Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

Dr. Strangelove

President: But, how is it possible for this doomsday device to be triggered automatically, and at the same time impossible to untrigger?
Strangelove: Mr. President, it is not only possible, it is essential. That is the whole idea of this machine, you know. Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy… the fear to attack. And so, because of the automated and irrevocable decision making process which rules out human meddling, the doomsday machine is terrifying. It’s simple to understand. And completely credible, and convincing.
Turgidson: Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines.

He wondered how many of them we had now. And, of course, how many they had.

Strangelove: but the whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn’t you tell the world, eh?
Ambassador de Sadesky: It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.

Just another Rooskie scam, of course.

Mandrake: Colonel! Colonel, I must know what you think has been going on here!
Colonel “Bat” Guano: You wanna know what I think?
Mandrake: Yes!
Colonel “Bat” Guano: I think you’re some kind of deviated prevert. I think General Ripper found out about your preversion, and that you were organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts. Now MOVE!

These guys actually exist. And on both sides no doubt.

Mandrake: Colonel…that Coca-Cola machine. I want you to shoot the lock off it. There may be some change in there.
Colonel “Bat” Guano: That’s private property.
Mandrake: Colonel! Can you possibly imagine what is going to happen to you, your frame, outlook, way of life, and everything, when they learn that you have obstructed a telephone call to the President of the United States? Can you imagine? Shoot it off! Shoot! With a gun! That’s what the bullets are for, you twit!
Colonel “Bat” Guano: Okay. I’m gonna get your money for ya. But if you don’t get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what’s gonna happen to you?
Mandrake: What?
Colonel “Bat” Guano: You’re gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company.

These guys actually exist. And on both sides no doubt.

President: General Turgidson, is there really a chance for that plane to get through?
Turgidson: Mr. President, if I may speak freely, the Russkie talks big, but frankly, we think he’s short of know how. I mean, you just can’t expect a bunch of ignorant peons to understand a machine like some of our boys. And that’s not meant as an insult, Mr. Ambassador, I mean, you take your average Russkie, we all know how much guts he’s got. Hell, lookit look at all them them Nazis killed off and they still wouldn’t quit.
President: Can’t you stick to the point, General?
Turgidson: Well, I’m sorry. Ah…If the pilot’s good, see. I mean, if he’s really sharp, he can barrel that baby in so low spreads his arms like wings., laughs you oughtta see it sometime, it’s a sight. A big plane, like a ‘52, vroom! There’s jet exhaust, flyin’ chickens in the barnyard!
President: Yeah, but has he got a chance?
Turgidson: Has he got a chance? Hell Ye… ye…

Ooops...

President: You mean people could actually stay down there in the mineshafts for a hundred years?
Strangelove: It would not be difficult, Mein Führer. Nuclear reactors could - heh, I’m sorry, Mr. President - nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely.

Of course, they have mineshafts too.

President: Well I…I would hate to have to decide… who stays up and… who goes down.
Strangelove: Well, that would not be necessary Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross section of necessary skills. Of course it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. But ah with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present gross national product within say, twenty years.

On the other hand, who programs the computer?

Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn’t that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?
Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious…service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

Naturally?

Turgidson: Mr President, I think we should look at this from the military point of view. I mean, supposing the Russkies stashes away some big bomb, see. When they come out in a hundred years they could take over!
General: I agree, Mr. President. In fact, they might even try an immediate sneak attack so they could take over our mineshaft space.
Turgidson: Yeah. I think it would be extremely naive of us, Mr. President, to imagine that these new developments are going to cause any change in Soviet expansionist policy. I mean, we must be increasingly on the alert to prevent them from taking over other mineshaft space, in order to breed more prodigiously than we do, thus, knocking us out in superior numbers when we emerge! Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!

Or is that already too late?

Strangelove: Mr. President! I have a plan!
[standing up from his wheelchair]
Strangelove: Mein Führer! I can walk!

All the way from Mar-a-Lago.

[iambiguous]

Philosophy

“Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.” Vladimir Lenin

Next up: despair from the gulags.

“I am my world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

And that world now?

“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” Elie Wiesel

Next up: Live from what's left of Gaza.

“No matter how you care to define it, I do not identify with the local group. Planet, species, race, nation, state, religion, party, union, club, association, neighborhood improvement committee; I have no interest in any of it. I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.” George Carlin

I'd almost go that far myself.

“Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there’s always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her.” Albert Camus

Next up: each morning here.

“What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money ... but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth ... In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are "coins" for real things.” Alan Watts

Define "somewhat"?

[iambiguous]

Glengarry Glen Ross

Blake: You’re talking about what. You’re talking about…Bitching about that sale you shot, some sonofabitch who don’t wanna buy land, some broad you’re trying to screw, so forth. Let’s talk about something important. They all here?
Williamson: All but one.
Blake: I’m going anyway. Let’s talk about something important. Put. That. Coffee. Down. Coffee’s for closers only. You think I’m fucking with you? I am not fucking with you. I’m here from downtown. I’m here from Mitch and Murray. And I’m here on a mission of mercy. Your name’s Levine? You call yourself a salesman you son of a bitch?
Moss: I don’t gotta sit here and listen to this shit.
Blake: You certainly don’t pal, 'cause the good news is - you’re fired. The bad news is - you’ve got, all of you’ve got just one week to regain your jobs starting with tonight. Starting with tonight’s sit. Oh? Have I got your attention now? Good. Cause we’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired. Get the picture? You laughing now? You got leads. Mitch and Murray paid good money, get their names to sell them. you can’t close the leads youre given you can’t close shit. You ARE shit. Hit the bricks pal, and beat it ‘cause you are going OUT.
Shelley: The leads are weak.
Blake: The leads are weak? Fucking leads are weak. You’re weak. I’ve been in this business 15 years…
Moss: What’s your name?
Blake: Fuck you. That’s my name. You know why, mister? You drove a Hyundai to get here. I drove an eighty-thousand dollar BMW. THAT’S my name. And your name is you’re wanting. You can’t play in the man’s game, you can’t close them - go home and tell your wife your troubles. Because only one thing counts in this life: Get them to sign on the line which is dotted. You hear me you fucking faggots?! A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing. ALWAYS BE CLOSING. A-I-D-A. Attention, Interest, Decision, Action. Attention - Do I have you attention? Interest - Are you interested? I know you are, because it’s fuck or walk. You close or you hit the bricks. Decision - Have you made your decision, for Christ? And Action. A-I-D-A. Get out there - you got the prospects coming in. You think they came in to get out of the rain? A guy don’t walk on the lot lest he wants to buy. They’re sitting out there waiting to give you their money. Are you gonna take it? Are you man enough to take it? What’s the problem, pal?
Moss: You - Moss. You’re such a hero, you’re so rich, how come you’re coming down here wasting your time with such a bunch of bums?
Blake: You see this watch? You see this watch?
Moss: Yeah.
Blake: That watch costs more than you car. I made $970,000 last year. How much’d you make? You see pal, that’s who I am, and you’re nothing. Nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna work here - close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can’t take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a sit? You don’t like it, leave. I can go out there tonight with the materials you’ve got and make myself $15,000. Tonight! In two hours! Can you? Can YOU? Go and do likewise. A-I-D-A. Get mad you son of a bitches. Get mad. You want to know what it takes to sell real estate? It takes BRASS BALLS to sell real estate. Go and do likewise gents. The money out there. You pick it up, it’s yours. You don’t, I got no sympathy for you. You wanna go out on those sits tonight and close, CLOSE. It’s yours. If not you’re gonna be shining my shoes. And you know what you’ll be saying - a bunch of losers sittin’ around in a bar. ‘Oh yeah. I used to be a salesman. It’s a tough racket.’ These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you they’re gold, and you don’t get them. Why? Because to give them to you is just throwing them away. They’re for closers. I’d wish you good luck but you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you got it. And to answer you question, pal, why am I here? I came here because Mitch and Murray asked me to. They asked me for a favor. I said the real favor, follow my advice and fire your fucking ass because a loser is a loser.

At least until the workers of the world unite.
Or, sure, until the second coming of Christ.

Shelly [calling the hospital where his daughter is a patient]: I can’t come in tonight. Yes, I know she is. I know she is. I’ve gotta go out…I’ve got to go out. Tell her I’ll call her from the road.

And we know how that turned out.

Spannel: So you’re here to sell me some land?
Shelly: Oh, no…no…I wouldn’t try to sell you…I…I leave that to the salesmen and people who want to own land.
Spannel: Mr…
Shelly: Just call me Shelly. I have never been afraid of familiarity.
Spannel: I’m walking out the door. I’ve got to pick up my wife at the…
Shelly: Why don’t we take my car. We can pick her up together. Spoke to the little woman on the phone—can’t wait to meet her.
Spannel: No, we’re going over to our relatives.
Shelly: Oh, she didn’t say anything about that. Let me think. You know, that’s the only parcel I’ve got. You know what I’m going to do? I’m gonna go back to the computer, I’m gonna pull another one, and we’re gonna speak to your relatives too!
Spannel: No, no, no, no.
Shelly: My God, I’m in the act of giving a gift away.
Spannel: Look, I don’t want to buy land. I don’t want to invest in land. I have nothing. She took the call without my knowledge. I have no business with you that I want to transact.
Shelly: Well, I don’t want to tell you how to handle your wife.
Spannel [increasingly more exasperated]: My wife filled out a form, and we have been plagued for the last year with…
Shelly: Well that’s the situation I am trying to alleviate, Larry.
Spannel: No, no. Do you understand? No.

What a shitty way to earn a living. And, really, could Blake have closed it instead?

Moss: I’ll tell you what someone should do.
George: What?
Moss: Someone should stand up and strike back. Someone should do something to them to pay them back.
George: What?
Moss: Someone should hurt them where they live. Someone should rob the office.

And then, after stealing the leads, burn it to the ground.

Ricky: All train compartments smell vaguely of shit. It gets so you don’t mind it. That’s the worst thing that I can confess. You know how long it took me to get there? A long time. When you die you’re going to regret the things you don’t do. You think you’re queer? I’m going to tell you something: we’re all queer. You think you’re a thief? So what? You get befuddled by a middle-class morality? Get shut of it. Shut it out. You cheat on your wife? You did it, live with it. You fuck little girls, so be it. There’s an absolute morality? Maybe. And then what? If you think there is, go ahead, be that thing. Bad people go to hell? I don’t think so. If you think that, act that way. A hell exists on earth? Yes. I won’t live in it. That’s me.

A philosopher king they call him. On Wall Street.

Shelly [trying to phone his daughter’s room at the hospital]: They cancelled her phone?! Okay, I’ll have the money there tomorrow.

After he's made bail?

[iambiguous]

Susan Orlean

World War II destroyed more books and libraries than any event in human history. The Nazis alone destroyed an estimated hundred million books during their twelve years in power.

Let's see if Trump, DeSantis and the MAGA woke folk can top this.

I am happy if I can give them away or donate them. But I can’t throw a book in the trash, no matter how hard I try.

I've trashed dozens of books myself. Though only those that deserved to be.

In 1973, the library even added a service called the Hoot Owl Telephonic Reference, which operated from nine P.M. until one A.M., long after the library was closed. Dialing H-O-O-T-O-W-L connected you to a librarian who could find the answer to almost any question. The Hoot Owl slogan was “Win Your Bet Without a Fight.” Apparently, in the late evening, people all over Los Angeles did a lot of betting on trivia such as the correct names of the Seven Dwarves. The service got a call every three minutes, adding up to about thirty-five thousand a year. Hoot Owl was a favorite target of conservative groups, who believed it catered to “hippies and other night people.” But the library persisted, and Hoot Owl operated every weeknight until the end of 1976.

Hoot Owl here?

Orchids are considered the most highly evolved flowering plants on earth. They are unusual in form, uncommonly beautiful in color, often powerfully fragrant, intricate in structure, and different from any other family of plants. The reason for their unusualness has always been puzzled over. One guess is that orchids might have evolved in soil that was naturally irradiated by a meteor or mineral deposit, and that the radiation is what mutated them into thousands of amazing forms...In 1678 the botanist Jakob Breyne wrote: "The manifold shape of these flowers arouses our highest admiration. They take on the form of little birds, of lizards, of insects. They look like a man, like a woman, sometimes like an austere, sinister figure, sometimes like a clown who excites our laughter. They represent the image of a lazy tortoise, a melancholy toad, an agile, ever-chattering monkey." Orchids have always been thought of as beautiful but strange. A wildflower guide published in 1917 called them "our queer freaks".

Next up: the queer freaks here.

A book feels like a thing alive in this moment, and also on a continuum, from the moment the thoughts about it first percolated in the writers mind to the moment it sprang off the printing press - a lifeline that continues as someone sits with it and marvels over it. Once words and thoughts are poured into them, books are no longer just paper and ink and glue: they take on a kind of human vitality. The poet Milton called this quality in books "the potency of life."

Next up: the crap they publish now.

Television wasn't getting rid of animals, but they were no longer cast as creatures that were omniscient and heroic. They were talking horses like Mr Ed or an absurdist pig like Arnold Ziffle...Just like the heroic animals in silent films became comedians in talkies, animals on television were becoming jesters, something Rin Tin Tin had never been.

Next up: Lassie.

[iambiguous]

Glengarry Glen Ross

George: When I talk to the police I get nervous.
Ricky: Yes. You know who doesn’t?
George: Who?
Ricky: Thieves.
George: I don’t know what I’m going to tell them.
Ricky: The truth, George. Always tell them the truth. It’s the easiest thing to remember.

If that's an option of course.

Williamson: [handing Roma lead cards] I’m giving you three leads…
Ricky: Three? No, I count two.
Williamson: There’s three leads there.
Ricky: “Patel”? Fuck you. Fucking Shiva handed this guy a million dollars, told him “Sign the deal!” he wouldn’t sign. And the god Vishnu too, into the bargain. Fuck you, John! You know your business, I know mine. Your business is being an asshole. I find out whose fucking cousin you are, I’m going to go to him and figure out a way to have your ass - fuck you!
[throws the cards at Williamson]

Patel...meet Blake.

Ricky: Fuck you, Dave. You know you got a big mouth. You make a close, this whole place stinks with your farts for a week - how much you just ingested. Oh, what a big man you are! “Hey, let me buy you a pack of gum. I’ll show you how to chew it.” Whoof! You’re pal closes, and all that comes out of your mouth is bile. Ooh, how fucked-up you are!
Moss: Who’s my pal, Ricky? Hmm? What are you? And what are you, Ricky? Huh? Bishop Sheen? What the fuck are you, Mr. Slick? Who - what the fuck are you, “Friend to the working man”? Big deal! FUCK YOU! You got the memory of a fuckin’ fly! I never liked you, anyway.

Of course, only one of them tops the Cadillac board.

Ricky: You wanna know the first rule…you’d know if you ever spent a day in your life doing what we do. You never open your mouth until you know what the shot is.

The particular con job in other words.

Shelly: If you’re gonna make something up, be sure that it helps. Hmm? Or keep your mouth shut. I’m done with you.
[Wlliamson thinks about that]
Williamson: How do you know I made it up?
Shelley: Say what?
Williamson: How do you know I made it up?
Shelley: What are you talking about?
Williamson: You said, “Don’t make something up unless it’s sure to help.”
Shelly [nodding] Mm hmm.
Williamson: How did you know I made it up?
Shelly: What are you talking about?
Williamson: I told the customer his contract had gone to the bank.
Shelley: Hadn’t it?
Williamson: No, it hadn’t.
Shelley: Don’t fuck with me… Don’t fuck with me! What are you saying?
Williamson: Well, I’m saying this Shell; usually I take the contracts to the bank. Last night I didn’t. Last night I stayed home with my kids. One night in a year I left the contracts sitting on my desk, no one knew that but you. Now, how did you know that? Do you wanna tell me or do you want to tell the cops?
Shelly: You are so full of shit!
Williamson: You robbed the office.

More to the point [for his daughter] he got caught.

[Williamson goes to rat out Shelly to the cops]
Shelley: Don’t.
Williamson: I’m sorry.
Shelley: Why?
Williamson: Because I don’t like you.
Shelley: [in tears] My daughter.
Williamson: Fuck you.

Capitalism, let's call it.

[iambiguous]

Life Lessons

Phillip: So when would you think would be a good time for me to come back? The show’s in three weeks you know.
[Lionel pushes the elevator button and down Phillip goes]
Phillip: Oh, Lionel! You go through this before every show! I’m talking twenty years of this! Now get to know yourself a little better! You can pull it off, Lionel. You always do!

We soon figure out how he pulls it off.

Paulette: You should listen to your machine.
Lionel: “Listen to your machine”? Doesn’t that have a horrifying ring to it, that expression, “Do you listen to your machine”?

Or, nowadays, is the machine listening to you?

Lionel: Who is this guy? I know him, right?
Paulette: Gregory Stark.
Lionel: That kid? The comedian?
Paulette: A performance artist.
Lionel: Performance artist. What the hell is a performance artist? A person’s an actor, a singer, a dancer. I mean do you call the guy that picks up your garbage a sanitation engineer?

Next up: the graffiti artist.

Lionel: What about your painting? Huh? You gonna get a little studio in your parent’s garage? You work for Lionel Dobie. You work for The Lion, baby. You stretch canvas. You run a few errands. You got your own room, a studio. Life lessons that are priceless, plus a salary.

Even he knows that is largely bullshit.

Lionel [looking at Paulette’s painting]: Mm-hmm. It’s amazing how much more interesting it’s getting.
Paulette: What do you mean, “interesting”?
Lionel: It’s not boring. You know, you got a nice little irony working for you.
Paulette: Irony?
Lionel: Yeah, nice irony.
Paulette: How’s the tension? The last time…
Lionel: It’s nice.
Paulette: Nice?
Lionel: Yeah, nice.
Paulette: You’re full of shit. You know that? Look, could you just tell me if you think I’m any good? How about that? Just tell me…if…if I have any talent or if you think I’m just wasting my time! Because sometimes I feel like I should just quit…Just tell me what you think.
Lionel: What the hell difference does it matter what I think? It’s yours. I mean you make art because you have to, because you got no choice. It’s not about talent. It’s about no choice but to do it. Are you any good? Well you’re 22 so who knows. Who cares. If you want to give it up you weren’t a real artist to begin with. [then to himself as he walks away] Christ’s sakes. “If you give it up, you weren’t a real artist to begin with.” What a stupid thing to say!

But is it? The film then cuts to Paulette watching Lionel paint, well, furiously.

Lionel [to Paulette]: You know this guy Wagner, the party giver, he’s in real estate, right? He comes down to my studio one time. He puts his arm around my shoulder and he says, “Lionel, do you understand the importance of Jackson Pollock?” Then he points out all the condos and loft conversion out the window and says, “If it wasn’t for Jackson, none of this would be happening.”

On the other hand, for all too many, a buck's a buck.

[iambiguous]

Logic

“For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?” George Orwell

Let's figure that out.

“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.” Douglas Adam

Next up: Women and Children.

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.” Dale Carnegie

You know, as you go about winning friends and influencing people.

“'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'” Lewis Carroll

So, what isn't then?

“There is no point in using the word 'impossible' to describe something that has clearly happened.” Douglas Adams

So, what has clearly happened here?

“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.” Douglas Adams

Wow, what if that is actually true?!

[iambiguous]

Life Lessons

Lionel: Are you a graffiti artist, Toro?

Then that great shot of Lionel painting and looking over at Reuban with that big grin on his face.

Paulette: Do you love me?
Lionel: I said I did yes.
Paulette: You’ll do anything for me?
Lionel: What? Just name it.
Paulette [seeing a patrol car with two policemen in it]: See them? Kiss the driver on the mouth. Then we’ll talk.
Lionel [disbelieving the request and laughing nervously]: What?
Paulette: Come on, and show me how much you love me.
Lionel [shaken and laughing nervously. After a pause]: What if I do? Huh?
Paulette: Then I’ll know your love is true, and if you don’t, your name is King Bullshit, and I pack.

It's Rosanna Arquette. What would you do?

Lionel: Is that for me?
Paulette [barely dressed]: Is what for you?
Lionel: You walk around like that in front of me. What’s to stop me from just losing control and taking you?
Paulette: Taking me?
Lionel: I could do anything. You know why? Because I’m nothing to you. So who cares. I could rape you. I could kill you. I could kill myself.
Paulette: Or rape yourself even.
Lionel: I could do anything because I’m nothing. I’m the Invisible Man to you.
Paulette: Good night.

Well, he did trick her into staying.

Lionel [to Paulette packing to leave]: Okay, look. Maybe it’s me. It’s–No, it’s me. I indulge–I indulge in love. I indulge in making my stuff, and they feed off each other and they come together at times, but this—this is bad. This is selfish. I should try and be a nice person for you. Maybe the key to that is to stop. You know, to stop painting. Maybe I should stop painting and just be a nice person for you. Now is that what you want me to do, huh?!

In one ear and out the other. As it should be though.

Paulette: You know something? If just once you came by my room and said, “Gee, you’re a terrible painter. Why don’t you get a real job and enjoy it.”
Lionel: Let me tell you something. You think I just use people, just grind them up. Well, you don’t know anything about me. You don’t know how involved I get, or how far down I go. Hell, I was married four times before you were even born so don’t you tell me! [more subsdued] So don’t you tell me…

Then the epiphany...remember?

Lionel [fiercely to himself after Paulette’s gone]: Chippies. You know why they call them that? Because they like to chip away at you, man. Take a little chip. That’s your art form. That’s your talent.

Meanwhile, he's still the next Jacson Pollack.

Lionel [after a very young and very beautiful art show employee touches his hand]: What was that?
Woman: I wanted to touch you for good luck.
Lionel: For me?
Woman: No, for me. Maybe some of it will rub off.
Lionel: What, are you an artist?
Woman: You’re an artist. I’m a painter. I mean I’m trying to—I’m not saying this right.
Lionel: How are you making ends meet?
Woman: It’s an expensive city.
Lionel: Well, its the only city. What’s Folwer pay you, peanuts right?
Woman: Yeah.
Lionel: I need an assistant. I pay room and board and give life lessons that are priceless…plus a salary. You wouldn’t know anybody that needs a job, would you?
Woman: Oh God!
Lionel: What’s your name? I’m Lionel Dobie.

We don’t need to know her name, of course. She's just the next chippie in line.

[iambiguous]

Epistemology

“Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans. . . If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn't we really be talking about plural realities? And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others? What about the world of a schizophrenic? Maybe it's as real as our world. Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch with reality and he is not, but should instead say, His reality is so different from ours that he can't explain his to us, and we can't explain ours to him. The problem, then, is that if subjective worlds are experienced too differently, there occurs a breakdown in communication ... and there is the real illness.” Philip K. Dick

Kind of my point too, isn't it?

“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.” Ursula K. Le Guin

Though, perhaps, being almost absolutely certain about one thing.

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?' Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.” Carl Sagan

Next up: the minor religions?

“Why should things be easy to understand?” Thomas Pynchon

And, as often as not, even harder to explain.

“The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides taught that the only things that are real are things which never change... and the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything changes. If you superimpose their two views, you get this result: Nothing is real.” Philip K. Dick

Though some things are clearly a lot less real than others.

“They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions.” Isaac Asimov

Either that or their very own One True Path. And then their very own Or Else.

[iambiguous]

Stardust Memories

Critics: “He’s not funny anymore” “He has no balance left” “The guy is losing his mind” “What self-indulgence” “He’s pretentious…his insights are shallow and morbid” “I’ve seen it all before…they try to document their private suffering and fob it off as art” “Doesn’t the man know he’s got the greatest gift of all, the gift of laughter”

He's a pedophile?

Young Girl: I understand you studied philosophy at school.
Sandy: Uh, no, that’s not true. I-I-I did take - I took one course in existential philosophy at, uh, at New York University, and on, uh, on the final…they gave me ten questions, and, uh, I couldn’t answer a single one of 'em. You know? I left 'em all blank…I got a hundred.

Yo, Dr. Gordon Pond! What does that remind you of?!!

Jack: Comedy is hostility. It’s rage. What is it the comedian says when his jokes are going well? “I murdered that audience”…“I killed 'em”…“They screamed”…“I broke 'em up.”
Sandy: Yeah. So-so what are you saying? Are you saying that someone like-like myself or… or Laurel and Hardy, or-or Bob Hope are furious?
Jack: Furious or latent homosexual. It’s hidden inside the jokes.

Next up: It's hidden inside the posts.

Dorrie: I’m fascinating but I’m trouble.

Woody wouldn't have it any other way.

Woman in audience: People have accused you of being narcissistic.
Sandy: I know. People think that I’m egotistical but it’s not true. As a matter of fact if I did identify with a Greek mythological character it would not be Narcissis.
Man in audience: Who would it be?
Sandy: Zeus.

More or less tongue in cheek let's say.

Sandy: To you, I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the loyal opposition.

Unless, of course, it's the wrong God.

[iambiguous]

Stardust Memories

Sandy: I’ve always had trouble falling in love. I can never find the perfect woman. There’s always something wrong. And then I met Doris. A wonderful woman with a great personality. But for some reason I’m just not turned on sexually by her. And then I met Rita. An animal. Nasty, mean, trouble. And I love going to bed with her. But afterwards I always wished I could be back with Doris. I thought, if only I could put Doris’s brain inside Rita’s body.

Next up: my brain, your body.

UFO follower: I can prove that, if there is life anywhere else in the universe, it will have a Marxist economy.

Keep us posted.

Sandy [to cop]: You can make an exception with me, I’m a celebrity.

If a rather tarnished celebrity these days.

Sandy: Just a little while back, just before I died in fact. I was on the operating table and I was searching to try to find something to hang onto, you know, cause when you’re dying your life really does become very authentic and I was reaching for something to give my life meaning and a memory flashed through my mind: It was one of those great spring days, it was Sunday, and you knew summer would be coming soon. And I remember that morning Dorrie and I had gone for a walk in the park and come back to the apartment. We were just sort of sitting around and I put on a record of Louie Armstrong which was music I grew up with and it was very, very pretty, and I happened to glance over and I saw Dorrie sitting there. And I remember thinking to myself how terrific she was and how much I loved her. And I don’t know, I guess it was a combination of everything, the sound of the music, and the breeze, and how beautiful Dorrie looked to me and for one brief moment everything just seemed to come together perfectly and I felt happy, almost indestructible in a way. It’s funny, that simple little moment of contact moved me in a very, very profound way.

A variation of this appears in virtually all of his earlier films: Here’s why I don’t blow my brains out.

Voice of Martian: You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes.

With or without feathers.

Tony: Yeah, Doris could be fine…funny, bright and wonderful; about two days a month.

Next up: Mia.

[iambiguous]

Wild At Heart

Bob Ray: Marietta tells me you been tryin to fuck her in the toilet for the past ten minutes… How 'bout that, tryin to fuck your girl’s mama… Tell me, what’s that little **** Lula think about that?
Sailor: Uh-oh.

Well, a scripted "Uh-oh", anyway.

Sailor: Did I ever tell ya that this here jacket represents a symbol of my individuality, and my belief in personal freedom?
Lula: About fifty thousand times.

In other words, as with me here, don't get him started?

Lula: When’d you start smoking, Sail?
Sailor: I guess I started smoking when I was about…four. My momma was already dead then from lung cancer.

Uh-oh.

Lula: You remind me of my daddy. Mama told me he liked skinny women with breasts that stood up and said “Hello”.

Susan! Among others.

Marcelles: You want me to shoot Sailor… in the brains… with a gun?
Marietta: Yes.
Marcelles: In the forehead?
Marietta: Yes.
Marcelles: Wrong. It’s always better to blow a hole through the back of the head, right through to the bridge of the nose. Lots of irreparable brain damage.

Good to know?

Lula is flitting from station to station on the car radio…

Radio announcer: …after her recent divorce, she shot her three children, aged seven, five and three.
Radio Announcer: …a judge praised defendant John Roy, but was dismayed to learn that he’d had sex with the corpse…
Lula: What?!
Radio announcer: State authorities, last October released 500 turtles into the Ganges, to try and reduce human pollution, and will now use crocodiles to eat the corpses dumped by poor Hindus…
Lula: Holy shit! It’s Night of the Living Dead!!!
Lula: Sailor Ripley, you get me some music on this radio right now! I mean it!

You know, before Sirius XM.

[iambiguous]

Slavoj Žižek

The really difficult thing to accept is the fact that the ongoing epidemic is a result of natural contingency at its purest, that it just happened and hides no deeper meaning. In the larger order of things, we are just a species with no special importance.

Well, unless, of course, it was all just a globalist hoax.

Better to take the risk and engage in fidelity to a Truth-Event, even if it ends in catastrophe, than to vegetate in the eventless utilitarian-hedonist survival of what Nietzsche called the 'last men'.

Next up: the 'last serious philosophers'.

Either we take the threat of environmental catastrophe seriously and decide today to do things that, if the catastrophe doesn't occur, will appear ridiculous, or we do nothing and lose everything it it does happen.

With billions -- trillions? -- of dollars at stake, let's say.

For Lacan, the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real are the three fundamental dimensions in which a human being dwells.” – “The Imaginary dimension is our direct lived experience of reality, but also of our dreams and nightmares – the domain of appearing, of how things appear to us. The Symbolic dimension is what Lacan calls the ‘big Other’, the invisible order that structures our experience of reality, the complex network of rules and meanings which makes us see what we see the easy we see it (and what we don’t see the way we don’t see it). The Real, however, is not simply external reality; it is rather, as Lacan put it, ‘impossible’: something which can neither be directly experienced nor symbolised […] As such, the Real can only be discerned in its traces, effects or aftershocks.

In other words, whatever that means.

“If I remain totally unaware that my 'spontaneous' behaviour is steered from outside, can we really go on pretending that this has no consequences for our notion of free will?

Unless, perhaps, he was never able not to be totally aware of it?

“Therein resides the attraction of cybersex: since we are dealing only with virtual partners, there is no harassment.

Unless, of course, that is virtually false.

[iambiguous]

Wild At Heart

Bobby Peru: Speaking of Jack, One eyed Jack’s yearning to go a peeping in a seafood store!

Up next: Body Of Evidence?

Bobby Peru: I gotta take a piss bad, can I use your head?
Lula: Uh… yeah, I guess.
Bobby Peru: I don’t mean your head-head. I’m not gonna piss on your head, your hair and all, I’m just gonna piss in the toilet. Y’all take a listen, you’ll hear the deep sound comin’ down from Bobby Peru.

Bobby, you see, was a Marine.

Sailor: Yeah, that kinda money will get us a long way down the Yellow Brick Road.

Or another stretch in the pen.

Lula: This whole world’s wild at heart and weird on top...It’s just shit! Shit, shit, shit!

Next up: Frank Booth and Dorothy Vallens.

Sailor: I’d like to apologize to you gentlemen for referring to you all as homosexuals. I also want to thank you fellas. You just taught me a valuable lesson in life.

Next up: "Love Me Tender".

Lula: That Johnnie is one clever detective. You know how clever?
Sailor: How clever?
Lula: He told me once he could find an honest man in Washington.

Tell that to Marcelles Santos.

[iambiguous]

Time

“We’re running out of time, he said.
As if time were the kind of thing you could run out of, as if it were measured into bowls that were handed to us at birth and if we ate too much or too fast or right before jumping into the water then our time would be lost, wasted, already spent.
But time is beyond our finite comprehension. It’s endless, it exists outside of us; we cannot run out of it or lose track of it or find a way to hold on to it. Time goes on even when we do not." Tahereh Mafi

Next up: the space part.

“There’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there? I imagine you laughing at my small joke; I imagine you groaning; I imagine you throwing my words away. Do I have you still? Do I address empty air and the flies that will eat this carcass? You could leave me for five years, you could return never—and I have to write the rest of this not knowing.” Amal El-Mohtar

Imagine then what we don't know.

“You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it's time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives.” José Saramago

More or less blind to boot.

“It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, music, t
he physics of falling leaves, vanilla and jasmine, poppies, smiling, anthills, the color of the sky, coffee and cashmere, literature, sparks and subway trains...If only one could leave this life slowly!” Roman Payne

Or not at all?

“And meanwhile time goes about its immemorial work of making everyone look and feel like shit.” Martin Amis

Would you believe some more than others?

“If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you'll spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing thing you don't like doing, which is stupid.” Alan Watts

On the other hand, come on, it's not like money is the least important thing.