What do Only Lovers Left Alive and The Great Beauty have in common?

Tired of the unstopable references and felling like I had already seen La grande bellezza before, I decided to push myself, not to turn off the movie and find some entertainment so watching it I wrote down the similitudes between the italian movie and Only lovers left alive by Jim Jarmusch. Here we go:

 

 

 

 

The search for beauty

•  All the characters are looking for beauty.
• They are positive people, they realize they are surrounded by things that don't interest them but they stick to the world and enjoy what they find beautiful.
• They are all very educaded.
• They all adore, respect and recognize powerful art and culture.
• They can access forbiden places.
• They have powerful and influencial friends.
• Death has an important role in both movies.
• The characters share a great obsession for life and death, being beauty and pleasure the only reason they stay alive. 
• For them the most important thing is the creation of beauty through their work or the work of other. They are all artist in search of beauty in art and they stay sane thanks to the search of beauty.

In the way they see the mundane

• They live very far from the "zombies" (Only lovers left alive) and the "mundane" (The great beauty). Even if the main character in The great beauty says he wanted to be the king of the mundane, that was his goal at 26, now he has higher goals.
• All the characters feel superior to the mundane.
• None of the movies talk about what the zombies consume for art.

In the way they live

• They live surrounded by beauty and books.
• They live during the night, they are sticktly nocturnal.
• They move around their cities, either walking of driving at night.
• They live in memorable places: the Tangier forever portraited by Paul Bowles, the broken-down Rome and of course the even more decrepit Detroit, the city in ruins of a fallen empire.

 Needless to say I recommend watching Only lovers left alive and any movie by Fellini.

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Light Parade in Sioux Falls

A year and a half ago I posted some photos under the name Feliz Wesak explaining our experience in a parade in Melaka, Malaysia. Yesterday I had a very similar experience but this time in Sioux Falls.

Wesak was a religious parade, full of budas and budhist symbols. The lights parade in Sioux Falls had no budas but in stead it had:

* A couple of Religious related floats (Christian).

*Most of the floats where businesses, from a local furniture store to a hospital. Some adore Budha, others use parades to get closer to their comunity. Nothing wrong with that!

Local Radio Station

*Dances, here the cheerleaders make little human castles and in Melaka the chinese community was dancing with dragons make of paper and baloons:

*Pet associations with really funny dressed dogs:

*Local high school playing drums (similar to the ones in Melaka but not dressed as well)

*Fireman 

*Political: The mayor and the governor

The mayor of Sioux Falls, SD

*Association asking for a public covered swimmingpool

*The hot air baloon association was the one that had the best idea, with the fire for the baloons they would make the air really warm!

*Something curious to me were the painted snow plows!

This is half of the front of a snow plow, cool uh?

*The public was devoted in both places, in Malaysia there was a lot of people that felt like that moment was sacred and they had put a lot of effort into that parade. In Sioux Falls people where devoted because it was freezing cold and they were there with their blankets, hats, gloves and chairs.

Devoted parade lovers

Thank you to the organizers of both parades!! I love parades!!

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Great US History Crash Course: Natives and Spaniards

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