Infinite Jest

In another Variety Actors on Actors video, Bryan Cranston and Jason Segel discuss the characters they play in their latest film's - Trumbo and The End of the Tour.

Cranston's movie is based on the prolific screenwriter Donald Trumbo who was one of many 'blacklisted' by Hollywood establishments through the 40's and 50's for being a communist. It's a compelling story told in a humorous and flamboyant way. I thought it would be hard to look at Cranston and not see Walter White, but Trumbo and White couldn't be more different and he plays them both so well.

Segel plays David Foster Wallace, an American author and professor of English and creative writing who is widely known for his novel Infinite Jest (need to read this). The film sees Rolling Stones writer David Lipsky (played by Jesse Eisenberg) dismayed to hear about the death of David Foster Wallace, it follows their intimate and insightful relationship before his death. Love Jesse Eisenberg & Jason Segel - so refreshing to see him in this role.

This clip is so worth the watch, two legends conversing. A conversation I'd like to have been a part of:

The Great Dictator

"I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. .....Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!" - Charlie Chaplin, 'The Great Dictator'.

GURLPOWER

Bye bye Bowie

David Bowie has left this world today. We mourn, deflated - to think that one of our greats has been taken, far too early, by cancer. At least he was here and he did what he did. 

While the mortal him is no more, the spirit of Bowie lives on.

Some quotes to remember him with, courtesy of International Business Times:

"I really had a hunger to experience everything that life had to offer, from the opium den to whatever. And I think I have done just about everything that it's possible to do" – interview with The Telegraph

"I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. I felt very puny as a human. I thought, "F**k that. I want to be a superhuman'"

"Fame, it's not your brain, it's just the flame / That burns your change to keep you insane" – Fame lyrics

"I'm not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I'm living on" – Quicksand lyrics

"We spent endless hours talking about fame, and what it's like not having a life of your own any more. How much you want to be known before you are, and then when you are, how much you want the reverse" – recalling his conversation with The Beatles singer John Lennon to Time Out

"I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants" – interview with Q magazine in 1990

"To not be modest about it, you'll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I've worked with have done their best work by far with me" – interview with Livewire's One On One

"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring" – to his audience at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1998

"The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time"

Winter

“The English winter - ending in July to recommence in August” - Lord Byron


Finn and I still haven't quite adapted to the dark mornings.





Bolt and bar the shutter,
For the foul winds blow:
Our minds are at their best this night,
And I seem to know
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist and snow.

Horace there by Homer stands,
Plato stands below,
And here is Tully's open page.
How many years ago
Were you and I unlettered lads
Mad as the mist and snow?

You ask what makes me sigh, old friend,
What makes me shudder so?
I shudder and I sigh to think
That even Cicero
And many-minded Homer were
Mad as the mist and snow.

- W B Yeats

Truthfully I love winter; crisp sunny mornings, frost on the grass that sends dogs crazy, open fires, an extra blanket on the bed, rosy cheeks and noses, Christmas. 

It's a beautiful thing to watch the seasons change in nature if you bother to stop and notice it.