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The creatures out back are even louder tonight.
Powerful 13-minute short about a man who spoke up (and one who didn’t) during an unexpected ID check to filter out ostensible enemies on a train stopped by armed Serbs in Štrpci, Bosnia, on February 27, 1993: “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent” (Croatia, 2024), youtu.be…. 📽️
Sounds of spring this evening (10 seconds)
📽️ I distracted myself from contemporary authoritarianism with the wonderful 1954 Italian film “Chronicle of Poor Lovers” (Cronache di poveri amanti). It takes place in Florence in the mid 1920s and focuses on the lives of people in the Via del Corno. Everybody seems to know everyone else’s business in this street, and life seems pretty normal, even good, despite material privations. But there are also the whispers and occasional off-key tones of a few fascists. Then comes a brutal beating and later the work of a death squad, with individual residents among the murderers and the murdered. The film’s title references the young couples that are broken up and formed in the course of this adversity.
📽️ “The Murderers Are Among Us” (Die Mörder sind unter uns), dir. Wolfgang Staudte (DEFA, 1946), is streaming on Arte. Filmed in the rubble of early postwar Berlin, it represents an important attempt to come to terms with Germany’s immediate past and to see a way through the present.
Hildegard Knef and Wilhelm Borchert
📽️ Watched a silly, but enjoyable comedy called “The Assassination Bureau” (Paramount, 1969), starring Diana Rigg, Oliver Reed, amd Telly Savalas.
Child Labor as 'Necessity' (1912 Cartoon)
“NEXT! From the Cradle to the Mill” Cartoon by Art Young for Puck, April 10, 1912, via Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011649137/.
Note the big shadowy black ghoul labeled “NECESSITY” leading a young girl out of a dark, impoverished room toward a factory on the right, where two other children are facing a sign at the entrance that reads, “Machinery Operated by Children” and “MEN NEED NOT APPLY.” The image of the little girl clutching her doll as she is forced to leave behind her book, paper, toys, and other small items on the floor usually a part of childhood flourishing makes this brutal uprooting from her home appear unnatural.
What’s more, the preference of the factory for cheaper children over more expensive men characterizes the practice of child labor as a vicious circle. If men are not welcome at the factory, if the lifeless woman at the table is unemployed, and if the children are not in school, the family will not be able to improve its lot, no matter how hard the children toil. This point is underlined by the cartoon’s subtitle, “From the Cradle to the Mill,” a play on the common phrase, “from the cradle to the grave.”
Prophetic Comedy
A prophetic comedy for these upside-down times: "Rapture-Palooza" (Lionsgate, 2013). Also foundational: "Idiocracy" (20th Century Fox, 2006).
Rule of Law
Dwight D. Eisenhower’s address from the White House on September 24, 1957, regarding his use of federal troops in Little Rock makes for interesting reading. Here’s a taste (www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov…):
The very basis of our individual rights and freedoms rests upon the certainty that the President and the Executive Branch of Government will support and insure the carrying out of the decisions of the Federal Courts, even, when necessary with all the means at the President’s command.
Unless the President did so, anarchy would result.
There would be no security for any except that which each one of us could provide for himself.
A Happy Easter
Postcard mailed in 1919. Leonard A. Lauder collection of Raphael Tuck & Sons postcards, Newberry Library, NL12SKTP.
Drone Warfare in Ukraine
In a 14-minute explainer, Anders Puck Nielsen discusses how “NATO has missed the drone revolution” youtu.be…. The R word is thrown around far too easily in military studies, just as it is in tech; however, Nielsen’s argument is no mere cliché. Drones don’t just supplement other military hardware. In the large quantities in which they now appear, they change the very nature of battle. Wars of movement are once again giving way to wars of attrition, albeit in new ways.
See also the short piece by Valerii Zaluzhnyi that Nielsen talks about in his video: “How drones, data, and AI transformed our military—and why the US must follow suit,” defenseone.com….
It seems western armies cannot afford any arrogance vis-à-vis Ukraine. They need to learn from that countryʼs armed forces, just as the latter will continue to benefit from our armaments.
No protest for me today. Family stuff instead.
“Overlooked No More: Ethel Lina White, Master of Suspense Who Inspired Hitchcock” by Sarah Weinman, New York Times, April 17, 2025, archive.ph….
White was a powerhouse of the genre in the 1930s, publishing more than 100 short stories and 17 novels, three of which were adapted into films, most notably Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” (1938).…
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (Harper & Brothers, 1950).
I introduced this book to my granddaughter yesterday (via video chat), and she adores it. Apparently it once made an impression on my son, too, because he said it had been his favorite. It's a simple story in which Harold takes a walk, creating the world as he goes with a big purple crayon.
I saw a clip on the Daily Show of Vance calling China “peasants.” It is impressive how much ignorance about that country, its history, and its sensibilities can be stuffed into a single smug couch fucker.
Starting to Get My Local Groove On
Last Tuesday’s ballot for the local election in Conway, NH, seemed extraordinarily long to me. The many budget and development questions (“warrants”) would probably have been decided at town meetings in earlier days. Maybe they still are in smaller NH towns, as they were in Tamworth when I was growing up. Anyway, today I noticed that the research I did for the election and the half hour or more it took me to fill out my ballot have had a positive affect on me. Driving around town with my elderly mother today, I realized that I knew some things about the direction of the town’s development and that I actually cared. It seems I’m growing more connected to this place in these times.
This shifting personal orientation is no small thing because I’ve felt relatively isolated here since coming up from DC for eldercare in late 2021. Hanging out in indoor spaces where I might meet people is limited by my awareness of the health risks that such activities entail for my mother. This circumstance also limits word-of-mouth news about local goings on. It doesn’t help that the days of bulletin boards and multiple local and regional newspapers are long gone. I’m told there’s local information on Facebook, but I wasn’t that desperate.
Last week, I finally subscribed to the online version of the only remaining local paper in order to prepare for the election. I took the plunge after talking with a few people at the protest on April 5th, my first in this town. I think this bit of personal agency and local involvement is doing me good, especially in these times. The paper prints letters, so maybe it’s high time I wrote one of those up here too. The last time I did that was for the International Herald Tribune in the early 1990s while living in Germany.
“Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” dir. George Clooney (Miramax, 2002), is absolutely bonkers (in a good way). Sam Rockwell does not disappoint. 📽️