From Worldometer:
DAY USA WORLD Brazil India South Africa
9 1208 6222 1136 1168 82
This is Veterans Day, a national holiday. A deserving moment for patriotism, tribute and honor when every American should pause and reflect on our freedom and prominence. As additional examples of the kinds of transitions and pieces of luck so prominent in my life, the efforts of Japanese American soldiers in World War II paved the way for my success. Here is a 25-minute documentary of their heroism, and how those affected throughout the world showed their thanks. Another of 58 minutes: Going for Broke. Then, of course, there is the hour and a half film, Go for Broke.
Yes, science Wednesday, but the subject is Counterpart, a series on Amazon Prime from STARZ. Since you're probably a member, it is free. Rotten Tomatoes gave 100/90 ratings. There are two seasons, each with 10 one-hour (actually closer to 45 minutes to allow for future television) episodes. I'm up to E7 in S1. Intriguing, tense, the words used by reviewers.
This is a well-produced and acted film. German cars like BMW and Mercedes are spotlighted, with the acoustics of vrooming prominent. Loud electronic dance music now and then balance the mood.
So why the title above? As written, 30 years ago, something happened, a parallel universe was created. What? Yes, like the Big Bang and Dark Matter/Energy, scientists today can't explain this. However, most astrophysicists today actually think we are just one of multiverses. How many? Infinite.
The writers of this series are a bit more modest. Just two universes. Go back to around the Year 1990. Imagine the sudden creation of two worlds, conveniently connected by a portal under, I think, Berlin. Prime and Alpha cooperate because they do bargain for opportunities. An example is that an oil resource was found on one side, where the location was bartered to the other for something equivalent. There is an unsteady alliance with assassins and infiltrators.
So in one universe, call it Alpha, life goes on. Same for Prime, the other. But things just happen. This is a good example of how much the environment can affect genetics. A birth in one can be met with a miscarriage in the other. Your counterpart with identical genetics. Starting, in this film, thirty years ago, the same person in the other world can become totally different. We all are here at this point in time not only from birth, but because of decisions, luck, judgements and circumstances.
I am today euphoric in a time of pandemic, but am thankful I'm not homeless. A bad turn or two could easily have resulted in a different lifestyle.
When I left a girlfriend to go away to college, while in my freshman year, she was a senior in high school, and became Miss Teenage Hawaii. And, incidentally, Hawaii's Kiilani Arruda was last week crowned Miss Teen USA.
Clearly, we were going to get married. But that did not happen. I fell in love and married Pearl. Would I be here at 15 Craigside if I married someone else? Well, I could have been richer. Or a Nobel Laureate. Or homeless.
But even going away to college. If I had not broken my wrist playing basketball in my junior year at McKinley High School in Honolulu, I would not have spent the summer essentially memorizing the Scholastic Aptitude Test book. My practice exam score taken as a junior would not have improved from less than 300 to more than 600 in my senior year. I would have gone to the University of Hawaii instead of Stanford. Or even if I had chosen Cal Tech instead, my life would have taken me into another realm.
I'm lucky to be alive today. I've probably lived a more dangerous life than most, heading for three million miles just on Star Alliance. Any of those planes could have crashed. The life expectancy of an American male born in 1940 was 70 (76 for females). So I've exceeded my longevity by a decade. Anyone born in the U.S. today would expect to live until the age of 83.
So therefore, when the Alpha JK Simmons (he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 2015 for Whiplash) character meets the Prime JK Simmons version, they of course look the same, but are different people. The Alpha is a mild-mannered bureaucrat, while the Prime is a high-level spy. It just so happened that they had married just before this dual-universe occurrence, so they have the same wife, who remain very similar (although one is in coma). But the Prime combo had a daughter, not so for the Alpha.
An interesting point is made in the movie: Can you truly fall in love with someone who is not really what you see? In the spy game, people are not who you think they are. The script goes in-depth on how truthful someone is in marriage. Also, how do you react to experiencing a different husband, or wife? I've watched six and have fourteen episodes left. I plan to stick to this one series, as I did with Money Heist on Netflix. For both, there will be new upcoming seasons.
Most of the actors in the film are linked to the German movie industry, as for example, Liv Lisa Fies, who is starring in another series, Babylon Berlin. But there is also Stephen Rhea, who you saw in The Crying Game with Forest Whitaker. Rhea has gained weight and looks 30 years older. Then again, CG was released in 1992.
One final bit of info is that the reason why there is revenge is that a group in the Prime side believes that the Alpha government purposefully spread a flu, killing 7% of the population. Thus, when you look at the lifestyles, you see that the Alpha side is active and normal. However, even if this pandemic is long gone, the Prime city is darker and grim. This is only a conspiracy theory, but that is the driving motivation. Is this what our world will still be in a decade and two?
My favorite song #47 will come from:
- The Charleston
- Josephine Baker
- Django Reinhardt
Belgian Jean Reinhardt was born in 1910 and lived for 43 years. His Romani (those gypsies that threaten vulnerable people in Paris and elsewhere) nickname is Django, a jazz guitarist, popular in Paris. There have been annual Django festivals in Europe and the U.S. There is a French film in 2017 that no one saw entitled Django.
I've been listening to him most of my adult life, and can't quite identify a song worthy of gaining #47 status. So what I'll do for now is just list him as my #47, and return later with a definitive tune. Here is a full hour of this greatest hits.
A few details about him:
- He lost use of two fingers at the age of 18. The entire left side of his body was also badly burned, spending 18 months in a hospital.
- Was also a painter.
- His younger brother Joseph was almost as talented. When Django just disappeared one night in 1936, Joseph replaced him, and the audience was none the wiser.
His partnership with Stephane Grappelli was legendary.- He and I had a similar almost disaster. He was invited by Duke Ellington to come to America. But in his first concert, gave the wrong address to the taxi and was late. I was personally invited by the Counsel General of Japan in New York to his home for dinner, for which I provided the dining list of my friends in the city, and also had the wrong address. By luck, I somehow made it.
- He smoked all the time. One reason why he died so early.
- He was a gypsy child with a roaming life and was almost illiterate. This why he is called Django.
- He survived as an entertainer in an occupied Paris during World War II.
Tropical Storm Theta formed in the Atlantic Ocean, making this the most active hurricane season on record with 29 so far. However, Tropical Storm Iota is gaining strength south of Puerto Rico and should become #30.
When Hurricane Eta (after meandering about the Gulf, attained hurricane strength again, but should weaken by landfall time) will on Thursday return to Florida, making it the 12th ocean storm to do so on U.S. soil, breaking the nine set in 1916.
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