All minds don’t think alike …

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I HOPE THAT A FEW FILM DIRECTORS AND PRODUCERS BELIEVE THIS AND MIGHT HAVE READ THIS ARTICLE BY MATTHEW SYED

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-truth-is-that-great-minds-dont-think-alike-gwwtncsph

An ‘epiphany’ 2020 appeal to innovators in the film industry:

“This is why we need to make a conscious effort to break out of our echo chambers. Working with similar others might be fine on simple tasks … but we need to embrace diversity if we are going to crack codes and come up with new ideas. We need to work with people who can help us to see our own blind spots, and who we can help to see theirs.”

Plato and Aristotle understood the dangers of intellectual conformity

Parliamentary democracy in action …

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Iraqi MPs voted in favour of a resolution calling for an end the presence of foreign forces in the country, paving the way to remove about 5000 US troops deployed there and dealing a potentially serious blow to American influence in the region. 

The resolution is non-binding, but it is likely to be heeded by the government as caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi supports the measures.

“The kindness of Exalted Night …”

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What better words to journey into an unknown future, than these by the incomparable Friedrich Holderlin (d 1843) – from his ‘Bread & Wine’

The kindness of exalted Night is wonderful, and no one
  Knows where she comes from, or what will emerge from her.
Thus she moves the world, and the hopeful minds of humans:
  Not even a sage knows what she’s up to … although
  She herself exists totally free in spirit, forever.
But she must grant us oblivion and holy drunkenness,
  That in the hesitating interval, in the darkness,
There’ll be something for us to hold on to.
  She must grant us flowing words, sleepless
As lovers are, and a fuller cup, and bolder life, and
  Holy remembrance as well, to stay wakeful at night ...

We, masters and apprentices both, hide our hearts
  In vain, and repress our enthusiasm for no reason.
For who could stop it, or forbid us our pleasure?
  The fire of the gods drives us to set forth by day
And by night.  So come, let us look at what is apparent,
  And seek what is ours, as distant as it may be!

… the fire of the gods and goddesses

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

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A Blessed and Good New Year to you all.

Fulfill the alchemy of the word … as did Rimbaud

It is recovered.
What? – Eternity.
In the whirling light
Of the sun in the sea.

O my eternal soul,
Hold fast to desire
In spite of the night
And the day on fire.

You must set yourself free
From the striving of Man
And the applause of the World
You must fly as you can…

– No hope forever
No orietur.
Science and patience,
The torment is sure.

The fire within you,
Soft silken embers,
Is our whole duty
But no one remembers.

It is recovered.
What? Eternity.
In the whirling light
Of the sun in the sea.

Firerworks? Yawn …

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“With thunder and heavenly fireworks must one speak to indolent and somnolent senses. But beauty’s voice speaketh gently: it appealeth only to the most awakened souls …”

― Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Xarathustra

“Insanity,” he writes in Beyond Good and Evil, “in individuals is something rare — but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.” 

Give me the words of a ‘philosopher of dynamite’ anytime!

‘Ask ye what ghosts I dream upon?’

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Wrote Ezra Pound in his 1908 “Villonaud for this Yule”

Towards the Noel that morte saison
(Christ make the shepherds’ homage dear!)
Then when the grey wolves everychone
Drink of the winds their chill small-beer
And lap o’ the snows food’s gueredon
Then makyth my heart his yule-tide cheer
(Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone!)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Ask ye what ghosts I dream upon?
(What of the magians’ scented gear?)
The ghosts of dead loves everyone
That make the stark winds reek with fear
Lest love return with the foison sun
And slay the memories that me cheer
(Such as I drink to mine fashion)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Where are the joys my heart had won?
(Saturn and Mars to Zeus drawn near!)
Where are the lips mine lay upon,
Aye! where are the glances feat and clear
That bade my heart his valour don?
I skoal to the eyes as grey-blown mere
(Who knows whose was that paragon?)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Prince: ask me not what I have done
Nor what God hath that can me cheer
But ye ask first where the winds are gone
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

WHAT GHOSTS DO YOU DREAM UPON? WILL SOME FOLLOW YOU TO 2020?

Ezra Pound