Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti by Bertold Brecht – three more of his plays, including Mother Courage and Her Children, are reviewed on my blog, along with hundreds of other books, films, but the best gig might be this one https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti by Bertold Brecht – three more of his plays, including Mother Courage and Her Children, are reviewed on my blog, along with hundreds of other books, films, but the best gig might be this one https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

 

8 out of 10

 

The other day, our national television aired Herr Puntila and sein Knecht Matti by Bertold Brecht, on one of its many channels, indeed, it was not even The Cultural one, but Number three, there is way too much there, they should have the Cultural, and then maybe nothing else, after all, on the commercial side there is abundance

 

Now I think of what has happened in…Bhutan, just before 2000, when they became the last country to introduce television, and with that, advertising – they insist that they are interested in measuring GHP, not the usual GDP, but the happiness levels of the citoyens, and that has given an interesting opportunity

They could see how the happiness levels plunged, after audiences could see ads for various products, many of them things they did not need, and then they had these cravings, Nirvana is the state we reach when we need…

 

-          Nothing more

 

There is that anecdote with the Dalai Lama, who walks into a hypermarket and says ‘wow, so many things I do not need’ anyway, back to Herr Puntila, let me conclude that Bertold Brecht is not my cup of tea

Both The Caucasian Chalk Circle https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-caucasian-chalk-circle-by-bertold.html and Mother Courage and Her Children have only two stars out of five in my rating, while the third

 

-          The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui has three

 

The latter benefits from an outré, interesting sounding name, but 3 out of 5 is not exactly the epitome of magnum opus for the under signed, in fact, I tend to give four, when I am not really that happy already, which is the case here

There were Days of Wine and Roses https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/04/days-of-wine-and-roses-written-by-jp.html when we used to go to the theatre, sometime before 2000, and I was taking my spouse along

 

Then I would go alone, and in the last few years, she is out for some plays, while I have stopped in about 2000, because I found that the performances were not what I like, a lot of shouting and the wrong acting method was on display

Denis Diderot https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/04/jacques-le-fataliste-by-denis-diderot.html has written centuries ago about thespians, and what would be the best approach on stage, musing on the need

 

-          To use the mind, not get ‘passionate’

 

Whereas this has been known for so long, many take the other route, and scream, as if the loudness would compensate for lack of talent, if you shout so loud, then it must be believable, it has veracity, the last word was used by Jeffrey Goldberg and the MAGA idiots attacked him for that, because they say it is pretentious, and after all, it was the journalist, not their pathetic cabinet of the Orange fool that sent war plans over an insecure app…

 

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 https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html  – 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…’