Mr. Nobody, Jaco Van Dormael's Sublime Universe

In the year 2092 Nemo Nobody is 118 years old and the last mortal human. A journalist asks Nemo what life was like back when humans were mortal and Nemo replies:

"There were cars that polluted. We smoked cigarettes. We ate meat. We did everything we can't do in this dump and it was wonderful."

I haven't enjoyed a movie as much as Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody in years. It's like Vladimir Nabokov on screen. Brilliant, provoking, intelligent, playful, beautiful, pitiful, awful and awesome -- Sublime.

Health Tips From The Bard

How the Bard keeps in shape, vigorous and svelte:

He imbibes in non patented, morally despised food products, some in massive quantities which defy all scientific and medical logic. He especially enjoys tryptophan, vitamin B3, caffeine and other stimulants. Deprived of these substances, which are increasingly banned and patented his health declines, he becomes listless, overweight, and prone to sky rocketing blood pressure and diabetes. On them he is fit, trim, and spry, and passes medical snuff. When off of them, the doctors panic and accuse him of using them even though his body seems to work synergistically and depends on them.

The bane of the Bard is corn syrup and artificial sweeteners. Corn syrup inflames him, most likely because modern farming practices don't allow for the freeing up of the vitamin B3 he requires.

The Bard is interested in a variety of subjects and adheres to the tenets of the famous Nun Study, which indicates that long life and mental health come from being interested and interesting, rather than from living like an ascetic.

The Bard follows, or aspires to examples such as that flaming and compassionate centenarian, Moses of the Mount and his 10 Simple Steps to Happiness and Success.

The Bard reads copiously and has for years, even reading the encyclopedia from cover to cover if one lands in his hands. Does he remember what he reads? Sometimes.

The Bard does not brown-nose or play chess games with human pieces. Nor does he respect those who play social games with others, racking up points in their little black book of life. People are not pawns or points. The world's only a stage for those who write scripts for others and for those who are ignorant enough to seriously act the part thinking it is reality, moaning dramatically, "I am Bathos! I am Bathos!"

The Bard knows so much that he knows he is often wrong. Ignorance and arrogance often are impediments to coming to this conclusion, that one has been deceived. The Bard has been humbled to extreme pits-of-the-trash-can levels and has risen from the rot and refuse a wiser, tougher, and perceptive person able to know trash when he sees and smells it. This Bard particularly enjoys the mental picture of himself rising from a dumpster, sticky paper clinging from his hair, and goo dripping from him. It makes him chuckle.

The Bard enjoys music and is not confined to a particular type, as long as it's not electronically simulated or pop which make him nauseous, vomitous, and break out in a rash. He prefers to get off the main drag for his music and find back alleys and character. The Bard believes that Beatles are ugly bugs that make a nice crunching sound when stepped on. Beatles are watered-down versions of real music which has been made into American Idol versions for mass hysterical consumptives.

The Bard reads Shakespeare, Nabokov, and The Holy Book. These are his foundations and his life rafts upon a stormy sea. When the Bard is sinking he grabs onto these and is lifted up again. These get him out of the tomb and up onto the mountain.

The Bard has strong opinions.

The Bard drinks Borax, Apple Cider Vinegar, molasses, and a special ale; bathes in a bubbling spring, does pull-ups from a lock of Sampson's hair, and cries when he laughs, and admits he will never ever be perfect no matter how many times he is forced to repeat the cycle. It would be better to let me live for ever than to have me return an even more pronounced version of myself, or even as a smaller mite of myself. I'd have far too much fun as a mite.

At Least We'll Be Elegantly Destitute

"[T]he spirits of Americans are hitting record lows. People are becoming desperate to find something--anything--that will make them feel better, to do something to pick themselves up........We forecast that something will be 'Elegance' in its many manifestations. The trend will begin with fashion............a move toward quality and individuality--and will spread through all the creative arts, as the need for beauty trumps the thrill of the thuggish. A strong, do-it-yourself aspect will make up for reduced discretionary income, as personal effort provides the means for affordable sophistication" (Gerald Celente, "Breaking Point: Top Trends 2010").

I'm forecasting that big, bulky, top heavy and scruffy scarves will give way to trim and neat neck gear of finer fabrics.

Moccasins and ballet flats will give way to the penny loafer, and middle-aged men in the entertainment industry will stop with that affected froufy frousle-tousle hair do.

Plaid is in and will continue for several years because it is colorful in a drab world, classic, versatile, individual, and unpretentious. Some may choose plaid for its counterculture connotations and others may choose it for the association with that rebel William Wallace.

Will women return to skirts as every day wear, and men to ties? No. Women will not give up the pants, and men will not don the tie as an every day piece of clothing. It won't happen. Carhartt will happen.

And as a warning, even in the midst of the revival of elegance, poshlost will still thrive, and as usual, those who believe they are being elegant will only exhibit poshlost at its pinnacle. It may take a full body scan to expose who is elegant and who is carrying the element of poshlost. Of course, the truly elegant will not submit to a full body scan.

Poshlost:(Russian) vulgarity, triviality, banality, promiscuity, etc. "[T]he falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever..." (Vladimir Nabokov). "[O]ver concern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know" (Nabokov). "[C]omplacent mediocrity and moral degeneration" (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn).

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" (Bogart to Rains, Casablanca)

Older than the hills

"The child is the father of the man," a line from Wordsworth that has become a staple amongst Western literary quotations, and for good reason. It is so well said, so succinct, and so cyclical.

It is the spring board from which I will jump into some musing, observation, and opinion.

Wordsworth and his fellow poets of the Lake School were a band of Romantics, or as we would term them in more modern terms, "hippees." They wanted to get back to nature and enjoy free love away from industrial air. But the difference between them and our now aged hippees is that they really were creative, talented, and wise at times. They were quite industrious and have given generation to following generations, unlike the aged hippees who have often trampled upon the generations that followed them, or as Wordsworth put it:

Unprofitably travelling toward the grave,
Like a false steward who hath much recieved
And renders nothing back (The Prelude)

How is it that the child is the father of the man? Obviously, because he came first, and without the child there would be no man. But perhaps, there is more to it, perhaps, we are looking at things with limited sight, through that dark glass.

The child really is the father of the man.

Why do we say, "when I was younger," when we refer to our self as we were many years before?

That "younger" self no longer exists except as a memory in the fabric of time, an image captured in our mind. That younger self is actually older than the present self.

Why is it that we as individual people were younger, but history as a whole is considered ancient and older? Was it not also younger, newer, more energetic and beautiful too?

Why when we look at pictures of us in our early days, do we say with surprise, "Look at how young and good-looking I was. Look, no gray, no wrinkles, no sagging, no added thickness! I had SO much energy back then. I had no worries. I had no money and barely ate (because I had no money)and everything I owned fit into a box. I was so happy!"?

But when we look at history (which resembles a younger person) we say, "They were unhappy, poor, uneducated barbarians. They didn't know any better. They had no manners, no baths, no hygiene, no electricity. They were slave owners, they were slaves. They thought the world was flat and that a god or gods had created them (imagine, not knowing it is monkeys that fathered us!), they sacrificed their babies to these gods thinking it would make life better. We are so much more advanced through science and now only kill babies to make their life better, because we're so caring...."

We sound like old people when we speak of the previous younger generations this way. Turn that music down!

Isn't this how people often speak of younger adults? When speaking of the younger people it is often said that they possess the same uncouth attributes as the earth's inhabitants when they were hundreds and thousands of years younger.

I have often thought in recent months that we have become very old and that it is no longer the next generation setting the standard by which we live. It is the aging generations, those in their 40's, and especially those in their 50's and 60's that dictate the rules, that grasp onto their belief that their way is the right way.

One of the hints showing our old age is color.

In times past it has been the unwrinkled ones that chose color palettes and decor tastes. Color, like music, can be considered too loud for aging individuals, causing them to feel nervous, tense, or offended.

Newer generations have always loved color and combining it in new ways that define their generation and outlook on the world. Color is a way of expressing one's self.

Now color is being repressed by the aged among us, as many other forms of expression and freedom are also being repressed.

I discovered this killing of color when looking into the world of the past. I was looking at vinyl composition tile (VCT) and could not find anyone using it outside of offices, hospitals, and grocery stores. VCT tile is now considered taboo for home flooring, not rich enough.

But when youthful people set the rules VCT tile was in nearly every home and in nearly every color. Younger people and families don't generally have a lot of money, but this did not prevent them from setting the standard of middle class living through the first half or so of the 20th century.

I looked at picture after picture of VCT tile advertising from the 1920's through the first part of the 1960's and found my heart racing with the discovery of wonderful color. It was as if an entire world was opened up to me. And then I felt a bit cheated out of this knowledge that has been suppressed in the limited time I live in.

I felt old, as if my entire world was ruled by the rules of the old.

Color is life, joy, freedom, creativity, and youth. Not sedate, aged, and offensive.

The advertising of the young in comparison with the real estate of the current time is stark. The current colors to emulate are dead browns, grays, whites, mute greens, and more browns. These are the colors of winter when no snow has fallen and the blue sky does not shine through the haze. Why is November's winter and fall overriding crisp, biting winter, spring, and summer?

Previous generations would have chosen rich browns over dull brown, and spiked it with brilliant royal red, bright greens, pink, or teal. Gray would have been paired with yellow, red, purple, and jewelled emerald. Pink paired with turquoise was not tacky.

Are we in the winter of our life?

Our global worries are the worries of the elderly. We worry that we are dying, and believe experts when they tell us we must take certain remedies in order to squeeze more life out of our crotchety old bones and planet. We are easily conned (which also means "steered"). Where are the "young" people to shake their heads at us, ignore us, and make fun of us?

When we were younger we never thought we would get old.

Now, we have gotten old and too blind to even see how old and gnarled we are. The dementia has set in and we convince ourselves that if we follow the doctor's advice we can keep forever healthy, fit, advanced, and alert.

No, we are not younger. The world is older and sits in a rocking chair, too old, too blind, too feeble to get up and help itself.

If only grandma hadn't gotten rid of her youth, then she'd have someone to help her around.

History is young. We are old.

In our youthful and romantic past there is a father to teach us, if we're not too old to remember, too stiff-necked to turn around.

The earth is all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again! (The Prelude, William Wordsworth)