An American family of hillbillies from the Ozarks?
No, a Danish family of hillbillies from Copenhagen.
This hysterical yet revolting photograph depicts a July 2011 gathering of the family of a Danish blogger. The blogger shall remain unidentified—but she works in Copenhagen’s National Gallery and blogs about life in Copenhagen. The blogger, contrary to all clear evidence, considers herself to be educated and sophisticated, surely an alarming prospect for anyone that stumbles upon her blog.
I happened upon the Dane’s blog while following a trail of vicious anti-Roman Catholic news articles that had appeared in the European press last year.
The Danish blogger added her own vile anti-Catholic ranting to the stew, writing a dumbfounding and frightening “essay” about the Roman Catholic Church that was one of the most hate-filled and ignorant things I have ever come across on the worldwide web.
The post that followed the anti-Catholic rant on the Dane’s blog—a post in which the authoress presented photographs of herself and her immediate family—explained everything.
Until firmly established otherwise, I must assume that the idiot blogger from Copenhagen crafted her breathtaking display of nonsense about the Roman Catholic Church while watching television, outdoors, with the other appalling members of her hillbilly family.
Oh. My. God.
ReplyDeleteThe picture is a riot.
This past weekend I visited the “El Pan de los Muertos” Dinner Theater in South Beach, where I saw a new production of Mountainvalley Luftkopf’s comedy “Bergen-Belsen: the Musical.”
ReplyDeleteImagine my utter amazement when I discovered that the dual role of Ann Frank / “Toothpick,” the Japanese-German sumo wrestler, was being performed by none other than Matt Gatens. Mr Gatens apparently is trying desperately to earn a living between major engagements, working far away from Broadway.
I must say that Gatens looked stunning hoofing around the tables in those signature "Chita" stilettos.
I wonder where he will turn up next.
. . . And speaking of hillbillies:
ReplyDelete“Mountainvalley Luftkopf” is the local sobriquet of one August Macke (no relation to the painter), a holocaust-denying, amateur playwright who hails from Grainau, Germany. Macke’s newsletter, “Alpenvorland,” according to its sole author, is “read internationally,” though his affirmation is a wholly untrue, albeit reasonable, assumption: “Alpenvorland” fish-wrap can be glimpsed on occasion through the windows of some butcher shops in nearby Garmisch-Partenkirchen – but the best source of “Alpenvorland” in the US is the well-stacked back porch of Mache’s great nephew, “Ottis Fotze” of Bartow, Florida.
The range of Uncle Macke’s untraceable intellect is reflected in the extent of his newsletter’s distribution, if not exactly in his readership. Ottis Fotze is the president of the “Charlie Smith Flat Earth Fritter Society,” or “CS FEFS,” whose existence is disavowed even by the more ubiquitous “Flat Earth Society.” The organization consists of Klutz’s immediate family plus his next door neighbor Bubba and his pit bull Duds and Dud’s mate, Miss Wanda’s septic tank cleaner’s birddog “Biscuit Eater”.
Ottis hasn’t read a single issue of “Alpenvorland” in its 30-year history (Klutz can’t read – German OR English). His organization’s namesake, Charlie Smith (1874-1979) had claimed to be an American slave during the civil war. But Smith’s proudest proclamation was his “discovery” in the 1960’s which “prove[ed] dat da earth didn’t not rotate on its axees.” Indeed, Smith’s “famous” experiment in 1966 has become legend.
In 1966 Smith nailed a peg into the trunk of a “fritter” (pine) tree in his back yard and reported that in the course of one year the same peg had not moved a single inch from its original hole.
Alas, “CS FEFS” has no blogsite or website. Many reliable testimonies by Bartow residence and even passing truck drivers notwithstanding, Klutz does not believe in the existence of computers.
erratum: "residents," not "residence."
ReplyDelete"Klutz" is Ottis Fotze's local nickname.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as The Schubert Organization issues its press release about Matt Gatens playing Paula Modersohn-Beckerson Meyer in a new, one-woman show about Germany’s first recipient of a sex-change operation, I shall publish the release here. I understand the press release would already have been issued except that German actress Doreen Nixdorf, the originator of the role of Modersohn-Beckerson Meyer in the first German-language production of the play (in Wiesbaden), has threatened litigation.
ReplyDeleteFurther, it is my understanding that Gatens has been offered—and has accepted—the role of Zira (the part played by Kim Hunter in the original) in a television remake of “Planet Of The Apes”. I expect a press announcement shortly.
I was not ignoring you, by the way. We had a bad week.
ReplyDeleteAfter a long illness, one of Andrew’s aunts died a week ago tonight. Her end came suddenly and swiftly, and it caught everyone by surprise.
On Thursday night of last week, she became ill and had to be taken to hospital. Forty-eight hour later, she was gone.
As I said, not a good week.
My condolences to Andrew and his family for his loss.
ReplyDeleteI can hardly wait for the press releases regarding Mr. Gatens' new role(s).
I have decided to revise my top five film list, arranged in no particular order:
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Last Emperor
Barry Lyndon
The Tree of Life (Malick)
A Passage to India
I have seen Lean's masterpiece now three times. I've found that the imagery haunts my memory long after each viewing - probably the most obvious indication of a true masterpiece.
I had to remove "A Midsummer Night's Dream," not only from the top five but from the top ten as well. Until a restored version appears, as I've said earlier, all available prints aren't worth watching.
I feel terrible for bumping "Days of Heaven" off the top five (it remains in my top ten). But I have been viewing Terrance Malick's "The Tree of Life" over the past week, and I truely believe that this latest masterpiece is superior to all his earlier work. Not just the new quintessential "American" film, I'm sure it will be hailed as THE greatest film of all time 20 years from now.
Not since my first exposure to Kubrick's 1968 opus when I was 15 years old have I felt such a gut-wrenching emotional reaction to this latest, very, very great work of art by Malick.
I feel Mr. Malick had missed his mark in "The Thin Red Line" (which is also in my top ten); but Malick has created a new kind of film this year - just like Kubrick had done with 2001. But it's not just in visuals where Malick surpasses himself: the soundtrack - sound editing and music - surpasses anything in recent memory.
Malick's inspiration wanes just a tad in the final 15 minutes, I fear; but the rest of it is beyond all criticism. Malick has reinvented the classic grammar and syntax of filmmaking, in place since D.W. Griffith.
Once again, I talk way too much. If you haven't seen this wonderous film, I recommend it highly.
We'll have to make a point of seeing that film. You have offered high praise indeed. Will the film come across on DVD?
ReplyDeleteI am glad you enjoyed "Passage".
I am rather surprised, however, that "Lost Horizon" failed to make your revised top-five list. Perhaps a reassessment is in order? After all, wasn't Liv Ullmann's unforgettable impersonation of Julie Andrews worth some consideration?
"Lost Horizon" HAS made my list, but at the other end of consideration. It's listed along with "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist" and "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes".
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the opera tomorrow.
The blue-ray DVD of "The Tree of Life" comes across brilliantly. Sound recording is superb. (Listen to it at high volume.)
ReplyDeleteI just did some quick reading about "The Tree Of Life", and I remember now why we did not see the film when it was released in theaters: Sean Penn and Brad Pitt.
ReplyDeleteCan one enjoy the film if one cannot abide either actor?
I honestly don't think I could sit through a film with Sean Penn. I find him utterly revolting.
It is the same reason why I missed it at the cinema. Penn is more revolting that he has ever been, but his screen time is only about five minutes. I don't care for Pitt, either, but he does a good job; his screen time is only about 20 minutes.
ReplyDeleteI take back what I wrote about the last 15 minutes of “The Tree of Life” (TTOL), which I had “feared” was less inspired than what came before. To the contrary, TTOL is an even greater, blinding masterpiece than I had first realized.
ReplyDeleteI had rightly perceived Terrance Malick’s conception from the beginning: the Director has structured his visuals in a profound musical way, creating a “symphony” for the eyes. TTOL is presented in sonata-allegro form – but not of the classical, Mozartian symphony. Rather, this film conveys the post-Beethovenian sonata form with an extended Coda containing a second development section. During this “coda” the corpse-like appearance of Sean Penn now makes a perfect impression upon the viewer; that is, upon those viewers who appreciate the structure of the film.
If one does not appreciate the post-Beethovenian sonata form of the Director’s vision then the viewer will not fully understand what this film is all about.
CONTINUED BELOW
And just what is the film about? Malick has answered God’s question in Job 38:4 which opens the film: in essence, “What is the meaning of Life?” But the Director has gone further than that and has answered Job’s question in Job 7:17 as well, a question NOT presented to the viewer: in essence, “What is the meaning of DEATH?”
ReplyDeleteMalick answers the first question through the cyclic nature of the basic sonata form (Exposition – Development - Recapitulation), which reflects those other cyclic musical forms actually heard on the sound track (fugue, passacaglia).
TTOL consists of (A) an Introduction contrasting “grace” and “nature”; (B) an Expository primary visual theme in the “tonic key” of “Death-Nature” and a secondary theme in the “dominant key” of “Life-Grace.” The musical perfect fifth which separates the “tonic key” from the “dominant” is the “perfect fifth” of the O’Brian family; in the Exposition, we see the five O’Brians in the beginning of their family life – the happiest section of the entire film. This is followed by a macroscopic variation of this “life” theme, a magnificent depiction of the creation and early history of the entire earth.
The vast Development section of TTOL concentrates solely on the O’Brian family when the three boys are no longer toddlers and infants. Over and over again I am reminded here of the final line of Robert Peter Tristram Coffin’s poem “Crystal Moment”: “Life and Death upon one tether and running beautiful together.” As in the Development section of any truly great symphony, the permutations of the two basic themes of “Life” and “Death” are everywhere inspiring, worthy of repeated “hearing”.
Malick opens the “Death” theme alone in startling, unexpected ways, including the frightening contemplation of murder. The Director throws “Life” and “Death” issues close together, showing the drowning death of a child through water, the “source of life,” and showing vivacious boys playing the fog of insecticide. Image after image haunts the memory long after the film is over. The Director edits the sequence of these images even to evoke tonal modulations heard in a symphony.
CONCLUDED BELOW
In the Recapitulation many of the symbolic sight motives seen in the Exposition return: the second child being “born” through a door under the sea, the pier ending in nothingness, etc.
ReplyDeleteAs strict sonata form requires, the straightforward introduction of the two primary themes of the Exposition must be both in the “tonic key”; here, the “key of Death”. Even the return of the earth history variations are now thrown from the PAST into the FUTURE, when we see the death of ANCIENT planet earth as the ANCIENT giant red sun expands outwardly.
In the Coda-Development, the film’s denouement, we see the “ancient” form of the oldest O’Brian child, Jack, played by the repugnant Sean Penn, careworn through sin, enter a “door” into a mysterious, dry, lifeless landscape. This door is not, however, the same door through which the O’Brian children had entered the life on earth.
This is the door through which we all must pass from this life unto the hereafter.
During this Coda, time as we know it in this life no longer exists: the past and future are fused together – forever – as Jack embraces not only the earlier appearances of his mother and father but his own, earlier self.
The very last image of the film parallels the very last image of “The Thin Red Line”: the image of the hope of RESURRECTION.
I am taking the time to share these observations with you because I do not believe that there is more than a handful of viewers in the world who can apprehend Terrence Malick’s great work. I believe that you and Andrew are among that small company.
And so, naturally I hope you will regard these last, conjoined comments here as the compliment I intend.
P.S. No offence, I hate Blogger.
I hate blogger, too. It seems to be problematic of late. Three weeks ago, I considered switching to a new platform, but I did not want to have to go through all the bother.
ReplyDeleteWe shall make a point of seeing that movie this summer, when we should have some time to devote to it. You most certainly have seized our attention through your eloquent analysis of the film. (We’ll have to block out Sean Penn and Brad Pitt.)
Blogger will not let me publish comments from the "preview" mode, where (for me) it is easier to catch mistakes, even when "word verification" is spot on. That means that I have to suffer "word verifcation" twice in order to publish. (Either that or bypass "preview" and hope I haven't made too much of a fool of myself.) To make things worse, Blogger has gone back to what I call the "grey-scale splotch" test, which seems to have been designed to destroy one's eyesight.
ReplyDeleteIf ever you guys do see TTOL, listen at the end for the "Agnus Dei" from the Berlioz Requiem, which accompanies the entire, wordless "Coda" of the film: the Director's message cannot then be more clear.
I just eliminated word verification, so perhaps that will help.
ReplyDelete