To thine own self be true

A mass delusion which greatly disservices life and learning possibilities for kids. Platform obsession at the expense of significant process, true critical thinking, and significant, basic subject matter, foundationing, and perspectiveing kids beyond mere techno job training. Most educational professionals leading the pied e-pipers’ parade into e-media’s neverending financial black hole of the latest e-gizmos have abandoned kids’ myriad potential non-technological needs and possibilities.

For more about the transitional stage leading to the current state of affairs in education relative to technological distraction, read the landmark classic Endangered Minds by Jane M. Healy (1990), which foretold how children were initially changed relative to their brains and thinking.

The other classic about how reading, books, and thinking would change and how kids would become more ‘shallow’, read the prescient  The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age by Sven Birkerts (1994), to discover all that would go missing in the transition from print to digital eras. Read and bemoan the losses.

Possibilities

consciousness

thinking

ideas

Truths

freedom

choice

“following my bliss”

Process

flow

play

curiosity

Nature

Beauty

music

great or classic films

language

literature

poetry

imagination

creativity

voice

Genius

Real People

Family

(live in-person) Presence

sensibility

Gifts of self

appreciation

irony

humor

perspective

acceptance

letting go

Spirit(uality)

Inner Peace

There has never been a choice for me. I grew up in and with Nature. My favorite memories have always been always associated with Nature and its beauties. I have long known that things and screens will never love people.

(beautiful gardenia tree flower which my daughter, amazingly, raised in Edmonton; when you smell it, you have smelled the best flower smell of all–such sublime fragrance: truly soul-stirring)

“You had an interesting life. What did you do that changed or influenced others?”
“Well, there were the over 1,000,000 senior high school texts sold that helped teachers to teach senior high English curricula across Canada. I met and presented to thousands of teachers at conferences across Canada and personally taught some 3-5 thousand students about life and values through literature, and about how to become better writers, speakers, and viewers to the same no. of young Albertans.
Too, I played music and entertained thousands of people through my various bands over a 35 year-period.
I also enjoyed meeting many famous people, people I admired, and people who became close friends such as Stu, Jerry, Gerry, Glen, Glenn, and Dean.
I was grateful, too, for the many unique opportunities I had to live life on my own terms and to have unique experiences which brought me close to many interesting people, albeit briefly in many cases.”
“So which of these come closest to being your legacy as in that which you are most proud of, which you are most grateful for?”
“My parents, my mother in particular. My wife. You couldn’t ask for a better friend, wife, or mother. My two grown-up kids–who have succeeded and made their own unique lives and career paths. You couldn’t ask for nicer, brighter, funnier, positive, autonomous children. Finally, my two grandkids, already interesting, curious people following their bliss.That’s it. That’s my ‘legacy’. Nothing else.”

1. Avoid pain, especially self-inflicted pain.
2. Avoid continuous pain.
3. Avoid causing pain to other sentient beings.
4. Try to minimize the pain of others if possible.

Definitely a movie way ahead of our politically-correct times about a lying codger whose sexual harassment of many women is forgiven by a woman afraid to say the word ‘sex’, and given to hysterical fits; a single woman who owns and successfully manages her own resort hotel ‘without a man’; a cad dominated by a druggie-woman who lives to dominate him; and an old intolerant bat who loses her power over her repressed daughter and other hotel guests while trying to evict the creepy ‘pervert’-major. All are ultimately forgiven except the old bat who plays the ostracism card/game and is the final lonely person left standing because of her mean-spirited manipulations.

The alienated ‘victims’ at the beginning of the film all become ‘winners’ who find social approval and other friends by the end of the film. These include the guilty, but relatively harmless Major Pollock (played by David Niven in an Academy-Award-winning role), the strong, autonomous Pat who owns the hotel and graciously loses her long-time lover  (played by veteran English actress Wendy Hiller who also won an Academy Award for her supporting role, too), the flawed, confused John who fails to understand the women in his life until very late (well-played by film co-producer Burt Lancaster), the beautiful woman who uses men for her ego (perfectly played by Rita Hayworth), and the pathetically shy, repressed Sibyl (unexpectedly played by Deborah Kerr in a uncharacteristically ‘humiliating’ role for her).

All the other minor characters are first-rate and played by British veterans including Gladys Cooper, Cathleen Nesbitt, Felix Aylmer, Rod Taylor, and Audrey Dalton. The source material for this film was a provocative play by Terence Rattigan and director Delbert Mann allows each performer to shine in individual, cameo-styled moments.

The movie comes down on the sides of each of the outsiders; forgiveness is its central theme. The play and movie suggest that each of the characters deserves a better fate with the result that fears and loneliness are defeated for one and all. Whereas differences, prejudices, and discrimination normally triumph in real life, Separate Tables is ultimately wish-fulfillment, showing how the better sides of people can overcome irrational fears and emotional coldness (symbolized by the separate tables and coolish ‘U.K. tone’ of the title).

This MGM DVD is highly recommended for its message and unconventional character choices as well as the excellent ‘ensemble acting’.

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”

“What bloody man is that?”

“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”

“Or have we eaten of the insane root/That takes the reason prisoner?”

“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,/The instruments of darkness tell us truths,/ Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s/In deepest consequence.”

“Present fears/Are less than horrible imaginings.”

“There’s no art/To find the mind’s construction in the face:/He was a gentleman on whom I built/An absolute trust.”

“Unsex me here,/And fill me from the crown to the toe top full/Of direst cruelty!”

“Look like the innocent flower,/But be the serpent under ‘t.”

“I have no spur/To prick the sides of my intent, but only/Vaulting ambition which o’er-leaps itself”

“I have bought/Golden opinions of all sorts of people.”

“Bring forth men-children only.”

“There’s husbandry in heaven;/Their candles are all out.”

“Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!'”

“The primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.”

“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.”

“There’s nothing serious in mortality,/All is but toys; renown and grace is dead.”

“A deed of dreadful note.”

“Come, seeling night,/Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day.”

“But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in/To saucy doubts and fears.”

“I am in blood/Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

“Be bloody, bold, and resolute.”

“I have lived long enough: my way of life/Is fall’n into the sear”

“I have supped full with horrors.’

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day”

“They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,/But bear-like I must fight the course.”

Syllogism:

An object with consciousness and free will is capable of movement and can change the course of its fate.
A kleenex thrown directly into a garbage sometimes bounces out.
Therefore, some Kleenexes are capable of movement and can change the course of their fates, and thus demonstrate the conditions of consciousness and free will.

This syllogism is true also for some wet washcloths put on bathroom racks to dry. They will, likewise, leap off racks and display minds and wills of their own.

Change continues to gallop in modern times. On average, I experience a minimum of three changes per day, usually occurring via mail, email, or when I go out with the new wheels.

Today, my car insurance company closed their office near me and now I have to go across town to the remaining office. (The changes are usually a result of downsizing with convenience for the company, not the customer.)

Also, one of my credit cards will be changing over to new features in January. And the car company I bought my van from surprise-delivered (no doorbell) a personalized box of (congratulations-for-buying-a-new-vehicle-from-Go Auto) cookies to my house. (See photo above.)

Give us this day our daily (3) changes.

(the highly recommended 2015 Viavision/Madman/Universal DVD)

Long unavailable for viewing, a print of this classic showed up in 2012 and has now been released on DVD in a nice restored print. There are many good things about this adaptation which closely follows F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book until after the auto accident. All the main scenes of the book are retained and there are three flashbacks (not in the original novella) which provide exposition about Gatsby’s youth, his meeting with Daisy and Gatsby’s reaction to news of her marriage.

Alan Ladd makes a credible, attractive Gatsby, moreso than Leonardo, for instance. Macdonald Carey embodies all of Nick Carraway’s naivete and loyalty. Barry Sullivan is also good as Tom Buchanan. Ruth Hussey is more convincing than Mia Farrow as Daisy. Strangely, the Buchanans are given repentant moments unlike the book. And the movie cops out from Fitzgerald’s handling of Nick in the finale, giving him an unexpected happy ‘romantic’ ending.

There are also a number of old second-banana actors in supporting roles including a slim Shelley Winters as Wilson`s unfaithful wife, Howard da Silva as her frustrated husband, Ed Begley as a variation of Meyer Wolfsheim (the Wolfsheim-Gatsby scene was left out possibly to avoid anti-semitic stereotyping). and Elisha Cook, Jr. as Klipspringer, who is given a bigger part to play than in the original. Interestingly, Dr. Eckleburg and Wilson are compared in passing, but that`s about it for symbolism in this movie (shot in black and white so no symbolic green light).

This is a must-see film for any fans of the book, and viewers variously disappointed by the Redford and diCaprio versions. Alan Ladd was s likable actor and having another of his lost gems (c.f. the restored This Gun for Hire, reviewed earlier here) is a real treat. (Safe for viewing by teenagers despite the Mature warning)