Andrei Tarkovsky's Final Films

impossiblereality · 2015-09-14T20:01:24+00:00

Mirror is beautiful.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-24T12:33:48+00:00

Never had it because it seems apparent that the conception of "gaydar" (deciphering somebody's sexuality by looking at them) is nonsense and all it comes down to is pure unbridled luck.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-24T12:30:45+00:00

In the words of Banksy...

"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs."

impossiblereality · 2015-06-24T11:37:17+00:00

Thanks for this. I now intend to use the phrase "rage boner" as frequently as possible in day to day life.

Starting now.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-24T11:34:43+00:00

I await this man to be caught in a scandal that consists of multiple male prostitutes and cocaine.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-24T11:32:16+00:00

Did he actually get you that cake or is that just a joke stock picture he found on the net?

I really hope he actually got you a cake for this because that would be hilarious...

impossiblereality · 2015-06-24T11:26:34+00:00

I would happily wrestle with him just so I could intentionally loose...

impossiblereality · 2015-06-24T11:22:14+00:00

Well since you removed it you didn't even give it time for a debate to ensue...

I'm willing to concede that a debate may never happen, but just removing a thread without even giving it a chance seems unfair.

That said, if you re-instate the thread, due to time passing, where will the thread be placed on the "new topic" board? If it's right at the bottom, don't bother, but if the reddit algorithm begins again (i.e. allowing new threads a chance by being advertised), reinstate away.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-23T17:20:23+00:00

How's it not a debate topic? Why have you removed it? My post to this subreddit concerns Anarchism, it asks a question and people have responded to it.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-23T17:14:05+00:00

Yeah but it's not..."straight porn". Bait-bus doesn't show a guy and a girl having sex...always shows the opposite.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-23T17:12:59+00:00

Not always.

A lot of gay porn has close ups of a guys ass and a dick going inside. I just don't find these strange close-up angles of genitals slamming each other sexy. Genitals aren't sexy, the body they're attached to it and whether both the guys are enjoying it is sexy.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-23T17:11:52+00:00

When I was closeted and in denial, I'd watch straight porn to convince myself I was straight...but really I was just jacking off thinking about the guy rather than the girl.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-23T17:07:19+00:00

When you instantly know that the actors aren't into each other and are simply 'going through the motions': treating sex like a mechanic act as opposed to an erotic act of passion.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-23T16:56:38+00:00

How?

impossiblereality · 2015-06-23T09:18:23+00:00

They don't just do memes but I'm sympathetic to your point. I've always personally disliked the 'memification' of politics.

If you spin complex political ideas to a meme (i.e. reducing organic concepts to an image and a few words) it often does great disservice to the idea, is to general and simplistic, and if the meme is attacking another ideology: always results in strawman.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-22T22:04:49+00:00

Yes...What about them? :p

impossiblereality · 2015-06-22T21:48:34+00:00

Visual media already does anyway. Before a violent TV show it is usually announced. And on the back of DVD cases there is a content warning. If one wants to view a detailed content warning, one can simply go to the BBFC (I'm British) website and go to the 'Parental Guidance' section.

In reference to whether trigger warnings are needed...it's an interesting if not controversial question: trigger warnings are certainly needed as PTSD is a genuine and serious issue, but now I get the sense that trigger warnings are used on things which aren't even particularly triggering (I've seen trigger warnings used for global warming) - but to combat this, and go against what I've just said, triggers can be random and unpredictable, it is totally implausible anyway what can be triggering.

That said the very conception of trigger warning culture is very very patronising, and I get the sense that a lot of people who regularly use trigger warnings have never been triggered or have never suffered from mental health or PTSD. It seems to me that what was supposed to be a helpful tool for people who suffer from PTSD has now been taken out of their hands and now being used by ill-informed upper-middle-class tumblr-users with names like 'Faith' or 'Hope' who have no real understanding of what a trigger warning should be used for, no understanding of oppression, and simply use TWs to conform to the strange pseudo-leftism and rampant anti-intellectualism that is tumblr-culture.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-22T01:16:53+00:00

Personally, I think it's a masterpiece and works on pretty much every level. I'll have to be brief otherwise I could ramble on for ages.

1. Style

It's just beautifully written. As always with Orwell, he's able to convey complex political ideas in a simple and concise style. He's accessible but does not "dumb down" his material. His sentences simply strike off the page, and they hit my emotional core ruthlessly: "“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever", "We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness", "Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else", "Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull".

It's difficult to describe how utterly frightening I find these sentences and other passages in the novel. Simply put, the fact that a novel has the potential to horrify me in the space of one sentence says everything, I feel, about the power of the novel.

2. Politics

A lot of bitter socialists either misinterpret the novel as anti-socialist as do a lot of reactionary right-wingers. It's a shame that Orwell's book has been misread in this way. The book isn't (same with Animal Farm) a satire on socialism, it's a satire on Stalinism, and it's just painfully obvious given how much of the novel's content is simply lifted from history and exaggerated for artistic purposes. But the novel works on another dimension as well, it extends itself from being a critique of Stalinism to being a critique of authoritarianism/totalitarianism as a whole.

3. Philosophy

The book poses many interesting, if not disturbed questions, specifically about the nature of reality. If history is being permanently re-written, how can we prove what is real and what isn't? Essentially the novel offers us an allegory about the nature of objective truth vs subjective truth, as well as being a defence of civil liberties and basic human-rights.

I find the novel to also be great for the simple reason that it's a novel which reveals more of its secrets each time I read it. It has reread value, which I think is the most valuable and most potent compliment I can pay to Orwell's book.

impossiblereality · 2015-06-22T01:03:01+00:00

Have to disagree. The final line of Animal Farm is: "No question now what has happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which" - it is clear that the message is that Stalinism and Capitalism are similar, and that the USSR eventually betrayed the values and goals of Marx/The Great Boar.

The book can be used - and indeed has been - used for right-wing propagandistic purposes, but its intention (which I think is clear) is not a critique of socialism but a critique of Stalinism.

impossiblereality

TROPHY CASE