as audiovisual therapy
I am writing this paragraph on Monday, March 17, when I still have no Internet service, although the technician installing an antenna will come this week. On the outskirts of the village where I now live there is still no landline service. Even the window of this studio already has a nice view of the open countryside. What a contrast to the noisy metropolis where, until last week, I lived!
The house I moved into is modest but decent. The bad thing is that there is not a single white man around it. Yesterday, as therapy in the face of that insulting milieu, I watched some scenes from The Sound of Music, although sometimes I turned the volume all the way down on the songs. (I’ve seen the movie many times; its tunes can be sticky, but I will listen to Edelweiss today when I resume the movie after I put it on pause.)
Let’s ignore the anti-Nazi message well into the film. What matters is that all the actors are beautiful Aryans, so much so that they could have been models for Maxfield Parrish’s paintings (ten of framed Parrish paintings will adorn my studio walls now that the handyman comes with his drill and dowels). Yesterday, the pleasant faces of the actors and children, including the captain’s eldest daughter—she had the most beautiful eyes in the world!—worked wonders for me as therapy after seeing so many brown-skinned people. Also, not to feel like I’m in the country where I reside, a great relief was to see in the film so many picturesque shots of Salzburg evoking the time when Hitler was at the height of his power.
Beautiful times! But even if I were rich enough to buy a cosy little house in Salzburg, I couldn’t blog there because of the draconian anti-Nazi laws (recall what happened to David Irving in Austria…).
I still have a lot of unpacking to do but only at the weekend will the handyman come to set up my closet, install the air conditioning (unlike the temperate capital it is hot here), and screw some shelves on the wall for the books that are still in their boxes.
When we are done, I will continue my regular activities for The West’s Darkest Hour…
9 replies on “Salzburg”
I only encountered Christopher’s Plummer’s classic acting recently. I must watch The Sound of Music. In my case it had been The Fall of the Roman Empire which lured me in with spectacle I suspect, fervently hoping it wouldn’t progress as I faintly suspected it would, and yet let me down more and more as it went on (to the point I found I couldn’t finish it, disgusted at the egalitarianism) but I enjoyed his performance as Commodus and indeed the relationship with the character played by Stephen Boyd. I’m glad you gained your therapy.
I’m afraid it’s the opposite where I live. it was, for the first 9 years, a pretty much solidly white area (97.5% I believe), much as they still all hated each other, and had no solidarity, as the English unfortunately behave, but only last week I saw at least 5 non-Aryan faces in a row whilst walking home, all separate, unrelated figures (and couples). That didn’t enthuse me. I sense the area won’t be what it was much longer. it had to happen eventually (and I live in one of the poorest areas of England).
If I could convince my partner (which isn’t happening), I’d move to your country as soon as possible. If the UK citizens in exodus could colonise Mexico… but no, I’ll see it through to the end here. I’m quite curious how the worst, most authoritarian country in the West – and elsewhere at times – turns out. I expect it will be brutal. Hence why I think bloody revolt is more likely here than on the continent… it’s simply the harshest place to live, and the most uncomfortable, so the destitute citizens will crack first (at least if my logic is sound).
What happened to our old friend Joseph Walsh (now in a UK prison because of thoughtcrime)…
“much as they still all hated each other”
Why do you think is that? I can understand it since I see a similar thing here, but I wonder why is the same in England.
Personally, I think it’s inherent to the Anglo-Saxon Protestant character under Capitalism plus the fall into a low trust society mixed with the neochristianity. They blame each other, not the outsiders. Naturally mercantile and standoffish. Sadistic (to a schadenfreude point) and disinterested/dispassionate. This British character seems to go back a long way; I’d take it back centuries. I suppose poverty around here doesn’t help, given all that other stuff already ingrained. Peasant mentalities, insular thinking from being on an island that has rested on its laurels too long, and poor breeding maybe? Probably all of these things. I’m sure with the new generations anti-Aryan teaching in schools helps cause this problem but with the older folk (it’s worst in the 40s-60s bracket in Harwich) I’d say it’s deep-rooted character flaws. Whatever made the British so eager to torture and kill the Germans remains, but is instead now in muted fashion directed on each other. I’d take psychohistory into perspective with the youth here too – the teenagers and smaller kids at times are frankly feral and scarily belligerent – and abusive parenting. A nightmare island. I’d have to leave that answer to Cesar to respond to properly. I’m simply not sure, there are so many racially inconvenient things going wrong in parallel.
I love this movie since I was a kid.
If I had advanced AI video editing skills, I’d modify the scene where Captain von Trapp rips the Nazi flag, and change it so that he’s ripping a flag of the USSR instead.
I love the first couple of minutes of the film, before Julie Andrews comes on singing: it shows what the Austro-German spirit was like before these folk started hating themselves because of de-Nazification.
Dear Cesar,
I had just wanted to say, I’m sorry I derailed the context of this post with my response; it jarred at least. It occurred to me later that I had only focussed on the obvious to me, in my own country (and too influenced by it!) and it was invariably negative. I’ve emailed you rather a lot recently, so I thought I’d share this apologetic sentiment publicly. Later today I returned to YouTube and listened to some clips (I can’t afford to buy/rent The Sound of Music just yet). I too am enthralled and comforted by Edelweiss (the original clip showing such perfection), and the scenery to the film is beautiful to me, complementing the actors and actresses well. Everyone indeed needs some therapeutic relief. I longed for those hills, and considered my time in my own more contained woodlands and pastures, always a source of delight. The vividness of the grass on the heights! The graceful Laendler dance of Maria and the Captain was another particularly heart-warming (and amusing) moment for me.
The Ländler is my favorite dance of all the ones I’ve ever seen.
If only the Aryans had the goal of mass cloning the Captain and Maria, to produce a perfect line of Aryans, and also banned all Gomorrah dances and then returned to these waltzes, I’d feel like I’m in my Parrish-esque world…
The way to watch “Sound of Music” is the “directors cut”, stop watching after the marriage sequences.
Yes SoM is heavy on sugar if you watch it too often, and the second half spoils the magic, even apart from the absurd anti-nazi insertions.
Its surprising modern hollywood has not produced a remake of SoM……….as they remake good films to purposely destroy memory of the classic ones to new audiences.