Fin

The Ghost of Xmas Yet to Come (John Leech)

Very few people contemplate the notion of what it means to no longer to be. For all its simplicity, it's fundamentally inconceivable to entertain the notion of non-existence. Heidegger said that you can't live an authentic existence unless you're aware of death. It's one thing to admit that there will be a day when there's no calendar, no night, no day, no worrying about the fate of everyone in your orbit. It will no longer matter what you think about outcomes, that you toss and turn about as long as you have consciousness. There are cases of individuals who flatline and live to tell it, but a touch of death,  whether it's the heart stopping beating or the respiratory system intermittently collapsing, is a far cry from the eternity of death. You may have experienced forgetting, for a moment, that someone is dead. Oh what would she think? Only to realize she or he is no more. Perhaps you can't stop  yourself from thinking you yourself will get one last chance to call collect.

The World Is Not Enough

"To Be Is To Be Perceived," esse est percipi, the quote from Bishop Berkeley acts as the epigram for Samuel Beckett's only movie, Film (1965), starring Buster Keaton. Tomorrow Never Dies (l997), The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002) are the titles of some Pierce Brosnans. But contemplate Buster Keaton as one in the series of James Bond incarnations. To Be Is To Be Perceived fits right in with The World Is Not Enough (and is also reminiscent of the first proposition of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, "the world is everything that is the case") but there are some differences. The World Is Not Enough begins with Pierce Brosnan fencing off with a Swiss banker at an office in Bilbao, Spain. The Guggenheim is visible right out the window in the first scene. Three guns are turned on him, but he manages to vanquish his assailants only in time to see a red laser dot scanning his body. It's a gun pointed at him by a beauty in a speedboat. Brosnan grabs a specially equipped Jet Ski, all in the service of returning a cache of pounds sterling to its rightful owner. Of course the money's been dusted with explosive. Compare that with Keaton encountering his image in a mirror. You may not be able to take your eyes off him, though he's plainly unable to take his eyes off himself, for fear his solipsistic world will disappear. How do you like them apples?

Emoluments

Senator Dan Sullivan and Trump

The emoluments clauses of the constitution are under attack is an understatement. The context is one in which almost all the protections inherent in legislative government have either been ignored or diminished. What about the separation of the executive and the judiciary. Todd Blanche recently described himself as Trump's lawyer. What's even more upsetting however is the willingness of the administration (under the Unitary Executive Theory) to openly defy courts. This has been demonstrated in numerous immigration cases as only one example. The ideologizing of The Supreme Court is perhaps the most disconcerting of all the abrogations, with Justices Alito and Thomas providing a rubber stamp on nearly every Trump filing. Notions like due process and a bill of rights, central to the democratic ideal are laid by the wayside on an almost daily basis. The Iran War, the Cuba embargo, the Venezuela coup, even the  renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario, humorous sallies with a barely concealed threat, all make one fearful of how a possible Democratic victory in the midterms will  be treated. The DOJ has already filed a preemptive suit in Alaska perpetrating the. bizarre idea that the election results will only be bona fide if the Republican, Dan Sullivan, wins.

Grantchester!!!!!!!!!!

 Grantchester is the best thing you will ever seen on TV.  It may be the best piece of art you'll ever encounter, comparable to say "The Night Watch" or Jackson Pollock's Autumn Rhythm Number #2 (the centerpiece of the current Krasner/Pollock show at the Met). Who the fuck is writing these scripts? Based on the James Runcie mystery novels, they are, indeed, Dickensian in quality. Like Great Expectations and David Copperfield, they're tear jerkers. But so what? As someone once said about brainwashing, sometimes your brain needs to be washed. Al Weaver is the gay student priest, James Norton, Sidney Chambers, the jazz loving Vicar and Robson Green, Geordie, the local gendarme.  In one episode, there's a new high-up in the church, an African intellectual,  who's taken the place of a disgraced pederast. He's all for tending to the gay, as if they were the wretched of the earth, but the clergy must be powers of example. It's a shocking scene, not particularly due to content. Nothing new, but simply the lines and how it's played out. It's hard to believe that it wasn't until l967 that homosexuality was decriminalized in England, but there's lots more, including a powerful scene where Amanda's (Morven Christie's) borish husband unexpectedly shows sentimentality and contrition--a mea culpa that further complicates Sidney's already guilt ridden existence. Then of course there's the matter of the church's sanctions about a priest marrying a divorced woman and Georgie's s affair. Just when you think all the strands have been neatly tied up in a homogenized misery, you're caught off guard. You may feel drained, say in the way you felt after experiencing Olivier playing James Tyrone in Long Day's Journey. What comes next. What happens next? Back in the day the chapters would appear in All Year Round, Dickens' weekly literary journal.

Basis Points

Sahara ultramarathon

There are very few basis points to describe that portion of the demographic which is about to change their habits at 80.  If you have always been a free diver who makes his catches with a knife, you're not suddenly going to enroll at in the aqualung class at the Y.  On the other hand, if you were an ultramarathoner at 40, you're more likely to sign up for the equivalent competition in a rocker or hammock. Picasso and Pacino are the kinds of males who are sexually active late in life. Who knows what's really the truth, since there are few focus groups which render such demographics. Anomalies are themselves  statistically significant, depending on which way you look at them. No matter what, accommodation, in fact, does not come easily.

Read "The Great Bonac Footrace of '83" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Counting

Buddha preaching first sermon from Sarnath 

Counting breaths are one way to get to sleep. You can also use sheep. How many days until Election Day, at this crucial moment. At the same time, are you someone who wants to get everything over with--even the good things? How long has it been since you have not wanted something to end? The Endless Summer (1966) is the famous surfing movie. The reverse of waiting for progression is getting lost in the present. The latter, being in the now, is Zen. "Do" means path in Eastern philosophy. Essentially it's a path into the self, rather than a form of displacement in space/time.

Perseverance Rover

 

Perseverance Rover

Eternal life is a Malthusian problem Where to put everyone? Of course, the invention of a magic elixir will undoubtedly be accompanied by the kind of vehicles that can negotiate cracks in time. Kepler planets 1200 light years from earth will no longer be out of the reach for the average space traveler, The title of Alfred Bester's classic, The Stars My Destination says it all.  On October 11th, NASA's Perseverance Rover set a record by traversing 28.1 miles through the Martian Jezero Crater. Puny stuff when you look at dark matter and dark energy, on which some space cowboys are likely to hitch a ride. But will immortality bring back the dead? It would pose another real estate issue, if it weren't for the fact there are billions of galaxies. Getting to the Hamptons on 4th of July weekend takes forever, but who cares when you have all the time in the world?