a quote about mediocrity

“"Mediocrity" doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters”

Ayn Rand (Russian born American Writer and Novelist, 1905-1982)

The wonderful world of Jeeves and Bertie

One of life's great pleasures is discovering something you truly come to love. Like the day I was a kid and went to the New York Departement store in Santurce and bought my first Beatle album. And suddenly I wanted every Beatle album. Their music offered me a new world. A new way of seeing things.

Well, a few months ago I discovered a writer that creates a wonderful world. And now I want everything he ever wrote, luckily he wrote a lot. His name was P.G. Wodehouse. He was an English writer who writes humorous books. But not "here's another fart" type of humor. He wrote the most, elegant, witty, fun books you can find. And they are not witty in an Oscar Wilde sense, but in a lighter sense,
in a less pretentious sense.

His main creation: Jeeves, the butler who changes the life of well meaning but kind of dim witted English gentleman called Bertie. The interplay between the two of them is magical.(The relationship between butler and millionaire in the movie "Arthur" is obvioulsy based on Jeeves and Bertie). The world that surrounds them of English people with money and some pretending to have money is really cool. He satirizes that world without being mean, something that is so hard to do. There are no cheap shots in his way of portraying that world of appearances. He does it in an elegant and fun way.

But more than that, Wodehouse created "a wonderful world for us to live in and delight in". Somebody once wrote: "Reading Wodehouse always makes me feel good." And that is the key. I can be in the foulest mood, and Wodehouse changes me. He takes a sad song and makes it better.

Wodehouse books are in the Borders "Humor" section in the Plaza store.

fairly decent sunrise

Cool movie

Yesterday I came back from work "con el mono trepao". So I wanted to see a real "light" movie. And I mean really mindless, "I just want to relax " entertainment. So I searched through some really old DVD's I had and found "Hollywood Boulevard".

This movie has a nice story to it.Back in 1974 when Joe Dante (Gremlins) was a fledging director, he told cheapo producer Roger Corman he could make the cheapest movie ever at Corman's New World Pictures. And for $10,000 he created this movie. And it's a truly cool movie. In it a starlet called Candy(Candice Rialson) begins a career doing B movies. She goes from women in prison films to a 1950's nostalgia movie set in 2055. There's also a mad kiler on the loose, you also get Paul Bartel as a director telling Godzilla his motivation ("get the girl and trample as many people as you can"), gratuitous nudity and violence, Mary Woronov as a possibly murderous actress and an appearance by Robbie the Robot.

This film is also a reminder of B movies from the 1970's. These films were shown in drive-ins in the States and were shown here in regular movie theaters in weeks when they had no mainstream movies to show. Most of them were crap, but once in a while a gem like this one would appear.
I bought it at Borders a long time ago.

True

"Be disloyal. It's your duty to the human race.
The human race needs to survive and it's the
loyal man who dies first from anxiety or a
bullet or overwork. If you have to earn a
living...and the price they make you pay is
loyalty, be a double agent--and never let
either of the two sides know your real
name..."
Under the Garden, Graham Greene

Darling

This movie is a real work of the 1960's. It stars Julie Christie, the biggest beauty symbol of the era (and the reason why you know so many thirtysomething women named Lara, she played that character in Dr. Zhivago and the whole world fell in love with her) and it is set in London, fast becomig the hippest city in the world.
This movie was made one year after "A Hard Day's Night" which showed the free, anything can happen spirit of the time. In a way, that was the first 1960's "youth culture" movie and it emphasized all that was positive and hopeful about it.

This movie, though, stresses the fact that the youth culture was as shallow, empty and greedy as the culture it was supposed to replace. Christie plays a working class woman who rises to the top of the modeling industry and finds only emptiness in it. She was able to use all the freedom that the era offered to get what she wanted and got nothing.

The movie also predicts quite accurately how corporations would use the youth culture to sell products. So that all the rebellion and freedom would end up simply as another advertising slogan.

This is quite an interesting movie. And by the way, Julie Christie won the Academy Award for Best Actress for it.

quote

"Don't tell my mother I work in an advertising agency - she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse."
~ Jacques Seguela.

cynical Graham Greene thought

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil --or else an absolute ignorance.

Graham Greene

A Nos Amours

One of the best movie columns in any newspaper is the one Mike Clark writes in the USA Today every Friday. In it he reviews the latest DDV releases. Not just the blockbusters, but small movies that are worth seeing. And thanks to that column I discovered this truly amazing film. It's one of the most realistic portrayals of adolescence you can see. All the aimlessness, boredom, danger, experimentation is here. But the movie does not judge. It does not take a point of view. And,most interestingly, the movie has almost no continuity. We get to know the main character Suzanne by seeing her in different situations, with her lovers, her family, her freinds, her father. But one scene does not lead to another. We have to fill in the spaces between the scenes. Just like meeting someone in real life. We can't know everything about that person. We just know them by the moments we spend with them.
So the movie can be strange for someone used to the Hollywood way of telling a story. But once you get used to it, it's a refreshing experience. 16 year old Sandrine Bonnaire plays Suzzane in her firt film role and she is amazing. One could inmediately tell she would become one of France's leading actresses. And the whole cast is amazing. Every person here feel real.It almost like watching a documentary about family, adolescence, sex, pain, sadness, longing.
This is a really special movie. It's from the Criterion Collection. And it's available at Borders.

quote

Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations

the other day at the beach

Stupid porn titles

These are actual porn movie titles. Most are based on tv shows and movies and others are just terrible(but funny) puns. Any favorites? Maybe you can come up with new titles.

2. Dykes Of Hazzard
3. Weapons of Ass Destruction
13. Sperminator
14. Thighs Wide Open
15. I Cream On Genie
16. Cocoa Muffs: 4 Pack
17. I Dream Of Queenie
18. Cream Rinse
19. Backside Story
20. Tits A Wonderful Life
21. All Hands On Dick
22. Whore Of The Roses
23. Cum To Drink Of It
24. Scrambled Legs And Sausage
25. Assfixiation
26. Got Milf # 2
27. Plumb And Dumber
28. Between A Cock And A Hard Place
29. Pulp Friction
30. Vaggie Burger 4 Hours
31. XXX Trek The Man Eater
32. Pussy On A Stick
33. Bad Czechs
34. Whore With No Name
35. Oozefest
36. Johnny Cockman
37. Glazed And Confused
38. Gonad The Barbarian
39. Girth Wind & Fire
40. Great Asspectations
41. Goody Goody Cum Drops
42. Grateful Head
43. Genitals Daughter
44. Genital Hospital
45. Austin Prowler
46. All That Jizz
47. Dicksy Chicks
48. Dude Wheres My Dildo
49. Everybody Loves Rimmin

1999 technology finally reaches my building!!!!!

After 4 years of telling me it will be available "next month", One Link (formerly Adelphia) has finally made Internet available in my building. Now I can also see HDTV and DVR and enjoy Video On Demand. Last Friday I called to order my DVR, they said they had ran out of boxes, that they would be available "next week".

Boxing stage

They fight. It's a controversial "draw" even though the AP had it 116-112. So there's a rematch on PPV. And thousands fall for it. Can't anyone see boxing has become as staged as the WWF??? But then again, people pay $50 to watch that staged show. Never mind.

Paul is 64

I read in the newspaper today that Paul is 64 tomorrow. Years ago he wrote "When I'm 64" for the Sgt. Pepper album. "When I get older/losing my hair/Many years from now" is tomorrow. Time sure rushes by. And I'm glad he's still around. The last surviving songwriter from the greatest rock group ever. His songlist is so incredibly amazing "Yesterday:, "Hey Jude", "Penny Lane" and you could go on and on. And for those who say he was the guy who only wrote love songs, I tell them two words "Helter Skelter", a song so raw it inspired Charles Manson to commit mass murder. No hard rock group can't put THAT in their resume.

Anyway, here's to Paul. The underrated Beatle. The one who was not cool and tortured like John.The one who was not mysterious as George. The one who has always been happy go lucky. The one that wrote most Beatle songs we remember(if you don't believe that, try the "Back in the USA" CD.) The one who has always been my favorite Beatle.

Happy Birthday!!!!!!

Cool movie

"This is my happening and it freaks me out!!!!"
Zman

This is a really interesting flick. A cult movie per excellence. The year was 1970. 20th Century Fox, desperate for a low budget hit, decided to hire Russ Meyer, an acclaimed director known for skin flicks featuring women with huge breasts to make a sequel to "Valley of the Dolls". He, in turn, hired as the screenwriter an unknown film critic from Chicago named Roger Ebert. Together they created one of the craziest, funniest, most insane movies ever. A movie about a girl group who makes it big in Hollywood, but pays the price.

The movie features drugs, alcohol, sex, Nazis, nymphomaniacs, mass murderers, cheesy "hippy" dialogue, women with big breasts, groovy 1960's rock music. Everything that can make a movie fun. And this movie is fun. It was hailed as one of the 100 best movies ever by Village Voice and as one of the best film of the 1960's by Newsweek.

The DVD is full of extras and features an audio commentary by Roger Ebert who does not consider this a skeleton in his classic but sees it as a fun time.

Check it out. I found it at Borders.

to a friend who's going away soon

Hay gente que con sólo decir
una palabra enciende la ilusión
y los rosales; que con sólo
sonreir entre los ojos nos invita
a viajar por otras zonas,
nos hace recorrer toda la magia.
Hay gente que con sólo dar la mano
rompe la soledad, pone la mesa,
sirve el puchero, coloca las guirnaldas;
que con sólo empuñar una guitarra
hace una sinfonía de entrecasa.
Hay gente que con sólo abrir la boca
llega hasta todos los límites del alma,
alimenta una flor, inventa sueños,
hace cantar el vino en tinajas
y se queda después como si nada.
Y uno se va de novio con la vida
desterrando una muerte solitaria pues
sabe que a la vuelta de la esquina
hay gente que es así, tan necesaria.

Hamlet Lima Quintana

blue

An old movie I saw again

One of the great things about the DVD age is being able to watch again movies I loved as a child. Last night I finally saw a movie I had seen many, many years ago at the old Ambassador theater in Santurce. It's called "Murders in the Rue Morgue", a horror movie "inspired" by the Edgar Allan Poe story. It involves some murders that take place in late 19th century Grand Guinol theater in Paris. It is all perfectly preposterous, it even involves revenge, people dressed up as gorillas and people being buried alive. It is really not a very good movie. But I enjoyed it and at the same time I was trying to figure out why I had liked it so much as a kid. And well, I don't have an answer to that. But I enjoyed it. I wouldn't recommend you buy it, but if you were a little kid and you remember the double features at the Ambassador, well..you may just have a great time.

orgasmigrama

Interesting to see how predictable everything dealing with it really is.