Knocking At The Gate

Last night we watched Ildikó Enyedi’s “On Body and Soul” (2017) and I woke up thinking about it. That means I am required by intergalactic treaty to write a review, and so here it is. This one might be hard for some to watch. It’s a love story, more or less, involving a lonely younger woman who feels attracted to a lonely older man at her workplace. The complications come in layers: First, he’s a longtime senior manager and she’s a nervous new hire. Second, he’s had enough failed relationships that he’s decided to give up on them entirely and she’s neurodivergent in ways that complicate how she speaks to others, how she hears what others say, and how she responds to touch. Third, they work in a slaughterhouse in Budapest that is fulled of flawed and gossipy coworkers. Fourth, through a complicated turn of events at work, they discover that they both dream the same dream each night. With all that, this movie might well have been some sort of issue-based drama of several kind

McCullers, J.F. (2023). "Come Now Witness Your Judgment."   Imagine a science fiction novel where all of the people there live in a symbiotic relationship with computers. Their children dig for precious metals that other children in gigantic factories then make into the dazzling computers. These mighty computers are everywhere and in all things, and contain all of the knowledge of the entire history of the planet. Despite the omnipresence of this knowledge, the people don't like knowing true things and instead walk around saying ignorant things to each other. Some of the people even try to make it illegal to learn things, and most of the rest of them go along with it because they're busy looking at the computers. Many of the people are uncomfortable making decisions and so they instead look to the computers to tell them what they should buy next. The computers also write simulated poems and make simulated art for the people that focus on the things the people are supp