M&M: Passengers

The 2008 movie Passengers tells the story of the psychotherapist Claire Summers (Anne Hathaway), who gets called to help the five sole survivors of a plane crash. Eric (Patrick Wilson) is one of the survivors and unusually happy to euphoric after the crash. He refuses to go to the group meetings and confirms to Claire several times that he's not a patient. He completely refuses a therapy. Claire and Eric get closer to each other through the “house calls” anyway. Meanwhile the other survivors start to vanish. Eric hinted already during the first meeting with Claire that she should get in contact with her sister. But she doesn't answer calls and when Claire visits her, she's not at home. She does however meet an airline official, who asserts that all the passengers have died and the pilot had caused the disaster. The man leaves a pilot's case standing there. In it Claire finds a passenger list. On that list is also her own name.

The movie is overall pretty calm without huge action scenes. I personally mostly liked the relationship between Claire and Eric and the interactions of the actors off each other. Claire strives to help Eric, on his terms, and doesn't push him to the meetings with the others. Eric on the other hand seems sympathic, at least to me, despite (or because of?) his positive, reckless, euphoric way.

The revelation of what the deal is with the passengers at the end is probably not very surprising and similar to other known movies. In the end the movie, for me, isn't so much a mystery-thriller or drama, although it could be seen as that. For me, the movie is maily about relationships to other people and about people concerned for other people. Claire is concerned for the passengers and her neighbour (played by Dianne Wiest) and others are for her. It's obvious only at the end just how much and why they truly are.

When I watched the movie for the first time, I inevitably thought of a certain well known tv series. The end of that series and with that the revelation of what's going on with the characters there disappointed a lot of people. I myself didn't make it past the end of the first season of that series. As well known as the revelation of Passengers may be in the end, I think the way Passengers is told and constructed is way better and fairer for the viewer than the series was.

With all the relationships and care for other people, will there be a chance for the relationship between Clare and her obviously estranged sister? You'll have to see it for yourself.

This movie isn't set around Christmas, not even in winter. Defining for me to pick it for a review on December was a remark made by Eric, “That crash. It's like being born again.” Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus (although not his re-birth) and is, more than other Christian holidays a holiday about relationships.

My Christmas Song "List" 2018

Here now another inspiration for unusual songs for Christmas:

Elvis Presley, Martina McBride - Blue Christmas:
Elvis with a song he wrote himself, as he says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KK6sMo8NBY

Barbara Streisand - Jingle Bells:
An unusually fast version of this well known song, probably not for everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nq0CuUKTjc

Destiny's Child - 8 Days Of Christmas:
Not every Christmas song has to be contemplative and slow, as Destiny's Child shows us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikOWQ9YIb-A

The Jackson 5 - I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus:
What are we to think of a boy singing about seeing Mommy kissing someone other than Daddy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PITCmngiMfA

Brenda Lee - It's A Marshmallow World:
Is on my list for the crazy title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm-k54HTWgI

The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick:
This song, too, is Christmassy, but with more upbeat than so many others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_3HLtW8mCw

The Kinks - Father Christmas:
This song probably spoke to many poorer kids (Father Christmas, give us some money/Don't mess around with those silly toys).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-oVPVsCqs4

The Rolling Stones - Winter:
Probably a lot of female fans wish to be the woman Mick is singing about: "Sometimes I wanna wrap my coat around you." Don't know what my mother thought of that song. She was a fan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frt_f0eP_Hs

Here is My Christmas Song "List" 2013

Again... why me?

I was shopping today and shortly behind the cash stand there was something round with a cross on the floor. For a moment I was thinking of picking it up and handing it to the checker, but put it in my jacket pocket instead. On the way home I only had one thought:

"Why? Why?! WHY?! Why do I find something like this again?"

I don't even know where this is from or what for. Does anyone know? Write it to me in the comments.

I'm sorry for the bad quality of the picture. The shot was taken with my mobile phone.

Again something religious at a religious time. Just like around Easter with the statue and pendant. Crazy times.

This morning at the stop

Some sort of shells of nuts spread over a large area at the stop. The four darker spots are furthermore spits. Not the first time this happened, by the way.

M&M: The Hour of the Lynx

A young man arrives in a snowy small town and seemingly without reason brutally kills an elderly couple in a house. The man, by the name of Drengen, is caught and brought to the high security area of a prison. There the young psychologist Lisbet does an experiment by giving the inmates pets. Among them Drengen, who gets a red furred cat. Another inmate gets jealous during yard exercise time and throws the cat over the fence. Surprisingly Drengen has bonded a lot with the cat and ends up killing the other inmate in anger. The cat is found again. But Lisbet has to abandon the experiment. Since it's the last time with the pets, Drengen gets the cat back to say good-bye. But he claims that it's not his cat. He's convinced that god is speaking to him through the cat and pushing him to commit suicide. Lisbet doesn't know what else to do but involving the priest Helen.

Drengen is totally withdrawn and there's nothing they can get out of him that makes much sense. Helen persuades a guard to lock her in with Drengen in his cell over night. In the night Drengen starts talking and things start to make sense when he begins to talk about his past. You've got to watch yourself to find out what he's telling. The original title of this Danish-Swedish movie by the way is I lossens time.

As you can see above, Drengen is a young man, who is not afraid to use brutal force. So this movie isn't a totally easy one. Apart from those two murders however, the movie impresses by being markedly calm and makes one wonder, even well after the closing credits are over, about topics like blame, forgiveness and belief.

By the way, the source material for this movie was a theatre play The Hour of the Lynx (original title: Lodjurets Timma) by the Swedish writer Per Olov Enquist and is a play for five people, which premiered in April 1988 in Stockholm. The premiere for the German version was in 1992 in Ingolstadt. In 1991 the Hessische Rundfunk (Hessian Broadcast) and Sachsen Radio (Saxony Radio) together produced a radio play version of the theatre play.

The sad face

Caution: This entry contains Watchmen spoilers!

In January 2018 a long time and good internet friend of mine (you know who you are) and I came to talk about masks in an online game and consequently also masks more generally. I told her that I have a Scream mask that glows in the dark. (I still owe that friend a picture of that glowing mask. Back then I didn't get a good picture of that, because I keep the mask in the wardrobe in the dark.) I showed her also masks, of which I was thinking of maybe getting version 1 oder version 2.They come closest to the moving Rorschach masks given the options available now. The friend wrote to me then that she had just rewatched Rorschach's death. "he looks like one of his masks inkblots on the snow".

I wrote to her under the title "Rorschach mask ink blots" the following text:

Rorschach's mask is not only moving, those blots are linked to his emotions.

This is one of the cards the psychiatrist shows him when he's caught:

This is the vision or memory he gets from seeing it, his mother (a prostitute) kissing the client. The boy sees them, worries about his mother and speaks to her, which makes the client walk away without paying the mother and she slaps her son:

We never see the full body image of them, like we do on the card, but it should be close enough to get the connection.

Rorschach's obviously false answer to what he sees: “Some nice flowers.“

This is the last image that shows on his mask shortly before his death and before he takes it off:

This is what's left of him, after Doctor Manhattan killed him:

If anything, this is his “sad“ face. It just has to be. Of course it's a sad moment in his childhood, but the image it makes on his face makes sense after we see that memory, at least it makes sense to me. He sees them close and kissing and later gets slapped. That is sad for a boy. And later he knows that Doctor Manhattan will kill him. He has to. They both know it. Another sad moment in Rorschach's life. The remains then form the only shape that makes sense.

There are other ink blots both in the book and movie that are related to certain emotions. But the sad face is the most obvious one of them all and gets repeated several times, as you can see. It's fairly obvious once you pay attention. Most people don't notice.

Check ebay for “Rorschach t-shirt” there are some with that very image for sale, too.

At that time I referred to the movie mostly. In the book there are other situations as well, in which more similar shadows are cast from different people and the Knot Tops spray their tag on walls, which is a very similar figure and on watchmen.fandom.com and whitneyblogs.weebly.com is called "The Hiroshima Lovers" following a comment the psychiatrist makes who evaluates Rorschach.

In memory of Walter Joseph Kovacs (March, 21 1940 - November, 2 1985)

M&M: Candyman

Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) is a graduate student in Chicago researching urban legends. During her research she comes across a local creature: the Candyman. Candyman was originally the son of slaves, who earned himself quite a bit of money when during the Civil War, he invented a machine to mass produce shoes. He fell in love with a white woman, who got pregnant from him. His father didn't like that at all. So he sent a bunch of people to brutally murder him. The right hand was sawn off and after they poored honey over his body, he got stung by hundreds of bees and eventually died from that. But when you stand in front of a mirror and say is name five times, he'll come back as Candyman and will have a hook for his right hand. He'll then kill the person that called him.

Helen and her friend Bernadette Walsh (Kasi Lemmons) want to try that. But Bernadette hesitates and leaves before saying his name five times. Helen does say it five times. Following that strange things start happening. The police take notice of Helen and it's none other than Candyman himself, who is able to help her out. But Helen has to end this curse.

You'll have to see for yourself to find out if she succeeds and how the story ends.

I became aware of this movie a while ago after I found a set of movie posters. The one of Candyman attracted me most. There's not much to see. Just one eye of a person, but the pupil of the eye has the shape of a person (Candyman) and at the eye itself there is just one single bee to be seen. This combination attracted me so much that I eventually watched the movie. The movie is fairly brutal. The story of the creation of Candyman itself should make that obvious. But there's almost no actual violence to be seen. There is talks and hints of the brutal acts, but not directly shown. But maybe I saw the cut version. There's also an R-rated one. You should in any case not be afraid of bees. Virginia Madsen was reportedly hypnotised to be able to shoot some certain scenes with bees. Who know if this is true or if that itself is another “urban legend”. In any case, towards the end there are lots of bees shown.

The movie is based on the short story “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker and can be found in volume 5 of his “Books of Blood”. Currently I haven't read the story yet, so I can't say anything about to compare it with the movie. Douglas E. Winter however speaks about Clive Barker and “The Forbidden” and the parallels as well as differenes to “Candyman” in a roughly 18 minutes long video Candyman [A Story To Tell: Clive Barker's 'The Forbidden'] (English), positive for the movie and also the changes they made compared to the short story.

Fun fact: Kasi Lemmons, who plays Helen's good friend here also plays a good friend to lead actress Jodie Foster in “The Silence Of The Lambs”.

Miss Marple and the helicopter

Yesterday a police helicopter was flying in the city. It wasn't actually flying a lot. It was more hovering in one position for a long time. Still at work I looked on the internet to find information, but didn't find any on the spot, not even on the pages of the police. In the evening I searched again with a bit different words than previously and eventually found information. Whether it was because of the different words or because of time passing, I am not sure. The helicopter wasn't searching for a person of any kind, like a co-worker and I had suspected, but had done overview shots.

The next day I told the co-worker that I had searched for information again in the evening and found some, too. She then called me "Miss Marple".

M&M: Buried

The plot of Buried from 2010 is simple: Paul (Ryan Reynolds), an American truck driver was in Iraq when he got kidnapped and is now waking up buried in a box. Apart from the clothes he's got on, he only has a lighter and a mobile phone.

Ryan Reynold is most famous in recent times for his portrayal of Wade Wilson/Deadpool. As much as comic fans enjoy seeing Reynolds in this role, he can also be serious and convince with limited possibilities which are given to him in Buried. Those who expect action and much movement should stay away from this movie. A plot in a sense is not existant. A man is trapped in a box. But that's exactly what fascinated me about the story: the huge constriction of possibilities for the actor in this situation.
Apart from voices of other people with whom Paul is talking, Ryan Reynold carries the movie effectively all alone. Reynolds achieves, in my opinion, successfully to create a feeling of suspense and to hold that throughout 90 minutes. I felt with him and was able to feel the anxiety and tightness in the box. In that time Paul as well as the viewer are faced with many questions: How did he end up in the box? Where is he now? Even if he can reach someone on the phone, how are they going to find him? Are they going to reach him in time before either air and/or phone battery run out? As a viewer you'll ask yourself if Paul maybe deserved being stuck in the box.

To find out if or how those questions are answered, you'll have to watch the movie yourself.

Magical blow

Did you ever wonder what's so magical about blowing? As a child we blow out candles on our birthday cake and make a wish. As a child, after we hurt ourselves, mommy blew on the body part that hurt to make the pain go away (or at least lessen it).

Maybe, just maybe, adults would be a bit happier again, if they pursed their lips more often and let all the air out and make a wish. But it's got to be something you really want. Not just something willy-nilly, because I just told you to and you don't really want to. Go on. Make a wish. Inhale. Purse your lips. Exhale.

Let me know in the comments if your wish came true. Also let me know if you've got ideas about what's so magical about blowing.

The wrong door

The other day I entered the tram through the right entrance next to the driver. The tram was pretty packed. At the very front and the very back it's also very cramped for my taste. Next to me was a young man. The next three stops the exit was on the left side. On the third stop a couple of people passed us to exit. When he noticed that he was where he wanted to go out, too, he approached the driver, “Could you...?”, pointing at the closed right door. The driver couldn't contain a grin. The young man noticed his mistake himself without the driver needing to say something and exited still on time.

M&M: In The Heart Of The Sea

It seems fitting, after writing about a whale with over 80 plastic bags in its stomach, to now review a movie about whales and the sea: “In The Heart Of The Sea”.

This movie from 2015 was directed by Ron Howard, who with “Apollo 13” and “A Beautiful Mind” already did movies based on true stories.

“In The Heart Of The Sea” is a bit similar to “Titanic” from the year 1997: a true ship accident and a (supposed) survivor telling other people the story. The movie here essentially tells the story behind the world classic “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville. The sinking of the whale ship “Essex” in 1820 was in part inspiration for the novel. The movie “In The Heart Of The Sea” is based on the book “In The Heart Of The Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex written by Nathaniel Philbrick.

Around 1800 whales were excessively hunted. On August, 12^th 1819 the Essex started with a crew of 21 men. It should be mentioned that just 3 days after that, the ship capsized. The last captain of the Essex was George Pollard (played by Benjamin Walker). According to the movie Pollard got the position as captain not because he was skilled, but because of his family history and was sort of born into this position. Petty officer second class Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) doesn't like that at all. Mostly because he is truly skilled and longs to be captain himself. This leads to tension between the two of them. Also on board is Henry Coffin (Frank Dilane) as ship boy. Coffin, only 17 years of age, was Pollards cousin.

On November, 20^th 1820 the crew finally found a group of whales. A whale attacked the boats so forcefully that the crew had to cut the leash. As they wanted to go back to the Essex later, they found the boat at an angle that part the bottom of the ship was showing. The crew worked hard to return the ship to an upright position, but was attacked by a whale several times. The force of the attack was so strong that some of the planks burst. The crew was able to get some food supplies from the Essex into the catchers, before on November 22^nd the Essex sank.

The problem with what followed was that the 3 catchers weren't build for long rides on deep sea, which lay ahead of the crew. Catchers are build for short, fast rides.

Owen Chase (the first helmsman) and Thomas Nickerson (the ship boy) were among the 8 survivors of the originally 21 crew members. Herman Melville hired on a whale ship in 1841. Which is how he came to meet the son of Owen Chase, who gave Melville his father's journal to read. Inspired by these writings, Melville wrote the novel “The Whale”, which today is known as the world literature “Moby Dick”. In the movie Melville (Ben Wishaw) goes to Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson),in other words a direct survivor, to be told what happened on the Essex. It probably makes more sense to tell the movie in flashbacks from a survivor. This meeting never took place though.

By the way, I saw the movie “Moby Dick: Heart Of A Whale” from the year 2015 directed by Jürgen Stumpfhaus. In it they suggest that some certain sounds whales make to communicate with each other were similar to workings the blacksmith did on the harpoons on the Union in 1807 and also the dinghy repairs of the Essex in 1820. Maybe the whales have misinterpreted the repair noises for whale sounds and that's why both of the ships were attacked.

Nail clipping. The right hand first or the left hand first?

Since I just clipped my fingernails again, I came to think about a scene from "Nymphomaniac 1", not for the first time.

An old man meets a young woman and lets her live with him. He introduces himself as "Seligman", which seems to be an odd name. He explains that it means "the happy one". She calls herself Joe and asks if he is happy.

Seligman: Well, I suppose I am. - In my own way. Even if I'm the kind of person who cut the nails
of the right hand first.
Joe: What does that mean?
Seligman: Well, I divide humanity into two groups: the people who cut the nails on the left hand first,
and the people who cut the nails of the right hand first. My theory is that the people who cut the nails
of the left hand first, they're more light-hearted. They ... they have a tendency to enjoy life more, because they go straight for the easiest task, and save the difficulties for later. - So what do you do?
Joe: Always the left hand first. I don't think there's a choice. Go for the pleasure first, always. And then when you've done the left hand, only the right hand remains. That's... that's the easiest one left.
Seligman: I never thought of it like that. - Well, you're never too old. Never too old to learn.

Which hand do you clip first? Let me know in the comments.

The whale with over 80 plastic bags in its stomach

Meant to write about this a while ago already. At the beginning of this month it became known that a pilot whale in Thailand had fought for its life. Already during the rescue attempt it threw up 5 plastic bags. The rescue attempt failed and the whale died eventually. An autopsy revealed 80 plastic bags in its stomach, weighing up to 8 kg (18 lb).

80+ plastic bags in the stomach was too much for the whale. When will it be too much for the humans? For the rest of the world?

A Ghost Story: The Music

Already shortly after publishing my last post, I got the feeling that my review of "A Ghost Story" didn't really do the movie any justice. So I want to use this post now to write some more about the music. As I already wrote in the post about the movie, the music is composed by Daniel Hart.

Daniel Hart was born to musician parents in 1976 in Emporia, Kansas in America. So it probably comes as no surprise that they gave him a violin when he was 3 years old and he never let go since, as he said so himself. He came to composing film music for friends and providing the music for their little projects first.

When he's not composing film music, he plays and sings in his band: Dark Rooms. The song “I Get Overwhelmed“ from the band is used in the movie. Contrary to other movies it is not just the title song or something, but the man of the couple is a musician and the woman listens to the song after he died. Elements from that song can be heard in the other tracks of the soundtrack.

The soundtrack is mostly calm and much like the movie as a whole reduced to the essential. I personally feel that the soundtrack is a good one to listen to in passing when you work on something (like I am now, writing this post) and don't want to do that in complete silence or when you want to calm down and get some rest.

I should also mention that Kesha wrote the song “Last One“ performed by Stereo Jane. Kesha is briefly seen in the “party“ scene in the movie, too.

Here is an incomplete list of the tracks from the soundtrack album, if you want to check it out for free:

AGhost Story (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Not included is track no. 9 of the album, “Sciunt se Esse Mortui“ and no. 10, Kesha's/Stereo Jane's “Last One“.)

Often times for the trailer music from other movies is used of from music groups. In the trailer for „A Ghost Story“ however you can hear parts from „I Get Overwhelmed“. Check it out:

trailer in English and trailer in German.

I think, because the movie is rather quiet and with very little dialogue, the music as a whole and “I Get Overwhelmed“ comes to the fore more. If you don't just want to listen, but also see Dark Rooms performing “I Get Overwhelmed“, I found this

IDKSessions Video

for you.

M&M: A Ghost Story

The title seems fairly straight forward in regards to what the story is about, a typical ghost story, but "A Ghost Story" from the year 2017 is far from that. David Lowery wrote the story and also directed the movie.

The story is about a young couple (Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck) living in a small house. The woman would like to move out, but the man doesn't. He likes the history of the house, he tells her. She tells him that when she was young and had to move a lot, she would write something on a small piece of paper and hide it in a crack in the wall of the house so that she'd have something waiting for her, in case she'd come back again. Shortly before they actually do move out, the man dies in a car accident. The woman sees the dead man one last time in the hospital and finally covers him completely with the sheet. After she's gone, the body under the sheet starts to move. He turned into a ghost. He walks around the hospital covered under the sheet and goes back to the house, which he seems unable to leave.

He watches his mourning partner. It's somewhat funny and yet sad, to see the ghost with his sheet, when he's standing in a room or sitting, barely moving or not moving at all. When the ghost is looking out of a window one day, he sees another ghost in the neighbour house also looking out of the window. They have a short talk.

After some time the woman finds a new partner and moves out. One of the few moments in the movie when something scary and typically poltergeist-like happens, when the ghost gets mad (or is it jealous?). Normally we'd be scared in movie moments like that. Here the scene is more bitter sweet. Just like she told her partner before, she leaves a small piece of paper with something written on it in a crack of the house.

A mother moves in with her two children. They celebrate Christmas. But they can't cope with the ghost and after another tamper tantrum of the ghost, during with plates fly and hit the wall, the family moves out again.

Eventually the house gets steamrolled over. The “neighbour ghost” is ready to go. Only "our" ghost stays and is still there when the small house is replaced by a skyscraper with office rooms. After the ghost desperately throws himself off the building, he finds himself in the 19th century. A family of settlers wants to build a house. The girl of the family writes on a small piece of paper and puts it on the ground, placing a stone on top of it. The family is killed by Native Americans. The ghost stays with the family and watches as the body of the girl turns to just bones.

You need to watch the movie yourself to find out whether the ghost finds his peace and how the movie ends. A movie with the title "A Ghost Story" is certainly one people who don't like horror movies would avoid at first. But I can most warmly recommend it to everyone. The movie is not at all a scary movie and the two poltergeist-like moments are already mentioned above. It doesn't get scarier than that. On the contrary the movie impressed me with how calm it is, not least with very little dialogue, long scenes without cuts or camera movement and a very beautiful score by Daniel Hart. Also the movie has a 1.33 : 1 ratio, not the typical 2.35 : 1. That means black mattes left and right of the screen. Also the edges are round, which gives the movie its very own atmosphere.

I came upon this movie only a while ago, when I read the title somewhere on the internet in a list of movies. Certainly I will check out other movies by David Lowery soon, since I really liked "A Ghost Story".

["Ain't Them Bodies Saints" is another movie by David Lowery, again starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck and yes, Daniel Hart provided the score to that one as well. Haven't seen that one yet though. I might (re)view it soon though.]

Rain

Heavy rains the past weeks inevitably have made me think of certain movie quotes.

I have repeatedly watched the first 6 episodes of "The Tick" months ago. In episode four (Party Crashers) the vigilante Overkill comes back to his boat, which is equipped with artificial intelligence and answers to the name of "Dangerboat". Soon after that Overkill wants to leave again.

Dangerboat: You just got back.
Overkill: Crime has overtaken this city. There must be punishment. They're all animals, anyway. It's time for the real rain to come and wash all this scum off the street.

Movie fans might remember similar words. Dangerboat also recognises a certain similarity and answers accordingly to that.

Danerboat: Travis Bickle.
Overkill: What?
Dangerboat: Taxi Driver.
Overkill: Shut the fuck up.

For comparison Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro) in "Taxi Driver":

May 10th. Thank God for the rain which has helped wash away the garbage and trash off the sidewalks. I'm workin' long hours now, six in the afternoon to six in the morning. Sometimes even eight in the morning, six days a week. Sometimes seven days a week. It's a long hustle but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, three fifty a week. Sometimes even more when I do it off the meter. All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the street.

Fred on the roof

Fred on the roof

Fred was sitting on the roof.

His light blond hair was clearly visible against the brown roof tiles and is light blue eyes were shining. Yes, today, now on the roof was one of the few moments of his young life, where they were shining. They were sparkling like a happy leaf fire in autumn.

But the crowd of people below could not see that. Today was the day the whole neighbourhood was paying attention to him. All those years, the whole damned 14 years he had been in the world, he didn't get that much attention as he did now.

When someone wanted to end their life, “oh“ and “awww“ came from everywhere.

And before that?

Like ants they were scuttling on the street, helpless, small creatures, to serve him.

God wasn't called God anymore. He was called Fred now.

Everyone looked up at him. Everyone obeyed him. Only thought: don't jump down there.

Fred as the puppeteer. Ladies and gentlemen, the time is up. Red or green? Death or life? Jumping or not?

Fred stood up.

“Oh!”, it came from everywhere like an echo. Some screamed “No!” and “Boy, watch out!” or “Boy, don't do that!”

Fred lifted his arms as if to jump.

What would be his last words?

“You're all so stupid!”, he screamed from the top of his lunges, opened the roof window and went back into the house.

I wrote this story in 2001 or 2002 when we were covering short stories in German and some fellow students complained that the stories we talked about were dull. Well, the point of short stories is not to be exciting in the first place anyway. When I came back from school, I remembered a task I had read in a book on writing stories or books. I didn't quite like the task originally. Now somehow I had a story in my head. Imagine a person on the roof of a house, about to jump. What would be his or her last words? What would be his or her last sentence?

I didn't want my person to jump, hence the ending of my story. I wrote it and brought it to school to the next lesson. The teacher agreed to include it into the lesson. Of course I had to read it out aloud myself. I hate reading out aloud.

I changed one sentence a little bit, because it turned out people understood it another way I meant it to. Otherwise the story is without any further changes and the way I wrote it originally.

M&M: Murder In The First

The movie from the year 1995 is based on true events. More later on just how true those events really are.

The plot begins in 1938. It tells the story of Henri Young (wonderfully played by Kevin Bacon), who is imprisoned as a criminal in Alcatraz, the famous prison on the island off San Francisco. The first 20 minutes are not necessarily easy to watch. Because Young is in solitary confinement after an attempted escape and is treated really badly, if not to say tortured. After several years in solitary confinement he's released to the general population again. At lunch time he meets another prisoner, Rufus 'Ray' McCain (David Michael Sterling), who had been with Young at the attempted escape back then. Young lunges at McCain with a spoon and eventually kills him, which in return leads him back to solitary confinement again.

The young attorney James Stamphill (Christian Slater) is supposed to defend Young at court for the murder of McCain. The story is actually told from his point of view. The case seams clear and nothing special at first. But it takes Stamphill a while to get Young to open up and in fact speak at all. The dialogue between the two, especially when Young is called a witness and forced against his explicit wish, to answer questions, are wonderful dialogues with much fun and humour, which speaks to me a lot personally. A beautiful interaction between Kevin Bacon and Christian Slater.

After Henri Young spent years in solitary confinement, it's hardly possible to speak of resocialisation, and in the end not only Henri Young has to explain himself at court, but also the guards and especially the warden have to justify themselves.

In the movie Henri Young is depicted as almost innocent, caught when he stole 5 dollars to provide for himself and his sister and otherwise, apart from the murder of the fellow prisoner, not a criminal. The reality is a little different.

Henri Young really existed. As well as the fellow prisoner Rufus McCain. Together with others they did attempt to escape the prison. That much is true. (Although according to wikipedia it was a year later than in the movie, namely in 1939.) But Henri Young was far from innocent. Even before he came to Alcatraz, the “real” Henri Young was a convicted bank-robber, who in fact was known to be aggressive with hostages. So there can be by far no talk of just stealing 5 dollars to provide for himself and his sister and being caught.

The argumentation in the movie is that it wasn't Henri Young, who was responsible for McCain's death, but the detention conditions and prolonged isolation, was really the argumentation of the defence. I won't anticipate the end of the court case in the movie, but will say this much: that Henri Young's life did not end the way Stamphill (Christian Slater) tells. The truth is that Henri Young was transferred to another prison in 1948. Henri Young's wikipedia entry talks about him “jumping parole” in 1972. Which means that he was allowed to leave the prison for while and under certain conditions. But he never came back from that release and his whereabouts to this day are listed as “unknown”. Having been born June, 11^th 1911, Henri Young would be over 100 years old, if he is still alive today.

The movie is really good and worth watching. Even though, as stated above, the first 20 minutes are not nice to watch. It's to be expected that a movie “based on true events” is often told fairly freely. However I find the very bold deviation quite frustrating. Especially since the end tells something that is absolutely not the truth, namely that Henri Young was in part responsible for Alcatraz being closed. The truth is that Alcatraz was closed in 1963, which was a good 20 years after Henri Young had spent time there. Also Alcatraz wasn't closed because of dubious detention conditions and/or in the end no longer allowed solitary confinement. There are many documentaries from 2000 or later about solitary confinement. Even though such detention conditions are just as dubious as they are depicted in the movie back then. By the way, it is just as wrongful depicted in the movie and stressed several times that the purpose of Alcatraz was resocialisation. In the German wikipedia-article there is the following note (my own translation):

“Alcatraz had 2 purposes:

1. Transfer of troublemakers from other prisons, to prevent escape, violence and suicide attempts.
2. Transfer from prisoners, to send them back to another prison with better behaviour. There was never talk of resocialisation.” (Emphasis mine.)

By the way, the reason to close Alcatraz, among others, was that the salt water affected the building over the years and the maintenance and repair was simply too costly and extensive. The reason was not at all the conduction of the prison.

With this generally good movie, I find it's a pity just how much the facts are twisted, Henri Young's life as well as the history of Alcatraz. I personally would have liked the note of Henri Young's disappearance without a trace, most of all because it would have been closer to the truth and in my opinion also more positive for Henri Young in the movie as well. Maybe it wasn't heroic enough for the movie makers. Then again, the real Henri Young was never a hero from the very beginning anyway.

From the child's mouth part 2

I went shopping this evening. In front of me at the checkstand was a young woman with her little boy. She gave him two banknotes for him to pay with them. He looked at the banknotes and named the value correctly: 10 and 5. The mother praised him and asked how much 10 + 5 is. "Two", he said. I smiled an internal smile. Two banknotes. That's right. "Something like that", the mother said. The checker called out the total price and the mother told the boy to hand her the banknotes, which he did.

The factory of the future

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

Warren Gameliel Bennis (1925-2014)

Religious signs

On March, 30th I went to throw my waste paper in the containers a couple of streets from here. Next to them was a big bag. I was curious and peeked inside. Inside were several dishes and a statue. I hesitated for a short moment and then I took the statue and took it home with me. It's about 21.5 cm (about 8.5 in) and weighs a tidy 1.3 kg (about 2.9 lb). No idea who would dispose of something like that. I would suppose that a religious relative died and the other relatives didn't have any use for such a figure and didn't know how to get rid of it in another way or didn't want to sell it. Strange though that this figure was dumped so shortly before Easter. What a timing!

Yesterday I went outside for a short time, walked our street and saw something round, golden and shiny on the sidewalk. I bent down to pick it up, believing it was one of the coins we have for shopping trolleys, although it obviously has a small hook, which those coins usually don't have. When I turned this thing around in my hand, I was baffled. It wasn't a coin, but a religious pendant. Fairly solid, too. I can't bend it. It's not a cheap toy. I put it on my keychain and wondered, why I found such religious things twice in such a short period of time. Me of all people.

I think, I'll hold on to both for a while, until I decided on what to do with them. Sell online?

Friday, 13th

When I was studying inclusive education ages ago, I made one part of an exam as a presentation about phobias, which is a fear that's often very strong and limiting and often tied to specific situations. My presentation also was about how to cure phobias.

Very fitting for this day today there actually is a term for people with the fear of the number 13. Such a fear is called triskaidekaphobia (from the Greek τρεισκαίδεκα, treiskaídeka = thirteen). There are actually places where there are only 12 floors of a building or they skipped the 13^th floor and the buttons on an elevator only shows floor 12 followed by 14.

There is also paraskevidekatriaphobia (from Latin parasceuē or Greek αρασκευή, parascēves = Friday), the fear of Friday, 13^th. Movies like the series of horror movies “Friday, 13th” certainly don't help with that fear.

Fun fact: The fear of long words, maybe like the two phobias mentioned above, is called hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. A made-up word from the wrong spelling of the English “hippopotamus”, the Latin “monstrum” (unusually large; monster), the Latin “sesqui” (= a foot and a half) and “pedal” from Latin “pedālis” (= the foot or part belonging to the foot). One and a half foot probably a figurative way of describing the length of the word. Actually in German the part “sesquipedalio” is spelled with 2 “p”: “sesquippedalio”. Probably a misspelling and through copy and paste people just spread it on.

Jews maybe don't understand such fears very much. Saturday is Shabbat for them, meaning their day of rest at the end of the week. They start celebrating that starting Friday evening. Also Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish coming of age ritual, is typically celebrated on the Shabbat after the boy has had his 13^th birthday. The Bat Mitzvah for girls is celebrated when they're 12 years old.

The Good Friday on the other hand is not really a good day for Christians, since it's the day of the crucifixion of Jesus. Even the economy, which could otherwise probably be called fairly rational, called several bad days “Black Friday”, either specific days of an economy crisis or stock market crash.

Thirteen by itself is often considered as not a good number. Jesus had 12 apostles. The day and the night are structured in 12 hours. The year has 12 months. So thirteen is often considered as “the devil's dozen”. Looking at it from a mathematical point of view, 13 is a prime number. Which means a whole number greater than 1 that cannot be made by multiplying other whole numbers.

These are only a few examples and possible explanations why specifically Friday, 13^th is considered to be such a bad day. Although you can find studies on the internet from insurance companies for example that show that statistically there are no more accidents (material damage or damage to persons) on a Friday, 13^th. The reason could possibly be though, because some are actually so scared of this specific day that they take that day off work and stay home, much like others who reportedly plan their holiday in such a way that they don't go on a Friday, 13^th.

I myself learned from a fairly young age that Friday, 13^th is a normal day and not necessarily something bad will happen on that day. In primary school I was part of the recorder group and once we rehearsed for a play on the supposedly bad day. The rehearsal when without anything bad happening.

When I was studying however there was something funny when one of our professors said good-bye to us on the last lesson before the exam telling us that we'll see each other again on Friday, 13^th for the exam. Cries of shock broke out in class then. Obviously we all knew somehow that the exams would be on a Friday and also that we had exams on the 13^th. But those two bad days were not in our heads together as Friday, 13^th, until the professor said his good-bye!

Fun facts:

1. Each year there is at least 1, but no more than 3 Fridays on the 13^th of a month!
2. If the year is no leap-year and February has a Friday, 13^th, so will March and November!
3. The shortest interval between 2 Friday, 13^th is exactly 4 weeks! Namely when fun fact number 1 applies with the days between February and March, since February only has 28 days.
4. The longest interval between 2 Friday, 13^th is exactly 61 days or 14 months! That's when the day is in August. Then the next bad day is only in October the following year. Or if the day is in June with the next Friday, 13^th only being in September the following year.

How is Friday, 13^th for you? Did something bad happen to you on this day? Or did actually something good happen to you on such a day? Do you think about this date or is it just a normal day like any other for you?

Happy Friday, 13^th everyone!

M&M: The Legend Of 1900

"You're never really done for, as long as you've got a good story and someone to tell it to."

The trumpet player Max Tooney (Pruitt Taylor Vince) tries to sell his trumpet in a shop. The shop owner (Peter Vaughan) actually wants to close the shop at that moment, but grants Max to play the trumpet for one last time. Max plays a melody which sounds familiar to the shop owner, who heard it on a broken matrix he found in an old piano. Max says that this matrix shouldn't actually exist and that's how he starts telling the shop owner the story of 1900.

1900 isn't a number but a man. As a baby he was left by his mother on the Virginian, a ship that was going back and forth between America and Europe. Danny Boodman (Bill Nunn), a worker on the ship, finds the boy in a box and raises him. Since Danny found the boy on the first month of the new century, he calls him that. Danny never registers the boy at any office, for fear they may take him away. When 1900 is eight years old, Danny dies from an accident. After that the boy hides so well that nobody can find him. When he's seen again, he's playing the piano perfectly and moving everyone. So he ends up playing in the band on the ship to earn himself some money. In the first class he is more or less playing from notes, in third class he's playing totally free and his own melodies. Although he's never registered somewhere, more and more people on land hear about his ingenious playing. That's how Jelly Roll Morton (Clarence Williams III) also hears of 1900 and challenges him to a duel. 1900 however has no idea how such a duel works.

One day Max leaves the ship again and loses contact with 1900. But when Max hears they're going to destroy the Virginian in short time, he goes looking for his old friend.

Will 1900 ever leave the ship? Who'll win the duel? Will Max find 1900 again? Those are questions only you can answer to yourself by watching the movie.

It's a bit curious that this movie from the year 1998 runs more than two hours when the book on which the movie is based is only about 80 pages long written by Alessandro Baricco. The book is thought to be a monologue, a one-man-theatre-play, which is why it also includes some directions. The trumpet player is called Tim Tooney in the book and he tells the story as a flashback, similar to the movie.

At first I was sceptical about such a long movie. But I was very positively surprised and the story totally captivated me, so the movie wasn't tedious for me. If you like piano music and/or movies about friendship, you might enjoy this movie.

Hello darkness, my old friend

A fishy question

Two fish in a goldfish bowl have an argument until one of them gets mad and sulks at one end of the bowl for a while. Then he swims back to the other fish with a huge grin on his face and asks, "Oh good, if there's no god, then who changes the water?"

Horror stories in two sentences

Reddit asked their users in the summer of 2013 what horror story they can come up with in two sentences. Two sentences are not much, but this selection of 20 stories are scary anyway. (The Reddit question and all the answers can be read here: Reddit.com)

1. I woke up to hear knocking on glass. At first, I thought it was the window until I heard it come from the mirror again.
Therealhatman

2. The last thing I saw was my alarm clock flashing 12:07 before she pushed her long rotting nails through my chest, her other hand muffling my screams. I sat bolt upright, relieved it was only a dream, but as I saw my alarm clock read 12:06, I heard my closet door creak open.
Jmperson

3. Growing up with cats and dogs, I got used to the sounds of scratching at my door while I slept. Now that I live alone, it is much more unsettling.
Miami_Metro

4. In all of the time that I’ve lived alone in this house, I swear to God I’ve closed more doors than I’ve opened.
EvilSteveDave

5. A girl heard her mom yell her name from downstairs, so she got up and started to head down. As she got to the stairs, her mom pulled her into her room and said “I heard that, too.
Drrd777

6. She asked why I was breathing so heavily. I wasn’t.
Calamitosity

7. My wife woke me up last night to tell me there was an intruder in our house. She was murdered by an intruder 2 years ago.
The_D_String

8. I awoke to the sound of the baby monitor crackling with a voice comforting my firstborn child. As I adjusted to a new position, my arm brushed against my wife, sleeping next to me.
Doctordevice

9. I always thought my cat had a staring problem – she always seemed fixated on my face. Until one day, when I realized that she was always looking just behind me.
Hangukbrian

10. There’s nothing like the laughter of a baby. Unless it’s 1 a.m. and you’re home alone.
Wartortlesthebestest

11. I was having a pleasant dream when what sounded like hammering woke me. After that, I could barely hear the muffled sound of dirt covering the coffin over my own screams.
Vigridarena

12. “I can’t sleep,” she whispered, crawling into bed with me. I woke up cold, clutching the dress she was buried in
Vaultkid321

13. I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy, check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy, there’s somebody on my bed.”
JustAnotherMuffledVo

14. You get home, tired after a long day’s work and ready for a relaxing night alone. You reach for the light switch, but another hand is already there.
madamimadamimadam

15. I can’t move, breathe, speak or hear and it’s so dark all the time. If I knew it would be this lonely, I would have been cremated instead.
Graboid27

16. She went upstairs to check on her sleeping toddler. The window was open and the bed was empty.
Aerron

17. I never go to sleep. But I keep waking up.
Genetically_witless

18. My daughter won’t stop crying and screaming in the middle of the night. I visit her grave and ask her to stop, but it doesn’t help.
Skuppy

19. After working a hard day, I came home to see my girlfriend cradling our child. I didn’t know which was more frightening, seeing my dead girlfriend and stillborn child, or knowing that someone broke into my apartment to place them there.
Cobaltcollapse

20. There was a picture in my phone of me sleeping. I live alone.
Guztaluz

Riots because of Nutalla discount in France

I first read about that in the Guardian article 'They are like animals': French shoppers brawl over cut-price Nutella. The supermarket chain Intermarché had given a 70 % discount on 950 g jars of the chocolate hazelnut spread of Nutella, which made it cost 1.41 Euros instead of 4.50 Euros. This had led to massive runs and riots. Nutalla was sold out fast in some places and they sold amounts in one day what would have been sold in three months normally. A German article of Der Westen reported in the video of no injuries. The Guardian article however does mention that a woman took a box and hair of another one pulled out for example. For a jar of Nutella? Seriously? According to the Der Westen article they are working on a discount maximum of 34 % for foodstuff now. I have doubts however that this will prevent riots like that however.