Gobbledygook: Reality, Dreaming or Rubbish?

[explod]

I'm certain that you're not alone in your various sentiments.

Every time I peruse this forum now, I cannot help but notice the conspicuous absence of her daily posts and the ofttimes sagacious ways she delivered a dose of reality and prudence in places where it was needed.

As for your comments on the markets, there's certainly been some larger players getting caught out in recent years. The comparable paltry fines they receive when caught are hardly sufficient to deter continuance of such behaviour.

Yes Julia was a beautiful ray of sunshine on us all.

Agree in toto on the thrust of your post, but where to now?

Do we just close down and die, or can we pick something up for survival.

Noco, answers please??

 

[explod]

I used to follow the gold price by the hour as I do believe in the value of tangible things.

Top paintings are currently fetching record prices around the globe. This happened in 1976/78 and soon after the markets crashed and gold went from US$200 to $700 in a whisper.

In my view, because it is seen as the financial canary in the cage gold is being held down to a considerable degree.

However my point, the markets are no longer reflecting reality in my view so why bother watching.

Just party.

 

[cynic]

At some point reality will reassert itself and it won't be at all pretty when it happens. However, until then we might as well enjoy the party because we'll all be expected to pay for it sometime, irrespective of whether or not we partook in the financial exuberance.

 

[Craton]

Everyone is scared, and so am I.

Not only the financial world, but population and climate too,

Yeh,, ok

,, no answers...... only fear.

Cumoorn, some answers please.????

Or r we really fu cke.. d

Yep, we're all stuffed, more so now that we've lost Julia.

Finance, population, climate, fear, whatever, so what's new?

Nothings new so let's rehash some old news.

Those in power fear losing it so keep the average Joe from rising up and becoming equal, average Joe is kept hobbled by whatever means necessary, GST, CGT, taxes in general, war, warfare, war-mongering, financial distress and hardship, market "distortions", price manipulations, religious bias, hate, environmental degraduation, human inequality, doom and gloom is shouted from the highest vantage points for all the Joe's to hear, so yeah, situation normal...

 

[SirRumpole]

Those in power fear losing it so keep the average Joe from rising up and becoming equal, average Joe is kept hobbled by whatever means necessary, GST, CGT, taxes in general, war, warfare, war-mongering, financial distress and hardship, market "distortions", price manipulations, religious bias, hate, environmental degraduation, human inequality, doom and gloom is shouted from the highest vantage points for all the Joe's to hear, so yeah, situation normal...

But there has never been a better time to be an Australian !!!

:aus:

 

[luutzu]

But there has never been a better time to be an Australian !!!

:aus:

Might be some truth in that: What's a better place climbing up and out than when you've hit rock bottom? Or we're not there yet?

 

[SirRumpole]

Might be some truth in that: What's a better place climbing up and out than when you've hit rock bottom? Or we're not there yet?

In all honesty I think I would rather be here than just about anywhere else.

Other possibilities might include New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland and Norway/Sweden.

 

[explod]

Time to dust this thread off. Having been pretty crook since my prostate cancer situation 9 years back and the desertion of my wife from this loser a few years back I have shaked my head and starting to think again.

Now I am concerned about where society is going. Corruption and evil was mentioned by some on the political threads today, SO:-

Curruption and evil seems to be aided and abetted by Governments these days. Questions are arising on the war by western governments into Iraq. In fact we bomb the **** out of countries, we withdraw overseas aid that feeds people, and WONDER why they flee to safer havens. We then abuse and marginalise them.

Arms dealers flood war-torn Middle East with weapons and then lobby EU to militarize borders against refugees - profiting from both ends of the conflict. Money its about the money. Old man Rothschild used to provide finance and loans to both sides of major conflicts.

Someone said today the ALP is corrupt with its rant on Medicare, people are rightly scared of the big powers is why this had effect. On Friday night I set up bunting (in accordance with the Act. Done it for years) at a booth I was supervising for the Greens. On arrival at 7.30am Saturday it was gone. Replaced by CFA banners. Enquiries later revealed that it was Liberal Party members. They were caught on that night at another booth.

So who's honest

 

[explod]

Arr well, no answers since the last post. And I can blame no one. Could be mad, certainly stretched beyond all that we'd even thought about 50 years ago. But we have learned it was there in fact but hidden and unreported.

Change of Government in the Territory, but will that change the banks, will it help the poor, stop population growth.

Pouring another wine in my lone party to celebrate infinity. Get.......... d

That word may start with an R to ensure expansion.

 

[SirRumpole]

Another Conservative stronghold goes.

WA next ? March 2017 is the date.

But as you say, nothing much changes regardless of who is in. Politics is just a game that parties play.

 

[explod]

Another Conservative stronghold goes.

WA next ? March 2017 is the date.

But as you say, nothing much changes regardless of who is in. Politics is just a game that parties play.

Yes we (and thanks for posting) are concerned. Till now felt my efforts within my own political circle could help. However as you say, its a game and even the obviouse (political identities) players have no say or control.

Does GO really start from death, defeat or capitulation. Do we have to concede to "the survival of the fittest".

Who will or can take a stand and where is the light. I will not stop trying and currently working on a Candidate's media profile for Bendigo Council elections coming up.

 

[qldfrog]

Hi Explod,
a bit of a late night thinking, not that happy , after what i hope was a good bottle of wine;
Reality is harsh, and I do not like it much either; people in the western world are chasing pokemon, watching brain killing TV or for the new generation sending pictures of their so perfect photoshoped life on instagram/snapchat.
If on that side of the political party, do you really have to be happy with a NT labour win?
Not to destroy your mood further , but the win will be caused by another promise of free money, no effort, give me more to an electorate who has no more political conviction, nor critical thinking or desire of a common good;
a nation of welfare takers be they on the dole, in a "union" for the "left" or sucking 6 figures from deals borderlining corruption, protecting their NG when not directly involved in sucking the political system on the right.
I am afraid Sir Rumpole that replacing one rotten branch with another one of a different colour does not really make a difference.I now think that only severe crisis can readjust values and priorities; and i am getting more and more afraid of what it will be; the GFC was a good opportunity , but reserve banks actions have pushed back the issue while increasing the risks and now the problem is bigger;
A much older entry here by Cynic shocked me by its concise truth:"At some point reality will reassert itself and it won't be at all pretty when it happens. However, until then we might as well enjoy the party because we'll all be expected to pay for it sometime, irrespective of whether or not we partook in the financial exuberance. " and financial is probably too restrictive
not a mood lifting post, but the sun was bright and the surf good in Mooloolaba yesterday

 

[Tisme]

I'm about to walk down to my local, so I'm not in dreaming mode yet, but I will offer the idea to out disenchanted friend that an angry heart makes for few friends and worse: zip intimacy.

Since the Liberal Party and the Labor Party became compromised by a religion in the 1990's parliament has become a traditional Holy Roman Empiresque fight between St Patricks and St Pauls. IMO the only way back is to devolve back to the Church of England's invention of separation of powers.

 

[wayneL]

I'm about to walk down to my local, so I'm not in dreaming mode yet, but I will offer the idea to out disenchanted friend that an angry heart makes for few friends and worse: zip intimacy.

Since the Liberal Party and the Labor Party became compromised by a religion in the 1990's parliament has become a traditional Holy Roman Empiresque fight between St Patricks and St Pauls. IMO the only way back is to devolve back to the Church of England's invention of separation of powers.

I have been thinking the same, Tisyou. A principle that seems to have been forgotten and nary mentioned these days.

 

[explod]

Constructive recent posts above.

But in the words of Rod Taylor (welcome to Whoop Whoop) I express "hunken.......... doolah" our Parliamenrt today began with both principal leaders praying to God.

The the witch doctor is back in control and we can now act on beliefs and kick out the facts.

 

[explod]

I'm pretty much with you here, Logique. Also feel a vague need for a translation from the so far impressively esoteric nature of the exchange between explod and gg.
However, happy to see it continue in the interests of elevating the intellectual content of ASF!


OK, this was my objection, and perhaps I was being a bit cranky. I appreciate that the term is widely applied to people generically.
I just hate being addressed thus: largely because (a) it just seems thoughtless and lazy, and (b) because it's yet another Americanism that Australians seem to have embraced.

We used to say 'programme', now everywhere it's 'program'. Much of this alteration to our version of English I accept as inevitable, but being addressed as a 'guy' is something that I just dislike intensely. But probably I have to just suck it up, as the current idiom suggests.

On the thread topic, one of the obvious problems of communicating via printed screens is that we don't have the benefit of vocal tone, and facial expressions, along with body language. We all have different interpretative styles. Mine is regrettably literal, so often I don't pick it up when someone is meaning to be funny.

I'll always respect genuinely expressed comments on ASF, whether I agree with the sentiment or not. What does stifle debate, however, is the post that simply seeks to disrupt or ridicule discussion. That's what I believe has driven many of our old and excellent members away.

Good topic to raise: thanks, explod.

I love the last paragraph of Julia's here. It says so much of where we are and in realising that, feel we are today, very lost.

 

[explod]

Sorry I could not show that Last para of Julia's. Read down, its well worth it. What a wonderful girlnwe lost. However lets dig into this meaning of who we are and where we may go.

 

[basilio]

I was wondering here to put this story and perhaps this thread is the right spot.
Could you imagine being part of a three year performance art installation where you are living in a 1930's/1950's Soviet research laboratory ?

Check this out and think about about booking your tickets for the premiere..

Stalinist Truman Show: artist paid 400 people to live as Soviet citizens
Participants lived in replica Stalin-era research institute as part of three-year art project

Mark Brown, arts correspondent

Fri 31 Aug 2018 22.18 AEST Last modified on Mon 3 Sep 2018 21.44 AEST

This article is over 4 months old
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A still of Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s film Dau. Photograph: Jorg Gruber/Phenomen IP, 2018
In an art project that has been compared to The Truman Show, Big Brother and the Charlie Kaufman film Synecdoche, New York, a Russian artist has paid 400 people to live for three years in a fictional but functioning Stalin-era research institute.

In an experiment long anticipated in the film and art worlds but confirmed by the Guardian on Friday, Ilya Khrzhanovsky created an institute of theoretical physics in eastern Ukraine modelled on the shadowy facilities which existed in the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Inside it were more than 400 real people, who relived 30 years of the Soviet experience in three years between 2008-11, eating the same food, wearing the same clothes, and obeying the same rules as Soviet citizens would have.

People fell in and out of love, conceived 14 children, formed friendships and made enemies, according to executive producer Martine d’Anglejan-Chatillon.




Two participants in the model Soviet-era research facility. Photograph: Volker Glaeser/Phenomen IP, 2018
Khrzhanovsky used the story of Soviet physicist Lev Landau – whose nickname also provided the project’s title, DAU – as the basis for his fictional world. “It is really to show how people are, it is not particular to that culture or that time,” says d’Anglejan-Chatillon. “It is about looking at what human nature is capable of, under a microscope, and the capacity for beauty and intellect and optimism and change or a capacity for the opposite.

“In a way what Ilya created was an encyclopaedia of human relationships and human nature and how things develop over time in people.”

It has been a sprawling project shrouded in secrecy. Very few journalists have ever been given access. One who was, Michael Idov, wrote a piece for GQ in 2011 headlined The Movie Set That Ate Itself, describing Khrzhanovsky as “unhinged”.

James Meek, a novelist and former Guardian Moscow correspondent, was in 2015 invited to a building on Piccadilly where Khrzhanovsky has spent years pulling the project together. He wrote a piece for the London Review of Books in which he said “I felt I’d crossed a membrane into another medium.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...st-paid-400-people-to-live-as-soviet-citizens

 

[basilio]

The launch of Dau will be held in Paris from Jan 24 to Feb 17th. Sounds like a surreal experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dau_(film)

 

[basilio]

Found this story on the production of Dau

Just so , so crazy. But then sometimes the most brilliant ideas and the most brilliant people are crazy.
Well worth a read (IMO) to expand one's knowledge of the film director and his world..

The Movie Set That Ate Itself
By
Michael Idov
Photographs by
Sergey Maximishin
October 27, 2011

Five years ago, a relatively unknown (and unhinged) director began one of the wildest experiments in film history. Armed with total creative control, he invaded a Ukrainian city, marshaled a cast of thousands and thousands, and constructed a totalitarian society in which the cameras are always rolling and the actors never go home.

The rumors started seeping out of Ukraine about three years ago: A young Russian film director has holed up on the outskirts of Kharkov, a town of 1.4 million in the country's east, making...something. A movie, sure, but not just that. If the gossip was to be believed, this was the most expansive, complicated, all-consuming film project ever attempted.

A steady stream of former extras and fired PAs talked of the shoot in terms usually reserved for survivalist camps. The director, Ilya Khrzhanovsky, was a madman who forced the crew to dress in Stalin-era clothes, fed them Soviet food out of cans and tins, and paid them in Soviet money. Others said the project was a cult and everyone involved worked for free. Khrzhanovsky had taken over all of Kharkov, they said, shutting down the airport. No, no, others insisted, the entire thing was a prison experiment, perhaps filmed surreptitiously by hidden cameras. Film critic Stanislav Zelvensky blogged that he expected "heads on spikes" around the encampment.

I have ample time and incentive to rerun these snatches of gossip in my head as my rickety Saab prop plane makes its jittery approach to Kharkov. Another terrible minute later, it's rolling down an overgrown airfield between rusting husks of Aeroflot planes grounded by the empire's fall. The airport isn't much, but at least it hasn't been taken over by the film. And while my cab driver knows all about the shoot—the production borrowed his friend's vintage car, he brags without prompting—he doesn't seem to be in the director's thrall or employ.

I'm about to write the rumors off as idle blog chatter when I get to the film's compound itself and, again, find myself ready to believe anything. The set, seen from the outside, is an enormous wooden box jutting directly out of a three-story brick building that houses the film's vast offices, workshops, and prop warehouses. The wardrobe department alone takes up the entire basement. Here, a pair of twins order me out of my clothes and into a 1950s three-piece suit complete with sock garters, pants that go up to the navel, a fedora, two bricklike brown shoes, an undershirt, and bors. Black, itchy, and unspeakably ugly, the underwear is enough to trigger Proustian recall of the worst kind in anyone who's spent any time in the USSR. (I lived in Latvia through high school.) Seventy years of quotidian misery held with one waistband.

The twins, Olya and Lena, see nothing unusual about this hazing ritual for a reporter who's not going to appear in a single shot of the film—just like they see nothing unusual in the fact that the cameras haven't rolled for more than a month. After all, the film, tentatively titled Dau, has been in production since 2006 and won't wrap until 2012, if ever. But within the walls of the set, for the 300 people working on the project—including the fifty or so who live in costume, in character—there is no difference between "on" and "off."
https://www.gq.com/story/movie-set-that-ate-itself-dau-ilya-khrzhanovsky