Items Available At The Socratic Grocery And Deli

The Unbearable Lightness of Bean Salad

Bertrand Russell potatoes

Ecce Homogenized Milk

The Critique of Pure Raisins

The Communist Antipasto

Husserloin Steaks

Deep-Freud Chicken

Foucault Cuts

Fear and Tremblinguine

John Stuart Milanese

Salade Nietzsçhoise

Henry David Thoromaine lettuce

Sir Roger Bacon

Hemlock

from McSWeeney's Lists

Philosopher Finishing Moves (from McSweeney's)

The Aristhrottle

The Wittgenspine Buster

The Figure Four Ankle Locke

The Reverse Spinning Kickegaard

The Top Rope Over-the-Shoulder Thoreau

The Pulling Down of the Lyotard

The Feuerback Breaker

The Unemployment Clothes Line


BY PRAVASAN PILLAY

Obscenities Uttered by Jesus Christ (from McSweeney's)

Obscenities Uttered by Jesus Christ.

BY CARA JENNISON AND ANDREW SUTHERLAND

- - - -

"Dad damn you."

"Holy Mom, mother of me."

"Dad."

"Myself almighty."

"Good me."

"Me, Mom, and Mom's husband ..."

"Me."

Star Wars: Clone Wars: Vols. 1 & 2 (2003)

These (and not the current debacle of the same name) were originally on Cartoon Network from 2003 to 2005 and were created by Samurai Jack alum Genndy Tartakovsky. I believe that these two short (each volume is a little over an hour in length) volumes were far better stories than the first two prequels and the middle of Revenge of the Sith. They are how the Star Wars Universe should have been portrayed.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Good but not great. It was a fascinating story to watch (except the part in Russia seemed oddly out of place) and I think that, in the end, the film knew exactly which heartstrings to pull. I, of course, cried at the end but not because of emotional involvement with the characters.

JCVD

The Muscles from Brussels actually made a pretty good film here. He makes fun of himself just enough and definitely understands that being a star really means nothing in the ontological sense. This is good film and I do recommend it.

Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann

The intellectual weight of these two scholarly giants in one room!

The Wrestler

Aronofsky has a way with films. Dark, depressing films that is. You find yourself rooting for his tragic characters (Requiem for a Dream) who will usually never find happiness or redemption. If you add Mickey Rourke's outstanding performance, then you have a film like The Wrestler. There is a scene in which Rourke's character climbs to the top rope and stands victorious with lights shining behind him, it is the most moving shot in the entire film. It is ultimately a Pyrrhic victory, though.

The Reader

Wow. OK, so I don't really know where to begin with this film. I came into this film thinking that it took place during World War II and so I was very thrown off to begin with. But then, the film takes an incredible turn and I was unable to take my eyes off of Kate Winslet's character. The film is ultimately heartbreaking.

The Young Riders

This was a fantastic show from my childhood that I was able to get through Netflix. You'll also notice that it includes a very young Josh Brolin and Stephen Baldwin!

The Third Man

So good. This one is up there in my top five (maybe). Definitely top ten. The dialogue was incredible and set the pace for the whole film. The setting was perfect as it was supposed to be bombed-out Vienna and so they just went ahead and filmed it in bombed-out Vienna (the film came out is 1949!). I've included some of the iconic and most powerful images from the film as well. I find myself becoming more and more a fan of Orson Welles.

Special

The BEST superhero movie ever!

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Apparently I now have to read Philosophical Investigations in order to fully understand Wittgenststein, but I think what I really need to do is go over my logic again to even understand this text. Yet, there is this gem:

"What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."
-Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Worlds Religions

"If one of the wisdom traditions claims us, we begin by listening to it. Not uncritically, for new occasions teach new duties and everything finite is flawed in some respects. Still, we listen to it expectantly, knowing that it houses more truth than can be encompassed in a single lifetime."
-Huston Smith

Texts of Terror

Wow. So this was a quick read of very heavy subjects. I will not be able to read the stories covered in this book again without being deeply moved by the intricacies that move the narration along. I was exposed to the Levite/Concubine story in Judges 19 once before but after this uncomfortably close reading, I am still struggling to put it all into the context of the greater canon of scripture.

The 400 Blows

Les Quatre Cents Coups, which actually refers to an expression that roughly translates to "raising hell", was a very interesting character study and period study of late 50's Paris. I found out after watching this film that it is the first of 5 in the Antoine Doinel (the main character) cycle that director Francois Truffaut has done all with the same actor that played Doinel in this film! It is also one of the first films of the French New Wave, a genre that I know next to nothing about.

Rachel Getting Married

Silence of the Lambs-great. Philadelphia-powerful. The Agronomist-amazing. Jonathan Demme has done amazing things and I can easily get lost in Anne Hathaway's eyes for days, but Rachel Getting Married struck me as nothing more than dysfunctional rich people "just trying to get by". Please. Don't get me wrong, Anne Hathaway did a great job but come on people. Seriously, you're stinking rich and everyone is messed up in one way or another, but I am not going to connect with whiny, hipster rich people that are trying with all their might to have some sort of multicultural wedding festival while dealing with family demons.

Battlestar Galactica

In my opinion, one of the greatest shows that has been on television. Not only was it able to successfully blend science fiction with competent storytelling and superb acting (especially James Callis as Gaius Baltar), but it continually addressed issues ranging from dystopian psychology, torture, and ethics to gender roles, society formation, and theology. The motivations for virtually every kind of action and response to stimuli are examined and turned inside out throughout the entire series. During the week of the series finale, two of the main actors, the reimagined series creator, and a producer of the show met on a U.N. panel to discuss the human rights issued raised during an armed conflict! This show has had much to say about the human experience in multiple facets of life and it will be missed.

What do you hear?
Nothing but the rain

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta

I felt like I needed a book review in here somewhere.

I had the privilege of starting this book in the Copenhagen airport on my way to the Middle East. The chapter concerning the Arabian Sea was brief but it felt good to have a small idea of what this amazing 14th century Muslim jurist/traveler may have seen. This is not the primary source, which is on the more difficult side to some by in a good English translation, but Dunn does a great job of giving more back story and historical context than Ibn Battuta would have thought to include in the original text. The pan-Islamic world was larger and far more complex than I could have ever imagined and it was a joy to discover the adventurous spirit of Ibn Battuta.

Le Samourai

So perfect in all it's minimalist/existentialist/60's French cinema greatness! The main character, Jef Costello (played to perfectly detached perfection by Alain Delon who, might I add, is an extremely handsome and alluring man), is a joy to watch as he methodically goes about all that is required of a Parisian/gangster hit man /samurai.

Battle in Seattle

It was great to watch a film where I knew most every locale, but this ultimately came off as a melodramatic made for TV Sunday afternoon movie. The Seattle WTO Riots are better left as documentary material unless someone like Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, United 93) is at the helm.

Confessions of a Superhero

This documentary was enlightening to the ways that different people have come to grips with the harsh realities of life. From the less extreme homeless man turned Hulk to the Superman that knows no other reality but Superman. Each person/character shows that being a mere mortal is hard enough without the added weight of being a superhero.

Blindness

I loved City of God and The Constant Gardener was great on many levels, but director Fernando Meirelles just could not quite pull off Jose Saramago's vision (no pun intended, well, maybe a little) of what Blindness was supposed to be. Yet again, the book is far better than the movie but it was a nice try.

Synecdoche, New York

Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is exactly what you would expect from him considering his writing work in the past (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Yet, this in no way pigeonholes him because he can present such a uniquely bizarre film like this and successfully pull it off too. Casting Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead works perfectly. You can't help but love him as his life falls apart literally and figuratively. This film is pretty depressing but in the we-all-die-someday-realization sort of depressing, which is more honest I think.

Milk

I cried...a lot. Every actor in this film was great and I especially loved the ongoing chemistry between Sean Penn and James Franco. The Christian Right made me absolutely furious throughout though.

Dubai

Iran from a distance.

Gaza

The film Paradise Now has a line that always seems to put the Isarali/Palestinian War into perspective for me.
One of the would-be bombers is trying to convey the situation to a friend that favors diplomacy over violence...

"A life without dignity is worthless. Especially when it reminds you, day after day, of humiliation and weakness. And the world watches, cowardly, indifferently. If you're all alone, faced with this oppression, you have to find a way to stop the injustice. They (Israel) must understand that if there's no security for us, there'll be none for them, either. It's not about power. Their power doesn't help them. I tried to deliver this message to them, but I couldn't find another way.

Even worse, they've convinced the world, and themselves, that they are the victims. How can that be? How can the occupier be the victim? If they take on the role of oppressor and victim, then I have no other choice but to also be a victim, and a murderer as well."