Foundations of Religion / Dictatorship 101
We lost the inimitable Pee-wee Herman on this day in 2023. Doesn't seem possible, does it?
How did he pull this off???
https://youtu.be/XIKHgpnylc8
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Oh God, July 30... the day the USS Indianapolis was hit by a torpedo in 1945, sinking in 12 minutes. Eighty or so crew members were devoured by sharks- tigers and blues. Karmically, it had just delivered uranium and other components to the island of Tinian, set to be assembled into Little Boy, the world's first atomic bomb to be used as a weapon. It would level Hiroshima days later, with the bones of the USS Indianapolis's crew still littering the floor of the ocean.
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Apparently Trump is getting near the end of his online Dictatorship 101 class. I hate to even bring up his suggestion to delay the elections... it was so inevitable and his transparent attempt to shock just came across as BOOOOORING. The Supreme Court would fast-track it and strike it down 9-0... just another distraction, another wind-up, and more evidence he has nothing better to do.
July 30, 2020
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Every once in a while during the night I find myself eating something delicious and watching some war documentary. Tonight I saw a bit on the Romanian Revolution while I happened to be eating a Pop-Ice. I rarely appreciate my life more than when comparing the stark contrast between enjoying nighttime goodies in the comfort of my own house with an eternity of nothingness.
July 30, 2017
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The best criticism of the president comes from the right. Republican strategist Matthew Dowd:
"To me, Donald Trump and his actions are a weak person's idea of what a strong person is. His idea of a strong person is bullying people. His idea of a strong police officer is mistreating people they've apprehended. He's somehow launched himself back to the 13th century in terms of what he views as a strong person."
Oof.
July 30, 2017
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It just crossed my mind that if elected the erratic, lawless Trump would certainly be impeached, and quickly. But then... Pence.
July 30, 2016
Postscript: Certainly I wasn't hesitant about American Hero Mike Pence becoming president, haha.
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I just played some serious racquetball... I might have played my soul right out of my body. I've been walking around aimlessly and staring into space. How do you get your soul to come back?
July 30, 2013
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Emma just made me a fruit salad fit for Zeus.
July 30, 2011
Postscript: Wouldn't that be an ambrosia salad?
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A cat eating a lizard is perhaps the most disgusting sound I've ever had the displeasure of hearing. It puts me in mind of Herzog's Overwhelming and Collective Murder diatribe from Burden of Dreams.
https://youtu.be/ze9-ARjL-ZA
July 30, 2011
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You know a fun thing to do in Africa- try to finalize refinancing your house back home.
July 30, 2011
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Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law on this day, establishing Medicare and Medicaid, and ever since we've been a socialist country, apparently.
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On this day in 1975, Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. and was never seen or heard from again
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Casey Stengel was born on this day in 1890. He was out-Yogiing Yogi Berra before it was a thing.
"I couldn't done it without my players."
"All right everyone, lineup at alphabetically according to your height."
"Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa."
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Peter Bogdanovich was born in 1939 and just left us earlier this year. He could have retired after the Last Picture Show and have been remembered forever. I just can't express with that film does to me.
That opening pan could be the foundation of a religion.
https://youtu.be/46xjVAQ-oiI
And here he is at the nadir of his career, few years earlier, interviewing his rascally buddy John Ford.
https://youtu.be/E7i_fCV_KsA
Grocery shopping with Orson Welles:
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Paul Anka was born on this day in 1941. He wrote and performed Lonely Boy, another of the quintessential oldies. That might be the first one I ever fell in love with.
LONELY BOY
I'm just a lonely boy
Lonely and blue
I'm all alone
With nothin' to do
I've got everything
You could think of
But all I want
Is someone to love
Someone, yes someone to love
Someone to kiss
Someone to hold
At a moment like this
I'd like to hear
Somebody say
I'll give you my love
Each night and day
Somebody, somebody, somebody, please
Send her to me
I'll make her happy
Just wait and see
I've prayed so hard
To the heavens above
That I might find
Someone to love
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Richard Linklater was born on this day in 1960. One of my very favorite screenwriters and directors. How could he be 63??? Celine, from Before Sunset:
"I think I’m always so much more happy with books and movies and stuff. I think I get more excited about well-done representations of life than life itself."
Each of his screenplays have so many small touches, they seem as if they are written personally for me. One example- in Before Midnight he said he joked with his dad about being an orphan but the joke fell flat. I had done exactly that with that exact same response several weeks before seeing it. I couldn't believe it.
I LOVED Apollo 10 and 1/2! That might be the only movie over the last several years that I watched again right away. The last one might have been Andrew Jarecki's documentary on Elvis, The King.
His 10 Favorite Films:
Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958)
Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
L’Argent (Robert Bresson, 1983)
Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
La Maman et la Putain (Jean Eustache, 1973)
The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
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Ingmar Bergman left us on this day in 2007.
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The cat's endless lizard slaughter in Emma's Rwanda backyard reminds me of this classic Herzog diatribe.
https://youtu.be/ze9-ARjL-ZA
Updated Jul 30, 2011, 12:59 PM
Jul 30, 2011, 12:59 PM
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Midget Arnold Schwarzenegger was born on this day in 1947. Here he is next to Andre the Normal-Sized guy and Wilt "No Stilts" Chamberlain
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Herman Cain died of covid-19 on this day in 2020.
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On this day in 1971, on Apollo 15, David Scott and James Irwin landed the first Lunar Rover on the moon. Some think that was the beginning of the end of the Apollo program, just seemed like people goofing around up there for billions of dollars.
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Sam Phillips left us on this day in 2003. What would our culture even be without Elvis and Johnny Cash?
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Other notable birthdays- Henry Ford (1863), Christopher Nolan (1970)
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Another notable deathday- Michelangelo Antonioni (2007)
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Gretel and I caught a garter snake today. It took a chomp out of my hand and then relaxed. We're going to keep it for a week or two and then let it go again. She's not sure what she wants to name it, any suggestions?
July 30, 2022
Postscript- Ended up being Checkers.
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Great list!
Taste of Cinema- 20 Great Movies That Explore the Relationship Between Humans and their Cities
Any list containing Ikiru is a great list!
http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/20-great-movies-that-explore-the-relationship-between-humans-and-their-cities/
July 30, 2016
1. Taxi Driver
2. Ikiru
3. Le Samurai
4. City of God
5. Playtime
6. Permanent Vacation
7. Wings of Desire
8. Los Olvidados
9. Alphaville
10. Drive
11. Hiroshima Mon Amour
12. Lost in Translation
13. Safety Last
14. Chinatown
15. Gueros
16. The Eclipse
17. Brazil
18. Rear Window
19. El Castila de la Pureza
20. Her
What a knockout!
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I guess Trump is winding up everyone today, even the co-founder of the Federalist Society who called for his impeachment. Huh.
"I have voted Republican in every presidential election since 1980, including voting for Donald Trump in 2016. I wrote op-eds and a law review article protesting what I believe was an unconstitutional investigation by Robert Mueller. I also wrote an op-ed opposing President Trump’s impeachment.
"But I am frankly appalled by the president’s recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats’ assertion that President Trump is a fascist. But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/trump-delay-election-coronavirus.html
July 30, 2020
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Trump- "Just say the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me."
Um, nahhh.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/new-docs-show-trump-pressing-doj-lie-about-election-corruption-n1275506?cid=sm_fb_maddow
July 30, 2021
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Karl Popper- "Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification."
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Alexis de Tocqueville- "I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all."
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Stanley Kubrick- "If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space? Those of us who are forced by their own sensibilities to view their lives in this perspective — who recognize that there is no purpose they can comprehend and that amidst a countless myriad of stars their existence goes unknown and unchronicled — can fall prey all too easily to the ultimate anomie. The world's religions, for all their parochialism, did supply a kind of consolation for this great ache."
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