STUPID LIARS

 

STUPID LIARS

(Review of the film, [The Age of Stupid])

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

First, watch this.

 

 

 

 

  Okay, we are STUPID, man - but why? For, we keep telling lies to ourselves- lies that are sweet and palpable like chocolate and air-by the way, how are the two things similiar?- and whatsoever, people keep telling themselves lies. That all would be okay, or that the phenomenon global warming is NOT due to their petty contributions. Well, the answer is, NO-THANK-YOU-ABSOLUTELY!!

 

 

  The lies we tell are simple; that we are not exactly the cause of global warming. Or at least ‘not me’. Out of six billion people on Earth, why would one teeny person like me matter? And so trashing, wasting resources, or materialism, is more familiar with us than we have known or expected.

 

 

 

 

 

  The 'gray city'-no life and just buildings-awaits us in the future, 2055. The archive stands alone in the far north, where all the records of human civilization is kept. A man, the archive-keeper, shifts through old documentaries- and shows us how we 'didn't save ourselves when we had the chance.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Six stories are shown, six tales that depict the lives of different people. Their cases, intertwined complicatedly make an intricate web of ideas settle in one’s head. I had to admit, it was a somewhat confusing. Still, overall it was made in a fitting style because it brought rapidness to the stories, and made us feel the urgency of the situations, as well as the need to solve them as quickly as possible.

   (Open your ears!)

 

 

 

 

  First, there were indeed bursts of creative ideas, to use renewable energy sources as power to vehicles. But the efforts were undermined with eagerness. As the biggest example, there were the windmills. The British couple, the Guys, were very interested in the the environment and conjured methods to reduce their emissions by calculating and cutting-off. The husband, Piers, tried to construct windmills in Britain- but the committee dismissed his suggestion with an atrocious reason ; they spoiled the views, apparently.

 

 Some good news : http://www.nextgenpe.com/news/new-wind-turbines/

 

  Furthermore, the war due to natural resources-to be more precise, ‘oil’,-was going on ferociously. In the movie, the innocent children, Jamila and Adnan illustrated the sad reality of the oil war in Iraq. Due to wars caused by the so essential resource called ‘oil’, they were separated from their older brother, and their father was killed in front of their eyes. The children live by selling American’s worn-shoes on the streets, by the way.

 

  Oil is something that comprises nearly every product we have-clothes, bags, plastic, wrappers, furniture and anything you could lay your finger on, nearly. Yet the precious black liquid springs chaos- and causes war and poverty, as well.

 

 

The Nigerian woman wanted to be a doctor. She wanted to help people as she saw so many of them dying around her, and there wasn’t even proper treatment available there. The oil that existed in Nigeria was not a blessing but a curse; it crushed poverty on the people, and the companies weren’t even helping in the local area. Some people were even massacred without a fully just reason. The women, later says that she wants to live in America, which would be such a heaven to live, and you would want to not die there. Pretty ironic, huh? I mean, who uses all the oil exploited mostly?

 

 

 

 

 (Please, open your eyes

See the reality-It isn't far away)

 

“In the future, we’ll be back home in Iraq.

We’ll invite everyone to the biggest party ever.

It’ll be the happiest place in the whole world.”

Isn’t this so heart-choking? At least it was for me-you could see the plain joy the boy had when he finally met his long-time-no-see brother; and at last, some happiness-some kind of hope, was beginning to show.

 

There is indeed hope- for it is not 2055 yet, and there is 'just about' still time. You need to join not-stupid, in body and mind. Stop telling lies, that you aren't really contributing to global warming. Trash those thoughts of 'NIMBY'- why are you even sure that that place is 'your' background? It belongs to mother Earth, for Earth's sake. (Pun intended). So anyway, let us show some decency for our future generations- as the ice is melting, the sea level's rising and the wars for natural resources are still going on at this moment-we might be able to lessen the deterioration of Earth, lessen the 'crimes' some of us are performing thoughtlessly.

 Tell the truth; we are to blame, as the archive-keeper says at the very end;

 

“I think everyone in the future will perhaps blame us.

..We knew how to profit but not to protect.”

 

So let's protect.

 

 Let's be NOT-STUPID, and let's stop lying.

 

 

 (Drawn by Jade. a.k.a. Kwan Yu-Ji)

 

 

 

Wanna cup o' coffee?

 

 

Just in case.

And my favourite is : Hot Chocolate

LOL

Catcher in the Rye Adaptation (with Mr. Garrioch)

(Imitation of Chapter 22)

 

Sub-title :

The not-so perfect aspect of the school I was kicked out of

 

           When I came back, he had the pillow off his head all right- I know he would-but he still wouldn’t look at me, even though he was laying on her back and all. When I came around the side of the bed and sat down again, he turned his crazy face the other way. He was ostracizing the hell out of me. Just like the archery team at KMLA when I left all the goddam arrows on the subway.

           “How’s old Chulsoo Kim?” I said. “You write any new stories about him? I got that one you sent me right in my suitcase. It’s down at the station. It’s very good.”

           “Daddy’ll kill you.”

           Boy, he really gets something on his mind when he gets something on his mind.

           “No, he won’t. The worst he’ll do, he’ll give me hell again, and then he’ll send me to that goddam boarding school. That’s all he’ll do to me. And in the first place, I won’t even be around. I’ll be away. I’ll be-I’ll probably be in Seoul, the Dongdamun market.”

           “Don’t make me laugh. You can’t even ride a subway.”

           “Who can’t? Sure I can. Certainly I can. They can teach you in about a minute.” I said. “Stop picking at that”. He was picking at that adhesive tape on her arm. “Who gave you that haircut?” I asked him. I just noticed what a stupid haircut somebody gave him. It was way too short.”

           “None of your business,” he said. He can be very snotty sometimes. He can be quite snotty. “I suppose you failed in every single subject again,” he said- very snotty. It was sort of funny, too, in a way. He sounds like a goddam schoolteacher sometimes, and he’s only a little child.

           “No, I didn’t.” I said. “I passed English.” Then, just for the hell of it, I gave him a pinch on the behind. It was sticking way out in the breeze, the way he was laying on his side. He has hardly any behind. I didn’t do it hard, but he tried to hit my hand anyway, but he missed.

           Then, all of a sudden, he said, “Oh, why did you do it?” He meant why did I get the ax

again. It made me sort of sad, the way he said it.”

           “Oh, God, J, don’t ask me. I’m sick of everybody asking me that.” I said. “A million reasons why. It was one of the worst schools I ever went to. It was full of phonies. And selfish guys. You never saw so many selfish guys in your life. For instance, if you were sleeping and needed to go to the morning exercise, nobody’d wake them if they were some dopey, pimply guy.

Everybody was always locking their mind’s door when somebody new wanted to come in. And they had this goddam secret academy-associated intimacy that I was too timid not to join, as well. There was this one pimply, fat, but not-so-boring girl, A, that wanted to get in. She kept trying to join, and the girls were having no problem with her. Only the boys wouldn’t let her into their minds. Just because she was fat and chubby. I don’t even feel like talking about it. It was a stinking school. Take my word.

 

           Old J didn’t say anything, but he was listening. I could tell by the back of his neck that he was listening. He always listens when you tell her something. And the funny part is he knows, half the time, what the hell you’re talking about. He really does.

           I kept talking about old KMLA. I sort of felt like it.

           “Don’t swear so much.”

“It would’ve made you puke, I swear it would,” I said. “Then, on every Monday. They have this day, when we have to stand up for about a hundred minutes, that all the members of the school come together and sing the national anthem and stuff. And there are sometimes students who give speeches- and you should’ve seen this one old guy that was about to be knocked out of the stage, nearly. What he did was, he came onto the stage and asked us if we’d mind if he told us all to sit. That’s what even teachers are careful about! You know what he said? He said he wanted to question the school and the authorities why the reappointment of the principal was done without any notice, and he wanted to see if they had any hidden absurdities. So his speech was getting uncontrollable, almost. He kept talking to us the whole time, telling us how the school’s girls dormitory wasn’t still built yet and where did the money go. Boy, did he shock us! I don’t mean he was a bad guy- he wasn’t. But you don’t have to be a bad guy to shock everybody-you can be a good guy and do it. All you have to do to shock somebody is give them no beforehand knowledge while you’re giving them shocking information-that’s all you have to do. I don’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been all out in the stage. God, J! I can’t explain. I just didn’t like anything that was happening at KMLA. I can’t explain.”

 

 

 

Kwan Yu Ji – 18^th wave