To thine own self be true

(My mother and/or the look-a-like)

I’ve written on this before, but there is a woman in Edmonton, whom I glimpsed again, who is the spitting image of my mother who passed in 2007. Totally uncanny.

Anyway she was at a recent concert and this naturally brought back many memories of Rose who lived in Winnipeg. (I first saw likely the same woman on a flight from Victoria to Edmonton and wrote about this in a previous blog entry.)

She looks identical: body size and shape, facial features and eyes, hair style (cut and color), earrings; dresses similarly; moves the same way.

They sometimes say that the dead are still with us and even try to communicate with us years later. I have accepted this strange experience twice now. Does it mean something? I take it as basically a reminder of her living presence, an opportunity for me to remember and think about. (I am realistic enough to know that this is a different individual with an entirely different life and background and there is no need to talk to her.)

The longer you live, the more you realize patterns and resemblances along the way. This was a synchronicity moment that put me and this unrelated person together twice now briefly. What are the odds?

A friend passed on this Woody Allen movie which starts off predictably about a schnook (Allen) trying to make a better life for himself and his wife. A plan to rob a bank sidebars into a cookie-making empire and then the focus becomes about poor people trying to become cultured after they acquire unexpected riches. Though the outcomes turn out predictably, ‘the way there’ is entertaining enough for me to recommend this little film by Allen. It works because he’s acting in it and the two main women–Tracey Ullmann and Elaine May– are interesting, ‘dumb’, and funny enough to steal the show from Allen. Call this one: the triumph of limited folks managing to survive changes in fortune and yet remain together and happy.

we’re not going to live forever and could die unexpectedly at just about any point. And not have a will and left final wishes and instructions. And not done all the things we planned to do.

And, of course, someone very close to us could die unexpectedly in the middle of a big event in our lives, such as a special trip. And all of this would immediately change our lives and those closest to us. Suddenly having to make arrangements, called into action from our normal ‘sleeping’-daily mode. Big changes. Things that must be done fast. Quick decisions, etc.

Well, of course, the readiness is all and we should live each moment to the absolute fullest. There just aren’t any guarantees on expiry dates and bad timing. That is maybe the most fundamental truth of Life long-term.

So much of life and people can be banal, ordinary, dumb, stupid, self-destructive, and uninspiring. That is why I have sought out the great via books and videos.

The videos have late have made it possible to get to know the great men and women as well as to armchair travel to special places like Greece and Versailles. What Shakespeare identified as human greatness in Hamlet in the paragon of animals speech. There it is I have long/always found much that heartens, ennobles, and elevates. (In fact, if I was to identify one recurring quest or preference in my life, it would be for that sublime level of knowledge, experience, and motivation.)

Last evening, for instance–a truly wretched weather-evening here–I watched a video of the great Leonard Bernstein explaining Beethoven’s process in the “Fifth”. This included him playing segments that Beethoven had composed, but deleted. He even had a band play those alternate takes! He concluded the program by giving the most dramatic conducting performance with the band of the “Fifth”.

He, Beethoven, and the music were completely in sync. Bernstein wonderfully demonstrated how he actually lived his conducting at a deep level while managing to give the band very concise directions as to how to play the music and what it felt like for a truly sensitive listener. It was a sublime a viewing and aural experience all because I, in 2018–instead of wasting time–personally chose to watch a rare, long-time unavailable DVD, made back in 1954 for television. It was as good as it gets for my introduction to a great composer, conductor, and interpreter of classical music. Significant life-long learning cont’d bigtime.

–Brian Wilson (and Richard Davies)

The Bert and Ernie are gay agenda is back.
Illustrates how political correctness tries to rewrite facts and history, hijacking innocent, non-sexual stories from children and childhood.
Recall what rainbows used to mean to little girls and boys before the image got hijacked for a politically correct agenda.

is an Ingmar Bergman classic and his first significant film in color, using red for interior rooms, scenes with blood, and transitions between scenes. Bergman explained that, for him, red is associated with inner life including heart and soul; but at the same time, he parallels that usage with exterior physicality such as in a suicide attempt, a mutilation scene, and a broken glass of wine scene.

Anna is the loyal maid of three aristocratic sisters living in a country house. She is closest to Agnes, the simplest and nicest of the three women, who is dying a painful cancer-death. Maria (played by Liv Ullmann) is the beautiful sister who seeks intimacy and closeness, especially with her remaining sister Karin who is terrified of touch and intimacy, and remains an island unto herself.

Maria has an affair with a cynical doctor who later rejects her advances; he is a cold delineator of character and has understood that Maria has flaws, though she is beautiful and seductive. Maria’s husband senses immediately that he has been cuckolded and tries to kill himself; in contrast, her response is one of coldness which reflects her dead mother and which belies her quest for intimacy.

Karin is more alienated and straightforwardly defective and rejects intimacy to the point that she damages herself dramatically rather than sleep with her cool, insipid husband.

Anna is more intimate than anyone else and comforts the dying Agnes like a mother does her a child, even lying semi-naked with her. What the sisters and family plan for Anna after Agnes’s passing reveals the essential defectiveness of the remaining two sisters and their husbands. So, Anna, like Agnes in her dying, reveals the characters of the two hypocritical sisters.

Karin (to Maria): “Do you realize I hate you?” is the main line in the film.

Bergman dissects the relationships like a skilled surgeon and much of the movie is focused on character coldness, their responses, and touch, ultimately, as a measure of relative humanity. For Bergman, touch is the sacred measure of true closeness in most of his films. The extended scene of touching with quiet instrumental music and without words or talk is the significant core scene of Cries and Whispers.

And it is significant (and appropriate) also that it is the dead sister who has the last word/s in this powerful tale of four women living painful, limited lives in a claustrophobic (prison-)house.

The Saskatchewan bridge that collapsed immediately after it was opened. Fortunately, no one was on the bridge at the time.

Where you can get randomly stabbed to death in the morning while waiting for the train.

Two thumbs up. Way up.

The perfect gift for a 6-year-old who enjoys language.