28 September 2012

Thoughts on Little Buddah by Bernardo Bertolucci.

Went to MFAH to watch Little Buddah by Bernardo Bertolucci. Kuong and his date sat near me. By the subject of their conversation, I knew that it was their "first date". This Prick inconsiderate was cordial to the woman. His embellishment to the process of his job, to his facial expressions, to his voice, to the reason why he chose to be the manager of Sundance Houston Cinema, namely it is the service to the community, was repulsive. It was equally repulsive to think that the "sweet-talks" or "pitch" (I forgot the Fr. word for it) will disappear as soon as he obtains what he wants from the woman, whatever it is.
  I did not watch the entire Little Buddah because of its Disney dialogue, Disney editing, Disney cinematography. Also because of the most usual insult to intelligence, i.e. the listing of the most elementary knowledge on Buddhism and the most elementary questions on Philosophy. It was nothing but mental masturbation. Also, Tibetan monks's dialogue and Indian character's dialogue were in English because Hollywood movies always must appease audiences who dislike to read subtitles. In my opinion, it is because they are too stupid or arrogant to learn second language because they think that, if you learn US English, there needs to be no more concern about another language because it is the only one that exists in their arrogant minds. One does not think or gain more knowledge about humanity or this universe after watching this movie. It is mental masturbation. (Is it the reason why Kuong brought his female company to the "first date" to this movie? Why didn't he bring her to Last Tango in Paris? Her reaction showed that she enjoyed the movie, which Kuong possibly predicted.)
  The Italian professor of UH made a short lecture before screening. Did he do it because he found this juvenile and arrogant depiction of Buddhism "exotic"?
  I hope Beseiged is better movie than Little Buddah.

  A film is by definition a visual medium. What the fuck was Bertolucci thinking?
The difference between Last Tango in Paris and Little Buddah

  The scene which made the deepest impresison on me in Last Tango in Paris is where 'Paul' reveals his history about parents and hometown for the first time. Camera stays with Marlon Brando's torso. He talks. It made deep impression on me because the dialogue is accurate and, more importantly, the shadow is accurate, id est, the character of Maria Schneider walks around 'Paul' while he is talking. And during the change of light on Marlon Brando's face, the shot does not change to Maria Schneider and does stay on Marlon Brando. It is why it evokes the memories of (past experience of audience).
  Suppose during the monologue of 'Paul', the editing changes to Maria Schneider who interjections short sentences. It would have broken the emotion created by the change of light.

  Little Buddah's editing. Change of cut whenever someone starts talking in a conversation. It is 'uncinematic' as Steven Soderberg put it.
  The reason why this type of editing is uncinematic. If an audience sees only the moments when someone is talking, it is the equivalent of reading a novel which consists of nothing but dialogues, which is the worst kind. An audience cannot see expression of listener, expression of speaker, change of light, (the subjective opinion of space) of the filmmaker, (the subjective opinion of time) of the filmmaker.
  I still cannot forgive the insult to my intelligence.

16 September 2012

what I learned from watching Bertolucci films at MFAH.

Movies must be seen in 35mm or 70mm if it is to have the greatest emotinal impact.

Quote. Chaney. Hard Times 1975.

Tip.
Chaney.
I thought we could make some money.
That piece of business tonight, you set it up?
Thanks.
Who hasn't?
You a policeman.
Yeah, I saw him.
I don't want your dough.
I got six bucks. And nothing else. You bet it.
I'll just say goodbye right here.
I want to feel my way around the city.
I don't like to rush things.
I might turn up.
I like it the way it is.
Mind if I sit down? Would you like to talk, or just sit?
What's your name? Who you waiting for?
Have mine. You live around here?
Thought maybe I would walk you home.
How's you like New Orleans?
I seen worse.
I don't look past the next bend in the road.
You want me to come in? Sure?
I wasn't planning on bothering you.
Maybe I'll see you around.
60/40 in my favor on scratch, side bets down the middle.
We'll do things different. Because right now my friend you've got
a percentage of nothing.Well there's something I want you to know,
I only come down here to make some money. And to fill in some
in betweens.
Well it suits me. When I get enough change in my
pocket I'm gone.
Who's the smoothie over there?
Two years doesn't make a doctor.
That's a habit that's hard to quit.
How much? We better get the money. Something wrong Speed?
That's pretty good advice. He ain't gonna pay.
Why don't we take it easy, and drive around the back country roads and
see the sights awhile?
Business.
Now I got the gun.
Anybody else? What about you?
That's one way, you wanna see another?
This your place Pettibone?
See you in a couple days. Yeah.
Chaney. Thought you'd like to come out.
Whatever you feel like. Yeah but would you like to?
You worried I can't pay the check?
I knock people down.
No, they're pick up fights, the money is made on bets and
it's something I'm doing just for a while. It's better than working at the bus station changing tires for two bucks a day. It makes me feel a hell of a lot better then it does him. Hey there's no reasons about it, just money.
You handle it, I'm not interested.
How long an arm has he got?
You talk to me, not him.
We can get along without you.
Why the change of mind? I don't like Gandel.
It's enough reason for me.
Speed, you made as much as me, dollar for dollar.
Dumb.
I don't think about it.
You got any more questions?
Not this time.
All right let's get it out, what's bothering you?
How much do you want?
Suit yourself.
I'm out of it.
Must make you very happy, now that you got what you wanted.
Don't need any more money.
You want it that much?
Yeah but you won't. You're not gonna do it for free.
You and me ain't go no trouble Poe. He send you?
Me and Speed ain't related anymore. I ain't interested.
He wants me to bet my five thousand dollars, that's all the money I got.
Money's hard to come by Poe.
Some other time.
Well how ya been?
I got no complaints.
Looks like you've got things all figured out.
Let's get started.
Ever see him fight? Well, let's do it.
Things have a way of coming around.
You owe me money.
You'll live with it.
Yeah, I'm sure.
Look Poe, I got a cat, back at my place, I want
you to take care if it for me. You take care of Poe.
You are forgetting about the in betweens.
North.

Quote. Mr. Majestyk.

I don't know. You hire a lot of Latins and no whites. Looks like discrimination to me.
Get your people on the truck. Get off my land.
Hey. Them Latins buddies of yours? Who do you care who works for you, as long as they get the job done?
I hire who I want.
You see you want me. Only it ain't sunk into that thick brain of yours yet. You see, everything goes a lot easier and a lot less trouble if you do business with me. You understand what I'm talking about?
You make sounds like you're a mean little ass-kicker. Only I ain't convinced. You keep talking, I'm gonna take your head off.

Hey, buddy, you gonna eat that sausage?
(metal clincking)
You ain't gonna eat it, nobody is, huh?
Help yourself.
No, I guess not. I'll take one of those cigarettes, though. I'll pay you back later.
Hey, you want a smoke?
It's okay, I got one.
Hey, don't you know who that is?
He's a TV star.
Man, that's Frank Renda.
Yeah, I saw him play accordion on TV.

Da Keys! Da Keys! Da Keys! Da Keys! What are you doing, you? Da Keys! Da Keys!

Hey, you really move, you. I had you figured for local clown, but you really move. Hey, what they bust you for?
Assault with a shotgun.
Shotgun? That's attempted murder, man. They gonna jam you same as me.
I got an idea that might work.
You don't worry about it. You hear? I give you a phone number to call. We be out of the country before morning.
I like my idea better.
Now, listen. You come with me, be worth plenty, be worh plenty. Sound good?
You got it ass backwards. I ain't coming with you. You're coming with me.
Wait a minute. Talk to me. Wait a minute.

Twenty five, what?
Twenty five thousand.

It's Wiley. That's all you gotta know.

You pay three eighty five. You're in.
Stop the bullshit! How much?
Nothing, Frank.
I explained it to you simply, didn't I? You make a deal with me or you're dead.

Can I ask you something? You just gonna walk up to that jail and ask to the cops for a visitor's pass? How you gonna get close to the dude?
You find that sucker that he hit. Tell him to drop the complaint. It was all a mistake.
Suppose he don't wanna do that?
I said, Tell him, not Ask him.

Hey I hear you're looking for a crew. Maybe I can get you some winos.
Maybe I can fix it so you never smile again.
You touch me again, you be back in jail before noon.

Who is this asshole?

Don't you, ever, ever, talking shit to me again. Do you hear?

Hey. They don't like it, tough shit. Okay? Wiley?

How you doing there, buddy? You okay? I just came by to tell you something. Maybe you know it already. But I wanna make sure. I'm gonna kill ya.
Hey, couple of cops over there.
Yeah, otherwise you might be dead already.
When is this big event gonna take place?
What's the difference? Tomrrow, next week? You can hide in that basement in police station. But I'm gonna get you my baby.
Seems like there's no use trying to get on your good side.
Hey why don't you call the cops?

Nancy!

Good morning, Mr. Renda. Got him for you. Sure as hell in the house. Ain't no way he getting out.
You seen him, huh?
………
I just asked you a question, man.

You know, I think he's over those trees.
You're seeing something I don't see.
Will you shut up?

Come on, Frank. Let's finish it. I got work to do.
How about this guy? He's anxious.

03 September 2012

N/A




































Text. On Memory by Aristoteles.


Translated by J.I. Beare

Part I
1.     We have to treat of memory and remembering, considering its nature, its cause, and the part of the soul to which this experience, as well as that of recollecting, belongs. For the persons who possess a retentive memory are not identical with those who excel in power of recollection; indeed, as a rule, slow people have a better memory, whereas those who are quick-witted and clever are better at recollecting.
2.       We must first consider the objects of memory, a point on which mistakes are often made. Now to remember what is future is not possible – that is an object of opinion or expectation (and indeed there might be actually a science of expectation, like that of divination, in which some believe); nor is there memory of what is present, but only sense-perception. For by the latter we do not know what is future or past, but what is present only. But memory relates to what is past. No one would say that he remembers what is presnet, when it is present, e.g. a given white object at the moment when he sees it; nor would one say that he remembers an object of scientific contemplation at the moment when he is actually contemplating it, and has it full before his mind; - of the former he would say only that he perceives it, of the latter only that he knows it. But when one has knowledge or perception apart from the objects, he thus remembers as to the former, that he learned it, or thought it out for himself, as to the latter, that he heard, or saw, it or had some sensible experience of it. For whenever one exercises the faculty of remembering, he must say within himself that he formerly heard or perceived or thought of that.
3.       Memory is, therefore, neither perception nor conception, but a state of affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of time. As already observed, there is no such thing as memory of the present while present; for the present is object only of perception, and the future, of expectation, but the object of memory is the past. All memory, therefore, implies a time elapsed; consequently only those animals which perceive time remember, and the organ whereby they perceive time is also that whereby they remember.
4.       The subject of imagination has been already considered in our work On the Soul. Without an image thinking is impossible. For there is such activity an affection identical w/ one in geometrical demonstrations. For in the latter case, though we do not make any use of the fact that the quantity in the triangle is determinate, we nevertheless draw it deeterminate in quantity. So likewise when one thinks, although the object may not be quantitative, one envisages it as quantitative, though he thinks of it in abstraction from quantity; while, on the other hand, if it is something by nature quantitative but indeterminate, one envisages it as if it had determinate quantity, though one thinks of it only as a quantity. Why we cannot think of anything wihtout a continuum or think of non-temporal things without time, is another question. Now, one must recognize magnitude and motion by means of the same faculty by which one recognizes time. Thus it is clear that the cognition of these objects is effected by the primary faculty of perception, and memory even of intellectual objects involves an image and the image is an affection of the common sense. Thus memory belongs incidentally to the faculty of thought, and essentially it belongs to the primary faculty of sense-perception.
5.       Hence not only human beings and the beings which possess opinion or intelligence, but also certain other animals, possess memory. If memory were a function of the thinking parts, it would not have been an attibute of many of the other animals, but probably, in that case, no mortal beings would have had memory; since, even as the case stands, it is not an attribute of them all, just because all have not the faculty of perceiving time. Whenever one actually remembers having seen or heard or learned something, he perceives in addition as we have already observed that it happened before; and before and after are in time.
6.       Accordingly, if asked, of which among the parts of the soul memory is a function, we reply: manifestly of that part to which imagination also appertains; and all objects of which there is imagination are in themselves objects of memory, while those which do not exist without imagination are objects of memory incidentally.
7.       One might ask how it is possible that though the affection is present, and the fact absent, the latter – that which is not present – is remembered. It is clear that we must conceive that which is generated through sense-perception in the soul, and in the part of the body which is its seat,- viz. that affection the state whereof we call memory- to be some such thing as a picture. The process of movement stamps in, as it were, a sort of impression of the percept, just as persons do who make an impression with a seal. This explains why, in those who are strongly moved owing to passion, or time of life, no memory is formed; just as no impression would be formed if the movement of the seal were to impinge on running water; while there are others in whom, owing to the receiving surface being frayed, as happens to old walls, or owind to the hardness of the receiving surface, the requisite impression is not implanted at all. Hence both very young and very old persons are defective in memory; they are in a state of flux, the former because of their growth, the latter, owing to their decay. Similarly, both those who are too quick and those who are too slwo have bad memories. The former are too moist, the latter too hard, so that in the case of the former the image does not remain in the soul, while on the latter it is not imprinted at all.
8.     But then, if this is what happens in the genesis of memory, when one remembers, is it this affection that he remembers, or is it the thing from which this was derived? If the former, it would follow that we remember nothing which is absent; if the latter, how it is possible that, though perceiving directly only the impression, we remember that absent thing which we do not perceive? Granted that there is in us something like an impression or picture, why should the perception of this be memory of something else, and not of this itself? For when one actually remembers, this impression is what he contemplates, and this is what he perceives. How then will he remember what is not present? One might as well suppose it possible also to see or hear that which is not present. Or can this in a way actually happen? A picture painted on a panel is at once a picture and a likeness; that is, while one and the same, it is both of these, although the being of both is not the same, and one may contemplate it either as a picture, or as a likeness. Just in the same way we have to conceive that the image within us is both something in itself and relative to something else. In so far as it is regarded in itself, it is only an object of contemplation, or an image; but when considered as relative to something else, e.g., as its likeness, it is also a reminder. Hence, whenever its movement is actual, if the soul perceives this in its own right, it appears to occur as a mere thought or image; but if the soul perceives it qua related to something else, then- just as when one comtemplates the painting in the picture as being a likeness, and without having seen the actual Coriscus, contemplates it as a likeness of Coriscus, and in that case the experience involved in this contemplation of it is different from what one has when he contemplates it simply as a painted figure- of the objects in the soul, the one presents itself simply as a painted figure- of the objects in the soul, the one presents itself simply as a thought, but the other, just because, as in the painting, it is a likeness, presents itself as a reminder.
9.     We can now understand why it is that sometimes, when we have such processes, based on some former act of perception, occuring in the soul, we do not know whether this really implies our having had perceptions corresponding to them, and we doubt whether the case is or is not one of memory. But occasionally it happens that we get a sudden idea and recollect that we heard or saw something formerly. This happens whenever, from contemplating a mental object in itself, one changes his point of view, and regards it as relative to something else.
10. The opposite also occurs, as happened in the cases of Antipheron of Oreus and others suffering from mental derangement; for they were accustomed to speak of their images as facts of their past experience, and as if remembering them. This takes place whenever one contemplates what is not a likeness as if it were a likeness.
11. Mnemonic exercises aim at preserving one’s memory of something by repeatedly reminding him of it; which implies nothing else than the frequent contemplation of something as a likeness, and no in its own right.
12. As regard the question, therefore, what memory or remembering is, it has now been shown that it is the having of an image, related as a likeness to that of which it is an image; and as to the question of which of the faculties within us memory is a function, it has been shown that it is a function of the primary faculty of sense-perception, i.e. of that faculty whereby we perceive time.
13. Next comes the subject of recollection, in dealing with which we must assume the truths elicited in our tentative discussions. For recollection is not the recovery or acquisition of memory; since at the instant when one at first learns or experiences, he does not thereby recover a memory, inasmuch as none has preceded, nor does he acquire one ab initio. It is only at the instant when the state or affection is implanted in the soul that memory exists, and therefore memory is not itself implanted concurrently with the implanation of the senseory experience. Further, when it has first been implanted in the indivisible and ultimate organ, there is then already established in the person affected the affection, or the knowledge (if one ought to apply the term ‘knowledge’ to the state or affection; and indeed one may well remember, in the incidental sense, some of the things which one knows; but to remember, strictly speaking, is an activity which will not occur until time has elapsed. For one remembers now what one saw or other wise experience formly, one does not remember now what one experiences now.
14.   Again, it is obviously possible, without any present act of recollection, to remember as a continued consequence of the original perception or other experience; whereas one recovers some knowledge which he had before, or some perception, or some other experience, the state of which we above declared to be memory, it is then, and then only, that this recovery may amount to a recollection of any of the thing aforesaid; and memory follows on recollection.
15.   But even the assertion that recollection is the reinstatement of something which was there before requires qualification- it is right in one way, wrong in another. For the same person may twice learn, or twice discover the same fact. Accordingly, the act of recollecting ought to be distinguished from these acts; i.e. recollection must imply in those who recollect the presence of some source over and above that from which they originally learn.
16.   Acts of recollection are due to the fact that one movement has by nature another that succeeds it.
17.   If this order be necessary, whenever a subject experiences the former of two movements thsu connected, it will experience the latter; if, however, the order be not necessary, but customary, only for the most part will the subject experience the latter of the two movements. But it is a fact that there are some movements, by a single experience of which persons take the impress of custom more deeply than they do by experiencing others many times; hence upon seeing some things but once remember them better than others which we may have seen frequently.
18. Whenever, therefore, we are recollecting, we are experiencing one of the antecedent movement until finally we experience the one after which customarily comes that which we seek. This explains why we hunt up the series, having started in thought from the present or some other, and from something either similar, or contrary, to what we seek, or else from that which is contiguous with it. That is how recollection takes placel; for the movements involved in these starting-points are in some cases identical, in others, again, simultaneous, while in others they comprise a portion of them, so that the remnant which one experienced after that portion is comparatively small.
19. Thus, then it is that persons seek to recollect, and thus, too, it is that hey recollect even without seeking to do so, viz. when the movement has supervened on some other. For, as a rule, it is when antecedent movements of the classes here described have first been exicted, that the particular movement implied in recollection follows. We need not examine a series of which the beginning and end lie far apart, in order to see how we remember; one in which they lie near one another will serve equally well. For it is clear that the method is in each case the same. For by the effect of custom the movements tend to succeed one another in a certain order. Accordingly, therefore, when one wishes to recollect, that is what he will do: he will try to obtain a beginning of movement whose sequel shall be the movement which he desire to reawaken. This explains why attemps at recollection succeed sonnest and best when they start from a beginning. For, in order of succession, the movements are to one another as the objects. Accordingly, things arranged in a fixed order, like the successive demonstrations in geometry, are easy to remember, while badly arranged subjects are remembed with difficulty.
20.   Recollection differs also in this respect from relearning, that one who recollects will be able, somehow, to move, solely by his own effort, to the term next after the starting-point. When one cannot do this of himself, but only by external assistance, he no longer remembers. It often happens that, though a person cannot recollect at the moment, yet by seeking he can do so, and discovers what he seeks. This he succeeds in doing by setting up many movements, until finally he excites one of a kind which will have for its sequel the fact he wishes to recollect. For remembering is the existence of a movement capable of stimulating the mind to the desired movement, and this, as has been said, in such a way that the person should be moved from within himself, i.e. in consequence of movements wholly contained within himself.
21. But one must get hold of a starting-point. This explains why it is that persons are supposed to recollect sometimes by starting from ‘places’. The cause is that they pass swiftly from one point to another, e.g. from milk to white, from white to mist, and then to moist, from which one remembers Autumn if this be the season he is trying to recollect.
22. It seems general that the middle point among all things is a good starting-point. For if one does not recollect before, he will do so when he has come to this, or, if not, nothing can help him; as, e.g. if one were to have in mind A B C D E F G H I. For, if he does not remember at I, he remembers at E; because from E movement in either direction is possible, to D or to F. But, if it is not for one of these that he is searching, he will remember when he has come to C, if he is searching for A for B. But if not, he will remember by going to G, and so in all cases. The cause of one’s sometimes recollecting and sometimes not, though starting from the same point, is, that from the same starting-point a movement can be made in several directions, as, for instance, from C to B or to D. If, then, the mind has not moved in an old path, it tends to move to the more customary; for custom now assumes the role of nature. Hence the rapidity with which we recollect what we frequently think about. For as one thing follows another by nature, so too that happens by custom; and frequency creates nature. And since in the realm of nature occurences take place which are even contrary to nature, or fortuitous, the same happens a fortiori in the sphere swayed by custom, since in this sphere nature is not similarly established. Hence it is that the mind receives an impulse to move sometimes in the required direction, and at other times otherwise, particularly when something else somehow deflects the mind from the right direction and attracts it to itself. This last consideration explains too how it happens that, when we want to remember a name, if we know one somewhat like it, we blunder on to that.
23.   Thus, then recollection takes place.
24.   But the point of capital importance is that one should know, determinately or indeterminately, the time-relation. There is,- let it be taken as a fact, - something by which one distinguishes a greater and a smaller time; and it is reasonable to think that one does this in a way analogous to that in which one discerns magnitudes. For it is not by the mind’s reaching out towards them, as some say a visual ray from the eye does that one thinks of large things at a distance in space (for even if they are not there, one may similarly think of them); but one does so by a proportionate movement. For there are in the mind similar figures and movements. Therefore, when one thinks of the greater objects, in what will his thinking of those differ from his thinking of the smaller? For all ther internal though smaller are as it were proportional. Now, as we may assume within a person something proportional to the forms, so too, we may doubtless assume something else proportional to their distances. It is as though, if one has the movment AB, BE, he constructs CD; for AC and CD are proportional. Why then does he construct CD rather than FG? Is it not because as AC is to AB, so is H to I? These movements therefore he has simultaneously. But if he wishes to think of FG, he thinks of Be in like manner as before; but now, instead of H, I, he think of K, L; for these are so related as is FA to BA.
25.   (restriction by a great man, one should think in whatever way one feels that is challenging or inventive.)
26.   When, therefore, the movement corresponding to the object and that corresponding to its time occur, then one actually remembers. If one supposes he does without really doing so, he supposes himself to remember. For one may be mistaken, and think that he remembers when he really does not. But it is not possible that when one actually remembers he should not suppose himself to remember, but should remember unconsciously. For that is what remembering is. If however, the movement corresponding to the object takes place without that corresponding to the time, or, if the latter takes place without the former, one does not remember.
27.   The movement answering to the time is of two kinds. Sometimes in remembering a fact one has no determinate time-notion of it, no such notion as that, e.g., he did something or other on the day before yesterday; while in other cases he has a determinate notion of the time. Still, even though one does not remember with actual determination of the time, he genuinely remembers, none the less. People often say that they remember, but yet do not know when whenver they do not know determinately the exact length of time.
28.   It has been already stated that those who have a good memory are not identical with those who are quick at recollecting. But the act of recollectin differs from that of remembering, not only in respect of time, but also in this, that many also of the other animals have memory, but, of all that we are acquainted with, none, we venture to say, except man, shared in the faculty of recollection. The cause of this is that recollection is, as it were, a mode of inference. For he who endeavours to recollect infers that he formerly saw or heard, or had some such experience, and the process is, as it were, a sort of investigation. But to investigate in this way belongs naturally to those animals alone which are also endowed with the faculty of deliberation; for deblieration is a form of inference.
29.   That the affection is corporeal, i.e. that recollection is a searching for an image in a corporal substrate, is provided by the fact that some persons, when, despite the most strenuous application of thought, they have been unable to recollect, feel discomfort, which even though they abandon the effort at recollection, persists in them none the less; and especially persons of melancholic temperament. For these are most powerfully moved by images. The reason why the effort of recollection is not under control of their will is that, as those who throw a stone cannot stop it at their will when thrown, so he who tries to recollect and hunts sets up a process in a material part, in which resides the affection. Those who have moisture around that part which is the centre of sense-perception suffer most discomfort of this kind. For when once the moisture has been set in motion it is not easily brought to rest, until the idea which was sought for has again presented itself, and thus the movement has found a straight course. For a similar reason bursts of anger or fits of terror, when once they have excited such motions, are not at once allayed, even though the angry or terrified persons set up counter motions, but the passions continue to move them on, in the same direction as at first. The affection resembles also that in the case of words, tunes, or sayings, whenever one of them has become inverterate on the lips. People give them up and resolve to avoid them; yet again and again they find themselves humming the forbidden air, or using the prohibited word.
30.   Those whose upper parts are abnormally large, as is the case with dwarfs, have abnormally weak memory, as compared with their opposites, because of the great weight which have resting upon the organ of perception, and because their movements are, from the very first, not able to keep true to a course, but are dispersed, and because, in the effort at recollection, these movement do not easily find a direct onward path. Infants and very old persons have bad memories, oweing to the amount of movement going on within them; for the latter are in process of rapid decay, the former in process of vigorous growth; and we may add that children, until considerably advanced in years, are dwarf-like. Such then is our theory as regards memory and remembering- their nature, and the particular organ of the soul by which animals remember; also as regards recollection, its definition, and the manner and causes of its performance.

Quote of Edie Falco.

"I actually washed my window once, and it fell through-it was being held together by the dirt." - describing a dilapidated apartment where she once lived as a struggling actress in New York City.

Trivia on Lorraine Bracco.

Filed for bankruptcy due to legal fees spent on custody battle with Harvey Keitel. [June 1999]

Trivia on Alan J. Pakula's death.

Pakula died on November 19, 1998 in a freak car accident on the Long Island Expressway in Melville, New York. He was 70 years old. A driver in front of him struck a metal pipe, which went through Pakula's windshield, struck him in the head, and caused him to swerve off the road and into a fence. He was killed instantly.

Trivia on Teri Polo.

Took a substantial loss ($550,000) selling her five-bedroom, 3,077-square-foot, Asian-inspired house in Manhattan Beach, California for $1.95 million. She originally paid $2.5 million for it in 2006. [2009]

Chomsky. Passion on life.

  If you decide not to make use of the opportunities you have, not to live a life in a way that is constructive and helpful, you end up looking back and say, "Why did I bother living?"

Tag line. Seven Days in May by John Frankenheimer.

"I'm suggesting Mr President, there's a military plot to take over the Government of these United States, next Sunday..."

Signs that you watch too much pornography.

a) If you find sexual innuendo in everything that is said to you. For example:
1. Here try this, just put it in your mouth.
2. I'm here to clean your pipes
3. I love sausage pizza
4. Get all up in my shit
If you find sexual innuendo in any of the above, you might watch too much porn.
b) If you think any woman in a professional situation is only reading lines until she ends up unzipping your pants, you could be watching too much porn. For example: Your boss calls you in and tells you you're going to have to work harder. And your mind starts playing really bad techno music.
c) You giggle everytime someone says: Pool guy, pizza guy, milk delivery guy, you could be watching too much porn.
d) If you kiss yourself on the shoulder. 'Nuff said.
e) If the first thing you think about when someone asks to use your computer is I hope they don't go through my history, you could be watching too much porn.
f) If you believe that there is a woman out there who will say to you: "No you sit back, I want to pleasure you. Don't worry about me." You could be watching too much porn.
g) If begging to stay in varsity excites you, you could be watching too much porn.
h) if you are reading this post and going he left so much out, you could be watching too much porn
Feel free to add your own  You know you watch too much porn if...

A trivia on Ralph Feinnes.

In February 2007, staff aboard a Qantas flight from Sydney, Australia to Mumbai, India caught Fiennes leaving an aircraft lavatory with 38-year-old flight attendant Lisa Robertson. At first denying allegations of a tryst, Robertson later confessed to having unprotected sex in the lavatory with Fiennes, whom she had met just hours before. Fiennes was en route to Mumbai, as a participant in AIDS awareness efforts for UNICEF. The organisation retained Fiennes as an ambassador; Qantas fired Robertson.[11]

Yahoo Answer. WoW Addiction.


Steve
    •    Best answer 8%
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Member Since: November 28, 2006
Total Points: 984 (Level 2)
Points earned this week: 0

How much is the monthly payment of World of Warcraft?

TargetMa...
Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
$79 afor 6 months of service, plus $1000 for lost income, $1500 for alimony, $2000 for Child support

it cost more than crack.....

A trivia on Woody Allen's immobeule transaction.

Woody Allen told a reporter that he has earned more money from two real estate transactions than he has from all of his movies combined. Sold his long-held Fifth Avenue penthouse (which he had purchased for $600,000) for a profit of $17 million and a renovated townhouse for a profit of some $7 million (December 2005).

Advice on becoming strong.

A photo of Sid Harmer scrolling an iron bar, from his book “Feats of Strength” – another rarity from Dennis’ collection. The book was written sometime around 1930. Sid was known as the World’s Strongest Teenager and was a stickler for authenticity, often exposing frauds.
 
Here are a handful of his “golden rules for the would be athlete”-

1. Fresh air is your best friend. Take as much as you can and learn to breathe properly. Avoid stuffy rooms, especially sleeping rooms—fresh air never yet did anyone harm : foul air is the deadliest enemy to physical development.

2. Take everything in moderation. Excess in any form is harmful.

3. Do not live to eat, but eat to live. Therefore select only those foods which your system can best assimilate.

4. Keep the body clean and fresh. The functions of the skin are all-important: they can only be performed in a state of cleanliness.

5. Look upon your efforts seriously. Do nothing in spasms or spurts; a regular, even flow of exercise is the only one that counts.

6. Cultivate the habit of being cheerful. A hearty laugh is highly beneficial, so keep smiling.

7. Don't worry.

01 September 2012

Excerpts. De Oratore.


  "Oh, as for ath," said Anthony, "the amount I shall have left to you will be for you to decide; if you want complete candour, what I leave to you is the whole subject, but if you want me to keep up the pretence, it is for you to consider how you may satisfy our friends here. But to reutnr to the subject, he constinued, "I am not myself as clever as Themistocles was, so as to prefer the science of forgettint to that of remembering; and I am greateful to the famous Simonides of Ceos, who is said to have first invented the science of mnemonics. There is a story that Simonides was dining at the house of a wealthy nobleman named Scopas at Crannon in Thessaly, and chanted a lyric poem which he had composed in honour of his host, in which he followed the custom of the poet by including for decorative purposes a long passage referring to Castor and Pollux; whereupon Scopas w/ excessive meanness told him he should pay him half the fee agreeed on for the poem, and if he liked he might apply for the balance to his sons of Tyndareus, as they had gone halves in the panegyric. The story runs that a little later a message was brought to Simondes to go outside, as two young men were standing at the door who earnestly requested him to come out; so he rose from his seat and went out, and could not see anybody; but in the interval of his absence the roof of hall where Scopaas was giving the banquet fell in, crushing Scopas himself and his relations underneath the ruins and killing them; and when their friends wanted to bury them but were altogether unable to know them apart as they had been completely crushed, the story goes that Simondes was enabled by his recollection of the place in which each of them had been reclining at table to identify them for separate interment; and that this circumstance suggested to him the discovery of the truth that the best aid to clearness of memory consists in orderly arrangement. He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty must select localities and form mental images of the facts they wish to remember and store those images in the localities, w/ the result that the arrangement of the localities will preserve the order of the facts, and the images of the facts will designate the facts themselves, and we shall employ the localities and images respectively as a wax writing tablet and the letters written on it. But what business is it of mine to specify the value to a speaker and the usefulness and effectiveness of memory? of retaining the information given you when you briefed and the opinion you youself have formed? of having all your ideas firmly planted in your mind and all your resources of vocabulary neatly arranged? of giving such close attention to the instructions of your client and to the speech of the opponent you have to answer that they may seem not just to pour what they say into your ears but to imprint it on your mind? Consequently only people w/ a powerful memory know what they are going to say and for how long they are going to speak and in what style, what points they have already answered and what still remains; and they also can remember from other cases many arguments which they have previously advanced and many which they have heard from other people. And consequently for my own part I confess that the chief source of this endowment, as of all the things I have spoken of before, is nature; but the efficacy of the whole of this science, or perhaps I should say pseudo-science, of rhetoric, is not that it wholly originates and engenders something no part of which is already present in our minds, but that it fosters and strengthens things that have already sprung to birth w/i/ us; though nevertheless hardly anybody exists who has so keen a memory that he can retain the order of all the words or sentences w/o/ having arranged and noted his facts, nor yet is anybody so dull-witted that habitual practice in this will not give him some assistance. It has been sagaciously discerned by Simonides or else discovered by some other person, that the most complete pictures are formed in our minds of the things that have been conveyed to them and imprinted on them by the sense, but that the keenest of all our senses is the sense of sight, and that consequently preceptions received by the ears or by reflexion can be most easily retained in the mind if they are also conveyed to our minds by the mediation of the eyes, w/ the result that things not seen and not lying in the field of visual discernment are earmarked by a sort of outline and image and shape so that we keep hold of as it were by an act of sight things that we can scarcely embrace by an act of thought. But these forms and bodies, like all the things that come under our view require an abode, inasmuch as a material object w/o/ a locality is inconceivable. Consequently (in order that I may not be prolix and tedious on a subject that is well known and familiar) one must employ a large number of localities which must be clear and defined and at moderate intervals apart, and images that are effective and sharply outlined and distinctive, w/ the capacity of encountering and speedily penetrating the mind; the ability to use these will be supplied by practice, which engenders habit, and by marking off similar words w/ an inversion and alteration of their cases or a transference from species to genus, and by representing a whole concept by the images of a single word, on the system and method of a consummate painter distinguishing the positions of objects by modifying their shapes. But a memory for words, which for us is less essential, is given distinctness by a greater variety of images; for there are many words which serve as joints connecting the limbs of the sentence, and these cannot be formed by any use of simile - of these we have to model images for constant employment; but a memory for things is the special property of the orator - this we can imprint on our minds by a skillful arrangement of the several masks that represent them, so that we may grasp ideas by means of images and their order by means of localities. Nor is it true, as unscientific people assert, that memory is crushed beneath a weight of images and even what might have been retained by nature unassisted is obscured; for I have myself met eminent people w/ almost superhuman powers of memory, Charmadas at Athens and Metrodorus of Scepsis in Asia, who is said to be still living, each of whom used to say that he wrote down things he wanted to remember in certain 'localities' in his possession by means of images, just as if he were inscribing letters on wax. It follows that this practice cannot be used to draw out the memory if no memory has been given to us by nature, but it can undoubtedly summon it to come forth if it is in hiding.

Excerpts. Rhetorica ad Herennium.


  Now let me turn to the treasure-house of the ideas supplied by Invention, to the guardian of all the parts of rhetoric, the Memory.
  The question whether memory has some artificial quality, or comes entirely from nature, we shall have another, more favourable, opportunity to discuss. At present I shall accept as proved that in this matter art and method are of great importance, and shall treat the subject accordingly. For my part, I am satisfied that there is an art of memory - the grounds of my belief I shall explain elsewhere. For the present I shall disclose what sort of thing memory is.
  There are, then, two kinds of memory: one natural, and the other the product of art. The natural memory is that memory which is imbedded in our minds, born simultaneously w/ thought. The artificial memory is that memory which is strengthened by a kind of training and system of discipline. But just as in everything else the merit of natural excellence often rivals acquired learning, and art, in its turn, reinforces and develops the natural advantages, so does it happen in this instance. The natural memory, if a person is endowed w/ an exceptional one, is often like this artificial memory, and this artificial memory, in its turn, retains and develops the natural advantages by a method of discipline. Thus the natural memory must be strengthened by discipline so as to become exceptional, and, on the other hand, this memory provided by discipline requires natural ability. It is neither more nor less true in this instance than in the other arts that science thrives by the aid of innate ability, and nature by the aid of the rules of the art. The training here offered will therefore also be useful to those who by nature have a good memory, as you will yourself soon come to understand. But even if these, relying on their natural talent, did not need our help, we should still be justified in wishing to aid the less well-endowed. Now I shall discuss the artificial memory.
  The artificial memory includes backgrounds and images. By backgrounds I mean such scenes as are naturally or artificially set off on a small scale, complete and conspicuous, so that we can grasp and embrace them easily by the natural memory - for example, a house, an intercolumnar space, a recess, an arch, or the like. An image is, as it were, a figure, mark, or portrait of the object we wish to remember; for example, if we wish to recall a horse, a lion, or an eagle, we must place its image in a definite background. Now I shall show what kind of backgrounds we should invent and how we should discover the images and set them therein.
  Those who know the letters of the alphabet can thereby write out what is dictated to them and read aloud what they have written. Likewise, those who have learned mnemonics can set in backgrounds what they have heard, and from these backgrounds deliver it by memory. For the backgrounds are very much like wax tablets or papyrus, the images like the letters, the arrangement and dispoisition of the images like the script, and the delivery is like the reading. We should therefore, if we desire to w/ a large number of backgrounds, so that in these we may set a large number of images. I likewise think it obligatory to have these backgrounds in a series, so that we may never by confusion in their order be prevented from following the images - proceeding from any background we wish, whatsoever its place in the series, and whether we go forwards or backwards - nor from delivering orally what has been committed to the backgrounds.
  For example, if we should see a great number of our acquaintances standing in a certain order, it would not make any difference to us whether we should tell their names beginning w/ the person standing at the head of the line or at the foot or in the middle. So w/ respect to the backgrounds. If these have been arranged in order, the result will be that, reminded by the images, we can repeat orally what we have committed to the backgrounds, proceeding in either direction from any background we please. That is why it also seems best to arrange the backgrounds in a series.
  We shall need to study w/ special care the backgrounds we have adopted so that they may cling lastingly in our memory, for the images, like letters, are effaced when we make no use of them, but the backgrounds, like wax tablets, should abide. And that we may by no chance err in the number of backgrounds, each fifth background should be marked. For example, if in the fifth we should set a golden hand, and in the tenth some acquaintance whose first name is Decimus, it will then be easy to station like marks in each successive fifth background.
  Again, it will be more advantageous to obtain backgrounds in a deserted than in a populous region, because the crowding and passing to and fro of people confuse and weaken the impress of the images, while solitude keeps their outlines sharp. Further, backgrounds differing in form and nature must be secured, so that, thus distinguished, they may be clearly visible; for if a person has adopted many intercolumnar spaces, their resemblance to one another will so confuse him that he will no longer know what he has set in each background. And these backgrounds ought to be of moderate size and medium extent, for when excessively large they render the images vague, and when too small often seem incapable of receiving an arrangement of images. Then the backgrounds ought to be neither too bright nor too dim, so that the shadows may not obscure the images nor the lustre make them glitter. I believe that the intervals between backgrounds should be of moderate extent, approximately thirty feet; for, like the external eye, so the inner eye of thought is less powerful when you have moved the object of sight too near or too far away.
  Although it is easy for a person w/ a relatively large experience to equip himself w/ as many and as suitable backgrounds as he may desire, even a person who believes that he finds no stores of backgrounds that are good enough, may succeed in fashioning as many such as he wishes. For the imagination can embrace any region whatsoever and in it at will fashion and construct the setting of some background. Hence, if we are not content w/ our ready-made supply of backgrounds, we may in our imagination create a region for ourselves and obtain a most serviceable distribution of appropriate backgrounds.
  On the subject of backgrounds enough has been said; let me now turn to the theory of images.
  Since, then, images must resemble objects, we ought ourselves to choose from all objects likenesses for our use. Hence likenesses are bound to be of two kinds, one of subject-matter, the other of words. Likenesses of matter are formed when we enlist images that present a general view of the matter w/ which we are dealing; likenesses of words are established when the record of each single noun or appellative is kept by an image.
  Often we encompass the record of an entire matter by one notation, a single image. For example, the prosecutor has said that the defendant killed a man by poison, has charged that the motive for the crime was an inheritance, and declared that there are many witnesses and accessories to this act. If in order to facilitate our defence we wish to remember this first point, we shall in our first background form an image of the whole matter. We shall picture the man in question as lying ill in bed, if we know his person. If we do not know him, we shall yet take some one to be our invalid, but not a man of the lowest class, so that he may come to mind at once. And we shall place the defendant at the bedside, holding in his right hand a cup, and in his left tablets, and on the fourth finger a ram's testicles.
  Footnote: According to Macrobius, the anatomists spoke of a nerve which extends from the heart to the fourth finger of the left hand (the digitus medicinalis), where it interlaces into the other nerves of that finger; the finger was therefored ringed, as w/ a crown. Testiculi suggests testes (witnesses). Of the scrotum of the ram purses were made; thus the money used for bribing the witnesses may perhaps also be suggested.
  (Continued in the same paragraph) In this way we can record the man who was poisioned, the inheritance, and the witnesses. In like fashion we shall set the other counts of the charge in backgrounds successively, following their order, and whenever we wish to remember a point, by properly arranging the patterns of the backgrounds and carefully imprinting the images, we shall easily succeed in calling back to mind what we wish.
  When we wish to represent by images the likenesses of words, we shall be undertaking a greater task and exercising our ingenuity the more. This we ought to effect in the following way:
  Iam domum itionem reges Atridae parant. (And now their home-coming the kings, the sons of Atreus, are making ready.)
  If we wish to remember this verse, in our first background we should put Domitius, raising hands to heaven while he is lashed by the Marcii Reges - that will represent "Iam domum itionem reges" ("And now their home-coming the kings,"); in the second background, Aesopus and Cimber, being dressed as for the roles of Agamemnon and Menelaüs in Iphigenia - that will represent "Atridae parant" ("the sons of Atreus, are making ready"). By this method all the words will be represented. But such an arrangement of images succeeds only if we ust our notation to stimulate the natural memory, so that we first go over a given verse twice or three times to ourselves and then represent the words by means of images. In this way art will supplement nature. For neither by itself will be strong enough, though we must note that theory and technique are much the more reliable. I should not hesitate to demonstrate this in detail, did I not feat that, once having departed from my plan, I should not so well preserve the clear conciseness of my instruction.
  Now, since in normal cases some images are strong and sharp and suitable for awakening recollection, and others so weak and feeble as hardly to succeed in stimulating memory, we must therefore consider the cause of these differences, so that, by knowing the cause, we may know which images to avoid and which to seek.
  Now nature herself teaches us what we should do. When we see in everyday life things that are petty, ordinary, and banal, we generally fail to remember them, because the mind is not being stirred by anything novel or marvellous. But if we see or hear something exceptionally base, dishonourable, extraordinary, great, unbelievab le, or laughable, that we are likely to remember a long time. Accrodingly, things immediate to our eye or ear we commonly forget; incidents of our childhood we often remember best. Nor could this be so for any other reason than that ordinary things easily slip from the memory while the striking and novel stay longer in mind. A sunrise, the sun's course, a sunset, are marvellous to no one because they occur daily. But solar eclipses are a source of wonder because they occur seldom, and indeed are more marvellous than lunar eclipses, because these are more frequent. Thus nature shows that she is not aroused by the common, ordinary event, but is moved by a new or striking occurence. Let art, then, imitate nature, find what she desires, and follow as she directs. For in invetion nature is never last, education never first; rather the beginnings of things arise from natural talent, and the ends are reached by discipline.
  We ought, then, to set up images of a kind that can adhere longest in the memory. And we shall do so if we establish likenesses as striking as possible; if we set up images that are not many or vague, but doing something; if we assign to them exceptional beauty or singular ugliness; if we dress some of them w/ crowns or purple cloaks, for example, so that the likeness may be more distinct to us; or if we somehow disfigure them, as by introducing one stained w/ blood or soiled w/ mud or smeared w/ red paint, so that its form is more striking, or by assigning certain comic effects to our images, for that, too, will ensure our remembering them more readily. The things we easily remember when they are real we likewise remember without difficulty when they are figments, if they have been carefully delineated. But this will be essential - again and again to run over rapidly in the mind all the original backgrounds in order to refresh the images.
  I know that most of the Greeks who have written on the memory have taken the course of listing images that correspond to a great many words, so that persons who wished to learn these images by heart would have them ready without expending effort on a search for them. I disapprove of their method on several grounds. First, among the innumerable multitude of words it is ridiculous to collect images for a thousand. How meagre is the value these can have, when out of the infinite store of words we shall need to remember now one, and now another? Secondly, why do we wish to rob anybody of his initiative, so that, to save him from making any search himself, we deliver to him everything searched out and ready? Then again, one person is more struck by one likeness, and another more by another. Often in fact when we declare that some one form resembles another, we fail to receive universal assent, because things seem different to different persons. The same is true w/ respect to images: one that is well-defined to us appears relatively inconspicuous to others. Everybody, therefore, should in equipping himself w/ images suit his own convenience. Finally, it is the instructor's duty to teach the proper method of search in each case, and, for the sake of greater clarity, to add in illustration some one or two examples of its kind, but not all. For instance, I give a method of search and do not draught a thousand kinds of Introductions. The same procedure I believe should be followed w/ respect to images.
  Now, lest you should perchance regard the memorizing of words either as too difficult or as of too little use, and so rest content w/ the memorizing of matter, as being easier and more useful, I must adivse you why I do not disapprove of memorizing words. I believe that they who wish to do easy things w/o/ trouble and toil must previously have been trained in more difficult things. Nor have I included memorization of words to enable us to get verse by rote, but rather as an exercise whereby to strengthen that other kind of memory, the memory of matter, which is of practical use. Thus we may w/o/ effort pass from this difficult training to ease in that other memory. In every discipline artistic theory is of little avail w/o/ unremitting exercise, but esp. in mnemonics theory is almost valueless unless made good by industry, devotion, toil, and care. You can make sure that you have as many backgrounds as possible and that these conform as much as possible to the rules; in placing the images you should exercise every day. While an engrossing preoccupation may often distract us from our other pursuits, from this activity nothing whatever can divert us. Indeed there is never a moment when we do not wish to commit something to memory, and we wish it most of all when our attention is held by business of special importance. So, since a ready memory is a useful thing, you see clearly w/ what great pains we must strive to acquire so useful a faculty. Once you know its uses you will be able to appreciate this advice. To exhort you further in the matter of memory is not my intention, for I should appear either to have lacked confidence in your zeal or to have discussed the subject less fully than it demands.