The Memory Bank

Redirection

2007-05-28T11:37:00.001+10:00

This incarnation of The Memory Bank is now defunct. Check out
the new wall of bile at http://thememory-bank.blogspot.com/

Top 10 of the Year 2006

2006-12-31T14:04:00.000+11:00

Admittedly, one of the few years where visits to the cinema have been limited. But of those:

1. Hidden (Michael Haneke)
2. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Michael Winterbottom)
3. The Departed (Martin Scorcese)
4. The Queen (Stephen Frears)
5. The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbah)
6. Walk the Line (James Mangold)
7. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg)
8. Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Doyle & Valerie Faris)
9. Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
10. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles)

Close Encounters

2006-04-27T23:49:00.000+10:00

I've spent a lifetime with them. John Lennon wrote a song about them. John Cusack spent a film talking about them. Renaissance painters painted them. Men are driven insane by them. And I already know I'll never understand them.

Meet me in Montauk.

2006-04-23T11:13:00.000+10:00

Jon Brion. Clementine's baby doll. Joel Barish's chicken. Gondry and the bird.

What more is needed, seriously?

Oh, shit.

2006-04-21T06:31:00.000+10:00

I forgot to update this blog.

More end of year mushings

2005-12-28T16:32:00.000+11:00

Oh, and while we're at it...

* Here's my Top 10 films that I viewed on DVD/non-theatrically this year...

1. The Exterminating Angel (Luis Bunuel)
2. Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch)
3. Blade Runner - The Director's Cut (Ridley Scott)
4. Los Olvidados (Luis Bunuel)
5. Last Tango In Paris (Bernado Bertolucci)
6. Collateral (Michael Mann)
7. Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen)
8. The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand)
9. Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino)
10. Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess), Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks), Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch) and Pieces of April (Peter Hedges), Proof (Jocelyn Moorhouse), Bad Santa (Terry Zwigoff)

* Worst movies of the year:

5. Finding Neverland (Marc Forster)
4. A Very Long Engagement (Jean Pierre Junet)
3. We Don't Live Here Anymore (John Curran)
2. Ocean's Twelve (Steven Soderbergh)
1. Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott)

* Extreme disappointments:

King Kong (Peter Jackson)
Little Fish (Rowan Woods)

* The yearly gooey French comedy:

Me and my Sister (Alexandra Leclare)

* Movie that wasn't so funny the second time:

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Wes Anderson)

* Most overrated film of the year:

Wolf Creek (Greg McLean)

* Still divided:

The Idiots (Lars Von Trier)

* Performances of the Year (based on theatrical releases I saw, as I said, down on usual years):

1. Paul Giamatti (Sideways)
2. Hugo Weaving (Little Fish)
3. William McInnes (Look Both Ways)
4. Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake)
5. David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck)
6. Brandon Ratcliffe (Me and You and Everyone We Know)
7. Virginia Madsen (Sideways)
8. Bill Murray (Broken Flowers)
9. Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda)
10. Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener)

Honourable mentions:
Clive Owen (Closer)
Jamie Foxx (Ray)
Bruno Ganz (Downfall)

Top 10 of the year

2005-12-28T16:07:00.000+11:00

Hi. It's been a while, but I've been busy...

Might come back soon. In the meantime, here are my Top 10 films of the year. Admittedly, I spent more time watching television box sets this year...

1. Sideways (Alexander Payne)
2. Good Night and Good Luck (George Clooney)
3. Look Both Ways (Sarah Watt)
4. Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July)
5. 2046 (Wong Kar Wai)
6. Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel)
7. Broken Flowers (Jim Jarmusch)
8. Vera Drake (Mike Leigh)
9. Last Days (Gus Van Sant)

and, begrudgingly, though I have to admit it is a very well made film...

10. Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood)

FCCA look the right way (hey! that rhymes!)

2005-11-14T19:24:00.000+11:00

The Film Critics Circle of Australia has emerged with its list of winners. With regards to the face off between Little Fish and Look Both Ways, I think the right choices were made. Except I was moved more by Justine Clarke than Ms. Blanchett. But Cate had little to do except walk around Cabramatta and stare broodingly into space.

Walking to Self-Identity

2005-11-13T16:40:00.000+11:00

Here's something I haven't done in a while. Got up in the morning and walked. My new job has altered my body clock, hence the ipoded me who emerged from my house early on a Sunday morning and walked all the way to Sydney Harbour. I passed some interesting characters along the way - from toasted European backpackers to an impish man in a dirty bow-tie muttering to himself.

Walking felt good. I let the chaos around me float by, an observer pacing towards the sea (it would be blasphemous to make a Gandhi comparison). Along the way I stopped in a bookstore and roamed the shelves, berating myself for spending too long on My Life by Bill Clinton earlier this year (the man was President of the United States for godsakes, and still 800 pages of generic waffle). I reminded myself of the pleasures of reading Tim Winton's Cloudstreet in the wee small hours on the train to work, and how much I wanted to read more, to challenge the mind to its limits (in a delicious comment on this morning's Insiders, Gerard Henderson remarked that it would be difficult to find those focused on cultivation of the intellect in the Liberal Party, an organisation traditionally bereft of an intellectual base). I remembered the books that were waiting, from authors such as Italo Calvino, Jonathan Franzen, George Elliot, Graham Greene. I remembered how much I loved Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. As I departed the bookstore I remembered how much walking encouraged a mind body soul mentality, and so I wore a face of contentment as I reached the sea, got on a train and went home.

I used to walk a lot through the city, but in a different incarnation. As recently as earlier in the year I was a fidgity shadow of self-loathing. I've never been comfortable in public places, unable to shake the feeling of being watched (okay, perhaps today I was being spied upon given the new anti-terrorism legislation). If I had continued on that path perhaps in a fit of comedic revelation I would have made the film Zoolander. Ben Stiller's film is filled with paranoia about self image and identity. Male model Derek Zoolander (Stiller) is the epitome of ego crisis, constantly requesting (and providing himself with) self-affirmation. Perhaps I exaggerated my liking of the film, but there are funny moments suitable for drinking games and lazy couch evenings, and Stiller has perfected the art of the random cameo, especially when David Bowie shows up to adjudicate a "walk off" between Stiller and his cooky model nemesis Hansel (Owen Wilson).

A far more successful investigation into notions of identity is the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As much as pop culture is my thing, there are cultural artifacts of the zeitgeist that I miss. Thus this is my first foray into the adventures of Buffy Summers. I'm not going to write an essay for fear of a swarm of online Buffyites attacking me from all corners using their combination of Jedi and Slayer techniques. But following my experience of the show so far (the first season and five episodes of the second), I'm a fan. From my perspective it's a show about the tribulations of growing up. However, unlike both trashy (Beverly Hills 90210) and serious (My So Called Life) teen fare, Buffy externalises the fears, desires and demons of teenagers through the phenomena that Buffy, Xander, Willow and Giles confront.

What? That's it?

Look, I'm trembling. I can feel the hardcore fans ready to lynch me. I'll write a proper postmodern deconstructionalist post-feminist anarchist existential Keynesian diatribe (using the linguistics of Spike) when I'm finished. Salivating. Over a young Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Self-image and identity is something that I've battled this year during my first extended period of unemployment. After the three month hiatus, I'm convinced that having a job is beneficial to positive self-image. But hold on. I'm not about to hold my hand up in Solidarity with the industrial relations dogma of one John Menzies Howard Churchill. The job is beneficial for my self-image because I actually enjoy it. Not only that, my employers have provided an environment that is conducive to a balance between work and play. The trade off? Pretty crappy money. But it's something worth thinking about. I hated my previous job (as a "Database Specialist", whatever that means) and I was paid way more money. In my current job, even with less pay, I find myself being far more productive than previously. So now there are only questions. Is productivity inherently connected to job satisfaction? But how do we define satisfaction? Is it in the work itself? In being paid overtime over the weekends? Is it having a culture of reward and "humanism" in the workplace?

There is one thing I know for sure. A person cannot simply be viewed as an economic entity. It's easy for the politicians and wealthy employers to view "having a job" as the satisfying reality. But I simply can't buy into the the economic rationalist view of Menzies John Churchill Howard's industrial relations. A person is a person. And a person's self-identity is connected to work and the environment in which one works. And work is connected to productivity. Remove the self-identity component and you just have, well, markets, household goods and, um, zombies.

That's it! Buffy vs The Rodent!

END NOTES:

I'm ropeable. It looks like Fox has finally succumbed to ratings and cancelled Arrested Development. AD is the best American comedy I have seen in a very long time. I feel like storming into Fox on a scooter, riding the elevator (and the scooter) to the CEO's office and shouting at the top of my lungs, "C'MON!"

And speaking of books - Stuart, besides the missing chapter in Lucas masturbation, do you want a book for your birthday?

Me and You and Personal Desire

2005-11-06T16:50:00.000+11:00

On Wednesday I started a new job. After an extended bout of time off, adjusting the body clock to full time employment has been harder than expected. It was within this strange world of semi-coherence that I was dragged to see Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know last night.

The film is for the most part a genuine original, the structured mushings of conceptual artist July, who also appears in the film as its romantic lead. July has described her film as inspired by "the longing I carried around as a child, longing for the future, for someone to find me, for magic to descend upon my life and transform everything." Her characters are all somewhat isolated from each other, and they seem to be in a constant state of silent commentary on their small existences. The half-living, half-dream state in which the characters interact was a point of connection for me as I sat in the cinema in my half-lived, half-dream state, and suddenly I felt like I was watching, and participating in, a Milan Kundera novel.

Desire is integral to the human psyche. Living in a western capitalist democracy desire is perpetually programmed into us by advertising, the media, and manipulative rodent politicians. Yet desire - non commercialised and packaged desire - can be a good thing. You and Me and Everyone We Know is about a very personal desire - the desire for things that will probably never happen. I'm not sure I've seen a film that uses that personal space as a point of departure for a story, but this film does: in the discordant romance between a shoe salesman (John Hawkes) and a cab driver for elderly people (July), in the pubescent silence of teenage Peter (Miles Thompson), in the comatose body language of art curator and online "romantic" Nancy (Tracy Wright), in the hope chest of a mature little girl (Carlie Westerman), or in the tap of a coin against a sign post by a young black child (Brandon Ratcliff, who steals the movie).

Fantasy or no fantasy, I was genuinely moved by the film and look forward to more from Miranda July.

Barry Egan vs. The Legislators

2005-11-02T20:07:00.000+11:00

Having revisited P.T. Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, I'm now convinced the film is his move towards "pure cinema". The screenplay is of little import. Anderson writes and tells his story predominately through the meaning of the elements on screen. The dialogue is almost superfluous - the multi-coloured lens flares are the film's equivalent of dialogue. A visual feast, I'm now a huge fan of this postmodern take on the romantic comedy and the patriarchy.

Speaking of the boorish patriarchy, today is as an important day in Australian politics. Accompanying the PM's announcement of an impending terrorist attack, the anti-terror laws and IR legislation (all 700 pages of it) have come before parliament. I haven't yet read the legislation (nobody except the Coalition has had time), but I smell a rat. Or should I say - I smell a rodent.

When I think about our current leaders I can't shake the image of a bunch of smiling former private school boys (I say a bunch, because I'm a former private school boy, and I'm not smiling) slapping each other across the backs about productivity and will-to-power individualism. They're the type of mob that Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) would want to smash in the face.

Okay, okay. Not all of our elected representatives (on both sides) warrant a fight with the almighty Barry Egan. But a lot of them do.

Hmm. If Barry were in a fight with our noteworthy politicians, how would he fare? Howard wouldn't turn up (not one of his "core promises"). Costello and Andrews would be creamed. Alexander Downer would start crying. Brendan Nelson might fare a little better. Beazley as well, he'd charge like Obelix in the Asterix comics - but then trip over his own feet. Kevin Rudd would feign illness. My money is on Tony Abbott. There is a Ninja lurking inside our Health Minister.

END NOTE: After over a decade, Bert Newton is leaving both Network Ten and Good Morning Australia. Bert at his best is the quintissential Australian television personality, and I hope his move to the Nine Network (if the rumours are true) sees him with more to do than interview has-beens and segue to informercials trumpeting the now infamous "Here's Moira" (R.I.P.).

Poverty and WorkChoices

2005-10-26T11:56:00.000+10:00

Luis Bunuel is fast becoming one of my favourite movie directors. That Obscure Object of Desire is in my top ten, and I'm also a fan of Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel.

Today I saw one of his earlier films (1950), Los Olividados (The Young and The Damned). It's one of his lesser surrealist works, save for a creepy dream sequence involving a mother, son and wad of dripping meat; and Bunuel's usual penchant for milk, women's legs and animals. It's also the first film I have seen from Bunuel that doesn't focus on the petty bourgeoisie. The social realism of the piece reminded in part of De Sica's Ladri di Biciclette. It's a ninety minute commentary on poverty in Mexico, and a gang of young hoods led by a sociopathic young man named Jaibo (Roberto Cobo). A revenge murder sees him at odds with a younger member of the group trying to reform (Alfonso Mejia, in a wonderful young peformance), and in the end, both are victims. It's beautifully directed, with fine performances from the young actors, and Bunuel makes no judgments about the boys, about the authorities, about the reformed boy's unsympathetic mother (Estela Inda) or even about the causes of poverty in general. He simply shows us a tragic, disheartening situation, and implies that it's the responsibility of all to fix it.

I wonder...will we face a similar situation following the government's IR reforms? I know what John Howard would say to the youngsters in Los Olividados: "Get a job". Mr. Howard, it's much more complicated than that.

Uh oh! Have I just violated the new anti-terrorism laws? Nope. Have to wait for the Melbourne Cup.

Maybe the French will get it

2005-10-25T21:56:00.000+10:00

I stand corrected. Hollywood Ending is the worst Woody Allen film I have ever seen. I can't bring myself to write another word.

Good Guys and Bad Guys

2005-10-25T15:42:00.000+10:00

I'm glad I saw Crimes and Misdemeanours. It reminded me that when Woody Allen is good, he's very good.

The film, his last of the 80s, is a moral tale "about humanity". There are two protagonists: a Jewish Upper Middle Class opthalmologist (Martin Landau) who has his mistress (Anjelica Huston) murdered to protect his reputation, affluence and family; and an idealistic documentary filmmaker (Allen) burdened with making a biography about his shallow sitcom producer brother-in-law (Alan Alda). Both are symbolic of a universe that is made up of good guys and bad guys. When the two meet in one of the film's final scenes, it is abundantly clear that the bad guy has prospered and the good guy has had his livelihood removed. This isn't Crime and Punishment, hence the title pun. In this film, those who are punished aren't necessarily those who have acted wrongly.

Part of the success of the film is that Allen lets Martin Landau create a multi-faceted character that works as a darker counterpoint to the Allen persona. Landau is excellent at conveying his character's processing of the moral dilemma at hand. The film carries a bigger dramatic punch because its essential message results from the choice of that character, rather than by an external element that forces the character to make the crucial decision. And our processing of that decision has greater gravity because the comedic "otherworld" on which we have relied for most of the film has disappeared. We are left with perhaps the most apt image of Allen in cinema - the wounded clown.

And that is perhaps the greatest aspect of Crimes and Misdemeanours - it feels as if Allen is speaking from an honest place for once. He's not trying to be Ingmar Bergman, hence perhaps his darkest film still possessing moments of comedy. When his character sees the ambitious associate producer (Mia Farrow) choose the shallow man over the man of substance; and in that masterful pan from Landau kissing his wife to a shattered, lonely Woody, Allen is in confessional mode. He is lamenting the fact that happy endings are only for Hollywood Movies - and that fundamentally he does not make Hollywood Films. It's his - and his character's - worst fear realised.

END NOTES:

Having said this, Allen still makes his trademark blunders. Some of the characters are archetypes who exist simply to speak and embody Allen's thesis. The symbolism is at times overkill - such as the final image of a blind rabbi dancing in a den of sin. And I suppose Allen is being reductionist in his contrast between "good guys" and "bad guys". Dubya would approve.

I should probably mention that the comedic "otherworld" is often very funny. My favourite moment is when Allen shows Alda his finished biography - which cuts from a megolmaniac Alda in a meeting to newsreel footage of Mussolini chanting from a balcony. Alda's reaction - to take over the making of his own biography - is priceless. There is also some great dialogue, the winner being "the first time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty."

All in all - a very relevant film to the times at hand - and an offering from the Allen canon worth seeing.

The Chase

2005-10-23T10:52:00.000+10:00

For me, Chasing Amy is a film connected to the distant past - when I was eighteen and intimidated by its subject matter (equally intimidated by my ex-girlfriend's obsession with it). Years have passed and I'm happy to report that it's as good a film as I remember. Certainly the best Kevin Smith movie I've seen. Yet interestingly it doesn't rest on Smith's prowess as a director. In 1997, even after two features (Clerks and Mallrats) and the Miramax machine behind him, Smith still had no idea where to put a camera. His blocking is stagey, his images flat. What makes the film are the performances and Smith's dialogue. I forgot how much of a joy Chasing Amy is to listen to. For example:

Hooper (Dwight Ewell): For years in this industry, whenever an African American character, hero or villain, was introduced - usually by white artists and writers - they got slapped with racist names that singled them out as Negroes. Now, my book, "White-Hating Coon," don't have none of that bullshit. The hero's name is Maleekwa, and he's descended from the black tribe that established the first society on the planet, while all you European motherfuckers were hiding out in caves and shit, all terrified of the sun. He's a strong role model that a young black reader can look up to. Cause I'm here to tell you, the chickens is coming home to roost, y'all. The black man's no longer gonna play the minstrel in the realm of comics and sci-fi fantasy. We keepin it real, and we gonna get respect by any means necessary.

Holden (Ben Affleck): Ah, come on, that's a bunch of horse shit! Lando Calrissian was a black guy. You know, and he got to fly the Millennium Falcon, what's the matter with you?

Hooper: Who said that?

Holden: I did! Lando Calrissian is a strong role-model in the realm of science fiction/fantasy.

Hooper: Fuck Lando Calrissian! Uncle-Tom nigger!

Perhaps the key to the success of Chasing Amy is both its honesty about relationships (refreshingly non PC) and the heart Smith brings to the project. It's probably no coincidence that the film's key speech is spoken by Smith himself as Silent Bob. And it's not a new thesis - that in a relationship the focus should be on the individual, not their past (unless they've been an axe murderer, obviously). Otherwise - you'll lose them. Makes a lot of sense. So thumbs up to the film from me. Besides making me strangely nostalgic for the grungy 90s and lamenting the Joey Lauren Adams' career that never was, I was once again charmed by this small ode to love. And hell, Smith was only twenty seven when he made it!

The same praise cannot be given to Woody Allen's Anything Else. The film went straight to video in Australia, and I can see why. It's akin to a group of children putting on a Woody Allen play. Jason Biggs is way out of his depth as the pseudo-Allen, painfully exposed when he is put on screen with the actual Woody Allen (who plays a mentor figure that drives a red sports car - which I assume is supposed to be funny given Annie Hall - otherwise once again Allen has tried to create a character separate from himself through the inclusion of an "object" or "hairstyle"). I'm not sure what parallel universe Woody has descended into, but he should stay right away from dramatising the tribulations of young relationships. I'm not saying that a seventy year old filmmaker cannot write about young love, but the sight of Biggs and Christina Ricci speaking as upper middle class New Yorkers who spend their days talking philosophy and analysing every facet of their existences (in Allen-speak) is simply ridiculous. Twenty minutes in, my friends and I turned off the film. After The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Melinda and Melinda, and I assume Hollywood Ending (never released here), if Woody doesn't deliver with Match Point I'm blocking out most of the last ten years of his career.

Speaking of all things relationshipy, I went on a date last night. However, I didn't go into the evening convinced that it was a date. In fact, I'm not particularly sure what constitutes a date. Perhaps I just hate the whole concept of a date. Ultimately, I left the evening convinced I had been on a date.

(END NOTE: It looks like Kevin Smith is making a sequel to Clerks. This goes to show how much the so called "American independent film movement" has changed over the last ten years (and in the twenty or so years since Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise). Somehow, I don't think Smith is capable of making a sequel to rival Before Sunset...)

Rushmore and Self Congratulations

2005-10-22T11:08:00.000+10:00

I saw Rushmore last night. Already a fan of The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, so was expecting to enjoy myself. Wasn't disappointed. It's a lot tighter than the other films, less forced as well. Maybe the best example of what goes on in the wacky head of Wes Anderson (although I haven't seen Bottle Rocket). In essence I think it's a film about desire for individuality. And maybe there's a class comment as well. I especially liked the pathos of Bill Murray's depressed millionaire who becomes Max Fischer's (Jason Schwartzman) friend and nemesis. I was going to write a review, but Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader set the bar too high.

The Australian Film Institute Awards Nominations were announced yesterday. This comes after the nominations for the If Awards and Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards. For an industry that makes so little films per year (with about 10% of them any good), is this orgy of self congratulations warranted? Probably. These people work hard, for very little money. For the record, I'm rooting for Look Both Ways.

Birth (and death)

2005-10-21T15:42:00.000+10:00

This is my first posting. Sound the trumpets.

I was late to discover DVD box sets of television series. Now I think they're the greatest idea since pop tarts. I remember myself as a young television junkie, frustrated at having to wait a whole week for another episode of Quantum Leap, Picket Fences or (don't laugh - Anne Tenney's death scene as Molly was harrowing for my four year old self) A Country Practice.

I've just spent the last week re-watching episodes of Six Feet Under. This second time has deepened my appreciation of the series, which I am saddened to hear has ended in the United States. The strength of the show is that its creators have adopted an "independent filmmaking" approach to both its look and scripting. Each episode does not contain an "epic" plot (say, compared to the pace of The West Wing or even The Sopranos). It is a show that is rooted firmly in the characters. And rather than have the characters take easy, linear journeys, their behaviour is as unpredictable as ours. I remember listening to an interview with one of the writers (Craig Wright, I think), who talked about Ball's disdain for characters acting the same in sequential scenes. So, for example, if David argues with Keith in one scene, he's fine in another scene with Claire, but will then explode in a further scene and then do something rash - say masturbate in a public toilet - in the scene afterwards. I think that's why Six Feet Under is almost shocking at times - because it does not compromise in its portrayal of our complex lives. And while I understand criticism about the show's descent into soap opera from about halfway through the third season, the strength of the acting, writing, direction and the aforementioned grounding in real characters and real situations doesn't render the Lisa disappearance/Nate breakdown/Hoyt secret/George goes mental arcs a huge problem for me. And what a cast. Michael C. Hall as David and Frances Conroy as Ruth are worth special mention. Hall is so good at capturing David's internal struggle to accept himself. And Conroy can make a small gesticulation look Emmy worthy.

I would love to see a television series with these "independent cinematic" traits made in Australia. There is a strong history of television in this country. Some of my favourites have been Frontline, Wildside, and the first series of The Secret Life of Us. But I think we can go further. I think we can go beyond the literal and "safe" nature of some of these programs and look to something a little more challenging. Six Feet Under is less about a situation and more about a universal theme - death - and at times is very abstract in the way it explores the issue. The question is whether there would be an audience for this type of fare in Australia. From what I gather Six Feet Under rated well in its graveyard stint on the Nine Network - so maybe.

This blog has no specific theme except to act as a reminder of my thoughts. There is a history of memory loss in my family, and I'm already starting to forget things at the age of twenty five. Perhaps that is why I am so interested in family history and personal stories and want them told. So instead of keeping a diary in my indecipherable handwriting, I'm posting my thoughts online in case some bloggers out there are interested. Most of my posts will probably be on the arts and news. But you never know, I may surprise you and myself. For now, adieu.