Stay or Not Go; 1989, 1966; Mishima: A Story in Four Chapters; Tony's Christmas Break;

I told students that I was either going to stay at home or not go out for New Year's Eve.

I asked students if there had been years, in their lives, that were bad as 2020.  One said 1989 and that his father told him that some university students were killed... I mumbled in response.  An older student said 1966 because it was the start of the Cultural Revolution...

Taking the bus home from work, I could see that there had been a traffic accident ahead because there was a bottleneck that the vehicles were trying to get around.  It was a collision between a car and an e-bike.  Passing the scene, I first saw a young child standing on the road, I then saw an adult lying on the ground.  One of the other passengers gasped.

I was listening to these two podcasts about the film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters that I had just watched.  I found the film to be interesting.  The first podcast, I listened to, said the film was astonishing.  It mentioned some aspects of the film that I liked, like how the film made you think about how to be in life.  The second podcast said the Mishima was a fascist and thus a bad person whose art could not possibly have any redeeming qualities.  I don't think that the second podcaster could define fascism accurately, other than to say it was a bad thing.  I realized that that I was encountering the mind of progressive liberalism speaking aloud and that it really was sad stuff full of the prejudice that this mindset thinks itself to be against.  It was the logic of cancel culture.  Bad people, or rather people who they think are bad, make bad art.  Their art must be cancelled and ignored.

Tony frittered away his Christmas Break.  That is all I can say.  He has this annoying to behold habit of playing on the computer while watching a video on his phone.