America, losers & winners

America doesn't bail out the losers.
America was built by bailing out winners, by rigging a nation of the winners for the winners
by the winners.

L’America non aiuta I perdenti.
L’America è stata costruita sostenendo i vincenti, creando un’intera nazione di vincenti per vincenti, da altri vincenti
Ramin Baharani, Michael Shannon, 99 Homes, 2015

August 18, 1973

 Tobe Hooper, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, 1974

Thought for the day

Ain't it funny coffee never tastes as good as it smells?
As you grow older, you'll discover that life is very much like coffee.
The aroma is always better than the actuality. May that be your thought for the day.
 
Strano che il sapore del caffè non sia mai all’altezza del suo odore.
Invecchiando, scoprirai che la vita è molto simile al caffè: l’aroma è sempre migliore della realtà.
Prendila come massima quotidiana.
Robert Wise,Walter Slezak, Born to Kill (Perfido inganno),1947
  

 

Once upon a time in Rhodes

Sergio Leone, Il colosso di Rodi, 1961

 

For Michael Cimino by Raymond Carver

 The Juggler at “Heaven's Gate

by Raymond Carver, 1985
                                                                
                                                                 for Michael Cimino


Behind the dirty table where Kristofferson is having
breakfast, there's a window that looks onto a nineteenth-
century street in Sweetwater, Wyoming. A juggler
is at work out there, wearing a top hat and a frock coat,
a little reed of a fellow keeping three sticks
in the air. Think about this for a minute.
This juggler. This amazing act of the mind and hands.
A man who juggles for a living.
Everyone in his time has known a star,
or a gunfighter. Somebody, anyway, who pushes somebody
around. But a juggler! Blue smoke hangs inside
this awful café, and over that dirty table where two
grownup men talk about a woman's future. And something,
something about the Cattlemen's Association.
But the eye keeps going back to that juggler.
That tiny spectacle. At this minute, Ella's plight
or the fate of the emigrants
is not nearly so important as this juggler's exploits.
How'd he get into the act, anyway? What's his story?
That's the story I want to know. Anybody
can wear a gun and swagger around. Or fall in love
with somebody who loves somebody else. But to juggle
for God's sake! To give your life to that.
To go with that. Juggling.

That spider, it might be Lon Chaney

Say, pop! There's a great new joke going around school.
"Don't step on that spider, it might be Lon Chaney."
 
Di papà! C’è un nuovo grande scherzo in giro per la scuola
“Non calpestare quel ragno, potrebbe essere Lon Chaney”
Joseph Pevney, Man of a Thousand Faces, 1957

The offender Charles Chaplin

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Charlie Chaplin talking.
This is Hollywood, California in 1915 with its sun-kissed oranges and lemon groves, before it was visited by the 3 horsemen of the apocalypse: Oil, movies and aeronautics, who strolled the earth uprooting the orange and lemon trees, and in their stead built factories and motion picture studios.
I was one of the offenders. I wanted a studio in a hurry.
In the States, they do things in a hurry.
And, as if by magic, I got it.
 
Signore e signori, parla Charlie Chaplin.
Questa è Hollywood, in California, nel 1915 con i suoi aranceti e limoneti baciati dal sole, prima che fosse visitato dai 3 cavalieri dell'apocalisse: Petrolio, cinema e aeronautica, che vagavano per la terra sradicando gli aranci e i limoni, e al loro posto costruirono fabbriche e studi cinematografici.
Sono stato uno dei trasgressori. Volevo uno studio in fretta.
Negli Stati Uniti, fanno le cose di fretta.
E, come per magia, ce l'ho fatta.
The Chaplin Revue, 1959