G. Corso - Bomb

13.Tzameti - Gela Babluani

In a town on the Normandy coast, a young man has been hired to replace some wooden attic beams in a house not far from the small apartment in which his immigrant Georgian family lives. He inadvertently rips a hole in a ceiling of the room below, whereupon he learns of a package that promises considerable riches. When the house's drug-addict owner overdoses fatally, the young man grabs it.In "13 Tzameti," one surprise triggers another in ever-spiraling fashion. Yet it is already clear in its deceptively low-key opening sequences why this extraordinary film, written and directed by young Georgia-born Gela Babluani, took the best first feature prize at Venice in 2005 and the grand jury world cinema award at Sundance earlier this year.
While the film's score strikes an ominous foreshadowing note, the tone of "13 Tzameti's" first scenes is droll, verging upon deadpan. That package proves to be a veritable Pandora's box, with the young man, Sebastien (Georges Babluani, the director's brother), discovering detailed instructions that will prompt him to assume the dead man's identity and take off for a hotel, off-season and deep in the countryside, where a clandestine high-stakes gambling tournament has attracted around 40 men, virtually all middle-aged and older. What the game entails and its rules won't be revealed here, but "13 Tzameti" — "tzameti" is the number 13 in Georgian — is not for the faint of heart.Every frame of the film reveals Babluani's confidence and sound judgment. Instead of staging the film's initial sequence like a conventional thriller, Babluani evokes a somber, even leisurely mood, suggesting the plight of Sebastien, an intelligent young man all too aware of his meager prospects in life. This mood extends all the way into that rural resort, abruptly giving way to shocking intensity.At times Babluani recalls the austerity, the closely observed fascination with secretive ritual, of Robert Bresson, yet he expresses these qualities — in ravishing black-and-white CinemaScope — with a poetic cinematic grace that is all his own. As an actor, Georges Babluani possesses the same resources, with a special understanding of the effect of emotional reserves held in check. Although it's likely too stark for everyone, "13 Tzameti" offers a mind-blowing experience for anyone willing to go along for the ride.

Kevin Thomas

W. Shakespeare - Richard III - Plot

After a long civil war between the royal family of York and the royal family of Lancaster, England enjoys a period of peace under King Edward IV and the victorious Yorks. But Edward’s younger brother, Richard, resents Edward’s power and the happiness of those around him. Malicious, power-hungry, and bitter about his physical deformity, Richard begins to aspire secretly to the throne—and decides to kill anyone he has to in order to become king.
Using his intelligence and his skills of deception and political manipulation, Richard begins his campaign for the throne. He manipulates a noblewoman, Lady Anne, into marrying him—even though she knows that he murdered her first husband. He has his own older brother, Clarence, executed, and shifts the burden of guilt onto his sick older brother King Edward in order to accelerate Edward’s illness and death. After King Edward dies, Richard becomes lord protector of England—the figure in charge until the elder of Edward’s two sons grows up.
Next Richard kills the court noblemen who are loyal to the princes, most notably Lord Hastings, the lord chamberlain of England. He then has the boys’ relatives on their mother’s side—the powerful kinsmen of Edward’s wife, Queen Elizabeth—arrested and executed. With Elizabeth and the princes now unprotected, Richard has his political allies, particularly his right-hand man, Lord Buckingham, campaign to have Richard crowned king. Richard then imprisons the young princes in the Tower and, in his bloodiest move yet, sends hired murderers to kill both children.
By this time, Richard’s reign of terror has caused the common people of England to fear and loathe him, and he has alienated nearly all the noblemen of the court—even the power-hungry Buckingham. When rumors begin to circulate about a challenger to the throne who is gathering forces in France, noblemen defect in droves to join his forces. The challenger is the earl of Richmond, a descendant of a secondary arm of the Lancaster family, and England is ready to welcome him.
Richard, in the meantime, tries to consolidate his power. He has his wife, Queen Anne, murdered, so that he can marry young Elizabeth, the daughter of the former Queen Elizabeth and the dead King Edward. Though young Elizabeth is his niece, the alliance would secure his claim to the throne. Nevertheless, Richard has begun to lose control of events, and Queen Elizabeth manages to forestall him. Meanwhile, she secretly promises to marry young Elizabeth to Richmond.
Richmond finally invades England. The night before the battle that will decide everything, Richard has a terrible dream in which the ghosts of all the people he has murdered appear and curse him, telling him that he will die the next day. In the battle on the following morning, Richard is killed, and Richmond is crowned King Henry VII. Promising a new era of peace for England, the new king is betrothed to young Elizabeth in order to unite the warring houses of Lancaster and York.

F. Kafka - The Metamorphosis - Summary and themes

Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find that he has been inexplicably transformed into a giant insect. He has also slept late. His parents and his sister Grete try to rouse him so he can make it to his dreary job as a traveling salesman. The family depends on him for its livelihood. Gregor, however, is now a bug. When a clerk from his company comes to demand an explanation for his absence, Gregor makes a great effort to open the bedroom door and show himself. This sends the terrified clerk tearing down the stairwell and Gregor's family into shock.

Grete, more than his father or mother, handles the situation practically. Gregor is fed, and his room is cleaned. Before long, however, economic reality requires all three to find work, and less attention is paid to Gregor--except when he gets out of his room. No one in the family is fully able to reconcile him- or herself to the insect Gregor, and Gregor is unable to express himself to his family. The fear and disgust his presence inspires (the irrational fear of the mammoth cockroach) is a detriment to his mother's health and incites his father to brief fits of violence. One such fit, a bombardment of fruit, deals Gregor a deep and crippling wound.
Hobbled and neglected, Gregor begins to waste away in his room. The family takes in three carping lodgers, using Gregor's room to store excess furniture and other miscellanea--adding insult to injury. Yet the family does leave Gregor's door slightly open in the evenings, so that he may take part in the household in a small way. One evening, the lodgers hear Grete practicing her violin. They call her into the parlor for a concert. She obliges, and the music so moves Gregor that he creeps out into the parlor towards her, wanting to convey that he understands her gift and will help it to blossom. The lodgers see Gregor and immediately give notice. This is the breaking point for the family. Grete declares that they must abandon the notion that this hideous bug is their dear Gregor. All sadly agree. Gregor slinks back into his room. He dies that night.
A great weight has been lifted from the family. After a moment of mourning, the father demands that the lodgers leave immediately. The family takes a trolley out of the city and into the countryside. It is a beautiful, sunny day, and as Grete stretches out her limbs in the trolley car, her parents' thoughts turn to finding her a husband.

Themes
Economic effects on human relationships
Gregor is enslaved by his family because he is the one who makes money. Thus, with the possible exception of his sister, the family seems to treat him not as a member but as a source of income. When Gregor is no longer able to work after his metamorphosis, he is treated with revulsion and neglected. Once the family begins working, they also find difficulty communicating with each other, eating dinner in silence and fighting among themselves. The exhaustion of dehumanizing jobs and the recognition that people are only valuable so long as they earn a salary keeps anyone who works isolated from others and unable to establish human relations with them.
Family duty
The theme of family and the duties of family members to each other drive the interactions between Gregor and the others. His thoughts are almost entirely of the need to support his parents and sending his sister to the Conservatory. Though Gregor hates his job, he follows the call of duty to his family and goes far beyond simple duty. The family, on the other hand, takes care of Gregor after his metamorphosis only so far as duty seems to necessitate. He is kept locked in his room and brought food. In the end, his room is barely cleaned and his sister no longer cares about what food she brings him. Her actions are routine, as she only wants to do enough that she can claim she has fulfilled her duty. When she decides she has had enough, she insists that their duty to him has been fulfilled: "I don't think anyone could reproach us in the slightest," she says as she suggests that they need to get rid of him.
Alienation
Before his metamorphosis, Gregor is alienated from his job, his humanity, his family, and even his body, as we see from the fact that he barely notices his transformation. In fact, even his consideration for his family seems to be something alien to him, as he barely notices it when he loses this consideration at the end. After his metamorphosis, Gregor feels completely alienated from his room and environment and, as a symbol of this, can't even see his street out the window. The Metamorphosis, then, is a powerful indictment of the alienation brought on by the modern social order.
Freedom and escapism

Gregor is trapped in his job by his duty to his family, but he dreams of the day when he can finally pay off their debts and quit his job. His need for freedom from the restrictive demands of work is expressed in his metamorphosis, by means of which he escapes. This escape, however, fails to bring Gregor freedom, for he is now imprisoned by his family in his room. Thus, when Gregor works, he is enslaved by his job and, when he doesn't work, he is enslaved by his family. There is no way of balancing out freedom and duty, and in the end one is always a slave. The only means of escape turns out to be death.
Guilt
Guilt stems from family duty, and is Gregor's most powerful emotion. When he is transformed into an insect, Gregor is made unable to work by circumstances beyond his control. Despite the fact that his metamorphosis is not his fault, however, he is racked by guilt every time that the family mentions money or that he thinks about the pain that he has inadvertently inflicted on them by losing the ability to support them. Guilt, it turns out, is deadly, as Gregor realizes at the end that his life is the only thing keeping the family from a better life. He dies for them just as he lived for them: out of guilt.
Personal identity

Alone in his room, Gregor tries to rebuild the self-identity that he had lost by living entirely for others and ignoring his own needs. He cannot, however, escape from what he sees as his family duty, and continues to act only to serve his family by doing his best not to inconvenience them. Gregor's comments about his family's behavior are often tinged with resentment at the way they treat him, but he will not allow himself to recognize his bitterness. Gregor manages to escape his self-effacing sense of duty only in the last chapter, when he asserts himself in realizing that his family has been neglecting him. Gregor's search for his identity seems hopeless, however, because he never had an identity to start with. He finds his humanity only at the end, when his sister's playing reminds him of his love for his family. This love, coupled with his freedom, is the final ingredient he needs to establish his identity.

Hamlet - Themes, Motifs and Symbols

Themes
The Impossibility of Certainty
What separates Hamlet from other revenge plays (and maybe from every play written before it) is that the action we expect to see, particularly from Hamlet himself, is continually postponed while Hamlet tries to obtain more certain knowledge about what he is doing. This play poses many questions that other plays would simply take for granted. Can we have certain knowledge about ghosts? Is the ghost what it appears to be, or is it really a misleading fiend? Does the ghost have reliable knowledge about its own death, or is the ghost itself deluded? Moving to more earthly matters: How can we know for certain the facts about a crime that has no witnesses? Can Hamlet know the state of Claudius’s soul by watching his behavior? If so, can he know the facts of what Claudius did by observing the state of his soul? Can Claudius (or the audience) know the state of Hamlet’s mind by observing his behavior and listening to his speech? Can we know whether our actions will have the consequences we want them to have? Can we know anything about the afterlife?
Many people have seen Hamlet as a play about indecisiveness, and thus about Hamlet’s failure to act appropriately. It might be more interesting to consider that the play shows us how many uncertainties our lives are built upon, how many unknown quantities are taken for granted when people act or when they evaluate one another’s actions.

The Complexity of Action
Directly related to the theme of certainty is the theme of action. How is it possible to take reasonable, effective, purposeful action? In Hamlet, the question of how to act is affected not only by rational considerations, such as the need for certainty, but also by emotional, ethical, and psychological factors. Hamlet himself appears to distrust the idea that it’s even possible to act in a controlled, purposeful way. When he does act, he prefers to do it blindly, recklessly, and violently. The other characters obviously think much less about “action” in the abstract than Hamlet does, and are therefore less troubled about the possibility of acting effectively. They simply act as they feel is appropriate. But in some sense they prove that Hamlet is right, because all of their actions miscarry. Claudius possesses himself of queen and crown through bold action, but his conscience torments him, and he is beset by threats to his authority (and, of course, he dies). Laertes resolves that nothing will distract him from acting out his revenge, but he is easily influenced and manipulated into serving Claudius’s ends, and his poisoned rapier is turned back upon himself.

The Mystery of Death
In the aftermath of his father’s murder, Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of death, and over the course of the play he considers death from a great many perspectives. He ponders both the spiritual aftermath of death, embodied in the ghost, and the physical remainders of the dead, such as by Yorick’s skull and the decaying corpses in the cemetery. Throughout, the idea of death is closely tied to the themes of spirituality, truth, and uncertainty in that death may bring the answers to Hamlet’s deepest questions, ending once and for all the problem of trying to determine truth in an ambiguous world. And, since death is both the cause and the consequence of revenge, it is intimately tied to the theme of revenge and justice—Claudius’s murder of King Hamlet initiates Hamlet’s quest for revenge, and Claudius’s death is the end of that quest.
The question of his own death plagues Hamlet as well, as he repeatedly contemplates whether or not suicide is a morally legitimate action in an unbearably painful world. Hamlet’s grief and misery is such that he frequently longs for death to end his suffering, but he fears that if he commits suicide, he will be consigned to eternal suffering in hell because of the Christian religion’s prohibition of suicide. In his famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy (III.i), Hamlet philosophically concludes that no one would choose to endure the pain of life if he or she were not afraid of what will come after death, and that it is this fear which causes complex moral considerations to interfere with the capacity for action.

The Nation as a Diseased Body
Everything is connected in Hamlet, including the welfare of the royal family and the health of the state as a whole. The play’s early scenes explore the sense of anxiety and dread that surrounds the transfer of power from one ruler to the next. Throughout the play, characters draw explicit connections between the moral legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the nation. Denmark is frequently described as a physical body made ill by the moral corruption of Claudius and Gertrude, and many observers interpret the presence of the ghost as a supernatural omen indicating that “[s]omething is rotten in the state of Denmark” (I.iv.67). The dead King Hamlet is portrayed as a strong, forthright ruler under whose guard the state was in good health, while Claudius, a wicked politician, has corrupted and compromised Denmark to satisfy his own appetites. At the end of the play, the rise to power of the upright Fortinbras suggests that Denmark will be strengthened once again.

Motifs

Incest and Incestuous Desire
The motif of incest runs throughout the play and is frequently alluded to by Hamlet and the ghost, most obviously in conversations about Gertrude and Claudius, the former brother-in-law and sister-in-law who are now married. A subtle motif of incestuous desire can be found in the relationship of Laertes and Ophelia, as Laertes sometimes speaks to his sister in suggestively sexual terms and, at her funeral, leaps into her grave to hold her in his arms. However, the strongest overtones of incestuous desire arise in the relationship of Hamlet and Gertrude, in Hamlet’s fixation on Gertrude’s sex life with Claudius and his preoccupation with her in general.

Misogyny
Shattered by his mother’s decision to marry Claudius so soon after her husband’s death, Hamlet becomes cynical about women in general, showing a particular obsession with what he perceives to be a connection between female sexuality and moral corruption. This motif of misogyny, or hatred of women, occurs sporadically throughout the play, but it is an important inhibiting factor in Hamlet’s relationships with Ophelia and Gertrude. He urges Ophelia to go to a nunnery rather than experience the corruptions of sexuality and exclaims of Gertrude, “Frailty, thy name is woman”

Ears and Hearing
One facet of Hamlet’s exploration of the difficulty of attaining true knowledge is slipperiness of language. Words are used to communicate ideas, but they can also be used to distort the truth, manipulate other people, and serve as tools in corrupt quests for power. Claudius, the shrewd politician, is the most obvious example of a man who manipulates words to enhance his own power. The sinister uses of words are represented by images of ears and hearing, from Claudius’s murder of the king by pouring poison into his ear to Hamlet’s claim to Horatio that “I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb” (IV.vi.21). The poison poured in the king’s ear by Claudius is used by the ghost to symbolize the corrosive effect of Claudius’s dishonesty on the health of Denmark. Declaring that the story that he was killed by a snake is a lie, he says that “the whole ear of Denmark” is “Rankly abused. . . .”

Symbols

Yorick’s Skull

In Hamlet, physical objects are rarely used to represent thematic ideas. One important exception is Yorick’s skull, which Hamlet discovers in the graveyard in the first scene of Act V. As Hamlet speaks to the skull and about the skull of the king’s former jester, he fixates on death’s inevitability and the disintegration of the body. He urges the skull to “get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come”—no one can avoid death (V.i.178–179). He traces the skull’s mouth and says, “Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft,” indicating his fascination with the physical consequences of death (V.i.174–175). This latter idea is an important motif throughout the play, as Hamlet frequently makes comments referring to every human body’s eventual decay, noting that Polonius will be eaten by worms, that even kings are eaten by worms, and that dust from the decayed body of Alexander the Great might be used to stop a hole in a beer barrel.

J. Kerouac - On the Road

The Race Industry

The coconuts have got the jobs.

The race industry is a growth industry.

We despairing, they careering.

We want more peace they want more police.

The Uncle Toms are getting paid.

The race industry is a growth industry.

We say sisters and brothers don't fear.

They will do anything for the Mayor.

The coconuts have got the jobs.

The race industry is a growth industry.

They're looking for victims and poets to rent.

They represent me without my consent.

The Uncle Toms are getting paid.

The race industry is a growth industry.

In suits they dither in fear of anarchy.

They take our sufferings and earn a salary.

Steal our souls and make their documentaries.

Inform daily on our community.

Without Black suffering they'd have no jobs.

Without our dead they'd have no office.

Without our tears they'd have no drink.

If they stopped sucking we could get justice.

The coconuts are getting paid.

Men, women and Brixton are being betrayed.

R. Frost - The road not taken / Fire and Ice

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Do not go gentle into that good night - D. Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Refugee blues - W.H. Auden

Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no placefor us.
Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.
In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew;
Old passports can't do that, my dear,

old passports can't do that.
The consul banged the table and said:
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead";
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.
Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go today, my dear,

but where shall we go today?
Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said:
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread";
He was talking of you and me, my dear,

he was talking of you and me.
Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying: "They must die";
We were in his mind, my dear, we were in his mind.
Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear,

but they weren't German Jews.
Went down to the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.
Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.
Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors;
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.
Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.
· From Collected Shorter Poems 1927-1957 by WH Auden

Alfred Tennyson - Be near me when my light is low

Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.
Be near me when the sensuous frame
Is rack’d with pangs that conquer trust;
And Time, a maniac scattering dust,
And Life, a Fury slinging flame.
Be near me when my faith is dry,
And men the flies of latter spring,
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing
And weave their petty cells and die.
Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife,
And on the low dark verge of life
The twilight of eternal day.

A scanner darkly

In a future not too far from our own, the latest designer drug keeping America's addicts in thrall is Substance D, an instantly addictive drug that induces deep paranoia in its users. "You're either on it, or you haven't tried it," states one its of adherents in Richard Linklater's visually stunning, darkly comic adaptation of Philip K. Dick's cult sci-fi novel, A Scanner Darkly. Linklater's second experiment in rotoscope animation after 2001's Waking Life, a meditation on philosophy, the new film is a perfect match of style and content.
Three guys—Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves), James Barris (Robert Downey Jr.), and Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson)—share a house where they spend most of their time either doing drugs or talking about doing drugs. Dropping by often are their friends, Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane), a stoner so deep into D that hallucinations and accompanying panic attacks are an everyday fact of life, and Donna Hawthorne (Winona Ryder), the woman Bob loves, but who insists on keeping the friendship casual, putting a mysterious distance between them. That's the basic setup, except for one thing: one of them is an undercover cop, Fred, and he has just been assigned to investigate himself with cameras, keeping surveillance 24/7 inside the house.
No one knows who Fred is, not even his boss, although his boss assumes that he is one of the residents of the house. Neither Fred, his boss, nor anyone else in their unit knows what any of the others look like or who they are—at least that's the boss's story, and he's sticking to it. They all wear "scramble suits" while on duty, a special head-to-toe outfit that constantly changes appearance so no one can get a fix on the person inside—or if there's even a person in there. This begins to have a curious effect on Fred, who becomes increasingly paranoid and confused about who he is and what it is he is supposed to be doing.
The story, with its constant paranoia and inferences of government and corporate conspiracy, is a compelling one, and it's well-suited to the rotoscope style, particularly in those moments when psychotic delusions come to life, or when Fred shimmers this way and that in his scramble suit. But the style is only half of it; the rest of the movie belongs to its performers, particularly Reeves and Downey, who are both excellent as men turned around by substance abuse but determined to keep up appearances.
Linklater's casting is also, if nothing else, witty. The major roles refer in some way or another to the actor to playing the part. The most obvious one is Downey, of course, with his personal history of drug use. But one also has to give Ryder credit for taking a role in which her character refers to having been accused of theft, a winking nod to her own troubles with shoplifting. Harrelson plays Ernie as a naïve, hyperactive stoner, a cross between the real-life hemp advocate and innocent Woody Boyd, the character that made him famous on Cheers. Cochrane could be a sadder, tweaked out relative of the good-time stoner he played in Linklater's great Dazed and Confused. And Reeves, well, he continues to confound expectations, following up his role in the mainstream romance The Lake House with this tumble down the rabbit's hole. Like Bob Arctor, the picture he presents of himself depends a lot on the viewpoint of whoever is looking at him.
This is a Linklater film, which means pacing is slack, to the detriment of the film as a whole. Most of his movies suffer from that, with his approach to editing and structure being lackadaisical. In this case, the film slows in some places, nearly to a halt. It's frustrating, but wait it out. The whole is worth it; it's a grand and elegant portrait of paranoia and malfeasance set amongst society's seedy underbelly.
(PAM GRADY)

Ippocrates, Galen, De Luzzi, Vesalius

PPOCRATES (460 – 370 bs.)
Greek physician who founded a medical school on Cos. This school produced more than 50 books, as well a system of medical methodology and ethics which is still practiced today. Upon being granted their M. D. degrees, new doctors still swear a so-called Hippocratic oath. In On Ancient Medicine, Hippocrates stated that medicine is not philosophy, and therefore must be practiced on a case-by-case basis rather than from first principles. In The Sacred Disease, he stated that epilepsy (and disease in general) do not have divine causes. He advocated clinical observations, diagnosis, and prognosis, and argued that specific diseases come from specific causes. Hippocrates's methodology relied on physical examination of the patient and proceeded in what was, for the most part, a highly rational deductive framework of understanding through observation. (An exception was the belief that disease was caused by "isonomia", an imbalance in the four humors originally suggested by Empedocles and consisting of yellow bile, blood, phlegm, and black bile.) The Hippocratic corpus of knowledge was widely distributed, highly influential, and marked the rise of rationality in both medicine and the physical sciences.
GALEN (130 – 200 ca.)
Greek physician considered second only to Hippocrates of Cos in his importance to the development of medicine, Galen performed extensive dissections and vivisections on animals. Although human dissections had fallen into disrepute, he also performed and stressed to his students the importance of human dissections. He recommended that students practice dissection as often as possible. He studied the muscles, spinal cord, heart, urinary system, and proved that the arteries are full of blood. He believed that blood originated in the liver, and sloshed back and forth through the body, passing through the heart, where it was mixed with air, by pores in the septum. Galen also introduced the spirit system, consisting of natural spirit or "pneuma" (air he thought was found in the veins), vital spirit (blood mixed with air he believed to found in the arteries), and animal spirit (which he believed to be found in the nervous system). In On the Natural Facilities, Galen minutely described his experimentation on a living dog to investigate the bladder and flow of urine. It was Galen who first introduced the notion of experimentation to medicine. Galen believed everything in nature has a purpose, and that nature uses a single object for more than one purpose whenever possible. He maintained that "the best doctor is also a philosopher," and so advocated that medical students be well-versed in philosophy, logic, physics, and ethics. Galen and his work On the Natural Faculties remained the authority on medicine until Vesalius in the sixteenth century, even though many of his views about human anatomy were false since he had performed his dissections on pigs, Barbary apes, and dogs. Galen mistakenly maintained, for instance, that humans have a five-lobed liver (which dogs do) and that the heart had only two chambers (it has four).
MONDINO DE LUZZI (1275-1326)
Italian physician who marked the revival of medical practice in the West following the Dark Ages. Arabian and Persian doctors, the greatest of whom was Avicenna, had continued the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions, but their works remained in the framework of Greek medicine and did not produce new methodologies. Although Mondino de' Luzzi is historically important as one of the first physicians of note following the Dark Ages, his medical procedures were, in fact, a step backwards. He taught his students while seated on an elevated chair, and employed a barber surgeon to perform the actual dissections. He believed in dissecting from the inside out, since internal organs rot the most quickly. In the process, he inevitably destroyed parts of the body in the process. Furthermore, Mondino de' Luzzi blindly accepted Galen's anatomy, even when a simple dissection would have conclusively proven him to be at odds with actual observations. He wrote a compendium of anatomy, which was basically a guide for understanding Galen. This represented a regression from scientific procedures, and stands out in sharp distinction to Grosseteste's and Roger Bacon's extensive experimentation and questioning of established authorities which were being undertaken in approximately the same period. Unfortunately for medicine, as well as science at large, Mondino de' Luzzi's methods became standard practice in medical schools until they were eventually replaced by the sound observational and experimental practices of Vesalius.
VESALIUS (1514 – 1564)
Flemish anatomist who founded the sixteenth century heritage of careful observation characterized by "refinement of observation." Vesalius changed the organization of the medical school classroom, bringing the students close to the operating table. He demonstrated that, in many instances, Galen and Mondino de' Luzzi were incorrect (the heart, for instance, has four chambers). He conducted his own dissections, and worked from the outside in so as not to damage the cadaver while cutting into it. Vesalius also wrote the first anatomically accurate medical textbook, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543), which was complete with precise illustrations. Vesalius's careful observation, emphasis on the active participation of medical students in dissection lectures, and anatomically accurate textbooks revolutionized the practice of medicine. Through Vesalius's efforts, medicine was now on the road to its modern implementation, although major modifications and leaps of understanding were, of course, necessary to make its practice actually safe for the patient.

P. Dick - The man in the high castle

Summary
In The Man In The High Castle, Philip K. Dick demonstrates his genius by creating a world where Germany and Japan won World War Two and America is occupied by the Axis forces. While this story creates an alternate reality, the fact that it takes place in 1962 (when Dick wrote the book) serves to blur the distinction between science fiction and the present reality. The story revolves a few central characters who are in different situations. Mr. Tagomi, the novel's main character works for a trade company and faces moral dilemmas throughout the book that involve his sense of what's right and wrong. A separated married couple are also the focus of TMITHC. Juliana Frink lives in Colorado, the buffer zone between the Germans on the east coast and the Japanese on the west. She becomes increasingly fascinated with an underground novel entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy which paints a picture of an America that won WWII. It is a fascinating dichomoty that makes readers think twice about what is real and what is not. Her husband Frank Frink is a craftsman who makes cheap imitations of old American artifacts in a Japanese occupied California that demand high market value. Frank also faces moral choices in the book that challenge his artistic values.
The series of events takes place in a world where Japanese are the most respected members of American society. The cultural landscape that Dick creates in TMITHC is intense. It is a culture where the ancient Chinese oracle, the I Ching is consulted for moral decisions. Religion, social customs, art, aesthetics and racism are portrayed in a shockingly real manner. Dick himself used the I Ching to help him write the book, giving the story a spontaneous, open-ended quality. TMITHC won the Science Fiction Hugo Award for best novel in 1962. A great Dick novel that employs many classic Dick themes and writing techniques but might be different than what you'd expect.

Review
The Man in the High Castle certainly poses many probing questions. It seems that the heart of this story revolves around the ethical decisions of the main characters. Like many readers I was left wondering about the meaning of the ending of TMITHC. While many events unfold in this novel, by the end there are still lots of unresolved pieces of the story. Although I found TMITHC difficult to get into, by the end I was taken by Dick's portrait of a Japanese occupied California. More than the story I thought that one of the most intriguing elements of this book was the atmosphere of the country in this alternate reality. The tone of Dick's writing and the gloomy mood he creates serve to place the characters in settings which are uncanny and ghostly realistic.
Dick's work has been criticized on it's lack of character development. In my humble opinion TMITHC creates some of the most heartfelt characters and situations I've reads in any of his books to date. He refutes this criticism by looking deep into the minds of Mr. Tagomi and Juliana & Frank Frink. It seems that the events which unfold for each of the characters are unrelated however they are all connected by their obsession with The Grasshopper Lies Heavy and the intense moral choices they all must face. As is explained in the excellent essay The Meaning of the Man in the High Castle, each of the characters undergoes a profound change. Tagomi as he realizes that evil is real and comes to terms with his actions, Bob Childan's decision not to sell out his new artistic wares and Juliana's encounter with Hawthorne Abendsen all represent the moral decisions made by those characters.
This is a very mature novel by Dick that is very different from his futuristic anything-can happen science fiction stories. It uses many realistic cultural themes. Dick's portrait of a Japanese culture obsessed with American artifacts rings truer than ever in the present time. More than many of his books, TMITHC sums up Dick's fixation with World War II. In typical Dick fashion this novel incorporates many real-world elements that make his work so much more than science fiction. The whole concept of an alternate universe is expanded upon in the chapters Dick wrote for a proposed sequel to TMITHC. Told from a Nazi perspective, these chapters examine the existence of the Nebenwelt, the alternate reality wherein the Allies won the war. Just in these chapters, it becomes clear that the science fiction element is much stronger in his unfinished sequel. It's been said that Dick was unable to finish this novel due to his inability to deal and write about the Nazi mentality. For a look at these chapters and a revealing essay by Dick entitled "Nazism and The Man In The High Castle" take a look at The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick - Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings (published posthumously).
I felt that the open-ended quality of TMITHC left me hanging. Although the Japanese are warned of the impending German invasion, we never know the outcome. Dick's use of the I Ching is very unique and contributes to the cultural mood of the novel . The way the characters use the I Ching for key decisions reflects a much different morality than American virtue. It allows for many varied interpretations that are not blatantly obvious. Trying to imagine an America governed by such strong oriental philosophy is quite challenging. Modern ideas of American patriotism are dramatically altered as the main American characters in TMITHC have accepted this way of thinking. They are reluctant to challenge the status quo and continue to live as second class citizens.
The Americans desire for cultural autonomy is reflected in their obsession with The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. In a U.S. where independence is just a dream, an underground novel represents their only expression of distinctly American values. This is why Juliana is so disenchanted when she meets Hawthorne Abendsen and fins him and his situation different from his expectations. The reality of an America occupied by Axis forces is reflected not as much in the history that would create those circumstances but rather through the eyes and actions of Dick's characters in TMITHC. With all it's dialogue and character interaction, it seems that this story would translate into an excellent screenplay and film that could accurately portray the aesthetics and mood of this Hugo Award winning novel. It wouldn't be true to Dick's vision if it didn't leave the audience guessing.

A. Rand - Atlas shrugged

Setting
Galt's Gulch was inspired by Ouray, Colorado. It was here that Rand found inspiration to complete the novel, though she greatly expanded the small valley to include her many ideas for the story.
Exactly when Atlas Shrugged is meant to take place is kept deliberately vague. In section 152, the population of New York City is given as 7 million. The historical New York City reached 7 million people in the 1930s, which might place the novel sometime after that. There are many early 20th century technologies available, but the political situation is clearly different from actual history. One interpretation is that the novel takes place many years in the future, implying that since the world lapsed into its socialistic morass, a global stagnation has occurred in technological growth, population growth, and indeed growth of any kind; the wars, economic depressions, and other events of the 20th century would be a distant memory to all but scholars and academicians. This would be in line with Rand's ideas and commentary on other novels depicting utopian and dystopian societies. Furthermore, this is also in line with an excerpt from a 1964 interview with Playboy magazine in which Rand states "What we have today is not a capitalist society, but a mixed economy – that is, a mixture of freedom and controls, which, by the presently dominant trend, is moving toward dictatorship. The action in Atlas Shrugged takes place at a time when society has reached the stage of dictatorship. When and if this happens, that will be the time to go on strike, but not until then," thus implying that her novel takes place at some point in the future. The concept of societal stagnation in the wake of collectivist systems is central to the plot of another of Rand's works, Anthem.
In Atlas Shrugged, all countries outside the US have become, or become during the novel, "People's States". There are many examples of early 20th century technology in Atlas Shrugged, but no post-war advances such as nuclear weapons, helicopters, or computers. Jet planes are mentioned briefly as being a relatively new technology. Television is a novelty that has yet to assume any cultural significance, while radio broadcasts are prominent (in fact, television only makes its first appearance later on in the book, reflecting the fact that television appeared in the fifties, i.e., during the ten years it took to write the book). Although Rand does not use many of the technological innovations available while she was writing in the book, she introduces some advanced, fictional inventions (e.g., sonic-based weapons of mass destruction, torture devices, as well as power plants and a highly advanced strong steel alloy).
Most of the action in Atlas Shrugged occurs in the United States. However, there are important events around the world, such as in the People's States of Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, and piracy at sea.

Plot
The novel's plot is split into three parts. The first two parts, and to some extent the last, follow Dagny Taggart, a no-nonsense railroad executive, and her attempt to keep the company alive despite repeated encroachments by a society moving toward collectivism, altruism, and statism. Throughout the novel people repeat a platitude Dagny greatly resents: "Who is John Galt?" It is a reflection of their helplessness, as the saying means "Don't ask important questions, because we don't have answers."
The leaders and innovators of industry in the world seem to be disappearing, and the apparent decline of civilization is making it more and more difficult for her to sustain her life-long aspirations of running the trans-continental railroad, which has been in her family for several generations. She deals with other characters who often personify archetypes of what Rand considers the various schools of philosophy for living and working in the world (though they are in most cases often unconscious of it).
Some of these are: Hank Rearden, a self-made businessman of great integrity whose career is hindered by his feelings of obligation toward his wife. Francisco d'Anconia, Dagny's childhood friend, first love, and king of the copper industry, appears to have become a worthless playboy who is purposely destroying his business. James Taggart (Dagny's brother), president of the railroad, who seems peripherally aware of the troubles facing the company and the country in general, but who almost always makes the most short term and ultimately self-destructive choice.
As the novel progresses, the myths about the real John Galt, as well as Francisco d'Anconia's actions, increasingly become a reflection of the state of the culture and seem to make more and more sense. Hank and Dagny begin to experience the futility of their attempts to survive in a society that hates them and those like them for their greatness.
Dagny and Hank find the remnants of a motor that turns atmospheric static electricity into kinetic energy, an astounding feat; they also find evidence that the minds (the "Atlases") of the world are disappearing because of one particular "destroyer" taking them away. Dagny and Hank deal with the irrationalities and apparent contradictions of their atmosphere, and search for the creator of the motor as well as "the destroyer" who is draining the world of its prime movers, in an effort to secure their ability to live rational lives.
The question "Who is John Galt?" is also answered towards the closing of the novel — John Galt is a man disgusted that non-productive members of society use laws and guilt to leech from the value created by productive members of society, and furthermore even exalt the qualities of the leeches over the workers and inventors. He made a pledge that he would never live his life for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for him, and founded an enclave, separate from the rest of the country, where he and other productive members of society have fled.

Looters and moochers
Rand's heroes must continually fight against the "looters" and "moochers" of the society surrounding them.The looters are those who confiscate others' earnings "at the point of a gun" (figuratively speaking) —often because they are government officials, and thus their demands are backed by the threat of force. Some looters are following the policies of the government, such as the officials who confiscate one state's seed grain to feed the starving citizens of another state; others are exploiting those policies, such as the railroad regulator who illegally sells the railroad's supplies on the side. The common factor is that both use force to take property from the people who produced or earned it, and both are ultimately destructive.
The moochers are those who demand others' earnings because they claim to be needy and unable to earn themselves. Even as they beg for their help, however, they curse the people who make that help possible, because they hate the talented for having the talent they don't possess. Although the moochers seem benign at first glance, they are portrayed as more destructive than the looters—they destroy the productive through guilt and often motivate the legal looting performed by governments.
Looting and mooching are seen at all levels of the world Atlas Shrugged portrays, from the looting officials Dagny Taggart must work around and the mooching brother Hank Rearden struggles with, to the looting of whole industries by companies like Associated Steel and the mooching demands for foreign aid by the starving countries of Europe.