Identity Politics: Two Singing Scenes, Many Years Apart
A sense of humor is a great therapeutic tool these days!
The first piece is pretty funny. Very Soviet. Very awkward. Endearing in a scary way. Good singing, impossibly bad lyrics, comedy gold on sum.
The second one is a scene from the 1988 film “Heart of a Dog,” based on the 1925 play by the dissident Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov. The book is a masterpieces that more or less captures our life today. The film is also a masterpiece, it’s on YouTube with English subtitles (broken into several parts, here is the first one).
(if it doesn’t take you to the song, here is the direct link)
A sense of humor is very helpful in today’s world! That’s how I go about it anyway. Enjoy!
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In my excitement, I sent without the second piece, apologies. Here it is https://youtu.be/xSvmIzpHjYk?feature=shared&t=111
I’ve been thinking about this for two days. Wasn’t planning to post but my mind keeps wandering back to it.
First, I didn’t find the Choir of the Immaculate Prophylactic funny at all. Or endearing. I found it sobering, even chilling. My expectations were subverted Tessa! You said it was funny so I kept waiting for the reveal but the moment never came. I was left just feeling like human beings are hopeless, the ones who mean well as much as the one’s who don’t.
Second, Heart of a Dog was so good. I watched the whole thing that same night. The next day I was still thinking about it so I looked it up and read come commentary on it. Though I know almost nothing about Soviet history I’ve been thinking about this same theme for as long as I can remember. [From wiki: “…the revolution's misguided attempt to radically transform mankind."] That’s why it was so compelling for me, I’ve been watching the English speaking world perform a similar operation on itself, though instead of turning dogs into humans we turn soul-endowed humans into narrow-focus consumerbots.
I’m not qualified to say you’re doing god’s work Tessa, but I can say you’re doing Gaia’s work. I think we swaddled westerners could use a lot more refresher courses on the Soviet experiment, along with periodic reminders that none other than J Goebels had nothing but the highest praise for Bernaysian Propaganda – the book upon which our whole dumb culture is based.
Argh!