Carrot head

Today I found this carrot among others in the store. I cut the holes for the eyes and mouth. But the nose was as is.

M&M: Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi)

Chihiro is 10 years old and together with her parents she moves to a new city. On their way to the new home they get lost. During a break they find an abandoned funfair. At first Chihiro does not want to be there, but then goes alone to explore the area as her parents illegally help themselves to some food and start eating like pigs at a sort of restaurant. As Chihiro is walking around, she meets a boy by the name of Haku. Haku warns Chihiro to leave this place before the night, but when Chihiro is back with her parents, they turned into pigs. To protect Chihiro from the creatures of the night, Haku brings her to the bathhouse to the witch Yubaba. In the bathhouse Haku asks the young woman Lin to request work for Chihiro. But the witch controlls her workers by erasing their memory of their name and whoever doesn't know their name has to stay in this magic world. Haku himself can't remember his full name and makes it clear to Chihiro that it's important for her to remember her full name whatever else happens. Chihiro has to do many tasks and wor hard until she can go back to her parents in the end. You'll have to watch for yourself to find out, if Haku will remember his full name.

The bathouse of the witch Yubaba was build for the Shinto gods an spirits and I found it exciting to learn a bit about the shinto belief through this animated movie of the year 2001 (directed by Hayao Miyazaki). For someone like me from Europe this belief is foreign and less known. Although I did read a bit about shinto (and voodoo) some years ago, because I'm interested in different belief systems and wanted to learn about them. So it wasn't totally new for me. I like this idea that gods and spirits are on earth, in the wind, in the water, on the earth, in the animals and not somewhere up in the sky far away from us on earth.

I felt a bit drawn to this movie not just because I found the plot description exciting, but also because of the name Haku. I knew the name because it's the name of one of the currently 4 cats of the American-Japanese Youtuber couple Rachel and Jun. If you like cats and are interested in the Japanese culture, check out Rachel and Jun's YouTube channel!

Nina Hagen did the German voice for the witch Yubaba. Lin was spoken by her daughter Cosma Shiva Hagen. I didn't know any of the other speakers in German or English.

My beloved toilet paper

 Actually I already took that picture in March to show an online friend what kind of toilet paper I have. I like it so much because it's so literal:

I just like how it fits to use a toilet paper that is called "Happy End" to finish your business on the toilet. Little did I know that shortly after taking this picture it would take months until I would have that specific one back. So just in case: I won't tell anyone where I got it from.

Rorschach was here...

  ... this morning on the tram I saw this blot:

Not only was it literally "mirrored" because of the window like a pattern of a Rorschach test. It also reminded me of a mix between two of them:

Card1 (Source: https://www.rorschach.org/):

for the top part, something like off-standing ears and dots and card 4 (Source: https://www.rorschach.org/):

for the bottom part, what looks like feet or boots.

Write me, what do you see in the blot from the tram.

M&M: A Hidden Life

A while ago I watched the movie “A Hidden Life” from the year 2019 for the first time. It was on my imdb.com list of movies that I wanted to see and tells the story of the farmer Franz Jägerstätter from the small town St. Radegund in Austria, who refused to fight for the Nazis during the second world war.

Franz Jägerstätter really lived. Which was one of the reasons, why I decided to watch this movie. Normally I'm not at a point where I'm skeptical about watching “Nazi movies” or movies set around that time and avoid them. It should be noted that this movie is almost 3 hours long. One of the reasons why I hesitated watching it.

Franz Jägerstätter is played, convincingly, I think, by August Diehl. Valerie Pachner took the role of his wife Fani and I thought of her as equally fitting. As for the other actors, I didn't know anyone other than the one playing the priest Fr. Fürthauer, namely Tobias Moretti. Jägerstätter is conscripted to fight for the Nazis once, but is send home to his wife and three daughters. When a second letter for conscription arrives, he talks to Fr. Fürthauer, but quickly notices that he won't get much support from him for the resistance to fight in the war. So he has to go to war. When he refuses to swear on Hitler, he gets arrested. Fani and Fr. Fürthauer as well as others try to talk him into swearing on Hitler. The Nazis won't care what he really feels and thinks and his death because conscious objection will basically be inconsequential and therefore unnecessary. It's suggested he can go do medical service instead of being a soldier and fight. He refuses all of that. That's how important it is for him to truthfully and openly defend his point of view. First his wife and children at home get support, but then they all feel the hate from the other town people and they become outsiders, who have to work hard to keep doing their farm work without a husband and father to keep the farm going. In August 1943 Franz Jägerstätter is finally executed.

The movie starts by showing the calm and peaceful family life. Although set in a war time and being an exceptionally long movie, the viewer doesn't see a single shot fired. On the internet I read reviews that Fani should have fought harder and should have convinced her husband more to do what's necessary to stay alive. Watching the movie I did get the feeling that she tried for him to keep on living. His point of view and showing it openly was more important to him than his own life.

During my school time our religion teacher was enthusiastic about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who also resisted the Nazis and paid with his life for that. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Protestant priest, so it's not surprising my religion teacher liked him. I personally was more impressed by the simple farmer Jägerstätter and how he stood his ground and wasn't even going to pretend something else, if he didn't want those things. I don't want to badmouth Bonhoeffer or belittle him. I do believe however that for a priest the belief in god and acting according to his will is in the end a logical decision. The decision of farmer Jägerstätter to abandon his wife and children to defend his own view is rather impressive to me.

It's easy for outsiders to look back on this terrible time period and say, “I would have refused, too.” or “I would have been one of the good ones.” It's easy for us to say as our life right here and right now is not threatened. I believe that whoever makes those statements or similar ones recklessly, doesn't really have an idea about the general atmosphere of the people and the pressure people were under at that time.

The movie is long and takes its time. This seems fitting for me though in the depiction of the country life in contrast to the hectic city life and later also during the time in prison where just not much was happening. Although I was aware of the unusually length of the movie from the beginning, I didn't feel bored and it didn't seem long winded to me. I'm sure one could have cut an almost three hour movie somewhere. I wouldn't know where I would have cut it though. I didn't know Jägerstätter before the movie. Then again, he was Austrian and we didn't talk about people, especially people in the reistance movement, in other countries in school. According to the trivia comment section on imdb.com to this movie Jägerstätter and his fate wasn't known outside St. Radegund for a long time anyway and he was discoved by accident. The American Gordon Zahn came to St. Radegund in the 1970's and uncovered Jägerstätter's history and made it known. Now there are several movies about him.

The irony...

Found this sign at the bus stop today. I thought of getting it when I came back from work, but it wasn't there anymore then. I thought it was very ironic that whatever happened before the sign was left there, all that was left was this sign and it says:

I guess it was somewhat effective advertisement, because of course everything has hashtags these days and people may look up that one as well. https://lnob.net/en/

In the tram on the way to work today