Old vs New Actors

 Watched this morning at 5 AM a TV movie, which might have something to do with my thoughts. It was a tarnished police department mystery in which catching the bad guy, was overshadowed by the back story of those catching him. The best part of this movie was seeing some of the old favorite cop actors again. Their acting talent superceded the roles and their wrinkled and their slightly rumpled appearances along with the biffy bellies and hair implants and just plain baldness, took nothing away from their obvious experience with this kind of role. After the movie, I wondered why I had enjoyed it so much and decided it was because it felt real. Too many of these things, now, are duded up with classy new cars, designer outfits on perfect bodies and  slick scenes. There is always a car chase, nasty language and perfect scantily dressed ladies and pumped up tattooed guys. All are in their twenties or early thirties. They toss in an old chap or well done up lady occasionally to give the tape "balance". Doesn't work. Young actors now are like puppets all done up with stark white implanted teeth, clipped in hair coiffed perfectly, the boned in jaws, pumped up lips, wrinkles and lines don't show. The fat is sucked out with an undertakers machine at great cost and the costumes are sprayed onto  perfectly gymed trimmed bodies that are spray tanned and sculpted by the best doctors on the face of the earth. And young fans crave to look just like them. And that's okay, but when you see an old, but perfect film of the same kind done long before AI or collagen injections and implants of various kinds but are those made by stage actors who have experience under their size large belts in getting up on the boards and having to do it over and above their looks, then you get what acting is all about. And I know nothing about acting but it has little to do with, as we viewers know, plastic surgery or make-up or clothes. It has to do with the story and how well it is told. That doesn't require "pretty", it requires hard core acting grit so that we can try and believe what we see. 

Seeing Ourselves

George Bernard Shaw once spoke about the advantages of seeing ourselves as "ithers see us". What he was really referring to was the advantage of a louse he saw crawling upon the back of lady's dress, both of whom were in front of him as he sat in an audience. What he meant was that during the speaking, only the louse could remain completely objective in its judgement, while the people seated in the general gathering, had pre-determined or conceived notions about the subject and would, therefore, make their judgements based on them. The tale made me think that no one really sees oneself, no matter how hard we try. It's sort of the same as seeing a picture of ourselves and not quite believing we actually look like what we see in the photograph. I was once told by a photographer during a session, when one looks in a mirror, it is not their true and normal expression. He went on to describe most on looking into a mirror,  will raise their eyebrows slightly, make the mouth in a tiny shape that improves the face, stiffens their neck a bit, perhaps tilts the head appealingly or turns to the "best" side a little. He said he would prove it. He then directed me to close my eyes and let my whole face relax as though I were sound asleep. He said, keep it that way, be still and open just your eyes to see into the mirror. Aha! How right he was, my face was different and then I changed it automatically as I continued to gaze. You might like to try it yourself. When you do, and see yourself as "others see you" all relaxed,  your face will change as  mine did as you stay looking into the mirror. You will raise your eyebrows, pull your eye sides back a bit, lift your chin somewhat, bring the sides of your mouth  up and set back your ears. You will feel the changes. When we are going about life every day, we look not exactly how we look in our mirrors. Unless we are filmed, we simply do not and cannot know exactly how we appear to others. It follows that when we are sad or angry or tired or proud, our faces are something we can't see normally and when these emotions arise we aren't thinking about how we look. We are our normal selves. Actors and speakers must practice various expressions in a mirror to learn their best looks and rehearse them to make sure that they are showing the best of themselves in their roles but they are not necessarily their natural normal ones. To them, they must because their faces are their "fortunes". To us, we are what we are and that's all that matters.

Best Free Ad Blocker

 There's nothing more disgusting online than seeing  digusting ads for foot problems or raw meat. When you're trying to navigate a jigsaw, crossword or wordle challenge, you don't need to see ugly ads from your periferal vision space. Once in a snit to stop such ads, I tried paying to hire an online adblocker, but it blocked everything. That didn't work. I like some ads, especially the ones that I use for shopping, but I can't think of anyone who likes the disgusting ones. But after having to tap the x constantly because telling the site why their ads are ugly and why I don't want them, doesn't work for long. I discovered a simple ad blocker that was not only free, but acted as a recycler. I used an old paper envelope that was just the right size, width and length and that also had a self-stick flap. I cut it to size and now, when I see one of the disgusting ads at the side of the page, I pat the old envelope piece up onto my monitor frame and hide the ugly ads and return happily to proceed without interruption, my games of Bridge, crossword, Bubble Popper and so forth. Why are these ads there? Apparently, some wiseacre ad agent, thought that it should capture peoples' attentions in any way possible. The individual who came up with this less than intelligent solution, decided that it could be done easily by installing disgusting pictures of foot fungus or dead rabbit heads and offal. It behooves me as to why and how, any person could possibly consider, remotely,  a relation status between sheer nausea and duly, an interest in a product.  Is anyone really going to get excited by skinned rabbit heads and run down to the nearest butcher shop to buy some? If I were shopping for a company to do my advertising, I would try hard  to find one that didn't need to stoop to such desperate measures. I know there are folks who do partake of such fare as rabbits, but it would be no one that I know, or ever have known. I think most  are vegetarians, so show me a headless carrot, a footless bean or a pretty cut of lobster and I might take a meat-eater peek at it - even during a hot bid of five hearts.   

The Education Quiz Show

 True education is giving knowledge until it is learned no matter how long it takes an individual to learn it. We learn every day in non-academic situations. When we, as infants learn to walk, to feed ourselves, to manipulate toys, we aren't tested with a mark. We are inspired to learn because it makes us feel better, it makes us grow in knowledge. We are naturally motivated. Then a child goes to school, up comes an academic quiz show where children are told to memorize or create or manipulate the way an adult tells them to. If they do it well, they are rewarded. They go on the honor roll or receive a diploma or a star. The others are cast off as failures. This makes education a quiz show with a quiz master teacher.  It is not a learning place. The whole quiz show mess should be tossed out because it fails. It is not true education. True education is presenting knowledge to inspire and is without penalty. It is about on-going learning until each and every student reaches their learning goal no matter how long it takes to go over and over the knowledge.  Some will go on and on and others will take their time but both will feel successful especially without any kind of reward  or failure system such as the present quiz show format. Out go marks. In come  teachers as knowledge givers including AI the biggest teacher of all to date. Think how student education stress will disappear. Knowledge is free and should be imparted as such. A teacher who one assumes is a master learner should be happy to impart knowledge continuously to each and every one of their students until they have learned the true value of what the teacher offers freely with no marks to deter. Testing is oral and an exchange of knowledge between the student and the teacher is the assessment of its success. Writing skills are cooperative with the teacher giving, not criticising but encouraging the skills needed to improve continuously. A student needs inspiration and examples of success to follow. The beauty of the arts comes first, not the testing to see who will win and who will lose.  No giving of marks for achievement but merely simple praise and further step  to gain on one's personal knowledge seeking ladder. To test the depth of knowledge, the teacher and fellow students and other teachers will meet and learn from the student what has been gathered. Education becomes a mutual goal to benefit all.  It sounds rebellious, but the gains could be unfathomably superior to what we do today.  There is only one side of a desk in true education.

One Parent Stay Home

 This drug crisis in which so many of our finest youth die far too soon, might be helped if there were at least one parent staying home and keeping an eye on what junior is up to. I don't mean spying on them but being fully and completely involved in making their lives meaningful. I know many parents who wish to be at home rather than having to work to pay the mortgage or rent but cannot afford to. It is time we spent good money for one parent to be at home with the kids. A parent who doesn't take them to day care as infants or pick them up at night when they are exhausted from work. Everyone says it works when both parents work and can pay for the house, the cars and Disneyland annually.  I don't believe it. And to me, there is evidence. Listen to the media.  Also the madness of book up every minute of a kid's life with organised sport, arts or studies is not giving them a sense of freedom without regulation. The regulation should come from the family mandate designed by the family and the family means someone at home. If there is no one at home and some gorgeous ones are empty all day until the "family" arrives home to scramble through a quick meal before the schedules demand they go off in the cars again. It is not old fashioned to want to be a family with someone around be it the father or mother when the child leaves for school and comes home from it. But who can afford that luxury and still provide the child what it needs socially, mentally, physically and economically? We need to fund stay-at-home parents below a certain income so that our society gets back to a normal playing field again. Does any child these days come home to a house with the parent around to ask how the day went, prepare a sit down meal uninterrupted by scheduled events or cell phones or parental must-do calls from work? Sure, you love your work parents but what is happening at home? Parents on the poverty line could well use a steady, reliable income to provide the necessary parental presence in developing a child who has a close person, one of his and her blood, to listen and comfort and love on a constant reliable basis. Argue if you will, but a paid parental presence needs testing even if you argue against it. You are responsible for that child and children, their lives, their futures and ours. All of us.