Books

Having finally finished Don Watson's marvellous Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, I have moved on to John Baxter's insightful and funny Stanley Kubrick:  A Biography.  The Year of the Biography is going well, though I have been tempted by some friends to get back on the crime fiction and scifi bandwagon.  So far, I stand firm...

Brilliant, if a little long, Don Watson's book is well worth the read - especially if you are a fan of the good old days when parliamentarians could string a sentence together...

There are two quotes attributed to Kubrick that I have always loved, and that have made me interested in the character of the film maker.  The first, 

 "Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all,"

is so very obvious, and in a sense, zen, that it's kind of like the old parable of the priest and the acolyte discussing the nature of reality.  The acolyte, attempting to come to grips with this, says to his teacher, "At last!  I understand!  There IS no reality!"  The priest, disgusted with his student's attempt at existentialism, slaps the young man hard in the face and says, "Then there is no pain!"  It's kind of like a "duh!" moment, which is really what (as far as I can gather, anyway) what zen is all about.  The second quote is one that characterises my own reckless and impulsive motto for living:

Brilliant, eccentric, and (unfortunately) gone.

" If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered." (Bold added.)  

That is, you better be careful when talking bullshit.  Ha ha!

These insights, and his films (obviously) make him a fascinating character, and his works The Shining and Full Metal Jacket are amongst my favourites.  As crazy as these auteurs usually are, or at least seem, they add to the wealth of human culture, and their value is incalculable.

New Year's Dedication

I have deliberately avoided the word "resolution" in this entry's title, lest I succumb (like those recalcitrant and sham nations the world over who do so to the decisive declarations passed by the United Nations - think Ba'athist Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Israel as a start...) to not taking it seriously at all.

The beginning of a new year is symbolic of life's cycles, significant only, of course, to those who decide it is, but allows us - at least the people that follow the Gregorian calendar - an opportunity to pause, analyse, reassess and then make provision for the coming twelve months. I choose to do so thus:

• I refuse to allow my fucking back with it's two herniated discs to dictate to me what I can and can't do.  I will not bow to the false god Sciatica.

• I have determined that 2011 is the Year of the Memoir.  Therefore, this year I will read no work of fiction other than that manufactured (as deliberate deception or otherwise) by auto- or biography.   I have begun with Christopher Hitchens' Hitch-22, and am now on Don Watson's Recollections of a Bleeding Heart.  There are some that I will revisit, namely Karen de Young's excellent biography of Colin Powell, Soldier:  The Life of Colin Powell, and Ghandi's The Story of My Experiments With Truth.  There are others that are on my list, like Bill Clinton's autobiography (surprising that it is simply titled My Life), Keith Richards' ghostwritten tome, Life, and, heaven help me, John Howard's intimidating and impudently titled Lazarus Rising and George W Bush's Decision Points (goddammit, he's done it again - what the fuck is a 'decision point'?).  Any other suggestions are appreciated, but I would ask you to refrain from suggesting anything like the fraudulent Pentateuch or any other such religious fabrications - and the Forum section in Penthouse magazine, as tantalizing and provocative that it may be, doesn't qualify either!

That's it.  Just the two things.  Should be easy enough, eh?  I have spared myself the more predictable "I'm going to do X amount of charity work this year" and "I'm going to swear less" and "I'm going to have more sex" and "I'm going to be a better father" and so on.  These are the kinds of  throw-away and churlish resolutions that I feel cheapen the endeavour of bettering oneself.  One should be doing that kind of thing anyway, without having to declare it - the racist, stereotypical, Judean view of the Philistines of the New Testament come to mind (pardon the religious metaphor).

So now it's January 13th, let's get on with it!