Thank you

The other day David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest reminded me of the connectedness of all events, so many thanks, DFW. Such a relief.

An exchange

Somewhere below the surface of Horatius' steady stream of words, Pamela was constructing an elaborate argument of her own, albeit inside the confines of her mind. This, as it were, bracketed argument was, alas, lost to the world, owing to the girl's failure to consign it to any means of preservation other than her fallible memory. This mental construct must have been engrossing enough, for she failed to notice his departure.

Some circumstance or other must temporarily have then released her from the verbose young man. At which point, and on occasion of my approaching her on the not entirely unrelated topic of her seeming languorousness, Pamela, unexpectedly aroused, chose to paint in vivid colours Horatius' unwitting talent, when holding forth in her hearing, to virtually sap her of her will to appreciate all that was enjoyable in life.

Nodding in silence, I offered to roll her chair closer to the window, so that the autumn sun might warm the thin blanket covering her legs, and took my leave, in some haste admittedly, as Horatius was returning.

Lak'arana

Lak'arana used to be the haven where the galactic glamorous flocked to when in need of a respite from the demands of their hectic lifestyle.The planet drew shiploads of the glitzy galactic from all over Milky.  Its Diamond Mountains outshone Charon's Carbon Chasm and the Ocean of Calm did, quite literally, define itself .

The leisure-hungry crowds were at one point on the verge of jeopardising the planet's beauty. However, its Administration, for maybe the last time before the Collapse, took prompt effective action and managed to prevent further damage for a good two centuries yet. Indeed, it is recorded in the Vrethmorian Chronicle that even after the Second Dethronement no fewer than a hundred large ships would land on Lak'ar-Geba Spaceport on a daily basis. While some historians dismiss the Chronicle outright, others point to the theory that those latter-day visitors might have been no tourists, but refugees.

Walter's delusion

Franzen's Freedom's Walter is a case in point of how a story can be built around a character's delusions. Come to think of it, how else? We need delusions for any story to develop. Delusion one: that his wife could find complete contentment in him, which was forgiveable, under the circumstances. Second, much later, that his relationship with Lalitha was a sensible choice. 

The situation reminds me of Middlemarch. What would become of literature without these mismatches between kids and 50-year-old farts? And another question and an answer: What were Casaubon and Walter thinking? I know, we all know, what they were thinking.

Shit

Freedom

I have just finished Jonathan Franzen's latest stab at immortality. The story itself is one that has probably been told a million times over. However, it is the way in which it is told that carries all the weight here. Its love of minutiae, its uncompromising honesty and its detachment from expected conventions have won me over. The characters in Freedom are not likeable, but they appeal to every side of us readers, and just won't let go until the last page. And I found myself, quite literally, enthralled.

No mercy for the dead

I am watching A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, an independent film by Wayne Wang. The male lead is Mr Shi, a retiree visiting his daughter in the States. He meets an Iranian woman, who lost her daughter to the Iran-Iraq war. However, he tells her 'Look good side, you two son, you baby grandson, you grandmamma, you good, you good!'.

Responsabilidad invididual

Uno de los temas que a mí me interesan es el del grado de responsabilidad que tenemos como sociedad en la crisis, y también a nivel individual. Por supuesto que los banqueros casi adolescentes de Islandia (como denunciaba Björk últimamente), Lehman Brothers, etc, etc tienen mucha culpa (pongamos que casi toda). Pero, a nivel individual, a nadie nos ponían una pistola en el pecho para que nos empeñáramos hasta la camisa o que quemáramos la tarjeta de crédito con dinero que no teníamos. Y ese tipo de decisiones las hemos tomado como personas: y algunos, muchos, se dejaron engañar por el banquero de turno (porque la fuerza de sus ilusiones ayudaba a ponerles la venda en los ojos); mientras que otros, menos, no se dejaron engañar, hicieron las cuentas de matemática rudimentaria que requería el momento, y cerraron los oídos a los cantos de las sirenas financieras.

Ahora, por la codicia de unos, la estupidez de otros, y nuestra complacencia general, tenemos que pagar todos. Y, en consonancia con lo que dice Muñoz Molina, nos lo merecemos. Por otro lado, aunque parezca duro y una afirmación como esta esté clamando por alguna matización, lo diré: somos mucho más responsables por las cosas que nos pasan en la vida de lo que nos creemos. Por eso no estoy "indignado", porque si me indignara, lo tendría que hacer también contra la parte de mí mismo que cerraba los ojos a lo que estaba pasando. Pero no tengo nada en contra a que los puros de corazón, aquellos que están libre de pecado, tiren su piedra.

JMJ

Las calles de Madrid por fin parecen liberarse de indignados (o indignantes), ateos obsesionados con los religiosos, y acumbayás (o alabarés). Simpatizo con todos en cosas, pero tanta estridencia no va conmigo. De momento, como homenaje a la recentísima JMJ, dejo esta foto que he cogido de por ahí.

Pierre Bezukhov and Christopher Moltisanti

Count Bezukhov (War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy) and Christopher Moltisanti (The Sopranos) apparently look at man-woman interaction as one in which the female counterpart is ideally placed on the receiving end. In the Sopranos' episode Full Leather Jacket, when asked by his girlfriend the reason why they always fight, Christopher, unable to step away for a second from his self-centered weltanschauung, answers, 'I don't always communicate my needs'. Adriana is a woman not always alert to nuances such as these, especially in bed right after being fully satisfied by her Italian stallion as well as under the weight of the massive rock attached to her engagement ring. 

Tolstoy too seems to prefer women who are quite content lending a supportive sympathetic ear to men, when they choose to pour their hearts out without fear of being interrupted by over intelligent females and their witty remarks. To wit,

"Now that he [Pierre Bezukhov] was telling it all to Natasha he experienced that pleasure which a man has when women listen to him- not clever women who when listening either try to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their own and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their little mental workshop- but the pleasure given by real women gifted with a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself."

But I suspect that feisty Adriana La Cerva, played by Drea de Matteo, is quite a different kettle of fish when compared to the fawn-eyed Russian (Audrey Hepburn).

I am halfway through the second season of The Sopranos and enjoying every minute of it.

Extraterrestres!

Aquest grup que ve de les illes, o potser hauria de dir "ses illes", és super friki, així que aquí us deixo una petita mostra d'allò que són capaços de fer. A més a més, el tema em mola molt.

True Blood

Well-behaved vampires drink only this.

      I don't agree with The Economist's Johnson blog on the quality (or lack thereof) of True Blood. Or rather, I don't want to agree. Yes, the show is outrageous, freakish and shameless. But, does that make it "silly, sexed-out and schlock"? Not necessarily, not all the time. 

        ANYWAY. I found this piece on the dialect abilities of some of its stars quite enlightening.

The Philadelphia Story

     I find myself feeling a weird yearning for times that happened a generation before I was even born. The Philadelphia Story is about one of those mythical paradises.

     ANYWAY. This is something Tracy Lord (mind, no final s!) (played by Katharine Hepburn) says: The time to make up your mind about people is never. I know it to be true, and hope not to forget it too often.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

This film had me laughing silly (at points) like no other has for some time. It is fresh, mostly unpretentious, and very 21st century, if that makes any sense. Its female leads are all right, but to me its success rests rather on its males: Michael Cera (Scott), Kieran Culkin (Wallace Wells) and Jason Schwartzman (Gideon Graves). Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno) is an ideal choice for the story, such as the film tells it (I don't know the original Brian Lee O'Malley's comic). Scott is for the most part a nerdy adolescent who can kick ass too, and in so doing, he prevails. The story pays unashamed tribute to the comic it is based on in the manner it is told. However, the characters are not without their complexity, with these young people displaying a mixture of unprejudiced wisdom and childish foolishness which I found charming.

A political truth

     One adviser tells President Roslin, in Battlestar Galactica: 'Madam President, in my experience people vote their hopes -not their fears'. 

               And yes, the resemblance with how Lyndon B. Johnson's was sworn in on Kennedy's assassination is fully intended, and it has already been remarked upon countless times.

     That would explain Obama's victory over the Republican narrative of fear. But it was a time of economic bonanza, and people maybe could afford to be hopeful. In times of turmoil, history has shown that voters elect the one who plays to their fears the most. It happened with Thatcher in 1979 after the Winter of Discontent and the 1973 Oil Crisis, and it looks like it is going to happen in Spain.

She didn't wanna do it

This is Suzie Plakson, who played a number of roles in three Star Trek spinoff series, showing her singing facet in this really long song,  which is fun.

The Shadow

In the "The Lazarus Experiment" episode the good Doctor quotes T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

I see these words have been interpreted in a number of ways. The way I read

 them is, probably, the most obvious, so why elaborate?

In the episode A Golden Crown from Game of Thrones a swordsmaster says: If you're with your trouble when fighting happens, more trouble for you. 

      I'm watching this HBO series and so far I agree with the praise it is getting from, well, everybody. My standard for becoming attached to the adventures and misadventures of any given bunch of fictional characters is simple enough: I have to sympathise with even the ones a viewer is not conventionally expected to sympathise. Yet I have to say that it is going to be hard for me to have any sympathy for Jaime Lannister, which is more than compensated for by my fascination for his brother, the imp, Tyrion Lannister. So far, this dwarf has more dramatic stature than most of the other characters, and I am curious to see what good things are yet to come from this quarter.


    Whether I may be nudged in the direction of actually reading the books, A Song of Ice and Fire, a six-book series apparently, which started out as a trilogy (surprise, surprise), is quite a different matter.