Monthly Archives: July 2015

Grandson Meets Voltaire

“Il faut cultiver notre jardin.” –Voltaire, Candide, “It is necessary to cultivate our (own) garden.” As in “We must tend to our own affairs.” Or “We must focus on growing and creating our own life, world, and beauty.” Or (given … Continue reading

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Nobody’s Fool (1994): A Nice, Truly Entertaining Movie

(The great Paul Newman; Paramount DVD) Paul Newman’s and Jessica Tandy’s last strong roles. (Both she and Newman were undeservedly robbed of Oscars again. Newman did, though, garner 3 critics’ awards.) Newman plays a working class stiff in a small New England … Continue reading

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The 2 Big Misassumptions

1. Things will always remain the same. Nothing will ever change. 2. The Moment or The Opportunity will be there tomorrow. One does not have to act in the here-and-now.

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Lord Jim (1965)

(Columbia Tristar DVD) Richard Brooks, director of The Blackboard Jungle and In Cold Blood, always was a director who took chances. In 1965, he decided to film an ‘unfilmable’ Joseph Conrad classic, Lord Jim, in southeast Asia. The original book … Continue reading

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A Master Builder (2014)

(One of the best film scripts ever, signed) Ibsen’s play has been adapted by the team that brought you the successful My Dinner with Andre and quirky Vanya on 42nd Street. I will save you a lot of time and … Continue reading

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TKAM–The 1st Edition Dust Jacket

TKAM remains a classic despite the publication of Go Set a Watchman. Simply put, it is the greatest children’s book ever written and a must-read for anyone wanting to find out information about how bad and unjust life was for many … Continue reading

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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Sons and Lovers (1960)

A well-done adaptation of D. H, Lawrence’s pre-WW1 classic about the coming-of-age of a wanna-be artist from a coal-mining town, encouraged by his possessive mother and frustrated by his alcoholic coal-mining father. Dean Stockwell gives a convincing performance of Paul … Continue reading

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Enjoy the First Three Years’ Archives That Follow!

They will make it easier for you to find and explore different topics of interest. (Use the months and years in the right-hand margin to get to pieces you are interested in.) The raison d’etre of this blog continues to be  An Idea Garden, which … Continue reading

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An Idea Garden: Meditations, Reflections, and Opinions

(A Manuscript Toward an Opus Book of Essays) I thank you for wandering around in my idea garden today. It is actually a consciousness garden of a large, sensitive sensibility. If ever you care to know who I am and was, … Continue reading

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The Individual vs. Society

(see “Rappel Heaven” poem) To get to an entry/selection: look up by month and year in right-hand column on any of blog’s pages And so lately, Aug. 24, 2012 Rutting season, Aug. 25, 2012 Fly intimations, Aug. 25, 2012 The … Continue reading

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