WISDOM
OF THE SAGES
EPISODE XII: WINTER 2018
EPISODE XII: WINTER 2018
Hello
People of the World;
Hey,
you can now claim you celebrate the winter solstice without looking like a
pretentious bore! It’s December! Yes, though there is very little snow on the
ground these days (Thank Climate Change kids! KIDS: Thanks Climate Change!), we
will still find it necessary to cry at or pretend to be in love with, the cold.
We
are all a bunch of phonies.
So,
here we are on the last day of 2018; and what's this, a completed episode?All right, let’s get going:
1:[ So, as we were waiting for our laundry to
finish, my Bonnie and I took a small snack to pass the time. I had purchase
some chicken strips for the grocery store and offered them up as a snack. But
these were the SALE/leftover bins and they were very dried out. (Side note:
nothing really goes bad in the refrigerator, they mostly just dry out.) Still,
we were able to take our time and chew the strips. Then, it stuck me about the
appeal of chewing cud.
We
sat there, silently chewing the tough pieces of chicken, barely a word passing
between us. Just the loud sounds of teeth grinding dried chicken meat into pulp
enough to swallow, savoring what favor there was, but mostly clicking our jaws
in meaty distraction trying to gain sustenance while the clothes tumbled about
in their designated machinery. Our minds focused on the task of chewing rather
than counting the minutes against the quarters we fed the dryers.
Maybe
that’s why cows and bison do so, what else is there to being a bison or cow?
You just stand around mostly, and, though I am very aware that it also has to
do with the cow’s digestion system, it sort of make sense in an evolutionary
way that they are able to chew cud to pass the time.
Anyways.
It worked for my Bonnie and I that evening at the Laundromat – moo.
2:[ I am sometimes struck by the thought of the
concept of seniority. I have been at my current workplace for over a year and a
half and in the last six months we have had two new workers hired to replace
some that left. Now, when I first arrived there, I knew nothing about the
operations of the place and had to rely on the two workers that were there.
Both were much younger than me.
Now,
with the two new hires, I find myself in that position of knowing the
operations and having to explain them to the new folks, giving me a tacit badge
of seniority. But I know, this will not last long as they learn the ropes.
Again, both are much younger that me. Then, I will hold this concept of
seniority in my tenure only…
3:[ I am always feeling bad that I barely carry cash
these days and there are so many on the street begging for change. I try to
give despite many folks saying that giving change does not help. Yet, it always
sticks in my head that if I do not help out then maybe something bad will
happen to me. Karma. What a crock. It has taken me a long time to escape this
mindset that I should be doing good deed to have it returned to me in some way
later on. I mean, karma is a sucky ideology, isn’t it? So, why don’t we just do
the right thing? Why can’t we just be kind and treat one another like human
beings? To good deeds to gain reward is pretty shitty because you are simply
doing a good deed out of selfishness rather than altruism. Man, karma really
sucks. I just wished so many smart people I know didn’t believe in it. If you
do some thing great for some one else, nothing’s going to happen to you, stop
being a child and have to be bribed into being a decent person…
4:[ I was watching this commercial for some new
program attached to a new gizmo or trinket that awarded points based on how
many people you can get to sign up for a service that helps the trinket operate
– a sort of pyramid scheme of force obsolescence. It struck me then at how much
consumerism basically treats us like fucking dogs. Any sort of earned rewards
system is positively Pavlovian in how it conditions your need for the service,
trinket, or rewards and you will end up spending so much more money than you
need to, to “get rewarded.”
Corporations
practically put us on leashes with their paid plans for services. We become
tethered to them, bound by contracts and user agreements we never read. Shit,
you needs loans now to buy a frickin’ mattresses – you need to pay for a plan
to replenish toothbrush heads! Come on! It is conditional behavior in a sense….
We
are happy to wear the leash or salivate at the ringing bell so long as we get
the points or the miles or the new something or other. We are the dogs that
corporations feed table scraps and we wag our tails in support so long as the
next coffee is free….
5:[ When Vigo Morttenson’s Tony Lip shouts at Mehershala
Ali’s Dr Shirley that “my world is blacker than yours”, I knew I would never
watch “Green Room”….
6:[ It’s GEEK BATTLE Time! Today: Batman v. Luke
Skywalker – Both in their latest incarnations, basically represent a gross
misunderstanding of the characters, yet only one is called out for being so,
while the other deified – what is the difference? The Womens. Yeah, I said it.
BATFLECK
was basically a bro-hammer who murdered and all the fanboys loved it because
Zack Snyder is suddenly a great filmmaker. Give me a break.
Luke
Skywalker of THE LAST JEDI was a tortured old man living with the guilt of
letting his nephew fall to the dark side. But everyone hated it because Disney
chose Daisy Ridley to be the new generation of Jedi and not them. So, Luke caught
the brunt of the criticism – actually, it was Kathleen Kennedy who was blamed because:
woman. I mean, it was Ryan Jonston’s script and direction and Mark Hamil’s
acting choices that made the Luke of the LAST JEDI but since Luke was not a murdering
bro-hammer, the fans hated him.
Man,
when we steer into the skid of irrelevance, we really commit don’t we?
7:[ Widows & Mary Queen of Scots reviews:
“Widows”
is a pretty good politi-caper film set in Chicago. Which is the main reason why
it is getting smash-bang reviews here. To me, it was simply another crime drama
with the added twist of having the widows of the robbers do the main heist.
Filled with some plot twists and a great message of self-empowerment.
Colin
Ferrell also stars wearing an atrocious “Chik Aga” accent. It also has a raving
Robert Duvall who seems to have graduated to the Sudden Histrionic Yelling is
DRAMA School, or Saint Al Pacino’s, as we call it in the Biz. Liam Neeson was
in it, but the lead is Viola Davis playing another hard ass. Still the caper
was cool and plot a little expected. So, just… RECOMMEND.
“Mary
Queen of Scots” however, is a historical film with the same message of how women
must work in the world of men. Here we follow the two queens as they maneuver
against one another and their own courts. Very interesting and showed me that
things barely change in how men view women in charge.
This
film caught a bit of flak for casting people in color in historically non-POC
roles. But to the director Josie Rourke’s credit, felt giving POC actors an
opportunity to act was of more importance. This was written by Beau Willimon
and based on John Guy's biography “Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart”.
It
is a good film and I do recommend it.
8:[ Lately, I have been noticing the
self-centeredness of Philanthropy. I looked up and saw this sign about a 5k
walk, calling the sign up process “HEROES REGISTRATION”. JEEsus. Its always
makes me think: What if you had to trade places with the people you are doing
the Ice Water Challenge for, or the Stair Climb, pretentiously called an ASCENT
- you know, like Christ. How is it heroic to walk somewhere, practically doing
nothing; when you could have easily mailed a check in to the organization?
Nope,
that is when you know it is more about you than the sick child at the saint
Jude’s. This “charity” you give, it costs you nothing….
:[9 I must admit that the best movie I have seen
so far is Alfonso Curán’s “Roma”, a quasi-autobiographical film about his
childhood growing up in the middle class section of Mexico City called Roma.
This tells the story of Cleo, a young maid from the rural countryside, possibly
indigenous, played with grace by Yalitza Aparicio. It is clear that to the
children, Cleo is more than the maid or nanny, they love her dearly and express
thoughts to her and come to depend on her.
The
splitting of the family happens in the shadow of the splitting of the county –
as revolutions and student protest explode we find Cleo at the heart of it all.
She is the heart of the film as well as the family. She does get into
situations but faces them with more grace than the family she cares for does
their own troubles.
It
is stunningly film and looks beautiful. Also, this has to be the best sound
designed movie I have heard. We held some press screenings at ICON using the
Atmos sound system but I was not able to view or hear it. I remember really
wanting to see it once I saw how beautiful it looked. While it was released on
Netflix later, I still went to see it at the Landmark Cinema to get a theater
sound system and for the limited 7.1 they had, it was still an amazing mix.
I
am aware of the representational issues of the film – I noticed that while they
all loved Cleo, in the end, she is still The Help. Also, there is the New
Yorker Review about how Cleo needs a political voice because she appears to the
non-POC reviewer to be just a stoic observer. But he missed the point that her
presence was her political voice. You need to be a POC to understand why.
I
really dislike how non-Natives overly-romanticize the politico-identity of
Indigenous peoples. It is as if only they can recognize it and we have to be
grateful to them for pointing it out as they teach it. But when we have the
right to own our own voice, our own culture, even our own images, then the
authorship of expertise will no longer trump indigenous experience.
I
highly recommend it as the Best Film of 2018.
:[10 What is the relevancy of “South Park”? It
feels like they have bought into their own hype. Because now they are espousing
other peoples’ like-minded ideals instead of being the lone voice of reason….
They’ve become privileged white dudes that don’t want repercussions or
responsibility for their words and deeds. In the last couple of episodes I saw
about Jef Bazos and Amazon they were pretty pointed about that whole situation
while taking their swipe at Twitter reactions. It seemed slap-hazard and just a
prejudiced opinion disguised as commentary. I think they are finally slipping
down the slop to irrelevance….
That
is it for this month.
My
apologies for not posting completed writings these last four months. I know you
all waited with baited breath to read my ramblings on the news of the day.
Also, worry not, I will be re-posting for August, September, October, and November,
once I have those writings completed.
As
always, I invite you to comment, correct, or contradict anything I write here.
I am open to a critical debate. Thanks for taking the time to check out what I
write here and I will see you in a month.
Happy
New Year.
Until
next time, remember “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to
control everything really are.”
2018
Ernest M Whiteman III