Αυτό το βιβλίο είναι προφανώς για νεότερους σε ηλικία αναγνώστες, οπότε δεν ήταν ούτε πρόκληση ούτε ιδιαίτερα καλογραμμένο ή ενδιαφέρο. Το βρήκα ως και βαρετό, κάτι που δεν μου συμβαίνει με όλα τα παιδικά βιβλία. Κάτι τέτοιες φορές σκαλώνω περισσότερο στην μετα-ανάγνωση: προσέχω την μετάφραση και τι θα έκανα διαφορετικά εγώ, ή παρακολουθώ τον τρόπο γραφής του συγγραφέα ως μέσο, και όχι την πλοκή απαραίτητα. Μου συμβαίνει και στις ταινίες αυτό καμια φορά…
Πάντως η θεματολογία προφανώς μου άρεσε: ο συγγραφέας πετάει σε κάποια φάση το πραγματικό γεγονός ότι υπάρχουν πολλές περιπτώσεις κρουσμάτων από θορυβοποιά φαντάσματα, που είναι απ’ τα πιο πολυμελετημένα παραφυσικά φαινόμενα και μεγάλο ποσοστό των υποθέσεων παραμένουν ανεξήγητες.
Τέτοια βιβλία θα παίρνω στα παιδιά μου για να τα εισαγάγω από νωρίς στο κυνήγι του παραφυσικού!
Es gibt ein großes und doch ganz alltägliches Geheimnis. Alle Menschen haben daran teil, jeder kennt es, aber die wenigsten denken je darüber nach. Die meisten Leute nehmen es einfach so hin und wundern sich kein bisschen darüber. Dieses Geheimnis ist die Zeit. Es gibt Kalender und Uhren, um sie zu messen, aber das will wenig besagen, denn jeder weiß, dass einem eine einzige Stunde wie eine Ewigkeit vorkommen kann, mitunter kann sie aber auch wie ein Augenblick vergehen – je nachdem, was man in dieser Stunde erlebt. Denn Zeit ist Leben. Und Leben wohnt im Herzen.
Diese Worte kann einfach “Momo” beschreiben, als das einzigartige Buch es wirklich ist. Momo ist das Kind wir allen gern bekommen würden , die Person auch ich als Erwachsene werden möchte.
Momo war mein erstes wirkliches Buch, das ich auf unvereinfachtem Deutsch gelesen habe. Obwohl ich das 100% des Texts nicht verstehen kannte, sondern etwa das 60%, ich fühle, dass ich genug verstanden habe, um die Schönheit des Wesentliches gut begreifen zu können. Es ist einfach eins von diesen Büchern, die gut wenn man ein Kind ist sind aber in mancher Beziehung sind sie besser wenn sie von Erwachsenen gelesen werden sind. Andere solche Bücher sind, meiner Meinung nach, His Dark Materials, Werke von Jostein Gaarder und Evgenios Trivizas, zu ein Paar Beispiele erwähnen.
Michael Ende ist einer diesen Menschen, die den Sinn gefunden haben. Deshalb bin ich sicher, dass wenn mein Deutsch besser wird, wird mir auch Momo noch besser gefallen. Bis dann wünsche ich mir, dass ich setze fort, die Zeit-Dieber zu vermeiden und widerstehen. Also, kein Zeit sparen! Las uns alles geniessen, auch die Arbeit und die schwierigen Tagen. Und warum? Lesen Sie einfach das Schnipsel droben und sicher werden sie, genau wie Momo und die Schildkröte Kassiopeia, auch verstehen!
I feel bad for not having posted anything about Dan Carlin earlier. I’ve been listening to his podcasts for months now. Common Sense is political commentary with an edge, keeping it very real but no less engaging and insightful, whereas Hardcore History is historical commentary and narration with an even sharper edge! He is a wise person and I enjoy his shows very much, they’re excellent food for thought and for my side whole which loves anything that gives alternative meanings and explanations to stuff we think we know. It is always a great reminder for how little there is that we know compared to what’s out out there and how distorted, biased and altered that little we know really is. It’s a reality (ironic, isn’t it) wake-up call I quite often find myself in need of. Same reason I love You Are Not So Smart. 🙂
Common Sense has plenty of episodes and is more pic’n’mix-y. Go in there, download what might look interesting to you, pop that little sumbitch in your MP3 player and enjoy — preferably going on a long walk! That’s exactly what I’m going to do tonight with the first episode after the US elections.
Hardcore History I feel is more suitable for me to suggest some episodes from:
Logical Insanity — Was dropping the atomic bombs on Japan such a despicable act, considering what else had gone on during the war as far as attrocities go? A history of strategic bombing in the first part of the 20th century.
Globalization Unto Death — The story of Magellan’s voyage and some insights I bet you’ve never heard of (at least I never had). Such as: who was really the first person to circumnavigate the globe? How did people first meeting indigenous South Americans react to them? What inspired people to become sailors in the 16th century, knowing full well that most of the exploration caravels never came back?
Ghosts of the Ostfront — A haunting journey to the oft-forgotten Eastern Front of World War II, by itself the largest military conflict of all time.
Suffer the Children — Is it possible that history as we know it is a result of all the children having been mistreated in times past, therefore, according to contemporary psychology, growing up to in turn mistreat others as a result? Listen to this if you feel you need some hope for the future.
I know that the two above episodes can’t be accessed unless you buy them. Well, if you’re reading this and would like to listen to them, I’d be glad to share them with you. You can tell how much I like this guy by the fact that I’ve bought plenty of his past work already. Dan, if you ever read this, I hope the fact might spare me from your wrath. 🙂
This is one of the few times that watching a movie has actually made me want to write a thing or two here.
I was prejudiced against “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”. Ever since Mario told me of this “movie that has food falling from the sky”, I was very, very skeptical. I thought this movie would be a symbol of everything that’s wrong in our world. What a society creates to show to and entertain its children with, speaks wonders about what holds this society together. I thought watching this film would attack me with great and ugly revelations of this kind.
I decided to give this one a spin to see how right my prediction might have been (I rented it from Movieland. Hadn’t rented a movie for watching at home for months). Turns out I was both right and wrong.
This film is all about food falling down from the sky. Flint uses his invention not to help, let’s say, the poor places on Earth that have no food — not even his hometown’s famed sardines — but to raise the bar of his own community’s affluence, to feed every American on his island, that is to say, feed people hungry for all kinds of junk food. I saw lots of burgers, spaghetti, ice cream, eggs, hot dogs, meat, candy and similar examples of culinary exquisiteness but of course only little fruit or salad. You know, things that you can actually eat a lot of without getting sick or otherworldly fat. Things our parents always force us to eat to the point of torture only for us to discover the pleasures thereof with a minor delay of ca. 20 years.
All this I expected. I expected this movie to be all about junk food. But what I didn’t expect was the movie to actually be funny and good! It had excellent comedic timing, very smart one-liners, incredible visual gags, it was chock-full of double entendres (jokes the kiddies understand but with an extra layer of joke on top only the “grown-ups” will catch *wink*). It was, astonishingly for me, one of the best animated comedies I’ve seen, and not one I would imagine myself to have enjoyed 12 or 15 years ago. What’s even more interesting was that the whole “food falls from the sky” thing was a big double entendre all in itself. It contained a hidden message. The way the movie was presented made the “food falling from the sky” thing funny in film terms but totally unacceptable and irrational, dangerous in “real terms”. In other words, the film did criticise itself and the modern behaviours that were its source content but it only did so subtly and indirectly; brilliantly. The way people attack the food like maniacs, this crazy gleam in their eye; the way the mayor never seems to have had enough and keeps eating in his delusional binge… lots of tiny hints and easily missable jokes buried in there that get the point across. The way these people eat, munch, gobble up, what a part of their lives the rain becomes… This display of total obsession with food is in itself a comment, an attack to the culture that gave birth to the mere concept of this movie.
I expected others to had made the same observations as me, so I quickly hit IMDB to check up with other people’s opinions about the movie and see what their take was. I was shocked to discover that not only most people hadn’t noticed a single thing wrong about the whole film, they were insulting people that had actually made the same connections as me.
Alright check it out:
The town in the film is a characterization of America.
Science has allowed us to create an abundance of food (the water-food machine) but instead of using it to help the people who are starving we just use it to glorify our state, and over-eat.
Over the years portion sizes have gotten bigger and bigger (the “mutations”) as have americans waistlines (the mayor)
The food industry (the water-food machine in the atmosphere) has grown so powerful that it’s gotten out of hand and is defending itself against change, and elimination. But it’s become a monster and our food has begun to kill us because it’s no longer really food, but a strange “mutation” of it.
I found this pretty obvious, but no one else mentioned it.
Did you guys pick up on this?
The thread had few replies but mostly in agreement. However, one of the replies (the final one, to be exact), went like this:
Wow… english classes have really messed with peoples minds and caused them to try and find a hidden meaning behind everything. I believe you make a good point, but I think it was just a kids movie that was supposed to just entertain.
Most of the replies in this and whatever similar threads inviting people for a deeper discussion there was, were in a similar dismissive tone. People were saying that this film was pure entertainment! And just for kids! They were behaving to this film as if it was as I thought it would be before I had watched it: a cheap film for cheap laughs that pays no respect to the importance and gravity of its subject matter. But not as if not paying respect to food was a bad thing. “Man, it’s just food, chill”. Most people were really, honestly looking at it like that! I was appalled. Have a look at this thread of the same board as well (Meat is Murder). The level of intelligence shown within hits rock-bottom. Typical of IMDB boards, you might say. But in the end, IMDB boardsare the minimum common denominator; if it’s discussed there, you could expect to have a similar discussion anywhere. IMDB boards capture the American zeitgeist perfectly. And it’s a sad, sad sight to behold.
If you’re wondering what the hell I might be talking about, a single sentence might be able to sum it up: Just imagine how people might have reacted to this movie during WWII. Or however entertaining a child (supposedly within this movie’s target group) dying of starvation might have found it.
Me after I visited the IMDB boards for "Cloudy..."
This story taught me a few things concerning over- and underestimation. I’ll let you figure out the rest. And while you’re at it, watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, have a great laugh and maybe we can start our own discussion in the comments!
Στο στοιχειωμένο Πρυτανείο Μπόρλεϊ by Terrance Dicks
