Sinners

Movies, Music

 

 

Sinners was not just nominated for best Picture this year, it was the most nominated movie in the history of the Academy Awards. It received 16 nominations, but it did not win the award for best pictures. As jambalaya is a jumble of seafood, spices, veggies and sauce, so this film is partly horror, action, philosophy, and music, but in my view not as tasty. Even vampires and machine guns could not do it for me. It has its moments, especially with the music, but I did not find it satisfying.

 

The narrator of the film makes an important comment near the beginning of the film: “There are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true it could pierce the veil between life and death.”  That would be music! Maybe the blues musicians of America qualify. They certainly have a lot of power and this film celebrates them and their power. I just did not think the film was that true.

 

In Clarksdale Mississippi Preacherboy Sammy attended a black gospel church where the preacher accused him of sinning but said he had come to the right place, because the people in the church had been called to be “fishers of men who sin” and he asked Preacherboy to drop his guitar and come to the lord and give up sin.

 

The day before the preacher had warned Preacherboy Sammy, “You keep dancin’ with the devil, one day he’s gonna follow you home.” All Sammy wanted to do was play that true music.  And he was willing to pay the price.

 

The film centres around the twins. 2 black men from Chicago named Stack and Smoke.  Gangsters? Maybe. The twins are both played by Michael B. Jordan, a competent actor. They come down south from Chicago to start a juke joint where music like that can release the joy of the Delta. One of those musicians, Delta Slim, said “I play and I get as much corn liquor as I can drink, a sinner can’t ask for more than that.” He also says, “White folks like the Blues just fine. They just don’t like the folks that make it.” When a friend of his was lynched and emasculated his reaction was to play the music and drink. What else could he do? Slim also said, “The Blues wasn’t forced on us like that religion. We brought this with us from home. Its magic what we do. It’s sacred. And big.” All of that is true.

Smoke advises Preacherboy to stop being a blues singer: “I met plenty of singers and never met a happy one.” Of course,  Smoke does not understand that no one sings the blues to get happy.

The film is filled with evil spirits in the film who talk nice urging us to be kind and “we is one people” but they are not nice. As Shakespeare said, “one can smile and smile and be a villain.” Smoke understands this saying, “Something ain’t adding up.” As one of the characters says, sometimes the soul gets stuck in the body and we are “Cursed to live here with all this hate. Can’t even feel the warmth of a sunrise.” When Pearline becomes a vampire she says, speaking like a true jihadi, “We’re family. After we kill you all we’re going to have heaven right here on earth.”

 

But there are some real vampires. They are men who speak of “Uppity niggers.” There is even a resurrection of sorts involving members of the Klan, but Smoke arrives and like a true American hero shoots them all with an assault rifle. This is the American way with American superheroes. This is the way to solve all problems. Shoot them up.

 

At the end of the film, Stack says that day was the best day of his life. “For just a few hours, we was free.” Even though it ended in bloody violence. I endorse what old Preacherboy, played masterfully by Buddy Guy, does at the end of the film, when 2 vampires come into the bar and offer him a devil’s bargain. “I can make it so you can continue touring. No pain.”  But Preacherboy says, “I think I’ve had enough of this place.” By then I was like that.  I think I had enough of this film. Besides singers of the Blues need pain.

 

The film is filled with great performances, awesome power, and technical skill. It just seems to me it was all for nought. Maybe someone can tell me where I went wrong in my failed appreciation. It did however have one redeeming feature. I really liked the music. There is no holding it back. Even the violence can’t do that. The music made it all worthwhile. It was worth the trip. But did I have to go through hell and back to get there?

 

 

Train Dreams

Affinity, Movies, Philosophy/Ideas

 

There is another film that won my whole-hearted support this year.  It has not been in the news, but it should have been. It was not flashy, but it was truly meditative. It makes you think. I know not many people are interested in that these days, but I am.

There is a very interesting statement at the beginning of the film:

“There were once passageways to the old world, strange trails, hidden paths. You’d turn a corner and suddenly find yourself face-to-face with great mystery, the foundation of all things. And even though that old world is gone now, even though it’s been rolled up like a scroll and put somewhere, you can still feel the echo of it.”

 

There was a pair of old worn boots nailed into a tree with moss growing over them. Then you look up at an old tree, you can see it slowly falling down. That is the old world and it’s falling down.

 

Robert Grainier, the protagonist, who lived more than 80 years. He went west from Idaho to a place near the ocean, but never bothered to see the ocean. He didn’t need to see it. Why would he? He had lost his parents but he never how or why. No one ever told him. His connections were gone. One of his first memories is seeing the mass deportation of 100 or more Chinese families from town. Why was that necessary? No one has a good answer for that, just like none will have an answer for the current mass deportations either.  The narrator, who seems like the voice of God in this film, says, “Grainer was baffled by the casualness of the violence.” So am I. I know many people like it. I remember when I watched the 2020 Republican National Convention when people cheered with glee as Trump promised to bring about “mass deportation.” They loved it.

 

Graineir’s life was meaningless, until he fell in love with Gladys. Until then his life had little meaning. Suddenly it had some.  She told him, “She told him, “Right now I could just about understand everything there is.” Now that is meaning! The meaning of life. “All of a sudden, life made sense to Grainier, as if he’d been pulling hard the wrong way and was now turned around and headed down stream.”

 

He got a job working for a railway crew and wished he’d never done that. He saw a young Chinese man inexplicably pulled from his crew and tossed off a bridge into a deep ravine to his death. No one knew what he had done to deserve that.

 

The men built a bridge across a river and were told they had done something amazing.  But 10 years later a new and better bridge was built 10 miles away that rendered their bridge obsolete.  Amazing doesn’t last long. The old bridge was abandoned. Like old things often are.

 

As soon as Robert started to know he was back at home, it was logging season and time to leave again. “His work was populated with itinerant men. Most without homes, without families. They moved from job to job, state to state, as the work dictated.” Unconnected. Not rooted to the ground like old trees. “He once worked alongside a man for 2 months without saying a single word.” Trees talk more than that.  Someone asked the man if he had ever been to California and he just asked, “Is there no place where a man can get some peace?” And then he got up and moved. Those were the only words he ever heard the man speak.  Now that man was alienated. He had no connection with other men other than the work.  Words were no connection for him. He liked being unconnected.

 

One man lived in a hole in a big tree. Another faller, Apostle Frank, worked with Robert and kept talking continuously of God. And he spoke about the Bible as if he had been there when it was written down. Nice to have such certainty. As he told Robert, “Sometimes God has to find strange ways to tell you what you need to hear. Sometimes it’s a donkey talking to you.”

 

A logger, Arn, who came to blow up trees sang a song at night: “If the Lord was a redwood would you try to cut Him down? Or climb up His loving branches and look around?”

Robert asked Arn, “do you think bad things that you do follow you through life?”  Arn replied, “I don’t know, I’ve seen bad men raised up and good men brought to their knees. If figure that I could figure it out, I’d be a lot better-looking than you.” He did not feel connected to past mistakes.

The narrator said, “Grainier worried more and more that something terrible was following him, that death would find him out here, far away from the only place he really wanted to be.” That was his family. He was still connected but remotely.

When he got home and saw his daughter every time she seemed like a different person and he felt like he was missing his whole life. Which of course was true.

Even though money was tight, when he was home he later realized it was the happiest time of his life. Robert and Gladys just wanted to spend more time together with their daughter Katie.

Arn knew the work as hard. “That’ because it’s rough work, gentlemen, not just on the body but on the soul. We just cut down trees that have been here for 500 years. It upsets a man’s soul whether you recognize it or not.”  I agree. Lots of jobs are like that. Soul-destroying work.  Another logger said he would have $200 in his pocket after the work was done and that would not bother his soul. Who was right?

 

Arn said,  echoing John Muir, “This world is intricately stitched together. Every thread we pull, we know not how it affects the design of things. We’re but children on this earth, pulling bolts out of the Ferris wheel, thinking ourselves to be gods.”

 

Another logger said there were “enough logs to cut for a thousand years. And when the last ones cut, well the first one will be growed up as big as anything around today. Arn said he thought the same thing when he was young. Arn said, “My family is everywhere there is a smiling face. Never been somewhere I didn’t have some family there. Except for Kansas.  That state is filled with savage lunatics.” Unfortunately, much of the modern world is filled with savage lunatics, not just Kansas. They are all around.

 

One day a large of a tree hit him in the head and he was not the same. Somedays he could not remember his name. Yet, Arn  looked around and said, “It’s beautiful aint it?”  “What part?” asked Robert. “All of it, “ he said. “Every bit of it.”

 

Another day he was no longer a logger.  “The last few years he expected some great revelation about his life would descend upon him. But as of yet, none had. And he was beginning to doubt that one ever would.” He met a young lady, Claire, who said others had told her he was different.  Robert asked, “Ain’t everybody different?”  “No”, he said. She said, “It’s good to be different.”  I agree, but it’s OK if you’re not. She loved the valley because it carved out all the mountains. alleys. It’s where all the lakes come from. Referring to the time when massive gushes of water from melting glaciers cut deep into mountains and prairies alike, she said, “It must have felt like the world was coming to an end.” Yup, I think. Then she asked, “That’s where did all those myths come from, you know?  All those flood stories. All those different religions all over the world. It’s just the same story. Different slants…I don’t mean to be disrespectful about anything you believe in. The world’s an old place. Probably nothing it hasn’t seen by now.” They are all connected.

 

Robert told Claire how his wife and baby did not make it through the fire. He tells her, “Sometimes it just feels like the sadness is going to eat you alive.” She has a similar story. She lost her husband a year ago.

 

Claire tells him:

 

 “…And when it was over, it was like there was a hole in the world…I had more questions than answers…When you go through something like that, nothing you do is crazy…In the forest every least thing’s important. It’s all threaded together, so you can’t tell where one thing ends and another begins, if you really look at it. The little insects you can’t even see, they play a role as vital as the river. The dead tree is as important as the living one. There must be something for us to learn from that.”

 

Robert asks her, “What if you haven’t got anymore to give?” Claire replies, “The world needs a hermit in the woods as much as a preacher in the pulpit.”

 

One day he went to the big city and “wandered the city without much direction or purpose, as if looking for something he had misplaced a long time ago.”  Meandering. Then he went to a theatre of mysteries. They advertised that there would be “Sun Tzu, the holy man, will read your dreams.” Are those train dreams? The shill said, “pay you a dime to see a monster…Inside this theatre the mysteries of the world flit about like bats and insects. Here, all the answers to everything.” That’s a pretty big promise. The monster was only a boy in a costume. A puny monster. It made him cry. He saw his face in a mirror for the first time in a decade and could see the toll the years had taken. He felt that he was only just beginning to have some faint understanding of his life, even though it was now slipping away from him.

 

For $4 he got an airplane ride “to see the world as only the birds see it.’

He died in 1968.  As the narrator said,

 

“His life ended as quietly as it had begun. He’d never purchased a firearm or spoken into a telephone. He had no idea who his parents had might have been, and he left no heirs behind him. But on that spring day as he misplaced all sense of up and down, he felt at last connected to it all.”

He really was face to face with a mystery.

This is quiet film. Too quiet for most viewers who prefer loud action and computer generated mayhem. Too quiet to win the Academy award, but I like quiet films, that make you ponder. My kind of film.

 

One Battle After Another

Extremism, Movies

 

 

This film much to my delight, won the Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year 2026.  That was a good choice.  But I was very disappointed by the few patrons that watched it. How can that be? It had great stars with great acting. I thought it was very funny. I laughed harder the second time I watched it than the first time. It had some great actions scenes, including a 3-vehicle car chase that made me feel as if I was on roller coaster. It was very well written. What are people going to see if they don’t go to see this film?  I am perplexed. My theory is that any film not designed to attract teenagers won’t be watched by enough people to make much of a profit, if at all. That’s a pity.

The film is about some young left-wing revolutionaries who are definitely not treated as heroes. Neither are their opponents, the right-wing Christmas Adventurers and their leading military style cop, Col. Steven Lockjaw, played with insane aplomb and bravado by the brilliant Sean Penn. The film definitely does not worship the revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries. It mocks them both unmercifully. Hence the ample platform for comedy. What could be better than mocking extremists in this age of extremism?

Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) is the female revolutionary and seeing her 9 months pregnant, if not more, firing an automatic rifle, is a heart stopper. She tells her too tame boy-friend, Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) to “Snap Crackle Pop.” This is revolution to the sound-track of breakfast cereals. She also makes clear to Bob that she is not his “udder buddy.” Her job as a revolutionary means she is too busy to be a mother, so poor Bob has to raise their daughter as best he can.

After the radicals bomb a few buildings, rob a bank, and kill a teller, the film changes direction. Perfidia gets caught and the establishment lands on her like a tank.

 

Then the film springs ahead 16 years when her daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti) is a feisty and strong rebel, but rebelling as much against her revolutionary father as the establishment, and explains to her perplexed friends that her father is “a fucking paranoid.” But Bob, now a has-been rebel with a drug addled brain, hassles her friends and insists she says, “I love you Bob” before she gets in the car with her friends

 

My favorite character in the film is the incredibly laid-back revolutionary Sergio (Benicio del Toro), who calmly leads a long line of refugee children through a revolutionary melee while sipping a beer and encouraging Bob to chill, as all around him everyone except for the trusting children, are frantic. The refugees have to flee, but  Sergio takes the time to introduce Bob to them as “the gringo Zapata.” Bob ends up running in a panic through the streets in his dressing gown, whining that he has nowhere to charge his phone.

 

Sergio sends Bob out to follow 3 young punk revolutionaries carrying skateboards, running on the roofs of buildings, jumping and bounding exactly like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Bob follows as best he can, but inevitably, tries to jump from one building to another, and does not make it, instead landing on a tree that fortunately breaks his fall as he crashes to the ground.

 

What are they fighting for? As one revolutionary says, to oppose “a white bread, philistine, asshole, corporate, culture whose only end is to profess the science of advertising.” In other words, this is modern American-style revolution as absurd as the society that spawned it.

 

Of course, the corporate counter revolutionaries are no better. They say their goal is “no more lunatics,” but their lunacy is on steroids. These money glazed idiots called the Christmas Adventurers are introduced with a sound track of a very loud and obnoxious version of Hark the Herald Angels Sing.  They meet in a secret meeting room in a bunker underneath a mansion that looks like a hunting lodge and greet each other with a hearty “Hail Saint Nick.” To be admitted to the group, each proposed member must conclude a vulnerability study called “a double Yankee anti-white Inquisition completum.” Basically that means they must demonstrate proper racial animus against all non-whites and then they are good to go. They want to attack the refugees in Baktan Cross, a sanctuary city full of thousands of “wets and stinkies.” They are flown in on a large helicopter  and use automatic weapons and flack jackets, to harass the grade 6 & 7 students. Their main target is Chicken Licken Frozen Farm which they believe is a front for a large-scale heroin operation.

 

Willa is aided in her flight from the Christmas Adventurers by dope smoking nuns. She had been taught from an early age that when a revolutionary comes to her and says “Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Petticoat Junction” (the names of 3 inane TV comedy series years ago) she must follow their instructions to be led to safety. When Bob tries to get help for her from his old revolutionary pals, he must first give them a very complicated secret code that he learned 16 years ago.    Sadly, Bob can no longer remember the Code and as a result a left-wing revolutionary, called Comrade Josh,  who is a stickler for the rules, will not help Bob or Willa. Bob is extremely upset because he learned the Code so many years ago when his brain was French-fried by hallucinogenic drugs and complains to the revolutionary: “This is not how revolutionaries do shit! You’re a little nit-picking prick. What kind of revolutionary are you brother? Get a better name Comrade Josh, that’s a ridiculous name for a revolutionary.”  The only thing the Comrade does tell him is his location. “I am in a secure location somewhere in between the stolen land of the Wabanaki and the stolen land of the Chumash.”

 

Watching 10 films nominated for best picture I thought I noticed a common theme. Many of them were infused with insane goals. This movie illustrated that well.  In this film, both revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries, had insane goals—revolution or fighting it. Neither made any sense at all.

 

Academy Award for Best Picture of 2026

Movies

 

 

In my opinion the film One Battle After Another should win the award for the Best Picture of 2026. At the time I am writing this I don’t know who will win I just finished watching the last of the 10 nominees yesterday, and today I decided to watch again the one I thought was best of all those nominated. That was One Battle After Another. I enjoyed it all over again.

 

I can’t believe this movie was not more popular.  When I went to see it in Steinbach I was surprised and disappointed that more people had not gone to see  it. I thought it was very funny and thought-provoking with fine acting, great writing, wonderful cinematography, and pretty good songs. Who could ask for more? If you haven’t seen I recommend you do it. Its worth the watch.

 

I wanted to announce that before the awards ceremony in a couple of hours, though I know my choices have usually been wrong in the past.  Even my predictions when I divorce that from my preferences have usually been wrong. It is hard to predict, but fun to try.

 

After going through this process this year my faith in films has been renewed. Films are a great art form. Maybe the best because they combine so may art forms. Writing, acting, music, and cinematography. They can create a wonderful conglomerate or an awful mess. Sometimes both at once.

 

Often the films when I first watched them did not appeal. After reflection though, I thought they were all worth watching. Even the weird ones. Adn some were very weird. All were flawed. Perfection is hard to find.

 

But I think it will win. Later tonight we will find out what the Academy thinks.

 

After today, I will comment on all of the 10 films that were nominated for best picture, including why I thought this one was best.

 

Happy viewing.

Academy Awards 2026

Movies

 

 

 

In the last few years, I have been enamoured of the Academy Awards. It has been my crazy assumption each year that the films that have been nominated for Best Picture are good films worth watching. Sadly, that has not always been true. At least sometimes I just did not get it. Why was this choice a film great?

 

Each year I am totally perplexed by some of the choices. Of the selections by the academy, to my wholly untrained eye and ear and mind,   many seem at first glance, nonsensical .  Who would want to see all of those films? And for what purpose?

 

Why do I do this? First, I started this because I thought I would enjoy the Academy Award show more. Not really a good reason to watch all those films. After all, in the last few years as many as 10 possible winners were nominated for Best Picture of the year. If the show is not interesting don’t watch it. But, I felt a little more knowledge might enhance the show and my appreciation of the films.

 

One problem is that when it comes to movies, I live in a cultural desert here in Steinbach.  We get very few films at our local theatre and those we get are mainly ones for young children or older children. Or action films with legions of people killed by one “hero.” Not really for me. But this year, I realized I could actually watch all of them from my home with film streaming. No trips to Winnipeg and modest fees. That made it a bit more palatable.

 

Despite these hesitations, I have plowed ahead. I got into the game a little late this year, but have seen 8 of the 10 nominated films and still have a couple of days to go. But I have found that as a result of this silly goal I have seen a lot of movies I ordinarily would never see and many of these have been very pleasant surprises.

 

That is the key. Surprises. I have always loved movies but the best part is watching a hidden gem and I have done that. Even this year. I will post on this year’s selections soon. There was some less than stellar films, in my humble view.

 

However—and this is the point—humility is important.  If a film has been nominated by peers in the film business it must have some merit. I have learned, that if I don’t catch on right away, it might be my fault, not the film’s fault. Maybe I did not work hard enough to understand a particular film. That means I should try harder to figure out what is good about a film in which I see little of value. I had a couple of surprises about films after I paid some extra attention. Attention and awareness can reap gold. And not just the gold of the Oscars.

 

It has been fun. And enlightening. I will share my views on each film in upcoming posts.

 

What do Epicurus, Henry David Thoreau, Daniel Klein and my mother have in common?

Books, Philosophy/Ideas, The Simple Life, World of ideas

Daniel Klein the author of the book Travels with Epicurus, drew a lot of inspiration for that book from his reading of the ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus. There was another brilliant thinker who also found inspiration there. This was the American thinker Henry David Thoreau.  I would say they were all kindred spirits.

Both men were profoundly content.

When I read Klein’s book, I was reminded of Henry David Thoreau, one of my heroes.  Thoreau lived simply in a plain cabin by a small lake, called Walden Pond. One day a friend arrived and offered him a floor mat.  Thoreau declined, feeling that the acquisition would not really enhance his life and would just create more useless work. He would have to pound it from time to time to get rid of dirt and dust. Not a big job, but an unnecessary one. What good would that do him?  He found no need for it. Therefore, he did not want it and declined the gift from a friend.

 

I remember my mother’s small senior’s apartment she moved into after my father was admitted into a personal care home.  In it she had a plaque which  read, “This is all I have, so it is all I need.”  She was making do with less by deliberate choice. She was nervous about her choice. I remember when she first moved in she referred to the apartment as her “dollhouse,” but within weeks she was entirely content. She did not need much so she reduced her wants and simplified her life. This made her life more joyful and meaningful. It was less dominated by things she really did not care about. I don’t think she had ever read Thoreau, but she was in her own way, a deep thinker.

 

I think all four of these thinkers had reached a conclusion that they wanted to know how to live the most fulfilling life in their present circumstances. Each of them in their own way worked on their own philosophy of life.  Perhaps Henry David Thoreau spoke for all of them when he said, “for my greatest skill has been to want but little.”

Fellowship

Books, Fellow Feeing, Health, The Simple Life, World of ideas

 

I know someone. His name shall remain secret. He is an old man who moved to a small town where he knows only 1 other person. The two of them get together from time to time. But often not.  He was invited to meet a group of others living nearby in his neighbourhood. He did not know them. He did not want to meet anyone of them. In fact, he told us, “They are not my kind of people.” He said that even though he knew nothing about them. He declined an opportunity to make new friends. He did not want to have new friends. So now he has no friends in his neighbourhood.  None except the one. I think that is sad.

 

He gave up a chance to get together with new friends.  I figure he lost a lot.  Social scientists have learned that companionship and friendships are the greatest cause of satisfaction in life. Particularly older life, where other pleasures are often diminished. They are also the greatest source of mental health. Good friends usually means good mental health. Though of course, not always.

 

I say each of us can choose to walk our own path. I don’t want to choose paths for others. Yet sometimes I think I see others making a mistake.

 

Daniel Klein went to Greece for the explicitly purpose of studying Epicurus more closely in the country in which he lived. He wrote about it in his book Travels with Epicurus What a great goal. Epicurus an ancient Greek philosopher who never studied social sciences knew this and understood it. Here is what he said: “Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is possession of friendship.” He wrote that about 2,000 years ago now scientists know he was right. How cool is that?

 

I could not agree more with Epicurus on that point.  I am blessed by the fact that I have a few groups of friends who get together periodically. Some groups every week. Some groups once a month. Some groups once every 3 or 4 months. All groups are very convivial. We laugh and talk. We talk about ideas and nonsense too. We talk about funny things and sad things.  That’s about it. No obligations. No strings attached. All groups are very different from each other mainly with completely different people.  In my old age these groups are among my greatest pleasures.

 

Recently, Christiane, my wife, has decided that we should periodically visit the local Public House. It is a modest place. No food. Only beer and wine. Only two wines are served. One red and one white No more. The beer is crafted in the house. You can sometimes get a mixed cocktail in can. But no ice and no limes (for a gin and tonic a major omission). But what counts is vising with friends. We did not know most of the people who attended regularly, but have got to know some new friends.  It has led to great conversation—a social blessing in other words.

 

This is what Daniel Klein called “the comfort of personal communion.”That expression has a touch of the spiritual to it doesn’t it? I’m good with that. After all, as I keep saying fellow feeling is the basis of all religions, and we should note the word “compassion” which means fellow feeling or empathy, has the same root as “companionship.” These are not accidents.

 

I like the expression fellowship.  It is related to my favorite concept on which I have commented from time to time—namely, fellow feeling. Fellow feeling in my view is the fundamental basis of all morality, the best of politics, and all art. Nothing is more important than fellow feeling.

I am blessed. We are blessed. And we are happy.

Greek Civilization

Books, civilization, Philosophy/Ideas, World of ideas

 

Some people think civilization was invented by the Greeks. I am not sure that is true, but they sure learned to practice it. Daniel Klein had come to Greece to figure out how best to live out his life in his old age. He thought he was in the right place and wrote about it in his wonderful book Travels with Epicurus. That book inspired me to meander off on all kinds of tangents some of which I have been blogging about. I too went to Greece many years ago in 1989.

 

Klein told a story about he and his wife getting on a train in Greece falling asleep quickly, and learning to their dismay when they woke up that they were going the wrong direction. They took the train going east when they wanted to go west. A pretty big mistake. What could he do about it?

 

He went to tell the conductor about his misery, but it seemed the conductor was ignoring the problem and kept pestering him about people he might know back in the USA.  Then all of a sudden, his train stopped and he noticed a train going in the opposite direction that also had come to a stop by an apricot grove.  People had disembarked the train and were enjoying the apricots and sun and were telling each other stories and just plain enjoying life.

 

Then he realized that this other train had stopped only for Klein and his wife. Someone had signalled them about Klein’s problem and stopped the train to help them out. No one on the other train that the Kleins got onto complained about the unscheduled stop. In fact, they just enjoyed it. They smoked, talked, and ate apricots. It was all good. They all had time to help someone out. No one was fussed. It was not big deal. They were content.

Then Klein later recalling the episode said that he knew “I had come to the right part of the world to meditate on the best way to live my old age.”[1] These people knew how to deal with small problems of life. He had come to civilization. Greek civilization.

Klein also said, by all accounts

 

“this was a civilization that liked to talk and made the time to do so.  Later forms of communication, like the frequently one-way media of our era, did not offer competition to daily dialogue…These people were talking about ideas.”

 

Imagine that people talking about ideas. Not the latest political news. They talked about ideas. And enjoyed it with apricots, and sunlight.

 

Kleins also mentioned something we had learned about when we went to Greece so many decades ago.  It was something about ancient Greeks. They loved to attend plays—dramas, often of a philosophical nature. As Klein said,

 

“Attending a performance at the Dionysus amphitheatre was often an all- day affair in which the audience was cast in the role of a jury that deliberated on which character’s actions and viewpoints was most worthy. After-theatre discussions about justice, proper conduct, and human frailties could get hot and heavy. These people were talking about ideas.”

 

Imagine that. Taking the time out of a busy day to talk about ideas. That is civilized.

 

As Klein said, “This, in the end, is the prime purpose of a philosophy: to give us lucid ways to think about the world and how to live in it.” Yes, Klein had come to the right place.

 

It was the place where great philosophers were born, like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Epicurus. This was a place of great civilization.