NOT SO SUPER MARIO

Wait – I think I see a solution to all our problems!

Whatever else you say about Italy’s caretaker premier Mario Monti, he is not usually a man to speak first and think afterwards.

His measured, robotic voice shows that he is not in the business of making a drama out of the financial crisis.

He restores the notion that economics is a boring but necessary part of political life.

But his skills as a economist are greater than those as a politician.

In response to the latest match rigging / bribery scandal to hit Italian soccer he has stated publically that it would be better if soccer matches were halted for up to three years. This, he reasons, would allow the time for reflection needed to set the sporting house in order.

Monti was at pains to point out that he was voicing a personal opinion but, predictably, the media are not about to let facts get in the way of a good story and report his statement as if it had become official government policy.

SEEING IS BELIEVING

FILM : A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION by Michael Wood (Oxford University Press)

What can you say about the subject of film in 144 pages that hasn’t been said before?  Quite a lot, actually if you are Michael Wood, professor of comparative literature at Princeton University.

He brings a fresh gaze to what might otherwise be a tired subject and does so without being pompous or elitist. He recognises that movies can be works of art and say something profound about the human condition but ,equally, they have a role in providing what he calls “pure unimproving pleasure”.

He picks a quote from the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup to illustrate how what we see in film plays on our perception of reality. In a scene where Chico and Harpo are both disguised as Groucho, Margaret Dumont sees one exit and can’t understand how the other ‘Groucho’ can still be in the room – “Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”, asks Chico.

Filmmakers play with such illusions and deceptions all the time to raise the conundrum that Wood poses: “you can know what you can’t see but you can’t see what you don’t know”.

Statements like this could easily have led down a dead-end of navel gazing, but Michael Wood isn’t in the business of making obscure philosophical statements for the hell of it.

At the heart of this book is a deep and enduring love of the medium since film can “endow lifeless things with life, or living things with a different life”.

DOROTHEA BRANDE’S TIMELESS FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

Following on from yesterday’s post on searching for a lost voice, and still feeling a need for greater clarity in my thinking,  I reached for a book from my bookshelf  that always gives me sustenance and hope.

Wake Up And Live! by Dorothea Brande is a book first published in 1936 which I bought 35 years ago for 70p from the Staffs Book Shop in Lichfield (which is sadly no more).

It  now seems to be out of print so ,while copies can still be found on the net, a new paperback edition can set you back $375.48 at Amazon.Com.

Thankfully, this being the sharing caring digital age, I’m not about to make a fortune selling my tatty volume on e-bay as anyone interested in reading it can do so for free by downloading a PDF copy that some kind soul has uploaded for mass consumption.

This individual has done a noble public service as this is a book that ,while  a little dated , will probably never reach a sell by date since the sound advice contained in the pages is so down to earth and practical.

Unlike so many books in the field of self-help, it does not carry any hidden religious agenda – it doesn’t require the reader to have faith in a higher being; the only faith you need is a belief in yourself.

OATMEAL ADDICTION

Just discovered theotmeal.com and finding it seriously addictive.

Particularly warmed to this cartoon which made me think of my ‘weird’ teenage daughter and helps me understand why she hates skool school sooooooo much.

Here’s an extract:

5 Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (and Other Useful Guides) – the review that led me to Oatmeal.

BOOM BOOM BAD

Found this neat mini documentary on Noise music by a young filmmaker/fan Nicky Smith made in July 2006.

The first section with listener reactions from people in Baltimore is particularly good. One boy says :”Sounds boom boom- I don’t like boom boom- boom boom bad”.  

He’ll learn!