To thine own self be true

(After a great long career and life, the grave of Robert Frost in Bennington, Mass. which I visited twice in the fall in the ’90s.)

On the grounds at Mission Hill winery, Westbank, Kelowna.

Pizza party on the weekend, sipping decantered Terroir Chardonnay from Mission Hills, Kelowna wine cellar. 2013; only 20 barrels made. Enough to turn one into a happy connoisseur.

A ‘little’ film of talking heads packed with truths, epiphanies, and insights galore. The main themes being: Are you really living? Are you really spontaneous and truly engaged with life and present process? Are you really truly conscious of how you are living?

Or do you just live in a smug, comfortable, self-deluding dream and death-in-life existence, playing roles, giving performances, and always living in dreams with distracting goals and plans?

(Movement: a natural state of being and becoming reflecting a life of process.)

“Keep movin’; it’s hard to hit a moving target.”

(Jules Verne issues were particularly dramatic and imaginative.)

Classics Illustrated came into my world about age 10 (1959ish) and I’d have to say that it and MAD magazine were the earliest influential ‘book’ readings long after whatever Golden books in my pre-school days. Each issue was based on a classic book and one acquired  a strong sense of other worlds and possibilities, real and imagined, if one was a fan or collector.

I’d have to say that my notions of story, adventure, and romance were all stimulated by the issues I read. The comics were clearly aimed at young male readers so my imagination got a lot of encouragement and inspiration. (Like so many teens of the day, my sense of romance and love was also inspired by the top 40 songs of the day, incidentally.)

Many years later, I eventually collected one copy of each of the 169 issues. All this time later, the memories are still prodded and stirred by the jacket art and, particularly, by the sight of familiar issues I once owned and treasured.

Looking at the Jules Verne issues pictured above, you can see how exciting and adventurous many of the issues were. In a world of ’50s black-and-white movies and tv, these colorful comics were like gold to kids and helped to stimulate an interest in romance, adventure, stories, and literature.

(Hitchcockian interlude with birds covering the backyard trees)

(usually just see 1 or 2 max.)

Some 50 or more spread out across several adjoining backyards including our own around 3 o’clock this afternoon. Never seen more than 2 max together ever before. Amazing! The air was filled with their loud twittering as they wheeled about and landed on roofs and trees. Had never seen them flocking before. Like something out of Hitchcock’s Birds.

-You are the protagonist of your own life.

-The experience of beauty is important in affecting and enhancing your imagination, mind, sensibility, feelings, spirit, and soul.

-It is important to have some way of expressing your feelings and thoughts, to release them and possibly share them, too.

-The main challenge of life is to think of and arrive at your own answers to life’s main and biggest questions. Most importantly, have you recorded them for yourself?

-It is important to understand what is common, permanent, meaningful, and true about human experience, and how that applies to you.

-Do you have an understanding or ‘system’ that makes sense of life’s apparent chaos and confusions? Are you ‘at home’ in the modern world?

-What role do the humanities play in your character, knowledge, understanding, sensibility, and appreciation of daily life?

-Are you the master (or mistress) of your own life?

-Are you a thinking human being? Do you examine your own life?

-What are the great forms and works of culture that have lasted?

-What does it mean to be alive and fully conscious of it?

(inspired by Clifton Fadiman’s 1959 still insightful video about the humanities, available for free viewing on the Encyclopedia Britannica website–look under Fadiman’s name, then Videos)

It’s the number one movie at the weekend box office.
What other criteria could there possibly be?

With fewer and fewer critics working for the media everywhere, the hoi-polloi have no access to skilled reviewers’ opinions and judgements. The death of Roger Ebert was the beginning of the end of significant, thoughtful movie criticism.

People who believe Netflix is the authoritative source of good and great movies would be much better off, better informed, and more critically astute if they watched Turner Movie Channel instead. Oh, and there have been no great or classic movies since the 1990s. Most of today’s movies are super-loud, ultra-coarse, very dumb or stupid, and FX-driven. There are no truly strong actors as of old like Pacino, Caine, Bergman, Hepburn, and Brando. Movies today are just money-driven, totally.