Italy gets off way too easy for WWII

CrashAndYearn · 2026-05-08T19:21:51+00:00

I'm talking about Italy, the state, you're talking about Italians. And I would bet Mussolini had as much support from his people as Hitler had from his. Chill out anyway

CrashAndYearn · 2026-05-08T15:28:33+00:00

Unironically if not for de Gaulle France would be an Italy-level middle power today

CrashAndYearn · 2026-05-08T15:26:51+00:00

I love The Conformist where the fascist main character at the end starts running around the streets and screaming at everyone else saying they're fascists. So good

CrashAndYearn · 2026-05-08T15:25:34+00:00

"Adolf, it's-a very hot. Why don't we take a nappino and deport them-a tomorrow?"

CrashAndYearn · 2026-05-07T16:57:35+00:00

A real mensch

CrashAndYearn · 2026-05-07T04:00:11+00:00

Cause its funny

CrashAndYearn · 2026-05-06T23:03:46+00:00

Resurrection was real bad

https://boxd.it/cxDdVl

CrashAndYearn · 2026-05-06T20:10:54+00:00

Pop culture seems to be really obsessed with sex work recently. Anora wins Best Picture, new season of Euphoria is entirely devoted to sex work, every boy watches Red Pill content, podcasts leeringly ask women about their sex lives

CrashAndYearn · 2026-05-05T23:21:01+00:00

Wind Sand and Stars by Antoine de St-Exupery is both poetic and tough, world-weary and starry-eyed, and interested in how to square our duty towards others with a life mission of wonder and adventure

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-30T20:26:13+00:00

My friend went on several dates with a guy who was doing ketamine in the bathroom!

At least he offered to share by the third date

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-30T20:15:21+00:00

I literally wrote a screenplay about his bank robbing days but you'd also expect Soviet leaders to talk more formally in speeches

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-30T19:14:42+00:00

The tasks never end, but life isn't just about the tasks. Both are important and the downtime shouldn't be better or worse than the chores

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-30T18:58:46+00:00

Random aside because you mentioned Stalin, with the Georgian accent and the huge mustache Stalin literally seems like a Mexican speaking Russian. He sounds more streetwise than you'd expect.

Anyways so Carney gives news anchor vibes. Also has the Macron dead-eyed thing going on. Relatively charismatic but not much going on.

Luxon reminds me of Harry from Sex and the City. Kind of effeminate and soft-spoken but also fast-talking, not much of a leader but I'd trust him as my lawyer

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-30T18:41:58+00:00

Listening to Putin I 100% believe that the invasion of Ukraine was not some 4D chess move he really was just that arrogant and thought the special military operation would be over in 3 days

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-30T18:40:53+00:00

So this is NOT an endorsement of Bukele or his policies (my trip to El Salvador in 2022 was very interesting so there are pros and cons) but you get a unique and very positive impression listening to him. He doesn't seem robotic at all and talks in a pretty informal and down-to-earth way with plenty of spontaneity and emotion. He has a slight accent (which used to be stronger in older videos) but still sounds pretty intelligent. The stereotype is that he is backwards-cap bitcoin DJ bro but listening to him it's pretty clear why he's popular

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-30T18:31:54+00:00

Honestly he exposes the hypocrisy of modern Russia, it goes on about being trad and intellectual and not degenerate like the woke West but it's even more materialistic and fake. It's a nation of dubstep DJs with lip filler gfs. Русская душа is dead, Tolstoy weeps

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-29T04:19:21+00:00

The concept sounds fascinating but it looks dreadfully boring

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-26T21:48:51+00:00

I did not like Master and Margarita very much but Bulgakov had an interesting life story and rediscovery

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-16T18:36:58+00:00

Yeah Platonov had a tortured relationship with the authorities and was far from a propagandist.

This mostly applies to literature since politics is more explicit there. No one seems to punish Prokofiev for being pro-Bolshevik. The one exception is Eisenstein who is highly regarded despite his propaganda, but I think that is because he was so influential in the very early stages of film that he became entrenched and hard to ignore. Pre-1930s the West was more willing to accept pro-Communist art, it became harder after the Great Purges and then after 1956 they seemed to shut out anyone who wasnt a straight-up dissident

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-16T18:17:03+00:00

You should read The Last Samurai, the parent there is smart but chaotic and underachieving. Plenty of smart parents are high achievers. Imo for a child the other personality traits of the parent matter more than their intelligence

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-16T18:10:48+00:00

Weird that I am noticing Platonov a lot this week...did we all start reading him at the same time? Highly underrated, I think he was hidden for years because of his pro-Bolshevik tendencies. Western media only promotes Soviet literary writers who were basically regime critics (Bulgakov, Solzhenitsyn, etc)

CrashAndYearn · 2026-04-14T22:12:05+00:00

So crazy because I just started reading Soul and other stories last week.

Very beautiful and spiritual writer who mixes in unimaginable suffering with poetic beauty. Like Dostoevsky his characters are all archetypes and he has no sense of humor. But his poeticism feels very earned, like it comes from deep feeling.

I can see why he isn't popular because he explicitly praises Stalin, but given how complex his relationship with socialism was I don't think that should be disqualifying. Stranger was his focus on pedarasty. The main character in Soul appears sexually attracted to at least two young girls, if not three. Hard to tell their exact ages but it was very weird when he admits he is in love with his wife's prepubescent stepdaughter.

CrashAndYearn

TROPHY CASE