A bit uplifted by drink in Specs, a warm night, North Beach, nostalgia for a life never lived before or after birth right around the corner from Now, I stop in Kerouac alley thinking about one more draft beer like Bombadier Ale to help me walk home, right at and next to City Lights Books thinking about dis and dat and the other thing, and my movie eye of 36 years in this town that has easily lost 25% of pre-Covid population captures in the gloom a gypsy lady of indeterminate age telling fortunes for pedestrians coming for a book or a drink or both. I listened as she explained to the three Russian sailors -"Cartomancers may choose to read cards in their upright or reversed positions. Reversed cards can provide additional insights, indicating blocked energy, hidden obstacles, or an invitation to explore different perspectives.”
The primate dominance hierarchy instantly arose as the largest Russian sailor asked her about his love life and his friends were disgusted but he charged on wanting to know if she was true to him and if in October as planned they would be married in Moscow. “You used reversed cards! What obstacle do you see?”
“Nuclear War” was her answer.
I was thrown back to that Italy whose children came here before WW2 and who like the Japanese were stripped of all rights of ownership of property and human dignity by FDR and there she sat with her playing cards telling fortunes during a warm night and my eye played shot after black and white shot on the screen. I am not really a cineaste but I know what I like and movies from Italy, like Italian writers, musicians, cultured people, I like very much.
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Agamben recently observed Italy was a U.S. Protectorate permitted limited electoral freedom to toe the line. “The speeches of those who speak in the media about foreign policy issues in Italy are devoid of any foundation, because they pretend to ignore that Italy is not a sovereign nation, but a protectorate. According to international law, a nation that hosts on its territory a number of bases (some of which are secret and full of atomic bombs) equal to that which the United States maintains in Italy does not have sovereignty over its foreign policy, but only over its policy internal; that is, it is technically a protectorate.
This explains why the new government, which, defining itself as right-wing, should first of all have claimed a status of full sovereignty, has simply conformed, with respect to the war in Ukraine, to the directives of the protecting state. Let those who want to imagine what would happen, in fact, to a head of state who opened a dispute over the presence of United States bases on our territory. Yet the issue goes far beyond a problem of sovereignty, since it implies that, in the event of a new world war, Italy would be the first country to suffer a nuclear bombardment that would destroy it entirely. Unfortunately, it is useless to hope that journalists paid by the currently still dominant power will have this kind of problem.” https://www.quodlibet.it/giorgio-agamben-stati-sovrani-e-protettorati. This Surrealist is viewer supported. Please do your part today.
Ko-fi.com/thejournaloflingeringsanity
Oh man. This is art. I want to re-read this when I am free. It’s good. Really delish. Keep on keeping on. I love it.