No Bed for Bacon by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon – this novel is included on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read List – you find it on The Guardian site - 8 out of 10

 

No Bed for Bacon by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon – this novel is included on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read List – you find it on The Guardian site

 

8 out of 10

 

To think that I have been waiting for this to ‘show up’ for so long, and once it became available on the Archive site https://archive.org/ and I have had the chance to read it, either I blew it, or the book is not so formidable after all…granted, the latter hypothesis is the less probable, it is more likely that I am losing my grip

 

If I ever had it – one issue with No Bed For Bacon is surely the high expectations fallacy, with all that longing to get to this opus, which happens to be near the head of The Comedy Chapter, on the aforementioned list of 1,000 Big Beanos, once it became accessible, and the reading started, I said loudly…

What? This is the long-awaited magnum opus; you must be kidding me…

 

Besides, I must be thinking in terms of Shakespeare in Love https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/08/shakespeare-in-love-by-tom-stoppard-and.html come with preconceived ideas to the Glasperlenspiel aka Glass Beads Game, and ergo, the Caryl Brahms proposal is confusing

In conclusion, the book was not for me, and that was the quote at the end of this note -a Standard ending in which I brag about an invention of mine, in which you might be interested, participation in the 1989 Revolution, and there are some other things, you could skip, and go the bottom, or just see that this is tedious and stop altogether…

 

But let me tell you about the story behind Shakespeare in Love -this is the dysfunctional way these scribblings work, or do not, I just take a path, then abruptly abandon it, leave the route, and just stumble into the wild

Julia Roberts was attached to the original project, that is how the funding is obtained, you need a big name – well, there are always the independent films – and she had been catapulted to stardom with Pretty Woman, albeit she was still very young, and this justifies the mistakes she made, and her dropping the ball

 

They travel to England, where she wanted Daniel Day Lewis to be Shakespeare – which makes sense, he is the only one with three Oscars (there is the glorious Jack Nicholson, but he has two for leading, and one for supporting role, the latter is for As Good as It Gets, where I did not like Helen Hunt, she is one of my movie allergies actually, together with Kushner, Debicki) – only Day Lewis was not available. He was doing In The Name of The Father

 

Julia Roberts insists, I think she sent flowers, but the fabulous thespian replied that he could not film with her, and then they showed her Hugh Grant, colin Firth, at least this is how I remember it, nonetheless, there were young actors, who would become huge names, and Roberts rejected them all, with arrogance

Eventually, she leaves the hotel, city, and then they have to work hard to take this from the ashes and have a Phoenix bird renaissance, with Gwyneth Paltrow taking the empty place, going to win the Academy Award (and crying at the ceremony), along with Judy Dench, as Elizabeth II, and the film is a landmark now

 

Elizabeth II is a major player in No Bed for Bacon, and she reminds me of another great motion picture, Elizabeth https://realini.blogspot.com/2019/02/elizabeth-by-michael-hirst-10-out-of-10.html wherein Gloriana is portrayed by Cate Blanchet -nominated for an Oscar for this, she has two, or is it three now, with Tar, Academy Awards – and the cast is phenomenal, with Geoffrey Rush, Richard Attenborough, Clive Owen and others

In No Bed for Bacon, Gloriana – this is a new one for yours truly, Elizabeth having this name – complains of…nightingales, she wants to see them as…food, for breakfast, and not be annoyed by them, presumably, they disturb her rest, the sleep of her majesty, the virgin queen, and that was enough to turn me off

 

‘the demand for Gloriana’s bedsteads was never greater’ this is one of the main themes, and it does have an amusing turn, and this is one crucial element of Positivity – the other nine would be interest, awe, inspiration, pride, hope, joy, serenity, gratitude, love and you learn more about them in a psychology classic

Positivity https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/05/positivity-by-barbara-fredrickson-life.html was written by Barbara Fredrikson, and it is one of the criteria with which I try to select books – they come from the 1,000 Must Read list – trying to avoid the Crime section, I mean, yes, I read those too, but the priority would be lower…

 

If the characters, the plot, offer inspiring, awesome personages, the plot has joy, serenity, such as Glasperlenspiel https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-glass-bead-game-by-herman-hesse.html the magical chef d’oeuvre by Magister Ludi, Nobel Prize Winner for Literature Herman Hesse, then the game is on

So yes, if the novel comes close to The Glass Beads Game, then it is worth reading, but if the characters are not all that exciting – here the caveat is that Shakespeare, Elizabeth II, Drake the pirate, well, you could hardly find more thought provoking names – then the read may turn out to be boring, and that is not Flow https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-this-is.html because for Maximum Experience you need to be in control, nothing else matters, it is autotelic, the goals are clear, challenges meet expectations, time is relative and feedback is instantaneous and constant…

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”