness and tried to fight against it.

But I am just a human.

A human with no friends.

And so I ask world Jewry to forgive my failings.

My mission is to speak peace.  It is sometimes not easy to speak peace with a tongue of fire.

Many things I have posted over the years.

What I post is my opinion.

But let it be known that I am just as ignorant as anyone.

And so I ask God to send me Jewish friends.

I have long had my arms open to Muslims worldwide.

My spirit is one of acceptance.

I am no genius.

I accept the Christians of the world.

I have no grudge.

I understand the immortal things no better than any man.

I ask Scientologists to forgive me.

I don’t understand your beliefs.

There is no reason for me to denigrate you.

I ask Lenny Pozner to forgive me.

I don’t know what happened at Sandy Hook.

I know it seems very strange, but I am not a chorus boy for a wave of anger.

I ask the state of Israel and Israelis to forgive me.

I don’t know your country.  I can’t pretend I do.

I ask everyone who has depended on me to forgive me.

I have only tried to tell the truth about 9/11.

Maybe I am wrong.

Maybe the truth is just as it was written by the 9/11 commission.

I don’t think so, but I’m willing to admit that I don’t really understand it.

I don’t understand physics.

I don’t understand intelligence agencies.

I would ask the CIA to please forgive me.

You are probably risking your lives and doing very honorable things.

I just don’t understand.  I don’t know.

I haven’t been there.  I have no idea what you do.

I ask the New World Order (which may or may not exist) to forgive me.

I know you’re probably just a bunch of well-meaning rich people.

I don’t know what your aims are.

I don’t hate you.

I don’t even know you.

But most of all I ask Jacques Feyder to forgive me.

Here I have taken the film review form as a way to ask forgiveness.

I have not talked about his film.

I haven’t talked about Marlene Dietrich.  Or Robert Donat.

Or even the very interesting Frances Marion.

I’m sorry.

I hope only that by speaking candidly I can do justice to this wonderful film.

I always stand up for Muslims.  And Palestinians.

But today I don’t have the right words.

Please forgive me, comrades.

And to my socialist brothers and sisters.

Please accept my apology.  I don’t know what your philosophy really is.

I cannot criticize what I do not know.

I only know film.  And my gut.  And music.

In a word:  art.

I stand with anyone who loves art.

My politics don’t make any sense.

Don’t mind me.

I’m trying to do the best I can, but it’s not good enough.

I’m a bundle of contradictions.

I can only press onwards and hope for the salvation of film and love.

Please forgive me Meir Kahane.  I did not know you.

Please forgive me Jewish Defense League and Mossad.

And the Anti-Defamation League.

I don’t know what you’re up against.  I don’t see what you see.

Please forgive me AIPAC and Southern Poverty Law Center.

I’m not sure if I ever insulted you, but I probably did.  At least one of you.

Please forgive me George Soros.

I don’t think I ever insulted you, but I wanted to.

And that’s wrong.  Because I don’t know anything about you.

I live in Texas where there are very few Jews.

I don’t know about Judaism.

I don’t understand.

But I don’t want to insult your tradition.

I don’t understand the Holocaust.

I don’t know what to say.

I can only tell the truth the best I can.

Please join me in a new effort of forgiveness and openness.

We can make a better world with wisdom.

I pray to you God for wisdom.

My words are impure.

I have tried.  And yet my words are hollow.

Please breathe your life into my words and make them real.

Make me a decent person.

Thank you.

 

-PD

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Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne [1945)

Bresson has been slaying me recently.

First Balthazar, and now this.

They are similar.

Films which seem boring.

You watch them once.  They wash over you.  Very little effect.

And then you are stranded at the end of the world.

Just you and Górecki’s third symphony.

Yes, you pack away some life beneath your belt.

You ingest the poison trickery of the world.

Et voila!

The film comes to life.

All the Frenchies start out looking the same in black and white.

You furiously follow the subtitles.

But the film presents meaning the second time around.

First were the forms.

A donkey.  Some sluts.  Bad memory.

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne is so forgettable the first time around.

All we remember is the Bois.

Conflated with some lines of Céline’s Voyage…

But this is the real deal.

Maria Casarès was like the Alida Valli of The Paradine Case here.

Indeed, it just may be that Hitchcock lifted the essence of his criminally underrated film (no pun intended) from Bresson’s minor masterpiece of two years previous.

Whatever the case may be, Casarès is absolutely diabolical as Hélène.

Revenge is a dish best served.

Simmer, reduce, garnish, and serve.

Revenge revenge revenge.

And yet we feel for Hélène.

And so in the grand mystery of the spheres we wonder, “What is God if not an impossible camera angle?”

A crumpled note.

Our hearts torn to shreds.

And always raining.

Like some goddamned B-movie with a thunder sheet in the wings.

If I didn’t hook you at first, then you’re not still with me.

HOW TO BLOG:

brevity.

The oppression of Twitter.

So we must think of the greatest tricks of all time.

The recent Microsoft Tay psyop.  To make Trump and his followers look stupid.

As if he needs any help.

But a very real conspiracy none the less.

For some events are so transparent.

And some pure whores like  Agnès (Elina Labourdette) have that bullshit detection meter straight out of The Shining.

Preternatural, if not supernatural.

We might think we’re being tricked.

Too good to be true IS.

“Deceit deceives itself.”  Guy Debord.  D.N. Smith.

It is a very delicate story.

The crystallization of immense pain.

Vanity, yes.

But also human nature.  Survival of the ego.

A hurt so deep as to propel plans.  Special plans.  Operations.

Some countries blow up their own cities.

The old “self-inflicted wound” ploy…as Clouseau would call it.

Orwell was very clear about this in 1984.  The government is firing rockets at its own people.

Because it is only natural to assume an outside enemy as culpable, the true authors slip by.

And as the narrative becomes codified and accepted…and everyone has come back to the NFL, and hockey, and soccer…then the beast can’t be disturbed.

The beast which knows not its own power.

The beast whose abuse rises from below.

The Lilliputians in charge condescend upwards.

All bark and no bite.

And the beast bites the wrong lands.

Afghanistan.  Iraq.

With each passing year the creation myth (9/11) requires inference upon inference upon inference to justify the next humanitarian bombing.

Libya.  Syria.

Very few understand the importance of replacing due process with death by Hellfire missile.

Yemen.

No wonder the video game makers consult with the Pentagon.

A seamless transition from energy drinks in mom’s basement to the joysticks of drone strikes.

Far afield.

From those ladies.

Those ladies who have been used.

Sold a false bill of goods.

A very sloppy expression.  Arcane.

Left dangling like a modifier.

And so we want to go back to a simpler time.

Before we gave up on our dreams (in the blink of an eye).

I call out to cold regions.  Cold rooms.

I call out to cold hearts.  Mixed response.

But the one true miracle is to push onwards.

No more sugar-coating the shite she dished out.

She was a real bitch.

And I was as mad as any painterly glass of absinthe ever existed.

I can’t forget.

No, never.

But I can forgive.

Not much here to steal or ruin.

A very marginal existence.

I can sleep because of a girl.

A dream of a girl.

A girl I don’t even know.

She is hope.

A sort of personification of liberty.

And when will we revolt from this life and bolt?

One step at a time.

Not hasty.

So many years piled on my shoulders.

This is, by the way, a film review.

Not caring how ridiculous I look.

Take your best shot.

World, shut your mouth.

I was no trick.

I’ve been desperate.  Money troubles.  My ethics in the gutter.

But given a second chance by the universe I made an important decision.

To be boring.

A few days longer.

Some dreams worth chasing, others are a disease.

People over profit.

Sign me up, Chomsky!

Better get right with the lord.

Or git hit in yer soul.

It’s easy.  Chomsky won’t touch 9/11.

And Alex Jones won’t touch Israel.

It’s easy.

Why?  Same team, different squads.

I don’t care.

Not being run down by no third-rate psyop.

Fuck your Godwin’s law.

This was 1945.

An odd year to be jilted.

 

-PD

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