With No Direction Home

The Troubadour of the 60’s is one year short to his diamond jubilee today exactly — May 24, 1941 — 74 years to be a exact.  No, he isn’t under 30 anymore, far from it, and with no direction home.

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To celebrate this classic free-wheelin example of a Different Drummer, I copied his Keirsey Temperament Portrait from Keirsey.com

Watch and Observe a Composer in Action

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Birds of Paradise

Birds of a feather flock together.

birds_of_paradiseIt’s madness
To be always sitting around in sadness,
When you could be learning the steps of gladness.
You’ll be happy when you can do
Just six or seven;

Begin to day!
You’ll find it nice,
The quickest way to paradise.
When you practise,
Here’s the thing to know,
Simply say as you go…

I’ll  Build a  Stairway to Paradise
— George Gerwin

No, he didn’t have to build a stairway to his paradise, it was already there.

New York City: Filled With All of Its Birds of Paradise

All he has to do is go to the streets, and with his bicycle and camera…

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Procuring Flame

Procuring Effervescence 6-3

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is looking pretty boss:

Catching Fire protagonist Jennifer Lawrence a.k.a. Jay-Law as she is known on the streets SYGU’ed pretty hard this year at the 85th Annual Academy Awards taking home Best Actress for her critically acclaimed portrayal of a beautifully flawed Tiffany in mental-health narrative Silver Linings Playbook.   At the tender age of 22, #JLAW became the second youngest actress of all-time to take home the Trophy.  Let’s just say this, folks.  She’s no Zack Snyder.

Procuring Effervescence 7

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Transcendental Gloom

Intergalactic Synergy 4

J.J. Abrams is looking like a pretty solid candidate to bring Star Wars back into legitimacy, as his warm-up for Star Wars Episode VII is rocks an 87% on rottentomatoes:

A brand new Star Wars trilogy is not all Disney has in mind, as a matter of fact the mass-media corporation says that at least one spin-off film is also “in the works”:

Quote1.pngWe are in fact working on a few stand-alone films,” says Disney CEO Bob Iger. (Lawrence) Kasdan and Simon Kinberg are both working on films derived from great Star Wars characters that are not part of the overall saga.  So we plan to make Star Wars VII, VIII and IX over roughly a six-year period of time starting in 2015. But there are going to be a few other films released in that period of time too.Quote2.png

Ya go ahead and sign me up for all of that.  Thanks.

Naturally speculation about potential “standalone films” has run amuck: everyone from Boba Fett to Yoda to a young Han Solo to a Seven Samurai Jedi Knight Ensemble Film are rumored as possibilities.  The last one sounding pretty boss.  Oh wait.  Nevermind.  It was Zack Snyder’s idea.  And let’s be honest with ourselves.  That guy is a baddie.

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The Concerning and Constructive Critic

She took his advice.   For he was persuasive and he had her best interest in mind.  It was Common Sense in his mind.  He knew the value.  He pushed the napkin toward her.

He was right.

And she became wildly successful.  Almost 3 billion dollars worth.

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But his day job was to be a critic.  A Movie Critic. He would often say and do thumb down.

“It’s not the critic who counts.
It’s not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled.
Credit belongs to the man who really was in the arena…”
Teddy Roosevelt

Although he was a mere movie critic, he was in the arena of life, like all of us, however.  And he was concerning and constructive.

Lucky for her.  Thumb up.  He knew what he was talking about.

He gave his opinion on what movies were good, thumb up, or not so good, thumb down, and you decide.  With his partners it was two thumbs up.  It was his business to be familiar with the movies and the entertainment industry.  He did it for 46 years. 

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From Flint to Gold

“Oh well, I’m just tired of losing.”

So much still a child, childlike, with this child’s quick, short attention span, an impulsiveness, and a love of portable electronics. Then she gets in the ring and the temperature of the room begins to rise. You cannot take your eyes off  her.

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Her father could have been a contender, but jail put an end to his career. When he made an offhand remark about admiring Laila Ali, his 11-year old daughter thought he was encouraging her to box. He wasn’t, but the misreading was typical with this child, whose innocent optimism may be her greatest weapon. Her father initially refusing to let her train in boxing, relented, thinking she would get beat up and surely, (hoping) she would just quit.

-As a competitor, she possesses a ferocious desire to establish dominance over her opponents.

-In the boxing ring there is a naturalness in the ring that only comes to those who took up boxing as children.

-Her balance and handspeed are superb.

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Cunning Resolve

Cunning Resolve

Marvel’s promise to “keep taking risks” creatively into it’s Phase Two is already paying off, as relatively untested director Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 crushed it at the box-office AND with critics.  Clinching the second highest domestic opening ever, and pulling in a gross $1,111,096,000 and rocking a 9/10 on IGN, Iron Man 3 is only Black’s second film as a director.  Marvel Studios seems to have a knack for boldly pulling creative gem’s out of nowhere, like they did with Joss Whedon.

NOW IM NOT A MATHEMATICIAN OR ANYTHING: but Shane Black’s average rottentomatoes score as a director with only two films turned out to be 80.5%.  Meaning that if making movies were like high-school, Black got a B.  Pretty impressive.  Equally not impressive: one could argue, is Zack Snyder’s average rottentomatoes score as a director with 5 films at 54.4%.  Meaning that if making movies were like high-school, Snyder failed.  LOLUMADBRO?!?

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Send in the Clowns

Don’t you love farce?
My fault I fear.
I thought that you’d want what I want.
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.

Don’t bother they are here.

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Sometimes it is humour that is needed in tragic circumstances.  You have to laugh sometimes, it hurts so bad.

It is estimated that the country of South Africa has more people with AIDS/HIV virus than any other country.

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Pieter-Dirk Uys lampooning Mbeki and Botha

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The Binding Counselor

“He was frail and drained of energy;
his eyes were dull, his face contorted with pain

— and I was, frankly, worried about his health.
Was this drawn and ailing man slumped in a wheelchair the legendary healer I had read about?
Had I come west on a wild goose chase? ” [The Voice (Kindle Locations 70-71)]

Yes, he was the legendary psychotherapist.  Wild goose chase? — maybe, actually in retrospect, no ambiguity here.

“Dr. Erickson asked to be excused, and then, about an hour later, I was astonished to see him wheel himself back into his study, fully alert and revitalized, cheerful, eyes twinkling, ready to get to work.”  [The Voice (Kindle Locations 72-73)]

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A Paradox.

“Dr. Erickson encouraged me to continue my studies and develop my own ideas and techniques, both for my own therapy and for my patients. This respect for my ability to find my own best solutions was fundamental to Dr. Erickson’s philosophy of healing, and was one of the most important lessons he taught me in our time together. In this and in so many ways, his tutelage and sensitivity were nothing less than inspiring.”  — Brian Alman [The Voice (Kindle Locations 82-85).]

A Counselor.

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