Just a movienote

Nothing to say. Too overwhelmed.

Last night we watched The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) directed by Ernst Lubitsch. I loved this as well; his last few films have greatly appealed to me.

imperial recollection & the influence of a fan

i am reminded of that episode of star wars where the empire sends its stormtroopers to harass a planet and then the population of cubby bears that dwell on that planet schedule a peaceful march of resistance but then the empire uses its weather weapon to plunge that planet into an ice age however the natives do their march anyway but ultimately the empire shoots out a laser beam from its death star which annihilates that planet

in unrelated news last night we watched another movie that i loved by ernst lubitsch called lady windermeres fan the ending made me cry and laugh

coldday warmmovie

wow it is freezing negative one hundred thousand degrees the local environment looks like traditional xian heaven because all is dead white but that is the outdoor news now here is the indoor news we are still following the filmography of ernst lubitsch last night we watched so this is paris (1926) i loved it especially the moral

scary movie

Last night watched Cold Case Hammarskjöld (2019) and was spellbound and terrified. How can people take this world! I cannot even stand to HEAR about this world. Plus I am so paranoid and pessimistic that once the film was over I thought to myself: And what if this too is just the smallest fraction of the truth, the tip of the iceberg, which the Powers that Be permitted to reach the masses so as to forestall further questioning?

Good Book

The printer finally got me the first physical copies of my Bible. Now all I need to do is destory all the copies of every other Bible in existence, and I will have won the game of religion.

what is my hangup

why am i so different from others why am i so cold and contrary why do i so intensely dislike the way things are

perhaps others share my initial repulsion but they push it down and resign themselves to accept the world

why am i unwilling to compromise why so stubborn

icy opining

very cold day not just freezing but negative on the eff scale i really like the word subzero last night we watched the film thelonious monk straight no chaser it is remarkable how similar he and i look we are practically identical i love his work it made me miss the days of jazz so i began wondering how jazz died some would say jazz is not dead but jazz seems less than alive nowadays it has at least fallen asleep my theory is as follows the same technology that made jazz possible also brought about its demise because the advent of recording equipment was necessary for jazz to bud since it is all about capturing these individual virtuoso performances yet you also need clubs that will provide a place for musicians to play so that they can develop their genius sorta like how standup comedians work live crowds for a span and then deliver the material refined therefrom in a recorded special but returning to jazz once this technology was in place to allow for the preserving of performances all the live clubs stopped employing human musicians and instead installed sound systems to pump music thru electronic speakers therefore prerecorded productions overthrew the live culture however i have also heard that bebop sank the jazz ship because bebop was not danceable and if you look at the people in the audience this seems to be true for they are calmly sitting at their tables smoking cigarettes not on their feet moving i myself love danceable jazz every bit as much as bebop (the way that i dance works for both i just spin around slowly) i even love what some call white jazz or swing jazz the smooth easy listening big band jazz all shades and hues are desirable to me i judge genres of music the same way that i judge people not by their color but by the content of their character and boy o boy do i judge them harshly

upward spiral

last night we watched the film three women by ernst lubitsch . . . debtors & creditors; love & marriage . . . since debt & marriage are just fantasy games that the creditors invented to sieze & hold power, all that remains is love . . . but will there be no more stories, when love reigns supreme? no, the world will have only been freed from falling action: life will be a sustained climax, forever increasing.

seventeenth of janus

much snow fell last night we watched the forbidden room (2015) where we learned that the month of january is named after the god of transitions

Just a film no time for more

Last night we watched The Panama Deception, a 1992 documentary about the U.S. invasion of Panama. I have no time to write, so I'll just copy a couple snippets from the AFI catalog.

The film was banned for a time in Panama . . . and the U.S. Public Broacasting Service refused to air the film.

Synopsis:

The United States' 1989 invasion of Panama is explored, putting forward the notion that the true reason for the invasion was not alleged drug dealing by Nicaraguan strong man Manuel Noriega, but the George H. W. Bush Administration's desire to cancel President Jimmy Carter's ceding of the Canal Zone to Panama.

And the following is from a Wikipedia entry.

[The military action was codenamed] Operation Just Cause by the Pentagon to sustain the perceived legitimacy of the invasion. General Colin Powell said that he liked the name because "even our severest critics would have to utter 'Just Cause' while denouncing us." Critics, however, renamed it Operation "Just 'Cuz," arguing that it had been undertaken "just [be]cause Bush felt like it."

The U.S. government invoked self-defense as a legal justification for the invasion.

A thot and a film, each followed by a quote

[Both quotes are from Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell.]

Thot

One says, “I care deeply about my children.” Another says, “I care deeply about all children.”

One says, “I love my fellow countrymen.” Another says, “I love all people, no matter what country they’re from.” And yet another says, “I love all life.”

For every thing that lives is Holy.

---

Film

Last night we watched Judas and the Black Messiah (2021). I was very moved; I admired it deeply. My first thought was: “I can’t believe the Powers that Be allowed this to exist.” My next thought was: “But they probably see it as a warning to all who might try to rise against barbarity.” For that reason, I was left as depressed as I was impressed.

One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression.

If I was a married woman

If I was a married woman, I would leave my wife at home alone and go visit my best friend, who is also a married woman. Then when my best friend leaves the room, I would seduce her wife. Meanwhile, my own wife would secretly trail me, so she would end up at the address of my best friend too. After watching me enter the building, my own wife would then sneak around to the back and try to open a window. So, while I am in the front room seducing my best friend’s wife, my best friend will be in the adjacent bedroom watching my own wife climb thru the window. My wife will then seduce my best friend. At that point, all of us married women will happen to catch each other in the arms of each other’s wives: this will be grounds for divorce. We will therefore all get divorced. Once our divorces are finalized, however, we will realize that we all still love each other, so we will continue to spend time together, dining regularly as a family and eventually moving into the same house. At last, we will hire four private investigators and command each sleuth separately, unbeknownst to the rest, to spy on all the other detectives, and that shall provide our entertainment.

last nights meeting

last night when i was in a meeting with a cartel of international businessmen one of these bigwigs stood up and gave a speech he said gentlemen consider the following honestly would you rather have a wife or a prostitute now think about it a wife you must provide for all the rest of your life but a prostitute you pay for only an hour of her time

this man then explained that his point was not about women but about labor because the place where we businessmen had gathered for our meeting was an island whose inhabitants were our slaves the bigwig submitted that we businessmen should end slavery and switch to a system of wage labor for the same reason that it is cheaper to buy a prostitute than a wife

i thought this was puzzling i had never encountered this argument i stood up and said but sir we can treat our slaves however we please whereas a hired worker will demand various rights

the bigwig answered what is our goal to make a profit or to abuse subhumans moreover he said beware if we do not set them free then soon these slaves will become our masters or worse our executioners

this frightened the rest of the international businessmen so they all agreed to abolish slavery but i was stubborn i voted against it then having lost i gathered my slaves and moved to another island i also took with me all those mens wives

two thots and a talkie

thot 1

if i could find the place where all the honor in the world is, i would pour colored dye in there. that way i could make out all the honorable people just by looking at them, because they would turn bright blue, and i could avoid them

thot 2

it is easy to perform surgical operations on your patients, but hard to do so on yourself. when operating on a body other than your own, you use a combination of gases and injections to induce a sleeplike state in the subject, then make an incision and rearrange the internal organs. but to operate on yourself, you first must administer the general anesthetic, then while in the state of slumber you need to remain sharp witted enough to complete the entire procedure, and apply adequate pressure to stop any hemorrhaging

talkie

and just for the record yestereven we watched the last movie in the filmography of charlie chaplin hooray now we are done. this final film was titled a countess from hong kong but it might as well have been called people repeatedly scared by buzzing doorbell because it was two straight hours of that (the main characters are a man and a woman who end up sharing the same cabin on a boat however for the sake of propriety they cannot be seen together therefore every potential visitor terrifies them and this happens over and over no matter what they happen to be doing whenever they hear the doorbell buzz they both bolt up in panic and the woman must hide)

a thot a film and a rant

back in the days before television, i would listen to a voice on the radio for years without ever seeing the man; then when i finally met this speaker in reality, his appearance surprised me: his face did not match that familiar voice, the combo clashed. now, in the days of silent cinema, i watch movie after movie starring my favorite movie stars, without ever once hearing them speak; so, when talkie pictures are invented, i will be shocked to hear the voices of my favorite actors: they will seem incongruous, incommensurate. thus, voice and visage are not a fusion but an emulsion, or rather they are a jarring collage, like those egyptian gods that pair human bodies with heads of beasts

last night we watched the first of the last two films by charlie chaplin: a king in new york. it was not as painful as limelight, but it does not have the magic of all his feature films from the kid to the great dictator (i also would include monsieur verdoux) i like the idea of making a u.s. film depicting europe, as he did so often, and then turning around and making a film about new york produced completely in london. i also like that chaplin pokes so much fun at the united states for its anticommunist paranoia this country deserves to be teased for that relentlessly as well as for many other things

lastly a word on the recent holiday season (i wrote the following when i was furious about it yesterday but in the meantime i have calmed down nonetheless i will share the thoughts that i roared during my fit for the sake of honesty the only edit i allowed myself to make to the tirade is that anywhere i had written the word fuck i changed it to the word annihilate so as not to cause offence now i close this parenthesis and open the complaint) all i want is stability in my daily life so that i can ignite wildfires in the mind but this christmas season has been the worst unstable nightmare i say annihilate christmas i have not had a single moment of stability in the whole month surrounding this evil holiday this unholy day of waste i hate mammon worshiping antichrists who pose as angels of light but turn everything into hell i repeat annihilate christmas i vow to avoid christmas entirely next year my heart is for the spirit of giving and friendship not christmas annihilate christmas

cc

almost finished with the filmography of charlie chaplin i have enjoyed his famous titles over and over but never till now have i gone back to the beginning and watched all his myriad early shorts so a little while ago i decided to check them all out i started at the beginning and screened everything that was available now here is my verdict i like only a few moments or pictures from the zillion movies he made before THE KID but i like THE KID and then i really like A WOMAN IN PARIS and everything up to 1947 especially CITY LIGHTS and MODERN TIMES and THE GREAT DICTATOR i also admire MONSIEUR VERDOUX but last night i screened LIMELIGHT and as much as i wanted to like it i just could not although it is interesting it does not give pleasure this was my second time watching it by the way so i am not just being impatiently dismissive now i have two chaplin films left to view and both are british productions yuck but i will give them a chance and try to keep an open mind

A holiday message to my subscribers

Dear [Name],

I hope this finds you enjoying the horror show.

2025 has been quite a year in blogging — lousy, awful, and continuously depressing. Thru it all, my experience as a blog dealer, combined with your unfortunate state as a blog abuser, leaves me with zero care to say more.

Looking ahead to 2026, I’m hearing discouraging sounds from my demons: they’re predicting high rates of audience apathy, mediocre ideas, and a sharp increase in offensive language.

Yes, it’s bad, and it’s only going to get worse. So, I thank you for making the poor judgment to postpone cancelling me.

With deepest condolences,
Bryan Ray

more walkin and watchin

my midnight walk was pretty because the streets were covered with the thinnest layer of frost so when i shined my flashlight on the path ahead the snow crystals twinkled

still following the works of ernst lubitsch last night we watched what remains of the film that is known as the loves of pharaoh i wonder why directors make movies about ancient egypt and i wonder what modern egyptians think of them

taking my exercise

tried to walk in the ice rain early this morning but the streets were so slippery that i just kept gliding everywhere what a thrill

two bits

found a smarter way to use money i was wrapping all my drugs in hundred dollar bills to smoke them but now i just roll one bill in the shape of a straw and sniff snowflakes in wintertime also last night we watched monsieur verdoux another movie by chaplin i had seen it a while ago and didnt love it then but this time i loved it my only complaint is that he didnt berate the priest enough at the end just think how great this film would be if he blasted that priest with a fiery speech like the one he gave hitler