Motley Kamuka

 I’ve recently been bewitched by two painters. Oscar Howe died in 1983, but there's an exhibit in NYC on him at the National Museum of the American Indian until September 11th ( Source ). Want to learn more about him based on this amazing painting, and some of the others I was able to see online. ( More ) ( Wikipedia ) 6/11/22 Issue of New Yorker does a profile:  "Born in 1915, with the tribal name Mazuha Hokshina, on an impoverished reservation in South Dakota, he was shipped off, seven years later, to one of the United States’ federally run boarding schools. At the time, these schools harshly endeavored to suppress Native youths’ ancestral ways. He spoke no English when he arrived. Beset by eye and skin diseases and, in 1924, traumatized by news of the death, from an illness, of his mother, he contemplated suicide. The school let him leave to convalesce. He spent roughly a year back on his home reservation with a sage grandmother, Shell Face, whose exciting stories im...

I posted about how NYC isn't going to allow unvaccinated home players to play in Major League Baseball, the Mets and the Yankees, as per the regulation on whatever that you have to get vaccinated if you work. The pandemic seems to be waning and everyone focuses on the fact that fans and away players don't have to be vaccinated. My point is that if you think it's a good step, then maybe more should do it but that others don't do it doesn't mean we need to get rid of it. People have different priorities and different political views, but I found the discussion vastly stimulating. I dislike the idea of virtue signaling, because you're calling someone a fake and it would be better to just say why you think they're a fake instead. Various moves were made. They thought it was off topic to discuss virtue. The opposite of no-virtue signaling wasn't a thing and complained about my exploring the topic they brought up, they just imagined a takedown, not a discussio...

Read to page 117 before I began to appreciate Pratchett  in Mort .  The idea that wizards can see things others can't is appealing.  Discworld Wiki

 

I find this quote utter claptrap, and can’t believe it’s published:  “…  the people who put Joe Biden in power—I cannot name them, but I know they are the same people who keep him in power—do not care about inflation, rising gas and food prices, COVID lockdowns or mask mandates, the porousness of our Southern border, the threat of war with Russia, or the myriad other issues that worry ordinary voters. I am quite certain, in fact, that the word “voters” brings a vaguely contemptuous smile to their faces.” It’s so vague and unsupported but it has a whiff of populist inchoate grievances and paranoid fantasy. But what I find most offensive is the anti-democracy sentiment. Bring on the elimination of corporate money in elections if you really want a solution—he doesn’t want a solution. Source

  source of this amazing photo

 

This is why the right doesn't want to discuss policy. Because they can't get what they want. The don't say gay bill in Florida has catalyzed the lgbtq movement. And I'm sure the same thing happens on the left, except we like to try to persuade, in a democratic way, and not just grab power. "The decision marks a possible major turning point for LGBTQ representation not just in Pixar films, but in feature animation in general, which has remained steadfastly circumspect about depicting same-sex affection in any meaningful light." I think banning books only gives them more power. Keep on getting frustrated right, try to lock it down.  Meanwhile the right is braying about cancel culture . It doesn't really work for them but they feel the sting of it. It's called democracy. Then you have Elon Musk who tweets stream of consciousness and supposedly has to clear each tweet by a lawyer, but he doesn't want to. "Canceled" is just more marketing, it...

I get that it's news when these asshats say something stupid, ("can you believe this!") but what if we didn't give them press for attention getting behaviors that don't add anything to the common discourse. It's not being balanced and fair to add the attention getting, Russian sponsored perspective. If we can't figure out how to not allow them to get Russian money, or dark money, can't we just not give them a platform. At this point their stupidity isn't news. The right wing conspiracy is dark money from Koch, from Russia, virtually the same thing. Hunter Biden's story is nothing compared to the grift of the Trumps. To think it's a story is to make a political choice, not an objective fair balanced choice.  It's not fair and equal to undermine American democracy. The 4th branch, the press, really needs to tighten things up for the midterm elections. The people who vote for these asshats and carnival barkers see the lurid attention as va...

When I first heard the idea that every character in a drama is you, I thought that was preposterous. But since I've transformed, I've developed a liking for that idea. Because the line between Russia and Ukraine goes right through us. We have an autocratic part, and a democratic part. We have a Sith path and a Jedi path. The Sith path is one where empathy doesn't matter, it's just about building your death star. The Jedi path is more humble, more intimate, more connected to nature. The Sith path is just getting things done without thinking of complications. The Jedi path accepts all connections.  I was talking to a woman who was working for the DOE in NYC for the first time. The Byzantine rules and lack of flexibility and empathy were difficult for her. She could reach outsider children who couldn't adapt to the routines and expectations. But she was tortured by the everyday brutality of the place, to herself and the children. These little connections were meaningfu...

I was reading Obama's memoir when I realized all the hope and idealism that was stirred up in the campaign was just going to end in obstruction and pitched battles for sort of basic obvious things that would help others out. Sometimes I get tired of the opposition. There are times when I feel like it's a death cult that doesn't stand for anything but obstruction of the good. But I've picked it back up and I want to work through it, because I think that's the big stumbling block with politics--handling frustration that you don't get your way. I'm trying to help my daughter with that situation, so I need to tackle it myself too. Democracy means you don't get your way most of the time. That's probably a good thing because it's against some dictator, some fascist, some autocrat, getting their way. You have to persuade the people, even if you think you don't need to. And there will always be instances when the people's voice can be gratifying...

(Does that place look like Yonah Schimmel?) Mrs. Maisel is like Dickenson, it's a modern drama with modern sensibilities injected into it. It doesn't clang like hip hop in Amherst in 1850.  I love casting. Nice goy girl from Milwaukee to pay a Jewish woman from NYC. The Jewish woman plays an Italian immigrant's child (Borstein). Two people are from Wisconsin, Brosnahan and Shalhoub. Shalhoub is a genius, I think, though the whole cast is amazing. Shalhoub is Lebanese Mennonite Christian from Wisconsin Green Bay. I guess everywhere is a melting pot, not just NYC. Brosnahan parents are British and of Irish descent. Suzy Meyerson, not really an Italian name, is a great character too played by Borstein. A stand up comedy show that isn't funny. Now that's funny. It's by Amy Sherman-Palladino who did Gilmore Girls, so there's quick snappy dialogue, and a confrontation of the generations and changing times. She plugs all the right things and makes it articulate. ...

Now my charms are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have's mine own, Which is most faint: now, 'tis true, I must be here confined by you, Or sent to Naples. Let me not, Since I have my dukedom got And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell  In this bare island by your spell; But release me from my bands With the help of your good hands: Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails,  Which was to please. Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant, And my ending is despair, Unless I be relieved by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults  Mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon'd be, Let your indulgence set me free.

They are Hostile Nations by Margaret Atwood i In view of the fading animals the proliferation of sewers and fears    the sea clogging, the air nearing extinction we should be kind, we should take warning, we should forgive each other Instead we are opposite, we    touch as though attacking, the gifts we bring even in good faith maybe    warp in our hands to implements, to manoeuvres ii Put down the target of me you guard inside your binoculars,    in turn I will surrender this aerial photograph    (your vulnerable sections marked in red)    I have found so useful See, we are alone in the dormant field, the snow that cannot be eaten or captured iii Here there are no armies    here there is no money It is cold and getting colder, We need each others’ breathing, warmth, surviving    is the only war we can afford, stay walking with me, there is almost    time / if we can only    make it as fa...

  Amazing movie. It shows the greatness of the music and lyrics that it can be done on Broadway 1957, a movie in '61, and then a remake in 2021. I get the sense that some people might dislike an update, they think the old one is good enough, and it is amazing. I think we can do a remake of this movie every 50 years, let alone 60. Ariana DeBose  (shown above) got a SAG award. I didn't notice, but it was banned in f Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates because Anybodys being a transgender character, as played by non-binary actor iris menas. Wish I hadn't read about that, makes me despair for this world. I'm starting to think I'm in the worst timeline.  And then I read that Maria was played by a woman who only had a maternal grandmother who was hispanic (Columbian)... Anita (by the wonderful DeBose) had African-American and Italian heritage. I'm sorry but she killed it. No regrets on that casting. She's not even an actor, sh...

Spoiler alert for those who think you can discuss a film without giving anything away. There are 2 The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movies. They're both based on a book. One movie is realistic, in a foreign language. Director is Danish, but it lists it as a Swedish movie on IMBd. It was filmed in Spain and Sweden. The Hollywood version used Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. The second one is a Hollywood slick remake. It almost feels like a magical realism version versus a realism version. IMBd gives the Danish version a 7.8. The slick Hollywood ones gets a 7.8 too. We want realism and we want magic. A 4th medium, aural, I heard the book on tape while driving to work. And it's in translation, the story has made one more transformation. So the 4 different versions, text, audio book, movie and movie, and in a way the same story.  I see different choices, dialogue, ways of visualizing text into 2 different violence incidents in the subway, two different rape scenes, two different sex...

"Condition-of-England novels like “Bleak House” are generally thought of in relation to what John Ruskin called “illth.” Illth is the underside of wealth, the damage that change leaves in its wake, the human cost of progress. Novels show what statistics miss or disguise: what life was actually like, for many people, in the most advanced economy in the world."  (Louis Menand "The Crisis That Nearly Cost Charles Dickens His Career" New Yorker : Published in the print edition of the March 7, 2022, issue, with the headline “The Inimitable.”) I was trying to think what writer wrote about social conditions. Many do, but I thought of Barbara Kingsolver.  "Dickens was a social critic. Almost all his fiction satirizes the institutions and social types produced by that dramatic transformation of the means of production. But he was not a revolutionary. His heroes are not even reformers. They are ordinary people who have made a simple commitment to decency. George Orwell, ...