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My daughter Karen (and others) recommended that we watch Once, and she was right about Lars and the Real Girl, so I ordered it from amazon.co.uk and tonight we watched it. A few things stand out as unusual in this film: it’s very short (about 83 minutes according to the box, but I’m not sure it was that long), and we never know the names of most of the characters, including the two leads. That’s just odd, but the story is simple and it works. I’m still trying to figure out why it works. Maybe it’s because the guy and the girl don’t do what you expect them to in a typical movie, and that’s certainly refreshing. Or maybe it’s the music – this is in fact a musical, and some of the songs are performed with a power that makes a deep impression. But whatever the reason, it works, and I recommend it.

By the way, we watched it with the English subtitles on, since the dialects are strong enough in some places to make the dialogue hard to follow.

We actually got out of the house Sunday evening and went to the theater to see Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe in the not-too-creative yet still reasonably compelling Body of Lies. As I watched the movie I kept asking myself, “Is this really the world we live in now?”

It may well be. And if our world is one in which we are to live constantly on the edge of the threat of inexplicable and devestating attacks from terrorists, why do we find a movie about it to be entertainment? I confess I like Jack Bauer in 24 (at least, up until the last season), and I’m reading my first Vince Flynn novel with great interest. I’m not the only one, so somebody’s making lots of money making movies and TV shows and writing page-turning pulp fiction about the The Thing that promises to ruin us. Why? Do these works of art (?) somehow help us to make sense of the senselessness? Or are these like horror movies, that enable us to face our worst fears in a controlled, safe environment?

Is there a psychologist out there who can help me understand this?

Autolatry is defined simply as “self-worship.” The object of worship is by (my) definition a god. Therefore, whether he is conscious of the fact or not, the autolater makes himself (“his Self”) a god.

Gods share certain attributes, and the Self, when it is made a god, assumes these attributes. For example, gods are jealous and reluctant to share their glory with other so-called gods, so they demand exclusive allegiance and single-minded obedience. To borrow some familiar language, the Self has two great commands:

1. Love the Lord your Self with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
2. Love your neighbor for your Self.

With a little reflection you can see how these two commands are mutually interrelated: you cannot love your Self without loving your neighbor for your Self; and if you love your neighbor for your Self, then you are loving your Self with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Autolatry is therefore self-consistent as a religion.

We also see in these two great commands the common hunger of a god for more worshipers. The Self is always in the market for admirers, and when you love your neighbor for your Self, you are making (or trying to make) your neighbor into another servant of your Self.

When, for example, you give something to your neighbor in need, it may appear on the surface to be a conflict of Self-interest; but if you maintain at your core an ultimate desire that the neighbor would call your Self “generous,” you are loving your neighbor for your Self, and recruiting another devotee for your Self. Likewise, if you admire your neighbor’s face, or hair, or eyes, or car, or house, or anything that is your neighbor’s, yet give your admiration expecting in return some reciprocal praise, you are loving your neighbor for your Self, and are a faithful autolater.

Since I confessed to the crime of liking some of Woody Allen’s work, let me clarify by listing the movies of his that I have enjoyed over the years and, to one degree or another, recommend. There are quite a few Allen films that I have not seen, and several that I have seen and don’t recommend. But here are the handful of gems and near-gems, submitted for your approval:

1993 – Manhattan Murder Mystery

This is by far my favorite Allen film, and I would also call it the least characteristic film of his. It is relatively free of his neurotic rambling, doesn’t try to explore any dark existentialist questions, and is just good-old-fashioned fun from beginning to end – and it gets funnier and funnier as it goes. The filming is sometimes quirky (like looking at the back of Woody’s head in an elevator scene), the conversation among the couples lively and bustling. Anjelica Huston is dynamite in her role – in fact all the characters seem well cast. I’ve watched this movie many times, and will watch again. (more…)

I confess that I have for a long time had a weakness for (some) of Woody Allen’s work. Perhaps because of the strangeness of my own sense of humor, I have enjoyed his early fiction (Without Feathers, Getting Even, and Side Effects), so I was delighted to find (in a bookstore in Trnava, Slovakia, of all places) a copy of his latest book, Mere Anarchy. I didn’t begin reading at the beginning, because the title of a story late in the book caught my eye: “Thus Ate Zarathustra,” the story of the discovery of the long-lost diet book of Friedrich Nietzsche.

The powerful will always lunch on rich foods, while the weak peck away at wheat germ and tofu, convinced that their suffering will earn them a reward in an afterlife where grilled lambchops are all the rage.

If you don’t find that funny, or have no interest in reading excerpts from the Dostoevsky-esque novelization of a Three Stooges short, then you will not likely enjoy this book. But I confess I did.

Calmly and for no apparent reason the dark-haired man took the nose of the bald man in his right hand and slowly twisted it in a long, counterclockwise circle. A horrible grinding sound broke the silence of the Great Plains. “We suffer,” the dark-haired man said. “O woe to the random violence of human existence.”

Here’s a fine folk song from Middle English about the constancy of women. There are some notes at the end to explain a few words and phrases, but otherwise you are on your own. Enjoy!

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This afternoon, while sane Slovaks were nestled in their homes cooking up their kapustnica, potato salad, and carp, we (along with our friend Ande) caught a ghost train to Smolenice for a short hike in the Small Carpathians. It was misty, sleety, and muddy, but refreshing to be out in the air.

One of the little treats I served at my birthday last month is common fare at the Christmas markets here in Slovakia. It’s made with duck liver wrapped in a potato-crepe-like-thing called lokse (with a mark over the s to make the sh sound). I went to Bratislava this morning to check out the markets there, and tasted some from a few vendors. When it is hot it is delicious! When they don’t heat it well enough, or if you let it get cold, it’s not so good. But it is definitely on my list of things I love about Slovakia.

From Godric, by Frederick Buechner:

It’s less the words they say than those they leave unsaid that split old friends apart.

If you like mockumentaries and haven’t seen Strictly Ballroom, you are in for a treat. It is a campy Australian film that’s about as subtle as the Spiderman movies, but it somehow works – and works wonderfully. I’ve watched it many times over the years, and just watched it again last night with a friend who had been deprived of it all her life, and I was delighted once again.

There is nothing particularly original in this film, yet it is somehow clever enough to succeed – perhaps similar to the way The Princess Bride works, breathing new life into musty old clichés….