January: book, movie, album, youtube video, poem, quote

On the first Monday of each month, starting with this post, I’m going to share a book, movie, album, Youtube video, poem and quote, that hopefully you will find helpful, insightful, thought provoking, and most important ‘ENJOYABLE’.

BOOK: Sophies World

Sophie Amundsen is a fourteen year old girl living in Norway in 1990. She lives with her cat Sherekan, her goldfish, a tortoise, two budgerigars and her mother. Her father is a captain of an oil tanker, and is away for most of the year. He does not appear in the book.

Sophie’s life is rattled as the book begins, when she receives two anonymous messages in her mailbox (Who are you? Where does the world come from?), as well as a post card addressed to ‘Hilde Møller Knag, c/o Sophie Amundsen’. Shortly afterwards she receives a packet of papers, part of a correspondence course in philosophy.

With these mysterious communications, Sophie becomes the student of a fifty-year-old philosopher, Alberto Knox. He starts out as totally anonymous, but as the story unfolds he reveals more and more about himself. The papers and the packet both turn out to be from him, although the post card is not; it is addressed from someone called Albert Knag, who is a major in a United Nations peacekeeping unit stationed in Lebanon.

Alberto teaches her about the history of philosophy. She gets a substantive and understandable review from the Pre-Socratic Greeks through Jean-Paul Sartre. Along with the philosophy lessons, Sophie and Alberto try to outwit the mysterious Albert Knag, who appears to have God-like powers, which Alberto finds quite troubling.

Sophie learns about medieval philosophy while being lectured by Alberto, dressed as a monk, in an ancient church, and she learns about Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in a French café. Various philosophical questions and methods of reasoning are put before Sophie, as she attempts to work them out on her own. Many of Knox’s philosophic packets to her are preluded by more short questions, such as “Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world?”.

Alberto takes Sophie from Hellenism to the rise of Christianity and its interaction with Greek thought and on into the Middle Ages. Over the course of the book, he covers the Renaissance, Baroque, Enlightenment and Romantic periods, and the philosophies that stemmed from them.

Mixed in with the philosophy lessons is a plot rather more akin to normal teenage novels, in which Sophie interacts with her mother and her friends. This is not the focus of the story, however; it simply serves to move the plot along. As Albert Knag continues to meddle with Sophie’s life, Alberto helps her fight back by teaching her everything he knows about philosophy. This, he explains, is the only way to understand her world.

This is laced with events which appear scientifically impossible, such as Sophie seeing her reflection in a mirror wink with both eyes, or actually seeing Socrates and Plato. Being a book based on philosophy, however, it promises—and delivers—an explanation for everything in the end, when Sophie and Alberto Knox escape from Albert Knag.

http://www.amazon.com/Sophies-world-philosophy-Berkeley-Signature/dp/0425156842

MOVIE: I’ve Loved You So Long (French: Il y a longtemps que je t’aime)

When Juliette Fontaine is released from prison after serving a fifteen-year sentence, her younger sister Léa invites her to stay with her family – including her husband Luc, his mute father Papy Paul, and their two adopted Vietnamese daughters, P’tit Lys and Emelia – in their home in the university town of Nancy. Léa, a college professor of literature, is considerably younger than Juliette. The younger woman recalls little about her childhood. Because of the nature of the crime, their parents denied Juliette’s existence and refused to allow Léa to visit her. In addition, Juliette had refused to speak throughout her trial. As a result, Léa knows nothing about the circumstances surrounding the crime and, when pressed for details, Juliette refuses to discuss what transpired.

While struggling to find employment, Juliette enjoys platonic companionship with two men, probation officer Capt. Fauré, who understands how prison can damage the human spirit and shares with her his dream of seeing the Orinoco River, and Michel, one of her sister’s colleagues. She also develops a close relationship with her young nieces, much to the distress of their father, who is concerned about their safety while in their aunt’s presence.

Juliette finds work transcribing medical records for a hospital, where her supervisor encourages her to be more friendly with her co-workers when they complain about her being cold and aloof. But Juliette has been confined for so long she feels dehumanized and finds it difficult to relate to others. She agrees to accompany Léa when she visits their mother, who is confined to a nursing home with Alzheimer’s disease. For a brief moment the woman recognizes and embraces her, remembering her as a little girl rather than the estranged daughter who murdered her grandson.

Gradually, Juliette begins to fit in with her family and is given a permanent job. Léa then accidentally discovers that Juliette has been keeping a photo of her son, together with a poem by him, on the opposite side of notes about a medical report. She contacts a physician friend for an explanation of what the latter contains. She learns he was terminally ill from cancer. When Lea confronts Juliette with what she has learned, Juliette finally expresses her feelings and describes in detail what she did and why.

http://www.amazon.com/Ive-Loved-You-So-Long/dp/B001M72J68

ALBUM: Sigur Ros -Ágætis Byrjun

How good is this album? Agaetis Byrjun stands up in overall artistic merit to any record ever made. Do you want arrangements as stunning as those of the Beach Boys? This album has that. Do you want songs that force you to re-think the boundaries between genres? They’re here. Do you want a voice that can make you feel truly alive and completely blow you away? Check. The lead singer of Sigur Ros, Jonsi, has a voice with the power of Janis Joplin and the beauty of Carl Wilson. Do you want lyrics that are so amazing, they carry as much weight as the words of Henry David Thoreau? This album probably has that — it’s tough to tell.

The reason it’s hard to verify that last point is that the whole album is sung in Jonsi’ invented combination of Icelandic and English. What I can say with conviction is that Jonsi’s vocals have a strong emotional resonance. I could say a meaningless phrase in English, such as “light, close front way,” and it might not affect you much. On the other hand, if someone were to cry that same phrase with emotion, it would be obvious that that person is in great pain. And just because I don’t understand what Sigur Ros are saying doesn’t mean that I can’t perceive the emotion they put behind it, or the urgency of their message. Music was conceived as a way to express emotions that can’t be expressed in words, and Sigur Ros are a perfect reminder of that.

Nothing can properly prepare you for what you will hear on Agaetis Byrjun. People’s first reaction to this music is usually something like, “Is this music for real?” The next thing that comes to mind is that Sigur Ros just combined rock and classical music. But after 10 listens or so, it becomes apparent that is absurd.

These songs are definitely not “classical,” in the vein of Mozart or Bach, and these songs are definitely not “rock,” as in The Rolling Stones or Nirvana. But these songs are classical in the sense that a hundred years from now Agaetis Byrjun will be a statement of the times, and that this music should, and will, live forever. And these songs are rock in the sense that they stir up a passion heretofore only found in the catharsis of “rock” music.

In simplest terms, this music is beautiful as a sunset, and as confusing as advancement nuclear global time-share. In other words, it is easy to say that this music is beautiful, but it is hard to say exactly why. Most of the time, it’s hard to even tell what is going on instrumentally. Sometimes the guitarist plays his guitar with a cello bow. Other times, the songs are inundated with white noise (recordings of the wind or various natural sounds) used so well it sounds like an instrument. I have never heard an album so beautiful, so innovative, so majestic, so entrancing, so intriguing, so deep, and so listenable, all at the same time. And that is quite a grand achievement.

Most often when bands try to break the rules of music and completely restructure what music sounds like, even they don’t necessarily fail, the end result is hard to listen to. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, you can listen to a pop record that is extremely pleasant, but doesn’t offer anything that extraordinary or even original. Yet Agaetis Byrjun it is not only catchy, but also revolutionary.

Here is my theory: 500 years from now, it will be nearly impossible to tell the difference from humans and robots. The only way to tell a robot from a human is that when a robot listens to Agaetis Byrjun and cries, it will short circuit. Humans will only feel inferior.

http://www.amazon.com/%C3%81g%C3%A6tis-Byrjun-Sigur-R%C3%B3s/dp/B00005IC2H/ref=pd_sim_m_1

YOUTUBE VIDEO: 40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes

TRANSCRIPT:
Shame on you. This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you’re going to let it be the worst. And I guarantee a week won’t go by in your life you won’t regret walking out, letting them get the best of you. Well, I’m not going home. We’ve come too far! And I’m going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause. A day may come when the courage of men fails… but it is not THIS day. The line must be drawn HERE. This far, no further! I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. You’re going to work harder than you ever worked before. But that’s fine, we’ll just get tougher with it! If a person grits his teeth and shows real determination, failure is not an option. That’s how winning is done! Believe me when I say we can break this army here, and win just one for the Gipper. But I say to you what every warrior has known since the beginning of time: you’ve got to get mad. I mean plum mad dog mean. If you would be free men, then you must fight to fulfill that promise! Let us cut out their living guts one inch at a time, and they will know what we can do! Let no man forget how menacing we are. We are lions! You’re like a big bear, man! This is YOUR time! Seize the day, never surrender, victory or death… that’s the Chicago Way! Who’s with me? Clap! Clap! Don’t let Tink die! Clap! Alright! Let’s fly! And gentlemen in England now abed shall know my name is the Lord when I tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our Independence Day!

POEM: IF – Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

QUOTE

Without self-awareness and wisdom, delusions can disguise themselves as dreams and derail our personal progress.