Tag Archives: Werner Herzog

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Fools’ Errand

The Cruelest Month & the
Wasteful Land of Hoaxers

April is here again, and that may be one of the few things you may be sure about its first day. Yes, it’s high time for jokesters of all stripes, including the miserable kind old Eliot may have alluded to in his epic. So all we can say is, be mindful out there today.
For in college dorms and at offices across the land, misguided tricksters may be tempting serious injury, and who can trust the sense of humor of digital avatars, these days. Better tread with caution, weary traveler, for no amount of solemnity may mend a catastrophic mishap.
On the other (sleight of) hand, though, we just can’t wait to see what will be the dominant hoax of the day, and, slow as we are, how long we’ll take to realize, hopefully in time, our endless gullibility. Lacking any insights to add, we’re republishing this post as little seems to change on the subject of deceiving and fooling.
May the cleverest and the most benign prevail this Wednesday, even though we doubt it. As it usually goes, someone always gets hurt, and their fall is the undue wage paid to devilish intent. In other words, we wish it were all fun and games, but the flesh is weak and we may find ourselves laughing at somebody’s expense. Damn us.

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Sleight of Minds

In Leap Years, April Fool’s
Comes a Full Hoax Earlier

Who doesn’t know the expression, don’t fool yourself? And yet, we love to do just that. We go to great lengths pretending we don’t know what we should, and we don’t feel how it hurts. Aches, longings and desire, jealousy, hatred and grief, we’re all great at deceiving our own hearts into believing that things can’t be that bad. Yet, they’re usually much worse.
We brag about how far we’ve got, how good we are, how much better is our god. Such predisposition makes the work of hoaxers not just easy, but necessary. So thank your phony stars for another April Fool’s Day, for it may provide respite and restore sanity.
You may fear if it ignites a conspiracy, a collective craze, the hysteric crowd. But those would have happened with or without pranksters. After all, paranoid buffs may believe they’ve uncovered the truth; everybody else is sure there’s no way of knowing it.
Throw your hands to air in gratitude for this April 1 is not nested within a Leap Year, in which case it’d all look as if we were a full day ahead of schedule. Or that, since the 14th century, this date stopped being marked in January, or December, or even March 32nd.
So, either way, it’s a day of ambiguity and humor, even when at first you may feel like dismembering anyone who dares to punk you.

THE SHIP OF FOOLS SAILS ON
For some reason, the 20th century was plagued by all sorts of political conspiracy theories that arose from one too many behind-close-doors machinations. Many believe they’re are surely behind (excuse us if we Continue reading →

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Alike Minds

Vonnegut’s Marriage, Herzog’s
Hypnotism & Sagan’s Apple Suit

Author Kurt Vonnegut is one of the greatest of his generation, but you wouldn’t believe the contract he once signed. We won’t talk about Werner Herzog’s movies, either, but you’ll find out what he did to a chicken.
And there was that time when astronomer Carl Sagan dropped his telescope and decided to sue Apple Computers. This post is about what happened when these three brilliant minds were left idle for a moment.
We’re not about to knock their gift at elevating our lowly commonality to epic status in the personal, idiosyncratic views of their work. Heaven knows that many already do that for a living, and we would never share a drink with that sort.
But as the recent, depressing performance on national TV, by an accomplished Hollywood star, has shown, a lot of what the famous and the talented do is not worth a pocketful of change.
Besides, who are we kidding here? Kurt, and Werner, and Carl, have all reached the kind of deserving status in our society to be safely away from most hacker jobs anyone would misguidedly attempt to undertake.
By now, it may be clear that the tenuous connecting tissue among these stories is the fact that they represent a curious take on the Continue reading →

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Feral Children

Wild Boys of Europe &
Brazilian Child Brides

Apparently, children and cats share a common trait: both easily revert to a feral state, when left on their own.
That’s hard but still better than what happens to kids in certain countries: they’ve got jobs and marry early.
Two weeks ago, an English-speaking teenager showed up at Berlin’s City Hall claiming to have been living in a nearby forest with his father for five years.
Ray, as he identified himself, seems articulate enough and his story, including his father’s death and burial, if it hasn’t been confirmed yet, does make sense. So far, he has refused to offer other details about it though.
Meanwhile, census figures for 2010 revealed that Brazil has a staggering number of children, in fact over 40 thousand, who are married or living with a partner.
FERAL CHILD VS. RAPE VICTIM
What’s somewhat ironic is that one child found living without parents in a jungle would generate so many news stories, while thousands of children living in abusive conditions within society can’t get a meaningful coverage by the media.
One, the myth of “l’enfant sauvage,” has a profound resonance in our collective awareness, and the few cases reported ignited a rich literature of ideas society holds dear since way before the Enlightened era.
The other extreme, though, is a much more prevalent phenomenon, and with much deeper impact on how we perceive ourselves as a civilization, and yet, can hardly muster Continue reading →