Bobby Fisher

What have Lenin, Beethoven, Brecht, Francis Bacon and Marx in common? Their love for Chess of course! As Huxley said: “The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the Universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature
and the player on the other side is hidden from us”.

Brings me to a sad moment in chess history, Bobby Fisher passed away today. Bobby, despite his controversy and anger, was probably among the best (next to Capablanca and Kasparov) players the world has ever seen. By some described as Zeus, the "God of Gods". It is sad day for chess...

The God of Gods


The classic: Fischer - Spassky game

Scientology

I need a break from my work on post-modernity (in the library). What can be better then, than to watch Tom Cruise give a ridiculous speech about the beauties of Scientology? Who needs post-modernity when you got faith in some good old spiritual indoctrination? Back to traditialism, you wankers you!

Update: Youtube deleted the movie from their database... talking about freedom of expression....

Herbert Marcuse

You might want to check out the following documentary about Herbert Marcuse. Personally, I am a great admirer of him and what he has accomplished as a provocative thinker and lifetime activist (along with other thinkers of the Frankfurt School).

BIO: Herbert Marcuse was born in Berlin on July 19,1898. After completing his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1922, he moved to Berlin, where he worked in the book trade. He returned to Freiburg in 1929 to write a habilitation (professor's dissertation) with Martin Heidegger. In 1933, since he would not be allowed to complete that project under the Nazis, Herbert began work at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, a Marxist-oriented think-tank (as we might say today).

He emigrated from Germany that same year, going first to Switzerland, then the United States, where he became a citizen in 1940. During World War II he worked for the US Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA), analyzing intelligence reports about Germany (1942-45-51). In 1952 Herbert began a university teaching career as a political theorist, first at Columbia and Harvard, then at Brandeis from 1954 to 1965, and finally (already retirement-age), at the University of California, San Diego.

Work: His critiques of capitalist society (especially his 1955 synthesis of Marx and Freud, Eros and Civilization, and his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man) resonated with the concerns of the leftist student movement in the 1960s. Because of his willingness to engage seriously with (and support) student protesters, Herbert soon became known as "the father of the new left" (a term he disliked and rejected). He had many speaking engagements in the US and Europe in the late 1960s and in the 1970s. He died on July 29, 1979, after suffering a stroke during a visit to Germany. (http://www.marcuse.org)

Further links:

• Official Homepage
• Wikipedia
• Herbert Marcuse Archive

The below documentary is well worth a watch, though the narrator's voice can be annoying at times.

C'era una volta il West

I am too lazy to draft a decent post today. So, you'll have to do with a boring, plain Hollywood flick.. . "Once upon a time in the West" or better known as C'era una volta il West)

Plot: A mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad in this long frontier epic. Mysterious pasts and the strength of loyalties is explored amid lightning fast gun battles and stylish vistas. (IMDB)

I am most certain you will enjoy this classic.

Eisenstein

Today one of the greatest directors in movie history (I think). A great modernist (one of the last and of Kafkian greatness), who's work shared a similar dialectic as that in the works of Marx. Forget about Orson Welles, cause this is Eisenstein! Poetic, political, philosophical and provocative.

Quote: "In painting the form arises from abstract elements of line and color, while in cinema the material concreteness of the image within the frame presents - as an element - the greatest difficulty in manipulation."

Bezhin lug (or "Bezhin Meadow")

Plot: A Soviet farmer son, who is working at a Kolchos is killed by his father, who wants to burn the fields of the Kolchos to damage the Soviet Society. (IMDB).



Aleksandr Nevskiy

Plot: It is the 13th century, and Russia is overrun by foreign invaders. A Russian knyaz', or prince, Alexander Nevsky, rallies the people to form a ragtag army to drive back an invasion by the Teutonic knights. This is a true story based on the actual battle at a lake near Novgorod. (IMDB)



Oktyabr

Plot: In documentary style, events in Petrograd are re-enacted from the end of the monarchy in February of 1917 to the end of the provisional government and the decrees of peace and of land in November of that year. Lenin returns in April. In July, counter-revolutionaries put down a spontaneous revolt, and Lenin's arrest is ordered. By late October, the Bolsheviks are ready to strike: ten days will shake the world. While the Mensheviks vacillate, an advance guard infiltrates the palace. Anatov-Oveyenko leads the attack and signs the proclamation dissolving the provisional government (IMDB)

Trainspotting

Time for a more important post - Choose Life (or not)!

Plot: Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin? (IMDB)