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tcm · 5 years

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Interview with Mark A. Vieira, author of Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934)

Mark A. Vieira is an acclaimed film historian, writer and photographer. His most recent book, Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934): When Sin Ruled the Movies is now available from TCM and Running Press.

Raquel Stecher: Twenty years ago you wrote Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood for Harry N. Abrams. Why did you decide to revisit the pre-Code era with your new TCM-Running Press book Forbidden Hollywood?

Mark A. Vieira: That’s a good question, Raquel. There were three reasons. First, Sin in Soft Focus had gone out of print, and copies were fetching high prices on eBay and AbeBooks. Second, the book was being used in classes at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Third, Jeff Mantor of Larry Edmunds Cinema Book Shop told me that his customers were asking if I could do a follow-up to the 1999 book, which had gotten a good New York Times review and gone into a second printing. So I wrote a book proposal, citing all the discoveries I’d made since the first book. This is what happens when you write a book; information keeps coming for years after you publish it, and you want to share that new information. Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood told the story of the Code from an industry standpoint. Forbidden Hollywood has that, but it also has the audience’s point of view. After all, a grassroots movement forced Hollywood to reconstitute the Code.

Raquel Stecher: Forbidden Hollywood includes reproduced images from the pre-Code era and early film history. How did you curate these images and what were your criteria for including a particular photograph?

Mark A. Vieira: The text suggests what image should be placed on a page or on succeeding pages. Readers wonder what Jason Joy looked like or what was so scandalous about CALL HER SAVAGE (’32), so I have to show them. But I can’t put just any picture on the page, especially to illustrate a well-known film. My readers own film books and look at Hollywood photos on the Internet. I have to find a photo that they haven’t seen. It has to be in mint condition because Running Press’s reproduction quality is so good. The image has to be arresting, a photo that is worthy in its own right, powerfully composed and beautifully lit—not just a “representative” photo from a pre-Code film. It also has to work with the other photos on that page or on the next page, in terms of composition, tone and theme. That’s what people liked about Sin in Soft Focus. It had sections that were like rooms in a museum or gallery, where each grouping worked on several levels. In Forbidden Hollywood, I’m going for a different effect. The photo choices and groupings give a feeling of movement, a dynamic affect. In this one, the pictures jump off the page.

Raquel Stecher: Why did you decide on a coffee table art book style format?

Mark A. Vieira: Movies are made of images. Sexy images dominated pre-Code. To tell the story properly, you have to show those images. Movie stills in the pre-Code era were shot with 8x10 view cameras. The quality of those big negatives is ideal for a fine-art volume. And film fans know the artistry of the Hollywood photographers of that era: Fred Archer, Milton Brown, William Walling, Bert Longworth, Clarence Bull, Ernest Bachrach and George Hurrell. They’re all represented—and credited—in Forbidden Hollywood.

Raquel Stecher: What was the research process like for Forbidden Hollywood?

Mark A. Vieira: I started at the University of Southern California, where I studied film 40 years ago. I sat down with Ned Comstock, the Senior Library Assistant, and mapped out a plan. USC has scripts from MGM, Universal and the Fox Film Corporation. The Academy Library has files from the Production Code Administration. I viewed DVDs and 16mm prints from my collection. I reviewed books on the Code by Thomas Doherty and other scholars. I jumped into the trade magazines of the period using the Media History Digital Library online. I created a file folder for each film of the era. It’s like detective work. It’s tedious—until it gets exciting.

Raquel Stecher: How does pre-Code differ from other film genres?

Mark A. Vieira: Well, pre-Code is not a genre like Westerns or musicals. It’s a rediscovered element of film history. It was named in retrospect, like film noir, but unlike film noir, pre-Code has lines of demarcation—March 1930 through June 1934—the four-year period before the Production Code was strengthened and enforced. When Mae West made I’M NO ANGEL (’33), she had no idea she was making a pre-Code movie. The pre-Code tag came later, when scholars realized that these films shared a time, a place and an attitude. There was a Code from 1930 on, but the studios negotiated with it, bypassed it or just plain ignored it, making movies that were irreverent and sexy. Modern viewers say, “I’ve never seen that in an old Hollywood movie!” This spree came to an end in 1934, when a Catholic-led boycott forced Hollywood to reconstitute the Code. It was administered for 20 years by Joseph Breen, so pre-Code is really pre-Breen.

Raquel Stecher: What are a few pre-Code films that you believe defined the era?

Mark A. Vieira: That question has popped up repeatedly since I wrote Sin in Soft Focus, so I decided which films had led to the reconstituted Code, and I gave them their own chapters. To qualify for that status, a film had to meet these standards: (1) They were adapted from proscribed books or plays; (2) They were widely seen; (3) They were attacked in the press; (4) They were heavily cut by the state or local boards; (5) They were banned in states, territories or entire countries; and (6) They were condemned in the Catholic Press and by the Legion of Decency. To name the most controversial: THE COCK-EYED WORLD (’29) (off-color dialogue); THE DIVORCEE (’30) (the first film to challenge the Code); FRANKENSTEIN (’31) (horror); SCARFACE (’32) (gang violence); RED-HEADED WOMAN (’32) (an unrepentant homewrecker); and CALL HER SAVAGE (’32) (the pre-Code film that manages to violate every prohibition of the Code). My big discovery was THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (’32). This Cecil B. DeMille epic showed the excesses of ancient Rome in such lurid detail that it offended Catholic filmgoers, thus setting off the so-called “Catholic Crusade.”

Raquel Stecher: It’s fascinating to read correspondence, interviews and reviews that react to the perceived immorality of these movies. How does including these conversations give your readers context about the pre-Code era?

Mark A. Vieira: Like some film noir scholars, I could tell you how I feel about the film, what it means, the significance of its themes. So what? Those are opinions. My readers deserve facts. Those can only come from documents of the period: letters, memos, contracts, news articles. These are the voices of the era, the voices of history. A 100-year-old person might misremember what happened. A document doesn’t misremember. It tells the tale. My task is to present a balanced selection of these documents so as not to stack the deck in favor of one side or the other.

Raquel Stecher: In your book you discuss the attempts made to censor movies from state and federal government regulation to the creation of the MPPDA to the involvement of key figures like Joseph Breen and Will H. Hays. What is the biggest misconception about the Production Code?

Mark A. Vieira: There are a number of misconceptions. I label them and counter them: (1) “Silent films are not “pre-Code films.” (2) Not every pre-Code film was a low-budget shocker but made with integrity and artistry; most were big-budget star vehicles. (3) The pre-Code censorship agency was the SRC (Studio Relations Committee), part of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA)—not the MPPA, which did not exist until the 1960s! (4) The Code did not mandate separate beds for married couples. (5) Joseph Breen was not a lifelong anti-Semite, second only to Hitler. He ended his long career with the respect and affection of his Jewish colleagues.

Raquel Stecher: How did the silent movie era and the Great Depression have an impact on the pre-Code era?

Mark A. Vieira: The silent era allowed the studios the freedom to show nudity and to write sexy intertitles, but the local censors cut those elements from release prints, costing the studios a lot of money, which in part led to the 1930 Code. The Great Depression emptied the theaters (or closed them), so producers used sexy films to lure filmgoers back to the theaters.

Raquel Stecher: TCM viewers love pre-Codes. What do you think it is about movies from several decades ago that still speak to contemporary audiences?

Mark A. Vieira: You’re right. Because we can see these films so readily, we forget that eight decades have passed since they premiered. We don’t listen to music of such a distant time, so how can we enjoy the art of a period in which community standards were so different from what they are now? After all, this was the tail end of the Victorian era, and the term “sex” was not used in polite society. How did it get into films like MIDNIGHT MARY (’33) and SEARCH FOR BEAUTY (’34)? There were protests against such films, and there were also millions of people enjoying them. What they enjoyed is what TCM viewers enjoy—frankness, honesty, risqué humor, beautiful bodies and adult-themed stories.

Raquel Stecher: What do you hope readers take away from your book?

Mark A. Vieira: One thing struck me as I wove the letters of just plain citizens into the tapestry of this story. Americans of the 1930s wrote articulate, heartfelt letters. One can only assume that these people were well educated and that they did a lot of reading—and letter writing. I want my readers to read the entire text of Forbidden Hollywood. I worked to make it accurate, suspenseful and funny. There are episodes in it that are hilarious. These people were witty! So I hope you’ll enjoy the pictures, but more so that you’ll dive into the story and let it carry you along. Here’s a quote about SO THIS IS AFRICA (‘33) from a theater owner: “I played it to adults only (over 15 years old). Kids who have been 12 for the last 10 years aged rapidly on their way to our box office.”

#pre-Code #TCM #Forbidden Hollywood #pre-code films #interview #jean harlow #mae west #ginger rogers #Depression era #1930s #Raquel Stecher

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richincolor · 4 years

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Everyone, please welcome Ismée Williams to Rich in Color! Ismée’s book, THIS TRAIN IS BEING HELD, is out on February 11th. We are every excited to have Ismée here to talk about it:

When private school student Isabelle Warren first meets Dominican-American Alex Rosario on the downtown 1 train, she remembers his green eyes and his gentlemanly behavior. He remembers her untroubled happiness, something he feels all rich kids must possess. That, and her long dancer legs. Over the course of multiple subway encounters spanning the next three years, Isabelle learns of Alex’s struggle with his father, who is hell-bent on Alex being a contender for the major leagues, despite Alex’s desire to go to college and become a poet. Alex learns about Isabelle’s unstable mother, a woman with a prejudice against Latino men. But fate—and the 1 train—throw them together when Isabelle needs Alex most. Heartfelt and evocative, this romantic drama will appeal to readers of Jenny Han and Sarah Dessen.

THIS TRAIN IS BEING HELD has been likened to a modern-day retelling of West Side Story. The secret is, I didn’t start out with that intention. My inspiration for THIS TRAIN IS BEING HELD was the jungle that is the great city of New York, how individuals from opposite extremes of life can pass each other on the street or be smushed together in a crowded subway. I loved the idea of putting two teens together in a train car who otherwise wouldn’t cross paths and exploring what would happen. I thought of what they would look like, what they would have in common and what would differ between them. That ended up being a girl, Isa, who’s privileged in the traditional sense, blessed with money, beauty, and talent, and a boy, Alex, who’s less so, because of who his parents are and where they were born. Alex has his own privileges, to be sure–his own beauty, his own talent, and the love and support of his mom and step-mom. But one of his wounds is that strangers make assumptions about him because of what he looks like–a massively tall, very fit, brown-skinned boy. He is definitely the ‘Maria’ character in the West Side Story trope.

THIS TRAIN IS BEING HELD shares West Side Story’s message of tolerance. I read somewhere that the creators of the famous musical, composer Leonard Berstein, idea-man and choreographer Jerome Robbins, book writer Arther Laurents and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, originally intended for the conflict to be between rival Catholic and Jewish gangs on the East Side. In August of 1955 the Los Angeles times ran an article, “Six Jailed in Fight Death”, detailing how the leader of a Latino gang had been killed in a fight outside a teen dance hall. After reading this, writer Laurents suggested changing the gangs in the musical to white and Puerto Rican. That’s when interest and funding took off. It’s interesting to consider the show could have been East Side Story! I didn’t see the original Broadway musical, of course (I wasn’t born yet!) but I do remember watching the movie and the conflicting emotions it made me feel. I loved the power of the romance, the idea that love could rise above existing prejudices. As a dancer, I was drawn to the choreography and the music, especially the scenes that celebrated Latinx experience. My abuela was too. I can still hear her high heels clicking against the terra cotta tiles of our kitchen floor as she merengued to the music. But the movie also crystalized for me that society viewed being Latinx as undesireable. I saw the film over twenty years after it had won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, so I consider it to be terribly outdated. As the child of a Cuban immigrant and a white protestant from New Jersey, I was biased into believing things had changed and that it was easier for my parents than it was for Tony and Maria. I was naive, of course. Couples like Isa and Alex still face challenges, which is something I wanted to explore in THIS TRAIN. But I really wanted to show that love is love and that it is powerful. It might be inconvenient to fall for someone people don’t expect you to be with, but it should never be wrong.

Like West Side Story, THIS TRAIN IS BEING HELD revolves around the star-crossed lovers. I intended to show not just Alex and Isa’s attraction, but also their connection which arises from what they share: their passions for dance and baseball and poetry, their love and dedication to their families, and how they both try very, very hard to live up to the expectations of those around them. But I wanted to highlight their attraction, that insistent tug that pulls them together and makes it difficult for them to put the other out of their mind. I hope the reader feels the same draw to the characters and their plight that I felt when I watched West Side Story. For that to happen, there has to be more than just attraction. We need to see the tension, that thing that tears the lovers apart. Just like in West Side Story, there are many external factors that threaten the lovers. Isa’s mother, even though she’s Cuban, doesn’t want her daughter to date a Latino because she grew up with a cheating father. Alex’s friends think he should date a Dominican girl from the Heights, not a blondie from the Upper East Side. One even considers him a traitor. Another friend of Alex’s gets drawn into a Dominican gang, which provides even more parallels to West Side Story. There are internal factors that work against the lovers as well, though here the plot is more Shakespeare than West Side Story, with tragic misunderstandings that stem from not being fully honest with one another. And of course, fate plays its own role. There is another big difference between THIS TRAIN IS BEING HELD and West Side Story but I cannot share it without spoiling too much!

I read that the music of the famous America dance scene, sung by EGOT-winning Rita Moreno, doesn’t have roots in Puerto Rico. The rhythms are those of a haupango, a folk dance from Mexico. Just as West Side Story hold up the ideal of the US as a big melting pot and incorporated different elements of Latin rhythms, THIS TRAIN IS BEING HELD looks at New York as a place where everyone can belong and explores the spectrum of Latinx identity and Latinx families. I hope readers enjoy the ride!

Ismée Williams is a pediatric cardiologist by day and an accomplished author by night. Her first book with Abrams, Water in May, was released in 2017 to critical acclaim. She lives in New York City.

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thebuckblogimo · 4 years

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The Faja Essays.

May 22, 2020

We have all met people along the way who have influenced our lives. If I were to do a “top ten” of those who influenced mine, Garry Faja, my high school buddy who died last summer, would be high on the list. The son of working class parents whose father emigrated from Poland and repaired machinery at the Rouge plant, Garry went on to become the President and CEO of St. Joseph Mercy Health System. Recently, I and four or five of Garry’s friends and former healthcare profession colleagues were asked to write essays for a book about him being compiled by a friend from his grad school days at U-M. It is intended to be a keepsake for Garry’s only child. I was honored to be asked to contribute stories about Garry’s early life. Because several people who follow this space knew him well, I’ve posted the portion I wrote below:

First Impressions.

I had heard of Garry when he was an eighth-grader during the 1960-61 school year at St. Barbara’s grade school, near Schaefer and Michigan in East Dearborn. I was also in the eighth grade, attending St. Alphonsus school, just a mile or two to the north. Garry and I both had neighborhood reputations as athletes at our respective schools.

St. Al’s, however, had a much more successful CYO sports program than St. Barbara’s. We won our divisional football championship in the fall, going undefeated; we won our divisional basketball championship in the winter, going undefeated again; and we were 6 and 0 in the league in baseball that spring when we played Garry’s St. Barbara team on a sunny May afternoon at Gear Field.

That’s when--BAM--it happened: “Down go the Arrows…down go the Arrows…to Dearborn St. Barbara’s.” An old news clip from The Michigan Catholic, a popular weekly newspaper in those days, included the following snippet about CYO baseball that spring: “Dearborn St. Barbara’s came through with the upset of the week by knocking off St. Alphonsus, 11-8. St. Alphonsus still holds first place in the Southwest Division with a 6-1 mark.”

Neither Garry nor I could ever recall how either one of us performed on the field that day. We did recall, however, that we both looked forward to joining forces and playing sports together in high school. St. Barbara did not have a high school; St. Alphonsus did. Garry had long planned to enroll for his freshman year (1961-62) at St. Al’s, where his brother had been a track star, one of the top high school hurdlers in the state.

When we began high school in the fall of ‘61, I recall standing in the middle of the playground with my close friend Anthony Adams, along with Sam Bitonti and Patrick Rogers. I remember looking over to Calhoun, the side-street on which the high school was located, and noticed a small procession of cars dropping off new students from St. Barbara’s: twins Jim and Mike Keller, Sue Hudzik, Margo Tellish (Garry’s grade school girlfriend) and the “big fella” himself.

At the urging of Garry’s mother, Jim, Mike and Garry wore white shirts to school that day. “The boys” and I, on the other hand, wore multi-colored shirts (mine was purple), skinny ties, tight pants and pointed shoes. Looking like “the Sharks” from West Side Story, we approached the new kids, welcomed them to St. Al’s and shook their hands.

I’ve long thought that the way we were each dressed that day—Garry in his white button-down, me in my bold attire—portended the essence of what we would ultimately take away from each other at the completion of high school: for me, a determination to go about things the right way; for him, a touch of edginess.

The Person. The Scholar. The Athlete.

I never knew anyone who didn’t like Garry Faja. Unless, that is, you count a hulking bruiser by the name of “Bucyk” from Ashtabula, who elbowed our buddy Tony Adams in the chest and tried to intimidate us on the street at Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio. (Thank God we talked our way out of that one.) Otherwise, all the guys, girls, parents, nuns and coaches of the St. Al’s community loved Garry. He commanded respect on every level—for his heart, his intelligence, his athletic prowess.

Garry was a born leader. Despite being the “new guy,” he made such a good early impression in high school that he was elected president of the freshman class. He was a member of the student council all four years. And he was elected president of our senior class.

Garry was an excellent student, a member of the National Honor Society. He was neither class valedictorian--that was Lorraine Denby--nor the salutatorian--that was my girlfriend, Leslie Klein—but he had an extraordinary ability to “figure things out,” enabling him to excel at algebra, trigonometry, chemistry, the sciences. Moreover, he was highly disciplined. He had what our parents called “stick-to-it-tive-ness,” and it served him well at everything he did.

Garry was an organizer, a strategic thinker, who rallied for increased student attendance and crowd participation at high school games, involvement in a big-brother/big-sister-type mentoring program by seniors for freshmen, as well as causes he believed in. For example, it was Garry, with support from senior class leaders such as Larry Fitch, Vince Capizzo, Tony Adams and myself who compiled a list of “Ten Demands” that were presented to the school principal, Sister Marie Ruth, on behalf of the Class of ’65. It was, essentially, a protest against what we perceived to be unreasonable rules and disciplinary actions created by the priests and nuns of St. Alphonsus: single-file lines and “no talking” during change of class; locked school doors on sub-zero mornings during winter; mandatory daily Mass attendance, etc.

It was a daring, out-of-the box challenge to religious authority for a bunch of Catholic high school kids in those days. Predictably, our demands went nowhere and we were disciplined by having to stay inside the school for two weeks during recess, and, ironically, forbidden to attend daily Mass for two weeks. (The nuns showed us, I guess.)

Sometimes I wonder whether our youthful backlash, with Garry at the forefront, was an early tip-off to the kind of student thinking that morphed into the free-speech movement and anti-war protests that developed on college campuses across the country a year or two later.

As highly as Garry is remembered as a person and leader by St. Al’s Class of ’65, he is recalled by “old Arrows” for his basketball playing ability. He was a starter on the JV squad from day one of his freshman year. However, it took just a few weeks for the coaches to realize that he was talented enough to help the varsity. In Coach Dave Kline’s last year at St. Alphonsus, Garry was moved up to the varsity where he became “sixth man,” before being designated a starter at mid-season. That was big stuff, really big stuff, for a freshman at our school.

So what kind of player was Garry?

A mini-version of former U-M standout Terry Mills, in my estimation. He was a shade under 6’2” tall…thick-skinned…had a nice 15-foot jump shot…and an ability to use his derriere to “get position” under the basket. Any former St. Al’s player would tell you that Garry had game and a distinctive way of gliding up and down the court. For some reason, he also suffered severely sprained ankles more often than any other young athlete I have ever known.

Garry and I were starters together for three years under Coach Ron Mrozinski and were elected co-captains as seniors. Garry once said, “Lenny, we gotta be the team’s one-two punch.” I had speed and quickness, often stealing the ball at mid-court, and would dump it off to Garry who could be counted on to fill the lane. If he came up with the ball after the other team turned it over, I was to beat my man and streak toward the basket, expecting to receive the ball from Garry. We pulled that stuff off dozens of times each year. But we never realized our dream of winning the Catholic League’s A-West Division title and competing in the Catholic League tournament at the U-D Memorial Building (now called Calihan Hall).

However, Garry was named to the Dearborn Independent’s all-city basketball team after his senior season in 1965, a particularly special honor when you consider that St. Al’s had an enrollment of just 450 students, while most other first-teamers and “honorable mentions” on the all-city squad came from Class A schools with enrollments approaching 2,000 (Fordson, Dearborn High and Edsel Ford).

Happy Days at Camp Dearborn.

It was prime time for Dearborn during the early-to-mid ‘60s. The city had idyllic neighborhoods, spilling over with kids from the baby boom generation. The Ford Rouge plant was pumping out record numbers of vehicles, including an all-new “pony car” called the Mustang. And it owned Camp Dearborn (in Milford, 30-35 miles away), over 600 acres of rolling land with several man-made lakes, devoted to the recreational interests of Dearborn residents.

One of Camp Dearborn’s attractions was a narrow tract of land along the Huron River, designated for tent camping by teenagers. Dubbed “Hobo Village,” it was “chaperoned”—if you want to call it that--by a couple of disinterested college kids who worked day jobs, cleaning up the camp, and who lived in their own tent on the river. As 15-year-olds in the summer of ’62, Garry and I got our first taste of independence when we camped there together for a week.

We set up a large tent, with two cots inside, that my Dad had purchased at a garage sale. We hung a Washington Senators pennant to decorate its interior. And we subsisted on Spam and eggs that we cooked in a Sunbeam electric fry pan (we had access to electricity) that my Mom let us borrow.

Every evening we’d cross the camp on foot en route to the Canteen for the nightly dances. We’d get “pumped” every time we heard “Do You Love Me” by the Contours playing in the distance. Our goal, of course, was to meet “chicks,” and we attended the dances for seven straight nights. However, I don’t recall that we ever met a girl. Or even mustered the courage to ask one to dance.

But that all changed in the summer of ’63.

Camp Dearborn had another, larger camping area for families called “Tent Village,” featuring hundreds of tents built of canvas and wood, set on slabs of concrete, each equipped with a shed-like structure that housed a mini refrigerator, mini stove and shelves for storing staples. The mother of our classmate, Patty O’Reilly, agreed to chaperone a tent full of St. Al’s girls, next to the O’Reilly family tent, while Tony’s mother, Mrs. Adams, agreed to chaperone a tent full of boys, next to the Adams family tent.

Tony, Vince Capizzo, Larry Fitch, Dennis Belmont, Garry and I occupied one tent. Our girlfriends occupied the other. Much to my amazement, my parents allowed me to take their new, 1963 Pontiac Bonneville coupe to camp for the week. So we had everything we needed—hot chicks, a hot car, rock ‘n’ roll, the dances and secret “make out” spots in the camp (Garry’s girlfriend at the time was a cute blonde St. Al’s cheerleader, Donna Hutson). It all made for perhaps the happiest days of our teenage lives.

And we did it all over again in the summer of ’64.

During both years we were involved in shenanigans galore: We threw grape “Fizzies” into the camp’s swimming pool…we switched out a hamburger from Vince’s hamburger bun and replaced it with a Gainsburger (dog food)…and one afternoon we took my Dad’s Bonneville out to a lonely, two-lane country road, just outside of General Motors’ proving grounds in Milford, where we floored the accelerator and topped out somewhere north of 100 mph. It scared the shit out of us when we hit a bird in mid-flight that splattered all over the windshield. Thank God for laminated safety glass. Thank God we lived to tell the tale.

Which brings me to the “edgy” side of the teenage Garry Faja.

Stupid Stuff We Did.

When Garry came to St. Al’s, my circle of friends became his circle of friends. And an eclectic group it was. Some were college bound kids. Some were mischievous pranksters. A few were borderline juvenile delinquents. None of us, including Garry, were immune to peer pressure. Consequently, we did some pretty stupid things. Here are a few examples:

The Toledo Caper--On a snowy Friday night after a basketball game during our sophomore year in high school, Garry, Jim “Bo” Bozynski and I trudged down Warren Avenue in our letter jackets, headed for Bo’s house, with the intention of ordering a pizza.

It was, perhaps, ten o’clock at night as we crossed the field in front of Bo’s home on Manor in five-inch-deep snow. As we looked ahead, Bo surmised that because the house looked dark, his parents were already in bed and likely asleep. That’s when he hatched a plan:

Bo proposed to enter the back door of his house, go to the kitchen and retrieve the keys to the Bozynski’s ’58 Mercury sedan. Then, he, Garry and I would quietly open the garage door, push the Merc down the snow-covered driveway and out to the street, where we would start the car…and head for Toledo.

Neither Garry nor I objected to the idea. Ultimately, the plan worked to perfection.

However, we were just 15 years old and had not yet obtained our driver’s licenses. Plus, Bo grabbed a bottle of Bali Hai wine that he had stashed in the garage. And, the snow kept falling…then turned to rain. We drove through slop and glop on Telegraph Road, made it to I-75 and took turns at the wheel between gulps of cheap wine as the windshield wipers labored to clear the mounting sleet piling up on the windshield.

I was sitting in the back seat, the bottle of Bali at my side, when the car slid out of control in the middle of the southbound freeway, somewhere in the downriver area. I don’t recall whether it was Bo or Garry who was driving at the time. But I do recall that the car made a 360, sliding across two lanes of freeway, before coming to an abrupt stop in a snow bank on the side of the road.

We got out of the car. No one had hit us. Miraculously, we had not hit anyone or anything. There was no damage to the Bozynski’s family car. That’s when three stupid teenagers got back into the vehicle, reversed course, headed for Dearborn, killed the engine as we turned into the Bozynski’s driveway, silently pushed the Merc back into the garage, and turned in for the night at Bo’s.

No one was ever the wiser.

The Speeding Ticket—Both Garry’s parents and mine were strict disciplinarians when it came to girls and dating, but they rarely said no whenever we asked to borrow the car. We had already turned 16 when on a beautiful June day we took a bus downtown, filled out some paperwork (or maybe took a test) and obtained our drivers’ licenses. My Dad used his old ’58 Chrysler to get to work that day and let me have the Bonneville for our use when I got home. So, Garry, Larry and I jumped in the car and headed to Rouge Park for some joy riding. As usual, we disconnected the speedometer and took the “breather” off the carb so that the exhaust would make a throatier sound when we put the pedal to the medal. When we got to the park, I turned the wheel over to Garry. It was not as though he ordinarily had a heavy foot, but he did that day. I doubt that Garry was at the wheel for more than a few minutes when he spotted the red flasher of a Detroit cop car in the rear-view mirror. We pulled over. The policeman was all business…and gave Garry a ticket for speeding. Garry’s parents were furious that afternoon when he got home and explained what had happened. Garry went to court and lost his license for 30 days.

The Stolen Cadillac--It was a beautiful summer evening and we were playing our usual game of pick-up basketball in the alley between Tony’s house and Schaefer Lanes. As I recall, four of us were just shooting around—Garry, Tony, Butch Forystek and me. Someone looked up and noticed that a 1963 Cadillac Coupe de Ville had turned off the side-street, Morross, and was slowly making its way up the alley. It stopped in front of us. Our pals, Joe McCracken and Gary “the Bear” Pearson, jumped out of the car. Turns out that the Caddy had been parked in front of a store, with the keys in the ignition. Joe and Bear got in, fired up the Caddy, and drove it to Tony’s. Then we all got in, took turns driving the car, and went to M&H gas station to buy Coke and chips. For reasons unknown, Joe and Bear unlocked the trunk of the car. Underneath the rear deck lid were piles of pressed clothes on hangers in plastic bags, apparently for delivery by someone who owned a dry-cleaning establishment. Also, there was a narrow envelope atop the pile of clothes. Someone opened it. Much to our amazement it contained over $200 in cash. We all got back into the car and headed for a cruise down Woodward Avenue. We stopped along the way at a sporting goods store to buy a new basketball. On northbound Woodward, as it passes over Eight Mile Road in Detroit, Butch grabbed a handful of cash and threw it out the window. (It seemed hilarious at the time.) Garry and I each took a five-dollar bill, reasoning that keeping such a paltry sum would not be considered a “mortal sin.” After taking turns doing “neutral slams” at red lights, we turned the car around, headed back to Tony’s, and continued playing basketball while Joe and the Bear ditched the car.

Again, no one was ever the wiser.

The Shotgun Incident—It was a crisp fall afternoon. Garry and I were hanging out with Tony in his parents’ basement, while Mr. and Mrs. Adams were away, attending some sort of event. Tony knew where Mr. Adams, a bird hunter, stored his shotgun, and proceeded to take it out to show us. There were also a few boxes of shells next to the gun. Tony informed us that his Dad owned a large piece of vacant property in an area that was known as Canton Township at the time. Knowing that his folks would not be home for several hours, we took the shotgun, a box of shells and placed it in the trunk of Mrs. Adams’ Ford Falcon. Off we went to the property in Canton. To hunt sparrows. Tony had seen his father load the gun. Otherwise, none of us had ever had any training in the proper handling of firearms. We knew enough to stand behind the guy with the shotgun in his hands. We took turns shooting into the trees. And bagged a couple of small birds. We eventually returned to Tony’s and put the shotgun away.

Yet again, no one was ever the wiser.

How The 53-Game Streak Started.

Most people know that Garry and I attended 53 straight Michigan-Michigan State football games together—whether in Ann Arbor or East Lansing—from 1965 to 2017. In fact, when the streak ended, we had been in-stadium for 48 percent of the Michigan-Michigan State games ever played.

Prior to the 2018 game, however, Garry determined that he would not be able to negotiate the steep ramps to the second deck of Spartan Stadium due to his failing knees. So, for the first time in our lives—since the days of black and white TV--we watched the game together on the tube. Here is the seemingly unremarkable way a renowned tradition began…plus a closing thought:

As I remember it, Tony Adams, Garry and I were sitting in my bedroom on a hot, steamy, mid-August afternoon, making future plans as we counted down the days to the beginning of our respective college careers. Tony would be going off to Western Michigan University as a business major. Garry would be attending U-M, majoring in engineering. While I planned to attend MSU to study journalism.

We had been athletes. Competitors to the core. Garry and I knew that our respective schools would rarely, if ever, be playing Western, but we certainly understood that he and I would be butting heads in the future, pulling for opposing teams in the Big Ten Conference every year. So, in a spirit of friendship, we mutually decided to get together every fall to attend the Michigan-Michigan State football game until one of us died.

It was as simple as that.

But when I think back to that muggy August afternoon when we made our pact, it seems a metaphor for all the goals, hopes and dreams we so often talked about between the games, joy rides, dances, pranks, parties and school projects we collaborated on at St. Al’s from 1961 to 1965. I often think, for example, about how Garry and I worked alternate days at my uncle’s store, from the spring of our junior year until the fall of our senior year, and shared tips and insights into how we each did our jobs—long before anyone ever used the term “best practices”--so that we could be the best damn stock boys my uncle ever had. As I hinted earlier, I will always be grateful to Garry for making a lasting contribution to my determination to do things the right way in life. And I’d like to think that Garry thought well of my tendency to “push the envelope” on the things I attempted, and that maybe I made a contribution to the release of his creative potential.

Miss you, Big Guy.

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friendlylocalwhumper · 5 years

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Percy, part 5

content warning: character death, description of the sound of broken bones.

Once Percy gets past the initial shock at the concept of being a prisoner and enduring torture, he adjusts to it in his own style. Lux even finds himself smiling, sometimes, now.

It’s the way that Percy talks. And man, does he talk. He doesn’t seem to be a fan of sitting in silence, and the monotony of the cellar tries his patience, so he thinks out loud. His favorite topic, mythology, comes up pretty often. Lux listens, at first. Focuses on trying to remember the names of the gods and beasts that Percy describes, and the heroes who crossed the paths of such mighty things.

After a while, Lux contributes more to the conversations. He gets used to having someone to talk to just as Percy has to get used to knowing he’s going to be hearing screaming and wobbling pleas every day.

The two of them have very different life experiences, they find. Percy’s always been a good student, getting top grades and spending study halls reading books from the school library. He made it to college without a hitch along the way. He gets along with his parents, has lots of happy succeeding friends, and he’s never once broken the law.

Lux never really considered himself a troubled youth or rough around the edges, but Percy’s utterly taken aback at every mention of living on the run, or getting scars, or avoiding cops. Percy can’t conceive why someone would drink outside of a party setting, and he stifles a laugh when Lux says he didn’t even make it to high school, until he realizes there are probably darker reasons behind that than just things like flunking out of middle school or being excused from formal education by easy-going, rich parents.

One thing they find common ground in is constellations. Lux knows their usual placements at different times of the year and what they’re called, while Percy knows the stories behind them, and when they were named, and who named them, and how different groups have interpreted the stories over the years.

“I like Andromeda,” Lux says thoughtfully, looking up at the ceiling of the cellar for a moment like he imagines the stars up there. “I don’t really know the story to it. I just remember that she was sad.”

“Yeah, she was.” Percy’s sitting cross-legged facing Lux, nodding in agreement. “Her father tried to sacrifice her by chaining her up to be eaten by a giant sea monster, because Poseidon’s daughters were jealous of her beauty. She got saved though, by Perseus. So Andromeda didn’t stay sad, and she didn’t die there.”

“Oh, that’s good. Reminds me of, um, isn’t there a Bible story like that? A father who’s told to sacrifice his son, and he does?”

“Yeah, I think - yup, Abraham and Isaac. God told Abraham to kill his son, and then sent an angel to stop him just in time.”

“That’s a really awful theme to show up in so many stories,” Lux muses. “Why are so many parents sacrificing their kids like that?”

“Always fathers,” Percy adds, slouching down and resting his chin on his fist. “It’s always the dads in the stories doing it.”

“Mmm.” Tipping his head back against the concrete wall, Lux shifts his raw wrists in the manacles to try and make them hurt a little less. “They can be like that.”

Percy’s green eyes watch Lux’s shifting for a moment. “Have you ever thought about being a dad one day? Having a family? Not everyone plans to, but sometimes you end up in that situation whether you like it or not.”

Lux snorts with a bit of laughter, after looking serious at the first part of the question. “I don’t think it’ll happen to me. Not by accident at least.”

“I mean, you can be careful, but there’s always a chance even if you’re not ready -”

“Percy,” Lux interrupts, smiling, “I may not have gone to high school, but I’m pretty sure I understand how anatomy works.”

“If you did, then you’d at least know it just happens sometimes!”

Lux is grinning by now. “Okay. If I ever sleep with someone and he ends up pregnant, you’re the first person I’ll call.”

Percy straightens up, eyebrows shooting up, and then a bright red blush spreads across his cheeks and all the way over to the tops of his ears. “Oh. Oh, gotcha. Hey, that’s fine, I’m fine with that, you know? I know a gay guy, he sits next to me in Economics.”

Lux doesn’t answer, he just watches Percy get awkward and waits for him to move on to the next topic. Percy fumbles for a good twenty seconds before he presses on.

“Right. Well, still, about dad stuff. My mom always told me I better give her cute little grandkids with bright red hair or she’ll disown me, so I never planned not to have them. I’d love to have little guys to tell stories to. My parents would expect me to raise them Catholic, but I’d be chill, you know? Church on Sundays but no obligations beyond that, I want to be a cool dad. I mean, I want somebody to tell me I did a good job when I’m old and wrinkly, you know? Someone to come tell me their stories.”

Lux watches Percy describe his planned happy life, and it makes him want to dream up his own. He really hasn’t planned past short-term survival. “You still think you can have all that?”

“Still? What, you mean ‘cause I’m stuck here? You know, the world’s only as big as it looks to you. Everyone thinks the world revolves around them because we all only ever see the world from our own perspective. Even down here, the world looks pretty big to me. And I don’t see it getting any smaller before I’ve got a couple little guys with red curls and a bunch of stories on their bookshelves! I’m going to build the bookshelves, by the way. I’m going to learn how to do that at some point. That’s the kind of dad I want to be.”

“I’m glad the world looks like that to you. I’ve never seen it that way. Making big bright plans. I mean, I wouldn’t even know where to start, being a good dad.” The warlock shrugs uncomfortably, wincing at the pain as his stiff shoulder protests the movement.

“Oh, sure you would! I think it’s an instinct. Like when you hold a baby and you would kill anyone to keep it safe, just ‘cause it’s so cute and little - I think it takes effort to be a bad parent. Gotta have no heart.”

Lux’s expression has fallen serious, but he’s still listening, watching Percy talk and talk.

“But you’ve got a heart! You’re super nice. I think you’d make a great dad. Me too, I’ll be great. I mean, I don’t think I’m as nice as you. But I’m gonna be so -”

There’s a loud cracking sound, sickening and grating, and Percy’s head snaps to the side at an odd angle. His expression is now blank, his body tipping forward, falling, into Lux’s lap. Lux stares down, wondering what the sound was, why Percy’s fallen, as if he’s passed out… but the twisting of his gut, the eyes blown wide and the far too slowly-forming thoughts registering what’s just happened, they all prove that Lux is only seconds away from recognizing that Percy didn’t just faint.

The Hunter seems to materialize, standing, just behind where Percy was sitting moments ago.

“He talks too much,” The man says, brushing his hands together like he’s just finished a menial task. “I grew bored with him ages ago. Thought I’d wait and listen a bit before I killed him. It was sweet hearing you talk about your future, little one, I’m glad I let him get around to that point.”

Lux hasn’t even looked up. He doesn’t care to think about how the Hunter waited, invisible, for a - fun? convenient? - time to kill Percy.

And Percy is dead. He must be, to lie so still, not breathing. His neck was snapped. His head is still to the side, in Lux’s lap, neat ginger curls pressed to Lux’s pants, green eyes open and glassy, arms loose at his sides.

The Hunter says some other things even after his voice has faded out of Lux’s focus. The man leaves the cellar at some point, probably amused by his prisoner’s shock and horror.

Lux looks up, belatedly, to find that he’s going to be left here. Left with Percy. Percy, who isn’t alive, anymore.

He’s scared that if he moves, he’ll feel the bones in Percy’s neck shift and hear them crack. He’s scared, irrationally, that Percy will suddenly gasp and writhe in pain, begging for mercy that a restrained and conditioned warlock simply wouldn’t be able to give. And he’s scared of how long he’ll be left down here with the body of someone who, a minute ago, was more full of life than anyone who’s been brought down here to suffer.

The world had looked so big to him.

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angeltriestoblog · 4 years

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I watched a couple of movies! (Part 1)

Back when I regularly had the luxury of long breaks, I spent my days binge-watching films, as you can see from my extensive knowledge of 80s chick flicks and all the cheesy tropes and disgustingly adorable, predominantly white leading men that come with them. Sadly, a side effect of growing older in the digital age seemed to be the diminishment of my attention span: the only things I could focus on were academic requirements, simply because I had to. But, thanks to several factors—the suspension of online classes, the sudden annoyance I developed towards Barney Stinson that prompted me to discontinue How I Met Your Mother, etc.—I decided it was high time to rekindle this lost love. So, here is an unsolicited review of the 17 films I managed to finish in a little over a week! Rest assured, I tried my best to venture out of familiar territory and brush up on some of the more cultured picks, according to Letterboxd, at least.

Bar Boys (2017, dir. Kip Oebanda) ★★★

The film that kickstarted everything, which I never would have seen if the director had not uploaded the full version on YouTube. This well-meaning tale of four best friends (Carlo Aquino, Rocco Nacino, Enzo Pineda, and Kean Cipriano) and the challenges they face in law school—terror professors, fraternities, and financial difficulties included—does have a lot of heart, and is sensitive enough to show how the effect of this experience differs depending on a student's background. But, what it lacked for me was a certain degree of specificity: I think the same premise would have been applicable in med school, or any other post-graduate degree for that matter. So, why did the characters choose law? I also would have appreciated some commentary on the shortcomings of the country’s justice system, and further fleshing out of the characters so the audience could have seen why we could count on them to fill in the gaps.

Legally Blonde (2001, dir. Robert Luketic) ★★★½

The rating might be surprising, considering that the courtroom scene was responsible for the short law school phase I had in Grade 5. As if I could ever make use of the rules of haircare in an actual cross-examination. Of course, I am compelled to admire Elle (Reese Witherspoon) and how her motivations for going to Harvard shift from winning back a boy to discovering what she never knew she had and using these gifts to help those around her (especially the manicurist, who I feel was given way more exposure than what was due to her). Ultimately, though it was inspirational at some points, it felt too good to be true and impossible to relate to. (But then again, shouldn’t there be a willing suspension of disbelief when consuming forms of media such as this?)

Lady Bird (2017, dir. Greta Gerwig) ★★★★★

I’ll probably end up making a separate post dedicated to this movie and how it singlehandedly called me out, as a sensitive, occasionally self-important product of an all-girls Catholic high school. For now, I am forced to condense my overflowing feelings into a couple of sentences. Lady Bird takes place over the course of the titular character's senior year, a pivotal moment in the lives of all teenagers. But, instead of focusing solely on the formulaic firsts like the normal coming-of-age film would, it shines a light on her dwindling relationship with her equally strong-willed mother. Saoirse Ronan’s colorful performance as the human embodiment of my pre-teen self's conscience, and Greta Gerwig’s tremendous ability to make even oddly specific scenes speak to any viewer shine through and speak to me the most, and easily make this gem something I will be recommending this to anyone who bothers to ask for as long as I live.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018, dir. Bryan Singer) ★★★

There’s a lot of controversy surrounding Bo Rhap, particularly its failure to portray Freddie Mercury in a manner that does him justice. While I understand that it is a valid concern for fans of the band, I admit I don’t know enough about who he was as a person to criticize the film in this aspect. Regardless of its factuality, this still was just average for me, the typical rise-and-fall type of biopic that is indicative of a rockstar’s legacy, but with laughably faulty editing. The redeeming factors were Rami Malek’s brilliant portrayal of the legend himself—his Live Aid performance gave me chills that lasted the entire 20 minutes, how alarming—and, obviously, the soundtrack that I kept on loop for several days.

About Time (2013, dir. Richard Curtis) ★

Apparently, this movie focuses on Tim (Domhnall Gleeson), who discovers at age 21 that the men in his family have the power to time-travel and thus revise and repair certain parts of their lives. He uses this to address the fact that he’s never had a girlfriend, and effectively so as he ends up bagging Mary (Rachel McAdams), a charming American who is the settler in this relationship by default. But, of course, this gift is not without its dire consequences—or at least, that’s what it says on Wikipedia. It’s hard to trash on this and admit that I bailed halfway because so many of my friends swear by this. But, I just couldn’t stomach the lack of chemistry between the two leads; the surprisingly boring dialogue for a screenplay crafted by Richard Curtis of Notting Hill fame; and the story that, although bore enough of a resemblance to “The Time Traveler’s Wife” to be interesting, was still not powerful enough to sustain my attention.

Your Name (2016, dir. Makoto Shinkai) ★★★★★

I’m a huge fan of plots that are sure to make my eyes swell and heart hurt—I can’t explain the psychology behind this either. So when this was recommended to me and I had made it through an hour without shedding a single tear, I was prepared to be disappointed. But, the events leading up to the conclusion proceeded to rip me into shreds, as if to taunt me and say, “You asked for it.” Mitsuha (Mone Kamishiraishi) and Taki (Ryunosuke Kamiki), teenagers living on opposite sides of the country, suddenly start switching bodies following the appearance of a comet. This unexplainable phenomenon causes them to forge an unbreakable bond that transcends the very limits of time and space. I know the description is not much, but it’s best to experience this unique plot for yourself. Besides its storyline, its charm lies in its excruciating attention to detail in depicting life in urban and rural Japan, both in the realistic animation of one picturesque scene after another, and the use of cultural elements to arrive at a twist viewers will not see coming.

Booksmart (2019, dir. Olivia Wilde) ★★★★½

I can't summarize what I imagine Booksmart to be for teenagers in the future, so here's an entire scenario: It's the year 2070. Two young girls of around 16 are sprawled on their bedroom floor, watching this on whatever device they use for streaming. (Maybe it's from an LCD projector embedded in their foreheads, who knows.) The credits roll, and they instantly think to themselves, "Man, we were born in the wrong generation!" (They simultaneously think of doing a high-five, and without raising their hands themselves, it happens because that's technology.) Anyway, Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) are best friends who played by the rules all throughout high school and realized too late that they could’ve afforded to have a little more fun. On the eve of their graduation, they decide to cram four years’ worth of adventure in a single unpredictable and outrageous night, getting to grips with everything that comes their way in an exceedingly comedic yet refreshing fashion. Also, the protagonists have such a genuine and wholesome relationship: the way they hyped up their most ridiculous looking outfits, or overshared borderline uncomfortable stories is honestly my personal definition of an ideal friendship.

When Harry Met Sally (1989, dir. Rob Reiner) ★★★★½

Despite this film’s constant presence in every “chick flicks you must watch” list I’ve bothered searching up, I spent a huge chunk of my teen years in constant protest against the decision to cast Billy Crystal as the male lead instead of, I don’t know, literally any other actor on the planet. But, once I finished it, I realized that he’s a much better fit than I thought. The laidback Harry to Meg Ryan’s finicky Sally, both of them spare no effort exploring and debunking truths and misconceptions about modern relationships: examples of which are the idea of being high maintenance, and the quintessential question of whether a guy and girl can ever be just friends. Although their dynamic is the definition of slow burn, audiences can’t help but earnestly root for the pair—the frustration brought by the several almosts pay off in the end, as they lead to one of, if not, the most romantic love confession scene.

Hintayan ng Langit (2018, dir. Dan Villegas) ★★★★½

This tale adapted from a play by no less than Juan Miguel Severo is set in purgatory—a grandiose art museum-four star hotel hybrid of sorts—where souls can stop and rest while their papers for entry to heaven are being processed. It is here we meet Manolo (Eddie Garcia) and Lisang (Gina Pareno), ex-lovers with unfinished business. Things admittedly start off a bit slow, but it's understandable since there needs to be ample provision of context regarding the standard operating procedures of this unique waiting area. Once that’s done, the focus stays on the main actors, who drive audiences to tears with their powerful performances, and thought-provoking questions on matters of betrayal, forgiveness, and the afterlife. The ending had me rocking back and forth like a baby, my shirt soaked with tears, so do take heed and stock up on tissues!

The Social Network (2010, dir. David Fincher) ★★★★★

Within its packed first 15 minutes alone, you can easily see what makes The Social Network an example of cinema at its finest: an intoxicated Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) hacks into the websites of all Harvard dorms to create Facebook’s oldest ancestor from scratch, in an attempt to get back at his ex-girlfriend. The atmosphere is tense, the dialogue is loaded with witty one-liners and powerful insight, and the actors are so in touch with their characters they practically fuse into a single person. This remains consistent for the next two hours or so, making for an enjoyable and fast-paced, yet still informative glimpse into the human side of what is arguable the most powerful company of this era. I also heard that it’s much more fun if seen with the cast commentary on, so I’m gonna have to find a copy of that for myself!

Pretty in Pink (1986, dir. Howard Deutch) ★★★★★

I’m cheating here, I know: this has been a long-time favorite, but I guess I can still give a review if I was still 15 when I last saw this. Andie (Molly Ringwald) and Blane (Andrew McCarthy)’s classic “poor girl + rich boy = happily ever after” story is masterfully tackled by John Hughes, who manages to inject equal amounts of swoon-worthy romance and biting criticism of the inherent class divide in society. Others would argue that Duckie (Jon Cryer), Andie’s devoted best friend, is the true star of the show, and while I do agree that he has his shining moments (if you listen closely, you can hear Try A Little Tenderness playing softly in the background), I sadly inherited my mother’s adoration for Andrew, which I will pass on to my child and so on—truly the defining characteristic of our lineage.

St. Elmo’s Fire (1985, dir. Joel Schumacher) ½

I understand that being an adult in the Real World is bound to come with some grave mistakes and lapses in judgment. But, not a single character in this friend group redeems themselves by the end. While Ally Sheedy’s Leslie and Mare Winningham’s Wendy were just borderline forgettable (why did the latter even end up here with the Brat Pack?), Judd Nelson’s Alec cheats on his girlfriend and believes that marriage is what will make him change his ways; Rob Lowe’s Billy neglects the family he didn’t plan on having by fooling around with other women and making a home out of his favorite bar; Demi Moore’s Jules relies on cocaine and extramarital affairs to hide trauma she refuses to process, and Andrew McCarthy’s pretentiously cynical Kevin suddenly claims he knows what love is when Leslie pays attention to him for 10 minutes. But, none of them compare to Emilio Estevez’ Kirby, the sociopath obsessed with a girl he barely knows. It honestly resembles some sick contest of how many problems this gang can cause before they end up behind bars, with the last scene being a lazy and rushed attempt to wrap everything up, in the name of this surface-level “friendship”.

Before Sunrise, Sunset, and Midnight (1995, 2004, 2013; dir. Richard Linklater) ★★★★★

Guess it’s better to admit it now, but I made this post as an excuse to rave about how beautiful this trilogy is, the most authentic depiction of love in its purest form. Sunrise has been recommended to me by both friends and the Netflix algorithm, but I put off watching it again and again and again. I mean, what could I possibly get out of looking at two strangers roam around Vienna? Well, to answer that question: quite a lot. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy)’s relationship spans an entire trilogy, and throughout that period, they manage to define then destroy the idea of having a soulmate to call your own in approximately six hours. But certain constancies are present in each movie: the emotion intense even in the smallest of gestures (you don't understand the anguish I feel when the scene at the listening booth randomly pops in my head), the dialogue truly thought-provoking and natural, the settings so picturesque, and the chemistry of the actors so electric I have trouble believing that the director didn’t actually invade the personal space of a real couple and eventually get issued a restraining order.

High Fidelity (2000, dir. Stephen Frears) ★★

I’d like to think of this as an essay: I'm confident that the introduction is the protagonist Rob's soliloquy on his five biggest breakups to understand why he’s so flawed that everyone always leaves him, and the conclusion his attempt to win his ex Laura (Iben Hjejle) back. But as for the body, I’m not entirely sure. Interspersed between these moments are thoughtful top five lists of anything that can be enumerated, and occasional banter with the employees at his record store that may be charming, but do not enhance the film in any way, shape, or form for me. Also, I normally enjoy seeing John Cusack onscreen, but more often than not, he was nagging in front of the camera instead of talking to the people around him; no wonder his relationships failed!

Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010, dir. Edgar Wright) ★★★

I wanted to enjoy this so bad, I swear! Sadly, the one thing I gained after seeing this is knowledge of where the “I’m So Sad, So Very Very Sad” meme came from. I get that it’s supposed to resemble a comic book or video game, and maybe the reason why I failed to appreciate this as much is because I was never a fan of either. I found the prolonged action scenes surprisingly boring, the storyline too fantastic, and the whole quest of having to defeat seven monstrous exes for the hand of a manic pixie dream girl not worth it in the end. Although I can’t give it less than three stars given its impressive visual effects, and appeal to the entire Tumblr community (gamers on one end, millennial film connoisseurs on the other), it’s definitely not something I would watch a second time.

There will surely be more where that came from! (I mean it. Since completing this post, I’ve finished another five films.) If you wanna keep tabs on what I’m watching without having to wait on another post, you can give my Letterboxd a follow. Wishing you love and light always, and don’t forget to wash your hands and pray for our frontliners!

#recs #angeltriestoblog #life dump #movies #movies to watch during quarantine #or at least movies I'VE watched over quarantine #so far #17 films are u CRAZY!!!!#i have carpal tunnel #quarantingz

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/a-crescendo-of-energy-is-building/

A Crescendo of Energy is Building

By A Gift From Gaia

A crescendo of energy is building, everything holds such great importance and I am sure you have noticed the intricacy of the patterning that is now being dismantled from within, those unaware of the mechanics and “how it all works” are soon to realise there is more to this as we prepare space for more light to enter in order for those with awakening minds to See and begin their transitions into their hearts.

The entire collective is about to move into position that aligns our course for the great conjunction of 2020, a year in which there will be incredible movement as we witness the karmic wheel begin its destruction, a giant sized new portal for us to move through collectively that supports only the new race we are activating now from the codes being received from Source, within.

The last conjunction of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn began creating its storm in 1517 in which we had the Protestant Reform in Europe, Martin Luther a German theologian published a document criticising the Catholic Church and its indulgences or weak action against “sin” which led to the entire face of Europe splitting, Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Reform being the optimum word when we move through such a gigantic portal, a complete data rewrite and a massive karmic clearing is the offering, a new world order, a new race is forming, a race that is tired of living through the stress of the minds demands, the social programming, the ancestral loops, we are evolving into a race that is forged from the flames of love, the Divine Feminine Guidance supported firmly by the Divine Masculine, from within……

Unity Consciousness begins at home, where the heart is, and we are all being guided within to release what stops the flow of our true essence, we are holding these super conjunctions with the utmost of importance, reading our data as it moves through and showing up with integrity following the gems to prepare us for what is now our pure focus, unity, there is literally nothing within the physical out there that holds attachment, the NOW has become all about preparing from within, ensuring the temple is cared for, maintained and rebuilt where needed, whilst ensuring those entering can hold the harmonics required to keep the energy of the space “healthy”.

We come home to the command centre in order to ensure this ship is ready to sail.

Connection replaced attachment as we figured how it all behaved, that how we behaved fed us the perfect attachments to witness and detach from, leading us further within to anchor the connection to Self as a part of the All, and in doing so the old “personal” experience dissolved as judging another was a judgement on Self, people become patterns, and we become pattern designers and at this point we begin to See the patterns of our entire system and we realise there was a choice, a choice to align to the people pattern or to align to Source pattern.

This is the path we are all taking, how you experience this simply depends on which octave you are operating from, many waking up are feeling their resistance and yet to busy playing their victim out in a game of hide and seek with Self, blaming their out there reality, thick in depression, going deeper and deeper into perceived suffering, feeling the density, the squeeze, the carbon within simply becoming way to pressurised, some will pop out and some will rapidly wither and fade. The light entering has been on rapid expansion all of this year, this is the Quickening, which unfolds or expands within our collective grid the more people clear these lower octave programs and clear out the physical on all levels the more light emanated within the physical, which means its all now getting VERY PHYSICAL. Energy is no longer believed in, it is lived, it is realised and it is being aligned with which ultimately is speeding everything up and those in defence to light/love simply will self sacrifice and those holding the ability to open and expand their awareness will begin the new build of our race.

Gaian’s this is a super important time, we have a number of incredibly interesting waves entering in over the next couple of months that I encourage you to research, to align your realities to, to work with because these are super game changers before the Great Conjunction in January.

To give you a little clue of a couple of the line ups we have scheduled for the end of the 2019 show…. Introducing November, starring Jupiter conjunct The Galactic Centre – MAJOR RESET Grand Finale starring Chiron, leaving retrograde, on the 12.12.12 or 3.3.3 code, on a full moon at 1 degree Aries…..and of course there is MORE to this.

These two humongous waves will also merge together, but whats more interesting is that we are beginning to experience the feel of what is to come, now, so for those focused on learning how to be a cosmic pattern designer you will be able to hold the peace frequency as you/the collective experience the “reap what you sow” energies we are going to witness. Huge shifts are upon us, complete miracles become visible for all the work that has been completed over lifetimes, as this lifetime has been the first opportunity to step off the karmic wheel and we will now begin to see the realities rapidly move into abundant, loving, Source aligned experiences so that many more walking the path of light can do so in a more expansive way, assisting more move through the portals we once anchored, opening more, activating more, touching more to let the light pour in.

You will begin to witness the warbling of your frequency lessen and become more stable, more peaceful, less surprised and more aware, this is going to be necessary and why I have been guiding the SOUL-AR Alignment Angels into new daily practices, connecting to the heart, to the light web and aligning our magnetics, over excitement, over stimulation results in chemical flushes that now will be felt more intensely, highlighting the most subtle of lack programming required to be dissolved to keep the harmony, don’t fear angels removing the excitement doesn’t take the fun out of life, joy is what is experienced once you remove the OVER emotional programs, or perhaps a feeling of freedom as you know within you are able to create any pattern you choose……once you See.

What is certain in these energies is that everything has now become about the physical, as we head ever closer to January, the Saturn Capricorn energy is fully set in, foundational work is underway especially as we also close the Chiron Retrograde on such a high frequency octave, this is going to be incredibly interesting as again the weigh in of the heart and the feather, how much of this wounded masculine HAVE YOU HEALED….apologies for the caps there, it BELLOWED…..there is goes again, in my cells. We have been surfing the abandonment program for sometime now and the key to this was always in supporting Self, bring the lack within, take the responsibility and give to Self, fill that void with discovering who you are and raising the physical vibration from there, maintaining the structure of the temple, ensuring the temple is filled with comfort, peaceful areas, good food, a good harmony.

Not just this but to align to the energy we must behave as the energy and with Saturn in Capricorn we must all adopt the Goat, think of the mountain goat, looking up at a ridiculously high mountain with super straight edges, you think that goat is going to get all excited? Start squealing with every footstep, a giggling mess? No that goat is going to slow it down, that goat has respect for itself and the mountain, its going to make sure each foot is stable and if its not, then it will take that back step without thought, without judgement, the goats subconscious driver is to simply be focused, CARE-FULL and calm….and that is how these animals climb the mountains….and trees! Oh yes…seen those in Morocco.

Just to let you know your energetic navigator IS a Goat, not just this but the January conjunction is happening on my Sun, its too perfect in so many ways, but let me assure you I fully have understood and aligned to the energies of Saturn and Capricorn so I plan to assist you through the lesser chaotic waters. Due to the busyness of the incoming energies I am now giving more focus and assistance to those who are equally committed to the Alignment and so if you would like to receive daily energy navigations and how to surf then perhaps consider coming over to the A Gift from Gaia inner circle, it’s a smaller space where I share the SOUL-AR Alignment Keys, these keys are responsible for many experiencing quick expansions from identifying programs and releasing them and all are now moving through their realities from an active space as opposed to the old reactive….Oh and there is so much more as this space is also expanding, which again is why my focus is shifting and I am busy creating MORE so I can share MORE with you ALL.

If you would like to be a part of this amazingness we are creating then please send an email to [email protected] and I will send you lots more information.

Energy Navigation 22.09.19 – 28.09.19

Yesterday we hit the Mutable Grand Cross holding the energies of Mars, Moon, Neptune and Jupiter whilst its also holding the 3rd and Final Cross this year between Jupiter and Neptune which has hit our belief systems and connections, rattling the roots to dislodge those most stuck in the thick dense soil, emotions have been high, out there in the physical world I have witnessed such an air of being fed up, and yet refreshingly in the SOUL-AR Alignment space all I see is surfers experiencing freedom, its quite a contrast but reflective of those stuck and those now active, the Square of Mars and Moon pushed up the emotions to be witnessed, creating knee jerk movements and awkward corners to highlight where we are not quite aligned to the Divine Order or Divine Time, again….think Saturn and think Goat!

Many have been working on this abandonment wave and the healing has had them reuniting with their inner child, the focus here has been trust, its not just about seeing the inner child, the inner child needs you to start being a responsible and respectful adult version, you have been required to validate you, and to regain the trust by now Promising to Self you will now only choose experiences that are aligned to the purity a child requires for their health, in ALL-WAYS, and always as the days of being sporadic or occasional in our alignment must now fully end to end the separation.

Jupiter stretched itself all over this square, like a giant telescope enabling us to see the most furthest corners of our psyche or perhaps of our heart as we realised, anchored more understanding, more innerstanding of who we are and our value, our role on this giant love ball we call Earth is opening up rapidly and after Saturn turning direct we are feeling those sluice gates open and the water is beginning to rise in the cosmic lock.

It is normal in this moment to feel the need to withdraw, to lessen the external noise because its in this space that we get to observe the emotional waves, the judgements, the restrictions and learn how to deal with them in different ways that actual bring a resolve and peace to the heart, we have all been here and as I have mentioned its non stop from here, you must ask yourself, if not now then when, because if you are reading this report you now have this in your awareness and its not going to “fix”, this is where you become accountable to Self, and the choice is to shift or to experience the carbon within you get pressurised to incredible proportions, those incredible proportions are only a reflection of your resistance, please don’t be alarmed by my words its actually a compliment in that it’s you meeting you, you experiencing your power that you choose to use against you…..but you will see like we all have.

And it doesn’t change once you master the cosmic surf, there is still and there will always be something for you to see and tweak, this is a journey of MORENESS, there is no arrival lounge on this non stop trip.

But there are forks, in the path and we are now on a crucial point, as Saturn is now aligned to the South Node for the final time this year, and this is where it gets super interesting, our path is showing two signposts, one way is the familiar way that goes round and round and round and round…..but there appears to be a choice now, a second signpost at that crunch point again, that bump in the road you keep coming back to seems to have spouted a new route/root, and it appears to spiral getting ever increasingly bigger, looser and oh it looks so freeing.

A portal that opened at the beginning of this year is now closing, an opportunity for a huge data dump providing you have figured it all out, collected up the weights and ready to cut it free because in order to take this new path there must be a weight difference, this new path can only hold a lighter version of you because its not made of tarmac like the old road, its made of stardust and moon beams. This ultimately means there will be a LOT of movement over this week as we end old timelines and learn how to underpin the new space created, BY FOLLOWING the energy trails of the incoming alignments I mentioned, focus on temple maintenance and make the foundations secure, there is no need to seek anything outside of self all that is required is within and your role is now to build upon this.

Assisting with this we have Moon Opposite Saturn, Moon Square Chiron, lifting the wounding to the surface and then we have Mercury Square Mars, Square the Nodes and square Saturn giving us incredible movement through the distortions, the ability to communicate and make some direction movements that will begin to steer you into the more tranquil waters that open up the next opportunities. This will again mean detaching in many ways, through the physical eyes there will be a split witnessed again as you watch many return to their looping timelines and you will realise there is no choice but to close down the dramatic distortions and yet through the Eye we see expansion as the spectrum we hold is widened as many choose to align further, to release the attachments and move into full trust, exploring the uncharted lands, this anchors yet more light and opens more opportunities for those almost ready to move away from that karmic wheel and begin to awaken their hearts.

But under all of this, we have something quite magical appearing on the horizon, Venus now in her second home is becoming visible as she now takes the space of the Evening Star, her trip into the underworld just a couple of months ago now has her refreshed, fully empowered and ready to share her gifts she has to deliver. Venus may well have been hidden from our view but as rode with us side by side, as she took us on the journey through a parallel universe we mirrored her experience and so she has picked our gifts in response to how we moved, what we chose so that we can expand upon our transformation.

This new energy will be rising through the light web and opening hearts wider enabling us to expand further, a highly noticeable shift that is required for us to continue this rapid expansion we now find ourselves in, more productivity, more assistance, more creation will be found by moving with the Neptune and Jupiter energy of plugging back purely within, inner connection is our focus for this week, switching off white noise and calibrating through these changes, fully allowing the process and what comes up to be validated and then released. We end the week with an incredibly important SUPER New Moon in opposition to Chiron, I will be back to write about this one.

These are super important times for those focusing on their light unification but its also incredibly fun, the symbols, the pathways the gems and keys being picked up on this magical mystery tour is a Divine experience that we are so blessed to be able to play in and there really is no better word to describe it than PLAY, don’t forget to have fun in the surf.

Sending so much love to All

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stevedonnellyfaith-blog · 5 years

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Rosary Beads (Post 64) 11-19-14

Now that Abby is working at Crate and Barrel, I don’t always see her every day. I usually track her down at least weekly in the Adoration Chapel for the rosary that the Men of St Joseph and the Daughters of Mary share with the Charismatic Prayer group on Monday evenings. I had noticed that for at least a month Abby had neglected to bring the rosary that Mike Wiley made for her when she joined the Daughters nearly two years ago. After watching her pray on her fingers for several weeks in a row, I flat out asked Abby why she was repeatedly forgetting her rosary. She answered that she had broken it but didn’t provide details.

I was not surprised. The Donnellys are pretty tough on rosaries. I have always tried to carry the one that Mike made me on my person, but I once over-stressed it while trying to extract the beads to say a chaplet during my commute home from Richmond. I had stuffed them into the front left pocket of my jeans, which must not have been relaxed fit, because as I pulled the rosary out of my pocket the string of beads snagged tight, causing the wire to snap and resulting in a shower of green blessed marbles throughout the cab of my Aveo as I motored along Richmond Parkway. Luckily, Mike is as good at fixing his art as he is at manufacturing the original pieces. My rosary was only out of commission for about a week.

That’s what I didn’t understand about Abby’s damaged set. I knew that she had damaged it once or twice before, so I didn’t understand why she was worried about getting it fixed again. I believe Mike assumes that if a rosary is being damaged regularly then at least it is not collecting dust on a nightstand or only getting a breath of fresh air when the recipient opens his or her sock drawer. I told her to just collect the beads and apologize to Mike for being such a frequent visitor to his rosary ER. Abby explained that she didn’t have all of the beads. I responded to her that I was still finding some of the original beads from my rosary during my last semi-annual vacuuming expedition under the seats and mats of my sedan. Mike makes things work out somehow even when some of the beads are damaged or missing. Abby clarified that most of her beads were MIA.

I was puzzled, but decided to allow the case to grow cold, a very poor strategy for police work, but often a useful methodology for parenting. There is no statute of limitations under the code of family justice, so pretty soon, give or take a decade, the truth will out. For instance, I found out recently that one of my cars had been damaged in a far different manner than was outlined in the original creative work of fiction that was presented to me. That damage happened three years ago. After a delay of about a decade, I also discovered that an eight-year-old Abby used to climb out of her window and lie on the second-story roof of our Fort Wayne house to watch the stars. To this date, though, I am still waiting for the perpetrator to fess up regarding the midnight Sharpie mustache incident from twelve years past. With regard to the case of the missing rosary beads only several weeks expired before, over the weekend, Abby elaborated with a detailed version of her sacramental’s demise. Here is the tale:

Every couple of weeks Abby still visits her best friend’s family even though the young woman is away at college in Wisconsin. Abby routinely house and babysits for her friend’s family. They have two little girls who are only slightly younger than Natalie’s age. On a recent visit, the two sisters both spied and admired Abby’s “pretty purple necklace.” The family is Protestant and although the young girls may have seen a rosary occasionally, they certainly didn’t understand its purpose – a similar criticism might be made of many young Catholics. Abby explained that a rosary is not jewelry, and showed them the different parts of the bead string. I assume that sometime thereafter Abby left the room possibly fix supper.

Anyone who was not an only child can guess what happened almost immediately after Abby’s departure. The ensuing tug-of-war probably resulted in the same type of explosion of beads that occurred during my commute in the Aveo. Luckily none of the high velocity holy shrapnel hit either young girl in an eye and nothing was, to our knowledge, swallowed. Abby says that there was no blood at the crime scene, but tht pronouncement is not completely definitive. It seems there was some good bit of evidence tampering by both witness/perpetrators. When Abby returned to the room, the rosary was altogether gone and both girls were acting suspiciously innocent. Under careful cross-examination both culprits confessed and explained that the beads had been disposed of in a manner befitting an expired gold-fish. Unfortunately, for all concerned, the house has a septic tank.

Abby’s cute story makes me smile when I think about it. I feel badly for the little girls who now burst into tears when anyone mentions the misdemeanor within their earshot. I have chosen to write about it not because I get my jollies provoking the misery of little children, but partially out of nostalgia for the days when my oldest son removed a dinner plate sized piece of linoleum out of my master bathroom floor with the fabric cutter that Pam had barred him from ever touching. It looked like a pizza cutter to his little covetous eye. I think he snuck it into the latrine knowing that the bathroom is the only place that a mischievous kid can be assured of some privacy.

The story also touches me because it is a good example of the perspective from which God views our sins. Like the little girls, we do what we ought not during the times when we feel nobody is looking. We are kidding ourselves. God is more omniscient than Santa; all our sins are immediately apparent to Him. God knows exactly what we have flushed into the septic system. Nor is there such a thing as personal private sins of little import that only hurt our individual soul. We are one body. All sin hurts the whole body. Whether it is the gall bladder or appendix that ails, the entire body suffers too.

Most importantly, the story illustrates how easily we are for God to forgive. We are all children to him. Certainly, not all of our sins are as cute as the misappropriation, dismemberment and illicit disposal of Abby’s rosary. Still, Jesus thirsts to repair whatever harm we have done to ourselves and others. Murder, adultery or tax cheating are readily forgiven by him through a simple trip to Reconciliation. We can be forgiven even of our greatest transgressions. Although we are often willful and sleek goats, we can again become the peaceful sheep that we are made to be, through a simple act of submission to His gentle mercy. The damage we have done to The Body will remain like an unfortunate wound or an ill-advised tattoo, but we will gain peace. After guilt is relieved, healing can follow.

The remorse of the little girls makes me remember the soothing lullaby that my mother used to sing to me when I was even younger than they are.

“Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong. They are weak but He is strong.”

Thursday night’s Reconciliation and Adoration Service presents a great opportunity for us to seek God’s mercy.

#Rosary #Sin #venal sins #Confession #kids faith #catholic faith #God #Jesus #The Holy Spirit #Daughters of Mary #Adoration

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borisartamonovblog · 6 years

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Highlands.

Chapter 8. The true faith.

There are a lot of religions and faiths on the Earth, great and little ones. And all of them pull in different directions, it seems, being afraid of disclosing what is there common between them. And every faith is like a rapist who is pursuing his object to catch a soul and to trample down it under himself. If a congregation is a large number, then the profit is large. An obedient congregation, because of the suppression, then this is a dirigible force, one can use it, suiting his own ends. Here is temptation of money and temptation of power for the powerful. Many of them have the Holy Scriptures. There is the Verity in them, but the interpreters highlight key points in such a way, how it is profitable for the powerful. If you search the true independently, you will discover once more, what is written in these Scriptures, but in such a way nobody would can confuse you with these key points, which are highlighted incorrectly. The verities obtained from someone's own experience, they are like money, which is earned from his own labour: you will keep and protect them. The presented verities are like an easy money, which wallowed on a way. You will not to value it, and it's even worse that you will doubt in them, that is, in these verities. The same Holy Scriptures don't abolish the personal seeking, otherwise it wouldn't be written: "seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you..." Peer at all this with your own eyes, calculate with your own reason and you will see inevitably, that the verities of the great Teachers (Jesus Christ, Lao Tzu, Osho Rajneesh) are at contrary to those "verities", what have issued from the churches and other crowds. These crowds take prisoner the souls, the Teachers liberate them. ("Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.Ѓh- Gospel of John 8:32) The churches teach to refuse the sex and earthly goods, but the Apostle Paul himself had refused them, when he had reached up to the mark where he didn't need them anymore, however about his disciples who still had not reached up these marks, he didn't advise to refuse: "But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this". According to the churches, if a couple, living together, has not the seal (about marriage) in their passport with satanic emblems, then they commit adultery, but if there is the seal in the passport (with the hammer and sickle and the red star), then their marriage is righteous. However in fact, the most of those who has married officially, they don't only commit adultery, but they go in for prostitution, because they married for money. "From the liberating Gospel they made the oppressing Catholicism" (A.I.Herzen). The Catholics and Orthodox, and the last are the same Catholics, long ago they had quarreled because of those things, in which they themselves were able to reason nothing, they in fact managed to turn upside down the doctrine of Christ. About Protestants, I would call them semi-Protestants, because they didn't go to the end, but even this had given a huge effect, giving birth to the free West. However the Protestants could not go till a triumphant conclusion, because there is a limit, beyond which the crowd is not able to rise. So I don't ask you, either you cross yourself like a Catholic, or in the mountain Chechnya you exclaim: "Allah akbar!" You would not can betray your faith, going from one temple to another. You would become an infidel only when you begin to deny the same Verity, that you yourself have obtained, that is you would dare the deliberate lie. And you will not be a perfect one in your faith, if you refuse the personal seeking. And not with extracting money I reproach the churches, but with that they didn't merit it. On the contrary: Osho Rajneesh would merit five billion dollars, if he earned them in fact, as newspapers write. In such a case he would earn them, because he brought the Verity, the Love and the Liberty. And you who are reading these lines, don't be afraid of being yourself. Don't afraid of becoming free and dependent on nobody. Don't fear to look for the truth with your own mind and your singing soul, from the bottom of your heart. For it's written in the Gospel that your One Lord Who loves you, He would not give you a snake, if you looked for the spiritual food. The people's crowds call you to refuse your own reason and to listen them. Here it is offered for you to become a steersman of your destiny. They order to refuse the earthly goods to gain the celestial ones. But this is a bargain, that is a bargain without nobleness. If you want to go through ascetic way (Yoga), then try to look for a teacher of Yoga, but not those who are able to reason nothing in Yoga and who sometimes contradict themselves. Their goal is not the rescue of your soul, but they need an obedient being for the powerful. However here it is offered for you to go by means of the Tantra after Lao Tzu and Rajneesh. In the doctrine of Christ the Tantra prevails too, though it contains the Yoga just a little. It isn't your obligation to go in the way of Yoga, if you aren't inclined to kill for your pleasure. These crowds offer you to gain happiness in eternity, refusing for a while all the earthly joys. However one may reach the Top without sacrificing your earthly happiness. Only don't confuse the true and false earthly joys. Don't confuse into the same pile, on the one hand the earthly love, the health and the stay at the nature, on the other hand, drug addiction and alcoholism. Don't confuse the chase of money for money, the false values, the respect in a herd, with, on the other hand, the aspiration for material wealth for the sake of the freedom and the pecuniary independence. Don't confuse into the same pile the craving to share with new friends an uncovered truth by yourself and the power above the stupid crowds. Jesus didn't turn anyone into His faith by force. The earthly kings did this, those of them who didn't justify the confidence, which was granted to them from above, and they sullied their name by this. If you are seeking, then without knowing the great Scriptures you will discover that they contain. But if you don't seek it, then even the Scriptures are useless for you. The crowds who name themselves as churches, they subjugate you. But these lines liberate you. The crowds forbid you to think independently. But here it is given to you to understand that nobody on the Earth will give you of the useful advices more, than yourself. The crowds offer you to refuse all the earthly goods, including the real ones. But here a joyful news is reported to you that the true earthly goods were not forbidden by our Lord. Only be able to differ the true goods from the false ones, as well as you can differ the edible mushrooms from the poisonous ones. And if the poisonous mushrooms exist, this doesn't mean that it's prohibited to eat all the kinds of mushrooms. The Lord had provided you the capability to discern. These capabilities are the gifts of God. The unwillingness to study, to perfect and polish up such gifts as the intellect, the feeling of justice and the intuition, this is the same the greatest sin, for all the troubles and misunderstandings take place because of it. If these gifts are increased, you wouldn't can commit a sin as well as if your experience and vision are developed, you will not confuse the edible mushrooms with poisonous ones. And being pinned to the wall by circumstances you will determine, where is the holy war and where are crimes and a sin. Here a new religion is not given to you. It is just offered take away the irons, which the society had put you into, from an early age. And when you throw down them, then moving easily with joyful thanksgiving, you will rush upwards to the shining snow-clad tops, to those, where is not the severe frost, the hunger and the despondency, but only the beauty and the real joy without borders, and against the deadly avalanches, He, Whom name you hope for, will defend you. An unfettered prisoner who has removed the blindfold, with his new vision he will open up the great Scriptures: the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Bible and the Koran. And he will not get stuck in its deep places, and even if the Satan says him: "see what is written here", then as well as Jesus, he will answer: "It is also written ...". And being unable to bedevil the seeker who has become a wise one, the enemy will go away, being disgraced. This is not a new doctrine, but only a key for the quite forgotten old ones, they are forgotten, because they were read like with eyes which are tied. New knowledges aren't given here, (they would be needed what for?), while here it has just been reminded that inside you the knowledge of all the things is hidden since the beginning of time. Seek, and you will find it. Here is not offered to create a new church, a mosque, a sect or an organization. God forbid! Here it's offered only to remove the blindfold to see in the true light this society of the slaves, zombi and corpses. You will depart alone, and as Elijah the Prophet, you will think, that you are an only seeking, but this is not so. In this Highland there is a bit of lone wanderers, and if by chance you meet a fellow traveller who is searching the same Top, then it will be a great joy, and you aren't forbidden to continue this journey together, keeping yourself for all that. But if you meet nobody, then no misfortune. From the first steps you will rejoice from the beauty and greatness of these mountains and soon you will start to sing songs in other languages, which would be echoed from all sides, and when you rise higher, you will feel, that the best Fellow Traveler Whom no one would compare, He is always together with you. And everywhere and always He was together with you, and when you stumbled and couldn't go, He even carried you. Just you couldn't see this. So be afraid of nothing, only of spending the time in vain, the time is supplied here to you for the searching and knowledge. And don't shun of the Lord's supreme gifts those, which cannot be explained, using a worldly science, that is the physics, which is a special case of a more high Science. For Jesus Christ promised: "he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do", but the crowds calumniated Him, allegedly He healed by Beelzebub's forces. Oh, how familiar! Only a blind man may fail to see the intrigues of the society and the crowds of the false just men, of the false Christians and inquisitors. Even if you will have to pay, then not for the origin of the used forces, but for the goals what you tried to get, using these forces. If you, at the holy war, attempting rescue your intimates, have shot from a gun one enemy soldier (or a screw), then honor and praise for you. But it you have shot a neighbour, for example, being bursting with envy, then a great sin on you. The sin not because of the application of gun. Even if you have smothered this man barehanded, this would not serve you as a justification or a mitigating circumstance. Something that goes beyond the physic, usually is named a magic. The magic, which gives good fruit, is the White Magic. The magic, which gives evil fruit, is the black magic. This is so much clear that a mentally defective would understand it. So every attempt to deny this fact, complicating it, using the verbal artful design, is nothing but an attempt to avert you away from the Truth and to impose the lie. And who is a liar and a father of a lie, this is known from the Bible (the devil). Only don't attempt to interfere into the God's plan seriously. It is one thing, if you stop an excitement in the sea, disperse a cloud or destroy an evil enemy, but don't try to detonate the Sun or to move the Earth from its orbit, or even to reverse the events of the prophecy of the Apocalypse. The Lord will forbid this and it can happen to you a personal disaster, after which you will have to roam very long in many unpleasant areas. And you, believers, don't be spreaders of gossip and don't judge anyone, especially if his guilt is not clear for you. Let everyone doesn't affirm by words, what he doesn't know. Is the singleness of our Lord single or ternary, unlikely someone could make sure of this by his own experience. This is a cause for a war, not for the holy war, but for the sinful hostility and the predatory wars. And don't contend, in what degree Jesus Christ is divine or in what degree is a human being. Let everyone himself try to learn this, if he can. Don't care for things, which you cannot understand about, God will not ask for them, but He will ask for the things, which were clear for you, but you didn't want to see them. You, Muslims, be aware, the Christians are not your enemies. And you, Christians, be aware, the Muslims aren't your enemies, but everyone answers only for himself. So, if you are reasoning and judging, don't say "we", but say "me". You are not enemies each other. These are immature who are at enmity with each other, but those who have risen high, they are at peace together. Let everyone grows in his faith, then you will be capable to recognize each other as brothers. But they are not your brothers who burned far-outers at the stake. Those are not your brothers who had detonated the towers in New-York. Those are not your brothers who at the epoch of Genghis-Khan had spread for centuries this conformist satanic concept about people, let it live like a hive. Every human being is not a part of a hive or an ant hill, but the Most High had created everyone, as a free thinking individual. But this part of the humanity, which had accepted this concept, it repudiated all the faiths: the Christianity, the Islam, the Judaism, the Buddhism and it spread the ignorance, the tortures, the shootings, the concentration camps and taught and made to do these things for other peoples. From North-West they displaced the capital in the city of seven hills, hoisted the red flag there and during 74 years from there they ruled over this bacchanalia, which they tried to spread to the whole world. They introduced into the country the idolatry of the "Motherland", in fact, of the whore of Babylon, but it was not there. It is seen, too early to be fulfilled the prophecy of the Apocalypse by St-John about the accession to the throne Antichrist above the whole world, but it was only a trial of strength. Even now they still are making plans to turn the Earth into hell. They would attack America gladly, but this is not given to them. That time of the completion of the red bacchanalia they simulated the repentance, but they didn't confess and had taken up arms against a tribe desiring to be independent, which names itself "nokhchain halg" (Chechen people). Although the last don't consider Jesus Christ like the Lord, however building a relationship among themselves, they more observe the commandments of the Prophet Isa in relation to their neighbours, but those who named themselves Christian, they betrayed their faith, allowed the invading soldiers of the Red Army on horses into their churches, who blasphemed and robbed, they allowed the killing of the most liberal czars, but worshiped to the red fascist beast and his servants: Lenin and Stalin. And the German fascism was the evil, which had gemmated from them. For decades, they exterminated as other peoples, also its own one, drank hard and jailed their neighbours, who dared to be something that weren't like them, and now under the guise "anti-gang" they commit the genocide in the Caucasus. They are a darkness and they will win the Light never. They will have to pay for all, and those who say: "This are our", these will share their fate, if they don't confess. The war against them is a holy one too. Both the first Shamil (in the XIX century) and the second one - they are not bandits, but the holy warriors. God gave you the reason, the intuition and other gifts - this is enough to make the right decision, what side to support. To lighten access to these inward gifts, God gave you the Scriptures. From the Psalms of David and from others Scriptures you will learn, how will finish an enemy who prospered for a while. The history teaches the same. Sooner or later all the totalitarian States and their accomplices are expected by the same fate, which had overtaken Hitler and his accomplices. Let's leave them. The third chapter we are wandering around the hellish mazes, learning their quaint and menacing shadows, sometimes abominable ones. It was something like a training trip. It was a necessity as sometimes one has to prepare the corpses to save lives after. However, be aware, everyone was born not for the suffering, but for the eternal bliss, and it needs the only term for this: the own agreement of every human. Let's leave the stinking cadavers and go where is the life. Where is life - there is Love. And some day we will arrive where is not the death. Let's leave the jail where the prisoners hate and are ready to bite to death each other. And they are abused by the cruel warders who build the same relationship among themselves. Let's rush away in the freedom, from this stuffy and smoked jail to fresh air. Run away from the place where the disposal dump is thrown out into the river, the air is poisoned by the smoke of factory and the sky is losing its blue. Let's run away where the streamlets purl and carry their water into the clean river. Let's run away where under the bright blue sky birds on the trees praise the Lord! When after a long vanity you went away into the forest, maybe, it seemed to you, they greet you. However if you have come to believe and know now Whom they praise, it will be not lesser joy for you; so, being glad of their pipe, you didn't make a mistake at that time too. Let's run away from the noise and vanity! The further from vanity, the more of the silence. And one day you will notice, where people's voices and sounds cease, there is more and more the voice of the Silence claims about Himself, Who is appealing to Himself, using His silence, and He is the Beautiful. Because He is telling about something dear and significant, and it is impossible to express this in words. About these great and significant things the trees are telling, while keeping silent gently, when it doesn't wind, and every blade transmits this great essence of the Being. About this world where it's not the past and future, but there is only the present,. the eternal "now", in their own way are telling the rocks stiffened down for centuries and even the lifeless stones of the other planets. At night the stars, by their number they give you know about the grandeur of the Universe, that is, of your temporary shelter, and in the morning one after the other they are dissolving in the rays of the sun, which is similar to them, and the old moon, becoming extinct, it seems, it sends its tender regards to you from all the Universe. And in the quiet of night let a duck takes wing, and a star fly over the night sky among million of the stark star eyes, but from this they will not disturb the beautiful Silence, but only they will accentuate it. And this Silence is indicating the eternal presence of Him, Whom we cannot understand in full, even to see Him. One day the strings of your soul will begin to sound and, testing a little ablution, you will want a greater one. And finding the most favorite place in the forest, maybe you would want such a beautiful one, which doesn't exist on the Earth. And feeling the joy with the most beautiful mistress (or with a lover), one day you will want to be unfaithful to her (him) with such a mistress (lover), who cannot be found in the physical world. Because beyond of all this the Single Beautiful is hidden. That is the Single Significance of the Eternal Being. You will feel that it can be more of the joy and you will desire it. But it's hardly your fragile body would be able to survive such a lot of the Light and Bliss and all other things, which are connected with This. Not for nothing Moses said, that, meeting God, a man would die immediately. But it would be a mistake to grieve, that you still aren't enough mature to meet Him face to Face. It makes one laugh, if a baby worries that it still is not an adult one. The foretaste of the Great Meeting will give you a joy too, the joy of this Meeting when you will be taken on the Top, where you are waited always. In the spiritual growth and maturation as well as in the physical one, there are the poisons which can retard and stop the growth, but the wholesome "substances" - hasten it. In the spiritual life there are peculiar "poisons", peculiar "vitamins" and "elixirs of life". You (men and women) are free independently to choose. The brilliant Top of the Highland waited and is waiting for you always. There are all of the things, which you missed here, about which it is not possible to tell in words, although the Hindus tried to express it in the three words: Sat-Chit-Ananda, that is, the Existence, the Consciousness, the Bliss. And if you have read this book to the end, you are ready for the seeking and give hope. And if with joy and participation you have read this book, then you give a great hope as a seeker. Now let us address to our One God by name is according to your faith. If you are a Muslim - call Him - Allah. If you are an Israelite - call Him Elohim or Jehovah. If you are a Christian - address to the Blessed Trinity or to Jesus Christ. Ask for forgiveness for your sins what you remember and what you don't remember. Thank Him for the joys and for the griefs and for the fact, that you are reading these lines. Ask Him let He would indicate at your mistakes, what you don't see. Ask Him that He would help you to investigate in the questions, which you get stuck in, both in the noticed ones and in the not noticed. Ask Him that He would give you a joy, which will strengthen your faith, for there is not neither death nor grief, if the great faith is there. Remember that Jesus Christ said one day: "desire spiritual gifts..." Ask from the Lord these gifts, not to "play magic", but for the strengthen your faith. The faith will give you a rescue, the faith will give you a joy, the faith will give you forces to survive and to hold out among the enemies. A blind faith in absurdity, as a kind of the self-denial may fail in our turbulent epoch, although in the past it helped. Let your faith will be based on the Love, on the reason and on the intuition. And I don't bid farewell with you, because I believe: we will meet at the Top where all will merge together, where we will get all what here we felt homesick for and furthermore, and we will taste what even we didn't dream about. And we will perceive the Significance of the Being, What the trees tell about, keeping silent, What the birds pipe about, What the streams and waterfalls enjoy themselves about. We will perceive Something What is penetrating all the space, all the time and anything what exists besides them. And let it keeps you this Name of the Most High in whom you trust. Amen.

It was written in Russian from April to June in 2001.

The oruginal Russian text

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junker-town · 6 years

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From Baghdad to Iwo Jima, an anthem for the dead

Two Marines — one a veteran of Iraq and the other a survivor of Iwo Jima — remember the fallen and weigh the meaning of a national anthem.

Abner Greenberg doesn’t look like someone who was shot in the head on Iwo Jima.

At 93, he’s stockier and more solid than any nonagenarian I’ve met. The skin on his forehead and cheeks is smooth and has a healthy glow, and despite being mostly bald, his head bears no evidence of the Japanese bullet that went through the left side of it, leaving him unconscious for weeks and confused for months, unable to access his own speech.

When I shake his broad, meaty hand, I cannot tell that he hasn’t had feeling in his right arm for the last 73 years. He cannot button a shirt; his wife, Marilyn, helps him get dressed every day. “That’s the fun with us,” he says with a grin.

His aphasia is another result of the bullet that entered his head, but I don’t recognize that he’s using almost exclusively pronouns instead of proper names until he points it out himself. He is lively and sharp, easily the envy of men two decades younger.

Iwo Jima is familiar to most Americans thanks to a John Wayne movie and the famous photo of the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi, which is immortalized at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va. It was a battle so fierce and horrifying it shocked even the battled-tested veterans of a country in its fourth year of world war.

Of the 82 Medals of Honor awarded to Marines during the entirety of World War II, 27 of them were for actions on Iwo Jima; of those, more than half were awarded posthumously. The island was death itself.

Imagine eight square miles where 29,000 lives ended in just 36 days.

Imagine: Somewhere in the vast Pacific Ocean is eight square miles of volcanic ash where nearly 29,000 lives ended in just 36 days. Greenberg was one of nearly 20,000 more who suffered a casualty but survived. Iwo was his fourth amphibious landing in 13 months, and he’s still shaken by the horror unleashed on the first day when 2,400 Americans were killed or injured. Two of them were the best friends he’d ever known. “We hung around together, y’know? We just … talked. ‘We’re gonna survive this thing,’ et cetera, et cetera.

“Well, we got off of the beach, and we had a spot … I got down with these two other guys, and all of a sudden it started lighting up. It got into the late afternoon and evening, and mortars were hitting us.”

This is how combat stories are told, by the way. Hours of terror and stress that shatter lives get compressed to a sentence in the service of a more interesting narrative.

“We got hit by mortars, all three of us. And, uh—” His voice wavers. “I got to Barney. Barney Aloysius Cochrane, who was my best friend, my leader, everything that I needed to get through what I went through … and I just couldn’t leave him for that moment. He was dead. I was shaking all over, and I was crying. And frozen, absolutely frozen.

“And then I realized that someone was moaning, and it was Schultz. George Andrew Schultz.” He pauses. A long pause. “I couldn’t get the corpsman, but I knew he was like 100 yards from me. I patched him up the best I could, hoping that in the morning I could get him [out] alive, because he was breathing. And I did all I could to hold him. And this corpsman got to me when it was still early [in the morning], and they pulled him down to the beach. I thought he made it.”

Abner and I served in wars that began 62 years apart, but we share this: You don’t say your friend’s full name if he made it out alive.

Getty Images

Marines in Kuwait prepare for war

‘I’m confident that this will be over soon.’

I met Brian Michael McPhillips at the end of our time at The Basic School in Quantico, Va. TBS is a six-month course that teaches Marine lieutenants the bare bones of leading an infantry platoon, even though most will go on to become specialists in other fields: aviation, artillery, logistics, supply, and so on. For our class of 240 students, there were three openings for tank officers. McP and I got two of them.

He was forthright and exacting, a New Englander with dark hair and icy blue eyes that hid nothing. He could bludgeon you with honesty or sarcasm, and like many Massachusetts natives, he had just enough charm to mitigate his asshole streak.

In the winter of 2001, we reported to Fort Knox together and joined a class of Army lieutenants, most of whom were reservists or National Guardsmen. Brian made no effort to hide his disgust for what he deemed their lack of knowledge, professionalism, and physical fitness. I tended to agree, but I at least tried to be nice to our colleagues.

McP had no time for niceties. He cared about training for war and keeping his Marines alive in battle; making friends wasn’t on his to-do list. Besides, he had me.

We were assigned to tank battalions on opposite sides of the country but ended up in the same desert for war. McP arrived in Kuwait a couple of weeks after I did, and his unit camped several kilometers away from ours. Still, he hitched a ride over one day and sought me out, no easy feat in a camp of four thousand Marines. I was out training with my platoon when he came by, so I didn’t see him that day. I never saw him again.

The war was mostly boring, except when it was terrifying. I’ve started forgetting even the memorable parts; I only recently recalled killing two Iraqi fighters with a coaxial machine gun — their bodies flung into the air like they’d stepped on cartoon springs — when I revisited an old diary. But the map is imprinted in my brain; the names of the cities and towns shine like beacons through the fog, checkpoints that put the war in order: Basrah. Nasiriyah. Diwaniyah. Numaniyah. Aziziyah.

Aziziyah is about 40 miles southeast of Baghdad’s outskirts, on the banks of a bulbous C-curve of the sidewinding Tigris. I didn’t fight there, but Brian did. My guess is the ambush came from the palm grove; it’s where most ambushes originated that spring, because they offered cover and restricted the movement of tracked vehicles. He was on top of a Humvee leading the scout platoon, returning fire with a .50-cal machine gun when he was shot in the head. I’ve heard rumors that the last thing he said was “I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHIT!” I’ve believed it for so long that it may as well be true.

Baghdad fell a few days later. I learned about his death 10 days after that. When my friend Charlie told me the news, I was standing in a garbage dump outside Baghdad; we’d left the city because tanks presented an “aggressive posture” that ran counter to the new mission of nation-building. We were going home.

When I boarded the Navy ship that would bring me back to the States, I checked my email for the first time in five months. On Jan. 31, 2003, McP had sent a characteristically terse note.

Friends and Family,

We are leaving for Kuwait this evening. Thanks again for all the support. I’m confident that this will be over soon. God bless.

Brian

The subject line was one word: goodbye.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

‘At what point do we do something about it?’

On the internet, I have watched a war of words, waged mostly among people who haven't fought for their country. One side, pained by a protest occurring during the national anthem, will say that our troops fight for the flag. The other side, typically, will point out that servicemen and women swear an oath to defend not the flag, but the Constitution.

I grew up on Air Force bases, and wherever we lived, the theater played “The Star-Spangled Banner” before every movie. My father, a pilot who served 22 years, had a habit of haranguing teens and young airmen for wearing hats or talking during the anthem. It became a running bit for our family: We’d identify disrespectful culprits in the crowd and watch my father’s blood boil until he marched over to correct them.

Later, as a student in ROTC, I spent three years on the color guard, skipping tailgates to present the colors at windswept Big Ten football games, where my drunken classmates watched from the stands.

I still stand at attention for the anthem, from the first bars until the final note ends. I don’t think I can be any other way. Like a Catholic making the sign of the cross, I stand for the anthem. It’s a rite tied to my identity, ingrained by family and belief.

Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

When Colin Kaepernick first sat during the anthem — before he consulted with the former Green Beret Nate Boyer and began kneeling — I took offense. How could I not? Kaepernick rejected a ritual that was part of my identity as an American. But it was also his First Amendment right to protest peacefully. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution, not my feelings.

As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie advised in Americanah:

Hear what is being said. And remember that it’s not about you. American Blacks are not telling you that you are to blame. They are just telling you what it is. If you don’t understand, ask questions. [...] Sometimes people just want to feel heard. Here’s to possibilities of friendship and connection and understanding.

I had to say it to myself: It’s not about me. It’s not about the troops. It’s about Kaepernick’s experience as a black man in America. And he started the protest because he saw black men dying preventable deaths. “I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy,” wrote teammate Eric Reid in The New York Times.

If you read or listen to what black Americans have to say about police violence, chances are good that at some point you will see the names of the dead repeated. Philando Castile. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Terence Crutcher. Freddie Gray. “I couldn’t see another ‘hashtag Sandra Bland,’ ‘hashtag Tamir Rice,’ ‘hashtag Walter Scott,’ ‘hashtag Eric Garner,’” Kaepernick said to reporters in 2016. “The list goes on and on and on. At what point do we do something about it?”

Saying their names is the vigil the living keep.

I’ve only recently realized that veterans do the same thing. More than 70 years after his best friends died on Iwo Jima, Greenberg still says their names whenever he can: Barney Aloysius Cochrane. George Andrew Schultz.

And Brian McPhillips. He’s as dead as Barney and George, as dead as Tamir and Terence. The circumstances of their deaths were different, but details matter little to the dead. Their lives ended in their youth, and they stay that age while the survivors grow middle-aged and old, the memories fading but not the names of the dead they loved.

Saying their names is the vigil the living keep, a flame tended so the light they brought to the world isn’t extinguished entirely.

“Life is ... it’s people,” Abner tells me. “It’s touching people.” It’s the end of our conversation, and we’ve been talking about war and the anthem and Black Lives Matter.

“We’re doing it to us. What they’re doing to our people — how do we allow it?” I’m not sure who he means by they. The aphasia that robs him of specificity makes it unclear if he’s talking about his war or my war or police violence. Maybe it’s everything.

“I recognized, I’m a culprit. Which I didn’t recognize before. ‘We gotta win this war. The Nazis are there, we gotta win this war.’ But it became beyond that.

“It wasn’t winning this war — it’s never having any wars.”

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