To thine own self be true

His classic plague short story: “The Masque of the Red Death”. Who could have guessed how truly timeless and prophetic this tale would turn out to be?

Justin Trudeau and Jason Kenney alternating the part of Prince Prospero.  COVID as the Red Death.

in the military the past 6 years: Trudeau.

He knew about the sexual abuse 6 years and did nada about it, never punishing the abusers, instead promoting them and lying to the women, media, and the public about his fake innocence. Shameless, hypocritical to the core.

He’s also a racist, dressing up in East Indian garb and blackface more than once for photos, then claiming to be pro-diversity. A massive fraud and untrustworthy bigot through and through.

His nothing-burger covid vaccine responses for the past year are the last straw. He deserves to be run out of Ottawa on a rail.

Now he’s closed the legislature, despite what he said last year when he compared himself to Churchill in WWII, because it’s ‘too dangerous’ to meet.

Meantime he’s left the rest of us, schools, and businesses to meet daily for the two weeks amid the dangerous conditions, throwing Albertans under the bus all over again.

Delay tactics by a moral coward. Useless, feckless, and downright corrupt. He, his health minister, Deena, and LaGrange don’t give a flyin’ fig about anyone else. I know, I know, they’re “watching” and “observing”. Bunch of liars and clowns all. Bring on a UCP rebellion asap.

on their belated way north.

being married at 21, on a Monday 50 short years ago.

Bill and Melinda Gates, simultaneously, announced they’re packing it in after 27 years. One prophecy that Alvin Toffler made long ago in the ’70s was about the advent of disposable relationships and marriages. There’s a long trail after his comment that has been borne out in our modern era. My wife’s cousin was divorced by his wife immediately after his honeymoon and a friend of mine was laughing about a couple, whose wedding he attended, who broke up after 1 month. Except for seniors, there aren’t too many couples who’ve just been married once.

Favorite Quotes Compiled and Edited by Richard Davies, 2017.

Everything hinges upon our realizing the essential transitory possibilities.
-Viktor Frankl

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.
-Henri Matisse

Nature never did betray/The heart that loved her.
-William Wordsworth

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Change is the law of life.
-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

We make up ourselves as we go.
-Kate Green

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
-Henry David Thoreau

The dollar is always betting against the soul.
-Sven Birkerts

Technology will never love you. Screens will never love you.
-Richard Davies

Turning our backs on the full sensory business of living, we have installed another proxy-world.
-Sven Birkerts

The time is out of joint.
-William Shakespeare

Shallowness spreads.
-Daniel Liebert

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.
-Thomas Carlyle

Most people perform essentially meaningless work. When they retire, that truth is borne upon them.
-Brendan Francis

The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be.
-Joseph Campbell

Be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.
-Buddha

Do I dare eat a peach?
-T.S. Eliot

Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.
-Bertrand Russell

A man can do all things if he will.
-Leon Battista Alberti

I sometimes think I inhabit my own country.
-Tennessee Williams

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself.
-Galileo

The proper study of mankind is books.
-Aldous Huxley

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
-Rudyard Kipling

Music is the best means of digesting time.
-W.H. Auden

Art serves to rinse out our eyes.
-Karl Kraus

Genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul.
-Matthew Arnold

We live in the hope that authentic meeting between human beings can still occur.
-R.D. Laing

The real marriage of true minds is for any two people to possess a sense of humor or irony pitched in exactly the same key.
-Pearl Buck

Enthusiasm is life.
-Paul Scofield

All vigor is contagious.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

The stars are in one’s brain.
-Bertrand Russell

I love a broad margin to my life.
-Henry David Thoreau

That is happiness, to be dissolved into something complete and great.
-Willa Cather

Cheer up–it can only get worse.
-Pearl Bailey

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

2021: Some 50 Years On….

was likely the last movie I saw in a theatre when it first came out. Today I had a chance to watch it again.

The most obvious thing to say about this tale of one man’s attempted survival on the high seas after his small yacht has been damaged by a derelict cargo container is that this is a movie about wishful thinking right through to the ending.

There are several key moments involving two bad storms, a dinghy, a sextant, passing cargo ships, flares, and finally, a fire to attract the attention of a cargo ship by night.
This, though, is a film about the step-by-steps in dealing with crisis, and desperate attempts to stay alive in an effort to be rescued.

‘Man vs. Nature’ seems too glib a high-school English phrase to apply to this film.
Much of its power depends on a frail-looking Everyman’s (a very sympathetic Robert Redford) reactions to setbacks, the movie’s soundtrack of sounds and subtle electronic music, and its realistic camera work (notably via hand-held camera and POV shots).

Despite the lack of dialogue and lack of other characters, the film manages to maintain suspense and gives the viewer a strong sense of ‘being there’ with the man as he fights to stay alive.

In addition to the main feature on this Blu-Ray and DVD package, there are several features including director J.C. Chandor’s commentary, a storm featurette, 3 vignettes (focusing on the story, Redford and Chandor), a sound featurette, and one other featurette. It was quite interesting to see how the film was made, what some of its special effects are, and the planning and work that went into making this unique ‘little’ film.

(Online, incidentally, I noticed that some actual mariners have commented on the film, too, pointing out mistakes the man made as he adapted to his changing situation.)

Overall, All Is Lost is a memorable movie right to the end with an ambiguous ending that leaves the viewer with things to think or chat about afterward. Recommended, especially if you like realistic, unembellished survival stories.

As in the past several years, I am continuing to watch bona-fide movie classics in lieu of the current crop, none of which I’ve seen or am interested in (The Father is the exception this year, but–being a Hopkins fan–I will buy the video eventually.)

This year I’ll be watching a classic James Stewart comedy Harvey, based on Mary Chase’s famous stage play, which I saw long ago here in Edmonton at Stage West, when the late great Gig Young played Elwood P. Dowd, the slightly inebriated gentle man with a major rabbit delusion. Popcorn and coke will be de rigueur as usual.