Tar, the movie

Tar, the movie, starring Cate Blanchett ,is  described as a psychological drama. It is that and much much more. Kate Blanchett’s portrayal of Lydia Tar, the world renown director of the Berlin Orchestra,  the movie’s principal  protagonist, is truly brilliant.  Todd Field’s directing is exquisitely all about timing, a central theme in this profound critique and insight of art and modern times.

I can’t say I’ve seen such a deep and disturbing film since the early works of John Malkovitch.  First Todd Field’s writing explores the old world meaning  of ‘success and status’.  There’s the class of classics with the order and profundity of century old Bach with the whimsical new composer. All is played out with Tar teaching an arrogant young man her idea of art, not just technique but the ‘channeling’ so to speak of the original composer’s meaning.  What is the ‘cover’?  

 The young music student whose obvious sensitivity and disability is portrayed by his physical anxiety arrogantly argues for his own « identity politics » as ‘non binary’ discounting Bach as cis gender and irrelevant.  He could be discounting another artist for being left handed or Cuban, the issue again, appears to be about sexuality, but is much more and Lydia Tar’s response goes to the essence of the artist in community versus the artist as masturbator. 

I confess I heard the ominous toppling John A. Macdonald,  Canada’s founding father’s, statue one of hundred of great works of art subsumed  in recent years by the pride and hubris of ‘cancell culture’ ,the radical aetheists equivalent of the art destroying radical Muslim, Taliban., the present’s ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ in the repeat performance of Mao’s disastrous ‘cultural’ revolution,   Lydia Tar’s response to this arrogance is resounding.  Meanwhile  it is all filmed illegally and deceitfully on iPhone only to be edited and uploaded as a modern propaganda art on behalf of the ‘victim’ the young narcissist ‘villain’ or ‘savior’ of the film.  A life time of hard work and discipline and dreams that began in America is smashed in the modern Blitzkrieg of the new Nazi smugness. 

Tar’s on sexuality which in the past might well have been of matter is now however lost in her ‘personhood’ .The failure of ‘love’ for her partner and her child reflects her self centereness and behaviour, all the same as the Mad Men leadership of the ‘shakers and makers’,  isn’t the issue,  but rather her ‘lack of communication’.  Her own pride and hubris and narcissism are exposed in the centre of her own great love, this microcosm within the microcosm.  

And of course the question arises, does she love or does she just ‘use’ people? Indeed the movies challenges the whole interpretation of the stark contrasting Marxist reductionist models of the glib narrative production and destruction.  Todd Field and Cate Blanchett along with the extraordinary acting of all the cast literally visually reflect on the harmony and dis chord of great composition.  This is so beyond politics and foot ball fields and war and deep in the world of counterpoint and colour.

Reality and art are challenged in the contrast of the audience of tuxedos and gowns, glitter and ref carpet, with the audience of cosplay, animals characters and costume.  There’s a seriousness and self centered ness which is now exposed in the ‘channeling’ of the audience as ‘masked’.  Profound doesn’t do justice to the depth of this genius of a movie, writing,direction and cast.  It is all about us seeing the dircctor’s face rather than just their back as they mirror lead and follow the musicians, 

I love Lydia as she struggles within the personal transformation of love and lust, judged not for sexuality but rather for her ‘abuse of power’ and lack of ‘kindness’.  Unlike any movie I’ve seen in recent years the simple failure of main character is to ‘love thy neighbour’, ‘be kind’. Blanchett does the amazing job by expression and tone to convey the subtleties of appearance and reality.  

Is Lydia Tar a ‘villain’? Personally I see her as on the ‘Hero’s » path that Campbell and Jung discussed.  She’s becoming human and greatness has just brgun.  It begins in the Third world where the fertility of the young is manifesting as the decay of European young is exposed.   

Friday, Burnaby Lake, Media Election

Laura and I had a lovely walk in the sun to Burnaby Lake. Great trail. No bikes.  Everyone enjoying the peace and quiet.  We finally arrived at the lake where the ducks hang out, glad for the seed treats people bring. I saw the Mandarin Duck again. The wood ducks are always there. The delight this time was the Green Winged Teal. Also loved the Red Winged Black Birds. 

 It was a wonderful escape from the cacaphony of the election. It really is disturbing , all the corporate corruption and election graft.  I don’t like Biden.  A corporate ‘nice imposter’, with the monster son who he uses. 

Then there’s Kamala, the US Eva Brawn. I thought Obama was more than his colour but to hear women on FB Kamala is just a brown vagina. Any brown vagina who gets a head is good enough for them. I can’t recall ever thinking like that about men or women. I was raised on meritocracy and believed the best pilot should fly the plane. That’s all gone now with Identity Politics and Gender Studies.  All men in Canada are primarily in their job because of their penis and a vagina would do better.  It’s South Africa all over again where white is now murdered by blacks and still there are people who think that is good. I am so out of it. I really have these outdated ideas of ‘Love thy neighbour.’  But Islam is not Christian. Communism is the religion of Aetheism. 

I look back on my life and all the times I didn’t stoop to be have like a Trudeau or a Biden cost me financially.  Now it’s all about euthanasia and MAiD.  God is great all of the time.  In this world the authorities killed Jesus.  Canada is a war monger state that lies.  Trudeau just sold 80 billion dollars in weapons and brought in more measures of dictatorship than his bro, Obama, whose spying on citizens is second only to Communist China and Koumeni Islam.  I am afraid. I’ve been brash and outspoken. My friends say they learned to ‘whisper’ in Islam.  The leaders of Islam are celebrating the beheading of anyone who makes fun of their God who clearly has no sense of humor despite being a joke to anyone not ruled by the sword. 

I’m actually enjoying my life. I’m safe. For now. I’ve heat and shelter and running water and indoor plumbing. I have all those physiological needs that Maslow said were basic. I have friends and family and my emotional needs are met. I have work and purpose and meaning so that I’m likely to survive even Auschwitz given what Victor Frankl said of his experience as a psychiatrist. The issue is self actualization.  Poets and writers are always the first killed in totalitarian states. I’ve been passed over for promotion because I’ve believed in objective truth and stated it against the lies of leadership. I’ve watched a blatant lying psychopaths fiction been preferred to sane truth by the corrupt authorities. 

It’s been worse each year but now I’m rather old and easily wasted. I can be disappeared or arrested and no one cares. The very leaders of Hong Kong are now in jail for questioning the evil Borg regime of Xi JinPing, Trudeau’s friend and likely lover.  Nothing makes sense of present day politics except the lists of those who met together on Epstein’s Island.  They are all anti Trump. I disagree with pedophilia even if that sentiment is no longer consider a true Canadian value. I celebrate adult sexuality between consenting adults and object to the Courts persisting in the sexist chivalry and political decisions.  But I’m passe. I reread the last of King Lear and hoped that that was not what we were seeing here.  Cornelia as Ivanka. 

 I don’t like George Soros, the Nazi sympathizer any more than I like Hanoi Jane and Benghazi HIllary or alleged pedophile Trudeau the stoner and liar. But frankly I don’t know these people. 

I met Trudeau’s father, an intellectual cold fish, loved the power and leadership of Chrétien who I met as well. I also thoroughly respected Turner who I spent a day with and truly admired Harper who I spent an evening with.  The difference is that these are real people. All these other images I speak about, Trump, Biden, Kamala, are media characatures.  Comic strip people created by dumbed down leftist corporate America. The translation of world by the low brow likes of corrupt Zuckerberg, a rather evil little man who thoroughly delights in abusing powers and others as the Congress hearings have taught us. These corporate leaders are not the stuff of history.  

I loved walking and looking at the colourful birds. It was good to be with Laura. We missed Gilbert, our cockapoo and talk a lot about a coming puppy.  She has her sister, children, grand children. I’ve nephews and family in the distance, friends here. But it was the dog I lived for. I miss the dogs and cats.  I’m rather lonely in my empty house thankful for a visit from Laura in these Covid times of isolation and alienation.  

I had hoped for some relief and reassurance with the election but Xi JinPing continues to rule the world with the UN at his bidding and he now looks to invade Taiwan as he has Hong Kong. That concerns me.  Clearly Trump was a formidable leader whose skills challenged the low brow stoner trust fund mentality of slacker Trudeau.  Bide and Kamala with their criminal histories will work with Quebec’s corrupt corporate SNC Lavalin. There’s more destruction of the middle class, my class and the elite will continue to get richer and more powerful with a new Maga Carta in the works but nothing for us squished down with the peasants to fit the Marxist binary vision.  We’ll get more free Heroin and free Marijuana and maybe more cheap sex with younger and younger people  The temple boys and girls given instead of work and position that gives one self esteem.  

I’ve chosen good over wrong. I’ve been a moral and ethical person.  This is Rome and the Empire moves along.  The Dark Star has always been there. Jesus said that this world was ruled by Satan. It’s all Money and Power. Marx said, Money is the God of the Jews.  Money and power is all that communism is about. Power is all that Sharia is about.   Satan is more apparent now.  I didn’t see the powers and principalities when I was young even though I read Brothers Karamasov.  It’s taken age to help me appreciate the wisdom of the classics.

I may have to stop writing to avoid jail or to avoid economic reprisal but I can continue to take pictures of birds. I’m too old to get by with sexual favours but I could sell a kidney if the need arose.  Others will face that.  It was so sad to see the active drug addicts in Malaysia and India.  The power of AA in Mexico was wonderful to see. The Church has always been there in times of terror and strife.  These are dark times. Gandhi said that we needed to meditate more. Martin Luther King said, it’s going to be a tough day, so need to spend more time one our knees.  

Thank you Jesus for all the blessings I’ve known and have today.  Guide me this day and in the days to come. Help me be of service to my fellow man and woman. St. Patrick protect me. Christ in front of me. Christ behind me. Christ to the left of me. Christ to the right of me. Christ beneath me. Christ above me. Christ within me and Christ without. Christ in the thoughts that everyone has of me. Holy Spirit come.  Hallelujah. God is good all of the time. Thank you St. Francis for the birds.

Red winged black bird

Duckie

Dowitcher

Mandarin duck

Green winged teal

Wood duck

Bird voyeur with Nikon and chef’s hat beret

Main Stream Media Propaganda and Marketting

The Main Stream Media is at an all time low with journalists generally considered little better than politicians and pedophiles.  CBC News is perhaps the worst offender of all sadly because it’s extreme biases and manipulations are publicly funded yet their marketing of messages is controlled by an extremely narrow elite.  Even BBC, once a bastion of objective journalism has fallen to “making the news” rather than ‘reporting the news’.  CNN is the greatest whore of all but definitely not alone.  Today no one knows where to turn especially given the amount of ‘fake news’ on the internet. Worse the greatest purveyors of bias are now claiming to ‘regulate fake news’, con artists, like billionaire Zuckerberg whose Facebook algorithms were employed to support Hillary Clinton against Bernie and then against Trump.
Like everyone else, I really don’t know what to believe.  Yet I’m extremely well educated, have a very high IQ and years of experience watching news and politics.  Today it’s uncertain.  There’s a ‘fog of war’ in the world today. It’s a kind of madness too.
So I thought I’d share some of the guidelines that I believe rule my own set of biases.  They probably follow from my study of logic and rhetoric, as well as formal training in Cognitive Behavioural therapy and a whole lot of experience with ‘drug talk’ , ‘adolescents’, ‘insane and schizophrenic’ people, psychotics, and just generally education and experience.  I know that’s frowned on as increasingly groups insist that they are going to reinvent the wheel.
So these are things I look for:
1.  Certainty.  If someone is absolutely certain of the ‘facts’ and argues stridently and emotionally about the ‘facts’ and the ‘news’ they’re probably a nut bar who doesn’t know they’re a nut bar. I don’t know and I really am experienced and study the matter so what’s with their insistence.  This is ‘arrogance’ and arrogance usually goes with ignorance. The more we study the more we realized what we don’t know.  The more humble we become in our appreciation of the breadth and depth of knowledge
2. Bias.  Who is funding the information.  Commonly in discussions there is money somewhere. A drug dealer will commonly argue for decreased policing of drugs but won’t tell you he makes hundreds of thousands on drug trade. On the internet there are increasing numbers of trolls hired by various parties and marketing agencies. They commonly can be recognized by the nature of their arguments but more commonly they are known by their claim to impartiality.  Yet I can’t know this. At the university we demand increasingly that ‘conflicts of interest’ are declared.  The internet is a swamp of conflicts of interests. Many are just selling their books and their ideas.  Some may well be vampires looking for prey.  Bias is the norm.
3. Ad Hominem. This is the most common evidence that people are a ‘nut bar’.  Saying a person is a nut bar is an ad hominem’.  If they were discussing ‘nuts’ their being a nut bar might be beneficial. More importantly ad hominem refers to the attack on a person rather than their argument or position. This is increasingly seen with the bullying and psychopaths who promote “Identity Politics’.  They say ‘you are white’ so you can’t talk about ‘white matters’ or you are ‘black so you can’t talk about white matters’.  If you accept the base premises of “Identity Politics’ then ‘ad hominem’ is your whole argument.  “You are a woman so you can’t know”.  “You are a woman so you’re wrong.”  “You are a man so you are wrong’.  You are straight so you are wrong’.
4. Marxism and communism and paranoia.  These can be recognized as one in the same cognitively.  It’s a matter of identifying two groups, by vast generalization then labelling one or the other as good or bad.  It’s and ‘we and them” argument.  Jesus said “there are rich and poor’.  Marx wrongly said that this was the “Oppressor and Oppressed’.  He, himself a bourgeoisie, defined the world as paranoids do, into the dyadic, beugeosie and proletariat.  He himself was the most oppressive man who ever lived.  He was extremely offensive to his wife and children and those who supported him. But the fact is he was wrong.  The Scottish Socialist movement which began ‘unionism’ rather than communism’ maintained there were three classes in society, lower, middle and upper and that these were inter related with varying powers. The middle class was indeed the ‘guild movement’ which gave rise to professions and unions in the advanced societies of the western world. In the barbarism of communism like the mind of the paranoid everything is Opressed and Oppressor. It’s worth watching for this in any argument.  Marx was a revolutionary and wanted war seeing everything through his highly privileged viewpoint. Lenin who took Marx’s ideas and created a dictatorship with them was himself among the highest beugeosie and proceeded in killing millions as soon as he had power.  Indeed all communist government have been the greatest thieves and killers of all time, atheist murderers they invariably present this apparently rational argument of ‘oppressed and oppressor’, naming the two groups as ‘good and bad’ just like paranoids always do.  It’s very easy to spot these arguments once you are aware of the paranoid propaganda and the appeal this has to the immature, ignorant and marginalized. There is always someone who is indeed usually from the upper class who offers to ‘rescue’ these people apparently out of the goodness of their heart, all the while sprouting platitudes like Lenin did before he became the supreme dictator. It’s always worth it to recognize these arguments because the purveyors want ‘war’. The communists believed that only through war would they win. Hence the Beatles years ago writing that great song, “We don’t want a revolution’. All communists, all marxists revel in war.
5. Straw dog Arguments -  these are so common today.  The journalists never bother to listen to what others say but make up their own arguments.  If I were to say “I believe in a higher power’, the Main Stream Media journalist would write a 10 page article based on the ‘fake premise’, “Dr. Hay said he believes in Jehovah and wants to kill all non believes and gays and aboriginal and wants to have blacks as slaves.”  This is the most common discussion of presidents and prime ministers.
6.The world is going to end unless you believe me.  These are the other most common political arguments. Unfortunately the young are at greatest risk for falling for this argument. I believed the world was going to end in months and years because when I was 16 I was told Climate Change was going to kill the planet.  This ‘argument’ has been going on for 40 years of my adulthood in various forms and always there’s the caveat, pay me. So I’m jaded.  It happens to the old. We’ve heard these arguments for everyone to give politicians more money year after year and the world hasn’t ended.  There are marvellous papers that can be read about Millenial Madness and about the ‘world going to end’. Apparently it was being used as a political argument 500 years ago.  The best book on Fear Mongering is the Science of Fear by Daniel Gardner
7. All or nothing thinking - this is black and white thinking - it’s a variation on the paranoid….’either you’re with me or agin me.’  This was the Climate Change Lie  -calling their critics ‘deniers’ and ignoring that there’s a whole lot more grey areas than the black and white propositions of nutbars. The latest insanity of this sort was Justin Trudeau’s government’s proposal of “Islamophobia’.  This suggested that anyone who was a critique of the barbaric practices of Islamic religions and the Jihadist activities of Islamic terrorists was mentally ill. It’s an ‘either you’re with me or agin me’ argument and once you recognize this then you know that the proponent is a nut bar.  My method of research of fake news could be described as paranoid in this sense because I divide them quickly into ‘Nutbar or not a nut bar and maybe a nut bar”.   Notice the advanced ‘maybe’.
Piaget the great child psychologist found that children though ‘concretely’ into these ‘either or’ categories. It’s a bit like the computer which works on the digital of 0-1 versus the quantum computer which works on a 0 0/1 1 basis at least. Quite possibly the computer has due to it’s limited either or digital function limited the mental development of children to the next phase which Piaget described for adolescent and this is ‘abstract thinking’.  Research by Piaget was on his children and they had moved by adolescent from dyadic to triadic think with adolescences. However the great irony is that Piaget’s children were geniuses.  So when researchers took Piaget’s research and applied it to the adult general population they found that the majority of adults were simply not enlightened. They continued to think in concrete, either or, black and white terms well into their 30’s.  We ‘ve all seen that the young have delayed maturity and are staying home with their parents well into their 20’s .  Research by neuropsychologists shows that the brains development today continues well into 25.  Not surprisingly liberals and democrats have campaigned for reducing the electorate age to 16 because under 30 black and white thinking is so dominant and obviously it’s easiest to sell ‘us and them’ and ‘oppressed and oppressor ‘ to children.  Fiscal responsibility and karma and community values and such just don’t fly with the young but every 30 year old begins to appreciate the value of money as they are more and more paying for their activities and possessions.  Winston Churchill said that if you’re not a socialist at 20 you have no heart but if you’re not a capitalist at 40 you have no brains.  There simply is a middle way.  Confuscious and Buddha promoted this for one most religions, especially Christianity have recognized that there is a heaven and a hell and here’s the rub, an ‘in between’.  Most everything is grey and confusing as consequences.
Anyway I’ve got to go to work so these are just some thoughts. I have people telling to read something but I often don’t want to bother because I’ve heard the ‘music’ or the ‘flavour’ of these ‘arguments’ for decades’ and frankly I don’t like most RAPP music and am increasingly cautious about where I eat raw fish.  So I know all the diatribes about inclusion and diversity but these are ‘plattitudes’.
8. Platitudes are airy fairy marijuana drug talk - like ‘we should all love one another’.  Fine ‘lets love one another, now bend over.”  The key to understanding ‘platitudes’ is knowing that the devil is in the detail.  The whole idea of childish words like Lennon’s “give peace a chance’ is we all really want to but Lennon was a capitalist and didn’t want to share peace and his bed with anyone but the wealthy banker family ONO.  So a whole lot of platitudes fall apart when you ask to ‘operationalize them’. Show me don’t tell me.  What does love mean to you.  Ironically the longest lasting commune from the 60’s is this really mean spirited place in India where everyone is now paranoid because everyone got ripped off and now it’s next to impossible to get anyone to do things together for the community. There simply are takers and givers and those in between.

News is now entertainment and big money.  Click bait only to some.