WISDOM OF THE SAGES
EPISODE VI: SUMMER 2022
Hello People of the World;
Looks like summer is finally here. The temperature and humidity have risen. Most likely due to climate change but we don’t care about that, because we don’t see it happen to us. Unlike, say, a virus that does, and we still ignore.
Once again, I have taken too long to post this on time. I don’t have notes or even remember what, if any insight or thoughts I had during the month of June. I’ll write about it more down below.
As always: Stay safe. Stay home.
All right, let’s get going:
1:[ This virus really showed how equal we all really are: How easy is it for us to brush it all off when things start to become too “difficult” for us, like wearing a mask. We’re a stupid species that is getting what we deserve through our sheer incompetence as a “higher functioning” primate. Sorry.
2:[ Some Movie Reviews: It is a weird coincidence that the two newest movies I watched fit in perfectly for Pride Month:
Fire Island: this was a fun comedy. Raunchy and bitchy. It was a funny and touching. A group of queer friends go to visit Fire Island for one final time and from there, hijinks insure and a typical rom-com plot unfolds. It was fantastic.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire: Marianne, a painter is brought in to paint the proposal portrait of Héloïse, who has just left a convent she was raised in. Now, since Héloïse is reluctant to marry, Marianne must paint her in secret by observing her. From there, hijinks ensue and the two fall in love with each other. Beautifully shot and acted. I saw an essay video on this about the shift of “The Gaze” and thought I’d give it a watch. It was also fantastic.
Plus, I finally saw “Cinema Paradiso”. Meh. See below.
3:[ They were so mad that black and brown women are represented in their childhood franchises that they overturned Roe v. Wade….
4:[ I caught a cold recently, due to my partner blasting the AC at night. I sleep on the AC-side of the bed and breathing in cold air gave me a head cold. (I tested for COVID at this time and came up negative.) But the more interesting aspect has been the relapsing of my addiction to cherry-flavored cough drops. Now, when I get a sore throat, I try to get a honey-lemon cough drop. To me, the cherry-flavored always taste like candy and never really served to ease my throat. However, in the downtown 7-11 I stop in at before work, all they had was cherry-flavored cough drops. The other selection was a watermelon vitamin booster. Thus, my addition to cherry-flavored cough drops was stoked once more. I buy them like candy. I need to stop….
5:[ I have had little time to take notes on thoughts and events during the month of June, mostly due to the new job. It is a full-time job with Truth and Documentary, a production house that services non-profits with an aim toward social justice. So, I have been off on shoots at places like the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, the Newberry Library, helping non-profit organizations by running their livestreams. Also, film at places such a Nelson Lake and the Queer Radical Fair. So, I have not been good at keeping my thoughts and notes in order for the month. It might be like this for a while. July is nearly done at this point and I have nothing in the July file for posting….
6:[ Born June 18th: my most favorite actress. Despite her being well-known for her work with Ozu, she was severely typecast in her era. I am still working on that video about how we all still typecast her. My most-favorite actress: Satsuko Hara
7:[ Chats with Bonnie 2: Bonnie and I trying to remember where we left off in Star Trek Discovery Season Three
Me: "It was that episode about the people on that planet."
Bonnie:
8:[ We cannot go back to “Normal” all after this: This idea that we can move on from any big event like this and go back to “how it was”. We can’t. This pandemic really showed us how unjust the systems we have in place are and because many of us benefit from that unjust system, we have a habit of overlooking the tearing away of rights for certain members of our societies. And that is a “normal” we should NEVER go back to….
9:[ Welp, I was able to watch 100 movies before the middle of the year. This, is NOT INCLUDING many of the movies I watched with the fam back in Wyoming as part of a movie club we started back in 2020.
10:[ Oh yeah, I finally watched “Cinema Paradiso”. I thought it was pretty good. However, it did suffer a bit from being one of those “Over-hyped” “Masterpieces”. The film is about a young Sicilian boy Salvatore finding an escape in movies in his tiny village at the local theater, the Cinema Paradiso. So much so, he befriends the old, crusty projectionist Alfredo. As he grows up, he learns a lot about life, never straying from his love of the theater, soon, becoming the projectionist for the Cinema Paradiso himself after a fire blinds Alfredo. I found it pretty “all right”, the story is the typical young boy has a fascination that sets him apart in his small town and with his sexual awakening, he must balance his life between his passion for movies and for the love of a young woman.
The scene where he finally leaves his smalltown hit close to home for me.
He comes back in contemporary times as a film director and finds his lost love and makes her cheat on her husband with him. Yeah, that didn’t go over too well with me. This places it in the “Meh” Zone for me. That one scene, while heartbreaking for me cannot push it out of this zone. Sorry….
That is it for this month.
I’ll get to work on July’s editions as soon as possible. The trouble is I keep coming up with thoughts and ideas that I so wanted to place here, but I remember, this is for June, which has past and I hope I can remember them for July. Anyways.
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.
Until next time, remember “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control everything really are.”
2022 Ernest M Whiteman III
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