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bookmark_borderThere are no great writers, only great works

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

So, last year I graduated from a second masters degree. There is nothing you can learn on a masters degree that you cannot learn on your own, Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, Socrates, and many other wise men had less a middle school education. Even if we look to our own time, actors and directors like Quentin Tarantino and Michael J Fox started working without a high school diploma.

I knew this before starting my degee, so why did I do it? It gives you a framework. You can read a bunch of songs in magazines, a bunch of poems as individual sheets, but a book can put them together for you. A degree puts books together for you, and creates a kind of community to discuss them with. Who’s paying for this expensive book club with a fancy piece of paper at the end? Why do we finance these things if people can just organise their own learning?

Well, one thing a degree gives you is it pushes you to read works that you otherwise might ignore. Or, its structure encourages you to ignore details and go on to the next thing. It is like hiring a tour guide for your learning, in most cases, for your reading and essay writing.

And where does that take me? This degree had me read a lot of texts by “great writers.” Only, the works were mediocre. They just illustrated a point, and had a name brand attached. Every brand has a recall when they create a falty product, every brand except a dead writer. Almost every writer creates a dud or two. For some, like Shakespeare, these works are lost, or their authorship is doubted. For others, who release a poem, short story or song almost every week, it’s easy to find a mediocre work.

And, the AI, the teaching assistant, or the instructor decides to use some of these works. “Look, Tolstoy wrote this, and it says how I feel, let’s include it in the syllabus.” Sure, it carries the Tolstoy brand, but it reads more like a first draft. Or like the dregs left over after a great story.

We saw many such works. Some might have been great in the original, just poorly translated. Others were never good to begin with.

This is why I don’t have a favorite artist, a favorite actor, a favorite writer, a favorite director. If I say I do, you’ll show me the work he made when he suffered from insomnia, the unfinished draft she wrote when she was too tired to proofread, the AI compilation of their worst works that copies their styles but leaves out their genius.

Unless a writer only has one surviving work, then I am not sure I want to see all their works. Reknowned actor Bela Lugosi ended up working with Ed Wood to make the worst film of all time. Talent does not guarantee a masterwork, it doesn’t even guarantee mediocrity.

But even when they have a great work, there is no great work that has not been taking out of context to mean the exact opposite of what the writer intended.

And, even a great writer, in a great work, can say some mediocre, false, or stupid things.

I found a very interesting article about Iceland.

Iceland Is Reputed To Be Happy And Safe. So Why Is Violent Crime On The Rise?

Iceland is Reputed to be Happy and Safe. So Why Is Violent Crime On The Rise?

Okay, I have trouble copying the capitalisation. I don’t think that is the writer’s fault, I think the software does that. I found it a very interesting account of how crime rates are rising in Iceland. There are some great quotable lines in there, “Maybe we are bad at self-assessing our happiness. I mean, in 2022 Iceland also had the highest consumption rate of antidepressants in Europe. Maybe we’re not happy, we’re just high.” Wow, here is an interesting conclusion that still makes me want to read more.

What got me is that the story seems to be in favor of equality, or equity. After criticisng the right wingers, it makes a big mistake at the end. It quotes “historian” Will Durant completely out of context. Will Durant is more of an ultra-conservative philosopher who selects and distorts history to fit his worldview than a historian. Durant would be more in line with Thatchers, “society is just made up of individual men and women” than the text quoting him seems to realise.

Durant did indeed write, “Freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.” But, he was criticising the Soviet Union’s attack on freedom.

Here are some other Will Durant quotes from the same work which look very Thatcherite. Or even seem to scream, “Who is John Galt!”

“Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization.”

“If we knew our fellow men thoroughly we could select thirty per cent of them whose combined ability would equal that of all the rest.”

Or, let’s get to the Animal Farm sounding bit. “Since wealth is an order and procedure of production and exchange rather than an accumulation of (mostly perishable) goods, and is a trust (the “credit system”) in men and institutions rather than in the intrinsic value of paper money or checks, violent revolutions do not so much redistribute wealth as destroy it. There may be a redivision of the land, but the natural inequality of men soon re-creates an inequality of possessions and privileges, and raises to power a new minority with essentially the same instincts as in the old.”

Let’s see what Durant really thinks. “Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way.”

Now, Durant and Thatcher don’t look that different, do they? If you read Thatcher’s treaty where she allegedly said “there is no such thing as society” you have a feeling that she and Durant are on the same page of the same book, with the same interpretation and the same opinion.

Like Durant, Thatcher was criticizing socialism. Like Durant, Thatcher saw education as the only way to allow true genius to shine through, making education reforms to allow individuals with talent or potential to rise above poverty.

In other words, they are either both right or both wrong.

I disagree with both of them. Both believe in the supremacy of the individual, the person, the great person. For them, the system merely needs to get out of the way of greatness.

To me, I believe that there are great works. The worker needs to get out of his own way. The system needs to have an infrastructure in place to support that work. Neither Thatcher or Will Durant owned a printing press, both benefited from millenia of scientific, political, and social innovations that created societies that allowed their works.

Neither was a total individualist. While Durant spoke of interdependence, Thatcher did give credit to many different professions, especially the military.

My point is this. Just because a famous person, or well liked person, said something, that doesn’t mean there is an ounce of truth to it. Or relevance. There may be. When we seek out great works, we might care about the moral character of the person who created those works. We might care about what they did before. But we shouldn’t trust something as great just because of the brand name.

bookmark_borderAttempts to erase history

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

Here at Ptara, we try to avoid contemporary “politics.” However, we see more and more, in the 21st century, that politics has effected history.

Now, a statue that a tyrant puts up to himself is not really history, it is domination. But a plaque commemorating the indigenous people of a place, or those allies who helped you, this tells a story we can all benefit from hearing.

https://youtu.be/USrwfhJ7A0c?si=uc54B6n330qBQ4Ud

“You should not erase other people’s history because it makes you uncomfortable,” says Keianna Cachora when she heard that President Trump was going to remove plaques from the Little Big Horn battlefield.

But why is this happening?

At first, they were offended by Soviet statues and Confederate flags, so those were taken down. They were symbols of oppression to many, and so while some people said it was heritage, the majority said no, it has to go.

Hungary and Angola had a solution. Gather the statues and bring them to a museum, or a statue park. Some very ignorant people will claim that having the monuments by communism preserved in Hungary shows Hungary as being “pro-Russian.” Well, they still have old concentration camps in Germany. Refusing to erase the evidence of a crime doesn’t mean you approve of the crime. Hungary is not celebrating communism with the statues park, it is remembering the horrors of communism. (And some communists might see it as a shrine.)

The American situation was a little different. A lot of the statues to soldiers of the CSA were built during the civil rights era. The flags and statues were about pride in their ancestors, maybe not about pride in all the sins of their ancestors, but most of their supporters will say it was about celebrating the bravery, the heroism of fighting as the underdog.

Of course, not everyone saw it that way. Statues were dismantled. State flags were modified to take out CSA symbols, bands even changed their names.

Not everyone who objected was pro-confederacy or even pro-Southern heritage. Many others were seen with suspicion, however, if they objected to the removal of “history.”

To understand why people were nostalgic for the old statues, we should look beyond America. We can see something said by South African artist, Pitika Ntuli. “If it is a statue of my worst enemy, I would respect the artist more than I hate who is depicted.” He suggested moving Apartheid statues to a “Theme Park” which is similar to what happened in Hungary. He wasn’t commenting on the situation in America, but I can see his words. I also respect the work of artists, and I wish we still had statues from the Ancient world, just to see what they looked like.

Not every toppled statue has defenders. When an ugly statue of a slave owner was thrown into the sea in England, I didn’t hear anyone crying over it.

When monuments to (US rebellion) Confederate soldiers were being dismantled, there was a protest. People claimed the Confederacy, or Confederate States of America, was part of their “heritage.”

The claims were pretty boring “essays.” Some made mentions of shamrocks or Superman, to try and elicit emotion from other groups. But a lot of symbols were taken down in response to a mass shooting, and later to other crimes, that somehow the statues or flags were seen to have inspired.

Both sides of the statue debate have used old testament verses in the Bible to justify their stance. The “Southern Heritage” side have pointed to verses like Proverbs 22:28. However, there are also those who point to “Biblical reasons for removing statues” comparing the Confederate statues to “idolatry.”

Now, however, the momentum of destroying statues and monuments has not stopped. What is condemning the “heritage” crowd is their relative silence when it comes to destroying the monuments of African American soldiers in Europe or Native Americans at the national parks in America. Doesn’t Proverbs 22:28, the Shamrock and Superman also apply to them? This is why I put “heritage” in quotes when it comes to CSA symbols, they seem to expect others to stand up for their symbols, but we don’t see them protesting to preserve the symbols of others.

It is not just an American issue. Songs, flags, statues, slogans, memorials, and other symbols of ethnic identity and historical remembrance are the subjects of controversy and legislation throughout the world. The President of Romania recently objected to an unclear law which would bring new limits on free speech, but the courts passed it anyway. Ireland rejected a similar law. If you attend the museums in Estonia, you can see how removals of statues about the past led to protests.

However, the cases outside the United States usually don’t get global publicity. If you live in Belgium and go to a lot of museums, you might think everyone knows about Leopold II, but I doubt most people outside of Belgium ever heard of him. It was protests that started in America that made his statue more controversial in Belgium, but some wonder if the protestors in America ever heard of Leopold II, knew there were three Leopolds altogether, could find Belgium on a map or even pronounce “Leopold.”

I would suggest giving statues a kind of a fair trial. Instead of a mob or a President deciding what stays up and what goes down, why not have a level headed discussion, with an impartial jury listening to the defendents and the prosecution?

In any case, I think we should preserve history, especially indigenous history, whether it be the indigenious people of the USA, Asia, Europe, or whereever. The sense of identity, of community, of self-knowledge, is a good thing. We shouldn’t wait for others to attack our own heritage to defend it.

bookmark_borderGreenwashing glamping as eco-tourism?

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

So, I just wrote a treaty on eco-tourism. Then, I tried to find out exactly when the term was coined. Sure, the idea was found by a Mexican architect in the early 1980s, but when and how did the term really catch on?

In Australia, the first steps toward “eco-tourism” were really a re-hash of glamping. The earliest mention of Ecotourism in the Australian press seems to be in the Canberra Times, on Monday, 16 September, 1991. Lorann Downer wrote an article on the Carnarvon Gorge, in Queensland entitled, “Bush Holidays for those less eager to rough it.”

in that article, the head of Nature Australia, Stephen Comber, defined ecotourists as those who “like “nature-based holidays,” and would devote time to “experiencing the wild, but who also want a hot shower and good meal at the end of the day.”

According to that article, “tourists” as well as “the industry, are still defining what they want.”

Nature Australia Inc and others seem to try to reduce ecot-tourism to a “buzz word for holidays in relatively unspoilt or wilderness areas with low-key building and servicing, and no glitz.” In other words, they tried to turn eco-tourism into a euphamism for glamping.

Now, we know that the real meaning of ecotourism is not about just seeing relatively unspoilt nature, like glamping might be, but it is about supporting a natural ecosystem, a local economy, in its current shape. It is about making a positive impact with your visit.

We didn’t find the origin of the word eco-tourism. But we did find that since 1991 at least, ecotourism has been greenwashed to sell nothing more than glamping holidays.

Even worse than that, a lot of mediocre camp sites in undeveloped places are selling themselves as ecotourism, without really giving anything to the tourist or the location. Minimalism is cheap, and tourists might be paying way too much for poor service because it carries the greenwash label of “ecotourism.”

And what’s worse is a lot of this tourism just goes to big businesses. As much as 95% of the money spent on tourism does not go to the locations where the tourists go, but to international companies that found ways to skim money off tourist traps.

Ecotourism doesn’t mean just going to undeveloped places. Rather, it’s goal is to make tourism more accountable, more authentic, more responsible, and more durable. In other words, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the attitude, the process, the way of interacting with the economy, the culture and the destination.

In other words, buyers beware. Just because something sells itself as ecotourism doesn’t mean that it is. Worse still, the media and the tourist industry don’t always know what ecotourism really is, so you might have to research a bit deeper than a single article or review in your favorite newspaper.

What we need, perhaps, is an “organic” or “fair trade” type label for ecotourism. A third party organisation that can verify the quality of the experience.

Until them, you can participate in ecotourism simply by the way you approach your holidays. You can buy locally instead of through those international websites. Buy food through local sellers rather than international chains. (If you need an app, then Detrumpify yourself might help there.) You can choose to walk places or bike, to just treat the places with respect, as respectful tourists did in the old days.

bookmark_borderEcotourism vs sustainable tourism

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

At first, ecotourism and sustainable tourism may seem like synonyms. But synonyms are not homonyms. Similar is not the same. Just as a wave is more than a ripple, and a tsunami is more than a wave, ecotourism is more than sustainable tourism. So, what is the difference?

Sustainable tourism aims at minimizing the impact of tourism. You might have heard of “reducing your carbon footprint.” That is sustainable tourism. Ecotourism is more than that.

We heard a little about ecotourism from the mooc by Universite de Toulouse “Cap sur l’ecotourisme.” (#MoocEcotourisme) While France has long been a destination for tourists (and expats) the French have not always been thought of tourists. It is hard for some older people, encombered by old stereotypes, to imagine French people leaving their country to enjoy the sights in another.

As an Australian newspaper said in the 19th century, “Just now France is anything but interested in ordinary tourism,” meaning France is not interested in tourism at all. “When Macmahon officially voyaged he was greeted with Vivas for Gambetta,” it continued. Even though he was a royalist at heart, Macmahon was the president of France (he started in the military and worked his way up.) And “vivas for Gambetta” means people saying, “Viva Gambetta!” Who was Gambetta? Macmahon’s political rival.

It was like Macron going abroad and hearing people shout, “Long live Le Penn!” Or manchester United hearing people say, “Long live Manchester city!” Everton fans hearing “Long live Liverpool FC!” But a more powerful rivalry. Oh wait, we should have used more French analogies. “Long live your opponent!”

The Australians did not imagine the Frenchman enjoyed his trip abroad. “How the President must be delighted that the tour is over.”

Now, many people think ecotourism started in a similar way. It is often assumed (by who? I hear you ask… by me, I guess) that ecotourism started when people were frustrated with the litter left by tourists or hotels, the way development competes with natural resources, or some other events of tourism. You might think ecotourists were frustrated that tourism seemed to be the opponent of everything that was good and sacred. But no, that wasn’t it. Not at all.

In fact, however, ecotourism was started in the early 1980s when a Mexican architect, Hector Ceballos-Lascurainm saw the way people appreciated the tranquil pink flamingos at the side of a lake. He thought to himself, what if tourism could help nature and inspire people to preserve it? What if it could be a force for good? Can the economic and environmental, appreciation and protection, coincide? Of course they can!

The idea of ecotourism is not just to minimize the impact of tourism, but it reaches into a deeper philosophy of tourism that helps the enviornment, having a positive impact. For instance, tourists who go to watch a species can help scientists track that species. Instead of simply not dropping trash, tourists might help clean a location of trash (maybe that’s not a good idea, some might say. If you run out of trash, you will lose tourists. Well, show me a location that has run out of trash, and then we can talk.)

Ecotourism will do something that will involve tourists in not only appreciating natural beauty of a place, but helping to preserve it. The place will be better off for them coming.

Sustainable tourism, on the other hand, simply tries to stop the location from getting ruined too quickly. It doesn’t go nearly as far. Sustainable tourism (like “responsible” tourism) might try to reduce a tsunami to a smaller tsunami, but it won’t always build barriers to protect against that tsunami. Ecotourism can have the power to reduce a tsunami to a wave, or even a ripple, or even replace it with nourishing rainfall. Ecotourism aims to be a force that doesn’t only bring less destruction, but that may bring healing, regeneration, and growth to the local traditions and ecosystems of a place.

It was Francois Huet who called Ecotourism “more than a simple label, ecotourism is a true philosophy of travel.” His suggestions for ecotourism is not just to stand as an idle observer, but to be an active preserver of the natural and cultural richness of a location. You might use or help create its local instruments, learn its local language… The term “ecotourism” is a bit confusing, the concept of ecotourism seems to go beyond simple environmental preservation. Rather than simply “visiting a place,” the ecotourists “sense its heart” and bring back much of the good of a place with them.

It is like what Owen Feltman said about travel during the times of the Cromwellian Republic. A traveller should experience a place to bring back the best of that place, and be enriched by its virtues.

This wasn’t new. A lot of people think travel makes people better. Anthony Bourdain said that “travel is education for life.” Feltman was more realistic. He said that some men are made better by travel, and others worse. Feltman warned that men can pick up bad habits from travelling, and counselled that they should choose to pick the best to take back with them. We might not agree with everything that Feltman said (he only thought a few places were worth visiting), but he was more refreshing than those who think that everyone who travels is better for it. No, we must make a conscious effort to improve, personal improvement won’t happen on its own. Even in the 17th century, Feltman knew some well-travelled “Karens” who seemed worse than people who never left the country.

Feltman, and many others, spoke of the benefits (or dangers) of tourism for the tourist. Ecotourism, on the other hand, looks at the benefits that tourism can have for locals. The philosophy is ambitious: Rather than just learning to adapt to tourism, rather than just learning to mitigate its supposed evils, tourism can have a positive impact on a place. Tourism, as ecotourism, can be positive not just for the environment and culture, but for the people who live there as well.

Ecotourism is not “greenwashing” it is not simply sounding environmental to get money. It is about “regenerative tourism” or “leaving a place better than you found it.”

But the alternative to ecotourism is not just garbage on the beach. It is not just “overtourism” that brings up rent prices. The cultural danger exists as well. The danger is “museification” where a local economy is replaced with a giant museum. Local jobs, even farms, are replaced with tourist traps (if there are local craftsmen, they are doing their craft to entertain tourists.) In museification, the jobs people had before become unsustainable because the economy replaces them with bellboys, waitresses, and if you’re lucky, tour guides. Locals end up having to look abroad for work. This is something ecotourism is fighting against. Ecotourism is not just about protecting the environment, it is about protecting jobs as well.

In fact, ecotourism, according to the Mooc, puts locals before tourists. That doesn’t mean tourists have a bad experience, rather the basis for the project is thinking of how it will impact local people, local customs, and local environment in a good way. The local economy is built in such a way that it helps the locals live a better quality of life.

It might sound like ecotourism is tourism that puts the environment first, but instead, it recognises how the environment can help people. Ecotourism is tourism that puts people first.

Sources: Our Paris Letter, written 6 May 1888, in The Week (Brisbane), published 30 June 1888, pg 29.

Of Travel, in Resolves, by Owen Feltman, about 1620.

The Mooc on FUN about Ecotourism (in French) https://lms.fun-mooc.fr/courses/course-v1:univ-toulouse+101024+session01

See also: permentreprise (in French. In English, there is a Taiwan organisation that has nothing to do with the concept.) https://www.permaentreprise.fr

The Darwin project in Bordeaux: https://www.france.fr/en/article/discover-darwin-in-bordeaux/#capital-of-street-art-2

bookmark_borderOf Travel (Resolves LXXXVII, Owen Feltman)

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

A speech which often came from Alexander was; that he had discovered more with his eye than other kings did comprehend in their thoughts. And he spake of his Travel. For indeed, men can but guess at places by relation only.

There is no map like the view of the country. Experience is [the] best informer. And one journey will show a man more than any description can.

Some would not allow a man to move from the shell of his own country. And Claudian mentions it as a happiness, for birth, life and burial, to be all in a [single] Parish.

But surely, travel fulleth the Man; he hath lived but locked up in a larger Chest, which hath never seen but one land. A Kingom to the World is like a corporation to a kingdom, a man may live in it like an unbred man. He that searcheth foreign nations is becoming a gentleman of the world. One that is learned, honest and travelled is the best compound of man; and so corrects the vices of one country with the virtues of another, that like Mithridate, he grows a perfect mixture, and an antidote.

Italy, England, France and Spain are the court of the World; Germany, Denmark and China are the city. The rest are most of them country and barbarism: who has not seen the best of these is a little lame in knowledge.

Yet I think it not fit that every man should travel. It makes a wise man better and a fool worse. This gains nothing but the gay fights, vices, exotic gestures, and the Apery of a country. A travelling fool is the shame of all nations. He shames his own by his weakness abroad: he shames others by bringing their follies alone. They only blab about domestic vices, and import them that are transmarine.

That a man may better himself by travel, he ought to observe and comment: noticing as well the bad, to avoid it; as taking the good into use. And without registring these things by the pen, they will slide away unprofitably. A man would not think, how much the Characterizing of a thought in paper fastens it. Litera script a mane has a large sense. He, that does this, may, when he pleaseth rejourney all his voyage, in his closet.

Grave natures are the best proficients by travel: they are not too apt to take a soil: and they observe more: but then they must put on an outward freedom, with an Inquisition seemingly careless. It were an excellent thing in a state, to have a select number of youth, of the Nobility and Gentry; and at years of some maturity, to send abroad for education. Their parents could not better dispose of them, than to dedicate them to the Republick. They themselves could not be in a fairer way of preferment, and no question but they might prove mightily servicable to the state at home; when they shall return verified in the world, languaged and well read in men; which for policy and negotiation is much better than book learning, though never so deep and knowing.

Being abroad, the best is to converse with the best, and not to ch{oo}se by the eye, but by Fame. For the State instruction is to be had at the Court; for Traffic, among merchants. For Religious Rites, the Clergy; for Government, the Lawyers, and for Country and Rural knowledge, the Boors and Peasantry can best help you.

All rarities are to be seen, especially Antiquities, for these show us the ingenuity of elder times in Act; and are in one both example and precept. By these, comparing them with modern invention, we may see how the world thrives in ability and brain. But above all, see real men. There is no monument like a worthy man alive. We shall be sure to find something in him, to kindle our spirits, and inlarge our minds with a worthy emulation of his virtues. Parts of extraordinary note cannot so lie hid, but that they will shine forth through the tongue, and behavior, to the inlightening of the ravisht beholder. And because there is less in this, to take the sense of the eye, and things are more readily from a living pattern; the soul shall more easily draw in his excellencies, and improve itself with greater profit.

But unless a man has judgement to order them aright, in himself, at his return, all is in vain, and lost labor. Some men, by travel, will be changed in nothing; and some again, will change too much.

Indeed, the moral outside, whosoever we be, may seem best, when something fitted to the nation we are in: but wheresoever I should go, or stay, I would ever keep my God, and Friends, unchangeably. Howsoever he returns, he makes an ill voyage, that changeth his Faith with his Tongue and Garments.

(written around 1620. Some adjustments have been made for readability. Adjustments copyright 2025).

bookmark_borderIt wasn’t Franklin’s basement

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

If you live somewhere, does that make it yours? I guess you could say, “my town” or “my country” without owning it. But, if you are a foreigner, say in Paramus, New Jersey (where the end of the world happens, according to Ghostbusters), San Dimas, California (where Bill and Ted had their excellent Adventure), or Cluj-Napoca (where the greatest king of Hungary was born, and where Romania’s great Black Sea Bubble started), then you might hesitate to say, “my.”

Yes, there are people who feel affinity to somewhere without being a citizen. But, when I say, “in my country,” people do not expect me to say a place where I lived for a few years as a boarder. Hey, I spent some time in Bulgaria, is that “my country?”

Now, some people say that bones were found, “in the basement of Benjamin Franklin’s house.” This implies that Franklin had something to do with those bones. However, Franklin was a boarder in that house. That means, he had a housesit there. Like a student might rent a “bed sit” in modern Britain.

The house is now called the Ben Franklin house to capitalise on tourism. Just like the house where Matthais Corvin, the great King of Hungary, was born, is marketed as the Matthais house. But, just as the baby Matthais had no idea what was going on in that quiet little house in Cluj-Napoca, so Ben Franklin likely didn’t know what was happening beneath his feet in London.

But he was “a curious man” you say? (Or the Smithsonian says.) The Smithsonian claims that the “curious man that he was,” Franklin probably knew what was going on and would, “sneak down and check out the proceedings at least once or twice.”

Franklin’s curiosity did not, in other areas, include spying on private affairs. There seems to have been an illegal anatomy workshop underneath him. Franklin might have thought something else was happening there, perhaps something of an intimate matter that he didn’t want to see. Or, perhaps something political that he didn’t want to know about. It might have been an illegal gambling den for all he knew. And, I would bet that he didn’t want to know.

Franklin’s curiosity usually extended only to things he could write about. As Franklin once wrote, “three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.” He loved reading books and talking to people. But spying and keeping secrets was not his thing.

Now, the Smithsonian goes on to defend the other occupant of the house who the skeletons might have belonged to. William Hewson is said to have run an illegal anatomy school while Ben Franklin was a lodger, boarder, bed-sitter at the house.

Sure, Ben Franklin stayed there. But calling it “his house” is misleading. It assumes that he had control of what happened in the basement, and access to it. In reality, it wasn’t his, he merely rented a small part of it. If I eat at a restaurant, that doesn’t make me the chef.

That doesn’t mean it’s not a nice place to visit. The idea that you could be in proximity to where a great mind once contemplated things is great. However, don’t blame Franklin for what he had no control over, and probably didn’t know.

bookmark_borderMost quotable Rob Reiner films

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

Did I like Rob Reiner? I never met him. I have no idea what kind of person he was. I met another Reiner once, great guy, very funny, didn’t look anything like Rob though so I doubt they were related. Also, they probably had different last names.

His career seems to have started with family connections, with father and grandfather in the business. Then he was famous as the character “Meathead” in “All in the Family.” He received a few writing credits in televion, but Rob Reiner’s best known films are as director.

I thought other directors who passed away recently were a little more significant. Robert Redford was instrumental in turning the Sundance Film Festival into an international phenomenon. He also produced films with meaning like Quiz Show. Probably the most underrated person in the independent film scene.

They had a link. They both worked with screenwriter William Goldman. Goldman wrote a few books about the business from a writer’s perspective, and he published his screenplays with interesting forwards. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid helped Redford cement his reputation as an actor, and not just a pretty face. And so, no surprise where we’ll start.

The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is based on an eponymous book by William Goldman, full of dad jokes. (The jokes originated when Goldman was telling stories to his children, you can’t get more dad than that.)

An iconic moment in this film is when an assistant to the villain says, “you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” The meme has shortened that to, “You keep using that word, I don’t think you know what it means.” (Do you know which word he was refering to? Hint, it wasn’t eponymous.)

Then there is, “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.”

And if you ever get sick of people rhyming, you might find fans of the film if you say, “Stop rhyming and I mean it.” To which your Andre the Giant will respond, “Anybody want a peanut?” (It works with the accent. Yes, it depends on how you pronounce peanut.)

William Goldman should get credit for those lines. We look at Goldman’s other films, and see that even in duds like Ghost and the Darkness, there are a few memorable lines. “We have an expression in prize fighting: ‘Everyone has a plan until they’ve been hit’. Well my friend, you’ve just been hit. The getting up is up to you.” and “You build bridges, John. You have to go where the rivers are.”

So, why didn’t Ghost and the Darkness work? Maybe the director had more of a TV style. There seems to be a flaw in the structure of the work, perhaps something was lost in the editing or some of the film was spoiled along the way. Could Rob Reiner have saved it? I doubt it, but we’ll never know.

A few Good Men

“You want answers?”

“I want the Truth.”

“You can’t handle the truth!”

That is like, my generation’s favorite quote. Taken out of context, that scene seems much more sympathetic to the old colonel played by Jack Nicholson than Tom Cruise’s lawyer looking for justice. If you see the rest of the film, however, you see the truth about Nicholson’s character, the struggle of Cruise and his team to bring justice, and perhaps the political view of the filmmakers.

It’s a great film though, it flows from the acting, the writing, and perhaps the directing. It’s hard to say where the best lines came from, but I would say the actors carried this one. Sorkin and Reiner worked together in another memorable film, The American President.

The American President

Sorkin is a great writer of dialogue, but he doesn’t always pick the best character names. Michael J Fox plays a character here who gives false statistics (but the film doesn’t question his statistics) and many lines are very politically oriented. (It defends Clinton’s arial attacks in the middle east, and other parts of domestic and foriegn policy in a way that ruins the pace and breaks the fourth wall.)

One of the characters has an unfortunately name. That is played by Fox. The name doesn’t seem to fit him.

A. J. MacInerney: [in the Oval Office] The President doesn’t answer to you, Lewis!
Lewis Rothschild: Oh, yes he does, A.J. I’m a citizen, this is my President. And in this country it is not only permissible to question our leaders, it’s our responsibility!

How much better would that exchange have been if the characters had names that better suited their personality?

Here, I think Reiner probably helped Sorkin.

Fans of this film might remember a Saturday Night Live sketch where Bill Clinton reviewed the film. They might also be confusing it with Dave, a film by Ivan Reitman which many feel was superior.

The Bucket List

What about using Jack Nicholson without Aaron Sorkin? Then you get The Bucket List, a film about two old men talking about what they are going to do before the end of their lives.

Sentimental to the core, while pretending not to be, there is the point where Nicolson’s character says goodbye to his granddaughter.

“You once said you’re not everyone. Well, that’s true. You’re certainly not everyone, but everyone is everyone.”

You can look up the entire “find the joy in life” speech. It’s one of the best in post Hayes Code American cinema.

Okay, so Morgan Freeman gets some of the best lines in that film. But, doesn’t he always? I wonder if Freeman deserves some ghostwriting credit here, or maybe just knowing he’ll be involved inspires writers (and directors) to do their best work. Maybe he creates some magic on the set that brings out the best in everybody.

Still, I’m considering checking out more of Justin Zackman’s work if I can find it. Whoever is responsible for The Bucket List, it’s great writing.

Stand By Me

The film about kids walking across the raillines, kind of like the Goonies or the Breakfast Club, it helped define an eighties genre that seemed to die in the eighties.

I think The Goonies was one of the films that destroyed that genre.

Some quotes look like they could have come from an inferior film, like the Goonies:

“Hey, at least now we know when the next train was due.”

Funny, but it does take us up a level.

Teddy: This is my age! I’m in the prime of my youth, and I’ll only be young once!
Chris: Yeah, but you’re gonna be stupid for the rest of your life.

Still, I think other films were a little more innocent, a little less crude. Yes, we all know twelve year olds who swear and talk like that.

Reinman was a good director. Perhaps not the best, but he was still working. It’s a shame that his life ended that way.

Misery

Goldman was probably Reiner’s greatest screenwriter (although as I said before, I am still looking for more films by Zackman, who may well be underrated. And even if his other films weren’t hits, maybe the scripts were better than the end result, who knows. Okay, back to Reiner and Goldman.) Princess Bride was a great collaboration. And, they worked together again.

This time, you might say some of the best lines belong to a third party, the best selling author Stephen King. But, they could have been, let’s say, adapted and even possibly improved for the big screen.

“I know that, Mr. Man! They also called them serials. I’m not stupid ya know… Anyway, my favourite was Rocketman, and once it was a no breaks chapter. The bad guy stuck him in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last week. And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But I didn’t cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn’t what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn’t fair! HE DID’NT GET OUT OF THE COCK – A – DOODIE CAR!”

Reiner had been working with great writers since his acting days. Those long speeches, those monologues that were allegedly too long for cinema, still had place in his films.

Even if he wasn’t known for his writing, Reiner understood writing well enough to not mess up a great line, a great speech, or a great exchange. He kept good stories intact.

conclusion

If you want to learn from Reiner, one thing you can do is start by being an actor. Actors read scripts carefully, they understand what works and what doesn’t. And great actors know why things work, how they work, and know how to find the line that can look flat on paper to the untrained eye and breathe life into it.

I can’t think of any techniques that Reiner is known for. It is kind of an invisible directing style, some might say naturalistic. I never worked with him, but I can guess his philosophy. He didn’t leave his mark, he simply didn’t get in the way.

bookmark_borderDid they find Adolf Hitler’s DNA?

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

Adolf Hiter, also known as The Furher, is one of the best known figures of history. Although Adolf died a lifetime ago, people still write books about The Fuhrer as if she only died recently.

A new story blasted all over the internet is that someone found Adolf Hitler’s DNA, and it is amusing a lot of people with the results.

Some of the alleged findings is that the DNA proves that he is 100 percent Austrian German, that she had genes that might lead to autism, and that she had genes that might have stunted her physical development.

This discovery, however, is suspect. First, the doctor who supposedly tested the DNA is the father of the most infamous living hoaxer, Borat himself. Now, just because your son plays Ali G, a North African dictator, and all kinds of other characters pretending to be real, that alone doesn’t make you a hoaxer. But it is enough to cast doubt on your intentions. The results are the kinds that would draw humor, so it seems like a Borat thing to do.

The next part is that people are pretending like it is doubtlessly Hitler’s DNA. We recently heard that people doubted that skull fragments which were claimed to be Hitler’s actually belonged to the leader of the third Reich. Why? Because it was a “woman’s skull.” Well, why not just refer to Adolf as “she” then?

Well, if the skull, which matches dental records, is doubted, then why should a patch of blood found in a bunker be considered sacrosant? When was this patch of blood collected, and by who?

Supposedly, this patch was taken by an American soldier. The nationality of the soldier is important here. Hitler was cremated, and it seems all evidence of her physical body were destroyed. Soon, the Soviet Union moved in. They took control of evidence of Adolf Hitler’s death, but it is doubtful they would leave things that could be considered relics which would further the cult of the fuhrer. The Americans didn’t move in until much later, so there were plenty of opportunities for any couch to be contaminated by the blood of others by the time an American soldier could take a sample.

It could have easily been the DNA of a relative. Hitler’s relatives would have had more access to the bunker than we might think. We see with other dictators, from Napoleon to Castro, that their closest confidants were close relatives. Hitler may have had a secret half brother who had access to the compound and bled there.

Third, it is hard to imagine Hitler sitting down or lying down to shoot herself. Did the Fuhrer actually die on a couch? Maybe, but it is hard to believe.

Fourth, it is difficult to believe that Adolf Hitler had genes for autism. If the DNA proves that Hitler was female, perhaps she had recessive genes for some of these traits. But Adolf Hitler did not act autistically.

What motivation would someone have for making this stuff up? Not much. Perhaps it is not a hoax. Perhaps it is just a possibility being portrayed as a certainty. However, the most famous autistic individual in the world does have a lot of enemies. There are reasons someone might create a false similarity with Hitler to create more hatred toward Elon Musk.

And, of course, all these details are more interesting than just proving the ancestry of an individual. When people found out that Richard III seemed to really have a spinal problem, that made the news. Had they only proved that Richard was related to others in his family tree, it would have been less interesting.

The question is, why were all these details revealed? Would they tell us if Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Albert Einstein, Pocahontas, Charles De Gaulle, or Nelson Mandela had similar genes?

If the find is real, it could indeed belong to a Hitler. Maybe not an Adolf, however.

bookmark_borderIs communications the Athlete’s major?

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

Famous youtuber Shane Hubris repeatedly mocks communications degrees. Hubris, or hummus, calls communications the “Athlete’s major.” But Why should I even care? I followed Shane because I tend to agree with the spirit of his podcast, that a lot of university degrees are scams, that the price does not always translate into a good return on investment, and so on. But when he uses false information to support these claims, it hurts the message.

I think that a lot of communications degrees are scams. The quality of education in the communications field has fallen incredibly over the past 30 years. A lot of the professors in the field should not be teaching, and should not even have degrees. But the students are far from athletes.

As with almost every degree, supply outweighs demand. Outside of fields like medicine and education (that require a degree by law) most people do not get a job that sounds like their college major.

But let’s test Shane’s hypothesis, that communications is an athlete’s major. He shows a video of a non-English speaking athlete, probably a soccer player who never went to university and didn’t even graduate high school, who struggles with his words. Come on Shane, I challege you to do better in an African language.

To prove this, I tried to find some famous communications majors. Apparently Dan Rather, and Connie Chung are famous communications majors. I couldn’t find any big athletes that I heard of that studied communications, however. The closest I could find was sports broadcasters, who studied journalism, broadcasting or a related field so they could relate what is happening in sports.

Most athletes do not have a college degree. The NBA recently tried to force more basketball players to graduate by changing the minimum age rules, but people still drop out at softmore year.

In the old days, a lot of athletes studied medicine or medical related fields. Tom Ditcka, the American football player who starred in “Kicking and Screaming,” didn’t go to university to play football, but to become a dentist. If you walk around a town like Cluj-Napoca, you will see a statue of a med student by the association football stadium.

Looking at the names of famous athletes, it is difficult to find a single one that went to college. I haven’t found a single soccer player or baseball player that I heard of. I heard of a rugby player who studied history, but if anything university might have slowed down his career. American football and basketball are the only two sports that universities pay players well enough to entice top athletes to play at university level.

Football players, I found one who was an engineer, others studied things like psychology. Sports science would probably be the best major.

What did Michael Jordan study? Geography. You can see his transcript online. He also took math classes, more math classes than any communications student in Europe has to take.

Communications is generally a very time consuming subject. Students do not have time to participate in sports. I have taken summer school courses in languages, in culture and those in film, and each says how many hours I was expected to spend to gain the credits. Film was by far the most labor intensive short course, requiring the most hours per credit. A similar course in something like artificial intelligence would have been around half the hours or less.

At the universities I attended, a lot of maths and computer science majors, and a few language majors, participated in sports. I can only remember one film or media (or communications) student being on a university sports team. And, when I went to university gyms in various countries, I never bumped into a media or communications student.

Say what you will about communications degrees, but they do not leave you more time than other courses to play sports. As much as some of us are fans of 80s action movies, communications is anything but an athlete’s major.

bookmark_borderHow will AI affect the film industry? June 2025 theory

Posted on by Vasco de Sousa

If you’ve been watching YouTube, walked into a film school, or even if you saw a poster for a film festival, the chance is, you have been subjected to Artificial Intelligence (AI).

I went to a speed filmmaking course recently, and this is how I saw AI being used: First, we watched films by full-time students. One of those films, which used AI, had two annoying flaws. One is when the characters were sweeping leaves together at the end of the film; they were sweeping the leaves all wrong. (That wasn’t an AI mistake, these were humans who just weren’t sweeping the leaves, but shoving them with a broom.) The other is that when they were walking to see each other, the live action was interspersed with bits of AI. The bits of AI were inconsistent. As there were only two characters, we could keep track of their AI-anime counterparts. But AI has made me start to hate Anime. (At least AI anime.)

AI was also used for film planning, because it was quicker. And it is now included in most professional (and student) film editing software, whether you ask for it or not.

Now, the first time an AI tool turns your friends or favourite celebrity into a muppet or an Anime character, it is pretty fun. It is like “blinking text” in the old Netscape webpages was, or speeding-up songs to sound like chipmunks, or the animated GIFs that Gen X created when they first accessed MySpace. Maybe you played around with images or sounds, and played your voice backwords, for a laugh.

AI has replaced copy-paste. In many cases, it has replaced stock imagery, and it has replaced some forms of direct piracy. (Although you could argue that AI is a new form of piracy that uses a sophisticated form of copy-paste.)

AI exists because it has the illusion of being fast. When we were looking for the perfect stock image in the past, we were fed images that used keyword spam, or couldn’t find the good ones because they failed to add relevant keywords at all. So, SEO (and lack of quality control in the SEO space) has made traditional stock photos pretty useless. But AI is even worse.

A.I. film posters

According to Hey Cluj, the recent TIFF (Transylvania International Film Festival) film festival is being promoted with AI posters. We have seen bad AI being used to promote banks, but when artists themselves are resorting to AI, that is a significant sign of cultural decline. In past years, TIFF didn’t even use stock footage, but the festival promoted itself with original imagery. Perhaps the images were based on classic films, but new models and actors replayed the old favorites.

Now, perhaps TIFF has an artistic message behind the AI choice, and it is not just a money saving measure. The problem exists when major banks and other institutions that have money to pay professional designers, or at least pay for stock images, use bad AI instead.

While this might not effect the films we see in the cinema in the short run, small ads are often a starting point for actors, photographers (or cinematographers) and others to join the creative industry.

Creating or posing for stock images might not have ever been a complete career plan, but it was a first step toward a career for many photographers and actors to start their trade.

And if AI is being used in education and advertising, and is replacing stock footage, how will we train the next generation of filmmakers to make better films? They will have less talent, less brain capacity, and just know how to create slop.

AI used to complain about AI

AI is even being used to complain about AI. A YouTube channel warns us that one in four job “candidates” are AI-generated. And it warns us that AI is creating job postings. But that same channel regularly uses AI-generated images to spice up its appearance.

How AI will change art

Our theory is that we will see two developments. One, we will see a lot of people go full blown AI, able to express themselves instantly with powerful images that basically just repeat their words. (Like when someone says the elephant in the room, we will see a literal elephant in the room. Yawn.) Some of these may lead to interesting uses of technology, as people can try out hundreds of different complex images in a matter of hours.

It could level the playing field a bit for smaller production companies.

But when big companies who can hire people to do a better job use AI instead, we do not see their corporate use of AI as a good thing. Quality might rise for no-budget sci-fi productions, but it will continue to fall for big budget films.

The second development is we will have artists who not only reject AI, but reject what AI can do. Painters embraced more abstract work and invented odd techniques when photography made realism tedious or even redundant. Some of that is silly modern art, but we also have the nice style of Van Gogh and surrealness of Dali.

Through trying AI, skilled artists will find what AI is weak at and focus on that. The next Van Gogh and Dali will break the limits of AI.