just-the-cool-page

[just-the-cool-page]

Cicada Sings

24”x 30” mixed media

R.A.Young 2024

[just-the-cool-page]

Pierre Soulages

Lithograph No. 3 (1957)

[just-the-cool-page]

HE'S GOING THE DISTANCE

HE'S RIGGING THE SYSTEM

[just-the-cool-page]

[just-the-cool-page]

[just-the-cool-page]

[just-the-cool-page]

[just-the-cool-page]

[just-the-cool-page]

Mags Harries - The Fossil, 1982 The imprint of the artist’s hand was cast in stainless steel and blended into a standard subway pole that was installed in MBTA Redline subway car #1506. It rode with this car for 20 years to be encountered by the unsuspecting hands of subway passengers.

[just-the-cool-page]

The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) dir. Piers Haggard

[just-the-cool-page]

― Memento (2000) “How am I supposed to heal if I can’t…feel time?”

[just-the-cool-page]

intense-suggestion:

When you feel like you can’t last a second longer with things the way they are, that’s the time to be bold. When you feel that you must do something, anything, anything but this, that’s the time to be bold. When you feel the pull from every last little piece of the universe to be something else, something new, that’s the time to be bold. Be bold, be daring, be what you want to be. It is time.

[just-the-cool-page]

Lucky Sea Dragon by Canadian contemporary artist Polly Fae (aka Paulina Cassidy) ~ http://www.pollyfae.com 

[just-the-cool-page]

[just-the-cool-page]

Pyrrhic Victory, look it up.

Is it significant that a teacher wrote the script? Yes, I think so. There were various things I wasn't sure about throughout this film. Ultimately, it's intentional that we have mixed feelings about this movie. I'm realizing, though, that there's not much I can say that's not a spoiler. "What's this say about morality?" Oh, no, shut up. Are schools in a crisis? Okay, hold up, okay. This movie is from, what, 1997? I honestly thought it was from the 2010s. Jackson was looking more mature in this one. And I'll say that he plays a character that's different from any of his usual types. But in any case, in post-pandemic 2025, many schools have a very apocalyptic feel. Many students seem rabid or maybe just feral. Teachers are getting torn apart. Figuratively for the most part. This movie set in an inner-city hellscape of a school now portrays schools everywhere, twenty eight years later. I don't think it registered on most movie fans' radars, unfortunately.

I think you should see this film. The ten percent it would have taken to get it from an A- to an A+ would have required a director 5% better, which the producers would have been hard-pressed to find.

After that, maybe watch The Principal the following day. (IDK what year it was. It's got Lou Gossit, Jr., and Jim Belushi in probably his best role. Definitely his best. Because finally he stopped trying so, so hard to be funny.)

to be funny

[just-the-cool-page]

Alfred Jarry's play Ubu Roi directed by Michael Meschke. Scenography, costume, and puppet design by Franciszka Themerson. Marionetteatern in Stockholm, 1964.

Photo: Beata Bergström

[just-the-cool-page]