circumstances, history and chemicals

my cousin's recent suicide attempt and this morning's good mood lead me to this discussion of the causes of depression:

there are three causes to depression: circumstances: unemployment, loneliness and a difficult dilemma which can lead to depression.

then there is history: low self esteem created by circumstance and anger at people that gets misdirected inward.

then there are chemicals: staying up late can produce chemicals that make one feel better. in that case the chemicals either override the other causes or put the causes in a different perspective.

i have woken up from too much sleep and thus the drugs in my brain that after a long sleeplessness make me feel better are lacking and in their place is just blah and circumstances and history.

t.v. the shield

interesting series. minor points: cc pounder excellent actress. participation of glenn close and forest wittaker major actors in a t.v. series. the forest wittaker role in fact was a major role in the plot development of the series. the character of dutch similar to the character of bayliss on homicide- college boy in the precinct, except dutch played more for laughs, but both of them "need" to discover their dark sides. (also one cop cuts off his beard to make room for another cop with a beard.)

vic mackey a bad cop- his badness is defined in the first season- he kills another cop who has been sent to spy on him. the fact that he is in bed with the druggies is half and half, but killing another cop crosses the line. the second outstanding evil act is the robbing of the armenian money train. the second in command is dixie boy, shane. they are a one two act. forest whittaker arrests lem is the key act. and shane killing lem because they don't trust him is the next act and finding out that shane killed lem is the completion of that plot development.

the final act portrays vic even worse than he is and shane even crazier than he is. once shane flees he should leave town, but doesn't so that the l.a. cops can be in on the capture, otherwise it makes no sense. the tableau of shane suicide and his wife and son poisoned is incurably sad. for vic to turn on his last partner really makes no sense. that his judgment would be so bad as to think that his wife was really in danger of being arrested made no sense. they just wanted to paint him as "crime doesn't pay" deserving whatever shit he gets.

after (simultaneous) we learn to empathize with tony soprano i suppose empathizing with vic mackey who is definitely a more sympathetic character is no stretch.

(m62) night porter

two of the same actors: rampling and dirk bogarde who were in the damned. the year is 1957, somewhere in germany. dirk bogarde is the night porter at a hotel, when charlotte rampling shows up. they had a "relationship" many years earlier in some concentration camp, where rampling was a jew and bogarde was SS. the relationship obviously was not of equals since rampling was but a girl and all the power was in bogarde's hands, but nonetheless it was quite intense. bogarde uses the hotel to host various fellow members of the SS. They have a ritual, where they produce witnesses to their crimes and then confess and then those who have control over documents burn them. bogarde has never submitted to this process and doesn't want to. (he kills some italian who would have been a witness against him rather than involve him in this process and this is unclear, but goes against the rules.) rampling is supposed to be a witness against him in this process, but bogarde wants to rekindle the relationship. rampling who is accompanying her musician husband (from america) stays in the hotel and although she seems coerced, in fact invites the continuation of the relationship. she moves in with bogarde and they continue. bogarde turns the apartment into a prison for the two of them. he is shot at by the SS men who want him to submit or to hand over Rampling, but he prefers to live as a prisoner with her. Eventually they leave the apartment together and are both shot, which is a culmination of their relationship and something that they both desire.

int'l women's peace service

the area that is palestine is not clearly defined as the oslo accords have now been declared null and void

tv history

august 49- 2 million sets; 720,000 in nyc
april 50- 5.3 million sets
oct 50- 8 million sets
june 51- 13 million sets
1953- 25.2 million homes have sets (half U.S. homes)

(I/P 2) blockade

What is sensible for Israel to blockade from Gaza, what is not sensible? What is legal for Israel to blockade what was against the law? I'm not ready to invest the time to study these issues.

(I/P 1) Weiss tone deaf on Pew poll

Mondoweiss. I think I wish to avoid commenting and thus my comments go here:
Weiss comments on the poll that shows that 39% approve of Obama's Middle East policy and 41% disapprove, and he feels that this is consonant with the Arab world's disapproval of the US policy on I/P, but in fact it is more likely that the disapproval reflects Obama's anti Israel position whereas the Arab world rejects Obama's pro Israel position. Weiss is tone deaf as usual.

(M61) The damned

Nazis. A family gathers to celebrate its elder's 70th birthday on the night of the Reichstag fire. There is Dirk Bogarde, the employee who has climbed to run the factory and now loves the elder's daughter. She has a son, Martin, who is bi and weird. There is one brother who belongs to the SA. There is one brother who is an enemy of Hitler. There is a cousin who belongs to the SS. The news of the Reichstag fire disturbs the celebration. The enemy of Hitler flees, but he leaves the gun, which Dirk Bogarde uses to kill the elder and frame that son. The member of the SA assumes that he will become the president of the company (the elder before death had appointed him as vice president), but Martin (who owns a lot of stock) under the influence of his mother appoints Dirk. Martin is overly friendly with a seven year old girl who lives next door to him and when the child (a Jew) has a fever she commits suicide. The suicide is used as blackmail by the member of the SA to force Martin to call a board meeting at which time the SA member will be made the new president. But before that happens comes the night of the long knives and the SS cousin takes Dirk Bogarde with to the massacre of the brownshirts and Dirk kills the SA brother. The SS cousin no longer needs Dirk and instead he puts his money on Martin, on whom he has the tapes of the confession of the malfeasance with the girl next door. And now Martin wants to become the leader of the company. The enemy of Hitler brother returns to turn himself in, because the Nazis are holding his daughters hostage. His wife has been killed trying to leave the country, but the girls are still alive and only when he turns himself in does the regime release his daughters. Dirk Bogarde and his wife are held prisoners in their castle and Martin wants his revenge against his mother. He sleeps with her. She is a drug addict. There is a Nazi wedding- are you Aryans? Do you have any diseases? Sign the register. Then wife and hubby go off to a side room and Martin leaves poison for them and they kill themselves and Martin is left alive and in charge, actually the SS cousin is in charge.

For 150 minutes it moved well. Interesting. B plus. (The cover picture indicates that it is about some kind of S and M Nazi topic but that is hardly the fact, Martin is a deviant, but his deviancy is a plot device rather than the focus of the movie.)

mondoweiss (affinity for other jews, coen brothers)

Phil- You are way off base. As if you can convince those Jews who feel an affinity for other Jews and thus for the Jewish state, based upon Shlomo Sands’ book. Those Jews like yourself who wish to assimilate and disappear are doing so whether or not there is a genetic or cultural basis to the concept of the Jewish people. Those Jews who feel the affinity will continue to do so no matter what Shlomo Sands wrote in his book. The process of undoing Jewish affinity for other Jews (and thus for the Jewish state) has been accomplished by the pull of Western society and the push of the discomfort of sitting in synagogue, seeing Hasidic Jews on the street or reading about Israel in the Times. As in “A Serious Man” by the brothers Coen, the Hebrew teachers who teach the validity of the Jewish affinity are undone by the sounds of Grace Slick on the radio. If the Brothers Coen still feel such an affinity forty years later despite their marrying out and integration into American society, then maybe there is something deeper to the affinity after all. But in any case it won’t be a book by Shlomo Sands that undoes the affinity and the idea that it will is truly silly.

mondoweiss (why not solidarity with Jews?)

Phil- It seems to me that you are in fact talking to those Jews who already agree with you (mostly in the Diaspora) and you exhibit few signs of attempting to communicate with those who disagree with you.

Firstly, the word “psychosis”. Maybe after three years in individual therapy, a professional might offer the word gently to his patient with whom he has developed an intense relationship and find some purpose in using the word. (Even then I doubt it.) Otherwise the word only serves the purpose of gaining the approval of those who agree with you and alienating those who disagree with you.

Secondly on the validity of the use of the word: It is difficult to tell where irrational fear based on previous experience begins and rational fear based on the current situation begins. (I don’t think a professional would use the term psychosis for a fear based on previous “recent” experience, but you’re a journalist/blogger and not a mental care professional.) The current situation does contain a rational fear that the Jews will be kicked out of I/P. If Helen Thomas’s statement proves anything besides the unfair limits placed on free speech on people in important places, it proves that the Jews who live in I/P should fear being kicked out of I/P. The constant evocation of the possibility or the inevitability or the innate justice of a one state solution on this blog means that such a solution is not an irrational fear. And a journalist such as Robert Fisk has stated that he does not think it unreasonable to expect that there would be no room for Jews in such a one state. So if this is a reasonable fear, however much previous experience in Europe is irrelevant to this fear (and the copy of Mein Kampf displayed in Amman and photographed by yourself shows that there is some “connection” if not causal, then certainly ideational), to label the reasonable fear as psychosis is misplaced.

But the other question besides your terminology is your place in Jewish society. You feel that Zionism has distilled Jews- with ethnocentric Jews landing in Israel or supporting a Jewish state (two states and no right of return) and others like yourself landing in the aggregate of intermarriage and integration. It is unclear how those who have intermarried and integrated can communicate with those who have chosen marrying-in and ethnic identity. Are you saying, “We both read Kafka, therefore we do have something in common, so you should listen to me.” Are you saying, “I use a Yiddish phrase every now and then, so you should listen to me.” You are saying, “We both respect Schwerner and Goodman, so you should listen to me.” But it seems to me that if you take the need for talking Israeli Jews away from the precipice, it will have to be someone other than yourself who does so, or else you will have to develop a common language and avoid alienating terminology if that is really what you are trying to do. Just saying, “Please listen to me,” will not work.

poorly timed dreams

Are you really satisfied with Mayday?
Are your dreams enough to keep you high?
Can you steal the books at midnight and teach yourself to rhyme?
Can you dress Anne Frank in flesh and give Ibsen a good time?
Can your ever missing dorm room supply the device you need?
Will the 32 year old female supply the love I need?
The chewiest Tootsie roll
the choosiest groom
the well stocked library
the ever elusive room.
the place where I sleep
never safe from an attack
the homeless who might hurt me
usually they're black
the false refuge I can't conjure,
but still I can't get back.
Are you really satisfied with may day?

(M60) five minutes of heaven

a protestant irish uvf teenager fighter kills a catholic and leaves his younger brother alive. (mother of younger brother: you killed your brother by not stopping the killing.) when he grows up he becomes liam neeson and he sets up programs of reconciliation. a t.v. station arranges a meeting of them on camera, but the grown up younger brother has very mixed feelings and brings a knife with and wishes to kill liam, but at the last second calls off the meeting. liam needs the meeting to get on with his life, so he visits belfast and sends a note, lets meet at the house where the killing took place. they meet and younger brother takes out a knife and they wrestle and fall out a window, injured but not dead. liam tells him. live for your daughters, forget about me. younger brother goes to a therapy group and realizes he wants to live for his daughters. he calls up liam: it's over. liam falls to his knees and cries.

Solid B

(B1) Brooklyn Follies

Paul Auster. the main character is someone in remission from cancer living in brooklyn. his nephew tom works for a book store manager, who spent time in prison for an art scam. the narrator's great niece shows up and unable to figure out what to do with her, they decide to ship her to a cousin in vermont. the kid is smart enough to pour coke into the engine to stall out the car. they stay for a few nights in an inn in vermont where tom falls in love with a pushy fat teacher. they return to brooklyn, where the book store manager was working on another scam this time having to do with old books and when he finds out that the scam was on him he drops dead, but he leaves his bookstore to tom and to rufus, a black transvestite who heads back to jamaica after the funeral. the kid, lucy's mother, is found and saved by the narrator from her religious fanatic husband. their preacher is into days of silence and when lucy's mom told lucy, "just tell them I'm okay" lucy takes it literally that she can't tell them anything else and that's why it's so difficult to find the mother.

state of grace (M60)

long lost sean penn shows up again in the old nabe to his old friend gary oldman. gary introduces him to his brother ed harris and he is in the mafiosi type irish gang. also reintroduced to gary's sister who has tried to get away from the family and its business. sean is in love with her and against her better instincts she's in love with him. the italians tell ed harris that john riley, gary's best friend, has to be killed (an $8,000 debt plus disrespect). ed kills john. gary goes nuts. sean confesses that he's a cop to gary's sister. gary shoots some italians (whom he holds responsible for john's death) and the italians want him dead. there is a sit down- the italian and ed harris. gary and gang are supposed to come in shooting, but sean confuses gary regarding the instructions and the shooting doesn't happen. the italian tells ed to kill his brother. he does. sean tells ed that he's a cop. there's a shootout- ed gets killed and sean is injured.

B

(M59) Memphis Belle

A bomber goes out on its last mission over Germany. Cast includes one guy from Homicide, Stoltz, matthew modine and harry connick junior and the guy who played Rudy on the plane. on the ground is david straithairn and john lithgow the guy from life magazine who wants to make them famous for completing 25 missions and coming back home. it is a dangerous mission and because of smoke over the objective they have to circle around and come back and bomb it (never revealed how successful the bombing mission over bremen in fact was) and there is an injury to stoltz (they almost parachute him out of the plane where the germans might help him, but instead the med student does his best) and near misses (the turret bubble underneath is blown out and Rudy hangs on for dear life). they lose two engines and have trouble bringing the wheel down for landing, but they finally land.

B minus.

(M58) casualties of war

michael j. fox is a rookie soldier in vietnam. a black vet gets shot and killed. the platoon is supposed to get R and R but they are stuck on base. They are led by Sean Penn who decides (combination of black's death and the R and R deprivation) to kidnap a girl and take her with on their next foray. they do so and they rape the girl. then they kill her. fox refuses to participate. when fox rats them out his commanding officers say just let it be. but he tells a chaplain and the guilty are judged and sentenced to time. with riley and leguizamo.

B minus

(M57) Nikita (aka la Femme Nikita)

nikita (aka marie aka josephine) begins as a thief who kills cops. she is sentenced to (30 years/ death?) but the secret service thinks it can use her, so she is allowed to live. she is a wild child, but her mentor bob has faith in her and he teaches her to be human (also female), but also to be an agent. He takes her out to dinner and gives her a gift. a gun. kill those people at that table, there's a window in the bathroom. she is upset at the betrayal, assuming the dinner is a real treat and not a test. and then she kills the people, finds out that the window has been boarded over, but still she manages to escape. she is released onto the world and falls in love with a check out clerk. she and fiancee invite bob over and bob gives them tickets to venice, where she is given a job, which arouses suspicions of her fiancee. she then is given a job to get some documents from an ambassador, but when the job goes bad, the violence drives her "nuts" and she has to escape. she leaves her fiancee and bob.

Solid B, maybe B plus.

(M56) the little mermaid

ariel the 16 year old daughter of the king of the ocean has two characteristics- a fascination with all things human and a great voice. she goes above sea level to watch a celebration on a boat and she catches sight of a handsome prince and falls in love. when a storm causes the ship to crash, she saves the prince. there is no way to gain the prince's love except by selling her soul (her voice) to the demoness of the deep. if she cannot get the prince to kiss her within three days she will forfeit her real soul forever. despite being deprived of her greatest asset the prince is almost in love with her, but the demoness changes her appearance and uses ariel's voice to enchant the prince. the wedding is interrupted just in time by ariel's allies the birds, but the sun sets without the kiss and ariel is about to be turned into a soulless monster and in her stead the king of the ocean, triton, gives his soul to the demoness. the prince in an epic battle with the demoness kills her and thus frees all the captured souls and the king returned to his former greatness sees his daughter's great love for the prince and he turns her into a human and though this deprives ariel of contact with her father and sisters it means a happy life with the prince.

B minus

(M55) the reflecting skin

a 9 year old boy who gets his kicks from exploding frogs in lady's faces, comes from a home with a desperate mom (who punishes him by forcing him to drink water til he will "burst" or pees himself) and a fantasizing pa. He tortures the widow next door. when pa is accused of killing a kid (the deputy dangle's pa's homosexual tendencies as a threat over his head) pa commits suicide by gasoline and match. Older brother comes back from war and befriends the widow. A black car kidnaps boy's friend and friend ends up dead. The black car picks up the widow and she ends up dead.

B-/C weird and tedious, but interesting.

(M54) performance

the james bond sixties meet the mick jagger sixties. a mafia enforcer in england goes a step too far and must hide out and he does so in mick jagger's basement where he "learns" to be a different kind of man.

C