Waiting For The Next Wave

History is a funny thing. It lays out our past in a timeline filled with interesting peaks and valleys. Valleys would indicate wars, famines, plagues and such, which mire such a timeline with great consistency.

Whereas the peaks strike me as far more intermittent...and extraordinary. They figuratively plow the road for a perceived gradual progression. Perhaps that perception of consistency is misleading.

One of my favourite movies is The Barbarian Invasions and in it there is a scene that illustrates my point on these epiphanies.

It appears mankind’s peaks are Punctuated Equilibrium to Darwinian Evolution, which is to say apparent sudden changes happen that greatly benefit the species. To the species as a whole they appear gradual however to an individual mortal wearing its monkey suit for 80+ years, they appear dramatic and sporadic.

The movie puts forth the notion that revelatory intelligence is not consistent and gradual from the human perspective, but rather intermittently bold and supported by a national collective.

This is a fascinating premise.

There are seemingly great expanses of time that nothing much changes. History is besieged with these periods of malaise as mankind rides along on the shoulders of past giants until...boom. Brilliance once again reveals itself in very defined pockets.

Here are some examples elucidated in the movie.

416 BC Euripides premiers his “Electra”. Two rivals attend, Sophocles and Aristophanes as well as two friends, Socrates and Plato. Quite a gathering of intelligence in one spot at one time in history. Philosophy is born.

1504 Palazzo Vecchio on facing walls were two painters: Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Also present was an apprentice named Raffaello and a manager Niccolo Machiavelli. Art and the art of power undertake a transformation.

1776-1787 Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton and Madison. These men crafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution giving rise to the most powerful nation on earth.

There are many more example of these pockets of surprising brilliance. Shakespeare and Marlowe. Galileo and Kepler. Descartes and Pascal. Nietzsche and Strauss. Edison and Ford.

However I feel we are currently in the doldrums.

When I was a small boy, Epcot Center at Disney World offered us a glimpse into our “Jetson-esque” lifestyle of the 21^st century. It was magical.

You see the 70’s was a heady time. America had actually landed on the moon 8 short years after JFK set it as a goal in 1961. Epcot decided based on further consistent breakthroughs, by the year 2000 we would be living in a world of flying cars, automated mastery and medical marvels.

Unfortunately the last thing I remember Doctors curing was Polio and we still drive around in glorified Model T’s.

One may argue that there are examples of brilliance in our lifetime, but of the evidence before me thus far, I would disagree. Sorry to those hoping I would conclude with the "Double O" (Obama/Oprah) crescendo.

We are consumed by money and money was not the ultimate goal that led to the great moments above. I don’t think greed/capitalism is likely to be the answer, for it is mostly a myopic and self-serving vision. It would seem high minded quests for beauty and truth hold the truer promise.

Perhaps we are due for some greatness...a bastion of brilliance that will lift all boats. I’m not giving up hope that somewhere out there as you read this...something tremendous is brewing.

-Life is complicated and far from perfect but it is still great

Reality TV on HBO

Bill Maher is doing some of the best stuff on TV right now with his show Real Time. He is the first to awaken to the reality that Bush wasn’t the problem....it's all politicians.

This is a bold embrace for left leaning talking heads. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are still finding solace in “Democrats are better than Republicans”. However, watch closely (and I do). The conviction is failing.

Maher is alert to the necessity of change for the greater good and is frustrated that “hope” is fading.

These blogs are waning in interaction...understandably my words have lost some lustre. Perhaps Mr. Maher’s words will stir something J

Please enjoy the link.....

Skip to the 2:18 mark. Copy and Paste

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc3MqM5R550

If you like what you see, the whole episode is there in parts 1-5. Or Rogers On Demand (Episode 169)

Good stuff people!

-Life is complicated and far from perfect but it is still great

Time Well Spent

Something light and airy for this week...Entertainment it is then.

Next time you find yourself in Blockbuster and feeling ashamed for walking out with “17 Again” only because it’s a “New Release”, write these down and bask in brilliance.

5 Best Movies of All Time

5. The Godfather Part II. I feel silly saying anything about a movie so widely accepted and critically adored. Suffice it to say....everything you’ve heard/read/seen is true. This is a masterpiece.

Lasting Impression: Justification is dangerous. It creates the illusion that reason has been applied and unreasonable acts can be undertaken, reasonably.

4 Tie. About Last Night. Rob Lowe and Demi Moore fall in love for the first time. How this real love reveals itself to them is more powerful than expected and they react to it in very different ways. Yes it is a relationship movie but it is so much more than that. It is soaring, moving, tragic, frustrating and funny. David Mamet wrote this for the stage but here it is staged beautifully.

Lasting Impression: Love is intoxicating for the fearless young, however it will scar the naive just as quickly

4 Tie. Scarface. Forget that it’s in every Hip Hop library, this was the Godfather for the next generation for a reason. Tony Montana wasn’t a Cuban as much as he was the embodiment of what America had become...brash, fearless, obnoxious and ignorant. Tony was America on cocaine. Driven by greed and consumption, he crashes headlong into honour and integrity. This is all that is good and bad in everyone. The spectacle is at times intoxicating and repulsive but always irresistible.

Lasting Impression: To have it all you have to risk it all. A grotesque illustration of a man will little morality losing all morality.

3. Beautiful Girls. Parts are uneven and there is flat out misses in this movie, however, when it is right...it is so right. It captures better than any other movie the innate problem with the “relationship male”. Men aspire for the impossible, a mate that is a perfect 10. As long as this is considered “possible” then the “hope” of it in any form keeps the dog futilely chasing cars. “Nothing changes in the Ridge but the season” and men unsettlingly prove it.

Lasting Impression: That the hope in us all is a double edged sword. While looking for something better we may miss what is best.

2. Good Will Hunting. There is a critic in all of us and this was one of those movies that left me saying “I wish I wrote that”. Matt and Ben deserved that Oscar because this script was gorgeous, flawless...perfect. They invite us to gauge the import of potential versus happiness. ”In 1905 there were hundreds of professors renowned for their study of the universe, but it was a ... it was a 26 year old Swiss patent clerk, doing physics in his spare time who changed the world.” If only that were true today, but the boys got it right and made it about the journey…made it about a girl.

Lasting Impression: You may conquer the world, cure cancer, be a captain of industry however none of that speaks to your individual happiness when your head hits your pillow at night.

1. The Shawshank Redemption. You simply don’t get better than this. A great movie is infinitely watchable. I have seen this movie 30 times and it still reveals a new gem worthy of savouring every time. Freeman’s laconic voice-over lines like “Get busy living or get busy dying. You’re damn right!” are pitch perfect and sustenance for your soul.

Lasting Impression: We humans can exist close to Hell as beauty can be found in the darkest of places. Hope finds us all.

3 Best TV Shows of All Time

3. Big Love. It sounds like a chauvinistic paradise to have three wives, each younger and more beautiful than the next. It is not. Take any relationship drama and compound it thrice and you will understand the fraying nature of this beast. Set to the backdrop of fundamentalist Mormon beliefs, you have a thought provoking indictment of all things society tells us to hold dear.

Lasting Impression: Being guided by beliefs can me blinding, difficult, confusing and rewarding...all at the same time.

2. Six Feet Under. Rent/buy these DVD’s people, you will thank me. This HBO series based in a Funeral Home is as dark and as unsettling as you would expect. Unexpected is how you are seated at the table of some of the most indelible characters ever developed on the screen. They still live with me to this day. The most powerful scenes come later when you come to know these people so well that a single glance conveys more than any diatribe could.

Lasting Impression: Our mortal coil is a frail thing. In nature we are insignificant, however to ourselves...we are everything.

1. Seinfeld. The show about nothing, taught us about everything. Life is what happens between all the big events of our lives. The day to day minutiae is humanity. That is where we live and breathe and that is where this 30 minute show takes us. It points a finger and says “stop taking yourself so seriously, it’s just life, have fun!” No show has ever done it better or funnier.

Lasting Impression: You’re not the only one living in your own strange neurotic world.

-Life is complicated and far from perfect but it is still great.