| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
|
 Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:10 am Post subject: Teutonic Gambles |
 |
|
Teutonic Gambles:
Conspiracy
DVD
By HBO Films
Based on the only set of notes from
the infamous Wannsee Conference, those of
Martin Luther, discovered only in 1947.
| Quote: | Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart (played by Colin Firth): If you are suggesting that you have dominion over me, just remember this: Even the Party, which I have served loyally since 1922, answers to the government.
Dr. Gerhard Klopfer (Ian McNeice): They both answer to the Fuhrer. You may be a friend of Goring but if you're a betting man, put your money on Borman. |
This deeply troubling historical film ends with the tragic, slow yet sonorous movement:
Adagio 2
Schubert String Quintet in C Major, D. 956
"Adagio"
CD Audio
Featuring Ensemble Villa Musica
Listen to selection number seven here.
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2283#2283
Last edited by editor on Sat Dec 08, 2007 4:40 pm; edited 3 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
|
| Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 4:16 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Carmina Burana
Audio CD
By Carl Orff
Featuring baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
| Quote: | | Carmina Burana is named after a Bavarian Monastery, where a collection of poems, songs, and short plays were found near Munich in 1803. From these manuscripts, Orff selected 25 songs from the original 200 for his absorbing cantata, which premiered in 1937 in Frankfurt, Germany. Orff arranged these songs into three groups, creating an unforgettable musical experience. Complete with pagan and blasphemous lyrics written by minstrels, defrocked monks and vagrant students known more for their rioting, gambling and overindulgence than for their scholarship, Carmina Burana exists as one of the most varied collections of medieval poetry. (From the program notes on our invitation to some pre-performance hooplah opening night of Ballet BC's November, 2005 staging of the ballet, sublimely choreographed in house a year ago by Artistic Director John Alleyne. The live chamber orchestra will feature Vancouver pianists Linda Lee Thomas and Terence Dawson, renowned percussionists Sal Ferreras, Vern Griffiths, Robin Reid, Johnathan Bernard, the Vancouver Chamber Choir and Ontario's Elora Festival Singers under the baton of American Ballet Theatre Conductor David LaMarche. Such glitz, such glitter. Will we go? You bet). |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2326#2326
Last edited by editor on Wed Oct 21, 2009 6:34 pm; edited 8 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
|
| Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The New Yorker
Magazine Subscription
The Current Cinema
Battle Lines
"Go for Zucker" and "Why We Fight"
By David Denby
Jan 23 & 30/06
| Quote: | | Jaecki Zucker (Henry Hubchen), the hero of the German comedy "Go for Zucker," loses his family when the Berlin Wall goes up, in 1961. His mother and his brother, Samuel, leave East Berlin for Frankfurt and capitalism, while fourteen-year-old Jaecki, ne Jakob Zuckermann, stays behind, drops his Jewish identity, settles in as a Communist, and eventually turns himself into a celebrity sports announcer. More than forty years go by, Communism has collapsed, and Jaecki is out of a job. He has become, in his own words, a "reunification loser" - he just gets by on his skills as a pool hustler. Widely described as the first Jewish comedy made in Germany since the Second World War, "Go for Zucker" was an enormous hit there last year, and part of the reason must be that Jaecki, a liar, a drinker, and a gambler, has so much life in him that he's impossible to dislike. (-- p. 96) |
Go for Zucker
DVD
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2388#2388
Last edited by editor on Thu Nov 27, 2008 11:44 am; edited 3 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 12:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The Goebbels Experiment
Documentary based on the diary of
propagandameister Joseph Goebbels
Narrated by a tough but sensitive Kenneth Brannagh
DVD
| Quote: | | Oct. 19th, 1940. I travelled to Paris with Goering. What a wonderful place! The peacetime big city atmosphere is back again - lots of soldiers. I strolled through the streets with Goering, then I bought a few things in the shops. In the evening we went to the Casino de Paris, a variety theatre. Not as good as in Berlin but plenty of beautiful women and a lot of nudity. We would never dream of putting that on a Berlin stage. Ate at Maxim's. It's nice to be with Goering, who's being very kind to me. He has a fantastic lifestyle. The war seems a million miles away. Goering really is a nice chap. I went to bed late, dead tired. |
Film includes charming home movies of the Goebbels offspring swimming and pretending to play instruments to a recording of a German oompah-tune while London starved then burned. Goebbels' meticulous entries chart the soughs and swells of a relentless, well-nourished and probably well-earned depression, though he wasn't all bad. He apparently loathed competitor Leni Riefenstahl.
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2782#2782
Last edited by editor on Thu Nov 27, 2008 11:45 am; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 11:20 am Post subject: |
|
|
Six Wives
The Queens of Henry VIII
Hardcover
By Tudor historian Dr. David Starkey
| Quote: | On 11 December, Anne (of Cleves) arrived at the English stronghold of Calais. Lord Lisle, the Lord Deputy or Governor, had been instructed to make the town look its best to receive her. But it was hoped that her stay would be a short one. A detailed timetable of the state of the tides, starting on 12 December, was sent to Henry. And, before Anne even entered the walls, Admiral Fitzwilliam, who was in charge of the reception party, took her to look at the ship that would carry to England. It was a fine sight. Just as in the Zuiderzee map, it was decked with streamers, banners and flags. Seamen were on the tops, shrouds and yard-arms and the guns fired a salute.
But adverse winds made a quick departure impossible. In the hope that the weather would change soon, experienced captains, including Aborough and Couche, were sent 'to lie out side the walls and give immediate notice of fair weather.' They were to remain there rather a long time.
Meanwhile, Admiral Fitzwilliam, as instructed, set himself to entertain Anne, while Anne, for her part, did her best to prepare herself for her new role. On the afternoon of the 13th, for instance, she sent Olisleger, who acted as interpreter, to invite Fitzwilliam 'to go to cards [with her] at some game that [the King] used.' Fitzwilliam, who was one of Henry's oldest gaming cronies, decided that she should be taught 'cent,' which resembled piquet. 'I played with her at cent,' Fitzwilliam reported to Henry, while three others, who spoke German, 'stood by and taught her the play.' 'And I assure your Majesty,' Fitzwilliam concluded, 'she played as pleasantly and with as good a grace and countenance as ever in all my life I saw any noblewoman.' (footnotes omitted) (-- pgs. 624-625) |
Not only was she an astute card player, Anne of Cleves enjoys the distinction of being the only one of Hank's wives who escaped his evil clutches with both her life and a substantial divorce settlement. To wit:
| Quote: | | ...She would have an income of 4,000 pounds a year. She would be given Richmond and Bletchingley as her residences. And these, the King explained, were both near the Court, which she would be welcome to visit, 'as we shall repair unto you.' (footnote omitted) (-- p. 642) |
| Quote: | Monarchy
DVD
Tirelessly researched and clearly narrated by Dr. Starkey
Filmed on location. Footage includes famous portraits, churches, battlegrounds and actual documents translated from the Latin by Dr. Starkey, who sets out a gripping tale of British history in a slow, precise and well-modulated voice. |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=2790#2790
Last edited by editor on Thu Nov 27, 2008 11:47 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
|
| Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Summer Lightning
A Blandings Story
Paperback
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | She fell into a heavy silence again, her eyes peering into the gathering gloom. Somewhere in the twilight world a cow had begun to emit long, nerve-racking bellows. The sound seemed to sum up and underline the general sadness.
'Schopenhauer says that all the suffering in the world can't be mere chance. Must be meant. He says life's a misture of suffering and boredom. You've got to have one or the other. His stuff's full of snappy cracks like that. You'd enjoy it. Well, I'm going for a walk. You coming?'
'I don't think I will, thanks.'
'Just as you like. Schopenhauer says suicide's absolutely O.K. He says Hindoos do it instead of going to church. They bung themselves into the Ganges and get eaten by crocodiles and call it a well-spent day.'
'What a lot you seem to know about Schopenhauer.'
'I've been reading him up lately. Found a copy in the library. Schopenhauer says we are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses first one and then another for his prey. Sure you won't come for a walk?'
'No thanks, really. I think I'll go in.'
'Just as you like,' said Millicent. 'Liberty Hall.'
(From the chapter, More Shocks for Sue, at p. 169) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=3006#3006 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 11:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
The Devil's Desciples
Hitler's Inner Circle
Hardcover
By Anthony Read
| Quote: | Hacha's surprise move was a stroke of luck for Hitler, and he grabbed it eagerly. With Goring away, he conferred with Goebbels, Ribbentrop and Keitel, none of whom was likely to contradict him, and told them he had decided to march in and smash the rump Czech state in five days' time. The two ministers were jubilant. 'Our frontiers will stretch to the Carpathians,' Geobbels crowed. 'The Fuhrer shouts for joy. This game is a dead certainty.' The invasion would take place on the Ides of March (15 March), the date Keitel had privately 'put his money on', having noted that since 1933 this had always been the date on which Hitler had chosen to act. 'Was it always coincidence,' he wondered,
or was it superstition: I am inclined to believe the latter for Hitler himself often referred to it.' (footnotes omitted) (From 'I'll Cook Them a Stew that They'll Choke On', at p. 537) |
| Quote: | | When they learned of Hitler's survival, the conspirators panicked. Unfortunately for them, the Gauleiter of Berlin did not. Goebbels was in his ministry study talking to Funk and Speer about the problems of implementing his total war provisions when he received a telephone call from Otto Dietrich at Fuhrer Headquarters informing him of the failed assassination attempt. He said later that he had felt 'as though the ground beneath his feet was quaking,' but after being assured that Hitler was not seriously hurt, he ate lunch normally if somewhat more quietly than usual, and then took an afternoon nap. He was woken about an hour later, to be presented with a terse statement from Fuhrer Headquarters, supposedly dictated by Hitler himself, to be broadcast at once. Unhappy with the wording, and perhaps even wanting to hedge his bets until he knew exactly what was happening, Goebbels held on to the statement and carried on with his routine work. It was around 5 p.m. before he was galvanixed into action by a phone call from Hitler himself, telling him that a full-scale military putsch was under way throughout the Reich. (From Last Thrown of the Dice, p. 855) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=3065#3065 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 11:58 am Post subject: |
|
|
The Coming of the Third Reich
Hardcover
By Richard J. Evans
| Quote: | | Yet in reality Bismarck was a far more complex character than this crude image, fostered by his acolytes after his death. He was not the reckless, risk-taking gambler of later legend. Too few Germans subsequently remembered that it was Bismarck who was responsible for defining politics as 'the art of the possible.' He always insisted that his technique was to calculate the way events were going, then take advantage of them for his own purposes. He himself put it more poetically: 'A statesman cannot create anything himself. He must wait and listen until he hears the steps of God sounding through events; then leap up and grasp the hem of his garment.' Bismarck knew that he could not force events into any pattern that he wanted. If, then - to adopt another of his favorite metaphors - the art of politics consisted in navigating the ship of state along the stream of time, in what direction was that stream before the century began, Central Europe had been splintered into myriad autonomous states, some of them powerful and well organized, like Saxony and Bavaria, others small or medium-sized 'Free Cities,' or tiny principalities and knighthoods which consisted of little more than a castle and a modestly sized estate. These were all gathered together in the so-called Holy Roman Reich of the German Nation, founded by Charlemagne in 800 and dissolved by Napoleon in 1806. This was the famous 'thousand year Reich,' which ultimately became the Nazis' ambition to emulate. By the time it collapsed under the weight of Napoleon's invasions, the Reich was in a parlous condition; attempts to establish a meaningful degree of central authority had failed, and powerful and ambitious member states such as Austria and Prussia had tended increasingly to throw their weight around as if the Reich did not exist. (From German Peculiarities, The Legacy of the Past, pgs. 3-4) |
| Quote: | | ... A widespread cynicism began to make itself apparent in Weimar culture, from films like Dr Mabuse the Gambler to Thomas Mann's The Confessions of the Swindler Felix Krull (written in 1922 though put aside and not completed until more than 30 years later). It was not least as a consequence of the inflation that Weimar culture developed its fascination with criminals, embezzlers, gamblers, manipulators, thieves and crooks of all kinds. Life seemed to be a game of chance, survival a matter of the arbitrary impact of incomprehensible economic forces. In such an atmosphere, conspiracy theories began to abound. Gambling, whether at the card table or on the Stock Exchange, became a metaphor for life. Much of the cynicism that gave Weimar culture its edge in the mid-1920s and made many people eventually long for the return of idealism, self-sacrifice and patriotic dedication, derived from the disorienting effects of the hyperinflation. Hyperinflation became a trauma whose influence affected the behaviour of Germans of all classes long afterwards. It added to the feeling in the more conservative sections of the population of a world turned upside down, first by defeat, then by revolution, and now by economics. It destroyed faith in the neutrality of the law as a social regulator, between debtors and creditors, rich and poor, and undermined notions of the fairness and equity that the law was supposed to maintain. It debased the language of politics, already driven to hyperbolic overemphasis by the events of 1918-19. It lent new power to stock fantasy-images of evil, not just the criminal and the gambler, but also the speculator and, fatefully, the financially manipulative Jew. (copious footnotes omitted) (From The Failure of Democracy, pgs. 111-112) |
Dr. Mabuse - The Gambler
VHS
Directed by Fritz Lang
Confessions of Felix Krull,
Confidence Man:
The Early Years
Hardcover
By Thomas Man
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=3093#3093 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 2940
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 3:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Paris 1919
Six Months that Changed the World
Paperback
By Frostback history champ Margaret Macmillan
| Quote: | | In the first months of the peace the Germans clutched the Fourteen Points like a life raft, with very little sense that their victors might not see things the same way. So many of the familiar landmarks - kaiser, army, bureaucracy - had been obliterated. That brought unsettling hopes and fears. The country was less than fifty years old; why should it continue to exist? Bavarians, as well as Rhinelanders, contemplated regaining the independence they had lost in 1870, when Germany was created. On the far left, revolutionaries dreamed of another Russian revolution and for a time, as insurrections flared up unpredictably in first one city and then another, it looked as though they might get their wish. Thomas Mann talked of the end of civilization with something close to exhilaration. Political parties across the spetrum foundered as they tried to redefine themselves. There was a widespread fear that German society was done for; the old moral standards had dissolved. There was also, perhaps understandably, a reluctance to think seriously about the future, especially the one that was being shaped in Paris. "The people at large," according to Dresel, "are strangely apathetic on questions connected with peace. A feverish desire to forget the trouble of the moment in amusements and dissipation is everywhere noticeable. Theatres, dance halls, gambling dens, and racetracks are crowded as never before." A distinguished German scholar remembered "the dreamland of the armistice period. (footnotes omitted) (From Chapter 30, The Halls of Mirrors, pgs. 461-462) |
| Quote: | Fourteen Points
1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.
3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. This also said that this safety would be kept in place for years to come.
4. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
5. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
6. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.
8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.
9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
11. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.
12. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.
14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. (From Wikipedia) |
U.S. take on Germany in the '20s:
Cabaret
DVD
Featuring Liza Minnelli's lurid green nails, Bob Fosse's
typically vulgar choreography plus the
headache score by Kurt Weill guaranteed to bring
on the flu
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/news/viewtopic.php?p=3244#3244 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ 
Search 
Memberlist 
Usergroups
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
