Monthly Archives: August 2017
Getting Ahead Through Getting Sick
I’ve mentioned before that getting sick is an effective way of solving many problems in Poland. The experience of a very good friend of mine is a case in point. This friend works within an institution providing a taxpayer funded … Continue reading
Theory and Praxis of North Korean Cinema: An Initial Approximation
I’m working up a set of criteria to review North Korean movies with. So far I have the following: The Kim Co-efficient: How strong a presence is the cult of Kim (and/or religion of Juche). Socialist Plenty: Movies from communist … Continue reading
This is MY Grist for the Consumerist Mill
One of the ways that Polish people dealt more effectively with the collective trauma of communism during the communist era than they have afterward was the extreme political nature of much popular art and the cat and mouse game that … Continue reading
The Glorious Victory of the Proper Ideology
One of my many personal failings (or defects of character if you will) is a deep love of propaganda. Intellectually I can hate and despise (or simply not accept) the message or the people that put it together, but the … Continue reading
The Mind of True Believers
This reminds me of an article I read years ago in a magazine supplement to a Polish newspaper. A couple of minutes of googling didn’t turn it up though I’m going to keep looking. Anyhoo, the article was a rememberance … Continue reading
Lady Macbeth and Color-coordinated casting
I just saw the Lady Macbeth movie, based on a novella by a Russian writer. The movie transfers the action from Siberia to rural (northern?) England in 1865. Spoilers follow so don’t read the rest unless you like to watch … Continue reading
Traumatis Personae
I’ve been thinking a lot about collective trauma lately and how societies do and do not deal with it. This post isn’t a coherent treatment or anything, it’s a bunch of random thoughts on the topic. I’ll try to expand … Continue reading
New Header – Fish in Rhodes
Summer weather continues to be drizzly and unseasonably cool in Poland. So for the sake of some sun I changed the header to some happy fish on a column inside the Mandraki market (built during the Italian period from 1912-1947I) … Continue reading
