A Matter of Fairness.

I finished watching Schindler’s List tonight. When I realised that it had been produced and directed by Steven Spielberg I was concerned that I would find the ending maddeningly unsatisfactory. Not so. In my opinion, the ending stayed just the right side of the line between moving pathos and absurd mawkishness. He who is ever ready to swing the brickbat should not be averse to offering the bouquet.

Today's Question.

Here’s an interesting question:

If, like me, you were born to observe the human condition rather than engage with it, is it better to become emotionally involved so that you understand it better, or to remain aloof so you avoid unnecessary pain (assuming you can)?

I don’t have the answer yet. I’m working on it.

Trump's List.

I just watched the second instalment of Schindler’s List. What a horribly harrowing film it is, and what I find interesting is this:

The Nazis were just about as low as low can get, right? I think most of us are agreed on that. So isn’t it a little strange that Mr Trump wants those who claim to be anti-Nazi locked up? And is it perhaps appropriate to note that Mr Trump is in the habit of wishing violent, or at least draconian, retribution on those who think differently than him? Might that have some connection with the fact that he is so avowedly anti-anti-Nazi?

On Clearance and Questions.

I began the process of throwing away my history today. One full refuse sack so far. It’s a drop in the ocean, but every journey has to start with a single step. I reasoned, you see, that my present is uncomfortable and what I can see of my future looks bleak, but clinging to dusty old memories was offering no compensation. All it offered was the poignancy of comparison, and what value is there in that? The future starts with every passing moment, so the future is all there is.

Besides, one of my most vivid memories is the business of clearing my mother’s house when she died in ’95. It was a tedious, tiring and depressing process which lasted several weeks of going over there for a few hours nearly every day, picking through the detritus of a person’s life and deciding how to dispose of it all by the various means possible. (I’ve even still got some of it.) I wouldn’t want to impose that sad legacy on whoever has the job of clearing my own detritus when the big day finally arrives.

*  *  *

Being effectively confined to my house by the weight of circumstances at the moment, I decided to watch Schindler’s List again last night. I wondered whether the seeing of people in situations rather worse than mine might help raise my mood a little. It didn’t. It only augmented my perception of the depth to which the human animal will freely sink when naked self-interest is allowed free rein to ride roughshod over the virtues and finer values to which it could aspire.

*  *  *

And on that note, I have to mention America again. I’m sure I’m not alone in finding the prospect of the next presidential election a fascinating one (assuming Trump doesn’t find a way of having it cancelled.) I occasionally think of Trump, Biden and Pelosi, and am left wondering whether America is mature enough yet to accept that a woman with principles might run a country better than men driven solely by the pursuit of power. I can’t answer that one because my view is almost entirely determined by what I read in the media, and I’m not foolish enough to accept that what I read in the media is complete or even accurate.

The Populist Delusion.

I find it more than a little irritating when I see the phrase ‘best-selling author’ being trotted out to persuade the gullible that here is a fount of high quality literature. Where, for example, does Dan Brown – a best-selling author – stand in comparison with Franz Kafka who hardly sold anything during his lifetime? Since when has popularity ever been any guarantee of quality in any field? On which note, the same applies to ‘Academy Award-winning.’

Reprising the Bucket List Blues.

This blog is ailing. My life is shrinking, you see. Most of the things which used to give me pleasure are no longer available and there’s very little left, so there isn’t much to write about. And my circumstances have taken a turn for the worse which would be too tedious to talk about.

But last night I had the chance to cross one of the items off my bucket list. I took a cruise up the mighty Yangtze River, courtesy of a video on YouTube.

It was a bit disappointing, actually. There were none of the mist-shrouded pepperpot mountains I was hoping to see, and the river was hopelessly oversubscribed with tourist boats.

Aside

I’ve long been in the habit of only visiting tourist spots at times when I could be reasonably sure that there would be few, if any, tourists there. Tourists are one of my major bêtes noir, and the current relaxation of Covid restrictions is offering ample support for my view. Tourists are too often prone to showing me the stupid, selfish, disrespectful side of human nature, and so I have little time for them. I lived close to a beach once that was popular with day trippers at the weekend and on public holidays. It was awful. To continue…

The Three Gorges Dam was impressive from an engineering point of view, but it wasn’t exactly traditional China. The facsimile of the Sydney Harbour Bridge looked oddly out of context (although it was painted red, as it would be in China), and when we did drop anchor to allow the chance to go ashore and explore ancient pagodas at the top of innumerable stone steps, I had to remain onboard because of the old leg problem. I saw no hint of peach blossom or pouting goldfish, and nobody treated me to a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. But at least I now know that I’m not missing very much.

So what of the other two items on the list: viewing the aurora and being treated to a piece of baked Alaska, lovingly made by a comely wench with the touch of a master chef? Unlikely, I think. I suspect I would find Svalbard a little on the cold side for my taste these days, and comely wenches lie dead and come to dust deep in the trunk of my personal history.

Surprising Myself.

In an effort to keep this storm-ridden mind of mine in some sort of check, I’ve been reading a lot of my old blog posts. Tonight’s main occupation was the full canon of posts under the heading ‘Dracula’, and rather good some of them were. They even made sense without exception.

Not so some of the others, which contain references which are a complete mystery to me this far down the line. I really have no idea what I was talking about in some cases. Who, for example, was ‘the rather lovely woman who lives a little way north of here’? I remember a rather lovely woman who lived a little way south-west of here, but north? Haven’t a clue.

I hope to get back to normal blogging some time sooner or later, but time will tell. Or maybe I should take a leaf out of Mina Harker’s book and place my trust in being in the hands of God.

The Cop-out Post.

I did say that another hiatus would ensue when the next psychological storm arrived, didn’t I? We’ll, so it has. Psychological storms have the effect of greatly subduing my capacity for communication because they make me feel trapped in a bad dream from which there’s no escape. It’s one of my frailties (I have others.)

The odd thing is that I seem to be getting more visits to the blog than I did last month. Can’t imagine why, but there you are. It makes me wonder whether there are people out there who are getting a bit frustrated that there’s nothing new to read (heaven forbid that I should be so presumptuous, but I can’t help wondering.)

In the event that such is the case, might I suggest sliding to the bottom of the page and clicking ‘Llama’ under the Labels heading. There are six or seven posts there which I quite like, being a record of the occasional visits from my favourite Peruvian quadruped (which is a silly thing to say because I only have one Peruvian quadruped, and saying silly things is another of my frailties.)

Whether any of them will be to any particular person’s taste depends on the particular person’s sense of humour, but they might. And this post is a cop-out. I’m good at cop-outs.

A Little Thought.

One of my best hopes for the future of western civilisation at the moment is that Trump and Facebook will destroy one another. My best guess is that Facebook will win, which is at least the lesser of the evils, but time will tell.

Finding the Lady.

I discovered quite by accident tonight (I swear, it really was by accident) that Emma Watson is shorter than me. That fact in itself means very little if anything at all, but it can, therefore, be extrapolated that the film version of Hermione Granger is also shorter than me.

This is big news because it means that if only I could get Emma Watson hypnotised and persuaded that she really is the film version of Hermione Granger – and think and act and talk like Hermione Granger – it means I could be on my way to getting the perfect woman after all. (Yes, I know she would also have to be persuaded that a mixture of Quasimodo and Wurzel Gummidge with a bit of Methuselah thrown in is a highly desirable prospect, but that would be the easy bit.)